Talk:Polish Brethren

Reversion of Related Text from The Enlightenment

(Sorry; ISP swallowed my long edit; will retype w/in abt a day) --Jerzy 06:29, 2004 Jan 30 (UTC)

Part of lost edit:

This is moved off The Enlightenment; we'll be better able to rework it when Polish brethren is cleaned up, and combined or coordinated w/ Socinianism:

The direct precursors of the Enlightenment were Polish brethren. They introduced i.e. rationalism, idea of the equality of the people and the idea of the contract between people and the state.

John Locke was preceded by a few decades by Samuel Przypkowski on tolerance, by Andrzej Wiszowaty on 'rational religion'. Newton had met Samuel Crell of the Spinowski family (originally Krell from Germany).

--Jerzy 08:33, 2004 Jan 30 (UTC)

Article Name

Getting Oriented

Also problems w/ name of article, but i'll say more. --Jerzy 08:33, 2004 Jan 30 (UTC)

Shouldn'it be moved to Polish Brethren? It is a proper name, not just some bretheren. Mikkalai 09:46, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

If so (i'd like to believe this is obvious to all concerned) only by a "Move this page" operation, not by cutting and pasting. --Jerzy 19:43, 2004 Jan 30 (UTC)

(I've left sentences in here, that should be broken up into two or three sentences each, and i may go back and do that another day. But for today, this is as much as i can be sure of finishing.)

I noted in my lost edit the option of moving the article to the fully capitalized name, but i think there is no rush to do it, since there is more question than that about the name:

• The article title is Polish brethren
• The article reads in part:
  • Polish Brethren or Antitrinitians or Arians or Socinians was the name of a Polish sect from 16th century.
• and thereby says (whatever it may have meant to say) that the "sect" (which is to say, the dissenting religious body, something concrete enough to know who its members are) has four names that apply equally to it:
  • "Polish Brethren", which is ambiguous. (We need not worry about distinctions between two names for the same organization that differ only by "The", e.g., "The Polish Brethren" and "Polish Brethren" are probably the same group unless there is explicit evidence to the contrary. Still:) What are we talking about?
    • Polish brethren, who didn't think of that as the name of their sect, but talked about their brethren or their Polish brethren, meaning the rest of their brotherly sect?

• • • • IIRC they called themeselves "Polish Zbor" or something like that. The name "Antytrynitarze, arianie" etc were attributed to them by their political opponents. Nevertheless, they are mostly known under THAT name. At least in Poland, that is.Szopen

• • • A group that never called itself by that name, but that historians have (for any of a number of reasons that probably need not concern us) have agreed to label as the "Polish brethren" or the "Polish Brethren"?
    • Polish Brethren, in the sense of a branch (the Polish one) of a Brethren movement that (from the article or other linked with it) seems to have had a transnational character. (BTW, doesn't it need an entry, in this case and perhaps several others, in the article Brethren, or if not, at least a disamb between, say, Brethren (Socinian) and Brethren (Anabaptist)?)
    • A group whose FAQ-equivalent said it was called either "The Polish Brethren" or "Polish Brethren" or both?
  • "Antitrinitians", which is not remotely a standard English term. (Nor is "trinitian", with capital or small T.) The term "trinitarian" is well established (though IMO there are no "Trinitarians" bcz there is (probably) no organized group by that name); people who use "trinitarian" tend to consider "unitarian" as its contrary. If "Antitrinitians" is used here to represent a Polish name that they called the sect by, it probably would be best to use the exact Polish spelling, and describe what it would translate as (e.g. anti-trinitarian or unitarian). If they just described themselves that way, or if looking back, historians of religion or ideas describe them that way, the Polish term is probably out of place, but lower case is almost certainly better.
  • "Arians", which was really poor form if they called their organization that. It is the name of a group (or a less formal movement whose opponents dealt with them jointly) over a millenium earlier; anyone who wanted to "take up the mantle of the Arians" might better have called themselves the "Neo-Arians", and in any case they and others might well describe their beliefs as "neo-Arian" and thus describe the sect as being "neo-Arians".
  • "Socinians", which sounds from their article Socinianism and this one as if this sect may have been the Socinians, or the Polish branch or affiliate of them.

"The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names", and IMO we need to know in this specific case what the relationship of each of those four names is to the sect that is the subject of the article.

In particular (and repeating myself but more specifically), is there justification for having both this article (presently named Polish brethren) and Socinianism as separate articles? I don't claim to know if they should be one article or two, but in either case, they (both if two) should say enough that readers are clear why the number of articles is one or is two. --Jerzy 19:43, 2004 Jan 30 (UTC)

• Yes, there is a poitn in having separate artciles, because of ENORMOUS importance of arians to Polish political etc thought. They may be virtually unknown outside Poland, but their contributions to the Polish literature, history etc can't be overlooked. E.G leader of executionist movement was arian - Mikolaj Siennicki. The attitude to arians marked the health of Polish tolerance and political system.

Szopen

You are wrong! The Aryans Arians influenced havily enlightment elsewhere in Europe, but their ideas returned to Poland back, only because their meaning for Western Europe. Cautious 12:44, 4 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I think no one closely following this discussion will misconstrue the above 'graph; still, IMO it is worth anticipating potential careless readings by my use of strike-thru, bold, and links for clarification: Arianism (or at least the term i prefer, Polish neo-Arianism) is crucial to our topic, while i trust none of us think that the (often pseudo-scientifically used)racial classification Aryan is at all relevant. --Jerzy 15:37, 2004 Feb 4 (UTC)

To the list of 4 names above, add another: the inter-language link fr: Petite Eglise Polonaise happens to consist of about 10% of my French vocabulary: Little, Church, Polish. We can dissect the history to see who added the link, but does anyone watching this page have an insight into this name that they would share with us? --Jerzy 20:21, 2004 Jan 30 (UTC)

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Title Consensus?

IMO, the preceding suggests agreement (even if the justifications are not identical) that

1. the distinction between the Polish Zbor and Socinianism is significant enough that the articles should not be combined, and
2. a change to Polish Brethren (with
   1. Polish brethren and
   2. Frater Polonorum and
   3. perhaps Polish Zbor and/or
   4. Polski Zbor (if i have the adjective inflected correctly)

as links to it) would be the right step. (I emphasize, perhaps for the 2nd time, that this should not be accomplished by cutting and pasting into a new page, but by using the "Move this page" operation, which is more straightforward that those unfamiliar with it can imagine.) I don't care who does it, but IMO it's worth leaving it until there has been time to verify the consensus that i perceive.

Replacement for First Sentence

Someone (uh, me [blush]) mixed up the discussions of title and first sentence together, but by now IMO it is worth separating those two discussions.

For purposes of discussion (i.e., quite possibly with the result that someone says "no, that's too wrong to fix" and starts over), i propose the following:

The Polish Brethren (Polski Zbor in Polish and Frater Polonorum in Latin) were a Polish sect, part of the Socinian movement of Central Europe, from the mid-16^th to the mid-17^th century. Outsiders, especially their opponents, more often referred to them as the "Antytrynitarze" (anti-trinitarians, approximately), or the "Arianie" (Arians, referring to those who were persecuted, a millenium earlier, under that name because of similar theology). --Jerzy 20:59, 2004 Feb 4 (UTC)

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Hope for Delay in Discussing The Enlightenment

I don't intend this to be the explanation that the manifestly patient Cautious deserves, and hopes for in writing in a summary on The Enlightenment

(OK. No explanation for rv. Hope for some info soon)

I consider Cautious's lower profile notation among that article's links to be a very constructive response to my reversion (tho i hope we will find, before long, a longer text for less peripheral placement in the article).

I have made my "para-summary" remarks here rather than on Talk:The Enlightenment bcz i think the most timely step we can make twd whatever The Enlightenment should say abt Polish brethren and/or Socinianism, is making those two relevant articles fully accessible to those of us for whom the articles are all we know of Polish dissent before the Revolutionary-Etude. (Maybe, BTW, my speaking thus of "us" is an important time for me to say that my choice of the name Jerzy on WP involves no intent to suggest i have Polish ancestry or heritage; i hope my use of it is not offensive in that light.) Tho i prefer to avoid carrying on two concurrent discussions (here and there) that inevitably will require some things to be said both places, i am unlikely to be so stubborn as to refuse a request for more direct explanation, now, of major reasons for my reversion of the two-paragraph reverted passage that appears near the top of this page. (But a time should come, later, when i will need no urging to go into that.) --Jerzy 19:43, 2004 Jan 30 (UTC)

Spinowski

At the risk of opening the The Enlightenment discussion by asking a question abt what i moved here from there, did Baruch Spinoza's name have any relationship to that of the "Spinowski family"? (I know the W is silent only in English, but is its sound perhaps dispensible also in adapting a name to other languages than English?) --Jerzy 19:43, 2004 Jan 30 (UTC)

The Deluge

• 1 I believe this sentence should be amended, but as I’ve never posted on Wikipedia I don’t feel comfortable changing something. The sentence: “These men were exiled from Poland in 1658 after a series of 17th century wars known as The Deluge in which protestant Sweden invaded Poland, since they (as almost all non-Catholics) were commonly seen as Swedish collaborators.” cannot be historically accurate. As of 1660 Catholics didn’t even comprise 50% of the population (N Davies God’s Playground). Jews, the Orthodox and the Uniates all had nothing in common with the religion of the Lutheran Swedes. That they would be seen as collaborators because of their religion in the context of the 2nd Northern War is hard to believe. I think that the phrase “as almost all non-Catholics” should be removed.

The rest of the sentence is equally muddled. In 1658 all the Arians were expelled from the entire Commonwealth, not just Poland, and it was done by both Protestant and Catholic parliamentary deputies. (D. Stone's work cited below.)

• 2 Also Daniel Stone in The Polish-Lithuanian State, 1386-1795 has this to say about private property. “Early enthusiasts challenged the legitimacy of private property, but most Polish Brethren accepted the existing social system and satisfied their Christian conscience by treating serfs and other commoners humanely. “ God’s Playground re: private property, mentions only Marcin Czechowicz’s Chirstian Conversations where he preached “the wickedness of private property” and their commune at Raków.

67.149.177.238 (talk) 23:33, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

But they _were_ seen as Sweedish collaborators. You may argue that they were choosen because of guilt complex, since pretty much every religion collaborated with Swedes. Nevertheless The deluge was very sharp and distinct edge between earlier toleration policies and later attitudes. You know what, by tomorrow I will bring some quotations. Szopen (talk) 08:23, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

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