Spis tento Otázek trojiech of Luke of Prague: the Contribution to the History of Catechism of the Czech Unity of the Brethren and their Role in the Polish Literary Activity (the 16th century- the first half of the 17th century)

Abstract

The catechism Dětinské otázky (around 1501/02), arranged by Luke, the bishop of the Czech Brethren, and its significantly reformulated and extended version  Spis tento Otázek trojiech (1523) played a fundamental role in the development of literature within this genre in the initial phase of the European reformation. On the Czech ground, the catechisms have undergone some corrections in time, which at first reflected the escalation of the influences of Lutheranism in Jednota, and then, in the second half of the 16th century, the theological thought of the Reformed Church. For the purpose of children’s catechising, between the 16th and the 17th centuries, the so-called “extracts” (wyciągi) from the catechism are created- the Summy, which were printed in Czech, Latin and also multilingual versions.
The translations of the Czech catechisms into Polish can be dated back to the middle of the 16th century: it can be evidenced by the declarations of the Brethren at the congress in Kozminek in 1555 and the Cracow edition from 1568, known only from a later description. The problem of editing the catechism has not been satisfactorily settled- it is evidenced by further attempts in arranging it in the Polish language. They include the manuscript, made in Ostroróg in 1605, and the Toruń edition from 1618, which initiated a series of printed editions of the Czech Brethren catechism (Toruń 1638, Gdańsk 1644, Toruń 1646 i 1648). During the editorial works, the Czech original of the Summy was still being consulted, confronting it also with the 16th century editions of the “greater” catechism. In this regard, the Polish version varied significantly from the Czech, which, after a slightly extended edition from Bremen 1615, did not undergo almost any changes in the 17th century.