Socinianism

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Faustus Socinus.

The term Socinianism (Socianismus, Sozianismus) denotes an anti-Trinitarian movement that the man auferstandende the belief, Jesus Christ man and God could be both keeps, for contrary to reason. It spread across Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries and was named after its most important representatives, the Italian anti-Trinitarian Lelio Sozzini and his nephew Fausto Sozzini .

history

Socinianism is characterized by a fight against the dogma of the Trinity and rejection of the doctrine of the pre-existence and incarnation of God in Jesus Christ and thus also a merely symbolic interpretation of the Lord's Supper , through rationalistic interpretation of the Bible, humanistic tolerance and rejection of all Christian denominations. In this sense he can be seen as a forerunner of deism and rationalism . The rejection of the feudal hierarchy , which was opposed to the idea of ​​the equality of all people, as well as the condemnation of war, combined with the rejection of military service, go back to the influence of the Anabaptists and the Moravian Anabaptists. Their early Christian ideals were at times influenced by the non-aristocratic classes, who made up the essential social basis of socinianism.

In Poland, the Reformation was mainly spread through Italian reformers, including Pietro Paolo Vergerio and Francesco Lismanini . Since the Reformation in Poland-Lithuania during the reign of Sigismund II August was characterized by religious tolerance , the sect, which was fought elsewhere as heresy , was able to gain a foothold. When Lelio Sozzini came to Poland for the first time in 1551, he also met with Lismanini, who wanted to promote the unity of all Reformation forces in Poland over all theological concerns.

The center of Socinianism was the Polish city of Raków , where the so-called Polish Brothers , who split off from the Reformed Church in Poland in 1564 as Ecclesia minor, were there . This movement then comprised around 170 parishes in Poland. A school of scholars was established based on the Pińczów model . Overall, the Polish anti-Trinitarians, who were mainly recruited from humanist circles, attached great importance to education. Even before the Raków School was founded, there was a Socinian school of scholars in Lubartów , as well as a large number of smaller schools. Fausto Sozzini, who only came to Poland in 1579, was not the founder of Socinianism, he did not even belong to the Polish brothers , but shaped them decisively through his writings, especially the Raków Catechism , published in 1605 , which, in addition to the dogmas already mentioned , also shaped the ecclesiastical soteriology rejected.

The German Socinians Johannes Crellius and Martin Ruarus also worked in Raków . Ruarus was in contact with Hugo Grotius in Paris , who mainly shared the Socinians' idea of ​​tolerance. From Raków, Socinianism spread across Poland and Lithuania , finally to Germany , the Netherlands (see also Lammists ) and England (see also Unitarianism ) and from there to North America.

Ernst Soner (1572–1612) stood out among the German Socinians, who mainly influenced the students through his work as a professor at the University of Altdorf , who in turn played a key role in the dissemination of Socinian ideas in Germany. Philosophically and ideologically, Soner's assumption of the eternity of matter, combined with the assertion of an initial external impulse through which it had received movement, was in a deistic direction.

The spread of Socinian ideas in many European countries was encouraged by the persecution and expulsion of the Socinians that began in Poland as part of the strengthening of the Catholic Counter-Reformation at the beginning of the 17th century . Raków was destroyed by the Counter Reformation in 1638. In 1659 the Socinians were expelled from the country. Some escaped expulsion by converting pro forma to Protestantism. After a religious talk with the Jesuits , the last of the Poles also left.

19th to 21st century

Since 1848, in addition to the few Christian Unitarians, the Christadelphians, who have around 60,000 followers around the world, have represented a Socinian theology. From 1930 there were various attempts to revive the Polish brothers in Poland, but only a few followers were found. In countries like Transylvania and Great Britain, however, Christian Unitarian churches still exist today.

influence

In England it was particularly John Biddle (1615–1662), Isaac Newton and John Locke , in France Voltaire , who dealt with their teachings, which influenced the early Enlightenment period . In the Unitarian Church of Transylvania , in the Unitarian Churches of England and the USA, the socinian ideas lived on until the 18th century (see also Unitarianism (religion) ). Under the influence of rationalism, large parts of Unitarianism in the course of the 19th century also rejected the virgin birth , miracles and the inspiration of the Bible.

Library of the Polish Brothers

The Dutch printer Frans Kuypers published the works of the Polish brothers in Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum quos Unitarios vocant 1665, 1668, 1692.

  • Vol. I-II, Fausto Sozzini : Fausti Socini opera omnia inc. Tractatus de justificatione etc. (1668)
  • Vol. III – V, Johann Crell : Joannis Crellii opera omnia (1665)
  • Vol. VI, Jonas Schlichting : Jonæ Slichtingii ... commentaria posthuma, in plerosque Novi Testamenti libros ... hactenus inedita, inc. de magistratu, bello, et privata defensione, ... didactica, et polemica etc. (1668)
  • Vol. VII – VIII, Johann Ludwig von Wolzüge : Johannis Ludovici Wolhabenii ... opera omnia, exegetica, didactica, et polemica, etc. (1668)
  • Vol. IX, Samuel Przypkowski : Cogitationes sacrae ad initium Evangelii Matthaei et omnes Epistolas apostolicas. (1692) ed. Philippus van Limborch and Benedykt Wiszowaty.

literature

  • Kestutis Daugirdas : The Beginnings of Socinianism: Genesis and Penetration of the Historical-Ethical Model of Religion in the University Discourse of Evangelicals in Europe . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2016, ISBN 978-3-647-10142-2 .
  • Ernst Feil : Religio - the history of a modern basic concept (= research on the history of the church and dogma, vol. 3). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 978-3-525-55187-5 , therein Chapter 4: Positions of Socinianism, p. 263ff.
  • Otto Fock : Socinianism according to its position in the overall development of the Christian spirit, according to its historical course and according to its doctrinal concept. Schröder, Kiel 1847, 2 dept. In 1. (online) (reprint: Scientia-Verl., Aalen 1970, ISBN 3-511-00222-2 ).
  • Lorenz Hein: Italian Protestants and their influence on the Reformation in Poland during the two decades before the Sandomir Consensus 1570 , Brill, Leiden 1974, ISBN 978-9-00403-893-6 .
  • Barbara Mahlmann-Bauer: Protestant religious refugees in Switzerland (1540–1580). In: Hartmut Laufhütte , Michael Titzmann (ed.): Heterodoxy in the early modern times (= early modern times. Vol. 117). De Gruyter, Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-11-092869-3 , pp. 119-160.
  • Fritz Mauthner : Atheism and its history in the West. , 4 volumes, most recently ed. by Ludger Lütkehaus, Alibri, Aschaffenburg 2011, digital copies (without OCR) of the first edition in the French National Library ; Volume 1: Introduction. Fear of the Devil and Enlightenment in the so-called Middle Ages (digitized version), 1920; Cape. 31, sections 18–21: The Reformation in Italy, Socinianism, The Socinians in Poland, Counter-Reformation .
  • Christoph Schmidt : Sown on rocks. The Reformation in Poland and Livonia. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht , Göttingen 2000, ISBN 3-525-01387-6 .
  • Christoph Schmidt: Pilgrims, Popes and Prophets: A History of Religions from Eastern Europe , Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2014, ISBN 978-3-657-77265-0 , pp. 127–177: 7. From West to East: The Anabaptists and 8. Between East and West: The Uniate Church .
  • Friedrich Trechsel: Michael Servet and his predecessors: historically presented according to sources and documents. The Protestant anti-Trinitarians before Faustus Socin , Volume 1, Verlag K. Winter, Heidelberg 1839 (originals in Lausanne & Harvard University; digitized 2008).
  • Friedrich Trechsel: Lelio Sozini and the anti-Trinitarians of his time: historically depicted according to sources and documents. The Protestant anti-Trinitarians before Faustus Socin , Volume 2, Verlag K. Winter, Heidelberg 1844.
  • Siegfried Wollgast : The Socinianism and the German Early Enlightenment. In: Würzburger medical history reports 21, 2002, pp. 397–445.
  • the same: Morphology of Silesian Religiosity in the Early Modern Era: Socinianism and Anabaptism. In: Würzburger medical history reports 22, 2003, pp. 419–448.
  • Paul Wrzecionko (ed.): Reformation and Early Enlightenment in Poland: Studies on Socinianism and its Influence on Western European Thinking in the 17th Century , Volume 14 of Monographs, Church in the East, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1977, ISBN 978-3-525 -56431-8

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ History of the Reformation in Poland  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 80 kB)@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www-classic.uni-graz.at  
  2. ↑ Erich Wenneker:  Lismanini, Francesco. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 5, Bautz, Herzberg 1993, ISBN 3-88309-043-3 , Sp. 124-127.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  3. ↑ Lorenz Hein: Italian Protestants and their influence on the Reformation in Poland during the two decades before the Sandomir Consensus 1570 , Brill, Leiden 1974, ISBN 978-9-00403-893-6 , p. 21
  4. ↑ Georg Wilhelm Theodor Fischer: Attempt a history of the Reformation in Poland. Grätz 1855, pp. 386-390.
  5. ↑ Gottfried Seebaß : History of Christianity. Volume 3. Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-17-018780-5 , pp. 283f.
  6. ↑ Georg Wilhelm Theodor Fischer: Attempt a history of the Reformation in Poland. Grätz 1855, pp. 380-382.
  7. ^ Alan Eyre: The little ecclesia in Poland.
  8. ↑ General lexicon of scholars: Therein the scholars of all classes, both male and female, who lived from the beginning of the world to the present time, and made themselves known to the learned world, after their birth, life, remarkable stories, deaths and writings the most credible scribes are described in alphabetical order. M - R. 3 . Gleditsch, 1751 ( google.ru [accessed February 22, 2019]).
  9. ↑ In full text in the Gutenberg project: Fritz Mauthner: Der Atheismus und seine Geschichte im Abendlande .