The aim of the book is analysis of the problem of history in the writings of one of the most well-known Polish Jesuits – Piotr Skarga (1536–1612). His extensive literary work contained numerous references to the history of the Church. Skarga consciously drew on the tradition of understanding history and literary conventions in the 16th century. Thus, the Jesuit took a predefined position on history – its scope, function and role. For Skarga, in fact, history was the second foundation, apart from Catholic teaching, for the expression of a relatively coherent and uniform vision of the world.The subject of the analysis are works from the entire almost forty-year period of the Jesuit's literary activity. The scope of the discussion includes both polemics with representatives of Eastern Christianity and dissenters, as well as sermons, motives, prayers and the popular Lives of Saints. The analysis is complemented by a chapter on the importance of rhetoric in creating a vision of history.Piotr Skarga consciously used the rules and assumptions of the ancient art of speech, as well as referred to the postulates of the 16th-century theologians. Their findings allowed him to treat each historical account as a story subject to persuasion.Detailed analysis proved that all the most important |