John Assheton ( fl. 1548) was an Anglican priest at "Shiltelington" (perhaps

Shillington, Bedfordshire Shillington is a village and civil parish in Bedfordshire, England. In the south of the parish the hamlet of Pegsdon includes the Pegsdon hills nature reserve and is a salient of the county into Hertfordshire. Since 1985 its administration h ...

) who is the first recorded English

anti-Trinitarian Nontrinitarianism is a form of Christianity that rejects the mainstream Christian doctrine of the Trinity—the belief that God is three distinct hypostases or persons who are coeternal, coequal, and indivisibly united in one being, or essence ...

. Almost nothing is known about Assheton except the record of recantation to

Thomas Cranmer Thomas Cranmer (2 July 1489 – 21 March 1556) was a leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and, for a short time, Mary I. He helped build the case for the annulment of Henry ...

in 1548. In his abjuration Assheton details his former objection to the

Trinity The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the central dogma concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God th ...

, to the person and personality of the Holy Spirit, to the

pre-existence of Christ The pre-existence of Christ asserts the existence of Christ before his incarnation as Jesus. One of the relevant Bible passages is where, in the Trinitarian interpretation, Christ is identified with a pre-existent divine hypostasis (substantiv ...

, but not to the virgin birth. This then appears to be what would later be called a

Socinian Socinianism () is a nontrinitarian belief system deemed heretical by the Catholic Church and other Christian traditions. Named after the Italian theologians Lelio Sozzini (Latin: Laelius Socinus) and Fausto Sozzini (Latin: Faustus Socinus), uncle ...

position, not an Arian or fully Unitarian one. Assheton has been identified as the subject of the 1549 work ''The Fal of the late Arrian'' by the Catholic historian John Proctor, at least tentatively, by historians including Diarmaid MacCulloch. MacCulloch also describes Assheton (Ashton) as a Cambridge man, with connections to nobility as a chaplain.Diarmaid MacCulloch (1996), ''Thomas Cranmer'', p. 407.

References

Antitrinitarians 16th-century English Anglican priests Year of death unknown Year of birth unknown {{UK-reli-bio-stub