Fausto Paolo Sozzini
Encyclopedia
Siena
Siena is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the province of Siena.The historic centre of Siena has been declared by UNESCO a World Heritage Site. It is one of the nation's most visited tourist attractions, with over 163,000 international arrivals in 2008...
– 4 March 1604, Luslawice) was an Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
theologian and founder of the school of Christian thought known as "Socinianism
Socinianism
Socinianism is a system of Christian doctrine named for Fausto Sozzini , which was developed among the Polish Brethren in the Minor Reformed Church of Poland during the 15th and 16th centuries and embraced also by the Unitarian Church of Transylvania during the same period...
" and the main theologian of Polish Brethren
Polish Brethren
The Polish Brethren were members of the Minor Reformed Church of Poland, a Nontrinitarian Protestant church that existed in Poland from 1565 to 1658...
(a Protestant Polish church).
Life
Sozzini was born at SienaSiena
Siena is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the province of Siena.The historic centre of Siena has been declared by UNESCO a World Heritage Site. It is one of the nation's most visited tourist attractions, with over 163,000 international arrivals in 2008...
, the only son of Alessandro Sozzini and Agnese Petrucci, daughter of Borghese Petrucci b.1490, and granddaughter of Pandolfo Petrucci
Pandolfo Petrucci
Pandolfo Petrucci was a ruler of the Italian city of Siena during the Renaissance.-Biography:...
.
His father Alessandro Sozzini, oldest of eleven brothers, was born 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 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 Celso Sozzini
Celso Sozzini
Celso Sozzini was an Italian freethinker, brother of Alessandro, Lelio, Cornelio, Dario, and Camillo Sozzini.Celso's father Mariano Sozzini il giovane had eleven sons and two daughters...
, a nominal Roman Catholic, but an esprit fort, founder of the short-lived Accademia del Sizienti (1554), of which young Fausto was a member.
In 1556 his grandfather Mariano Sozzini the younger's will, left Fausto, as only son of the oldest son, one fourth of the family estates, which made him independent. Next year he entered the Accademia degli Intronati
Accademia degli Intronati
The Accademia degli Intronati was the center of intelectual life in Siena around the 1550s. It was founded between 1525 and 1527 as a gathering place for aristocracy....
, the centre of intellectual life in Siena. He joined with the name Frastagliato, while Celso had the name Sonnacchioso. About this time the jurist Guido Panzirolo describes him as a young man of fine talent, with promise of a legal career; but he showed little interest for law, preferring to write sonnets.
In 1558-1559 the suspicion of Lutheranism
Lutheranism
Lutheranism is a major branch of Western Christianity that identifies with the theology of Martin Luther, a German reformer. Luther's efforts to reform the theology and practice of the church launched the Protestant Reformation...
fell on him in common with his uncles Celso and Camillo.
Lyons and Geneva
Coming of age (1561) he went to LyonLyon
Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....
, probably engaging in mercantile business; he revisited Italy after his uncle Lelio Sozzini's death; we find him in 1562 on the roll of the Italian church at Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
; there is no trace of any relations with Calvin. He returned next year to Lyon. The evangelical position was not radical enough for him. In his Brevis explicatio (Lyons, 1562) of the prologue to St John's Gospel he already attributes to Christ
Christ
Christ is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...
an official, not an essential, deity - already an anti-Trinitarian position; and in a letter of 1563 rejects the immortality of the soul in favour of Christian mortalism; a position subsequently developed in his disputation with the humanist Francesco Pucci
Francesco Pucci
Francesco Pucci was an Italian philosopher and humanist.-Life:He was of the same family as the Cardinals Lorenzo Pucci, Roberto Pucci, and Antonio Pucci. He worked began in a mercantile house at Lyon and came into contact with the Protestant Reformation...
.
Florence
Towards the end of 1563 he returned to Italy, conforming to the Roman Catholic ChurchRoman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
, and for twelve years, as, his unpublished letters show, was in the service of Isabella de Medici, daughter of the grandduke Cosimo of Tuscany
Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany
Cosimo I de' Medici was Duke of Florence from 1537 to 1574, reigning as the first Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1569.-Biography:...
(not, as Samuel Przypkowski
Samuel Przypkowski
Samuel Przypkowski was a Polish Socinian theologian, a leading figure in the Polish Brethren and an advocate of religious toleration. In Dissertatio de pace et concordia ecclesiae, published in 1628 in Amsterdam, he called for mutual tolerance by Christians...
says, in the service of the grandduke himself). Between 1565 and 1568 he wrote the essay Il Frastagliato Intronato. This portion of his life he regarded as wasted; till 1567 he gave some attention to legal duties, and at the instance of a great personage wrote (1570) his treatise De auctoritate s. scripturae.
In 1571 he was in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, probably with his patroness. He left Italy at the end of 1575, and after Isabella's death (strangled by her husband in 1576) and declined the overtures of her brother Francesco
Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany
Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany was the second Grand Duke of Tuscany, ruling from 1574 to 1587.- Biography :...
, 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
Samuel Przypkowski
Samuel Przypkowski was a Polish Socinian theologian, a leading figure in the Polish Brethren and an advocate of religious toleration. In Dissertatio de pace et concordia ecclesiae, published in 1628 in Amsterdam, he called for mutual tolerance by Christians...
'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.
Basel
Sozzini now fixed himself at BaselBasel
Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...
, gave himself to close study of the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
, began translating the Psalms
Psalms
The Book of Psalms , commonly referred to simply as Psalms, is a book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible...
into Italian verse, and, in spite of increasing deafness, became a centre of theological debates. His discussion with Jacques Couet
Jacques Couet
Jaques Couet du Vivier was a Huguenot pastor.Couet was born to minor nobility, son of Philibert Couet du Vivier et Marie Gohorry, a Huguenot family. After the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre he appears to have fled to Scotland for a time...
on the doctrine of salvation issued in a treatise De Jesu Christo servatore (finished July 12, 1578), the circulation of which in manuscript commended him to the notice of Giorgio Biandrata
Giorgio Biandrata
Giorgio Biandrata or Blandrata , was an Italian physician and polemicist, who came of the De Biandrate family, powerful from the early part of the 13th century, was born at Saluzzo, the youngest son of Bernardino Biandrata.He graduated in arts and medicine at Montpellier in 1533, and specialized in...
, court physician in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
and Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
, and ecclesiastical wire puller in the interests of heterodoxy
Heterodoxy
Heterodoxy is generally defined as "any opinions or doctrines at variance with an official or orthodox position". As an adjective, heterodox is commonly used to describe a subject as "characterized by departure from accepted beliefs or standards"...
.
Transylvania
Transylvania had for a short time (1559–1571) enjoyed full religious liberty under an anti-Trinitarian prince, John SigismundJohn II Sigismund Zápolya
John II Sigismund Zápolya was King of Hungary from 1540 to 1570 and Prince of Transylvania from 1570–1571.-Family:The son of King John I and Isabella Jagiełło, he succeeded his father as an infant...
. The existing ruler, Christopher Bathori, favoured the Jesuits; it was now Biandrata's object to limit the Judaic tendencies of the eloquent anti-Trinitarian bishop, Ferenc Dávid
Ferenc Dávid
Ferenc Dávid was a Transylvanian Nontrinitarian and Unitarian preacher, the founder of the Unitarian Church of Transylvania.-Life:Born in Kolozsvár to a Hungarian family, he studied in Wittenberg and Frankfurt...
(1510–1579), with whom he had previously co-operated. A charge of the gravest sort against Biandrata's morals had destroyed his influence with David. Hence he called in Sozzini to reason with David, who had renounced the worship of Christ. In Sozzini's scheme of doctrine, terms in themselves orthodox were employed in a heretical sense.
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.
In November 1578 Sozzini reached Kolozsvár
Cluj-Napoca
Cluj-Napoca , commonly known as Cluj, is the fourth most populous city in Romania and the seat of Cluj County in the northwestern part of the country. Geographically, it is roughly equidistant from Bucharest , Budapest and Belgrade...
from Poland, and did his best, during a visit of four months and a half under Dávid's roof, to argue him into this modified doctrine of invocation. The upshot was that Dávid exerted all his powers in denouncing all cultus of Christ from the pulpit. Dávid's civil trial followed, on a charge of innovation. Sozzini hurried back to Poland before it began. He cannot be accused of complicity with the actions of Biandrata; he was no party to David's incarceration at the Fortress of Deva, where the old man miserably perished in less than three months. He was willing that Dávid should be prohibited from preaching pending the decision of a general synod
Synod
A synod historically is a council of a church, usually convened to decide an issue of doctrine, administration or application. In modern usage, the word often refers to the governing body of a particular church, whether its members are meeting or not...
; and his references to the case show that (as in the later instances of Jacobus Palaeologus, Christian Franken and Martin Seidel
Martin Seidel
Martin Seidelius was a Polish Unitarian.Martin Seidel was a refugee from Oława in Silesia, who sided with the Szekler Sabbatarians of the Unitarian movement in Transylvania, which Sozzini characterised as "semi-judaizers". Seidel rejected the Messianic doctrine of the New Testament. In 1611 he...
) theological aversions, though they never made him uncivil, froze up his native kindness and blinded his perceptions of character.
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.
Poland
The remainder (1579–1604) of Sozzini's life was spent in Poland. Excluded at first by his views on baptismBaptism
In Christianity, baptism is for the majority the rite of admission , almost invariably with the use of water, into the Christian Church generally and also membership of a particular church tradition...
(which he regarded as applicable only to Gentile converts) from the Ecclesia Minor or anti-Trinitarian Church (largely anabaptist
Anabaptist
Anabaptists are Protestant Christians of the Radical Reformation of 16th-century Europe, and their direct descendants, particularly the Amish, Brethren, Hutterites, and Mennonites....
), he acquired by degrees a predominant influence in its synods.
He was asked by the Polish Brethren
Polish Brethren
The Polish Brethren were members of the Minor Reformed Church of Poland, a Nontrinitarian Protestant church that existed in Poland from 1565 to 1658...
to take up the position of a champion of conscientious objection against the Byelorussian Symon Budny
Symon Budny
Symon Budny was a Belarusian and Polish humanist, educator, hebraist, Bible translator, Church reformator, philosopher, sociologist and historian.-Christology:...
and the Greek Unitarian Jacobus Palaeologus after Gregory Pauli of Brzeziny
Grzegorz Paweł z Brzezin
Grzegorz Paweł z Brzezin , Latin: Gregorius Paulus Brzezinensis) , was a Socinian writer and theologian, one of the principal creators and propagators of radical wing of the Polish Brethren, and author of several of the first theological works in Polish, which helped to the development of literary...
had become indisposed, and thereby gained some respect among the Poles.
Fausto Sozzini converted the Arian
Arianism
Arianism is the theological teaching attributed to Arius , a Christian presbyter from Alexandria, Egypt, concerning the relationship of the entities of the Trinity and the precise nature of the Son of God as being a subordinate entity to God the Father...
section of the Ecclesia Minor from belief in the pre-existence of Christ
Pre-existence of Christ
The pre-existence of Christ refers to the doctrine of the ontological or personal existence of Christ before his conception. One of the relevant Bible passages is where, in the Trinitarian view, Christ is identified with a pre-existent divine hypostasis called the Logos or Word...
to the early Unitarian position, and from their rejection of the invocatio Christi. He repressed the semi-Judaizers whom he failed to convince. Through correspondence with friends he influenced also the policy of the anti-Trinitarian Church of Transylvania.
Forced to leave Cracow in 1583, he found a home with a Polish noble, Christopher Morsztyn, whose daughter Elizabeth he married (1586). She died in the following year, a few months after the birth of a daughter, Agnese (1587–1654), afterwards the wife of Stanisław Wiszowaty, father of Andreas Wiszowaty, and the progenitress of numerous descendants. In 1587 the grand-duke Francesco died; to this event Sozzini's biographers attribute the loss of his Italian property, but his unpublished letters show that he was on good terms with the new grand-duke, Ferdinando
Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany
Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany was Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1587 to 1609, having succeeded his older brother Francesco I.-Biography:...
. Family disputes had arisen respecting the interpretation of his grandfather's will; in October 1590 the holy office at Siena
Siena
Siena is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the province of Siena.The historic centre of Siena has been declared by UNESCO a World Heritage Site. It is one of the nation's most visited tourist attractions, with over 163,000 international arrivals in 2008...
disinherited him, allowing him a pension, apparently never paid.
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 Cracow, wrecking his house, and beating him. Friends gave him a ready welcome at Luslawice, 30 miles east from Cracow; 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.
Works
Sozzini's works, edited by his grandson Andrzej WiszowatyAndrzej Wiszowaty
Andrzej Wiszowaty Sr. was a Socinian theologian who worked with Joachim Stegmann on the Racovian Catechism of 1605, and taught at the Racovian Academy of the Polish Brethren....
and the learned printer Frans Kuyper
Frans Kuyper
Frans Kuyper was a Dutch Socinian writer and printer.First a Remonstrant minister at Vlaardingen, he left the church on his objection to infant baptism...
, are contained in two closely printed folios (Amsterdam, 1668). They rank as the first two volumes of the Bibliotheca fratrum polonorum though the works of Johann Crell and Jonas Schlichting were the first of the series to be printed. They include all Sozzini's extant theological writings, except his essay on predestination (in which he denies that God foresees the actions of free agents) prefixed to Castellio's Dialogi IV (1575, reprinted 1613) and his revision of a school manual Instrumentum doctrinarum aristotelium (1586).
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.
Sozzini considered that his ablest work was his Contra atheos, which perished in the riot at Cracow (1598). Later he began, but left incomplete, more than one work designed to exhibit his system as a whole.
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, 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 Richard Smalbroke, who observes that 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
Heresy
Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...
in new relations of fundamental antagonism, and narrowing the conflict to the main personal benefit of religion.
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
Heresiarch
A heresiarch is a founder or leader of a heretical doctrine or movement, as considered by those who claim to maintain an orthodox religious tradition or doctrine...
, 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 dogma
Dogma
Dogma is the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, or a particular group or organization. It is authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted, or diverged from, by the practitioners or believers...
tist; 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) characterize him as vindicator of human reason against the supernatural.
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.