Unitarianism: an Historic Survey
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An historic survey RY J. ESTLIN CARPENTER, M.A., D.Litt. P~espnfrdhy f fie GENER4L !iSSZp:131V OF LINITARIAW AND FRfi Gi-IRISTIA:lI C;iURGHES, LON-DON. THE LINDSEY PRESS 5 ESSEX STREET, STRAND, LONDON, Mr.C. 2. 1922 (Watermarks are World War 2 damage when Essex Hall was destroyed by flying bomb VI). - PUBLISHERS' NOTE Dr. Carpenter's essay on ' Unitarianism ' was written for ' The Encyclop~diaof Religion and Ethics.' This reprint is by arrangement with and the permission of Messrs. T. & T. Clark, the publishers of the Encyclop~dia. ESSEXHALL, LONDON. July, 1922. 1'RINTWD UP ELSO11 AND CO. NARICET PLACE:, BULL. UNITARIANISM NITARIANISM, an English term derived from the Latin unitarius (first used of a legalized religion in r6001), is applied to a mode of religious thought and organization founded on the conception of the single personality of the Deity in contrast to the orthodox doctrine of his triune nature. The cor- responding term " Trinitarian " was first used in the modern sense by Ser- vetus in 1546. The adjective " Unitar- ian " has sometimes been employed be- yond the limits of Christianity-e.g., in connexion with Muhammadanism; this article deals only with the development of modern Unitarianism on Christian lines. The place of the corresponding doctrine in the New Testament and Che early Church must be studied in the usual authorities on historical theology. 1 See 3 4 below. 2 UNITARIANISM UNITARIANISM 3 I. BEGINNINGS ON THE CONTINENT were carried far' and wide. In Naples a The general movement of humanism young Spaniard, John Valdes, became at the opening of the 16th cent. led to a the centre of a religious group of noble variety of speculation which was largely ladies for the study of the Scriptures till stimulated by the publication of the his death in 1541 ; and in 1539 Melanch- (Greek text of the New Testament by thon found it necessary to warn the Erasmus (15 16). His omission of the Venetian senate of the existence of wide- famous Trinitarian verse, I John 5 and spread Servetianism in N. Italy. Out his aversion to the scholastic type of dis- of this circle comes Bernard Ochino putations, produced a marked effect on (1487-1565) of Siena, who passes slowly many minds. The earliest literary trace through Switzerland to London, serves of anti-Trinitarian tendencies is usually as one of the pastors of the Strangers' found in a treatise of Martin Cellarius Church (1550-53) till it is broken up by (1499-1 564), pupil of Reuchlin, and at Queen Mary, takes shelter 'again in first a'follower and friend of Luther. In Zurich, and finally migrates to Poland 1527 he published at Strassburg a work in I 559, and joins the anti-Trinitarian entitled de Operibus Dei,. in which he party. There Catherine Vogel, a jewel- used the term deus of Christ in the same ler's wife, had been burned at theLageof sense in which Christians also might be 80 in 1539 at Cracow for believing in called. dei as " sons of the Highest." " the existence of one God, creator of all The first treatise of Servetus (15 I 1-53), the visible and the invisible world, who de Trinitatis E~roribus,followed in I 5 3 I. could not be conceived 'by the human The minds of the young were on the intellect?"' An anti-Trinitarian move- alert. Teachers, theologians, lawyers, ment showed itself at the second synod physicians, mathematicians, men of of the Reformed Church ih 1556, and in letters and science, were a11 astir. They Wallace, Antitrinitarian Biography, ii. I 39, quoting travelled and discussed, and new views Polish histokians. .. c . 4, UNITARIANISM UNITARIANISM 5 1558 secured a leader in the person of a tion, and reason as grounds of faith, and. Piedmontese physician, George Bland- had pleaded for freedom of investiga- rata. Dutch Anabaptists started vari- tion. Lollard and Anabaptist diverged ous heretical moveients, and David in different directions from orthodoxy Joris of Delft (1501-56) declared, in his along independent lines. On 28th Dec. Wonder-book (I 542) that there is but 1548a pri;st named John Assheton ab- " one God, sole and indivisible, and that jured before Cranmer the " damnable it is contrary to the operation of God heresies " that " the Holy Ghost is not throughout creation to admit a God in God, but only a certain power of the three persons." Thousands of Pro- Father," and that " Jesus Christ, that testants from Germany, Alsace, and the was conceived of the Virgin Mary, was a Low Countries, migrated to England in holy prophet . but was not the true the reign of Henry VIII, and the and living God." In the following Strangers' Church under Edward VI, April a commission was appointed to contained also Frenchmen, Walloons, search out all ~naba~tists,'Ceretics,or Italians, and Spaniards. contemners of the Common Prayer. A number of London tradesmen were 2. IN BEG1,NNINGS ENGLAND brought before this body in May. The English thought was not unaffected. opinions which they recanted included In the 15th cent. Reginald Peacock, the statements " that there was no bishop of Chichester, had opened the Trinity of persons; that Christ was only way Gy his two treatises, the~ep~e~so~ a holy prophet and not at a11 God; that of overmuch Blaming of the Clergy1 and "allwe had by Christ was that he taught the Book of Faith,2 to the discussion of us the way to heaven."l Occasional the relative values of Scripture, tradi- 1 Ed. C. Babington (Rolls series, xix. I, 2), London, Gilbert Burnet, History of the Reformation of the I 860. Church of ErtgEand, London, 1679-81, bk. i., new ed., ' 2 Ed. J. L. Morison, Glasgow, '1909. Oxford, 1829, ii. 229. 6 UNITARIANISM UNITARIANISM executions took place, such as that of X which he managed to retain even when the surgeon ~eor~evan Parris, of Bishop Grindal excommunicated him Mainz, in 1551 for saying that God the two years later for advocating toler-. Father was the only God, and Christ ance to Anabaptists. In his %ratage- was not very God. The Eastern coun- mata Satand he drew a distinction be-. ties, beilig in constant co~mmunication tween articles of faith necessary to sal- with , Holland, supplied most of the vation and beliefs derived from them victims, down to Bartholomew Legate, which might be matters of dispute. of Essex, whd declared Christ a " mere Adhering to Scripture, he declared the man," but " born. free from sin," and Father to be " the only true God "; who was the last sufferer by Smithfield affirmed the moral, not the essential, fires (1612), and Edward Wightman, \ filiation of Jesus Christ; and asserted who was burned a mohth later at Lich-. the subordination of the Holy Spirit to. field, charged with ten various heresies the Father. But the time was not yet as incongruous as those of Ebion, come for his full influence in England. Valentinus, Arius, and Manes2 One foreign teacher, Giacomo Aconzio (Lat- 3. TYPES OF SPECULATION inized as Acontius, born at Trent about 1520), held his own through the troubled Three types of speculation were thus. times. Engineer and theologian, philo- in the European field by the middle of. sopher and lawyer, mathematician and the 16th century. (I) That of Servetus. poet, he came to England in 1559, and was founded on the " dispositio " of' received a post at Elizabeth's court, Irenzus and the " economy " of Ter- tullian; the Trinity was a Trinity of' Anti-Trinitarian opinions were developed in the manifestations or modes of operation; first Baptist Church founded in London in 1613, by when God is all in all (I Cor. 15~8),"the Thornas Helwys. See W. H. Burgess, John Smith, th~ S?-Baptist, London, 191I. 1 Basel, I 565. De Trin. Error, p. 48. UNITARIANISM UNITARIANISM Economy of the Trinity will cease." l long known in Western Europe as His theology was Christocentric : "There Socinianism. is no other person of God but Christ Socinus (I 5 39-1604) belonged to a . the entire Godhead of the Father is distinguished Italian family, the Sozini, in him?"' (2) Many of the Anabaptists in Siena. His uncle Lelius Socinus were Arians. (3) A humanitarian view (15 25-62) had evaded the Inquisitian by *of Jesus, recognizing a miraculous birth, flight to Switzerland in 1547. He be- was beginning to claim attention. The came the friend of Calvin and Melanch- last of these succeeded in establishing thon ; he visited England; he travelled itself in the east of Europe before Eng- to Poland. He did not escape con- lish Unitarians began to move. troversy and suspicion; he would not deny the doctrine of the Trinity, but he 4. THE SOCINIAN DEVELOPMENT would accept it only in the words of Scripture. Faustus Socinus was of a When Blandrata reached Poland in more aggressive temper. At twenty- 1558, he found that there were already three years of age he published his some anti-Trinitarians in the Protestant ExpZicatio prime partis primi capitis synod. Seven years later they were ex- Evangelii 70hanni.Q in which he as- cluded, and they consequently formed a cribed to Christ only an official and -small group which refused to call itself not an essential deity. A long series of by any other name than Christian, works followed, and in 1578 he accepted though other titles (such as the Minor an invitation from Blandrata, then in Church) were sometimes applied to it. the service of Prince John Sigismund of In qj9 the settlement A6f Faustus Transylvania, and went to Kol~zsviir Socinus in their midst led to the estab- (Kluj).