Polish equivalents of Greek έκκλησία ‘a(religious) congregation’, μετάνοια ‘repentance’, μετανοέω ‘to repent’, βάπτισμα ‘adipping or sinking’, βαπτίζω ‘to dip, sink’ in Renaissance Nontrinitarian renderings of the New Testament as lexical determinants of the confessional community of the Polish Brethren

Abstract

The presented distributional and contextual analysis of Polish equivalents of Greek lexemes, recognized in religious polemics of the Reformation era as doctrinally significant words, i.e. έκκλησία ‘a (religious) congregation’, μετάνοια ‘repentance’, μετανοέω ‘to repent’, βάπτισμα ‘a dipping or sinking’, βαπτίζω ‘to dip, sink’ in Renaissance renderings of the New Testament aims to assess lexical distinctiveness of Nontrinitarian renderings – the Szymon Budny’s Bible (1572), the Szymon Budny’s New Testament (1574), the Marcin Czechowic’s New Testament (1577), The New Testament of Rakow (1606).

The lexemes zbor, zborowy (for Greek έκκλησία), pokajanie, kajanie się (for Greek μετάνοια), kajać się, pokajać się (for Greek μετανοέω), ponurzenie, nurzanie (for Greek βάπτισμα), ponurzyć, nurzać (for Greek βαπτίζω) should be considered as particular lexemes to the Renaissance Nontrinitarian renderings of the New Testament. Juxtaposing them with the equivalents introduced into the Renaissance renderings of both Catholic and Evangelical provenance allows to consider them as lexical exponents of the Nontrinitarian Unitarian, Anabaptist and Congregational doctrinal community.

These lexemes, as a result of the philological and exegetical investigations of the translators of the Greek New Testament, gain the status of nontitrinitarian religious terms.