Socinianism is a system of Christian doctrine named for Fausto Sozzini (Latin: Faustus Socinus), which was developed among the Polish Brethren in the Minor Reformed Church of Poland during the 15th and 16th centuries and embraced also by the Unitarian Church of Transylvania during the same period. It is most famous for its Nontrinitarian Christology but contains a number of other "unorthodox" beliefs as well.

Origins

The ideas of Socinianism date from the element of the Protestant Reformation known as the Radical Reformation, and have their root in the Italian Anabaptist movement of the 1540s, such as the Antitrinitarian Council of Venice in 1550. Lelio Sozzini was the first of the Italian Antitrinitarians to go beyond Arian beliefs in print and deny the pre-existence of Christ in his ''Brevis explicatio in primum Johannis caput'' - a commentary on the meaning of the Logos in John Chapter 1:1-15 (1562). Lelio Sozzini considered that the "Beginning" of John 1:1 was the same as 1 John 1:1 and referred to the new creation not the Genesis creation. His nephew Fausto Sozzini published his own longer ''Brevis explicatio'' later, developing his uncle's arguments. Many years after the death of his uncle in Switzerland Fausto Sozzini passed via the Unitarian Church in Transylvania, attempting to mediate in the dispute between Giorgio Biandrata and Ferenc Dávid, then moved to Poland, where he married the daughter of a leading member of the Polish Brethren, the anti-trinitarian minority, or ''ecclesia minor'', which had in 1565 split from the Calvinist Reformed Church in Poland. Sozzini never actually joined the ''ecclesia minor'', but was influential in reconciling several controversies among the Brethren - on conscientious objection, on prayer to Christ, and on the virgin birth. Fausto persuaded many in the Polish Brethren who were formerly Arian, such as Marcin Czechowic to adopt his uncle Lelio's views.

Fausto Sozzini was further influential through the posthumous Racovian Catechism which set out his uncle Lelio's views on Christology and replaced earlier catechisms of the ''Ecclesia Minor'', and also after his death through the writings of his students issued in Polish and Latin from the press of the Racovian Academy at Raków, Kielce County.

The name "Socinian" only started to be used in Holland and England as the Latin publications were circulated among early Arminians, Remonstrants, Dissenters, and early English Unitarians from the 1610s onward. In the 1660s Fausto Sozzini's grandson Andreas Wiszowaty and great-grandson Benedykt Wiszowaty published the nine-volume ''Biblioteca Fratrum Polonorum quos Unitarios vocant'' 1668 in Amsterdam, with the works of F. Sozzini, the Austrian Johann Ludwig von Wolzogen, the Poles Johannes Crellius, Jonasz Szlichtyng, and Samuel Przypkowski. These books circulated among thinkers like Isaac Newton, John Locke, Voltaire and Pierre Bayle.

In Britain and America "Socinianism" later became a catch-all term for any kind of Dissenting belief. Sources in the 18th and 19th century frequently attributed the term "Socinian" anachronistically, using it to refer to ideas which covered a much wider range from the narrowly defined position of the Racovian catechisms and library.

Beliefs

Socinian theology, as summarised in the Racovian Catechism, rejected the views of orthodox Christian theology on God's knowledge, on the doctrine of the Trinity and the divinity of Christ, and on soteriology.

Christology

The Racovian publications, like the Sozzinis, rejected the pre-existence of Christ and held that Jesus Christ did not exist until he was conceived of the virgin birth as a human being. This view had occurred before with the 4thC bishop Photinus, but differed both from the orthodox Protestant and Catholic view, which holds that Logos in John is God and therefore uncreated and eternal.

Human Nature

The Socinians held that humans were created mortal in the beginning and would have died naturally whether Adam and Eve had eaten from the tree or not. They also rejected the doctrine of original sin.

Atonement

Socinianism also rejected the propitiatory view of atonement.

Predestination and Omniscience

The Socinians believed that God's omniscience was limited to what was a necessary truth in the future (what would ''definitely'' happen), and did not apply to what was a contingent truth (what ''might'' happen). They believed that, if God knew every possible future, human free will was impossible; and as such rejected the "hard" view of omniscience.

Scepticism

Later writers such as Archibald Alexander Hodge (1823–1886) asserted that Socinian theology was rooted in skepticism. However the original Polish Socinians were believers in miracles, and the virgin birth, though there were a few radicals, such as Symon Budny and Jacobus Palaeologus, who denied these.

Conscientious objection

Although not directly a doctrinal belief, the principle of conscientious objection and the obedient relation of the believer to the state became a distinct position of "Socinianism" as it was formalized in the Racovian publications. Before F. Sozzini's arrival in Poland there had been a wide range of positions from the total otherworldiness, common property, and withdrawal from the state of Marcin Czechowic of Lublin through to the advocacy of military service by Symon Budny. The next generation of Polish Brethren stabilized between these two positions, carrying wooden swords to follow the letter of the law, and allowing senior Socinians such as Hieronim Moskorzowski to vote in the Sejm.

Offshoots of Socinians

The direct doctrinal descendants of the original Socinians are the Unitarian Christians of Transylvania and England. Although the Polish Brethren never adopted the name "Unitarian" while in Poland, when they were disbanded in 1658, those who fled to Holland eventually embraced the term "Unitarian" (which they got from the Transylvanians), as they did not prefer to be called "Socinians." The term had been used by the Unitarian Church of Transylvania as early as 1600. Socinian theology continued in Transylvania, where Polish exiles such as Andrzej Wiszowaty Jr. taught in the Unitarian College (1726-1740), as evidenced in the ''Summa Universae Theologiae Christianae secundum Unitarios'' of Mihály Lombard de Szentábrahám recognized as the statement of faith of the Unitarian Church of Transylvania by Emperor Joseph II in 1782. Early English Unitarians such as Henry Hedworth and John Biddle retroactively applied the term "Unitarian" to the Polish Brethren. By 1676 there were at least three Socinian meeting houses in London, even if the Act of Toleration of 1689 saw Socinians and Catholics excluded from official recognition. Socinian ideas continued to have significant influence on Unitarians in England throughout the entire period of their development.

Modern Socinians (in Christological terms) include the small number of "Biblical Unitarian" churches such as Christadelphians and the Church of the Blessed Hope, though these churches are not direct descendants of the Polish Brethren.

Related beliefs

A related idea to Socinianism is adoptionism, Ebionitism Psilanthropism (from the Greek ψιλῶς ''psilōs''; merely, only and ἄνθρωπος ''anthropos''; man, human being) an idea held by Samuel Coleridge, Thomas Jefferson and others in the 18th Century. At the time of Fausto Sozzini Symon Budny held this view - specifically that Jesus was the son of Joseph, but it, and Budny, were excluded from the Racovian community. Psilanthropism, under the name of Ebionitism, was rejected by the ecumenical councils, especially in the First Council of Nicaea, which was convened to deal directly with this.

See also

Polish Brethren

References

External links

Category:Nontrinitarianism Category:Polish Unitarians Category:Unitarianism Category:Heresy in Christianity Category:Christian terms

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