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work, as if an appendix, there are seven antitheses, which contrast the true Christ promised by God and
preached by the Apostles with the one invented by the Antichrist. These theses are strictly of the
dogmatic type, without the vision of Christus pauper outlined above. This sequence of antitheses is
published nearly unchanged in De falsa et vera, Book 2, Chapter XIII. On the other hand, this publication
also describes the way the Lord tears down the masquerade of the Antichrist and restores the true Christ.
This compact passage is nothing but a brief summary of, and identical even in its linguistic formulation
with, a chapter in De falsa et vera.39
What De falsa et vera interprets in more detail apart from John 1 is the first part of the epistle to
the Colossians. The same can be found in the Antitrinitarian publication describing the religious dispute
at Gyulafehérvár.40
With all this in mind, the appearance of István Császmai's work in 1567 should not necessarily be
explained with the fact that the printing of De falsa et vera started in that year already. Especially if we
remember that Császmai's book in all probability was published with a Hungarian text, at least Sándor
András Thordai writing a refutation in Hungarian41 makes it fairly probable. It would seem more logical
to assume that material was being gathered for a representative publication decided on in 1567, and there
was no reason of course why anything from the available text should not be published in advance. For
Géza Kathona is perfectly right when he says that the pictorial material collected with the help of
international cooperation was originally not intended for Császmai's small publication but for the +great
opus". However, it does not follow that we should regard Császmai's publication as the product of a
+casual idea", especially if the events in Poland are taken into consideration.
When after the middle of 1567 the issue of Christ's preexistence had become the focus of debates
among the brethren in Poland, Grzegorz Pawel became incredibly active as a publisher. He had nine
works published during that period. Although only three of these -- Rozdzial Starego Testamentu od
Nowego [The Difference between the Old and New Testaments], Okazanie y zborzenie wszystkich Wiar
[Demonstration and Eversion of Every Article of Faith Concerning God], Antychymn Wzgardzonych slug
Chrystusa Ukrzyzowanego [Antihymn of the crucified Christ's despised servants] -- carry the date 1568,
Górski42 has convincingly argued that these were all published between the end of 1567 and the
beginning of 1569. It would seem that this interval, and particularly its most intensive phase, was even
shortened by the fact that after the Synod at Pelsznica in October 1568 Anabaptist socio-ethical doctrines
became dominant as against issues of Christology. The following works published by the Polish
Antitrinitarian are Polish versions of one or more chapters of De falsa et vera: Rozdzial Starego
Testamentu od Nowego, Okazanie i zborzenie, Wyklad mieysc niektorych Pisma [Explanations of a few
passages in the Scripture]. The greatest uncertainty surrounds the work entitled Wyklad mieysc niektorych
since there are no extant copies. Górski has tried to reconstruct its contents on the basis of contemporary
and later descriptions, and sees a connection with Chapters IX through XIII, and XV of De falsa et vera.
The work entitled Zgodne a iedne rzecz znamionuiace [Places agreeing and identical in meaning] merits
special attention. This in part corresponds to Chapter XIV of the collective work, but it has been shown
that Grzegorz Pawel used the separately published polemic sheet, Aequipollentes ex scriptura phrases.
All we have said so far can be summed up in a table (Appendix I.)
On the basis of the above, August 1568 as the publication date of De falsa et vera should be interpreted
in a different way. The parallelism we can perceive in the procedure of the Poles and the
Transylvanians suggests that it was within the framework of concerted tactics that they published before
the famous work, which would appear as a joint publication, those of its parts which they, each according
to their views, found important. Dávid and his friends, simultaneously with their brethren in Poland,
wanted to make a breakthrough in the propaganda in Hungary, so that the joint publication register their
position at the same time for both the increased number of their followers in Hungary and the +world at
large".
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