§ 148.1. Anabaptist Antitrinitarians in Germany.

1. John Denck from the Upper Palatinate, was, on Œcolampadius’ recommendation, whose lectures he had attended at Basel, made rector of St. Sebald’s school in Nuremberg in A.D. 1523. On account of his maintaining views inconsistent with Lutheran orthodoxy, he came into collision with the reformer of that place, Andrew Osiander, in A.D. 1524, and on the ground of a written confession of faith extorted from him he was deposed from his office and expelled the city. Nor did he find a permanent abode in Augsburg, to which he went in A.D. 1525; for Urbanus Rhegius, who at first received him in a friendly manner, was obliged at last to turn against him on account of his Anabaptist views and the great scandal he caused by maintaining the belief that the devil and all the ungodly would finally repent. He now, in A.D. 1526, went to Strassburg, where Hätzer induced him, as a zealous student of Hebrew, to assist him in his translation of the Old Testament prophets. When here also his influence assumed dangerous proportions, a disputation was arranged for between him and Bucer, in consequence of which he was expelled also from Strassburg. Like treatment awaited him at Bergzahern and also at Landau. He then went to Worms along with Hätzer, who had meanwhile been banished from Strassburg. There they completed their translation of the prophets, but from this retreat also after three months they were again driven out. Denck now once again, through Œcolampadius’ mediation, who unweariedly endeavoured, but in vain, to win him back from his errors, found a fixed abode among the more liberal-minded citizens of Basel; but he died there of the plague in A.D. 1527. Denck was indeed one of the most talented men of his day. His high intellectual endowments and his pure and noble moral life were acknowledged by his most bitterly prejudiced orthodox opponents. Of his numerous tracts and pamphlets only that “On the Law of God, how the Law is Abolished and yet must be Fulfilled,” is still accurately known. It is rich in deep thoughts cleverly put, as is also the confession of faith already mentioned, but in direct antagonism to the Lutheran doctrine on several most vital and cardinal points. He placed the inner word of God above the outward, taught that man had a natural inclination toward good, attached a fundamental importance to the fulfilling of the moral law for the attainment of salvation, gave the person of Christ only the significance of a pattern and exhibition of the Divine love, resolved the doctrine of the Trinity into pantheistic speculative ideas, and by his rejection of infant baptism became the acknowledged head of the whole German Anabaptist movement of his age, so that Bucer could designate him “the pope of the Baptists.”
2. Louis Hätzer, from Bischopzell in Thurgau, was priest at Wädenschwyl, on the Zürich lake. At first an enthusiastic follower of Zwingli and his fellow labourer, he soon transcended the Zwinglian reforming tendencies, and with fanatical radicalism launched out into fierce iconoclasm, and attached himself to the Anabaptists, residing partly in Switzerland, in Zürich, Basel, St. Gall, etc., partly in Germany, in Augsburg, Strassburg, Worms, etc., but soon driven out of every place, and meanwhile leading a wandering, unstable life, until at last, in A.D. 1529, he was beheaded at Constance as a bigamist and adulterer. From Denck, who far excelled him in originality and depth of thought, he derived his peculiar views. Among his literary productions only his German translation of the Old Testament prophets, which he produced in conjunction with Denck, is of any importance. It was published at Worms in A.D. 1527, two years before the Zürich version, and five years before that of Luther, and passed through several editions until it was displaced by Luther’s. He also holds no mean position as a composer of spiritual songs.
3. John Campanus of Jülich was expelled from Cologne, where he had studied, and went to Wittenburg [Wittenberg], as tutor to some young noblemen, in A.D. 1528. He accompanied the reformers to Marburg, where he sought to unite different parties by explaining “This is My body” to mean the body created by Me. But when he began to spread Anabaptist and Arian views in Wittenberg, and to calumniate the reformers by speech and writing, he was obliged, in A.D. 1532, to quit Saxony. He now returned to Jülich, but after labouring there for a considerable time, he was arrested on a charge of preaching revolutionary and chiliastic sermons, and died in prison after twenty years’ confinement at Cleves about A.D. 1578. His Arian-trinitarian doctrine of God was just as peculiar as his doctrine of the supper. He would acknowledge in the Godhead only two Persons, just as its type marriage is a union of only two persons. He regarded the Holy Spirit, on the one hand, as the Divine nature common to both, and, on the other hand, as the operation of these upon man.
4. David Joris, a painter on glass in Delft, received his first impulse from Luther’s writings about A.D. 1524, but soon plunged into wild excesses of iconoclasm and anabaptism. After the overthrow of the short-lived rule of the Münster fanatics (§ 133, 6), he travelled up and down through the whole of Germany, in order to gather together the scattered remnants of the Anabaptists, and to proclaim his revelations. He was not to be deterred or terrified by imprisonment, scourging, or banishment. At last he was pronounced an outlaw, and a price was set upon his head. He went now, in A.D. 1544, to Basel, and lived there under the assumed name of John of Bruges, outwardly professing attachment to the Reformed church, but in secret, by the diligent circulation of letters and treatises, working for his own ends, till his death in A.D. 1556. When afterwards his true name was discovered, the authorities had his bones dug up and burnt by the public hangman. In theory and practice an antinomian, he taught in his fantastic production, “T’Wonderboek” of A.D. 1542, on the ground of the most naked naturalism, how the perfection of the spiritual life and the true reconciliation of all things must be brought about. He conceived of the Trinity as the self-revelation of God in three different ways. That of the Holy Spirit came to pass with himself; the end and aim of that dispensation he represented as consisting in the gathering together of the people of God, i.e. all Anabaptists, who were to take possession of the whole earth, as before Israel had of the land of Canaan.

§ 148.2. Michael Servetus was born in A.D. 1509 at Villanueva in Arragon. He was a man of rich speculative ability, wide knowledge of science, and restless, inquiring spirit. At Toulouse he devoted himself first of all to the study of law, but soon after turned his attention with great eagerness to theological questions. He became convinced that the fundamental Christian doctrine of the Trinity in its accepted ecclesiastical form is equally opposed to Scripture and to reason, and that in this quarter pre-eminently a reformation was needed. At a later period in Paris he gave himself to the study of medicine, and is reputed the first discoverer of the circulation of the blood, and secured for himself an eminent rank as a practical physician and a writer on medical subjects. He began his polemic against the prevailing doctrine of the Church at Strassburg in A.D. 1531 with the treatise De Trinitatis erroribus, ll. vii. Next in order appeared at Hagenau, in A.D. 1532, his palliating and to some extent retractational Dialogorum de Trin., ll. ii. In A.D. 1553 he issued anonymously at Vienne his radical and revolutionary principal work, Christianismi Restitutio, which was the means of bringing him to the stake. As he succeeded in escaping from his prison in Vienne they were able there only to burn him in effigie; but at Geneva he was, at Calvin’s instigation, arrested again, and on his refusing to make a recantation was sent to the stake on 27th Oct., A.D. 1553. The last words heard from the dying man in the flames were, “Jesus, Thou Son of the eternal God, have mercy upon me.”—The reformatory aim of Servetus in his doctrinal system was to raise God as high as possible above the creature. In its very earliest form it was fundamentally pantheistic, yet even here God is thought of as the original substance, and everything existing outside of Him is conceived of as conditioned by a substantial emanation from His being. Those pantheistic principles, however, make their appearance in a much more decided form in the later and more complete developments of his system which are completely dominated by Neoplatonic speculations. In particular he regards the Logos as an emanation of the Divine element of light, which first came into possession of personal existence in the incarnation of Christ. The gross matter of His corporeity He received from His mother; the place of the male seed was taken by the Divine element of light. In both respects he is ὁμοούσιος, for even the earthly matter is only a grosser form of the primal light. Son and Spirit are only different dispositiones Dei, the Father alone is tota substantia et unus Deus. And as the Trinity makes its appearance in connection with the redemption of the world, it will disappear again when that redemption has been completed. The polemic of Servetus, however, extended beyond the doctrine of the Trinity to an attack upon the church doctrine of original sin, and the repudiation of infant baptism. He also set forth a spiritualistic theory of the Lord’s Supper, contended against the Lutheran doctrine of justification and the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination, sketched out a scheme of chiliastic expectations, etc. Amid all these vagaries he maintained his high estimate of Christ as the Logos, become Son of God by the incarnation, and the centre and end of all history; he also continued to reverence Holy Scripture as that which from its first book to its last testifies of Christ. His mystical piety, too, was deep and sincere. But owing to the immoderate violence with which he denounced views opposed to his own as doctrines of devils, among other reproachful terms applying to the church doctrine of the Trinity the name of “triceps Cerberus,” the three-headed dog of hell, his contemporaries were prevented from getting even a glimpse of the bright side of his life and endeavours, so that all the most notable theologians voted for his death as salutary and necessary (§ 145, 1).423

§ 148.3. Italian and other Antitrinitarians before Socinus.—Claudius of Savoy in A.D. 1534, at Bern, brought forward the idea that Christ is to be called God only because the fulness of the Divine Spirit has been communicated to Him. He was on this account expelled from that city, and soon after even from Basel, and was very coldly received at Wittenberg. He retracted before a synod at Lausanne in A.D. 1537, afterwards played the part of a popular agitator at Augsburg, and was regarded in Memmingen down to A.D. 1550 as a prophet. After that no further trace of him is found.—Closely connected with the previously named Tiziano, by bonds of friendship and of spiritual affinity, and subsequently also with Lælius Socinus, was the Sicilian exile from his native land, Camillo Renato. In A.D. 1545 he obtained at Chiavenna in Veltlin, which then belonged to the country of the Grisons, a situation as a private tutor, and soon became highly respected. He by-and-by, however, involved himself in a violent controversy with the evangelical pastor there, Agostino Mainardo, about the sacraments, which led to his being excommunicated by the Grison synod in A.D. 1550. The central point in his theology is the doctrine of predestination. Only the elect are by God’s Spirit awakened into life, and while the children of the Spirit only slumber in death, and in the resurrection assume a renewed, purely spiritual form of being, the soul of the non-elect die just like their bodies. Although a decided opponent of infant baptism, he did not go so far as to insist upon rebaptism, because he depreciated baptism generally as a mere outward sign, and therefore not necessary. And although he carefully avoided any express repudiation of the doctrine of the Trinity, it can scarcely be doubted that he and all his friends and followers favoured antitrinitarian views.—Matthew Gribaldo, a jurist of Padua, the physician George Blandrata of Saluzzo in Piedmont, and Valentine Gentilis of Calabria, fugitives from their native lands, took up a position of hostility to Calvin in Geneva after Servetus’ death. When Calvin proposed to have them brought before a legal tribunal Gribaldo and Blandrata retired from Geneva and went to Poland. Only Gentilis remained, and he subscribed a confession of faith which Calvin laid before him, but soon declared that he could not continue to hold by it, and set forth as consistent with Scripture doctrine the opinion that the Father as Essentiator is not a person in the Godhead, but the whole substance of the Godhead, and that the Son as Essentiatus proceeding from Him, is only the perfect reflex and highest image of the one deity of the Father. Having been cast into prison and condemned to death he retracted once again, and then withdrew also to Poland. Subsequently, however, he returned to Switzerland, was arrested at Bern, and beheaded as an apostate in A.D. 1566.424 Blandrata had meanwhile betaken himself to Transylvania, was there appointed physician to the prince, secured the interest of Zapolya II. and many of the nobles for his Unitarianism, so that public recognition was given to it as a fourth confessional form of religion. According to the doctrine set forth by him worship is rendered to Jesus as the man endowed by God with grace beyond all others and raised to universal dominion. But in A.D. 1588 he was murdered by his own nephew, who had remained a Catholic, as he had not patience to wait for his death in order to secure possession of his property. Besides Blandrata we may also mention as one of the chief founders of the Unitarian sect in Transylvania Franz Davidis of Clausenburg. From A.D. 1552 Lutheran pastor, he became a Calvinist in A.D. 1564, and was made a Reformed superintendent, and, at Blandrata’s recommendation, Zapolya’s court preacher. He then openly attached himself by word and writing to the Unitarians, and became, in A.D. 1571, first Unitarian superintendent of Transylvania. On account of his opposing the doctrine of the supernatural conception of Christ and His right to be worshipped, he was repudiated by Blandrata, and was, in A.D. 1579, condemned by Prince Christopher Bathori, as a blasphemer and enemy of Christ, to imprisonment for life. After three months he died in prison.—The Italian Antitrinitarians who had fled to Poland attached themselves there to the Reformed church, and secured many followers not only among the nobles, but also among the Reformed clergy. At their head in Cracow stood the pastor Gregor Pauli, and in Princzov George Schomann. At the Synod of Patrikaw, in A.D. 1562, they first appeared as a close phalanx, making a regular attempt to have the doctrine of the Trinity set aside. Their attack, however, was repelled. A royal edict of A.D. 1564 enacted that all Italian Antitrinitarians should be banished, and a second synod at Patrikaw, in A.D. 1565, excommunicated all their followers. A final endeavour to arrive at a mutual understanding by means of yet another religious conference, while a diet was summoned in connection with this matter at Patrikaw, led to no successful result. From this time forth the Polish Antitrinitarians, who have generally been called Arians, occupy a distinct position as a separate religious denomination.—In the Reformed church of the Palatinate, too, this Unitarian movement ended in an equally tragical scene. The pastor Adam Neuser and the Reformed inspector John Sylvanus took their place about A.D. 1570 along with the Transylvanian Unitarians. During an investigation into their doctrinal views, a manuscript written out by Sylvanus in his own hand was found: “A Confessional Statement against the Tripersonal Idol and the Two Natures of Christ.” He was beheaded in A.D. 1572 in the market-place of Heidelberg. Neuser fled to Transylvania, and at a subsequent period went over to Mohammedanism.—Out of the Italian infidelity of this age probably also arose that renewal of an idea that had already appeared during the Middle Ages (§ 96, 19) in the book De tribus impostoribus, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed. Of a similar tendency is the Colloquium Heptaplomeres of the French jurist Jean Bodin (§ 117, 4), who died in A.D. 1597. He was one of seven freethinking Venetian scholars who carried on a discussion upon religion, in which he maintained that deficiencies and mistakes are inherent in the same degree in all positive religions. But an ideal deism is commended as the true religion.

§ 148.4. The Two Socini and the Socinians.—Lælius Socinus, member of a celebrated family of lawyers in Siena, and himself a lawyer, became convinced at an early period that the Romish system of doctrine was not in accordance with Scripture. In order to reach an assured and certain knowledge of the truth, he learnt the original languages in which Scripture was written, by travelling made the acquaintance of the most celebrated theologians in Switzerland, Germany, and Poland, and wrought out for himself a complete and consistent theory of Unitarian belief. He died in Zürich in A.D. 1562 in his thirty-seventh year. His nephew, Faustus Socinus, born at Siena in A.D. 1539, was from his early days trained by personal intercourse and epistolary correspondence with his uncle, and adopted similar views. He was obliged in A.D. 1559 to make his escape to Lyons, but returned in A.D. 1562 to Italy, where for twelve years he was loaded with honours and offices at the court of the Grand-duke Francis de Medici. In order that he might carry on his studies undisturbed, he retired in A.D. 1574 to Basel, from whence in A.D. 1578, at Blandrata’s request, he proceeded to Transylvania to combat Davidis’ refusal of adoration to Christ. In the following year he went to Poland in order to unite, if possible, the various sections of the Unitarians in that country. At Cracow they insisted that he should allow them to rebaptize him, and when he firmly refused they declined to admit him to the communion table. But the decision of his character, his unwearied endeavours to secure peace and union, as well as the superiority of his theological scholarship, in the end won for his ideas a complete victory over the opposing party strifes. He succeeded gradually in expelling from the ranks of the Polish Antitrinitarians non-adorationism as well as Anabaptism, and all their ethical, social, and chiliastic outgrowths, and finally at the Synod of Racau, in A.D. 1603, he secured recognition for his own theological views as he had developed them in disputations and in writings. Persecutions and ill-treatment on the part of the Catholics were not wanting; as, e.g., in A.D. 1594 by the Catholic soldiers, and in A.D. 1598 by the Catholic students at Cracow, who dragged him from a sick-bed on Ascension Day, drew him half naked through the city, beat him till the blood flowed, and would have drowned him had not a Catholic professor delivered him out of their hands. He died in A.D. 1604.—The chief symbol of the Socinian denomination is the Racovian Catechism, published in the Polish language in A.D. 1605. Socinus himself, in company with several others, compiled it, mainly from an earlier short treatise, Relig. christ. brevissima institutio. It was subsequently translated into Latin and also into German.425—The Socinian system of doctrine therein set forth is essentially as follows: The Scriptures are the only source of knowledge of saving truth, and as God’s word Scripture can contain nothing that is in contradiction to reason. But the doctrine of the Trinity contradicts the Bible and reason; God is only one Person. Jesus was a mere man, but endowed with Divine powers for the accomplishment of salvation, and as a reward for his perfect obedience raised to Divine majesty, entrusted with authority to judge the living and the dead, so that to him also Divine homage should be paid. The Holy Spirit is only a power or attribute of God. The image of God in men consisted merely in dominion over the creatures. Man was by nature mortal, but had he remained without sin he would by the supernatural operation of God have entered into eternal life without death. There is no such thing as original sin, but only hereditary evil and an inherited inclination toward what is bad, which, however, does not include in it any guilt. The idea of a Divine foreknowledge of human action is to be rejected, because it would lead to the acceptance of the idea of an absolute predestination. Redemption consists in this, that Christ by life and teaching pointed out the better way; and God rewards every one who pursues this better way with the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. The death of Christ was no atoning sacrifice, but merely attached a seal to the teaching of Christ and formed for him a pathway to Divine glory. Conversion must begin by the exercise of one’s own powers, but can be perfected only through the assistance of the Holy Spirit. The sacraments are only ceremonies, which may even be dispensed with, though it is more becoming to retain them as old and beautiful customs. The immortality of the pious Christian is conditioned and made possible by the resurrection of Christ. But the ungodly, along with the devil and his angels, are annihilated; and because in this their punishment consists, Holy Scripture designates the annihilation as eternal death and eternal condemnation. There is no resurrection of the flesh; the living indeed have their bodies restored in the resurrection; but these are not fleshly, but, as Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians xv., spiritual.426—Continuation, § 163, 1.