The Hussite Bible ( hu, Huszita Biblia; sometimes also "The Bible of the

Franciscans , image = FrancescoCoA PioM.svg , image_size = 200px , caption = A cross, Christ's arm and Saint Francis's arm, a universal symbol of the Franciscans , abbreviation = OFM , predecessor = , ...

") is the oldest known Hungarian, as well as general Uralic

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts ...

translation, dated to the 1420s–1430s.

History

The Hussite Bible is the only written vestige of

Hussitism The Hussites ( cs, Husité or ''Kališníci''; "Chalice People") were a Czech proto-Protestant Christian movement that followed the teachings of reformer Jan Hus, who became the best known representative of the Bohemian Reformation. The Hussi ...

in Hungary. The book – or at least the most of it – was translated by

Tamás Pécsi Tamás () is a Hungarian, masculine given name. It is a Hungarian equivalent of the name Thomas. The given name may refer to: * Tamás Bognár (born 1978), Hungarian footballer * Tamás Gábor (1932–2007), Hungarian Olympic champion épée f ...

and

Bálint Újlaki Bálint or Balint is a Hungarian surname derived from Valentinushttps://www.ancestry.com/name-origin?surname=balint. Surname * Alice Balint (born Alice Székely-Kovács) (1898–1939), Hungarian psychoanalyst * András Bálint (born 1943), Hungari ...

. Both Pécsi and Újlaki had attended the University of Prague in Bohemia between 1399 and 1411, where they got to know the concepts of

Jan Hus Jan Hus (; ; 1370 – 6 July 1415), sometimes anglicized as John Hus or John Huss, and referred to in historical texts as ''Iohannes Hus'' or ''Johannes Huss'', was a Czech theologian and philosopher who became a Church reformer and the insp ...

, a reformist Christian theologian. Concluded from the calendar found in the Codex of Munich, the two Franciscan priests may already had begun the work in 1416 in the town of

Sremska Kamenica Sremska Kamenica (Serbian Cyrillic: ''Сремска Каменица'', ) is a town and urban neighborhood of Novi Sad, in Serbia. Name In Serbian, the town is known as ''Sremska Kamenica'' (Сремска Каменица), in Croatian a ...

which was at the time a center of Hussitism. They finished it at latest in 1441. Pécsi had had to escape soon from Hungary due to the

Inquisition The Inquisition was a group of institutions within the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy, conducting trials of suspected heretics. Studies of the records have found that the overwhelming majority of sentences consisted of penances, ...

, thus he and many of his followers moved to

Moldavia Moldavia ( ro, Moldova, or , literally "The Country of Moldavia"; in Romanian Cyrillic alphabet, Romanian Cyrillic: or ; chu, Землѧ Молдавскаѧ; el, Ἡγεμονία τῆς Μολδαβίας) is a historical region and for ...

. They had been unsuccessful: the translation was confiscated. The original

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in ...

is not known, most likely it perished. Most text of the Hussite Bible was revealed from partial copies. The most important extant copies of this translation are the Codex of Munich, the Codex of Wien, and the Apor Codex. Some other, shorter parts had been transcribed to other Hungarian dialects as well; these can be found in other 15th century Hungarian codices.

Features

Vocabulary

The translation's language is archaic, with many terms unknown in Modern Hungarian. Also, it contains several rare Old Hungarian words, thus provides an interesting insight to the

Hungarian language Hungarian () is an Uralic language spoken in Hungary and parts of several neighbouring countries. It is the official language of Hungary and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union. Outside Hungary, it is also spoken by Hungarian ...

at the time. These include (with Modern Hungarian equivalent and English translation in parentheses): ''monnál'' (mintegy, or so), ''midenem'' (nemde, is it right?), ''csajva'' (cserebogár,

cockchafer The cockchafer, colloquially called Maybug, Maybeetle, or doodlebug, is the name given to any of the European beetles of the genus ''Melolontha'', in the family Scarabaeidae. Once abundant throughout Europe and a major pest in the periodical ye ...

), ''gördőlet'' (mennydörgés, thunder), etc. In some respects, the Hussite Bible's translators were the first reformers of Hungarian: they coined several new terms, which today sound constrained. Some examples: ''császárlat'' (

imperium In ancient Rome, ''imperium'' was a form of authority held by a citizen to control a military or governmental entity. It is distinct from '' auctoritas'' and '' potestas'', different and generally inferior types of power in the Roman Republic a ...

), ''czímerlet'' ( titulus), ''ezerlő'' ( tribunus), ''negyedlő'' (

tetrarch Tetrarch, Tetrarchs, or Tetrarchy may refer to: * Tetrarchy, the four co-emperors of the Roman Empire instituted by the Emperor Diocletian * Portrait of the Four Tetrarchs - a sculpture of the four co-emperors of the Roman Empire * Herodian Tetrarc ...

), and so on.

Orthography

The Bible's orthography was influenced by early 15th century Czech spelling. Pécsi and Újlaki adopted the system of writing special sounds with

diacritic mark A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...

s. (i. e, writing with ń, or with è, etc.) This orthography later spread among the Hungarian Franciscan friars as well, and had a great influence on spelling in 16th-century Hungarian printed books. However, the modern Hungarian alphabet has different origins.

Copies

Codex of Wien

The oldest of the copies is the Codex of Wien. It contains parts of the Old Testament. The codex has 162 pages, each with a size of 216 by 142 millimetres. The book is the work of three hands from the second half of the 15th century. Since the 18th century, the manuscript was kept in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

(Wien in German), its earlier place is unknown. In 1932, it was moved to the National Széchenyi Library's Section of Manuscripts,

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

, where it can be found today as well.

Codex of Munich

The Codex of Munich consists of 124 pages, and contains the four

Gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words a ...

s. Its size is 135 by 200 millimetres. The whole manuscript had been written by György Németi, who finished the work in Târgu Trotuș, in the year 1466 AD. It is unknown where the codex was after its completion. The first page shows a reference to Johann Albrecht Widmannstetter(1506–1557) as an early owner, who was a philologist and book collector. After his death, the manuscript was transferred to the

Bavarian State Library The Bavarian State Library (german: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, abbreviated BSB, called ''Bibliotheca Regia Monacensis'' before 1919) in Munich is the central " Landesbibliothek", i. e. the state library of the Free State of Bavaria, the big ...

, where it is kept still today, in an excellent condition. A complete facsimile was published in 1958, as part of the Ural-Altaische Bibliothek (''Ural-Altaic Library'').

Apor Codex

The Apor codex got its name after its former owner, the Apor family. It is colligatum. Once it contained 208 pages, but 92 perished, and only 116 remained, the first 21 of which are badly damaged. Because of humid storage circumstances, other pages were harmed as well. Its size is 208 by 140 millimetres.

References

Bibliography

*József Molnár - Györgyi Simon: ''Magyar nyelvemlékek''. 3rd edition, Budapest, 1980.

External links

{{Proto-Protestantism * The Hussite Bible in its original orthographic form is available and searchable in th
Old Hungarian Corpus
The Vienna Codex and the Munich Codex are also available in a normalized Modern Hungarian version, the latter one along with full morphological analysis. Hungarian literature Bible versions and translations Hussite history