Matthias Bel or Matthias Bél (German: Matthias Bel; Hungarian: Bél Mátyás; Slovak: Matej Bel; Latin: Matthias Belius; 22–24 March(?), 1684 – 29 August 1749) was a Lutheran pastor and polymath from the Kingdom of Hungary. Bel was active in the fields of pedagogy, philosophy, philology, history, and theoretical theology; he was the founder of Hungarian geographic science and a pioneer of descriptive ethnography and economy. A leading figure in pietism. He is also known as the Great Ornament of Hungary (Magnum decus Hungariae).
Early life Matthias Bel was born in Ocsova, Kingdom of Hungary (now Očová, Slovakia) to Matthias (Matej) Bel Funtík or Bel-Funtík, a Slovak wealthy peasant and butcher. Little is known about his Hungarian mother Elisabeth born Czesnek (Hungarian: Erzsébet Cseszneky, Slovak: Alžbeta Česneková) except that she was very religious and that she was born in Veszprém. He described himself as "lingua Slavus, natione Hungarus, eruditione Germanus" ("by language a Slav/Slovak, by nation a Hungarian, by erudition a German"). In 1710, he married an ethnic German woman from Hungary, Susanna Hermann, and the couple had eight children together. Bel attended schools in Losonc (now Lučenec), Kálnó (today Kalinovo) and Alsósztregova (today Dolná Strehová), and then grammar schools in Besztercebánya (today Banská Bystrica), Pressburg (Pozsony, today's Bratislava), and briefly in Veszprém and in the Calvinist college of Pápa. Between 1704 and 1706, he studied theology, philosophy, and medicine at the University of Halle and he was appointed rector at the school of Klosterbergen near Magdeburg after that. Later, returning to the Kingdom of Hungary, became an assistant rector and became afterwards the rector at the Lutheran grammar school in Besztercebánya (Banská Bystrica), where he was also simultaneously a pastor. As a Rákóczi-sympathisant, he was almost executed by General Sigbert Heister. Between 1714 and 1719, he was the rector of the Lutheran grammar school and then also a pastor of the German Lutheran church in Pressburg. He published his articles in the Latin language newspaper Nova Posoniensia, the first regular periodical in Hungary. In 1735 Bel drew up a proposal for the creation of a scientific academy, to be based in Pressburg. Bel spoke Slovak, Hungarian, and German, and his works had been published mostly in Latin, which were steeped in the Hungarian national consciousness as had been manifested for instance in his writing, the Notitia Hungariae novae historico geographica, which is an extolment of the Hungarian history, influenced by his deep affection for the Hungarian language. Bel died on 29 August 1749. He was buried in Pozsony, the cemetery has since then disappeared.
Work
Religious literature Bel was a translator, editor, publisher and distributor of several religious works. His long-term goal was to publish the Bible in a language intelligible to the community he served (that is, Biblical Czech used as a Church and literal language by Slovak Lutherans). In the preface for The New Testament (Halle, 1709), he emphasized that the Bible was already translated, but it is barely available among common people and even among preachers. Bel then participated on the re-edition of Bible of Kralice (Halle, 1722) during which he was responsible especially for the correction of Calvinisms. He also participated on publication of the Hungarian Bible (Leipzig, 1714) and of New Testament (Leipzig, 1717) and was the author of the preface for reprint of Sébastien Castellion's Latin New Testament (Leipzig, 1724 and 1735). He translated and published several influencing works like The Compendium of Christian Revelation (Johann Anastasius Freylinghausen, Hungarian translation), True Christianity (Johann Arndt, Czech translation supposed mainly for Slovaks), The Garden of Paradise (Johann Arndt, Hungarian and Czech translations).
Pedagogy As a teacher Bel wrote books, introduced natural science lessons, and emphasized the importance of using visual aid and experimental education. His methods spread and had a modernizing effect on the education system of the entirety of Hungary.
Linguistics As a philologist, Bel was the first to study the Hungarian runes and also contributed to the evolution of the Hungarian literary language. He revised and republished Gáspár Károli's Bible-translation. He wrote Hungarian, Latin and German grammars – in the latter he also reviewed the German communities and dialects in Hungary. His work as a translator and editor in the field of religious work is also copious. One of his notable writings is the Institutiones linguae Germanicae (Rules of the German grammar) written in Latin for Hungarians, of which special edition was published in Halle in 1730 for Hungarian students studying in Germany. He also wrote a popular book, "Der ungarische Sprachmeister" (Hungarian language master), on Hungarian grammar for Germans. He mistakenly suspected that the Hungarian language was relative of the Hebrew one. In the one work of him whose name is "Literatura Hunno-Scythica" published in 1718, Bél endeavoured to prove that there existed, at one time, a Hun-Scythian alphabet, of which he thought that that must have been known to the Székelys. In the introduction of Grammatica Slavico–Bohemica by Pavel Doležal, he commends biblical Czech as a language that positively influences cultivation of Slovak
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