Chimera w sporach o Trójcę Świętą w latach 60. XVI wieku (na przykładzie sylwy IV Andrzeja Trzecieskiego)

The article discusses the way in which the symbolism of chimera, a mythic monster from Lycia (with lion’s mouth, goat’s torso and serpent’s tail) slayed by Bellerophon, was used in Silva Rerum IV (In sophistats Serveticos et novorum arianorum faecem censurae catholicae, around 1565) by Andrzej Trzecieski junior. This work is also a testimony to the stormy disputes with Arianism followers which engaged Stanisław Orzechowski through, inter alia, a treatise known to Trzecieski, namely Chimaera sive de Stancari Fvnesta Regno Poloniae Secta (1562). The author of Sylvarum libri II undoubtedly based his work on Orzechowski’s piece, but referred to chimera in a different way. Chimera in Trzecieski’s view was used not as a direct attack against particular persons, to defend the papacy, the ecclesiastical power and king’s majesty, but above all to exemplify the heretics’ beliefs upon the Holy Trinity or the everlasting divinity of Christ, and to show the reasons for the heretics’ mistakes.