Floryan Jaroszewicz, The Old Errors of Worldly Wisdom Against Restraint [1771]

Description

The Old Errors of Worldly Wisdom Against Virginal, Widowly, Priestly, and Monastic Chastity, Revived by Freethinkers […] and Presented to Orthodox Catholics […].

Floryan Jaroszewicz, of the S.O.F.R. Order, Lecturer in Theology. Lviv, Holy Trinity Press, 1771. [4] leaves, 226, [1] pages. Size: 20 cm. Early printed book.

In 1771, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth stood on the brink of the Partitions—the Bar Confederation had been formed a year earlier, and the First Partition would take place a year later. During this politically and religiously turbulent time, one of the last works by Floryan Jaroszewicz—a Reformed Franciscan, hagiographer, and theologian, who ended his long and prolific life that same year. Jaroszewicz (c. 1694–1771), born near Sokal, spent his childhood at the court of Krystyna Potocka, née Lubomirska. In 1710, he joined the Reformed Franciscans, and in 1720, he was ordained a priest. He successively served as guardian, lecturer in rhetoric, philosophy, and theology, secretary of the Lesser Poland Province, custodian, and general archivist of the monasteries of the Lesser Poland Province. He is best known as the author of the monumental hagiography *The Mother of Polish Saints* (1767), in which he described the lives of 399 saints, blessed, and devout Polish men and women. “The Old Errors of Worldly Wisdom” is a work written toward the end of his life—a polemical moral treatise in which the author, from the standpoint of Catholic orthodoxy, refutes the arguments of freethinkers who question the ideals of moderation and religious life, addressed directly to “orthodox Catholics” as a defense of traditional values in an era of growing Enlightenment skepticism.

This copy bears a stamp from the Library of the Chełm Theological Seminary—an Orthodox institution operating in Chełm from 1875 to 1915—on the title page, inside the book, and on the last page; which was founded on the initiative of Archbishop Leoncjusz in the year of the final dissolution of the Uniate diocese, as part of the Russification policy in the territories under Russian rule. This coincidence has an almost symbolic dimension: Floryan Jaroszewicz died in Chełm in 1771—the very same city where his book had been housed for decades in the collection of an Orthodox institution. The antique print by a Catholic Franciscan in the library of an Orthodox seminary is a testament to the turbulent history of the Chełm region, a borderland of cultures and faiths.

This copy is in very good condition—it has not undergone any conservation treatment, which attests to its careful preservation over more than two and a half centuries.

A full-leather bibliophile’s binding, handcrafted from the finest materials by master craftsmen at the Antykwariat Polski bookbindery. Brown pebbled leather, richly decorated with gold-embossed patterns on the spine and covers, featuring headbands and a title label on the spine. Hand-marbled endpapers in shades of gray and brown with a yellow pebble motif. Hand-sewn headband.