Theology and enlightenment: laudations of Sámuel Decsy, Sámuel Benedek and Zsigmond Szabó in a theological dissertation from Frankfurt an der Oder

Abstract

This essay aims to share Sámuel Decsy’s (1742–1816), Sámuel Benedek’s and Zsigmond Szabó’s Latin poems. Being uncharted by research until now, these pieces of poetry were first published in the appendix of the 1771 inaugural dissertation (Dissertatio Inauguralis Theologico Historica De Cura Dei Singulari Circa Genus Messiae) of the theologians Johann Isaac Ludwig Causse (1728–1802) and Hermann Nonnen (1738–1781). Exploring the multiple implications of the dissertation, the essay is divided into three parts. Building on the findings of my research, the first part presents the wider intellectual context, with special regard to the interplays between theological education and Enlightenment in Frankfurt an der Oder. The second part pays particular attention to the careers of Johann Isaac Ludwig Causse and Hermann Nonnen, as well as the main characteristics of the dissertation published under their name. Finally, the third part seeks to expound the connection between the dissertation and the writers of the poems. In the appendix, the original Latin transcription of the poems is published. In my paper, it will be argued that in the eighteenth-century Frankfurt an der Oder, Theological Enlightenment played an indisputable role in the transmission of secular knowledge. In this way, the examination of theological education and knowledge production is taken into account as an inescapable aspect in the apprehension of cultural transfer processes of Eastern Europe.