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In ancient Israel, the lack of winter rains was not only seen as an economic crisis, but also as a warning from God. Whenever the rainy season passed without rainfall, the sages proclaimed a public fast. Part 2 of the Mishnaic tractate Tacanit treatise deals in detail with the rituals that the patriarch, the president of the tribunal, the clergy and the members of the congregation were required to perform. The external ceremonies, such as the sprinkling of ashes on the ark, included various blessings which pointed to the real purpose of fasting: to set the heart back on the right path. The days of fasting, therefore, provide an opportunity to fulfil the prerequisites for conversion: confession and repentance of sins. The chapter also mentions the days on which fasting is expressly forbidden and those who are exempt from fasting in the strict sense. Lastly, because it was a matter of the repentance of the community, the sages also took care to ensure that thus traders did not fall into the sin of greed, and tried to exclude any attempts of abuse in business.

Die Griechischen Christlichen Schriftdsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte. Band 26. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2020, ISBN-10: 3110671360; ISBN-10: 3110671360, 237 old.

Der Para-Traktat der Mischna erklärt unter dem Titel die „Die rote Kuh“ die Bestimmun­gen bezüglich 4 Mose 19. Nach einer kurzen Einleitung folgt die Übersetzung von drei Kapi­teln mit kurzen Sacherklärungen. Dies ist die erste ungarische Übersetzung des Textes.

Doctor honoris causa címmel tüntették ki dr. Gánóczy Sándor emeritus professzort Kolozsváron.

The closing part of this study presents the most important dichotomic and trichotomic anthropological models from the era of Reformation (Erasmus, Calvin, Bullinger, the Confessio Helvetica Posterior, the Heidelberg Catechism, István Szegedi Kis) and provides a synthesis of the anthropological view of 20th century theology (Karl Barth, Wolfhart Pannenberg, Oscar Cullmann, Jenő Sebestyén, István Török, Botond Gaál, and others). The conclusion to the historical presentation is followed by an inquiry into the possibilities to apply the results of the anthropological investigations to other fields of theology.
Keywords: theological anthropology, dichotomy, trichotomy, body, soul, spirit, Erasmus, Cal­ vin, Bullinger, Heidelberg Catechism, Barth, Pannenberg.

This article is concerned with the question of dichotomy and trichotomy of the human person. Following an earlier semantic analysis of biblical terms (published in Református Szemle 105.3 (2015)), the present paper introduces the reader into the significance of theological anthropology for the most important authors of the Early Church.

In this paper we provide a short semantic analysis of the most important anthropological terms of the Bible. By this analysis we would like to point out that in the biblical anthropological view humans cannot be divided into either two or three parts, but they are unitary beings. What we call flesh (body), soul and spirit (or mind) are not independent substances but rather different aspects of manifestation of the same being. On the one side, we see that terms denoting the soul, body or spirit can also refer the whole man as well. On the other side, the Bible does not provide pure anthropology, because anthropology always appears in the context of other important topics of theology (hamartology, soteriology, etc.).

This article intends to present and evaluate the homiletical heritage of the great Hungarian representative of Puritanism, Pál Medgyesi. He wrote the first Hungarian manual on homiletics, entitled: Doce nos orare quin et praedicare. It is argued here that his method of writing a sermon presented in this manual provides a considerable support to improve the preaching of the Hungarian Reformed Church in the 21th century. This improvement is not to be achieved merely copying of his methodology but by the reflectively rethinking his theological-homiletical approach.

In this short paper we propose to present the teaching of the Bible concerning the love of our neighbours. Starting with Romans 13:10, where apostle Paul asserts that love is the fulfilling of the law, we analyse those biblical passages in which the traces of this topic can be found. We aim to show that both the Old and the New Testament highlights the importance of the love towards God and our neighbours. At the end of our survey we discuss this topic in the light of the threefold use of God’s Law.