Fausto Sozzini

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Fausto Sozzini
Fausto Sozzini (Latin: Faustus Socinus; 1539–1604), the Italian theologian namesake of Socinianism.[1]
Born
Fausto Paolo Sozzini

5 December 1539
Siena, Republic of Siena in the Holy Roman Empire
Died4 March 1604(1604-03-04) (aged 64)
Lusławice, Crown of the Kingdom of Poland in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
Notable workExplicatio primae partis primi capitis Evangelistae Johannis (1563), Disputatio de Jesu Christo servatore (1578), De sacrae Scripturae auctoritate (1580s), De statu primi hominis ante lapsum disputatio (1610)[1]
Theological work
LanguageItalian, Neo-Latin
Tradition or movementSocinianism[1][2][3]
Notable ideasDenial of divine foreknowledge regarding the actions of free agents,[2] Rejection of the pre-existence of Christ[2]
Fausto Sozzini
Era
Protestant Reformation[2][3]
Radical Reformation[2][3]
Main interests
Nontrinitarian Christian theology[2][3]

Fausto Paolo Sozzini, or simply Fausto Sozzini (

belief system known as Socinianism.[1][2] His doctrine was developed among the Polish Brethren in the Polish Reformed Church between the 16th and 17th centuries,[1][3][4] and embraced by the Unitarian Church of Transylvania during the same period.[1][3][5]

Fausto Sozzini recollected most of his uncle Lelio's religious writings by traveling over again his routes throughout

sacred scriptures as historical texts.[6]

Life

Sozzini was born in Siena, capital city of the Republic of Siena, at the time under the rule of the Holy Roman Empire. He was the only son of Alessandro Sozzini and Agnese Petrucci, daughter of Borghese Petrucci (born in 1490), and granddaughter of Pandolfo Petrucci.[7]

His father Alessandro Sozzini, the oldest of eleven brothers, was born in 1509 but died in 1541, in his thirty-second year. Fausto had no regular education, being brought up at home with his sister Fillide, and spent his youth in desultory reading at Borgo Scopeto, the family's country-seat. To the able women of his family he owed the strong moral impress which marked him through life; his early intellectual stimulus came from his uncle

Roman Catholic, but an esprit fort, founder of the short-lived Accademia del Sizienti (1554), of which young Fausto was a member.[7]

In 1556 his grandfather

sonnets.[7]

In 1558–1559 the suspicion of Lutheranism fell on him in common with his uncles Celso and Camillo.[7]

Lyons and Geneva

Coming of age (1561) he went to

Christian mortalism; a position subsequently developed in his disputation with the humanist Francesco Pucci.[7]

Florence

Towards the end of 1563 he returned to Italy, conforming to the

grandduke Cosimo of Tuscany (not, as Samuel Przypkowski says, in the service of the grandduke himself).[10] Between 1565 and 1568 he wrote the essay Il Frastagliato Intronato.[11] This portion of his life he regarded as wasted; until 1567 he gave some attention to legal duties, and wrote (1570) his treatise De auctoritate s. scripturae.[7]

In 1571 he was in

Francesco, now grand-duke, who pressed him to return. Francesco was doubtless aware of the motive which led Sozzini to quit Italy; there is every reason to believe Samuel Przypkowski's statement that the grand-duke agreed to secure to him the income of his property so long as he published nothing in his own name.[7]

Basel

Sozzini now fixed himself at Basel, gave himself to close study of the Bible, began translating the Psalms into Italian verse, and, in spite of increasing deafness, became a centre of theological debates. His discussion with Jacques Couet on the doctrine of salvation issued in a treatise De Jesu Christo servatore (finished 12 July 1578), the circulation of which in manuscript commended him to the notice of Giorgio Biandrata, court physician in Poland and Transylvania, and ecclesiastical wire puller in the interests of heterodoxy.[7][12]

Transylvania

John Sigismund
. The current existing ruler,
weasel words] had destroyed his influence with David. Hence he called in Sozzini to reason with Dávid, who had renounced the worship of Christ. In Sozzini's scheme of doctrine, terms in themselves orthodox were employed in a heretical sense.[7]

In matter of worship Sozzini distinguished between adoratio Christi, the homage of the heart, imperative on all Christians, and invocatio Christi, the direct address of prayer, which was simply permissive (Biandrata would have made it imperative); though in Sozzini's view, prayer, to whomsoever addressed, was received by Christ as mediator, for transmission to the father.[7]

In November 1578 Sozzini reached

Christian Franken and Martin Seidel) theological aversions, though they never made him uncivil, froze up his native kindness and blinded his perceptions of character.[13]

Biandrata ultimately conformed to the Catholic Church; hence Sozzini's laudatory dedication to him (1584) of his De Jesu Christi natura, in reply to the Calvinist

Andrew Wolan, though printed in his works, was not used.[14]

Poland

The remainder (1579–1604) of Sozzini's life was spent in Poland. Excluded at first by his views on

anabaptist
), he acquired by degrees a predominant influence in its synods.

Mausoleum of Faustus Socinus in Luslawice

He was asked by the

Gregory Pauli of Brzeziny had become indisposed, and thereby gained some respect among the Poles.[citation needed
]

Fausto Sozzini converted the

anti-Trinitarian Church of Transylvania.[14]

Forced to leave

holy office at Siena disinherited him, allowing him a pension, apparently never paid.[14]

The end of financial remittances from his property in Italy dissolved the agreement under which his writings were to remain anonymous, and Sozzini began to publish in his own name. The consequence was that in 1598 a mob expelled him from Kraków, wrecking his house, and beating him. Friends gave him a ready welcome at

Luslawice, 30 miles east from Kraków; and here, having long been "troubled with colic and the stone", he died on 4 March 1604. A limestone block with illegible inscriptions marks his grave. His engraved portrait is prefixed to his works (the original is not extant); an oil painting, formerly at Siena, cannot be considered authentic.[14]

Works

Sozzini's works, edited by his grandson

Castellio's Dialogi IV (1575, reprinted 1613) and his revision of a school manual Instrumentum doctrinarum aristotelium (1586).[14]

His pseudonyms, easily interpreted, were Felix Turpio Urhevetanus, Prosper Dysidaeus, Gratianus Prosper and Gratianus Turpio Gerapolensis (Senensis). Some of his early verse is in Ferentillis Scielta di stanze di diversi autori toscani (1579, 1594); other specimens are given in Cant and in the Athenaeum (Aug. II, 1877); more are preserved at Siena.[14]

Sozzini considered that his ablest work was his Contra atheos, which perished in the riot at Kraków (1598). Later he began, but left incomplete, more than one work designed to exhibit his system as a whole.[14]

His reputation as a thinker must rest upon the De auctoritate scripturae sacrae (1570) and De Jesu Christo servatore (1578). The former was first published (Seville [London, John Wolfe], 1588) by López, a Jesuit, who claimed it as his own, but prefixed a preface maintaining (contrary to a fundamental position of Sozzini) that man by nature has a knowledge of God. A French version (1592) was approved by the ministers of Basel; the English translation by Rev. Edward Coombe (Somerset 1731) was undertaken in consequence of the commendation in a charge (1728) by Bishop

Grotius had borrowed from it in his De veritate Christ. rel.. In small compass it anticipates the historical argument of the credibility writers; in trying it by modern tests, it should be remembered that Sozzini, regarding it (1581) as not adequately meeting the cardinal difficulties attending the proof of the Christian religion, began to reconstruct its positions in his Lectiones sacrae (unfinished). His treatise on the Saviour renders a real service to theology, placing orthodoxy and heresy in new relations of fundamental antagonism, and narrowing the conflict to the main personal benefit of religion.[14]

Of the person of Christ in this treatise he says nothing; its one topic is the work of Christ, which in his view operates upon man alone; the theological sagacity of Sozzini may be measured by the persistency with which this idea tends to recur. Though his name has been attached to a school of opinion, he disclaimed the rôle of a heresiarch, and declined to give his unreserved adhesion to any one sect. His confidence in the conclusions of his own mind has earned him the repute of a dogmatist; but it was his constant aim to reduce and simplify the fundamentals of Christianity. Not without some ground does the memorial tablet at Siena (inscription by prof. Giovanni Brigidi 1879)[15] characterize him as vindicator of human reason against the supernatural.[14]

Of his non-theological doctrines the most important is his assertion of the unlawfulness not only of war, but of the taking of human life in any circumstances. Hence the comparative mildness of his proposals for dealing with religious and anti-religious offenders, though it cannot be said that he had grasped the complete theory of toleration. Hence, too, his contention that magisterial office is unlawful for a Christian.[14]

See also

Notes

  1. ^
    Enciclopedia Treccani. Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (in Italian). Vol. 93. Rome
    : Treccani. Retrieved 18 January 2023.
  2. ^
    LCCN 2010000384
    .
  3. ^
    ISBN 978-0-943549-83-5
    .
  4. ^ M. Hillar: "Poland's Contribution to the Reformation: Socinians/Polish Brethren and Their Ideas on the Religious Freedom," The Polish Review, Vol. XXXVIII, No.4, pp. 447–468, 1993. M. Hillar, "From the Polish Socinians to the American Constitution," in A Journal from the Radical Reformation. A Testimony to Biblical Unitarianism, Vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 22–57, 1994. M. Hillar, "The Philosophical Legacy of the XVIth and XVIIth Century Socinians: Their Rationality." in the book "The Philosophy of Humanism and the Issues of Today," eds. M. Hillar and F. Prahl, pp. 117–126, American Humanist Association, Houston, 1995. Marian Hillar, "The Philosophical Legacy of the 16th and 17th Century Socinians: Their Rationality." In The Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy, Alan M. Olson, Executive Editor, Vol 4. Philosophies of religion, Art, and Creativity, Kevin Stoehr (ed.), (Charlottesville, Virginia: Philosophy Documentation Center, 1999) Marian Hillar, "The XVIth and XVIIth Century Socinians: Precursors of Freedom of Conscience, of Separation of Church and State, and of the Enlightenment." In Essays in the Philosophy of Humanism, Vol. 9, pp. 35–60, 2001, eds. Robert D. Finch, Marian Hillar, American Humanist Association, Houston, TX 2001. Marian Hillar, "Laelius and Faustus Socinus Founders of Socinianism: Their Lives and Theology." Part 1. Journal from the Radical Reformation. Testimony to Biblical Unitarianism, Vol. 10, No. 2. Winter 2002. pp. 18–38. Marian Hillar, "Laelius and Faustus Socinus Founders of Socinianism: Their Lives and Theology." Part 2. Journal from the Radical Reformation. Testimony to Biblical Unitarianism, Vol. 10, No. 3. Spring 2002. pp. 11–24.
  5. ^ Wilbur, Earl Morse (1952) [1945]. "The Unitarian Church under Calvinist Princes: 1604-1691". A History of Unitarianism: In Transylvania, England, and America. Vol. 2. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. pp. 121–122.
  6. ^ Daugirdas, Kęstutis (2009). "The Biblical Hermeneutics Of Socinians And Remonstrants In The Seventeenth Century". Arminius, Arminianism, and Europe. 39: 87–114. Retrieved 6 May 2019.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Gordon 1911, p. 321.
  8. ^ a b (o Socini, Sozini, Sozzino, Socino o Socinus), Fausto Paolo (1539–1604) e Socinianesimo in Polonia in Dizionario Del Pensiero Cristiano Alternativo
  9. ^ Panzirolo, Guido. De claris legum interpretibus. first published 1637 Editions: Leipzig: J.F. Gleditsch, 1721, pp. 120–121. (Reprint, Farnborough: Gregg, 1968.)
  10. ^ Cory, David Munroe. Faustus Socinus. p. 29-30.
  11. ^ Tedeschi, John A. (1965). Italian reformation studies in honor of Laelius Socinus. Felice Le Monnier. p. 271.
  12. ^ Socinus, Faustus (1732). A demonstration of the truth of the Christian religion... p. xxi-xxii.
  13. ^ Gordon 1911, pp. 321–322.
  14. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Gordon 1911, p. 322.
  15. ^ "Il vendicatore dell'umana ragione contro il supernaturale" in Piero Chiminelli Il contributo dell'Italia alla riforma religiosa in Europa

References

Bibliography

External links
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