From Commonplacing to Expressing Confessional Identity: the Sturmian Paroemiology in Strasbourg and the Hungarian Albert Szenci Molnár 

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From Commonplacing to Expressing Confessional
Identity: the Sturmian Paroemiology in Strasbourg and the Hungarian Albert Szenci Molnár 

Introduction
Commonplacing was a widely practiced method for structuring knowledge and acquiring the skills of expression in the early modern period.Such notebooks were organised with headings and arranged according to various systems that were the object of a broad theoretical discourse.In his famous De duplici copia (1512), Erasmus promoted students' creation of handwritten commonplace books to aid in their assimilation of vocabulary, idioms (copia verborum), and factual knowledge (copia rerum).This phenomenon has received considerable attention by the scholarship of the last few decades.Even though Erasmus's is the most popular formulation of excerpting, the idea itself can traced back to Rudolphus Agricola, who influenced Petrus Ramus, who then taught Johann Sturm, each of them milestones towards more efficient knowledge management and modern encyclopaedias. 1he protestant gymnasium of Strasbourg founded by Sturm had a particularly strong theoretical and practical tradition of commonplacing.Sturm's legacy was continued by professors with similar interests, such as Melchior Iunius, Joseph Lang, Ludwig Hawenreuter, and Johann Bentz.In his works -De literarum ludis recte aperiendis (1538), De amissa dicendi ratione (1538), De imitatione oratoria (1574) -Sturm argued for the inseparability of copia verborum from copia rerum: a better understanding of Christian doctrine could be achieved through knowledge of grammar and rhetoric as much as the profane and sacred sciences.According to the Strasbourg tradition, commonplacing could help students draw a universal map for knowing things divine, natural, and human. 2 In comparison to printed commonplace books or theories of commonplacing, its actual practice in handwritten culture has drawn less attention, perhaps because the extant handwritten commonplace books are often incomplete, difficult to read, or their content is too miscellaneous to categorize. 3 Nevertheless, lecture notes and handwritten commonplace books kept by early modern students are unexplored and are thus interesting sources for the history of universities.The following pages demonstrate that a case study of a commonplace book is possible.
About commonplace books and their theoretical background in the idea of copia, see Moss, Printed Commonplace-Books; about the use of commonplaces as a method of rhetorical invention and oratorical presentation of a topic, see Goyet, Le sublime du "lieu commun"; the following books provide an exciting analysis of commonplace books from the viewpoint of their medium (manuscripts and printings) and their role as a substitute for human memory: Cevolini, De arte excerpendi; Cevolini, Forgetting Machines.About the European influence of the Ramist method, including commonplacing and early modern encyclopaedism, see this magistral work: Hotson, Commonplace Learning, and Hotson, The Reformation of Common Learning.About Sturm's commonplacing method: Moss, Printed Commonplace-Books, 147-54; about his pedagogical programme based on the unity of eloquence and piety ("sapiens atque eloquens pietas"): Arnold, "Le projet pédagogique de Jean Sturm."See also Arnold, Johannes Sturm (1507-1589), and Spitz and Tinsley, Johann Sturm on Education (with the English translation of Sturm's main pedagogical treatises).From the angle of the influence of Sturm's disciples on Albert Szenci Molnár, subject of the present study, see Imre, "Úton járásnak megírása", 28-46; Imre, "Doctrina és eloquentia egysége." There are, of course, valuable exceptions, like the following interesting collective volume of case studies: Décultot, Lire, copier, écrire; about medical annotations, see Stolberg, "Medical Note-Taking." It focuses on the notebook of Albert Szenci Molnár (1574-1634), a Reformed (Calvinist) scholar, the most important representative of protestant late humanism in Hungary.In his literary production as much as in his notebook, he reveals himself as a true disciple of the Sturmian tradition of the Strasbourg gymnasium.

The life and work of Albert Szenci Molnár
Albert Szenci Molnár 4 was born in a small town of Upper Hungary (Senec, today in Slovakia) to a miller family.He completed his elementary and secondary studies in Győr, Gönc, and Debrecen.In Gönc, he witnessed the preparation of the first complete Hungarian-language Bible translation, coordinated by Gáspár Károlyi (c.1529-1592).In November 1590, he began the journey of his European study tour at numerous schools and universities.After his first destination, Dresden, he went on to Wittenberg, registering there on 2 November 1591.He continued on his tour in May 1592, and then enrolled at the gymnasium of Strasbourg on 7 May 1593 where he attended the classes of Johannes Lang and Johann Bentz.Here he met his compatriot János Baranyai Decsi (1560-1601), a Transylvanian polymath who, like Molnár, came under the influence of Strasbourg paroemiology and prepared a selection of Erasmus's Adages containing the Latin, Greek, and Hungarian versions of each proverb.5Although Molnár found inspiration for his ambitious cultural, linguistic, and literary programme at the Lutheran school, he could not stay because of religious differences that are documented in his commonplace book, which will be commented on later.In July 1596, he left Strasbourg for Switzerland and Italy.In December 1596, he enrolled at the Collegium Casimirianum in Heidelberg, and in the following year also registered at the Reformed Heidelberg university, where his religious convictions were finally welcomed.After a short visit to his homeland in 1599, he returned to Heidelberg where he stayed until the end of 1600, and then enrolled at the academy of Herborn.However, not satisfied with merely being a student, he wanted to build a professional network at the intellectual centres of the Holy Roman Empire and to use them to fulfil his scholarly ambitions.In the following years, he travelled to Frankfurt, Amberg, Altdorf, Nürnberg, Marburg, Oppenheim, and Hanau, where he established connections with intellectuals, typographers, and publishers.Then he enrolled again at the universities and academies of Heidelberg, Herborn, and Marburg between 1606 and 1607.
He married Kunigunda Ferinari, the widow of the typographer Conrad Vietor, a famous Hebraist of Marburg.After a few years in Hungary as a minister, Molnár returned with his family to the Palatinate.In 1615, he was appointed to be the co-rector of the gymnasium of Amberg, and later he worked as cantor and school rector in Oppenheim.In 1619, he and his family moved to Heidelberg, 4 A short explanation about his name is in order: his family name is Molnár, while Szenci indicates the origin of his family (here, his place of birth: Szenc, today Senec, Slovakia); hence, his full name is to be understood as Albert Molnár of Szenc.The same applies to János Baranyai Decsi and Ferenc Pápai Páriz.where his productive career was disturbed by the initial moments of the Thirty Years War.When the Catholic general Tilly besieged and occupied the town in 1622, mercenaries tortured him.This event marked a decline in Calvinist intellectual life, and the Molnár family moved to Hanau.On the invitation of Gábor Bethlen, the prince of Transylvania, he and his family moved back to Hungarianspeaking territory in 1624.Molnár lived and worked in Cluj (modern-day Romania) until his death to plague on 17 January 1634. 6e sought contact with the intellectual elite of his time during his many travels.He was in contact with the irenical thinker of Heidelberg, David Pareus; he exchanged letters with the poet Martin Opitz; and in Herborn, he met Johann Heinrich Alsted, author of several encyclopaedias, who later moved with Johann Heinrich Bisterfeld and Ludwig Piscator to Alba Iulia, Transylvania, to teach at the school of Gábor Bethlen. 7Using these connections and the financial support of the rulers of the Palatinate and the Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel, Molnár deployed an intensive publication activity in the service of the vernacular letters of Hungarian Calvinism.He prepared the first Hungarian-Latin dictionary (1604), which he later transformed into a trilingual version with Greek (1611, 1621).These works not only provide lexical elements, but also a large number of phraseological items, using and pursuing the work accomplished by his compatriot Baranyai Decsi in his Adagia edition. 8Molnár dedicated the dictionary to Emperor Rudolph II and travelled in 1604 to Prague to personally present it to the monarch.As an appendix of the 1621 edition, he published his Syllecta scholastica, an anthology of pedagogical treatises written mostly by German scholars. 9In 1610 he composed a Hungarian grammar book based on Petrus Ramus's principles. 10As the literary historian Mihály Imre points out, this programme of promoting vernacular letters had two aims: to prove that Hungarian has the same richness of vocabulary and idiomatic expression as the classical languages (and further developing this copia); and to prove that Hungarian has regularities in grammar of the same complexity as Latin or Greek. 11 This programme culminated in the exegesis of biblical texts.Molnár was the translator of the Geneva Psaltery (1607), based on the German translation of Ambrosius Lobwasser, which is still in use by Hungarian Calvinists. 12For the Reformed community, equally important is his revised edition of the above-mentioned Gáspár Károlyi Bible, which he published in Hanau (1608) and in Oppenheim (1612). 13The crown jewel of his work doubtlessly For Molnár's life, works, and his immense bibliography (which cannot be fully reproduced here), the following paper has been essential: Molnár, "Szenci Molnár Albert."About Molnár's studies and cultural network see also Szabó, "Bizontalan helyeken búdosunk".Learning, 206-10, 336-58; see also Szentpéteri, Egyetemes tudomány Erdélyben.
is his Hungarian translation of Calvin's Institutes, published in Hanau (1624). 14eing unsatisfied with the Hungarian preaching of his time, he also translated the postil book of Abraham Scultetus, the preacher of the princely court in Heidelberg. 15Aside from this activity of publishing religious texts in vernacular, Molnár also had time to participate in the international Republic of Letters.He authored many Latin poems, often influenced by the combinatoric games of Llullism, very popular in the circle of Alsted.He even composed an anthology of playful poetical experiments with his own and his friends' works, entitled Lusus poetici (1614). 16

The structure of the notebook
His life is thoroughly documented in his autobiography and the diary he kept between 1596 and 1617.Molnár's commonplace book is in the very manuscript of this diary.Whereas it is certain that Molnár commenced these annotations in Strasbourg at the same time as his journal, it is unclear when and where the poet stopped using it for notetaking.A cautious response will be done after its detailed analysis.The same volume contains many further entries and annotations.Under unclear circumstances, it was later acquired by the Transylvanian professor Ferenc Pápai Páriz (1649-1716), who took it on his own European study tour and had similar intellectual goals as Molnár.He even published an updated version of Molnár's Hungarian-Latin dictionary. 17He kept his own diary in the same volume, and he added several entries to Molnár's commonplaces as well, not to mention an alphabetical index and a title page which designates the notebook as Ταμιείδιον sive Scriniolum (Treasury or Treasure box).The manuscript was later obtained by a more obscure possessor, József Szilágyi, probably a notary from the first half of the eighteenth century, who also added to Molnár's annotations. 18nlike the two diaries, the commonplace book has never received a full critical analysis, and its examination has only been partial.Its legend sometimes inspired superficial statements, which can also be explained by the fact that the manuscript was inaccessible during the decades of communist dictatorship in Romania.The scholar László Szörényi, for instance, described it as notes about "alchemy, witchcraft, magic, racy stories and readings from Boccaccio." 19Márton Szentpéteri, who has proposed the most thorough analysis of its structure, explored the manuscript for the occult knowledge it contains.He had two reasons to do this.First, according to the diary, Molnár suffered from a strange psychosis Calvin, Az keresztyeni religiora es igaz hitre valo tanitas.
Târgu Mureș (Romania), Teleki-Bolyai Library (hereafter TBL), ms.To 3619b.Szenci Molnár's commonplace book is on fols.1r-479r.Szenci Molnár's diary has two modern editions: Szenci, Szenczi Molnár Albert naplója, levelezése és irományai; Szenci, Szenci Molnár Albert naplója, and Ferenc Pápai Páriz's diary has a modern edition too, which contains a useful, yet often inexact description of the manuscript and its possessors: Pápai Páriz, Békességet magamnak, másoknak, 645-48.Szörényi, "Szenci Molnár Albert latin versei," 252.  in Heidelberg in the summer of 1599, which the poet interpreted as a diabolic possession.Moreover, rumours spread in the end of the seventeenth century that Molnár had concluded a pact with the devil during one of his journeys, selling his soul to the devil in exchange for money to finance his studies.It is true that in the diary, Molnár emphasises the influence of dreams and omens on his life, and the commonplace book does contain annotations on demonology, the interpretation of dreams, and similar topics, including notes on the lives of Faust and Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, based on the famous accounts of Melanchthon and Johannes Manlius.Secondly, as Molnár was familiar with the above-mentioned Alsted and Bisterfeld as representatives of the encyclopaedical or pansophist movements of his age, Szentpéteri was interested in Molnár's commonplacing method as a form of knowledge management. 20owever, taking a simple look at the manuscript is enough to realise that as much as remarks on esoteric sciences in the notebook are interesting, they are also very rare, and its content and structure are too conventional to attribute an encyclopaedical ambition to Molnár.So far, the proper goal and original function of the notebook are yet to be defined, but it can be done with a proper analysis of its structure, as seen below.
Albert Szenci Molnár's loci communes consist of about 470 leaves, the numbering of which contains several anomalies and errors.These loci contain about 1400 entries or quotations from his hand, while approximately 430 further items were later added by Pápai Páriz, and some forty more by Szilágyi. 21Originally, Molnár organised the entries into a three-level structure.From the bottom to the top: first, quotations are regrouped into headings (the actual commonplaces of the manuscript), and for each of them, Molnár left one or two leaves blank for entries; about a dozen headings on average are organised into a class (classis), and these classes make the three main parts (partes) of the notebook.This totals about 540 headings and exactly thirty-six classes.The three main parts are the following: I. De Deo et natura divina (God and the creature, anthropology as knowledge about human being, and natural philosophy); II.De actionibus hominum (psychology as science of the soul, virtue ethics, politics, and ecclesiology); III.Arts and sciences, including serious disciplines and "vain and ludicrous arts" (Ludicrae et 20 Szentpéteri, "Boszorkányos Szenci Molnár Albert"; Szentpéteri, "Szenci Molnár megőrül," 139-40); Szentpéteri, "Magic and Demonology"; Szentpéteri, "A költői játék," 243-45.This following article from an earlier period mentions Molnár's notebook, but the author, who discusses pansophism in Molnár's education during his years in Marburg, Heidelberg, Altdorf, and Oppenheim, had no access to the manuscript: Szőnyi, "Molnár Albert és a titkos tudományok."Since the manuscript became accessible, some articles have used it to discuss different topics in Molnár's works, such as the interpretation of dreams and premonitions (Szabó, "Álmok, előjelek, jóslatok és betegségek"), or exile and travel (P.Vásárhelyi, "Bujdosás és számkivetettség").About the legend of the pact with the devil, see: P. Vásárhelyi, "Molnár Albert és a Sátán szövetsége"; also in German: P. Vásárhelyi, "Faust in der ungarischen Literatur," 425-32, and Baron, "A Faust-monda és magyar változatai."The story is briefly mentioned in the following English work as well: Baron, Faustus on Trial, 118.21   More exact numbers could be established via an annotated edition of the notebook; there also arises a methodological problem, if quotations are to be counted: as we shall see, Molnár often borrows a whole series of quotations from the same reference work, it is thus problematic to decide how many items such a group of citations counts as.
vanae artes) such as comedies, magic, and superstitious practices (without title; see table 1 in Appendix).
Molnár strictly kept this order in his commonplace book.However, many headings were left empty or were supplied with only a few quotations.As we shall see, this was not the result of neglect, since he chose to fill many other headings that seem to describe his true interests with quotations.The emptiness of many of the loci is another hint for researchers: if Molnár wrote them down without having the slightest interest in them, this may be because the structure was given to him in a model that can be identified.
Instead of searching for this model, previous scholarship has pointed out the parallelism between Molnár's notebook and some later encyclopaedical works.Márton Szentpéteri has mentioned the following possibilities: the Syntaxes artis mirabilis by Pierre Grégoire, a representative of Llullism in the sixteenth-century Toulouse, whose work was actually quoted by Molnár several times in the manuscript; the Ianua linguarum reserata, the Orbis pictus and the Schola ludus, scholarly textbooks by Jan Amos Comenius, the famous Czech pedagogue and a disciple of Alsted, who was also active in Sárospatak (Hungary); and finally, the different versions of Alsted's Encyclopaedia. 22Amongst these works, the Orbis pictus indeed has a similar structure to Molnár's notebook: it proceeds from God and celestial phenomena, thereafter discussing nature on earth and human activities, but unlike Molnár's notebook, concludes with Christian doctrines. 23he real model of the loci communes is in fact a less ambitious work.The commonplace's three-level structure as well as the exact order of the classes and the headings matches Johann Bentz's Locorum communium comparandae rerum et exemplorum copiae, accomodatorum, genera quatuor (1588). 24As a professor in Strasbourg, Bentz was famous for his Greek-Latin treasuries and commentaries on Cicero.Molnár relates in his diary how he attended Bentz's lectures after finishing Joseph Lang's classes in 1594, and the first lesson with Bentz took place on April 1.On April 22 of the next year, Johannes Pappus, the rector authorised Molnár to attend public lectures, which means that the Hungarian student accomplished the secondary level of his schooling and he could access higher education; on May 21, he obtained his baccalaureate from dean Melchior Iunius. 25As we shall see, by 1596, Molnár's relationship with the Strasbourg gymnasium became aggravated with conflicts; most likely, he must have elaborated the structure of his commonplace book following Bentz's instructions between April 1594 and his graduation in 1595.
Bentz's book of several editions proposed a commonplace structure that his students could use in their annotations.Evidently, Molnár's notebook resulted from a scholarly exercise rather than personal inventiveness.Bentz's book contains Szentpéteri, "A költői játék," 243-44.
four kinds of commonplace structures: the first one was conceived for the study of philosophy, including natural history, psychology, and ethics, the second one for theology, the third for dialectics, and the fourth for rhetoric.The book contains no extracts or quotations, only the name of the headings and their structural places in the classes and main parts.Molnár copied the first structure, i.e. the philosophical one, but he completed its loci on God and on ecclesiology with the relevant headings of Bentz's second part on theology.In his textbook, Bentz also published a selection of Erasmus's De copia, Rudolph Agricola's De formando studio, and Johann Sturm's De exercitationibus rhetoricis.These texts discuss commonplacing as a method for achieving the copia of expression.Agricola's groundbreaking text about this matter was later published by Molnár himself, in an anthology entitled Syllecta scholastica, printed as an appendix to his Latin-Greek-Hungarian dictionary. 26Bentz's textbook, as far as it was conceived in the tradition of Strasbourg paroemiology, stresses the simultaneous collection of sentences and exempla.Bentz also considered organised commonplace books as mnemotechnical aids for the fallible and finite human memory.In the dedication, addressed to his students from the German and Prussian nobility, he expresses this thought with an interesting comparison: a pupil resembles a merchant, while the knowledge they acquire with difficulty is like money, insofar as knowledge can be lost just as easily as a merchant's fortune; students and merchants are accountable, respectively, for their knowledge and their money: Solent hoc mercatores facere; et eorum quae coëmerint, vendiderint, contraxerint, suae vel minima nunquam credere memoriae: sed tabulas ad manus, aut diaria habere; in iisque consignare obiter primum ac tumultuarie, quemadmodum unum quodque actum contractumq[ue] fuerit: postea vero in maiores transscribere codices, singula certa serie: ut, quoties opus est, intelligant, quantum quisq[ue] debeat, lucri quid accesserit, pecuniola ne qua forte pereat. 27 asks, how much worthier is it to keep the quotations and the examples taken from distinguished authors over money?

Commonplacing as a scholarly exercise
Szenci Molnár copied the commonplace structure of Bentz's book almost exactly.However, as we shall see, he sometimes modified the titles slightly.Annotations on demonology, magic, and other esoteric topics are not as overwhelming as former literature has suggested; for instance, protestant theology is much more emphasised.As I have remarked, if Molnár preserved many loci in Bentz's first section about God and natural philosophy, he completed them with Bentz's 26 Szenci Molnár, Lexicon latino-graeco-hungaricum (the edition of 1621), with a false title.

27
Bentz, Locorum communium, fol.A2 v .("Merchants usually do not rely much on their memory of what they have bought, sold, or agreed on; instead, they keep a record book or a diary in their hands, in which they write down without any further delay every business they have made; and later, they copy everything, each in a certain order into another book, a larger one, so they can remember whenever it is necessary, who owns them how much, how much money they have gained, in order not to lose a single penny.")commonplaces from the second section of theology (Filius Dei Jesus Christus; Incarnatio, conceptio Christi; Nativitas Filii Dei, etc.). 28It is true that he left the first forty pages of the loci blank, including those headings about the divine being.On the other hand, his classis called Ecclesiastica res et actiones in section two contains exceptionally numerous commonplaces, the majority of which were fleshed out by Molnár.Just like in the case of the section on the divinity, Molnár used Bentz's commonplace list in the theology section to complete the headings on church matters (Ecclesia Dei catholica; Vetus et Novum Testamentum; Coena Domini; Confessio; Excommunicatio, etc.). 29Moreover, since he was not satisfied with these, he added supplementary headings (of his own perhaps) related to topics pertaining to common controversies between Protestants and Catholics (Religio Sacra, Apostoli et Evangelistae; Vita religiosa, monastica; Idolatria; Extrema Unctio; Ordinis Sacramentum; Matrimonium; Sacrificium ejusque species, Missa; Iustificatio hominis cum Deo; Purgatorium). 30Similar topics of controversial theology were taken from Bentz's book as well: Peccatum; Remissio peccati; Bona opera. 31Ecclesiology (Sacerdocia, officia sacra, clerici) and sacramental theology (Sacramenta; Baptismus; Confirmatio; Eucharistia; Poenitentia; Extrema unctio; Matrimonium) are also present in the notebook. 32Additionally, Molnár even put a theological term into the section about will and affects by adding the title Liberum arbitrium to Bentz's heading on Arbitrium, used by Molnár's professor in the non-theological context of the faculties of the soul. 33In sum, although the commonplaces about God at the beginning of the manuscripts remained blank, Molnár abundantly bridged the gap in the section on ecclesiology.Therefore, theology can be designated as one of the main topics of the commonplace book.
The class called Temperantia is another important section of the notebook.In comparison to other parts of the manuscript, it has more headings, which are supplied with many quotations.The subject of temperance covers headings like Abstinentia, Voracitas,Gulositas,Iejunium,Ebrietas,Virginitas,Castitas,and Pudor. 34 Discussing ethical problems, these topics also have relevance in protestant apologetics, for they include questions dividing Protestants and Catholics, such as problems of fasting, virginity, chastity, and sacred oaths.Another section where Molnár laboriously added notations was under the headings concerning psychology and the passions of the soul (Voluntas et affectus), topics which have relevance in ethics and in moral theology as well: we have already seen the heading Liberum arbitrium, and there are others, like Metus, Cura, Spes, etc. 35 As for natural philosophy, physics, or the occult arts pointed to by earlier research, there are in fact far fewer headings both in Bentz's textbook and in Molnár's annotations.If we TBL, ms.To 3619b, fols.5 r-v ; Bentz, Locorum communium, 18. TBL, ms.To 3619b, fols.168 v -83 v ; Bentz, Locorum communium, 25-26; for that section, see the concordance in table 2. TBL, ms.To 3619b, fols.170 v -86 v .
Ibid., fols.134 v -60 v .consider the proportion of the headings that Molnár filled out with at least one quotation to the total number of the headings that Bentz had given for a topic (classis), then we can see that Naturalia (natural philosophy) and Munera publica (public offices) were the topics which interested Molnár the least. 36(It is true, however, that he took notes on natural philosophy in many different places of the manuscript.)In sum, the topics preferred by Molnár in the manuscript indicate that the notebook served primarily as preparation for a career as a protestant intellectual and minister.
Carefully examining the sources of the quotations can confirm the predominance of conventional and scholarly elements.First of all, there are many excerpts from Greek and Latin classics, numerous biblical quotations, and sentences from church fathers.The annotations reveal the regular use of a particular anthology of versified adages, i.e.Hermann Germberg's book entitled Carminum proverbialium totius humanae vitae statum breviter delineantium … loci communes.Rewriting many classical and biblical quotations in a metric form, Germberg's book, published in 1576 for the first time, proposes an encyclopaedic overview of every possible subject of human knowledge. 37Its author worked as co-rector of the school of the Hansa town Korbach, and in 1584, he was appointed professor at Herborn.His book was very popular and re-edited several times by the mid-seventeenth century.Usually, it was published anonymously, but the author was also identified by the initials S. A. I., based on the versified prologue entitled "Ad Emptorem" (To the buyer).In 1665, an edition of the same type was published in Sibiu, Transylvania, a volume of which also contained a similar anthology with the title Versus sententionales. 38Based on an analysis of the older literature, Germberg plagiarised the collection of Bruno Seidel, whose work was known under the titles Sententiae proverbiales (1568) and Paroemiae ethicae (since 1589). 39This much is true: S. A. I.'s preliminary poem can be found in the former book as well, 40 but the versified adages, if they were borrowed from Seidel, were thoroughly rewritten by Germberg, for he also uses distiches whereas Seidel's adages are only as short as a single hexameter.Contrary to the casual structure of Seidel who put the poems into an alphabetical order according to the first letter of the verse, Germberg uses keywords to thematically organise his anthology.It is beyond any doubt that Molnár used Germberg's edition, and not Seidel's, because in most cases he copies each quotation from it into a heading that matches the keywords of the Carminum proverbialium … loci communes. 41hen Molnár received this book, he copied the verses he liked into his notebook straightaway, for he made each one of these entries in the same faded ink.This presumably took place at the beginning of his excerpting because the Ibid., fols.14 v -25 v , 208 v -14 v .
For the description of this item, see the bibliography of old Hungarian prints in Heltai et al quotations from Carmina proverbialia can be found on the top of the pages.Influenced by this anthology, Molnár often completed Bentz's headings with Germberg's keywords, which can be perceived easily thanks to the more faded ink.For instance, the last word from Molnár's heading Ornatus, Mundicies, Vestitus comes from Germberg's entry on Vestitus et Ornatus, whereas the same heading reads only Ornatus, Mundicies in Bentz's work; 42 similarly, Molnár's Nuncium, Rumor, Fama comes partly from Germberg's keyword Fama. 43Molnár concludes his commonplaces with the heading Finis et exitus which cannot be found in Bentz's book but can be traced back to Germberg's entry with the heading Finis, containing quotations in praise of work accomplished with prowess.Germberg, of course, put it under the letter F, whereas Molnár, by placing it at the end of his notebook, applied its quotations onto his own excerpting. 44The thoroughness of his use of Germberg's book is indicated by the fact that Molnár sometimes connected several quotations from different headings in a most creative way.That is how he put under the heading Paupertas, mendacitas not only the verses from Germberg's entry with similar title, but also a quotation from his entry on Christ because of the modest conditions of the Saviour's birth. 45he verses of the Carmina proverbialia are omnipresent in Molnár's notebook.He used them even for the most serious topics of theology, including Germberg's mnemonic poem aiding in the memorisation of the order of the books of the Bible (Ordo librorum sacrorum). 46However, in the case of theological commonplaces, Molnár focused rather on patrology and handbooks of theology.For the sensitive topic of fasting (Iejunium), he chose only one verse from Germberg and the rest came from Saint Ambrose, Pierre Grégoire, and other treatises in prose. 47or more frivolous topics that allowed for a more ludic approach, like love (Amor), 48 food, and beverages (Cervisia, Vinum). 49Molnár quoted longer sections from the versified encyclopaedia.He chose more voluminous extracts from the zoological part about miraculous properties attributed to animals, like in the following example (the title which introduces the epigram is from Germberg): According to the text, six-legged animals, i.e. insects, live for three years, dogs live for nine years (three times three), and so on.In the Carmina proverbialia, we would look in vain for these numbers at the end of the verses, as Molnár himself added them into the manuscript.Molnár's numbers indicate the unrealistic elements of the poem, for human life expectancy (as much as eighty-one years) is followed by the most fantastic figures.We probably witness here not only Molnár's shared late humanist curiosity for natural miracles (mirabilia), but also his critical attitude towards his readings from time to time.An oak living almost twenty thousand years or an elephant living for fifty thousand years would contradict not only our modern experience, but also medieval and early modern biblical chronologies that claimed the world was five or six thousand years old at the most. 51Nevertheless, Molnár's intervention into the text need not be taken seriously: an untrustworthy text playfully challenged the reader, and the reader reacted in an equally playful way.

Commonplacing as expression of patriotic and denominational identity
In the end, the abundant use of this collection of versified adages undermines the hypothesis that Molnár intended his notebook to be an autonomous intellectual project.Luckily, the notebook also contains some indications of a less scholarly reading.The personal nature of the notebook is evident from the keywords that Molnár added to Bentz's original headings, for instance Insomnia, Melancholia, Alchimia, and Apodemica. 52The first three of them are related to the personal crisis that Molnár's biographies often stress, i.e. his diabolical possession experienced in Heidelberg, while the last one is connected to his constant travels and search for intellectual employment abroad.As we shall see, travel, pilgrimage, and exile are topics very much reflected in the notebook for personal reasons.
Molnár's quotations containing a reference with page number are especially valuable because they enable us to identify the exact editions he used with near certainty.In his diary, Molnár often complains of having to sell off some of his TBL, ms.To 3619b, fol.54 r ; see Germberg, Carminum proverbialium, 54: ("The age of certain animals / Six-legged animals live for three years, and you get the lifetime of a dog if you multiple that of the sixlegged by three; three dogs equal the life of a horse, and a human can live as long as three horses, whereas a donkey can live as much as three humans.You should say that a goose lives as long as three donkeys, and it is proven that a raven lives as much as three geese.A deer has a life three times longer than a raven, and an oak lives three times longer than a deer, while you should say that an elephant lives as long as three oaks.")The metrical structure of the epigram contains a few irregularities.The verse "Et per tres canes sit tibi vita caballi" lacks a syllable, whereas in the last distich about the deer and the elephant, the order of the hexameter and the pentameter is reversed.Molnár's handwritten copy is faithful to the original in this respect.This is the case, for instance, in the Old Testament hermeneutic of David Pareus whose lectures Molnár could attend in Heidelberg; Pareus dated the creation of the world to 3928 BC: Patrides, "Renaissance Estimates of the Year of Creation," 316.TBL, ms.To 3619b, fols.114 v , 117 v , 452 v , 476 r .books when he was short on money during his studies. 53Presumably, he brought many volumes back to his home country, but Hungarian book history has identified only sixteen of them, dispersed in several libraries today. 54Since little is known about his library, every new detail about his readings and culture is important.
Amongst the identified volumes, it is worth mentioning Pierre Grégoire's Syntaxes artis mirabilis, which Molnár must have had in its 1583 Lyon edition. 55e had the 1590 Frankfurt edition of Jean Bodin's De magorum daemonomania, from which he quoted a remark about melancholy. 56Molnár knew Luther's complete works from their Wittenberg and Jena editions, 57 whereas he read Melanchthon's Latin Postilla in the two volumes edited by Christoph Pezel from Bremen. 58ezel dedicated the second volume to Hungarian and Transylvanian ministers because Melanchthon preached in Latin especially for the benefit of his Hungarian students who did not understand German. 59Two other books written by Daniel Tossanus (Toussaint or Toussain, 1541-1602), a Huguenot theologian who settled down in Heidelberg as a refugee, have also been identified. 60Molnár knew additional works by Tossanus, and we shall return to him, for the Hungarian poet was in both professional and personal contact with him.With the exception of the Lyon edition, these books can be linked to the towns of the Holy Roman Empire that were important stations of Molnár's study tours: Frankfurt, Heidelberg, and Hanau.Except for the Luther editions, they were all recent books, as they were published during his first journey abroad in the 1580s-90s; thus, he probably bought some of them for himself.
Antonio Bonfini's Symposion can be counted amongst his books as well.At the time, it was available only in one edition, the one from 1572 by the famous orientalist Johannes Löwenklau (Leunclavius), based on the manuscript from the library of the Hungarian humanist Johannes Sambucus. 61Bonfini was the Italian Szabó, Szenci Molnár Albert naplója, 121-22 (Basel, 15 November 1596: he spent the money he had acquired for previously selling some of his books), 123 (Heidelberg, end of March 1597).Bonfini, Symposion trimeron (edition of 1572).Presumably, the second edition of the work was published too late for it to have been used by Molnár for his commonplace book; the publisher of Frankfurt claims historiographer of King Mathias I and Vladislas II, the author of Rerum hungaricarum decades, a major contribution to Hungarian history written in a humanist vein.His Symposion is an imaginary dialogue where people of erudition in Mathias's court debate whether virtuous marriage or chastity is more superior.King Mathias prefers marriage while his spouse, Queen Beatrix of Aragon, argues for chastity.In the dialogue the humanist Galeotto Marzio who enjoyed Mathias's patronage defends an Epicurean standpoint by promulgating the freedom of sexual pleasure.Finally, the debate is won by Beatrix.
Molnár could have found this work interesting for various reasons.First of all, polemics on chastity and marriage as terms related to celibacy were relevant controversial points for protestant moral theology.As the literary historian Klára Pajorin argues, the King Mathias of the dialogue, by professing the equality of chastity and marriage, joins in Jovinian's view that had been condemned as a heresy since Saint Jerome's Adversus Jovinianum: after Luther married a defrocked nun, it was precisely against the charge of Jovinianism that Melanchthon had to defend the Augsburg Confession. 62On the other hand, Molnár was apparently interested in the Platonic erudition of natural philosophy and medicine which is copiously cited in Bonfini's work.If we consider the headings where the name of Bonfini pops up, these two vectors of interest become evident: Bonfini appears in the context of anthropological (Homo) or psychological (Animae in genere) topics and in medical questions related to sexuality and fertility; on the other hand, he is also quoted in regard to moral subjects, including respect for the elderly, chastity, virginity, and humility. 63Once, to illustrate the topic of human conception, Molnár quotes not only Bonfini, but also the above-mentioned Galeotto Marzio's De doctrina promiscua, which was an amalgam of natural history and medical erudition. 64o consider the Bonfini quotations in the framework of moral theology, let us take a look at the headings Castitas, pudicitia and Conjugium, Nuptiae.Under the first title, Molnár selected quotes arguing that chastity is a virtue that a young man must practice if he is to acquire erudition.The quotation from Bonfini's work comes from a part where a partisan of Beatrix's opinion refers to a belief about a beaver that allegedly bites off his own testicles to shake off the hunters on the titlepage that his book is the first edition, maybe because he wants to advertise his product "brought to light for the first time from Sambucus's library" (nunc primum ex bibliotheca Johan.Sambuci V. C. in lucem prolati): Bonfini, Symposion trimeron (1621).The modern critical edition: Bonfini, Symposion de virginitate et pudicitia coniugali.About Sambucus's edition and the cooperation between Sambucus and Löwenklau, see also Almási and Kiss, Humanistes du Bassin des Carpates II, lxiii-lxix, 161-65; a recent collective volume about Sambucus: Gastgeber and Klecker, Johannes Sambucus.
Ibid., fol.93 r : "Galeottus Martius Doctrinae Promiscuae cap.19."The work was available in the following editions (most likely, Molnár had access to the more recent one from Lyon): Marzio, De doctrina promiscua (Firenze, 1548; Lyon, 1552; Frankfurt am Main, 1602).chasing him: similarly, "Castranda itidem nobis libido est, ut salutem quoq[ue] nobis comparemus" ("Our carnal desire must be castrated as well, if we are to achieve salvation"). 65Under the heading Conjugium, there are quotations that emphasise the harmony between husband and wife.Molnár quotes here King Matthias from the dialogue, who claims that Romans placed the wedding ring on their fourth finger, for its nerve leads to the heart, and they buried the gall of the sacrificed animal before the doorstep of Juno's temple, for it was considered to be the organ of wrath, and therefore it was forbidden to bring it inside the sanctuary -because, of course, "nullam inter virum et uxorem discordiam esse volebant" ("they did not want that there be any discord between husband and wife"). 66lthough Bonfini's text could have been interpreted in the context of celibacy as well, Molnár quoted it while discussing medicine and the moral problems of marriage.Bonfini's work was so important to him that he dedicated an entry in his dictionary to its title (Symposion triimeron). 67The quotations from Bonfini and Marzio -and, in a certain way, Melanchthon's sermons preached to the Hungarian students -all indicate that Molnár intentionally displayed in his notebook aspects of European humanism relevant to Hungary.These efforts of his are well known by researchers who stressed how attentively Molnár read the works of the humanist poets Janus Pannonius (1434-1472) and Caspar Ursinus Velius (cc.1493-1539); the first was the most important Neo-Latin poet born in the Kingdom of Hungary, while the second one was a German poet famous for his poetic account of the battle of Mohács (De interitu Ludovici regis et clade Hungariae). 68Molnár's plan to adapt the Hungarian language for erudition and literature was deeply influenced by his humanist forerunners, including Johannes Sambucus (the one who owned the manuscript of Bonfini's Symposion), whose Ciceronian engagement in stylistic matters was shared by Molnár and was confirmed by his education in Strasbourg. 69This awareness of literary history was also evident in his forewords written for his dictionary, Hungarian psaltery, and Postilla Scultetica, in which he reflected on his antecedents in Hungarian lexicography, in vernacular preaching, and in poetry, respectively. 70part from this patriotic engagement, Molnár also emphasised his confessional preferences in his notebook.During his years at the Lutheran academy of Strasbourg, he suffered several conflicts due to his Helvetian (Calvinist) faith.There is an unnamed student documented in the school archives who argued against the Augsburg Confession's communion theology and went thereafter to take the Lord's Supper at a Calvinist church.It was likely Molnár, because in his diary he recorded that he travelled on Christmas 1595 and Pentecost 1596 in the company of other Calvinists to the nearby town of Bischweiler, where they could take communion from a Calvinist minister.On June 8, Molnár was visited by a TBL, ms.To 3619b, fol.372 r .
Ibid., 143-50; Szabó, "Bizontalan helyeken búdosunk", 168.committee on behalf of the academy to investigate this matter: its two members were Heinrich Greiner and Israel Spach, while its president was Joseph Lang, who, in an ironic turn of the story, later catholicised. 71Meanwhile, the Calvinist students were attacked also from the pulpit, and Johannes Tossanus, the nephew of the above-mentioned Daniel Toussain, tried to defend them against the faculty.Molnár even noted in his diary that lightning struck through the roof of the church when the Lutheran Thomas Schaller was preaching against the Calvinists on July 13.Despite this miraculous intervention, Molnár was expelled from Strasbourg shortly after Lang's visitation. 72t is not surprising that if we look at the heading Eucharistia in the commonplace book, we find quotations that endorse the Helvetian interpretation of the Lord's Supper.There are, for instance, several sections from Saint Augustine where the church father discusses the concept of sign, stating that the substance of a thing and its meaning as a sign are two different things. 73Another quotation from Augustine warns about the Montanist heretics who allegedly exaggerated the literary interpretation of the Eucharist to the point that they mixed children's blood with flour to get a proper bread for their horrific communion. 74Instead, the Helvetian doctrine considered bread and wine as signs or symbols, rejecting both the Catholic idea of transubstantiation and the Lutheran doctrine of the real presence of Christ's body and blood in the sacrament.Should these quotations on their own be insufficient to prove that Molnár was looking for Calvinist arguments here, then consider that he borrowed them not directly from Augustine but from the Huguenot Daniel Toussain's De recta consideratione et usu salutari doctrinae de Providentia Dei et de sacramentis, where most of them can be found together: the first two quotations are on the same page, 75 and Toussain's book also contains a matching citation from Saint Cyprian that Molnár wrote down under the same heading. 76The first edition of the work dates from 1597; hence, Molnár likely About his conversion and its implications in his career see Moss, Printed Commonplace-Books, 205-7.Szenci Molnár, Szenci Molnár Albert naplója, 112-13 ui]d in eis lateat: cum sint signa existentiae, et aliud significantia."("Augustine in chapter 1 of the second book of On Christian Doctrine: A sign is a thing which, through an appearance that it provides for the senses, makes something different appear in the thinking./ Also in Against Maximus Arianus, book 3, chapter 22: Signs do not reveal what they are by their nature our their substance, but what is hidden in them, for the substance of signs and their meaning are two different things.")Ibid., fol.177 v : "August[inus] de haeresib[us] cap.26.et 8. / Montanistae haeretici, ex hoc videlicet fundamento, quod realem Christi sanguinem in Eucharistia habere vellent: Sanguinem ex infante expressum farinae, ex qua Eucharistia conficiebant admiscebant."("Augustine in Heresies, chapters 26 and 8: Montanist heretics, on the principle that they pretended to have Christ's real blood in Eucharist, extracted blood from infants and mixed it to the flour which they used to prepare the Host.") The direct source of the two quotations about "semiotics" from Augustine: Tossanus, De recta consideratione, 196 (the quotation reads in this book as follows: "cum sint signa aliud existentia, et aliud significantia"; "because signs according to their substance are different from sings according to their meaning"); about the blood libel against the Montanist: Tossanus, De recta consideratione, 214.TBL, ms.To 3619b, fol.178 r : "Cyprianus Ep[isto]la ad Martyr[es] / Christus dat tantum credentibus, quantum credit se capere q[ui] sumit."("Cyprian in his Epistle to the Martyrs: Christ gives to the believers as much as the receiver believes to get.")Its source: Tossanus, De recta Consideratione, 189.sought consolation by excerpting this book one year after his adversities in Strasbourg.The last entry of the heading is really telling: it concisely summarises a phrase from Cicero's De natura deorum: "Cic[ero] de natura Deor[um] scribit Nullum esse tam amentem, q[ui] id quo vescitur Deum esse putat." 77

The uses of the commonplace book in text production
We have already seen that some of Molnár's choices reflected a degree of intellectual autonomy in the matter of national or confessional topics.Given the immensity of Molnár's oeuvre, an evident question must be asked: Is there any connection between the commonplace book excerpts and Molnár's other works?Szentpéteri included the analysis of the notebook into the interpretation of Molnár's anthology called Lusus poetici by presenting the notion of 'game' as involved in his poetics and philosophy, namely a pansophist approach to achieving a general knowledge in all sciences and finding an accurate poetical form to contain and transmit this knowledge. 78Szentpéteri also found convincing parallels between Molnár's annotations on witchcraft and the related vocabulary of his dictionary. 79here are also some texts in the notebook that later reappear in Molnár's books.The annotations on death contain an epigram which has a specialty: it is written with two acrostics.Both at the beginning and at the end of the verses we can read the word mors (and although it is not emphasised either in the print or in the manuscript, the word can be read also in the middle):

Mors solet innumeris morbis abrump[er]e vitaM
Omnia mors rostro devorat ipsa suO Rex, princeps, sapiens, servus, stultus miser aegeR Sis quicunq[ue] velis pulvis et umbra sumuS. 80is poem was inserted into Molnár's Analecta aenigmatica, an anthology of poetical enigmas that was published as an appendix in the Herborn professor Johann Heidfeld's fifth edition of Sphinx theologico-philosophica in 1608. 81This work was a sort of encyclopaedia written in the form of riddles, and it was also appreciated by Alsted who wrote a poem for the sixth edition. 82The book sees the world as a system of enigmas which must be resolved by philosophers and theologians.The first chapter discusses the enigmatic nature of the Holy Scriptures as the source of true doctrine, whereas the second one discusses God as the object of the Ibid., fol.178 r .("Cicero writes in his Nature of Gods that no one is more insane than a person who believes that the thing they eat is a god.")See Cicero, De natura deorum, 3.41.
Vásárhelyi, "Szenci Molnár Albert Aenigmái," 366.doctrine.After these two sections, the book is similar to the list of headings that can be found in Bentz's book: God is followed by the description of heaven and earth, the elements, the animals and the plants, and in the end, the human being in the context of ethics and practical life, including arts and disciplines.Molnár contacted Heidfeld in 1607 when he was staying in Herborn during the printing of his psaltery.In his Analecta, he collected riddles for him.Apart from their playful aspects, the texts in the anthology often discuss theological topics and religious controversies, including anti-Catholic polemics.Molnár must have been proud of this work because every time the successful Sphinx was republished, he wrote additions for the Analecta, even when it appeared for the ninth time in 1631 when Molnár was already staying in Transylvania. 83here are also other texts by him that reveal his interest in ludic ways of producing prints, such as creative typographical solutions to order letters and figures on the page.On the influence of Germberg's book, he even completed Bentz's headings about rhetoric and poetics with the title Aenigmata.Another double acrostic, similar to the previous one, can be found in Molnár's Lusus poetici.In the volume published in 1614, Molnár regrouped ludic poems and texts, including a collection of jokes mocking a scholasticus, the prototype of the intellectual alienated from everyday life.The Latin poems in the book display a playful inclination towards absurdity in the choice of their topics, praising for instance the notions of "nothing" and "everything" or a fly.The volume includes a Latin pattern poem by Molnár, written in the form of a square, readable from multiple directions, and entitled "Monostichon."Others contributed to the volume as well, like Georg Rem, a writer and jurist from Nuremberg.His poem about "everything" ("Omnia") is introduced by Molnár's epigram dated from January 1605, addressed to Johan Matthäus Wacher, imperial councillor and one of the patrons of his studies: Omnia Maeoniis Numeris Inclusit ApollO, Magne, mea[m], Wachere, jubes quae condere musaM.Nostra Thalia nequit.Remi dedit haec mihi carmeN.Iure tamen mea do.Sicut fert regula rectI.Accipe proinde libens.Deus omnia det tibi faustA. 84m's poem is followed by three epigrams by Konrad Rittershausen (1560-1613), a professor of jurisprudence at Altdorf university, who had a warm relationship with the Hungarian poet, the addressee of these short poems.Each text has the acrostic "Omnia," but only the second one has a double acrostic, appearing at both the beginning and the end of the lines: O Te felicem Musarum munere tantO.

83
About the additions of the successive editions: P. Vásárhelyi, "Szenci Molnár Albert aenigmái," 366-72; about the aesthetic level and the originality of Molnár's Latin poems, see: Szörényi, "Szenci Molnár Albert latin versei," 252-53.84 Szenci Molnár, Lusus poetici, 51.("Apollo included everyone amongst the epic poets, but what you order to my Muse to sing about, great Wacher, our Thalia cannot do.Therefore she gave me Rem's song.Similarly, I give it in my own right to you, as the rule of justice demands it.Hence, receive it with good will.May God make everything lucky for you.") Molnare Hungaricoru[m] haud ultima gloria vatuM!Nempe haec aeternum parient tibi Carmina nomeN.Invidiam at moneo ut places; quam praevideo urI, Ante alios tibi dum cernit data munera diA. 85 seems plausible that this homage was motivated by the fact that Rittershausen tied this particular acrostic form to Molnár.Thus, it is also likely that the author of the previously mentioned epigram about death was Molnár as well.And he not only transferred texts from his notebook to Heidfeld's Sphinx, but he also did the opposite: the heading Disputatio, dialogus contains a longer section from the foreword of Heidfeld's book.It is equally possible that he used an older edition of the Sphinx or that he quoted from the version of 1608, which already contained his Analecta, but it is almost certain that he must have read the book when he first contacted its author in Herborn. 86If this hypothesis is accepted, it implies that he was still using his notebook around 1607-1608.
If we accept that the commonplace book was a preparation for Molnár's career in the Republic of Letters, then we should return to the annotations he took from Daniel Toussain's works.As Molnár writes in his diary, he began the Hungarian translation of the French theologian's prayer book in August 1600.Although the translation was probably completed, it was never published. 87Toussain, from whom Molnár quoted arguments in favour of the Helvetian communion theology, worked as a Huguenot minister in Orléans.Due to the anti-protestant persecutions, he fled to the Palatinate.When Molnár moved to Heidelberg, he established a warm professional and personal connection with the French theologian.For a while, Molnár was even planning to marry his daughter Julianna. 88In the end, he did not propose, but he maintained a friendly relationship with the family. 89Apart from the above-mentioned books, the notebooks quote Toussain's homilies as well. 90As his diary reveals, he listened to them personally. 91he content of Toussain's prayer book has not yet been considered in its relation to Molnár.Its French original (L'exercice de l'âme fidèle) was published in 1578 in Frankfurt, 92 but Molnár consulted the German translation from 1586 because of his lacking French proficiency. 93The French and the German titlepages Ibid., 56: ("Oh, be happy with the help of the Muses, Molnár, one of the greater glories among the Hungarian poets!Of course, these songs prepare for you an eternal fame.But let me warn you about the jealousy that I foresee to be ignited, when it realises that you received the divine gifts before others.")TBL, ms.To 3619b, fol.429 r .Szenci Molnár, Szenci Molnár Albert naplója, 132 (see also the editor's footnote).
In the spring of 1602, Molnár was working as a preceptor in the house of a jurisconsult named Germand in Amberg.He shared the plan of the marriage with Germand's wife.(Szenci Molnár, Szenci Molnár Albert  naplója, 78).
Tossanus, Bettbuechlein.Its second edition was printed by the same typographer: 1591 (VD16 ZV 16869).designate the book not only as a prayer book, but also as a series of meditations meant to console the true believers (i.e. the Calvinists) during the time of adversities.In his foreword, Toussain reports his own persecutions, specifying how the situation of the Protestants became insupportable in Orléans.This introduction also contains an account of the Saint Bartholomew's Day massacre. 94Consequently, if Molnár's translation had been published, it would have been the first narrative on the French violence against Protestants in Hungarian literature. 95ven though he failed to produce a translation, he returned to the topic of this massacre in his later works.First, he included a jubilatory sermon, written by Toussain on the occasion of the first centenary of the Reformation, in his translation of Scultetus's postil; this text details the anti-protestant persecutions, hence French religious wars, but the mention of Saint Bartholomew's Day remains vague. 96Another sermon, also based on a text by Scultetus, is more specific.It was delivered by Molnár for the consecration of a protestant temple in Hungary in 1625, and he also published it in a book printed for this very occasion. 97Beyond personal issues experienced during foreign study sessions and journeys, these texts also reflect the turmoil of the historical reality: the threshold of the Thirty Years War, which began in Habsburg Hungary by the strengthening of religious conflicts and political resentments shared by protestant estates and orders against the Catholic ruler.To remedy the situation, the Transylvanian prince established himself as the protector of Protestants, and invaded Upper Hungary in 1619.Many local aristocrats and noblemen joined his cause, including György Rákóczi, whose soldiers occupied the town of Košice, where they lynched three Catholic priests on September 7.Both the Protestants and the Catholics issued propaganda pamphlets during the polemics of these years, and the Catholic side led by the major Jesuit author Péter Pázmány (1570-1637) did not omit mention of these three martyrs.Hence, the stories of protestant martyrdom became tools of legitimation of Bethlen's politics to stress that more Protestants fell victim to the atrocities committed by Catholics than vice versa. 98ungarian literary historians have emphasised that the religious poetry of Molnár often described his long stay abroad as an exile, which enabled him to remain close to the intellectual centres of the Holy Roman Empire (publishers, printing shops, and universities) while also separating him from his beloved homeland.Exile became the synonym of peregrinatio (study tours) for him, as he considered it to be both some kind of banishment from home in the literary sense Tossanus, Bettbuechlein, A vij r -F ij v (dated from the Palatinate on 20 July 1578).
Molnár was also the editor of the volume: Szenci Molnár, Consecratio templi novi.The section on the Saint Bartholomew's Day is quoted by Szentpéteri, "Boszorkányos Szenci Molnár Albert," 37.
Molnár's texts and Szepsi Csombor's account in his Europica Varietas are interpreted in this context by Kovács, "Szepsi Csombor Márton," 150-57.and a metaphor of human life on earth for a Christian person. 99This explains to a large extent his interest in Toussain's book.Its Calvinist orthodoxy is another element of explanation here.The main text of the prayer book meditates on the verses of the Apostles' Creed, and it includes relevant sections about communion theology as well.Toussain wrote two prayers of meditations about the Lord's Supper, which are followed by a thanksgiving to be said after taking communion.They contain several assertions that can be interpreted as polemical standpoints against the Lutheran doctrine of ubiquity, i.e. the omnipresence of Christ's body in the world.Whereas the ubiquitas helped Lutherans explain how the real presence of Christ's body in the bread was possible, Calvinists argued that Christ could be present in our world only in a spiritual way, for his body departed from Earth after to his Ascension.Accordingly, Toussain claims that Christ's body has risen into Heaven, and his influence on us is spiritual rather than physical. 100Remarkably, Molnár's Analecta aenigmatica, in its last edition of 1631, contains a similar inquiry about the way Christ's body is present in heaven.Molnár's answer expresses his reservations about human intellect by cutting short the question: "Non est fragilitatis nostrae coelorum secreta discutere, tantummodo in coelo esse credendum est." 101 We have seen that Toussain was the primordial source for Molnár's notebook about the matter of communion.The persecution of true Christians aroused his interest as well.According to his notes, relevant sections were preached in Toussain's sermon about the Acts of the Apostles.I have not found any printed edition of this homily, but based on Molnár's quotations, its main topic must have been the adversities of the believers and their perseverance.The heading Securitas, periculum contains the following entry, arguing for the necessity of a cautious equilibrium between courage and prudence during the times of religious persecution: P. Vásárhelyi, "Bujdosás és Dzámkivetettség"; Szabó, "Bizontalan helyeken búdosunk", 167-73.Tossanus, Bettbuechlein, fol.Bb viij r : "Er ist auch keinswegs verschloffen oder verspert, da er von uns empfangen wirdt, sonder herrschet droben im Himmel als daß Haupt, unnd wircket inn uns als inn seinen Gliedmassen: Auff Erden hat er zwar die Sacrament eingesetzt, nicht aber der meinung, daß wir Irdisch gesinnet seyen, oder seinen Leib auff Erden suchen, sonder uns zuversichern, daß er sich für uns gegeben hat, unnd in uns durch seinen Heiligen Geist wonen will, biß er uns zu sich nemmen wirdt inn die ewige Herrligkeit […]." ("He [Jesus] is no way cut or isolated [from us] because he is received by us [i.e. in the communion], and he reigns from above in the Heaven, like the head, and he is active in us, as if we were his limbs.On earth, he established the sacrament, not with the intention that we understand it in an earthly meaning or seek his body on earth, but in order to assure us that he has given himself for us and he wants to live inside us through his Holy Spirit, until he takes us to himself into the eternal kingdom.")Quoted by P. Vásárhelyi, "Szenci Molnár Albert aenigmái," 368.("It is not up to our corruptible nature to discuss the secrets of the heavens; we only need to know that he is in Heaven.")TBL, ms.To 3619b, fol.356 r .("Faith must be mitigated with prudence, so that we do not tempt God and we do not expose ourselves to unnecessary danger.The apostles did not loiter around publicly in Jerusalem or in the Temple neither, but they withdrew in the upper and most secret part of their house.")And the heading Constantia, perseverantia, which exposed a longer argument about the doctrine of grace, states along with Augustine that the elected ones receive strength from God so that they can persevere. 103In conclusion, it was not by chance that Molnár chose Toussain's prayer book for translation, for he could recognise himself in the conceptual framework, in which the French theologian represented persecuted Protestants who were torn between having to confess their faith and being forced to dissimulate it in what Calvin called a Nicodemite way.

Conclusion
With this careful analysis of Molnár's notebook, it is now possible to measure the depth of his insight into the encyclopaedic efforts of Herborn, a topic that has been intriguing researchers for a long time.Regarding its broader outline, his commonplace book contains almost nothing that cannot be explained on the grounds of the Erasmian or Sturmian ideas of copia.But outside the general plan of the commonplace book, Molnár does show interest in the Herborn tradition insofar as he takes notes from the works of Herborn teachers.The versified encyclopaedia of Germberg is a mere mnemotechnical aid for pupils, whereas Johann Heidfeld's Sphinx could reveal much about the epistemological backgrounds of pansophism to Molnár: the creation is a system of enigmas interconnected by the secret traces of God's activity, and the proper method can help one memorize and solve these very mysteries with an efficacy previously unknown.Bentz's goal with his commonplaces was to prepare his students for the career of a protestant intellectual.Accordingly, quotations taken by Molnár were conventional and scholarly at first, but later on began to reflect the more personal choices of Molnár's readings.For him, as a religious person and a Calvinist man of letters, the commonplace book became an instrument of self-interpretation, insofar as he filled the notebook with content that was best left concealed rather than disclosed in certain hostile denominational environments.."("This sophistical distinction of Bellarmino can be accepted with our common sense as well: to want something good belongs to God and to us, but to will is ours, while to will in the right way belongs only to God, who is the only one who makes us choose the right thing and makes us persevere in this intention: like Augustine rightly states in chapter 12 of his De correptione et gratia, that God grants to the elected not only that they want to persevere, but also that they want to persevere and they succeed persevering.")Under the heading Auxilium, Molnár takes the following note from Toussain: "Qui sine salvatore salutem vult habere non sanus sed aeger vadet et o[mn]is curatio q[ae] a magicis artibus petitur vel ab ipsis daemonibus in idolorum cultu expetitur mors potius dicenda est q[uam] vita.Toss[anus] in Act.cap.4." ("He who wants to be saved without a saviour will be not healthy but ill, and we can consider all kinds of cure, that people expect from the science of sorcerers or ask from demons by worshipping idols, to be death rather than life.")(Ibid., fol.365 v .) The value he attributed to this manuscript exceeds the mere curriculum: Molnár cherished his notebook for a long time, as the identification of certain sources confirm that he used it for over a decade: as we have seen, a terminus post quem of him making the last entries can be established during his stay in Herborn and his cooperation with Heidfeld around 1607-1608.Posterity was aware of that worth: the two later possessors of the manuscript, Ferenc Pápai Páriz and József Szilágyi, honoured Molnár's manuscript by adding new annotations, rather than conserving it in its original state.This is not surprising if we acknowledge the early modern attitude towards printed and handwritten documents: they were simply meant to be augmented with marginals, glossa, and other personalised interventions.It is more astonishing that in the early eighteenth century, József Szilágyi did not even apprehend the commonplace structure of the notebook, and he tried to force an alphabetical order on it: ignoring Molnár's entries, he made a palimpsest rather than continuing its original use. 104We could not find a better symbol for the disappearance of the commonplace book as a tool of invention and as a description of things divine and human than its transformation into a mere collection of platitudes, as the modern sense of the word "commonplace" suggests.For sure, we are still far from Flaubert's derisory Dictionnaire des idées reçues, since the humanist idea of copia lived on in the 18th-century predilection for literary curiosities.

Table 2 .
Contents of Molnár's notebook and its concordance with its sources (extract) Legend antiqua Bentz's original loci from the philosophy section of his book cursive Bentz's original loci from the theology section of his book bold Albert Szenci Molnár's additions to Bentz's headings