Manualník

Manualník aneb Jádro celé Biblí svaté.Summu všeho, co Bůh lidem 1.k věření vyjevil, 2. k činění poručil, 3. k očekávání zaslíbil, plně a jasně obsahující. Místo nové svíce sedícím ještě v temnostech zpuštění svého církve české ostatkům podané

The Handbook or Core of the whole Holy Bible. Fully and clearly containing the sum of all that God 1. publicly revealed, 2. recommended and 3. promised in expectation to mankind. In place of a new light still in darkness given to His Bohemian Church.

Origin of the work:
  1620 – 1623

Editions:
  1658 Amsterdam

1926 Brno, Veškeré spisy J. A. Komenského, vol.XVIII (7)

Contents:

For Comenius, the Bible, i.e. the Holy Scripture of both the Old and New Testaments, was a summary of the supreme divine knowledge. A true understanding of the texts of the Bible presumes a knowledge and an understanding of the earthly world. It was for this reason that Comenius worked up an encyclopaedia of affairs (the Theatrum universitatis rerum) and of extracts from the Bible (the Theatrum Scripturae). The material encyclopaedia could not be finished, and of the treatment of the Biblical texts is known under the name of the Manuálník or Handbook. In his working of the texts, Comenius strove above all for a clear and understandable expression to the user, for which reason he used the first and third editions of the Kralice translation into Czech, as well as the Latin translation for comparison. The educated or inquiring reader can, from the references given, find the relevant passages in the complete text of the Bible.

The first – now unknown – edition was arranged in Leszno, but the entire run was destroyed by fire; for the Amsterdam edition of 1658 Comenius set out the text anew.

For further study, see also:

Veškeré spisy J. A. Komenského, vol.XVIII. Brno 1926, ppIX-XXVII

Jan Kumpera, J. A. Komenský, poutník na rozhraní věků. Prague & Ostrava 1992, p264