Argument „zmysłowy” w siedemnastowiecznych prawosławnych kazaniach w Rzeczypospolitej

The “alphabet of senses” topos, popular in Polish Baroque literature, was also frequent in Ukrainian composition of the same period. It was very trendy those days to use strategies based on the compositive scheme of five elements enumeration, which is perfectly illustrated by sacramental commentaries of confirmation and anointing of the sick. Preachers like poets, tried to trigger the sensual imagination of arecipient, so that he could see, hear, taste and even smell the scent of both the infernal pit and heavenly meadow. Threatening bodily torments, luring sensory pleasures pastors were probably guided by the hope of effectiveness and spiritual benefit that comes from the persuasive power of these carefully selected “sense arguments.”