St. Alphonsus Liguori: The History of Heresies and Their Refutation

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CHAPTER XII. THE HERESIES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY-(CONTINUED)

ARTICLE II. – THE ANTITRINITARIANS AND SOCINIANS

III. -THE SOCINIANS.

40.-Perverse doctrine of Lelius Socinus.
41.-Faustus Socinus; his travels, writings, and death.
42.-Errors of the Socinians.



40. Lelius and Faustus Socinus, from whom the Socinians take their name, were born in Sienna. Lelius was the son of Marianus Socinus, a celebrated lawyer, and was born in 1525. His talents were of the first order, and he surpassed all his contemporaries at the schools; but he, unfortunately, became acquainted with some Protestants, and they perverted him, so, dreading to come under the notice of the Inquisition, then extremely strict in Italy, he left it at the age of twenty-one, and spent four years in travelling through France, England, Flanders, Germany, and Poland, and finally came to Switzerland, and took up his abode in Zurich. He was intimate with Calvin, Beza, Melancthon, and several others of the same sort, as appears from their letters to him; but he attached himself chiefly to the Antitrinitarian doctrines of Servetus. When he learned that Servetus was burned in Geneva, he hid himself, and fled to Poland first, and afterwards to Bohemia, but after a time returned to Zurich, where he died, in the year 1562, at the early age of thirty-seven (1).


41. Faustus Socinus was a nephew of the former; he was born in 1539, and was infected with his uncle’s heresy. He was twenty-three years of age when his uncle died. He at once went to Zurich, and took possession of all his manuscripts, which he afterwards published, to the great injury of the Church. Next pretending that he was a true Catholic (2), he returned to Italy, and lived for nine years attached to the service of the Duke of Tuscany, who treated him with honour and respect. Finding it impossible to spread his heresy in Italy as he wished, he went to Basil, and lived there three years, and published his impious work on Theology, in two volumes, and spread his doctrines not only there, but in Poland and Transylvania, both by word and writing.

His writings were very voluminous, for not only did he publish his Theology, but several Treatises, besides, especially Commentaries on the fifth and sixth chapters of St. Matthew, on the first chapter of St. John, on the seventh chapter of St. Paul to the Romans, on the first Epistle of St. John, and many more enumerated by Noel Alexander, all of a heretical tendency (3). He was obliged to fly from Cracow (4), in 1598, and went to a village, where he continued to write works of the same tendency, and where, at last, he died in 1604, the sixty-fifth year of his age, leaving one daughter after him.


42. The Socinian errors are very numerous, and Noel Alexander and Cardinal Gotti (5) give them all without curtailment. I will only state the principal ones. They say:


1st, that the knowledge of God and of Religion could not come from Nature.

2nd  That there is no necessity for Christians reading the Old Testament, since they have every thing in the New.

3rd They deny Tradition.

4th They assert that in the Divine Essence there is but one Person.

5th That the Son of God is improperly called God.

6th That the Holy Ghost is not a Divine Person, but merely a Divine power.

7th That Jesus Christ is true man, but not a mere man, for he was honoured by the filiation of God, inasmuch as he was formed without the assistance of man; and they also blasphemously assert that he did not exist before the Blessed Virgin.

8th They deny that God assumed human nature in unity of person.

9th That Christ is our Saviour, only because he showed us the way of salvation.

10th Man was not immortal, nor had he original justification before he committed original sin.

11th Christ did not consummate his sacrifice on the Cross, but only when he went into heaven.

12th Christ did not rise from the dead by his own power; the body of Christ was annihilated after his Ascension, and it is only a spiritual body that he has in heaven.

13th Baptism is not necessary for salvation, nor is grace acquired by it.

14th We receive mere bread and wine in the Eucharist, and these symbols are only of use to remind us of the death of Christ.

15th The Socinians follow the Pelagians in the matter of Grace, and say that our natural strength alone is sufficient to observe the Law.

16th God has not an infallible knowledge of future things which depend on the free will of man.

17th The soul does not survive after death; the wicked are annihilated, with the exception of those who will be alive on the day of judgment, and these will be condemned to everlasting fire; but the damned will not suffer for ever.

18th They teach, with Luther, that the Church failed, and did not continually exist.

19th That Antichrist began to exist when the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome was established. (It is remarkable that heretics of every class attack the Primacy of the Pope.)

20th That the words, ” Thou art Peter, and on this rock,” &c., were addressed equally to the other Apostles as to Peter.

21st That the words, “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it,” do not mean that the Church can never fail.

22nd That the keys given to St. Peter have no other meaning but this : That he had the power of declaring who did or did not belong to the state of those who enjoy the Divine Grace.

23rd They deny that we should have faith in General Councils.

24th They deny that it is lawful for Christians to defend their lives by force against unjust aggressors, for it is impossible, they say, that God would permit a pious and religious man to be placed in these circumstances, so that there would be no way of saving himself unless by shedding the blood of another.

Besides, they say, that it is even worse to kill an aggressor than an enemy, for he who kills an enemy kills one who has already done him an injury; but he who kills an aggressor kills one who has as yet done him no injury, and only desires to injure him and kill him; and even he cannot be sure that the aggressor intends to kill him at all, as, perhaps, he only intends to terrify him, and rob him then with more ease to himself. Here are the original words of the Proposition, as quoted by Noel Alexander, error 39: “Non licere Christianis vitam suam, suorumque contra latrones, et invasores vi opposita defendere, si possint; quia fieri non potest, ut Deus hoininem vere pium, ipsique ex animo confidentem, tali involvi patiatur periculo, in quo ipsum servatum velit, sed non aliter, quam sanguinis humani effusione. Homicidium aggressoris pro graviori delicto habendum esse, quam ipsam vindictam. Vindicando enim retribuo injuriam jam acceptam : at hie occido hominem, qui me forsan nonduin læserat, nedum occiderat, sed qui voluntatem tantum habuit me lædendi, aut occidendi; imo de quo certo scire non possum, an me animo occidendi, et non potius terrendi tantum, quo tutius me spoliari possit, aggrediatur.

Twenty-fifth That it is not necessary for Preceptors to have a Mission from the Superiors of the Church, and that the words of St. Paul, ” How shall they preach if they be not sent?” are to be understood when they preach doctrines unheard till then, such as the doctrine preached by the Apostles to the Gentiles, and, therefore, a Mission was necessary for them. I omit many other errors of less importance, and refer the reader to Noel Alexander, who treats the subject diffusely. The worst is, that this sect still exists in Holland and Great Britain. Modern Deists may be called followers of Socinus, as appears from the works they are every day publishing.* The Socinians say of their founder, Faustus:  Tota licet Babylon destruxit tecta Lutherus, Muros Calvinus, sed fundamenta Socinus (6). Well may this be said, for the Socinians deny the most fundamental articles of the Faith.




(1) Nat. Alex. t. 19, art. 14; Gotti, c. 116, sec. 3, n. 1; Van Ranst, sec. 16, p. 328.
(2) Gotti, loc. cit. n. 2.
(3) Nat. Alex. loc. cit. n. 1.
(4) Gotti, cit. n. 2. 
(5) Nat. Alex. n. 2; Gotti, n. 3.
(6) Gotti, c. 115, sec. 3, n. 15; Van Ranst, p. 308.



* N.B This was written in 1765, or thereabouts.