LITUANUS LITHUANIAN QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES   Volume 44, No.1 - Spring 1998 Editor of this issue: Antanas Klimas ISSN 0024-5089 Copyright © 1998 LITUANUS Foundation, Inc.

MARTYNAS MAŽVYDAS AND JOHN WYCLIFFE:
AN ENGLISH CONNECTION?

WILLIAM R. SCHMALSTIEG*
The Pennsylvania State University

The purpose of this brief note is to suggest that the influence of the English religious reformer Wycliffe might be discerned in the First Lithuanian Catechism. Probably direct influence cannot be proven, but at least there is a striking parallelism between Martynas Mažvydas and John Wycliffe in the rendering of the Decalogue. For Christian religious reformers beginning at least as early as the 14th century and perhaps continuing until today the correct vernacular rendering of the Ten Commandments was (and is) a serious matter occasioning much controversy. Just at the time Mažvydas was writing his Catechism, the Polish Protestant reformers Jan Sandecki-Malecki and Jan Seklucjan were disputing about the translation of sacred texts.

In 1545 Seklucjan published his Simple Text of the Catechism for Simple People (Katechismu tekst prosty dla prostego ludu). Malecki made critical annotations in a copy of this catechism of Seklucjan and in 1546 Malecki issued his own catechism, which ended with a brief justification of his method of translation. Secklucjan, in turn, entered his criticisms in his copy of Malecki's work and sent it to Malecki's patron Paul Speratus. At Speratus' request Malecki replied to the criticism with A Defense, against the Calumnies of Jan Seklucjan, of the True Translation of the Body of the Catechism in the Polish language (Defensio verae translationis Corporis Catechismi in linguam polonicam. aduersus calumnias Ioannis Secluciani) in which Malecki answered Seklucjan's criticisms and also examined Seklucjan's new, larger catechism published in 1547 (Frick 1989:14).

Seklucjan had translated phrases of the type Latin Non habebis... Thou shalt not have...' with the Polish second singular future as Nie będziesz miał... Thou shalt not have... whereas Malecki had used the second singular negative imperative Nie miey... 'Don't have...' Malecki argues first that Latin uses the future because of a peculiarity of Hebrew, which 'often replaces tense for tense, mood for mood, future for present, and present for future. This is peculiar to this language.' ('In Hebraea lingua in veteri testamento, saepius ponitur tempus pro tempore, modus pro modo, futurum pro praesenti et praesens pro futuro. Hoc enim huic linguae peculiare est.') Malecki then appeals to the sense of the passage: 'But the law of God indicates our sin and constantly asserts it and terrifies and damns us' (Porro lex Dei indicat peccatum, et perpetuo arguit, terret, at damnat nos). Malecki is certain of his interpretation because he can quote Martin Luther, who argues that the sense of the command requires the use of the present tense. Since the law is for all time, these negative commands must be rendered in Polish not with the future indicative but with the second person singular of the present tense of the imperative mood: Nie miey 'Don't have... (Frick 1989: 21-22).

Malecki finds further support for his argument in Luther's German translation: Du solt nicht ander goetter haben, Thou shalt not have other gods,' du solt nicht toedten 'thou shalt not kill,' du solt nicht ehebrechen 'thou shalt not commit adultery.' He renders these phrases in Polish with the negative imperatives Nie miey Bogow ijnych 'Don't have other gods,' nie zabijaj 'don't kill,' nie cudzolosz 'don't commit adultery.'1 For Malecki this is preferable because it takes less time to say, and also sounds more pleasant and sweet. The word będziesz 'you (sg.) will' on the other hand is 'rough.' Its first syllable is an 'imperfect Polish diphthong,' which is difficult to pronounce and its second syllable is 'uncouth and rough,' and difficult to pronounce. According to Malecki, such words, in a language that is already 'harsh' enough, should be avoided as much as possible, especially in texts for the instruction of the people (Frick 1989: 22). Those of us who are not native speakers of Polish can certainly agree with Malecki about the difficulties of pronunciation of this language.

Malecki further rejects the phrase Nie bądźcie tobie bogowie yny 'Let there not be to thee other gods' as a literal rendering of the 'Hebrew' Non sint tibi alii dii. Malecki writes in his Defense (Frick 1989:22): 'Just so in all the negative precepts of the Decalogue, as Doctor Martin Luther writes in a certain brief treatise about the Decalogue, the future indicative is to be replaced by the second person singular of the present tense, imperative mood: thus, 'Thou shalt not have'; Thou shalt not kill'; Thou shalt not covet'; are to be replaced by 'Don't have'; 'Don't kill,' 'Don't covet.' Thus the law of God might seem to say: 'Behold you have other gods'; 'Behold you kill'; 'Behold, you are an adulterer'; 'Behold you covet.' 'Don't have other gods.' 'Don't kill, don't covet': and thus in the present tense let it assert, frighten and damn us.' ('Proinde in omnibus praeceptis Decalogi negativis, ut Doctor Martinus Lutherus in quodam commentariolo super Decalogum scribit, futurum indicativi exponendum est, per secundam personam singularem praesentis temporis, imperativi modi: ut, Non habebis: Non occides: Non concupisces, exponatur, per Non habe, Non occide, Non concupisce. Ut lex Dei videatur dicere: Ecce habes Deos alienos: Ecce occidis: Ecce Mechus es: Ecce concupiscis. Non habe Deos alienos. Non occide, Non concupisce: atque ita in praesenti tempore, arguat, terreat, ac damnet nos.'). Prof. J. M. Claassen points out to me that classical Latin would not use non with the imperative as does Malecki, but either noli plus the infinitive or ne with the present or perfect subjunctive.

According to Brockelmann (1913: 20) the imperative cannot be combined with a negative in any of the old Semitic languages. Now according to Prof. Haim Rosén of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Biblical Hebrew the negative particle lō(') plus the prefixed form of the verb (not the imperative!) expressed in the Decalogue an absolute categorical prohibition (personal communication). But the Septuagint translation represents the Post-Biblical understanding of Hebrew in which the prefixed form of the verb (abbreviated below as pref.) had come to be understood as a future (see Rosén 1984: 232-233 and 1997: 302). Thus the Hebrew prefixed form lō(') tirsah 'don't kill, thou shalt not kill' is rendered by the future tense in the Greek Septuagint translation ou phoneúseis. Similarly the Hebrew prefixed verbs w =lō(') tin'ap 'and thou shalt not commit adultery' and w =lō(') tignub 'and thou shalt not steal' are rendered by the future tense in Greek ou moikheúseis and ou klépseis respectively.2 The Latin Vulgate has correspondingly the future tense in non occides 'thou shalt not kill,' neque moechaberis 'thou shalt not commit adultery,' and furtumque non facies 'thou shalt not commit theft, thou shalt not steal.'

As is well known the ten commandments occur twice in the Old Testament, once in Exodus 20:3-17 and once in Deuteronomy 5:6-21. (The Latin transcription of the Hebrew Exodus comes from Richter 1991a:178-181 and the Hebrew Deuteronomy from Richter 1991b:410-414.3 The English interlinear translations of the Hebrew text come from Kohlenberger's Interlinear Hebrew-English Old Testament [Exodus pp. 200-202 and Deuteronomy pp. 498-500]. The Greek translations with suffix a. are from the Septuagint and the Latin translations with suffix b. are from the Vulgate.)

Thus Exodus 20:3:

Exodus 20:7:

Exodus 20:8

Exodus 20:12:

mētėra

Exodus 20:13:

Exodus 20:14

Exodus 20:15;

Exodus 20:16;

Exodus 20:17:

Deuteronomy 5:7:

Deuteronomy 5:11:

Deuteronomy 5:12:

Deuteronomy 5:16:

Deuteronomy 5:17:

Deuteronomy 5:18:

Deuteronomy 5:19:

Deuteronomy 5:20:

Deuteronomy 5:21:

Now it is generally accepted that Mažvydas used both the Seklucjan and Malecki Catechisms in preparing his own translation (Stang 1929: 1-2; Zinkevičius 1988: 26). In Mažvydas' Catechism the Ten Commandments occur twice and in different versions. Below I give first the Lithuanian complete text version followed by Malecki's 1546 Polish version with the suffix a. and then by Seklucjan's 1545 Polish version with the suffix b.:

(According to Rospond 1948: 23, fn. 1, Malecki in his copy of Seklucjan's Catechism underlined Niebędziesz miał and wrote beside it Niemiey 'Don't have' [2nd sg. imperative].)

(According to Rospond 1948: 23, fn. 3, Malecki in his copy of Seklucjan's Catechism underlined Niebęziesz brał and wrote beside it Niebierz 'Don't take' [2nd sg. imperative].)

(According to Rospond 1948: 35, fn. 4, Seklucjan reproached his opponent for omitting the words chceszli długo bye ziw na ziemi 'if you wish to be alive for a long time on earth.')