Andreas Batizi and his Catechism

Abstract

This work of aHungarian pastor of the age of the Reformation has been written and used as aguide by the author himself in elementary education before 1542 in Hungary, published during his pere-grination at Wittenberg (Germany), sometimes before 1545, later at Cracow (Poland), 1550, then 1555 modified in text and typography at Kolozsvár (Cluj-Napoca, Roumania). There are only slight changes of the basic text, except in the reworded frontispiece. Yet these may have reveal abreak in denomination.Batizi was apupil of Melanchthon, and had aletter of recommendation from his master. Be-cause of lack of contemporary sources there are uncertainities and misinterpretations as to the biog-raphy of Batizi, and also concerning his denomination. The present study is dealing with linguistic analysis of the Hungarian text, of printing errors, historical and theological evidences thereof to correct earlier statements, and mispresentation in deskbooks. Based on the collected data the claim has been raised, that though the Transylvanian printinghouse was owned by and the printer being Georg Hoffgreff though, the work possibly has been forwarded not by him, but by Gaspar Heltai in the third edition. Perhaps there was another lost edition of the Catechism, on which some changes of the text are based, clearly being diffrentiated between the original Lutheran wordig and change for the Calvinist terms (e. g. Lords’ Supper for Holy Sacrament). Today we have only fragments and mutilated copies, so at points we can not be sure concerning all the detailes.Up to the first decades of the 17th century the introductory work by Batizi were in use to prepare the way for the Heidelberg Catechism, which was well known in Hungary from the year of editio princeps of this famous work, but officially into Hungarian elementary education was invented only as late as 1646.