§ 128. Calvin and La^lius Socinus.
F. Trechsel (pastor at Vechingen, near Bern) : Die protest. Antitrinitarier vor Faustus Socinus nach den Qiiellen und Urkunden geschicktiich dargestellt. Heidelberg, 1839, 1844. The first part of this learned work, drawn in part from manuscript sources, is devoted to Michael Servetus and his predecessors ; the second part to Lelio Sozini and his sympatliizing contemporaries. The third section of vol. II. 187-201, with documents in the Appendix, pp. 431-459, treats of Lelio Sozini. — Henry, II. 484 sqq. ; III. 440, Beilage, 128.— Dver, 251 (very brief).
Lselius Socinus, or Lelio Sozini, of Siena (1525-1562), son of an eminent professor of law, was well educated, and carried away by the reform movement in his early youth. He voluntarily separated from the Roman Church, in 1546, at the sacrifice of home and fortune. He removed to Chiavenna in 1547, travelled in Switzerland, France, England, Germany, and Poland, leading an independent life as a student, without public office, supported by the ample means of his father. He studied Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic with Pellican and Bibliander at Ziirich and with Foster at Wittenberg, that he might reach " the fountain of the divine law " in the Bible. He made Ziirich his second home, and died there in the prime of early manhood, leaving his unripe doubts and crude opinions as a legacy to his more gifted and famous nephew, who gave them definite shape and form.
Lselius was learned, arcute, polite, amiable, and prepossessing. He was a man of affairs, better fitted for law or diplomacy than for theology. He was constitutionally a sceptic,
634 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
of the type of Thomas : an honest seeker after truth ; too independent to submit blindly to authority, and yet too relio-ious to run into infidelity. His scepticism stumbled first at the Roman Catholic, than at the Protestant orthodoxy, and gradually spread over the doctrines of the resurrection, predestination, original sin, the trinity, the atonement, and the sacraments. Yet he remained in respectful connection with the Reformers, and communed with the congregation at Ziirich, although he thought that the Consensus Tigurinus attributed too much power to the sacrament. He enjoyed the confidence of Bullinger and jNIelanchthon, who treated him with fatherly kindness, but regarded him better fitted for a secular calling than for the service of the Church. Calvin also was favorably impressed with his talents and personal character, but displeased with his excessive " inquisitiveness." ^
L. Socinus came to Geneva in 1548 or 1549, seeking instruction from the greatest divine of the age. He opened his doubts to Calvin with the modesty of a disciple. Soon afterwards he addressed to him a letter from Ziirich, asking for advice on the questions, whether it was lawful for a Protestant to marry a Roman Catholic ; whether popish baptism was efficacious ; and how the doctrine of the resurrection of the body could be explained.
Calvin answered in an elaborate letter (June 26, 1549),^ to the effect that marriage with Romanists was to be condemned ; that popish baptism was valid and efficacious, and should be resorted to when no other can be had, since the Roman communion, though corrupt, still retained marks of the true Church as well as a scattered number of elect individuals, and since baptism was not a popish invention but
^ " Inexplicabilis curiositas," as he called it, adding: " Uthiuin non simul accederet phrenetira qucedam protervia." Letter to Bullinger, Aug. 7, 1554 {Opera, XV. 208).
2 Ep. 1212 in Opera, VIII. 307-311. We have in all four letters of Calvin to the elder Socinus, and one from Socinus to Calvin.
§ 128. CALVIN AND L^LIUS SOCINUS. 635
a divine institution and gift of God who fulfils his promises ; that the question on the mode of the resurrection, and its relation to the changing states of our mortal body, was one of curiosity rather than utility.
Before receiving this answer, Socinus wrote to Calvin again from Basel (July 25, 1549) on the same subjects, especially the resurrection, which troubled his mind very much.' To this Calvin returned another answer (December, 1549), and warned him against the dangers of his sceptical bent of mind.^
Socinus Avas not discouraged by the earnest rebuke, nor shaken in his veneration for Calvin. During the Bolsec troubles, when at A¥ittenberg, he laid before him his scruples about predestination and free-will, and appealed to the testimony of Melanchthon, whom he had informed about the harsh treatment of Bolsec. Calvin answered briefly and not without some degree of bitterness.^
Socinus visited Geneva a second time in 1554, after his return from a journey to Italy, and before making Ziirich his final home. He was then, apparently, still in friendly relations to Calvin and Caraccioli.^ Soon afterwards he opened to Calvin, in four questions, his objections to the doctrine of the vicarious atonement. Calvin went to the trouble to answer them at length, with solid arguments, June, 1555.^
But Socinus was not satisfied. His scepticism extended further to the doctrine of the sacraments and of the Trinit3\
1 Opera, XIII. 337 sq.
2 Ep. 1323 in Opera, XIII. 484-487.
3 Opera, XIV. 228. The answer of Calvin in the Geneva library is without date. Bonnet, who first published it (II. 315), puts it at the end of 1551 ; but it probably belongs to the beginning of 1552. See Melanchthon's letters of Feb. 1, 1552, in which he mentions Laelio's reports about Bolseo's treatment, quoted p. 621, note.
* As may be inferred from a postscript to his letter to BuUinger, dated Geneva, April 19, 1554, in Trechsel, II. 437.
^ Responsio ad aliquot LcJIi Socini Senensis qmestionex, printed among the Consilia tkeolofjica, in O/iera, vol. X. 160-165. Comp. vol. XV. 642.