a sect so called from Faustus Socinus, who died in Poland in
1604. This celebrated man was born in Tuscany, and was descended from an
ancient and noble family. In the earlier period of his life he devoted
little time to literary acquisitions, but he was possessed of a vigorous
understanding, and of that steady fortitude which qualified him for the
memorable part which he afterward acted. His connection with his uncle
Lælius probably gave a bias to his mind with respect to religion. He
warmly embraced his tenets, and he spent a great part of his days in
studying and disseminating them. Having left his native country, he
visited Poland; and finally he settled in it for the express purpose of
propagating his own peculiar views of religious truth. The fundamental
principles which he assumed were, the rejection of all mystery from
revelation, and the necessity of trying its doctrines by the light of
reason; and he rigorously applied this latter maxim in conducting his
theological investigations. He inculcated in the strictest sense, the
unity of God; considered the Word and the Holy Ghost as attributes of
the supreme Being; taught that Christ was a man peculiarly honoured by
the Almighty, having been born through the operation of the Spirit; and
that he was so highly exalted, in consequence of his office as the
Saviour of the world, that he might be styled the Son of God, and ought
to be worshipped. Struck with several declarations of our Lord which
seemed to imply that he had descended from heaven, and which militated
against his leading tenet respecting Jesus, he endeavoured to evade the
application of them, by supposing or affirming that, previous to the
commencement of our Saviour’s ministry, he had, through the power of
God, been taken up to the celestial regions, and had in them received
from the Almighty the truths which he was commissioned to reveal.
The first reception of Socinus in Poland, even by those who might have
been expected to welcome him, was most discouraging. The Unitarian
churches which had been previously established in that kingdom,
differing from him in several points, would not admit him into their
communion; and he had to encounter the enmity of the great majority of
Christians, who abhorred his tenets, and branded them as impious. But,
notwithstanding all this, and although he was visited with much
suffering and affliction, his perseverance, his talents, and his zeal
soon excited admiration; his views were adopted by many even in the
highest stations of life; his principles were embodied in a catechism,
which, though not imposed upon his followers, they read with very
extensive acquiescence; and he had the satisfaction of beholding the
sentiments which he had long cherished, embraced by various churches
enjoying the protection of government, and permitted to establish
seminaries of education by which the impression made on the public mind
might be preserved and deepened. There was not, however, perfect
unanimity of faith among all his associates who united in denying the
divinity of our Lord. Vast numbers of these, previous to their having
perused the papers of Lælius Socinus, had so far received the system of
Arianism, that they believed Christ to have existed before he entered
into the world; and although many, in consequence of the reasonings and
representations of Socinus, abandoned this doctrine, it was retained by
some, who, from their leader, were called Farnovians. Socinus conducted
himself toward these men with admirable address. Fully aware that the
tendency of their having departed so far from the orthodox tenets was to
lead them to still farther recession, and sensible that his own system
naturally and consequentially resulted from what they readily admitted,
he used every method to conciliate them, and he permitted them to remain
with his followers, upon condition of their not openly insisting on the
preëxistence of Christ. They did, however, at length separate from the
great body of his adherents; but they gradually approached nearer and
nearer to them, and, upon the death of Farnovius, most of them
incorporated themselves with the Socinians, and all trace of them as a
distinct party was obliterated.
Socinus was much more agitated by the promulgation of an opinion very
opposite to those now mentioned. As might have been anticipated, there
were some who, having adopted the sentiments of Lælius Socinus as to the
simple humanity of Christ, deduced from this tenet consequences which
appeared to them obviously to flow from it, although these had not been
perceived or admitted by Lælius himself. A striking example of this took
place in the time of Faustus Socinus. Francis David, a man of
considerable influence among the Unitarians, being the superintendent of
their churches in Transylvania, maintained that, as Christ was born just
like other men, so he continued, notwithstanding his exaltation, to be
merely a human being; and that therefore all invocation of him, and
worship paid to him, were to be shunned as impiety or idolatry. Socinus
inveighed with the utmost warmth against this opinion; he used every
method to induce David to renounce it; and, at the desire of one of his
friends, he resided for a considerable time at the house of his
opponent, that the subject at issue might be fully and calmly discussed.
He failed, however, in accomplishing his object. David persisted, as he
had, upon the ground which he had taken, good reason to do, in asserting
the doctrine which he had announced; and he was soon after this thrown
by the prince of Transylvania into prison, where he lingered for several
years, and then died at an advanced age. It has been insinuated that
Socinus was accessary to this cruel deed of detestable persecution; and,
although attempts have been made to wipe off the imputation, there is
too much cause to think that it is not wholly unfounded. Most certain it
is, that he had it much at heart to root out what he viewed as the
heresy of David, and that the support of it after the death of the
unhappy sufferer by some distinguished Unitarians gave him much
uneasiness. It is not unlikely that the zeal which he thus displayed
arose from his apprehension that the tenets which he opposed would
supplant his own, and from the difficulty that he must have experienced
in turning aside the inferences which were affirmed to follow from what
he admitted. If such was the case, and it seems in many respects more
probable than the conjecture of Mosheim, that it is to be attributed to
the dread of rendering the sect more odious than it actually was, we
have a striking proof of his discernment, though at the expense of his
candour; for the present creed of Unitarianism approaches much nearer to
that of David than to the doctrines of the founder of Socinianism
himself.
But, while he was thus disquieted by opposition which, after the liberty
with which he had himself departed from the faith of the most ancient
and numerous Christian churches, should have created no surprise, he was
highly gratified by the zeal and the establishment of his followers.
Under the protection of the ample toleration which they enjoyed in
Poland they were sedulous in their attempts to imprint their tenets upon
those among whom they lived, and to send these tenets abroad to foreign
nations. The Anti-trinitarians in Poland had early translated the
Scriptures, and their successors under Socinus composed many works with
the design of defending the principles of their faith. They also sent
missionaries to propagate their views and to disseminate the books which
supported them, anticipating success similar to that which had
accompanied their efforts in Transylvania. But in Hungary and in Austria
they were successfully opposed by the united and cordial efforts of
Catholics and Protestants. In Holland they were more fortunate; and in
England they established only one congregation, which differed in some
points from the parent sect, and which soon dwindled away.
These failures, which the ardour, the ability, and the high rank of many
who engaged in the diffusion of Socinianism were unable to prevent, were
soon followed by their expulsion from the country in which they had so
long remained in security and peace. Toward the middle of the
seventeenth century some of the students attending the academy at Racow,
wantonly insulted the feelings and the principles of the Catholics, by a
contemptible act of outrage against a crucifix, which, with stones, they
threw down from the place in which it had been erected. By men warmly
attached to their own religion, and who had at all times regarded the
Socinians as undermining its foundation, this youthful excess was
represented as confirming all the charges that had been made against the
community to which the perpetrators belonged, and they determined to
exert themselves to procure their punishment or extirpation. The
supporters of the established religion accordingly applied to the diet
at Warsaw; and, notwithstanding the powerful influence used in favour of
the Socinians, a cruel edict was passed, abolishing their academy at
Racow, banishing the learned men who had taught in it, breaking the
printing presses, and shutting up the churches. This edict was carried
into effect with much severity; but it did not exhaust the enmity now
cherished against the sect; for within a few years after, by a solemn
act of the Polish diet, they were banished from the territories of the
republic, and, with sad departure from the tolerant and beneficent
spirit of the Gospel, death was denounced against all who held their
opinions, or who even sheltered and protected those who entertained
them. A short time was allowed to the unfortunate victims to arrange
their affairs before they bade an eternal adieu to scenes which all the
ties of human life must have endeared to them; but this period was
abridged. Some, however, had escaped the operation of the law, and had
remained in Poland; but three years after the edict was renewed, and the
Socinians who still lingered in their beloved country were driven from
it with a rigour and an inhumanity reflecting infamy upon those who were
guilty of them, and leading to the most melancholy reflections upon that
dismal perversion of all that is amiable in our nature, which has so
often been effected by a mistaken zeal for a religion breathing the
tenderest concern for the happiness of mankind. The principles of
Socinus were, notwithstanding, secretly fostered, and various causes
tended to perpetuate them even where in profession they were abjured.
The propensity, so natural to man, of dissipating every shade of
mystery, and casting the light of his own understanding around the
subjects of his contemplation, did not cease to operate; and the
application of this principle, so gratifying to the pride of human
reason, carried many farther than even Socinus had probably anticipated.
The Socinians hold, that Jesus Christ was a mere man, who had no
existence before he was born of the virgin Mary; that the Holy Ghost is
no distinct person; but that the Father only is truly and properly God.
They own that the name of God is given in Scripture to Jesus Christ, but
contend that it is only a deputed title; which, however, invests him
with a great authority over all creatures. They deny the doctrine of
satisfaction and imputed righteousness, and say, that Christ only
preached the truth to mankind, set before them in himself an example of
heroic virtue, and sealed his doctrines with his blood. Original sin
they esteem a mere scholastic chimera. Some of them, likewise, maintain
the sleep of the soul, which, they say, becomes insensible at death, and
is raised again with the body at the resurrection, when the good shall
be established in the possession of eternal felicity, while the wicked
shall be consigned to a fire that will torment them, not eternally, but
for a certain duration, proportioned to their demerits.
1604. This celebrated man was born in Tuscany, and was descended from an
ancient and noble family. In the earlier period of his life he devoted
little time to literary acquisitions, but he was possessed of a vigorous
understanding, and of that steady fortitude which qualified him for the
memorable part which he afterward acted. His connection with his uncle
Lælius probably gave a bias to his mind with respect to religion. He
warmly embraced his tenets, and he spent a great part of his days in
studying and disseminating them. Having left his native country, he
visited Poland; and finally he settled in it for the express purpose of
propagating his own peculiar views of religious truth. The fundamental
principles which he assumed were, the rejection of all mystery from
revelation, and the necessity of trying its doctrines by the light of
reason; and he rigorously applied this latter maxim in conducting his
theological investigations. He inculcated in the strictest sense, the
unity of God; considered the Word and the Holy Ghost as attributes of
the supreme Being; taught that Christ was a man peculiarly honoured by
the Almighty, having been born through the operation of the Spirit; and
that he was so highly exalted, in consequence of his office as the
Saviour of the world, that he might be styled the Son of God, and ought
to be worshipped. Struck with several declarations of our Lord which
seemed to imply that he had descended from heaven, and which militated
against his leading tenet respecting Jesus, he endeavoured to evade the
application of them, by supposing or affirming that, previous to the
commencement of our Saviour’s ministry, he had, through the power of
God, been taken up to the celestial regions, and had in them received
from the Almighty the truths which he was commissioned to reveal.
The first reception of Socinus in Poland, even by those who might have
been expected to welcome him, was most discouraging. The Unitarian
churches which had been previously established in that kingdom,
differing from him in several points, would not admit him into their
communion; and he had to encounter the enmity of the great majority of
Christians, who abhorred his tenets, and branded them as impious. But,
notwithstanding all this, and although he was visited with much
suffering and affliction, his perseverance, his talents, and his zeal
soon excited admiration; his views were adopted by many even in the
highest stations of life; his principles were embodied in a catechism,
which, though not imposed upon his followers, they read with very
extensive acquiescence; and he had the satisfaction of beholding the
sentiments which he had long cherished, embraced by various churches
enjoying the protection of government, and permitted to establish
seminaries of education by which the impression made on the public mind
might be preserved and deepened. There was not, however, perfect
unanimity of faith among all his associates who united in denying the
divinity of our Lord. Vast numbers of these, previous to their having
perused the papers of Lælius Socinus, had so far received the system of
Arianism, that they believed Christ to have existed before he entered
into the world; and although many, in consequence of the reasonings and
representations of Socinus, abandoned this doctrine, it was retained by
some, who, from their leader, were called Farnovians. Socinus conducted
himself toward these men with admirable address. Fully aware that the
tendency of their having departed so far from the orthodox tenets was to
lead them to still farther recession, and sensible that his own system
naturally and consequentially resulted from what they readily admitted,
he used every method to conciliate them, and he permitted them to remain
with his followers, upon condition of their not openly insisting on the
preëxistence of Christ. They did, however, at length separate from the
great body of his adherents; but they gradually approached nearer and
nearer to them, and, upon the death of Farnovius, most of them
incorporated themselves with the Socinians, and all trace of them as a
distinct party was obliterated.
Socinus was much more agitated by the promulgation of an opinion very
opposite to those now mentioned. As might have been anticipated, there
were some who, having adopted the sentiments of Lælius Socinus as to the
simple humanity of Christ, deduced from this tenet consequences which
appeared to them obviously to flow from it, although these had not been
perceived or admitted by Lælius himself. A striking example of this took
place in the time of Faustus Socinus. Francis David, a man of
considerable influence among the Unitarians, being the superintendent of
their churches in Transylvania, maintained that, as Christ was born just
like other men, so he continued, notwithstanding his exaltation, to be
merely a human being; and that therefore all invocation of him, and
worship paid to him, were to be shunned as impiety or idolatry. Socinus
inveighed with the utmost warmth against this opinion; he used every
method to induce David to renounce it; and, at the desire of one of his
friends, he resided for a considerable time at the house of his
opponent, that the subject at issue might be fully and calmly discussed.
He failed, however, in accomplishing his object. David persisted, as he
had, upon the ground which he had taken, good reason to do, in asserting
the doctrine which he had announced; and he was soon after this thrown
by the prince of Transylvania into prison, where he lingered for several
years, and then died at an advanced age. It has been insinuated that
Socinus was accessary to this cruel deed of detestable persecution; and,
although attempts have been made to wipe off the imputation, there is
too much cause to think that it is not wholly unfounded. Most certain it
is, that he had it much at heart to root out what he viewed as the
heresy of David, and that the support of it after the death of the
unhappy sufferer by some distinguished Unitarians gave him much
uneasiness. It is not unlikely that the zeal which he thus displayed
arose from his apprehension that the tenets which he opposed would
supplant his own, and from the difficulty that he must have experienced
in turning aside the inferences which were affirmed to follow from what
he admitted. If such was the case, and it seems in many respects more
probable than the conjecture of Mosheim, that it is to be attributed to
the dread of rendering the sect more odious than it actually was, we
have a striking proof of his discernment, though at the expense of his
candour; for the present creed of Unitarianism approaches much nearer to
that of David than to the doctrines of the founder of Socinianism
himself.
But, while he was thus disquieted by opposition which, after the liberty
with which he had himself departed from the faith of the most ancient
and numerous Christian churches, should have created no surprise, he was
highly gratified by the zeal and the establishment of his followers.
Under the protection of the ample toleration which they enjoyed in
Poland they were sedulous in their attempts to imprint their tenets upon
those among whom they lived, and to send these tenets abroad to foreign
nations. The Anti-trinitarians in Poland had early translated the
Scriptures, and their successors under Socinus composed many works with
the design of defending the principles of their faith. They also sent
missionaries to propagate their views and to disseminate the books which
supported them, anticipating success similar to that which had
accompanied their efforts in Transylvania. But in Hungary and in Austria
they were successfully opposed by the united and cordial efforts of
Catholics and Protestants. In Holland they were more fortunate; and in
England they established only one congregation, which differed in some
points from the parent sect, and which soon dwindled away.
These failures, which the ardour, the ability, and the high rank of many
who engaged in the diffusion of Socinianism were unable to prevent, were
soon followed by their expulsion from the country in which they had so
long remained in security and peace. Toward the middle of the
seventeenth century some of the students attending the academy at Racow,
wantonly insulted the feelings and the principles of the Catholics, by a
contemptible act of outrage against a crucifix, which, with stones, they
threw down from the place in which it had been erected. By men warmly
attached to their own religion, and who had at all times regarded the
Socinians as undermining its foundation, this youthful excess was
represented as confirming all the charges that had been made against the
community to which the perpetrators belonged, and they determined to
exert themselves to procure their punishment or extirpation. The
supporters of the established religion accordingly applied to the diet
at Warsaw; and, notwithstanding the powerful influence used in favour of
the Socinians, a cruel edict was passed, abolishing their academy at
Racow, banishing the learned men who had taught in it, breaking the
printing presses, and shutting up the churches. This edict was carried
into effect with much severity; but it did not exhaust the enmity now
cherished against the sect; for within a few years after, by a solemn
act of the Polish diet, they were banished from the territories of the
republic, and, with sad departure from the tolerant and beneficent
spirit of the Gospel, death was denounced against all who held their
opinions, or who even sheltered and protected those who entertained
them. A short time was allowed to the unfortunate victims to arrange
their affairs before they bade an eternal adieu to scenes which all the
ties of human life must have endeared to them; but this period was
abridged. Some, however, had escaped the operation of the law, and had
remained in Poland; but three years after the edict was renewed, and the
Socinians who still lingered in their beloved country were driven from
it with a rigour and an inhumanity reflecting infamy upon those who were
guilty of them, and leading to the most melancholy reflections upon that
dismal perversion of all that is amiable in our nature, which has so
often been effected by a mistaken zeal for a religion breathing the
tenderest concern for the happiness of mankind. The principles of
Socinus were, notwithstanding, secretly fostered, and various causes
tended to perpetuate them even where in profession they were abjured.
The propensity, so natural to man, of dissipating every shade of
mystery, and casting the light of his own understanding around the
subjects of his contemplation, did not cease to operate; and the
application of this principle, so gratifying to the pride of human
reason, carried many farther than even Socinus had probably anticipated.
The Socinians hold, that Jesus Christ was a mere man, who had no
existence before he was born of the virgin Mary; that the Holy Ghost is
no distinct person; but that the Father only is truly and properly God.
They own that the name of God is given in Scripture to Jesus Christ, but
contend that it is only a deputed title; which, however, invests him
with a great authority over all creatures. They deny the doctrine of
satisfaction and imputed righteousness, and say, that Christ only
preached the truth to mankind, set before them in himself an example of
heroic virtue, and sealed his doctrines with his blood. Original sin
they esteem a mere scholastic chimera. Some of them, likewise, maintain
the sleep of the soul, which, they say, becomes insensible at death, and
is raised again with the body at the resurrection, when the good shall
be established in the possession of eternal felicity, while the wicked
shall be consigned to a fire that will torment them, not eternally, but
for a certain duration, proportioned to their demerits.