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  The followers of Socians who affirmed Unity of God were burnt alive

Fausto Paolo Sozini, Lelio Sozini's nephew, was born in 1539.  His uncle handed down to him all that he had acquired during his short but useful life.  At the age of twenty three, young Fausto Sozini, or Socianus as he became popularly known, became an heir not only to Lelio's inheritance, but also to the light of Camillo and the learning of Servetus.  His most precious legacy, however, was the great number of manuscripts and exegitical notes left by his uncle.

Socianus received his early education in Sienna where he was born.  On coming of age, he visited Lyons and Geneva.  He returned to Italy in 1565. He went to Florence and entered the service of Isabella de Medeci.  He received both position and honour from her hands.  After her death, he left Italy and settled in Basle.  Here, the young scholar soon attracted the attention of all those who were interested in the study of theology.  He published a book for private circulation anonymously, as it was very dangerous to openly differ from the teaching of the Church.  

His book reached the hands of Blandrata who was the court physician in Poland.  At this stage, Blandrata had the courage, vision, ability, and ambition to free the minds of the common people from the stranglehold which the established church had on them. The religious toleration of the rulers of Poland had made the country an attractive place for all those who wanted to discuss their religion freely, and who did not wish to follow the obtuse dogmatism of the Church.  Blandrata invited Socianus to Poland, and his offer was gladly accepted.  In the free and congenial atmosphere that Socianus found there, he was at liberty to write in his own name without fear of persecution by the Church.  Though his own person was safe, his property in Italy was confiscated. Socianus married a Polish woman and severed all connections with his native land.

The rulers of Poland did not believe in the doctrine of Trinity, but they were still groping in the dark.  They did not know what steps to take to produce a positive dogma.  The presence of Socianus fulfilled this need and clearly gave satisfaction to the rulers and the people alike.  The knowledge which his uncle had passed on to him, together with the fruits of his own study, fused together in Socianus' intellect, and his writings had a powerful impact on the established church.

The outcome of the ordeal was said to be the immediate judgement of God.  In the ordeal by cold water the accused was thrown into deep water. If he drowned, he was guilty. Knowing full well that Socianus could not swim, the officiating clergy threw him into the sea.  He was saved from drowning, however, and lived until he died in 1604.

In 1605, his writings were collected together in a book.  Since it was published in Rokow, it became popularly known as the Racovian Cathechism.  Originally published in the Polish language, it came to be translated into almost all the languages of Europe.  In time, his teaching spread everywhere, and his school of theology became known as Socianism.  Harnack, in this Outlines of the History of Dogma, ranks Socianism along with Roman Catholicism and Protestantism as the last of the final stages of Christian Dogma. It is largely due to Socianus that Unitarian became a separate entity within modern Christianity. Harnack declared that Socianism had these characteristics:

It had the courage to simplify the questions concerning the reality and content of religion and to discard the burden of the ecclesiastical past. It broke the contracted bond between religion and science, between Christianity and Platonism.  It helped spread the idea that the religious statement of truth must be clear and apprehensible if it is to have strength.

The Socian religion crossed Europe and spread to England.  Bishop Hall of Norwich is recorded as bewailing the fact that "the minds of Christian men were seduced... through the infernal Socian heresy by Anti-trinitarians and New Arians so that the final destruction of Christianity was to be feared."²¹ In 1638, brutal and organised persecution of the Socians started.  Their College at Rokow was suppressed, and the followers of Socianus were deprived of all civil rights, and many people who affirmed the Unity of God were burnt alive. Thus, for instance, in 1639, Catherine Vogal, the wife of a jeweller in Poland was burnt alive at the age of eighty. Her crime was that she believed that God was One; that He was the Creator of the Seen and the Unseen worlds; and that God could not be conceived of by the human intellect.  This is, of course, the pure metaphysics of Islam.  Fuller writes that "such burning of heretics startled the common people...because of the hideousness of the punishment...and they were ready to entertain good thoughts even of the opinions of the heretics who sealed them so manfully with their blood."²² Therefore, says Wallace, "James I indulged his propensity for incendiarism by the more harmless practice of burning their books."²³

            In 1658, the people were given the option of either accepting Roman Catholicism or else going into exile.  The unitarians dispersed throughout Europe.  They spared with their teaching, and continued to stay a separate entity for a long time.

            In the writing contained in the Racovian Cathechism, Socianus struck at the very root of orthodox Christianity by denying the doctrine of atonement. Although he was ignorant of the fact that Jesus was neither crucified nor resurrected, and that therefore the doctrine is entirely without a foundation, Socianus was able to establish the absurdity of the doctrine on other grounds.  Briefly speaking, the doctrine of atonement preaches that man is born in a state of sin because of the first wrong action of Adam, and that Jesus, by his (supposed) crucifixion, atones for this state of sin and all the wrong actions of all those who take baptism and follow him.  According to orthodox Christianity, the Church is a religious fellowship, a society of divine origin which was founded by Christ through his atoning work for men.  Only within its communion, it says, and by its office, can sinful men find the way to God. The Church was therefore considered to be more important and prior to the individual believer. Sozini denied all this.  He was sure that a man could have direct access to God without the need for any intermediaries.  To attain salvation, not baptism, but "Right Reason" was needed, and it was not necessary to blindly follow the Church.  By denying this doctrine, Socianus brought the whole authority of the Church and its raison d'etre into question.  It was largely because of this that both the Catholics and Protestants joined forces with such fervour to fight Socianism.  Socianus refuted the doctrine of atonement on the following grounds:

            Christ could not have offered an infinite sacrifice for sin since Christ, according to the Gospel narration, suffered only for a short time. The most intense suffering for a limited period is as nothing compared with the eternal suffering to which man was liable.  If it is said that the suffering is greater in so far as he who suffers it is infinite, so also the power to endure the suffering is greater.  But even the suffering of an infinite being cannot take the place of eternal suffering.

            If it is granted that Christ did offer infinite atonement, then it is impossible to speak of the forgiveness of God or of man's gratitude to Him for granting His forgiveness, since a man who was baptised in the name of Christ automatically acquired atonement for his sins before God could remit the penalty for them.  To follow the doctrine means that God's Law is no longer binding on His servants since the penalty for all his sins has already been paid in full. Therefore, a man is at full liberty to do what he likes.  Since the offering of Christ was absolute and infinite, it included all.  Therefore, universal salvation must follow.  In other words, God has no right to add any further conditions to what He requires of man. The whole price has been paid, past, present and future; and, therefore, all debtors are now free.  For, suppose a number of men had owed a great debt to an earthly creditor and someone had paid it all off; then what right would the creditor have to make further demands or conditions on these men who were no longer indebted to him?

Socianus asserted that Jesus was truly a mortal man. He was born of a virgin.  He was separated from all other men due to the holiness of his life. He was not God, but he received inspiration from God.  Thus, he had divine vision and divine power although he was not their author. He was sent by God with His supreme authority on a mission to manking.  Socianus supported these beliefs with a comprehensive citation and confident exegis of the relevant passages from the Scriptures.  His subtle and able argument gave a rational meaning to the word of Christ.  Jesus was not the Word made flesh. He was a man who achieved victory over wrong action in his life in the flesh.  He did not exist before the world came into existence.  It was permissible to invoke the help of Jesus in prayer as long as he was not worshipped as God.

            Socianus affirmed that God is the supreme Lord of all. Omnipotence is not His only attribute, but rules every other attribute.  There can be no question raised against God.  The finite cannot be a measure of the infinite.  Therefore, all human conceptions of the nature of God must be considered as inadequate grounds on which to base a critical judgment about Him. God's will is free and bound by no law that the human mind can formulate. His purpose and His will are hidden from the human mind.  God's dominion comprises of a right and supreme authority to determine whatsoever He may choose, in respect of us all and all other things. He can read our thoughts even though they may be hidden in the innermost recess of our hearts.  He can at pleasure ordain laws and determine both reward and punishment for the purity and the lapses in a man's intentions.  Thus, man is an individual who has been given the freedom of choice, but who in fact is powerless.

            Since there cannot be more than one being who possesses supreme dominion over all things, asserted Socianus, to spread of three supreme persons is to speak irrationally.  The essence of God is one, not only in kind but also in number.  It cannot in any way contain a plurality of persons, since an individual person is nothing else than an individual intelligent essence. Wherever there exist three numerical persons, there must necessarily in like manner be reckoned three individual essences.  If it is affirmed that there is one numerical essence, it must be held that there is one numerical person.

The doctrine of Trinity was also refuted by Socianus on the grounds that it was not possible for Jesus to have two natures simultaneously.  He said that two substances having opposite properties cannot combine into one person, and such properties are mortality and immortality: to have a beginning and to be without beginning, to be mutable and to be immutable.  Again, two natures each of which is apt to constitute a separate person cannot be huddled into one person. For, instead of one, there, of necessity, arise two persons and consequently they become two Christs, one divine and one human.  The Church says that Christ is constituted of a divine and human nature as a man is of body and soul.  Socianus replied that, in that case, this is widely different from the belief that the two natures in Christ are so united that Christ is thus constituted of a divine and a human body. In a man, body and soul are so conjoined that a man is neither soul nor body.  For neither the soul nor the body separately constitute a person.