Doktryna i polityka w łacińskiej poezji biblijnej śląskich uczniów Filipa Melanchtona
Doctrine and Politics in Neo-Latin Biblical Poetry of Philip Melanchthon’s Silesian Students

Summary/Abstract: The article presents selected works of Philip Melanchthon’s Silesian pupils who studied in Wittenberg during last years of the big Protestant reformer (1545–1560). Some biblical poems of Jacob Kuchler (ca. 1526 – ca. 1572), Joannes Seckerwitz (ca. 1529–1583), Thomas Mawer (1536–1575), Caspar Pridmann (1537–1598), and Laurentius Fabricius (1539–1577) are elaborated. The study seeks to decipher the political and religious function of propaganda of these religious publications, with particular emphasis on their role played in the religious battle against the Catholic Church and for the promotion of several protestant doctrines, including: a doctrine of “justification by grace alone, by Christ alone, through faith alone on the basis of Scripture alone”. Their authors highlighted also the doctrine of predestination, simple and modest religious worship, and questioned the religious significance of the priesthood and the celibacy. This poetry was written not only for Germans, Silesians, but also for the Polish, Prussian and Livonian people.

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