Török : az Antikrisztus, a kis szarv meg Góg és Magóg

Abstract

The point of departure for this paper is the historico-philosophical pressure from the 16th century when a place had to be found in Reformation thinking for the Turkish Empire, threatening the whole of Europe. The Turkish question is dealt here in three layers: in responses by leading ideologists from Wittenberg, in Hungarian sermon literature as a reference, and in the most detailed way in the Anti-Trinitarian bishop Pál Karádi's vast manuscript, his Apocalypse commentary written in 1580. Out of this so-called Wittenberg world-view, integrating history into theology, we focus on the three constituents highlighted in the subtitle. Antichrist, little horn, and Gog and Magog were the most popular apocalyptic signifiers, which could establish the religious, political, and ethnic position of the Turks. Karádi, who was living in Ottoman Hungary, obviously interprets these figures in his commentary to the Book of Revelation, and he often refers to related popular contemporary views, but attributes a completely different meaning to them, since he claims that all the three signify Rome. Peculiarly, it is thus a preacher living in the Turkish-occupied lands who demolishes the historico-theological structure behind the Turks, which had been constructed by European and Hungarian public opinion by that time. This point is not reached by individual speculation by Karádi; it is but a side product of his theology discussed in our paper.