Sebastian Franck and John Campanus must also be numbered among the Antitrinitarians. Franck was a pantheist, who had been pastor in the vicinity of Nuernberg till 1528, when he resigned and engaged in soap manufacturing, writing, and printing. Campanus appeared in Wittenberg, 1527. At the Colloquy of Marburg he endeavored to unite Luther and Zwingli by explaining the words: "This is My body" to mean: This is a body created by Me. In 1530 he published a book: "Against the Entire World after the Apostles—Contra Totum post Apostolos Mundum," in which he taught that the Son is inferior to the Father, and denied the personality of the Holy Spirit. "He argues," says Melanchthon, who in his letters frequently refers to the "blasphemies of Campanus," "that Christ is not God; that the Holy Spirit is not God; that original sin is an empty word. Finally there is nothing which he does not transform into philosophy." (C. R. 2, 33. 34. 93. 29. 513; 9, 763; 10, 132.) When Campanus endeavored to spread his doctrines, he was banished from Saxony, 1531. He returned to Juelich, where he preached on the imminence of Judgment Day, with the result that the peasants sold their property and declined to work any longer. Campanus was imprisoned for twenty years and died 1575.
Prominent among the numerous Antitrinitarians who came from Italy were Ochino, Servetus, Gribaldo, Gentile, Blandrata, and Alciati. Bernardino Ochino, born 1487, was Vicar-General of the Capuchins and a renowned pulpit orator in Siena. In 1542 he was compelled to leave Italy in order to escape the Inquisition. He served the Italian congregation in Zurich from 1555 to 1564, when he was banished because he had defended polygamy. He died in Austerlitz, 1665. In his Thirty Dialogs, published 1563, he rejects the doctrines of the Trinity, of the deity of Christ, and of the atonement. (Herzog R. 14, 256.)—Michael Servetus was born in 1511 and educated at Saragossa and Toulouse. In 1531, at Hagenau, Alsace, he published De Trinitatis Erroribus Libri VII. He was opposed by Zwingli and Oecolampadius. In 1540 he wrote his Christianismi Restitutio, a voluminous book, which he published in 1553. In it he opposes the Trinity as an unbiblical and satanic doctrine, and at the same time rejects original sin and infant baptism. The result was that, while passing through Geneva on his way to Italy, he was arrested at the instance of Calvin, tried, condemned, and burned at the stake, October 27, 1553—an act which was approved also by Melanchthon. (C. R. 8, 362; 9, 763.)—Matteo Gribaldo, in 1554, uttered tritheistic views concerning the Trinity in the Italian congregation at Geneva. Arrested in Bern, he retracted his doctrine. He died 1564.—John Valentine Gentile also belonged to the Italian fugitives in Geneva. In 1558 he signed an orthodox confession concerning the Trinity. Before long, however, he relapsed into his Antitrinitarian errors. He was finally beheaded at Bern. (Herzog R. 6, 518.)
George Blandrata, born 1515, was influenced by Gribaldo. Fearing for his liberty, he left Geneva and went to Poland and thence to Transylvania. Here he published his Confessio Antitrinitaria, and was instrumental in introducing Unitarianism into Transylvania. He died after 1585. In 1558 Gianpaolo Alciati of Piedmont accompanied Blandrata to Poland. He taught that Christ was inferior to the Father, and denied that there were two natures in Christ.
266. Davidis and Socinus.
Francis Davidis in Transylvania was an Antitrinitarian of the most radical stripe. He had studied in Wittenberg 1545 and 1548. In 1552 he joined the Lutherans, in 1559 the Calvinists. Secretly after 1560 and publicly since 1566 he cooperated with Blandrata to introduce Unitarianism in Transylvania. In numerous disputations he attacked the doctrine of the Trinity as unscriptural and contradictory. In 1567 he published his views in De Falso et Vera Unius Dei Patris, Filii et Spiritus Sancti Cognitione Libri Duo. He contended that the doctrine of the Trinity was the source of all idolatry in the Church; that Christ, though born of Mary in a supernatural way, was preexistent only in the decree of God, and that the Holy Spirit was merely a power emanating from God for our sanctification. He also rejected infant baptism and the Lord's Supper. After the prince and the greater part of the nobility had been won for Unitarianism, Davidis, in 1568, was made Superintendent of the Unitarian Church in Transylvania. In 1571 religious liberty was proclaimed, and Unitarians, Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists were tolerated equally. Before long, however, a reaction set in. The Catholic Stephan Bathory, who succeeded to the throne, removed the Unitarians from his court and surrounded himself with Jesuits. On March 29, 1579, Davidis delivered a sermon against the adoration of Christ, declaring it to be the same idolatry as the invocation of Mary and the saints. Three days after he was deposed and imprisoned. In the proceedings instituted against him he was convicted as a blasphemer and sentenced to imprisonment for life. He died in prison, November 15, 1579, prophesying the final downfall of all "false dogmas," meaning, of course, the doctrines which he had combated.
In Poland, especially since 1548, the humanistic and liberal-minded nobility opposed the Catholic clergy and protected Protestants and later on also fugitive Antitrinitarians. Among these were the Italians Francis Lismanio, Gregory Pauli, and Peter Statorius. These Unitarians, however, lacked unity and harmony. They disagreed on infant baptism, the preexistence and adoration of Christ, etc. These dissensions continued until Faustus Socinus (born at Siena 1539, died 1604 in Poland) arrived. He was the nephew of the skeptical and liberal-minded Laelius Socinus (Lelio Sozzini) who left Italy in 1542, when the Inquisition was established there, and died in Zurich, 1562.
Faustus Socinus claimed that he had received his ideas from his uncle Laelius. In 1562 he published anonymously an explanation of the first chapter of the Gospel of St. John, which, contained the entire program of Unitarianism. In 1578 he followed an invitation of Blandrata to oppose non-adorantism (the doctrine that Christ must not be adored) as taught by Davidis. In the following year Faustus removed to Poland, where he endeavored to unite the various Unitarian parties: the Anabaptists, Non-adorantes, the believers in the preexistence of Christ, etc., and their opponents. The growth of Unitarianism in Poland was rapid. A school flourished in Rakow numbering in its palmy days about 1,000 scholars. However here, too, a Jesuitic reaction set in. In 1638 the school at Rakow was destroyed, the printery closed, and the teachers and ministers expelled. In 1658 the Unitarians generally were banished as traitors, and in 1661 the rigorous laws against Unitarianism were confirmed.
The chief source of the Antitrinitarian and Socinian doctrine is the Racovian Catechism, published 1605 in the Polish and 1609 in the Latin language under the title: "Catechism of the Churches in the Kingdom of Poland which affirm that no one besides the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is that One God of Israel." It teaches: There is but one divine person; Christ is a mere man; the doctrine concerning the deity of Christ is false; as a reward for His sinless life, God has given Christ all power in heaven and on earth; as such, as God's representative (homo Deus factus, the man made God), He may be adored; there is no original sin; with the help of God, that is to say, with the commandments and promises of God revealed by Christ, man may acquire salvation; he is able to keep these commandments, though not perfectly; man's shortcomings are pardoned by God on account of his good intention; an atonement by Christ is not required for this purpose; moreover, the doctrine of atonement must be opposed as false and pernicious; by His death Christ merely sealed His doctrine; all who obey His commandments are adherents of Christ; these will participate in His dominion; the wicked and the devils will be annihilated; there is no such thing as eternal punishment; whatever in the Bible comports with human reason and serves moral ends is inspired; the Old Testament is superfluous for Christians, because all matters pertaining to religion are contained better and clearer in the New Testament. (Tschackert, 473.)
Evidently, in every detail, Antitrinitarianism and Socinianism are absolutely incompatible with, and destructive of, the very essence of Christianity. The Apology declares that the deniers of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity "are outside of the Church of Christ and are idolaters, and insult God." (103, 1.) This verdict is confirmed by Article XII of the Formula of Concord. (843, 30; 1103, 39.)
XXIII. Origin, Subscription, Character, etc., of Formula of Concord.