CHAPTER III.
SOCINIANISM.[634]
The fathers of the Socinian Church were the two Sozzini, uncle and nephew, Lelio and Fausto, both natives of the town of Siena.
The uncle, Lelio Sozzini (b. 1525), was by profession a lawyer. He was a man of irreproachable moral life, a Humanist by training, a student of the classics and also of theology. He was thoroughly dissatisfied with the condition of the Romish Church, and early began to entertain grave doubts about some of its leading doctrinal positions. He communicated his views to a select circle of friends. Notwithstanding the precautions he had taken, he became suspected. Cardinal Caraffa had persuaded Pope Paul III. to consent to the reorganisation of the Inquisition in 1542, and Italy soon became a very unsafe place for any suspected person. Lelio left Siena in 1547, and spent the remaining portion of his life in travelling in those lands which had accepted the Lutheran or the Reformed faith. He made the acquaintance of all the leading Protestant theologians, including Melanchthon and Calvin. He kept up an extensive correspondence with them, representing his own personal theological opinions in the form of questions which he desired to have solved for him. From Calvin’s letters we can learn that the great theologian had grave doubts about the moral earnestness of his Italian correspondent, and repeatedly warned him that he was losing hold on the saving facts of heart religion.
All the while Sozzini seems to have made up his mind already on all the topics introduced into his correspondence, and to have been communicating his views, on pledge of secrecy, to the small communities of Italian refugees who were settled in Switzerland. He can scarcely be blamed for this secretiveness; toleration, as the sad example of the burning of Servede had shown, was not recognised to be a Christian principle among the Churches of the Reformation. Lelio died at Zurich in 1562 without having published his opinions, and without his neighbours and hosts being aware of his real theological position.
He bequeathed all his property, including his books and his manuscripts, to his nephew, Fausto, who had remained at Siena. This nephew was the founder of the Socinian Church.
Fausto Sozzini (b. 1539) was, like his uncle, a man of irreproachable life, a lawyer, a diligent and earnest student, fond of theology, and of great force of character. How early he had come to think as his uncle had done, is unknown. Report affirms that after he had received his uncle’s books and papers, and had given sufficient time to their study, he left Italy, visited the places where Lelio had gathered small companies of secret sympathisers, to confirm them in the faith. His uncle had visited Poland twice, and Fausto went there in 1579. He found that the anti-Trinitarians there had no need to conceal their opinions. The Transylvanian Prince, Stephen Báthory, protected them, and they had in the town of Krakau their own church, school, and printing-press. But the sect as a whole was torn by internal divisions. Fausto bent his whole energies to overcome these differences.