I. Laelias

Laelias, an Italian theologian, born in Siena in 1525, died in Zurich, March 16, 1562. His studies led him to doubt some of the fundamental doctrines of the church, including that of the Trinity. After various travels he resided in Switzerland, Germany, and Poland, finally settling in Zurich. In Wittenberg he gained the friendship of Melanchthon, and in Geneva of Calvin; but the favor of the reformers was withdrawn when his peculiar doctrines were discovered. His life was written in Latin by Ill-gen (8vo, Leipsic, 1814), who also published in 1826 two parts of another work in quarto, entitled Syrnboloe ad Vitam et Doctrinam, Loelii Socini illustrandam.

II. Fanstns

Fanstns, nephew of the preceding, born in Siena in December, 1539, died near Cracow, March 3, 1604. By his skeptical spirit he had early made himself obnoxious to the authorities of the church, and at the age of 20 was compelled to seek safety abroad. After the death of his uncle, whoso property and manuscripts he inherited, he returned to Italy. After spending 12 years as an attendant upon the luxurious court of Florence, he resolved to be a religious reformer, and in 1574 took up his residence at Basel, where he busied himself in elaborating into a system the scattered hints and views in the writings of Laelius. In 1577 he appeared in open debate, maintaining that the Trinity was a pagan doctrine, and that Christ was a created and inferior being. This made him unpopular with the Swiss church, but gave him fame abroad. He was called to Transylvania to oppose Davidis, who had taken the extreme ground that all adoration of Christ was idolatrous. His efforts being unsuccessful, he passed into Poland, where the Anti-Trinitarian party had gained a strong foothold. But his moderate opinions made him unpopular here, and he was coldly received. After four years of residence in Cracow, his marriage with the daughter of a nobleman in the neighborhood gave him new influence.

He found a comfortable home, and made proselytes from the noble and wealthy classes. But his wife and her father died, illness prostrated him, his lands in Italy were confiscated, and a few years before his death he was assailed by a mob, dragged into the street, and exposed in the market place; his furniture was broken and his manuscripts were destroyed. His works, contained in the first two volumes of the Bitliotheca Fratrum Polonorum, consist of theological tracts, expositions of Scripture, and polemical treatises, with a great number of letters. Many of his unpublished letters are in the library of Siena. - Though Socinus was the founder of a school in theology, his influence was rather negative than positive. He denied the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the personality of the devil, the native and total depravity of man, the vicarious atonement, and the eternity of punishment. His theory was that Christ was a man divinely commissioned, who had no existence before he was conceived by the Virgin Mary; that human sin was the imitation of Adam's sin, and that human saltation was the imitation and adoption of Christ's virtue; that the Bible was to be interpreted by human reason, and that its metaphors were not to be taken literally.

The name Socinian, which is often given to those who hold Unitarian opinions as a term of reproach, was for a century the honorable designation of a powerful and numerous religious body in Poland, Hungary, and Transylvania. It was only the union of the secular and ecclesiastical force during the reigns of Sigismund III. and his successor that succeeded in breaking up and dispersing the Socinian party in Poland; and the Racovian catechism (so called from its place of publication, Rakow in Poland), compiled mainly from the writings of Socinus, is still the text book of faith and worship in many Hungarian and Transylva-nian churches. The opinions of Socinus are professed still by many churches in Holland, Switzerland, Great Britain, and the United States. His life was written .by the Pole Przypcovius, and by the Rev. Joshua Toul-min (8vo, London, 1777).