Some Supplementary Remarks on the Edition of Baltazar Opec’s Żywot Pana Jezu Krysta (on the Five Hundredth Anniversary of Its 1522 Edition)

500 years ago one of the most important Polish medieval works was published: Żywot Pana Jezu Krysta by Baltazar Opec (1522). It is the only complete Medieval apocryphal narrative written in Polish, describing Mary and Christ’s lives from the Annunciation till the Ascension and the Assumption of Mary. The first critical edition of this work was published in 2014, revealing multiple sources that may have been used by Opec. However, the primary sources of the last chapters dealing with the Dormition, Assumption and Coronation of the Mother of God were not identified. This paper presents these chapters together with fragments of a collection of Latin sermons by a Hungarian Franciscan Pelbartus Ladislaus de Temesvár, entitled Stellarium corone benedicte Marie Virginis (1498), which were previously used by the Polish translator and editor. The comparison of both texts makes it possible to observe how Baltazar Opec transformed Pelbartus’ erudite theological and Mariological treatise into the apocryphal narrative on the Dormition and Assumption of the Mother of God, preserving the style of the whole Żywot Pana Jezu Krysta. It is evident that Opec used Stellarium as model sermons but adapted them in a different way than the other sources of Żywot, such as Meditationes vitae Christi or Historia rythmica: he omitted the names and opinions of the Fathers of the Church and medieval theologians cited by the Hungarian Franciscan, as well as most of the references to ex Scriptura arguments.

* The research was funded by the Pedagogical University of Krakow.

500 years ago one of the most important Polish medieval works was published: Żywot Pana Jezu Krysta by Baltazar Opec (1522). It is the only complete Medieval apocryphal narrative written in Polish, describing Mary and Christ’s lives from the Annunciation till the Ascension and the Assumption of Mary. The first critical edition of this work was published in 2014, revealing multiple sources that may have been used by Opec. However, the primary sources of the last chapters dealing with the Dormition, Assumption and Coronation of the Mother of God were not identified. This paper presents these chapters together with fragments of a collection of Latin sermons by a Hungarian Franciscan Pelbartus Ladislaus de Temesvár, entitled Stellarium corone benedicte Marie Virginis (1498), which were previously used by the Polish translator and editor. The comparison of both texts makes it possible to observe how Baltazar Opec transformed Pelbartus’ erudite theological and Mariological treatise into the apocryphal narrative on the Dormition and Assumption of the Mother of God, preserving the style of the whole Żywot Pana Jezu Krysta. It is evident that Opec used Stellarium as model sermons but adapted them in a different way than the other sources of Żywot, such as Meditationes vitae Christi or Historia rythmica: he omitted the names and opinions of the Fathers of the Church and medieval theologians cited by the Hungarian Franciscan, as well as most of the references to ex Scriptura arguments.

* The research was funded by the Pedagogical University of Krakow.