Alexander Gordon

“ A charge of the gravest sort against Blandrata's morals had destroyed his influence with Dávid. Hence he called in Sozzini to reason with Dávid, who had renounced the worship of Christ. In Sozzini's scheme of doctrine, terms in themselves orthodox were employed in a heretical sense. Thus Christ was God, though in nature purely human, namely as un Dio subalterno, al quale in un dato tempo il Dio supremo cedette il governo del mondo (Cantù) . ”

“ Sozzini considered that his ablest work was his Contra atheos, which perished in the riot at Cracow (1598) . Later he began, but left incomplete, more than one work designed to exhibit his system as a whole. His reputation as a thinker must rest upon (1) his De auctoritate s. scripturae (1570) and (2) his De Jesu Christo servatore (1578) . The former was first published (Seville, 1588) by Lopez, a Jesuit, who claimed it as his own, but prefixed a preface maintaining (contrary to a fundamental position of Sozzini) that man by nature has a knowledge of God. ”

“ SOCINUS, the latinized form of the Italian Sozini, Sozzini or Soccini, a name born by two Italian theologians.
I. Lelio Francesco Maria Sozini (1525–1562) was born at Siena on the 29th of January 1525. His family descended from Sozzo, a banker at Percena, whose second son, Mino Sozzi, settled as a notary at Siena in 1304. Mino Sozzi's grandson, Sozzino (d. 1403) , was ancestor of a line of patrician jurists and canonists, Mariano Sozzini senior (1397–1467) being the first and the most famous, and traditionally regarded as the first freethinker in the family. ”

“ The spectacle of the adoration of the pope at Bologna impressed him strongly in an anti-papal direction. He left Quintana, visited Lyons and Geneva, repaired to Oecolampadius at Basel, and pushed on to Bucer and Capito at Strassburg. Considerable attention was attracted by his first publication, De Trinitatis erroribus (1531, printed by John Setzer at Hagenau) . It is crude, but original and earnest, and shows a wide range of reading very remarkable in so young a man. ”

“ SERVETUS, MICHAEL [Miguel Serveto] (1511-1553) , physician and polemic, was born in 1511 [1] at Tudela in Navarre, his father being Hernando Villanueva, a notary of good family in Aragon. His surname is given by himself as “Serveto” in his early works, “per Michaelem Serueto, alias Reues.” Later he Latinized it “Servetus”; when writing French (1553) he signs “Michel Seruetus.” [2] It is probable that he was of the same family as the Spanish ecclesiastic Marco Antonio Serveto de Reves (d. 1598) , born at Villanueva de Sigena in the diocese of Huesca (Latassa, Bibl. nuevo, 1798, i. 609) . ”

“ Mutian was a man of great influence in a select circle especially connected with the university of Erfurt, and known as the Mutianischer Bund, which included Eoban Hess, Crotus Rubeanus, Justus Jonas and other leaders of independent thought. He had no public ambition; except in correspondence, and as an epigrammatist, he was no writer, but he furnished ideas to those who wrote. He may deserve the title which has been given him as “precursor of the Reformation,” in so far as he desired the reform of the Church, but not the establishment of a rival. ”

“ Beza also assigned to him (in 1567) an anonymous Explicatio (1562) of the proem of St John's Gospel, which was the work of Fausto; this error, adopted by Zanchi, has been a chief source of the misconception which treats Lelio as a heresiarch. In Franc Guinio's Defensio cath. doct. de S. Trin. (1590-1591) is an anonymous enumeratio of motives for professing the doctrine of the Trinity, by some ascribed to Lelio; by others, with somewhat more probability, to Fausto.
For the life of L. Sozini the best guide is Trechsel, Die prot. antitrin. vor F. Socin, vol. ii. (1844) ”

“ Carnesecchi, who had known Valdes at Rome as "a modest and well-bred courtier," found him at Naples (1540) "wholly intent upon the study of Holy Scripture," translating portions into Spanish from Hebrew and Greek, with comments and introductions. To him Carnesecchi ascribes his own adoption of the Evangelical doctrine of justification by faith, and at the same time his rejection of the policy of the Lutheran schism. Valdes died at Naples in May 1541. ”

“ He ineffectually resisted the efforts of the Calvinists, led by Caspar Olevianus, to introduce the Presbyterian polity and discipline, which were established at Heidelberg in 1570, on the Genevan model. One of the first acts of the new church system was to excommunicate Erastus on a charge of Socinianism, founded on his correspondence with Transylvania. The ban was not removed till 1575, Erastus declaring his firm adhesion to the doctrine of the Trinity. His position, however, was uncomfortable, and in 1580 he returned to Basel, where in 1583 he was made professor of ethics. ”

“ ERASTUS, THOMAS (1524–1583) , German-Swiss theologian, whose surname was Lüber, Lieber, or Liebler, was born of poor parents on the 7th of September 1524, probably at Baden, canton of Aargau, Switzerland. In 1540 he was studying theology at Basel. The plague of 1544 drove him to Bologna and thence to Padua as student of philosophy and medicine. In 1553 he became physician to the count of Henneberg, Saxe-Meiningen, and in 1558 held the same post with the elector-palatine, Otto Heinrich, being at the same time professor of medicine at Heidelberg. ”

“ Duke John of Saxony had placed him on the commission for church visitation in Thuringia, and in 1529 appointed him pastor and superintendent at Eisenach, where for eighteen years he administered church affairs with tact, and fostered the spread of education. In 1529 he brought out his Oeconomia christiana (a treatise in German, on the right ordering of a Christian household) with a dedication to the duchess Sybil of Saxony and a preface by Luther. His tractate, written in concert with Myconius, controverting Der Wiedertäufer Lehre und Geheimniss (1530) was also prefaced by Luther. ”

“ A severe illness wrought a change; he married his mistress, Claude Desnoz, and joined the church of Calvin at Geneva (October 1548) . In November 1549 he was appointed Greek professor at Lausanne, where he acted as Calvin’s adjutant in various publications, including his defence of the burning of Servetus, De Haereticis a civili magistratu puniendis (1554) . In 1558 he became professor in the Geneva academy, where his career was brilliant. ”

“ Evidently Servetus had warning that if he went to Geneva it was at his peril. Writing to Abel Pouppin (in or about 1547) he complains that Calvin would not return his manuscript, and adds, “mihi ob eam rem moriendum esse certo scio.” The volume of theological tracts, again recast, was declined by two Basel publishers, Jean Frellon (at Calvin's instance) and Marrinus, but an edition of 1000 copies was secretly printed at Vienna by Balthasar Arnollet. Ready by the 3rd of January 1553, the bulk of the impression was privately consigned to Lyons and Frankfort for the Easter market. ”

“ He was a prolific writer, largely of overgrown pamphlets, harsh and furious. His more serious efforts retain no permanent value. With humanist convictions, he had little of the humanist spirit. We owe to him one of the few contemporary notices of the young Servetus. ”

“ Others were not so fortunate. In 1529 a congregation of unlettered adherents at Toledo was visited with scourging and imprisonment. Greater rigours followed, and for about a century the alumbrados afforded many victims to the Inquisition, especially at Cordova. The movement (under the name of Illuminés) seems to have reached France from Seville in 1623, and attained some proportions in Picardy when joined (1634) by Pierre Guérin, curé of Saint-Georges de Roye, whose followers, known as Guérinets, were suppressed in 1635 (Hermant, Hist. des hérésies, 1717) . ”

“ At Vienna is an unpublished commentary in Spanish on Psalms i.-xli.
(13) Sand mentions a commentary on St John’s Gospel, not known to exist.
Notices of Valdes in Sand (Biblioth. Antitrinitar, 1684) , Bayle and Wallace (Antitrin. Biog., 1850) are inadequate. Revival of interest in him is due to McCrie (Hist. Ref. in Italy, 1827; Hist. Ref. in Spain, 1829) . Fuller knowledge of his career was opened up by Benjamin B. Wiffen, whose Life of Valdes is prefixed to Betts’s translation of the Considerations, 1865. Discoveries have since been made in the Aulic Library, Vienna, by Dr Edward Boehmer ”

“ It is futile to deduce the name from the Libertines of Acts vi. 9; these were “sons of freedmen,” for it is vain to make them citizens of an imaginary Libertum, or to substitute (with Beza) Libustines, in the sense of inhabitants of Libya. In a sense akin to the modern use of the term “libertine,” i.e. a person who sets the rules of morality, &c., at defiance, the word seems first to have been applied, as a stigma, to Anabaptists in the Low Countries (Mark Pattison, Essays, ii. 38) . ”

“ RIBADENEIRA, PEDRO A. (1527–1611) , hagiologist, was born at Toledo on the 1st of November 1527. As a lad he repaired to Rome for study, and there on the 18th.of September 1540 was admitted by Ignatius Loyola, in his thirteenth year, as one of the Society of (Jesus, which had not yet received papal sanction. He pursued his studies at Paris (1542) in philosophy and theology. Loyola, in 1555, sent him on a mission to Belgium; in pursuance of it he visited England in 1558. ”

“ In 1558-1559 the suspicion of Lutheranism fell on him in common with his uncles Celso and Camillo. Coming of age (1561) he went to Lyons, probably engaging in mercantile business; he revisited Italy after his uncle Lelio's death; we find him in 1562 on the roll of the Italian church at Geneva ”

“ He lost favour with Duke John Frederic of Saxony, fell into bad health, was deposed (1555) from his offices, and was disappointed in his hopes of being reinstated after the colloquy at Eisenach (1556) . He died at Leipzig on the 11th of August 1558. He was twice married, and had several sons, of whom Eusebius held a chair of philosophy at Wittenberg, and married Melanchthon’s grand-daughter, Anna Sabinus. Schmidt gives a full bibliography of the numerous writings of Menius, who translated several of Luther’s biblical commentaries into German. ”

“ It is too much to call him “the first of German historians”; he is a forerunner of Gottfried Arnold, with more vigour and directness of purpose. Driven from Strassburg by the authorities, after a short imprisonment in December 1531, he tried to make a living in 1532 as a soapboiler at Esslingen, removing in 1533 for a better market to Ulm, where (October 28, 1534) he was admitted as a burgess. ”

“ BEZA (de Bèsze) , THEODORE (1519–1605) , French theologian, son of bailli Pierre de Bèsze, was born at Vezelai, Burgundy, on the 24th of June 1519. Of good descent, his parents were known for generous piety. ”

“ In 1558 he found it expedient to remove to Poland, where he became a leader of the heretical party at the synods of Pinczów (1558) and Ksionzh (1560 and 1562) . His point was the suppression of extremes of opinion, on the basis of a confession literally drawn from Scripture. He obtained the position of court physician to the queen dowager, the Milanese Bona Sforza. She had been instrumental in the burning (1539) of Catharine Weygel, at the age of eighty, for anti-trinitarian opinions; but the writings of Ochino had altered her views, which were now anti-Catholic. ”

“ Calvin would have had him beheaded. Meanwhile the civil tribunal at Vienne had ordered (17th June) that he be fined and burned alive; the sentence of the ecclesiastical tribunal at Vienne was delayed till 23rd December. Jacques Charmier, a priest in Servetus's confidence, was condemned to three years' imprisonment in Vienne. The only likeness of Servetus is a small copperplate by C. Sichem, 1607 (often reproduced) ”

“ The scheme had its attraction for literary men, such as Goethe and Herder, and even for the reigning dukes of Gotha and Weimar. Internal rupture preceded its downfall, which was effected by an edict of the Bavarian government in 1785. Later, the title Illuminati was given to the French Martinists, founded in 1754 by Martinez Pasqualis, and to their imitators, the Russian Martinists, headed about 1790 by Professor Schwartz of Moscow ”

“ Antitrinitaires vor F. Socin, bk. 1. (1839) , uses all available material up to date. The investigations of H. Tollin, M.D. (forty separate articles in various journals, 1874 to 1885) have thrown much light, mixed with some conjecture. The records of the Geneva trial, first published by De la Roche, reproduced in Rilliet's Relation &c., (1844) , and elsewhere, are best given in vol. viii. (1870) of the Corpus reformatorum edition of Calvin's works ”

“ Vermigli (Peter Martyr) and Marcantonio Flaminio were leading spirits in his coterie, which included Vittoria Colonna and her sister-in-law, Giulia Gonzaga. On Ochino, for whose sermons he furnished themes, his influence was great. ”