Socinians

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 and nephew, respectively, it was developed among the Polish Brethren in the Polish Reformed Church during the 16th and 17th centuries and embraced by the Unitarian Church of Transylvania during the same period. It is most famous for its Non-trinitarian Christology but contains a number of other heretical beliefs as well.

Origins

The ideas of Socinianism date from the wing of the Protestant Reformation known as the Radical Reformation and have their root in the Italian Anabaptist movement of the 1540s, such as the anti-trinitarian Council of Venice in 1550. Lelio Sozzini was the first of the Italian anti-trinitarians to go beyond Arian beliefs in print and deny the pre-existence of Christ in his ''Brevis explicatio in primum Johannis caput'' – a commentary on the meaning of the Logos in John 1:1–15 (1562). Lelio Sozzini considered that the "beginning" of was the same as and referred to the new creation, not the Genesis creation. His nephew Fausto Sozzini published his own longer ''Brevis explicatio'' later, developing his uncle's arguments. Many years after the death of his uncle in Switzerland, Fausto Sozzini consulted with the Unitarian Church in Transylvania, attempting to mediate in the dispute between Giorgio Biandrata and Ferenc Dávid.

He moved to Poland, where he married the daughter of a leading member of the Polish Brethren, the anti-trinitarian minority, or ''ecclesia minor''. In 1565, it had split from the Calvinist Reformed Church in Poland. Sozzini never joined the ''ecclesia minor'', but he was influential in reconciling several controversies among the Brethren: on conscientious objection, on prayer to Christ, and on the virgin birth. Fausto persuaded many in the Polish Brethren who were formerly Arian, such as Marcin Czechowic, to adopt his uncle Lelio's views.

Fausto Sozzini furthered his influence through his Racovian Catechism, published posthumously, which set out his uncle Lelio's views on Christology and replaced earlier catechisms of the ''Ecclesia Minor''. His influence continued after his death through the writings of his students published in Polish and Latin from the press of the Racovian Academy at Raków, Kielce County.

The name ''Socinian'' started to be used in Holland and England from the 1610s onward, as the Latin publications were circulated among early Arminians, Remonstrants, Dissenters, and early English Unitarians. In the late 1660s, Fausto Sozzini's grandson Andreas Wiszowaty and great-grandson Benedykt Wiszowaty published the nine-volume '' Biblioteca Fratrum Polonorum quos Unitarios vocant'' (1668) in Amsterdam, along with the works of F. Sozzini, the Austrian Johann Ludwig von Wolzogen, and the Poles Johannes Crellius, Jonasz Szlichtyng, and Samuel Przypkowski. These books circulated among English and French thinkers, including Isaac Newton, John Locke, Voltaire, and Pierre Bayle.

In Britain and North America, Socinianism later became a catch-all term for any kind of dissenting belief. Sources in the 18th and 19th centuries frequently attributed the term ''Socinian'' anachronistically, using it to refer to ideas that embraced a much wider range than the narrowly defined position of the Racovian catechisms and library.

Beliefs

Socinian theology, as summarised in the Racovian Catechism, rejected the views of orthodox Christian theology on God's knowledge, on the doctrine of the Trinity and the divinity of Christ, and on soteriology.

Christology

The Racovian publications, like the Sozzinis, rejected the pre-existence of Christ and held that Jesus did not exist until he was conceived as a human being. This view had been put forward before by the 4th-century bishop Photinus, but it conflicts with the mainline Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, and Catholic views, which hold that the Logos referred to in the Gospel of John was Jesus.

Human nature

The Socinians held that humans were created mortal in the beginning and would have died naturally whether Adam and Eve had