Sebestyén Ádám

Contributed content

2022

My study focuses on the various apocalyptic calculations in the fifth postil written by Péter Bornemisza. According to the theologians of the magisterial Reformation, the exact time of the end cannot be calculated because only God knows this, as the Gospels clearly state it. Although Bornemisza accepts this doctrine too, he shares some assumptions about the approximate time of the second coming in a sermon of his postil. As my study demonstrates, Bornemisza follows the treatise of the German theologian Andreas Osiander (Coniecturae de ultimis temporibus ac de fine mundi, 1544). In this work, Osiander enumerates four calculations which can predict the time of the Apocalypse. The common feature of these calculations is their biblical origin, except for the first one, which is the apocryphal prophecy of Elijah about the 6000 years of the world. The other assumptions are based on the allegorical passages of the prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse. The biblical parallelism plays a significant role as well, manifesting in the fateful turning points of history or in the fact that christ’s life relates to the church history on a macrocosmic level. According to this latter, Christ’s years equal to the years that will pass until the last judgement. Osiander and Bornemisza use the jubilee and the angelic years to apply the analogies to longer periods. nevertheless, both authors state that only theologians can interpret these calculations. Beside these ideological similarities, I also compare the textual parallelism of the Latin treatise and the Hungarian sermon.

PublicationResearch article2022Dávid Ferenc és a kortárs prédikációirodalom