Author: Marian Hillar, Texas Southern University, noam@swbell.net
ABSTRACT: The doctrines of the Socinians represent a rational reaction to a medieval theology based on submission to the Church's authority. Though they retained Scripture as something supra rationem, the Socinians analyzed it rationally and believed that nothing should be accepted contra rationem.
Their social and political thought underwent a significant evolutionary process from a very utopian pacifistic trend condemning participation in war and holding public and judicial office to a moderate and realistic stance based on mutual love, support of the secular power of the state, active participation in social and political life, and the defense of social equality.
They spoke out against the enserfment of peasants and were the first Christians to postulate the separation of Church and state. The spirit of absolute religious freedom expressed in their practice and writings, “determined, more or less immediately, all the subsequent revolutions in favor of religious liberty.”(1) The precursor ideas of the Socinians on religious freedom later were expanded, perfected, and popularized by Locke and Pierre Bayle.
Locke's ideas were transplanted to America by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson who implemented them in American legislation. The rationality of the Socinians set the trend for the philosophical ideas of the Enlightenment and determined the future development of many modern intellectual endeavors.
Several religious and intellectual movements today claim the right to the heritage of the Socinians, a religious group that developed in Poland and Transylvania in the 16th and 17th centuries. Claimants vary from Christian churches to atheistic or deistic Humanists, each selecting specific Socinian views while ignoring others. The Socinians were known under various names such as the Polish Brethren, Antitrinitarians, Arians, and Unitarians, with the name “Socinians” used mostly in western Europe.(2) They were eventually expelled from Poland in 1660 to fulfill King John Casimir's religious vow to the Holy Virgin to avenge the denial of the Divine Trinity by “heretics,” deemed an act most blasphemous according to Catholic ideology.
At the roots of Socinianism are the theological ideas transplanted from western Europe and the social ideas borrowed initially from the Anabaptists and Moravian Brethren. Discussions at the meetings of the secret society of Catholic scholars in Cracow since 1546 aimed to reform the church and included the works of Michael Servetus.(3)
Several visitors from abroad, including Adam Pastor from Holland and Lelio Sozini from Italy, transplanted Antitrinitarian ideas and doctrines of the Radical Reformation. Around the mid-16th century, various Antitrinitarian sects emerged, separated from the Helvetian church. They called themselves Christians or Brethren, hence the Polish Brethren, and also the Minor Reformed Church.
Their opponents labeled them after old heresies as Sabellians, Samosatinians, Ebionites, Unitarians, and finally Arians. The most brilliant period for the Polish Brethren was between 1585 and 1638, with the center at Rakow, which won the name of the Sarmatian Athens. They founded a world-renowned school in 1602, with its rector until 1621, Jan Crell, codifying the ethical system of the Brethren. Their famous printing press filled Europe with treatises written in Polish, Latin, Dutch, and German, read by figures like John Locke, John Stuart Mill, Isaac Newton, and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.
The Polish Brethren lasted in Poland for about 100 years, from Peter of Goniądz delivering his credo at the Calvinist synod in Secemin on January 22, 1556, to the death of Samuel Przypkowski in 1670. Socinians made an outstanding contribution to Polish literature and had the most advanced and pioneering ideas in social, political, and religious fields.(4) They left about 500 treatises, largely unexplored and still waiting to be examined.
Their ideology was characterized from the beginning by:
At their first synod, the Polish Brethren settled the matter of freedom of conscience: “Everyone has the right not to do things which he feels to be contrary to the word of God. Moreover, all may write according to their conscience, if they do not offend anybody by it.”(5) Protestant and Catholic reaction termed this freedom of conscience and tolerance propagated by the Socinians as “that Socinian dogma, the most dangerous of the dogmas of the Socinian sect.”(6)
One characteristic of Unitarianism/Socinianism from the outset was the insistence on applying reason to interpret Scripture, Revelation, and theological matters. The immediate reason for establishing the Antitrinitarian church was the denial of the traditional dogma of the Trinity, with arguments based on rational interpretation of Scripture. This early “rationalism” was, however, particular and limited.
The conviction was maintained that one was supposed to believe in God, not reason. False dogmas were seen as products of human reason. Thus, among early Antitrinitarians, reason was contrasted with Scripture, accepted as self-evident, though understanding Scripture was believed to require supernatural assistance from the Holy Spirit.
In Socinianism or mature Unitarianism, a question arose about the role of reason in religious matters, especially the relationship between reason and Revelation. Faustus Socinus maintained that:
From the 1630s, this Socinian thesis against natural religion was questioned by later Racovian Socinian theologians, whose new views became recognized as classical Socinian doctrine. They attempted to provide philosophical arguments for natural religion and develop scriptural exegesis to support this view.
Traditional orthodox Catholic views held that interpretations of the Revelation (Old and New Testaments) may vary, requiring the teaching authority of the church—inspired by the Holy Spirit and actuated in the pronouncements of the Roman bishop and Councils, known as Tradition—to ensure correct interpretation. The church was seen as the guarantor of this correctness.
Protestants maintained that Scripture is self-evident, with believers reassured by an inner illumination from the Holy Spirit. However, Protestant theologians often used Tradition, like their Catholic counterparts, relying on the pronouncements of the Fathers of the church.
The new Socinian theory was disclosed in four treatises:(7) *Brevis disquisitio* (1633) and *De iudice et norma controversiarum fidei* (1644) by Joachim Stegmann Sr., *Animadversiones apologeticae ... in ... J.A. Comeni ... libellum* (1660) by Samuel Przypkowski, and *Religio naturalis* (1670) by Andrzej Wiszowaty. The main tenets include: The norm in religious matters is God, but today He does not speak directly. Scripture is left as His Word, a norm of faith like a legal code, though judgment is pronounced by a judge.
Someone must interpret Scripture, but it cannot be the Holy Spirit, as evangelicals maintain. Some Socinians demanded rational argument over faith. Invoking church or papal authority is baseless, as this authority must itself be justified, leading to a vicious circle: church authority is justified by Scripture, and Scripture’s veracity is affirmed by church authority.
The Socinian solution was:
Thus, human reason becomes the sovereign authority, judging Scripture’s provenance and interpretation. The remaining issue concerns truths defined as “above reason” (supra rationem). Socinians used this term in two ways, differing from orthodox usage:
These “above reason” truths form the content of natural religion accepted by Deists. J. Stegmann went further, claiming religious mystery isn’t necessary, and the term “above reason” is inadequate. All religious truths, he argued, are within human reason’s reach, though some require Revelation to be known, not natural means.
This radical stance wasn’t widely accepted among Socinians, deemed too extreme for the Christian world. Later, Przypkowski and Wiszowaty used “above reason” in the strictly Socinian sense. Orthodoxy ignored Socinian mysteries like God’s eternity or the resurrection, finding their rationality unacceptable.
Since the 1630s, later Socinian writers presented their doctrine as fully aligned with human reason, tasking the mind with interpreting Revelation and assessing its veracity. From a rational view, these declarations are subconscious mystifications—Socinians never intended to critically evaluate the authenticity of Christian Revelation, accepting it as self-evident. Their attitude was apologetic, not critical.
Their claim that belief in Revelation stems from natural reason linked traditional religion with Enlightenment Deism. This suggested that once reason justifies belief, it could question Revelation’s divinity. Late Socinianism provided grounds for this, positioning them as precursors to Enlightenment critical trends, playing a dual role:
From this perceived failure, Enlightenment thinkers drew two conclusions: Pierre Bayle argued religion is inherently irrational, and attempts to reconcile it with reason are futile, later leading radicals to see irrationality as proof of human origin, not divine. Alternatively, Deists concluded the failure wasn’t the task’s impossibility but the wrong approach—religion aligns with reason and morality, and if Christianity doesn’t, it’s evidence against it, necessitating a break from the Old Testament, redefining Jesus as a moral leader of natural religion.
