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 SOCINIANISM

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SOCINIANISM

until 1605, a year after his death; it first appeared in Polish, then in Latin in 1609.

Meanwhile the Soctnians had flourished; they had established colleges, they held synods, and they had a printing press whence they issued an immense amount of religious literature in support of their views; this was collected, under the title "Bibliotheca Antitrini- tarianorum", by Sandius. In 1638 the Catholics in Poland insisted on the banishment of the Socinians, who were in consequence dispersed. It is evident from the pages of Bayle that the sect was dreaded in Europe; many of the princes were said to favour it secretly, and it was predicted that Socinian- ism would overrun Europe. Bayle, however, en- deavours to dispel these fears by dwelling upon the vigorous measures taken to prevent its spread in Hol- land. Thus, in 1639, at the suggestion of the British Ambassador, all the states of Holland were advised of the probable arrival of the Socinians after their ex- pulsion from Poland; while in 1653 very stringent de- crees were passed against them. The sect never had a great vogue in England; it was distasteful to Prot- estants who, less logical, jierhaps, but more conserva- tive in their views, were not prepared to go to the lengths of the Continental Reformers. In 1612 we find the names of Leggatt and Wightman mentioned as condemned to death for denying the Divinity of Christ. Under the Commonwelath, John Biddle was prominent as an upholder of Socinian principles; Cromwell banished him to the ScUly Isles, but he re- turned under a WTit of habeas corpus and became minister of an Independent church in London. After the Restoration, however, Biddle was cast again into prison, where he died in 1662. The L'nitarians are frequently identified with the Socinians, but there are fundamental differences between their doctrines (for which see next section).

FuNDAMEXT.iL DocTRiNES. — These may be gath- ered from the "Catechi.sm of Racow", mentioned above and from the WTitings of Socinus himself, which are collected in the "Bibliotheca Fratrum Polon- orum". The basis was, of course, private judgment; the Socinians rejected authority and insisted on the free use of reason, but they did not reject revelation. Socinus, in his work "be Auctoritate Scripturae Sacraj", went so far as to reject all purely natural re- ligion. Thus for him the Bible was everything, but it had to be interpreted by the light of reason. Hence he and his followers thrust aside all mysteries; as the Socinian John Crell (d. 1633) says in his "De Deo et ejus Attributis", "Mysteries are indeed exalted above reason, but they do not overturn it; they by no means extinguish its light, but only perfect it". This would be quite true for a Catholic, but in the mouth of Socinian it meant that only those mysteries which reason can grasp are to be accepted. Thus both in the Racovian Catechism and in Socinus's "Institu- tiones Religionis Christiana"", only the unity, eter- nity, omnipotence, justice, and wisdom of God are insisted on, since we could be convinced of these; His immensity, infinity, and omnipresence are regarded as beyond human comprehension, and therefore unneces- sary for salvation. Original justice meant for So- cinus merely that Adam was free from sin as a fact, not that he was endowed with peculiar gifts; hence Socinus denied the doctrine of original sin entirely. Since, too, faith was for him but trust in God, he was obliged to deny the doctrine of justification in the Catholic sense; it was nothing but a judicial act on the part of God. There were only two sacraments, and, as these were held to be mere incentives to faith, they had no intrinsic efficacy. Infant bai)tism was of course rejected. There was no hell; the wicketl were annihilated.

Christoi.ooy. — This point was particularly inter- esting, as on it the whole of Socinianism turns. God, the Socinians maintained, and rightly, is absolutely

simple; but distinction of persons is destructive of such simplicity, therefore, they concluded, the doc- trine of the Trinity is unsound. Further, there can be no proportion between the finite and the infinite, hence there can be no incarnation of the Deity, since that would demand some such proportion. But if, by an impossibility, there were distinction of persons in the Deity, no Divine person could be united to a human person, since there can be no unity between two individualities. These arguments are of course puerile and nothing but ignorance of Catholic teach- ing can explain the hold which such views obtained in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. As against the first argument, see St. Thomas, Summa, I, Q. xii, a. 1, ad 4am; for the solution of the others see Petavius. But the Socinians did not become Arians, as did Campanus and GentilLs. The latter was one of the original society which held its meet- ings at Vicenza; he was beheaded at Berne in 1566. They did not become Tritheists, as Gentilis himself was supposed by .some to be (cf. "A Short History of Valentius Gentilis the Tritheist", London, 1696). Nor did they become Unitarians, as might have been exijected. Socinus had indeed many affinities with Paul of Samosata and Sabellius; with them he re- garded the Holy Spirit as merely an operation of God, a power for sanctification. But his teaching concern- ing the person of Christ differed in some respects from theirs. For Socinus, Chiist was the Logos, but he denied His pre-existence; He was the Word of God as being His Interpreter {interpres dii'ince rolunlntis). The passages from St. John which present the Word as the medium of creation were explained by Socinus of regeneration only. At the same time Christ was miraculously begotten: He was a perfect man. He was the appointed mediator; but He was not God, only deified man. In this sense He was to be adored; and it is here precisely that we have the dividing line between Socinianism and L'nitarianism, for the latter system denied the miraculous birth of Christ and re- fused Him adoration. It must be confessed that, on their principles, the Unitarians were much more logical.

Redemption and Sacraments. — Socinus's views regarding the person of Christ necessarily affected his teaching on the office of Christ as Redeemer, and consequently on the efficacy of the sacraments. Being purely man, Christ did not work out our re- demption in the sense of satisfying for our sins; and consequently we cannot regard the sacraments as instruments whereby the fruits of that redemption are applied to man. Hence Socinus taught that the Passion of Christ was merely an example to us and a pledge of our forgiveness. All this teaching is sjti- cretized in the Socinian doctrine regarding the Last Supper; it was not even commemorative of Christ's Passion, it was rather an act of thanksgiving for it.

The Church and Socinianism. — Needless to say, the tenets of the Socinians have been repeatedly con- demned by the Church. As Antitrinitarianists, they are opposed to the express teaching of the first six councils; their view of the person of Christ is in con- trailiction to the same councils, especially that of Chalcedon and the famous "Tome" (Ep. xxviii) of St. Leo the Great (cf. Denzinger, no. 143). For its peculiar views regarding the adoration of Christ, cf. can. ix. of the fifth (Ecumenical Synod (Denz., 221). It is opposed, too, to the various creeds, more espe- cially to that of St. Athanasius. It has also many affinities with the Adoptionist heresy condemned in the Plenary Council of Frankfort, in 794, and in the second letter of Vo]w Hadrian I to the bishops of Spain (cf. Denz., 309-314). Its denial of the Atone- ment is in op])osition to the decrees against Gottes- chalk promulgated in S49 (cf. Denz., 319), an<l also to the definition of the Fourth Lateran Council against the Albigensians (Denz., 428; cf. also Cone. Trid.,