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This tendency can be observed in the work that introduced the new Christology in Hungarian, but
the refutation of disputes is even stronger with Dávid, especially in the last part of the work, subtitled
Tanácsadás [Counsel]. It is particularly interesting how the author refers to +simple people". Let the following
passages be an illustration, even at the price of possible arbitrariness. +...What use is to our salvation
even if we understood what God is in His essence, and in what way those three persons are in one
essence..." +Even if these were true and even if we understood them, these are not necessary for our
salvation, so why are we fighting, filling the whole world with steel and fire when these cannot be found
in God's word?..." +If this undescribable confusion, namely the one about this God of one essence, three
persons and the origin attributed to the Holy Ghost were put in the way of salvation, no one would have
been able to reach salvation for all have been disputing about these things so far and yet it is to be decided
by the judge (my italics, M. B.)". +And the simple people, who know not the alphabet, should take the
Apostolic Creed and the prayer made by Christ..."68
This effort to play down the significance of the debates is undoubtedly a propagandistic device
meant to break way in the direction of biblicism, which provided more favourable circumstances for
Antitrinitarians. (The reference to the Apostolic creed and to +the prayer made by Christ" makes this
quite obvious.) On the other hand, these sentences argue with the enthusiastic optimism manifest in the
Preface of Refutatio scripti Petri Melii and in the whole of Rövid magyarázat, especially with the
prediction of the empire of peace for 1570. For, according to the clause italicized above, quick victory
over the Sophists was not expected and a certain transcendence over his own position can also be perceived
there. For at least a moment Dávid views his own polemics from the outside. I would not say that
this, with regard to the whole work, rather hidden mentality could be identified with the humanist
skepticism of Dávid's sources (to be considered later), but it is not identical with the agnosticism,
common among Antitrinitarians, that legitimizes extreme biblicism. It is of course out of the question for
him to consider the debates around Trinity adiaphoron but the momentary +transcendence" over the
squabbles is worth mentioning. It should also be pointed out that this voice is completely alien to
Grzegorz Pawel, the fanatic leader of the Polish Antitrinitarians.
In the concluding section of Tanácsadás, however, the optimistic voice expecting the coming of
the victorious Christ returns. He will be greeted by the steadfast believers +with joyous faces and clear
conscience". It is also added, probably repeatedly announcing either Rövid útmutatás or De falsa et vera,
that +from the will of God we shall show with our published writing on a day before long that this is so,
and shall explain the writings that are made by force for the defense of their opinions."69
Differences and parallels in the vernacular propaganda in Transylvania and in Poland
Rövid útmutatás, the other Hungarian work Ferenc Dávid published in 1567 has hardly been discussed
in the literature on the subject, although its thorough analysis will yield lessons that are very important
not only for Transylvanian but European Antitrinitarianism as well. An outline of these, on the
other hand, will require the consideration of other texts related to, or touching upon, it. We have in mind
primarily the chapter entitled De discrimine legis et euangelii in De falsa et vera and Grzegorz Pawel's
Rozdzial Starego Testamentu od Nowego.
The chapter of De falsa et vera in question discusses an issue that goes beyond the problematics
concerning the Trinity in the strict sense but is connected to it most organically. For the denial of Christ's
preexistence necessarily meant that the followers of the movement had to think about the state of God-man
relationship before and after Christ, the possibilities of justification and the relationship of the two
testaments. The chapter De discrimine legis et euangelii, very significant in its brevity, discusses these
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