COMENIUS UND DAS JUDENTUM

The article analyses the attitude of John Amos Comenius to the Jews, Jewish culture and Freemasonry. In the mind of Comenius, Jews were constantly present as a people and as representatives of Judaism, Old Testament religion, what is evidenced by many passages from his texts. A very important aspect for understanding Comenius’ attitude towards Jews is, first of all, that he depicted Jews in his three main texts: Labyrinth of the World and Paradise of the Heart (1623, edited 1631), Orbis sensualium pictus (The Visible World in Pictures, 1658) and Consultatio catholica (General Consultation on an Improvement of All Things Human, 1666–1670). These three texts reflect three areas of Comenius’ activity: Baroque art, that is, art in general (Labyrinth of the World and Paradise of the Heart), didactics, that is, art of teaching (Orbis sensualium pictus) and philosophy, that is, art of an improvement of the world and human things (Consultatio catholica). The invitation to a dialogue in Consultatio catholica brings together Comenius’ ideas with Jewish philosophy of dialogue of the 20th century (Franz Rosenzweig and Martin Buber).