GONESIUS (GONIADZKI, CONYZA), PETRUS:
Polish antitrinitarian; b. at Goniadz (32 m. n.w. of Bielostok) c. 1525; place and date of death unknown. By his opposition to the anti-Catholic teachings of Francesco Stancaro at Cracow he attracted the attention of the bishop and clergy of Samogitia, who sent him abroad to complete his education. During the following years he resided in Germany (especially at Wittenberg), Switzerland (including Geneva), and probably Italy. His association with Italian antitrinitarians in Switzerland and his study of the writings of Servetus seem to have inspired him with heretical doctrines concerning the Trinity, while from the Moravian Anabaptists he received the teaching that the Christian can neither accept office nor engage in war, and took a hostile attitude toward infant baptism. At a synod held at Secymin Jan. 22-23, 1556, Gonesius boldly polemized against the doctrine of the Trinity, accepting the Apostles' Creed, but rejecting the Nicene and Athanasian Symbols. The Father alone
RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
G-olg-otha
Good, The Highest
is God; the Logos is not the Son, but the seed of the Son; and the doctrine of consubstantiality is rejected. The man Christ was transformed into God, and God or the Word into man, so that the Son is at once subject to the Father, and at the same time the two are identical. Refusing to retract, Gonesius was sent to Wittenberg in the hope that Melanchthon might convince him of error. The treatise which he there prepared, De communicatione idiomatum nee dialectica nee physica ideoque prorsus nulla, was so filled with the heresy of Servetus that Melanchthon declined to have any further dealings with him, and dismissed him. Gonesius's reception in Poland, however, was most unfavorable, and at a synod held in the same year at Pinczow his doctrines were condemned as Arian. Two years later at the Synod of Brzesk in Lithuania, he repeated his assertions, and found a strong defender in the starost of Samogitia, Jan Kiszka, who appointed him preacher at Wengrow and placed a press at his disposal for the promulgation of his views. He now won to his side many of the clergy and nobility of Podlachia and Lithuania, and in 1565 the Reformed openly divided into trinitarian and unitarian factions. The latter party soon far outstripped Gonesius, and he was forced to struggle in vain against the " Ebionite " and " Artemonite " heresies which denied the preexistence of Christ. Of the latter part of his life nothing is known. A. HeglerI". (K. Holl.)
Bibliography: F. S. Bock, Hist, antitrinitariorum, i. 106, ii. 1079, Leipsic, 1774-84; O. Fock, Der Socinianismus, pp. 143 sqq., Kiel, 1847.
GOOD FRIDAY. See Holy Week. GOOD, THE HIGHEST.
Conceptions of Plato and Aristotle (§ 1). The Scriptural Conception (§ 2). Augustine's Influence (§ 3). Schleiermacher's View (§ 4). The Sum of All True " Goods " (§ 5).
The term " Highest Good " (summum bonum) is an expression used in philosophic discussion to denote the chief end of man's existence. Cicero defines it (De finibus, I., xii. 42) as " that which is referred to no other thing, while all other i. Concep- things are referred to it." The corretionsof sponding Greek word telos, "end," is Plato and often used simply, without any quali- Aristotle. fying words, for the highest good, with which Aristotle identifies it (" Nicomachean Ethics," 1094a, 18-22): "If anything is an end of our actions which we desire for itself, and other things on account of it it is plain that
this must be the Good and the Best." And that this is almost universally predicated of eudaimonia, " happiness," he states in another passage (1095a, 17 sqq.) : " For we choose this for its own sake always, and never for the sake of anything else." He admits, however, that there is a controversy as to what constitutes it. The Christian Fathers, in estimating the opinions of the philosophers on this subject, give the preference to Plato, because in his system God is especially prominent as the " objective " Highest Good, in the modern phrase. V.-2
Aristotle considers merely " the end of our actions," the " Good " which can be realized by human effort, while Plato brings ethics into close relation with metaphysics. He hypostatizes the " Good " of Socrates into the highest of his " ideas," identifying it with the nous, " mind," of Anaxagoras, the one thing that has real existence, the Godhead. In Plato the same term, " the Good," designates what is highest alike in the life of man and in the system of the universe. The Fathers also commend the way in which he speaks of the ethical "good," the attainable " end," the " happiness " of man. the Highest Good in a subjective sense, as " a likeness to God to the extent of our powers, which likeness consists in becoming just and holy by means of wisdom." The conception of the Highest Good in Christian ethics was largely influenced by the Platonic view, according to which the soul becomes like God only by ascetic flight from the world of sense into the world of ideas, by philosophic meditation on death, by ideal speculation and contemplation of the Godhead. This is intellectualism, to whose prevalence in the Church Aristotle also contributed by defining as the highest good the " contemplative activity " of the soul which is like that of God.
The phrase " your good " of Romans xiv. 16 might be referred to the Highest Good and to the " kingdom of God " in the following 2. The verse; but telos nowhere in the New Scriptural Testament denotes the Highest Good. Conception. Ps. xvi. is sometimes superscribed "God the Highest Good"; though the text of verse 2 is uncertain, throughout the psalm Yahweh is the " portion " of the righteous, from whom they derive all good things (cf. also Ps. lxxiii. 25, 26, 28). Schleiermacher remarks (Werke, III., ii. 456) that the designation of God as the Highest Good is an improper expression, and that it is more correctly defined as love for God. But we are in the habit of referring to persons (such as a wife or a child) as our good in the sense of a possession that makes us happy, without thinking it necessary to speak definitely of our love for them. God is thus Israel's Highest Good; he has given himself to this people as their lord and king. As such he is their lawgiver, their national good (Deut. iv. 8), more to be desired than gold (Ps. xix. 10), and provides all other good things for them. If " your good " in Rom. xiv. 16 is not directly to be referred to the kingdom of God, this kingdom is still, according to the words of Jesus (Matt. vi. 33; cf. xiii. 44, 46) that which is first to be sought. When God is perfectly recognized as king, he will as such bless his people with all good things and thus be the Highest Good of men. Even at present it is the good (best) part (Luke x. 42) to hear the words of Jesus, through which the kingdom of God is established within the soul (cf. also Matt. xiii. 16; John iv. 10). That he is our Highest Good is expressed most clearly in Phil. iii. 7-10, i. 21-23; II Cor. xii. 9; Heb. iii. 14. The " good things " of Matt. vii. 11 are summed up by Luke (xi. 13) in the Holy Spirit as the Highest Good, including all the others. It would, however, be unscriptural to confine the idea of the kingdom of God as the Highest
Good, The Highest Good Works