Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/246

 230 S O C I N U S recognized centre of theological discussion. One of these discussions was on the doctrine of salvation, with Jacques Couet. It resulted in a bulky treatise, De Jesu Christo Servatore (finished 1 2th July 1578), the circulation of which in manuscript appears to have commended his powers to the notice of Giorgio Biandrata (1515-1588), court physician in Transylvania, and an unscrupulous ecclesiastical wire- puller. 1 Transylvania had for a short time (1559-71) enjoyed religious liberty under an antitrinitarian prince, John Sigismund. But the existing ruler, Christopher Bathori, favoured the Jesuits, and it was an object with Biandrata to limit the "Judaic" tendencies of the antitrinitarian bishop, Francis David (1510-1579), with whom he had previously acted. By the alleged discovery of a stain upon Biandrata's morals of the gravest sort his influence with David was destroyed. Now Sozzini's scheme of doctrine encouraged the use of seemingly orthodox language in an heretical sense. Christ was to be called God, and invoked with divine honours, though without any inherent title to such homage, but as "un Dio subalterno, al quale in un dato tempo il Dio supremo cedette il governo del mondo " (Cantu). It occurred to Biandrata that, if Sozzini could convert the eloquent David to this view, all would be well. Accordingly in November 1578 Sozzini reached Kolozsvar (Klausenburg), and did his best, during a visit of four months and a half under David's roof, to teach him the doctrine of the invocation of Christ. Though Sozzini did not (as Biandrata desired) urge the absolute necessity of this invocation, the result was a public explosion on David's part against the cultus of Christ in any shape or form. His trial followed, on a charge of innovation. Sozzini hurried off to Poland before it began. He cannot be ac- cused of a guilty complicity with what he calls the rage of Biandrata, for he was no party to the incarceration of David at Deva, where the old man miserably perished in prison. But he was willing that Ddvid should be prohibited from preaching pending the decision of the controversy by a general synod ; and his references to the case show that (as in the later instances of Jacobo Paleologo, Christian Franken, and Martin Seidel) theological aversions, though they never made him uncivil, froze up his kindness and blinded his perceptions of character. Biandrata ultimately conformed to the Catholic Church; yet as late as 1584 Sozzini, always constant to the leanings of friendship, sought his patronage for his treatise De Jesu Christi JVatura, in reply to the Calvinist Andrew Wolan. The remainder (1579-1604) of Sozzini's life was spent in Poland. Excluded at first by his views on baptism from the Minor or Anti- trinitarian Church (anabaptist in its constitution), he ac- quired by degrees a predominant influence in its synods. He converted the Arians from their avowal of our Saviour's pre-existence and their refusal to honour Him by invoca- tion ; he repressed the semi-Judaizers whom he could not convince. Through correspondence with his friends in official places he ruled also the policy of the Antitrinitarian Church of Transylvania. Forced to leave Cracow in 1583, he found a home with a Polish noble, Christopher Morsztyn, whose daughter Elizabeth he married (1586). She died in the following year, a few months after giving birth to 1 Biandrata was Sozzini's evil genius. Born of an old family in Piedmont and educated in France, Biandrata had attached himself to the left wing of Protestantism, and had moved here and there among the upper circles of the Reformed, depending for professional advance- ment on a special knowledge of the diseases of women. Driven east- wards a second time in 1558 (after fomenting antitrinitarian heresy in the Italian church of Geneva), he had for twenty years been the confi- dential adviser of ladies of the reigning house, first in Poland and then in Transylvania. In both countries he was a dexterous meddler in church affairs ; his policy was the establishment of a kind of broad church, with a confession nakedly Scriptural in its terms, and a resolute suppression of all compromising extremes. a daughter, Agnese, afterwards the wife of Stanislau Wisz- owaty. In 1587 the grand-duke Francesco died, and to this event Sozzini's biographers attribute the loss of his Italian property. But he was on good terms with Fran- cesco's successor, and might have continued to receive his rents had not family disputes arisen respecting the inter- pretation of his grandfather's will. The holy office at Siena disinherited him in October 1 590 ; but he was allowed a pension, which does not seem to have been paid. The failure of supplies from Italy dissolved the compact under which his works were to remain anonymous. He began to publish under his own name. The consequence was that in 1598 a mob expelled him from Cracow, wreck- ing his house and grossly ill-using his person. Friends gave him a ready welcome at Luslawice, 30 miles east from Cracow ; and here, having long been troubled with colic and the stone, he died on 4th March 1604. A limestone block, with illegible inscriptions, marks his grave. 2 Sozzini's works, as edited by his grandson Andrew Wiszowaty and the learned printer F. Kuyper, are contained in two closely printed folios, Amsterdam, 1668. They are usually reckoned the first two volumes of the Bibliothcca Fratrum Polonorum, but in fact the works of Crcll and Schlichting preceded them in the series. The} 7 include all Sozzini's extant theological writings, except his essay On Predestination (in which he denies that God foresees the actions of free agents), prefixed to Castellio's Dialogi IV., 1578 (reprinted 1613), and his revision of a school manual, Instrumentum Doctrinarum Aristotclicum, 1586. His pseudonyms, easily interpreted, were Felix Turpio Urbevetanus, Prosper Dysidaeus, Gratianus Prosper, and Gratianus Turpio Gerapolensis ( = Senensis). Some of his early poetry will be found in Ferentilli's Scielta di Stanze di Diversi Aulori Toscani, 1579 (reprinted 1594) ; other specimens are given in Cantu, and in the Athcn&um, llth August 1877. Sozzini himself considered that his Contra Athcos, which perished in the riot at Cracow, was his ablest work. In later life lie began, but left incomplete, more than one work intended to exhibit his system as a whole. His reputation as a thinker must rest on (1) his De Auctoritate S. Scripturse, and (2) his De Jesu Christo Servatore. The former was first published at Seville (1588) by Lopez, a Jesuit, who claimed it as his OAvn, but prefixed a preface in which, contrary to a fundamental position of Sozzini, he maintains that man by nature has a knowledge of God. A French version (1592) was approved by the ministers of Basel ; and the English translation (1731) by Edward Coombe was under- taken in consequence of the commendation of the work in a charge (1728) by Bishop Smalbroke, who observes that Grotius had laid it under contribution in his De Veritate Christ, lid. In a small compass it anticipates the whole argument of the "credibility" writers ; but in trying it by modern tests it should be remembered that Sozzini regarded it (in 1581) as not adequately meeting the cardinal difficulties attending the proof of the Christian religion, and subsequently began to reconstruct its argument in his un- finished Lectioncs Sacrse. His treatise on salvation constitutes his main service to theology, placing orthodoxy and heresy in new relations of fundamental antagonism, and narrowing the conflict to the central interest of religion. Of the person of Christ in this treatise he says nothing ; he deals exclusively with the work of Christ, which in his view operates upon man alone ; and it is by the persistency with which this idea tends to recur that we must estimate the theological sagacity of Sozzini. Though his name has been attached to a school of opinion (Socinianism),he disclaimed the role of a heresiarch, and declined to give his unreserved adhesion to any one sect. The confidence with which he relied upon the conclusions of his own mind has gained him the repiite of a dogma- tist ; but it was his constant aim to reduce and simplify the funda- mentals of Christianity, and it is not without ground that the memorial tablet at Siena (inscription by Brigidi, 1879) characterizes him as a vindicator of human reason against the supernatural. Of his non-theological doctrines the most important is his assertion of the unlawfulness, not only of war, but of the taking of human life in any circumstances. Hence the comparative mildness of his pro- posals for dealing with religious offenders ; but it cannot be said that he had grasped the full idea of toleration. Hence too his con- tention that magisterial office is unlawful for a Christian. For the biography of Sozzini the best materials are his letters. There is a cnaractcr or 01 aiKtinmeiHi. iiie earnest me, preuxea iwiui engraved iw ait) to the works, is by Przypkowski (1086), translated into English by Bidlo 653). This is the foundation of the article by Bayle, the Memoirs by Toulniin tra (1(553) 2 No trace is discoverable on the stone of the alleged epitaph " Tota ruit Babylon : destruxit tecta Lutherus, Calvinus muros, sed fundainenta Socinus."