„Rozum mój w poimanie wezmę”
“Rozum mój w poimanie wezmę [I shall capture my reason]”

Fideistic Scepticism in Kasper Wilkowski’s Conversion Testimony

Summary/Abstract: The article is an attempt at interpreting a literary testimony of a Lublin medic Kasper Wilkowski who in April 1583 abandoned the anti-Trinitarian community to join the Catholic one. Justification of the convert’s decision and fierce polemics with his old coreligionists is found in two works “Przyczyny nawrócenia do wiary powszechnej od sekt nowokrzczeńców samosateńskich” (“Reasons for Conversion to the Universal Faith from the Sect of Samosatene Anabaptists”, 1583) and “Dziesięć mocnych dowodów […] Edmunda Kampiana Societatis Iesu. Z łacińskiego na polski język z pilnością przetłumaczone […]. A przy tym na Antidotum kalwińskie odpowiedź i z nowokrzczeńcami rozprawa z strony »Przyczyn nawrócenia« Gaspra Wilkowskiego” („Ten Strong Reasons”, 1584). Both books are an expression of rejecting old mistakes and manifestation of belonging to the new religious community which, as often was the case of literature on conversion, becomes an indirect co-author of texts, and certainly a theological support to the argumentation they present. The dependency is visible not only in direct borrowings from Catholic polemists’ works (which was pointed out to Wilkowski by one of his chief adversary, Jan Niemojewski), but first and foremost in employing the logical schemes of fideistic scepticism vital for the then Jesuit controversy.

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