ANTITRINITARI. — This name designates all heretics who profess some error against the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, whether they assert that there are three natures in it (tritheists), or maintain that there is only one person (monarchians), or deny the divinity of one of the three divine persons. The history of antitrinitarianism may be divided into three periods: 1) from the beginning of Christianity to the sixteenth century; 2) from the sixteenth to the seventeenth century, or the Socinian period; 3) from the eighteenth century to our own day, or the Unitarian period.
1st Period. — The Most Holy Trinity was denied in the second century by the heresiarch Praxeas (v. MONARCHIANISM), who admitted only the person of the Father, who, he held, suffered and died for men; hence the name “patripassians,” given to his followers. In the third century the three persons were denied by Noetus (v.) and Sabellius (v.), not to mention the Manichaeans, who substituted dualism, or the two principles of good and evil, for the Trinity. In Paul of Samosata (v.), and in the following century Arius (v.), denied the consubstantiality of the Son, while Macedonius (v.) denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit. These and other errors concerning the Trinity were condemned at the Council of Nicaea (325), the First Council of Constantinople (583), and at the Roman synods under Pope Damasus I. The Priscillianists (v.) were also accused as antitrinitarians, if it is true that the symbol of the Eleventh Council of Toledo, in 675, was composed against them.
During the Middle Ages, there were no few erroneous explanations that were given of the mystery of the Trinity; in fact, at the Council of Sens in 1140 the errors of Peter Abelard (v.) were condemned, and at the Fourth Lateran Joachim of Fiore (v.). Antitrinitarian errors also found support in the doctrine of the extreme nominalists, according to whom the names of the three persons of the Most Holy Trinity are names of three individual natures or substances, while the unity of nature of the persons is merely a verbal expression. It must therefore be concluded that antitrinitarian theories, in one form or another, continued, though latently, until the sixteenth century.
2nd Period, or Socinian period. — The revival of antitrinitarianism in the sixteenth century, in addition to whatever part the nominalist doctrine may have played in it, was due to the doctrine of “free examination.” It is certain that Luther, Calvin, and the Anglicans remained faithful to the dogma of the Most Holy Trinity and indeed persecuted the antitrinitarians; but, once their principle had been established, it was natural that antitrinitarianism should also emerge among its consequences.
Article 1 of the Augsburg Confession condemns the ancient and modern Samosatenians, who maintain that there is only one person and impiously argue that the persons are not distinct, asserting that the Word is a vocal word (verbum vocale) and that the Spirit is the created impulse of things.
What Melanchthon feared in his letter was unfortunately a reality. In Germany and Switzerland themselves, antitrinitarian doctrines were propagated by Martin Cellarius (d. 1564), W. F. Capito (d. 1542), G. Campanus (d. after 1553), L. Hetzer (d. 1529), and G. Denk (d. 1528). All suffered persecution, and Hetzer was condemned to death by the Protestants of Basel. Antitrinitarian doctrines, however, owed their greatest development and their broadest propagation to the Spaniard Michael Servetus (1509–53) and to certain Italian heretics, whose activity was summed up in a few words by Zanchi, a Protestant pastor at Chiavenna, where many of them resided: “Hispania gallinas peperit, Italia fovet ova, nos iam pipientes pullos audimus.”
The antitrinitarian ideas and their Italian propagandists, rejected not only by Catholic countries but also by the Protestants, who in 1566 condemned the Calabrian Giovanni Valentino Gentile to the ultimate punishment, found refuge in Poland under King Sigismund II Augustus (1543–72) and in Transylvania. Nearly all the principal Italian antitrinitarians went to one or the other of these two countries: the Gentile mentioned above; the Sienese Lelio Socino Sozino or Sozzini (v.), d. 1562, and his nephew Faustus, d. 1604; the Mantuan Francesco Stancari (v.), d. 1564; and the two Piedmontese Giampaolo Alcini (v.), d. 1565, BINA, ANDREA (v.), d. 1588. The antitrinitarian doctrines of all these Italian heretics may be gathered from the Theses de Filio Dei et Trinitate, confectae a Socino vel Sociniano, and from the disputation held at Racow in 1601. “There is only one God and only one person, the Father; Jesus Christ, a mere man, miraculously conceived but from human seed, was anointed by the Holy Spirit, who, however, is nothing other than the power and energy of the divinity. After his death and resurrection, Jesus Christ was so exalted in his humanity that he may be called God and worshipped, not by right, but as God’s plenipotentiary.”
The heretical doctrines of the Socinians concerned not only the Most Holy Trinity but also other dogmas. Comparing the Protestants of that time with the Socinians, Cantù writes (Gli eretici d'Italia, II, p. 491): “The Socinians, like the followers of Luther, announced themselves as restorers of primitive Christianity by taking Sacred Scripture as the sole and only rule of faith and norm of conduct; Luther, eliminating from the Bible whatever did not please him, retained the dogmas of the Trinity, Original Sin, the Incarnation and Divinity of Christ, Baptism, and the Eucharist; Socinus removed everything. Lutheranism gave precedence to the divine element, Socinianism to the human; Lutherans and Reformed exaggerated inherited sin, while the Socinians did not acknowledge it.”
In Transylvania, where Biandrata was active, one of the principal antitrinitarian leaders, Francesco David, vehemently opposed the view—held by Biandrata—that Jesus Christ could be called God and worshipped. Biandrata then invited Faustus Socinus to go there; he went in 1578, but was unable to convince David, who, confined in prison, died there. From Transylvania, Socinus went to Poland in 1579.
In Poland antitrinitarianism had already been propagated by the Italians mentioned above. In 1570 a Polish nobleman had allowed them to establish a center of study and retreat on his estate at Racow. Two principal parties had already formed among them: the Farnovian party, which allowed that some worship might be given to Jesus Christ, and the Budneist party, which denied him every kind of worship. At first Socinus was well received by neither party, but, being as shrewd a man as he was, he gradually succeeded in bringing about the union of the various parties and the predominance of his doctrine at the Synod of Brest-Litovsk in 1588 and that of Racow in 1603. At the death of Sigismund II the heretics lost part of their influence, but continued to organize themselves and propagate their doctrines. Socinus, despite some opposition, continued to work until his death in 1604. This epitaph was engraved on his tomb: “Tota ruet Babylon (that is, the Catholic Church), destruxit tecta Lutherus, muros Calvinus, sed fundamenta Socinus”; and, although the prophecy proved false, the words accurately indicate the tendencies of the three heresiarchs. Socinianism persisted in Poland, amid various vicissitudes, until 1638, when some fanatical students of Racow dared to break a cross displayed for public veneration. The Warsaw Diet then ordered the closure of the school at Racow, prohibited Socinian printing, and exiled its ministers.
But the final blow to the Polish Socinians came in 1658, when, during the Swedish invasion, it was discovered that they maintained secret communications with the prince of Transylvania, Ragotski, who had invaded Poland; consequently, they were all expelled from the kingdom. In Transylvania they continued without hindrance until 1699, also
after this region was annexed to Austria, which limited itself to taking some churches from the Socinians, recognizing their freedom of worship. Some groups of Unitarians still exist in Transylvania today, but they are chiefly adherents of the doctrines of David, whom they regard as a martyr.
3° Unitarian Period. — A) The antitrinitarians in England. — Among the Anabaptists who took refuge in England in 1535, some were burned alive by the English tribunals because they were accused of denying the Trinity and the Divinity of Jesus Christ. In 1550 Giovanna Bouche and, in 1611, under James I, two other heretics were condemned to the same punishment for the same reason. They were thus isolated figures, but indications of an occult movement that gradually began to manifest itself when the Socinian books published at Racow spread in England, and some Polish Socinians arrived there after being expelled from their homeland in 1638 and 1658. During the English Civil War, Biddle (v.) publicly professed antitrinitarianism and, having been condemned to prison, owed his liberation to Cromwell.
Various causes and circumstances favored the propagation of antitrinitarianism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. One of them is to be sought in Arminianism—not in the sense that Arminius denied the dogma of the Trinity, but in the sense that the Arminians, applying the principle of free examination, maintained that everyone was free to interpret Holy Scripture and was obliged to believe only what he understood. In any case, their principal theologian, Episcopus, professed antitrinitarianism, so much so that in the English colonies Edwards called the antitrinitarians Arminians. A second cause was rationalism, the enemy of all dogmas, which developed during the Civil War, when many Englishmen could no longer find their bearings amid so many Anglican, Puritan, Independent, and Presbyterian doctrines, as well as the more recent doctrines of the Quakers. Deism also contributed to it, so much so that one of its founders, Locke, is regarded by the antitrinitarians as one of their own. The Act of Toleration of 1688, without realizing it, gave this sect a new impetus by freeing the nonconformist sects from every form of control (this was the name given to the English Baptists, Congregationalists, and Presbyterians).
While the first two sects hardened their doctrines, the English Presbyterians, much less rigid than their fellow believers in Scotland, granted broad freedom to their followers; consequently, their pastors began to interpret the Bible more freely and, while remaining within Presbyterianism and retaining great respect for the person of Jesus Christ, no longer insisted on his divinity. This resulted in a certain doctrinal hesitation, which Priestley (1733–1804) sought to bring to an end by maintaining that the Trinity, the divinity of Jesus Christ, and his expiatory sacrifice were corruptions of Christianity, and that Unitarianism was the primitive doctrine. His adherents thus began to be called Unitarians. Priestley, persecuted for his doctrines, went to America in 1794, where he continued to spread his heresy.
A group of Baptists called “General Baptists,” of Arminian tendency, joined this group of Presbyterians in 1770; they formed the Unitarian General Baptists. Toward the middle of the nineteenth century, some Methodist churches also admitted antitrinitarian doctrines; thus it may be said that English Unitarianism was largely composed of refugees from the three aforementioned sects. The Anglican minister Theophilus Lindsey (1723–1808) was responsible for the first Unitarian chapel in England, with public and distinctive worship. Lindsey, inclined toward deism and a convinced latitudinarian, demanded that Anglican ministers not be required to subscribe to the 39 Articles of Religion, especially those containing Trinitarian doctrines (v. ANGLICAN ARTICLES OF RELIGION). When his request was rejected, he left the parish in 1773 and opened the first Unitarian chapel the following year. In the nineteenth century, the English Unitarians, like the Americans, were unable to escape the influence of the German theological school, and associations called “free Christians,” “free believers,” and so forth became common among them.
At present there are approximately 300 Unitarian churches or chapels in England, with 40,000 members, who devote themselves to philanthropic works. Their center is Essex Hall, in London.
B) The antitrinitarians in the United States. — In the North American English colonies, antitrinitarianism arose from the Congregationalist churches, each of which is free to formulate its own creed or confession of faith.
During the eighteenth century, many Congregationalist churches in Massachusetts adopted antitrinitarian doctrines. The first church to proclaim such doctrines publicly was King’s Chapel in Boston, headed by the Anglican minister Giacomo Freeman. Those who had remained Trinitarian began to call the others “Unitarians,” and this name became general after 1819, on the occasion of a speech delivered in Boston by W. Ellery Channing. There were many struggles and internal divisions among the American Unitarians. It is enough to recall the schism of 1867, which gave rise to the “Free Religious Association,” that of the Western Conference in 1885, and so forth. Among the “forms of recommendation,” the proposal was made that all should call themselves “theistic Christians”: theistic because they worshiped one God, the Father; Christian because they venerated Jesus as the greatest of the historical prophets. This proposal was not accepted. Finally, a certain understanding was reached at the national conference of Saratoga (1894), where, reducing the creed to a minimum, it was established that the Unitarians and Christians “accept the religion of Jesus and profess, in conformity with the doctrine, that the practice of religion is summed up in love of God and love of neighbor.”
Unitarianism spread more successfully in the United States than in England. Among its adherents were great political figures such as the two Adams, Fillmore, and Jefferson, presidents of the republic; statesmen such as B. Franklin; philanthropists such as W. E. Channing and T. Parker; and writers such as Hawthorne. The establishment of domestic missions and the founding of three theological schools for the training of ministers gave impetus to the propagation of Unitarian doctrine. There was a period during which the Harvard school of theology was Unitarian. The number of Unitarians in the United States is approximately 112,000, and their principal center is Boston. Among the Unitarians, the more radical insist on absolute freedom of belief, tolerance of every religious opinion, education, philanthropic works, and the formation of Christian character; the less radical wish to profess, although in a vague manner, certain doctrines such as the unipersonality of God, the religion taught by the greatest of the prophets, Jesus Christ, whom they do not, however, worship (thus distinguishing themselves from the Socinians), the denial of original sin, the purely natural character of the Bible, and the salvation of all, agreeing in this with the Universalists, with whom in 1899 they formed a joint committee without altering their individual organizations.
Besides the two American and English groups, there are some of little importance in Ireland, Wales, and Transylvania, and other less numerous groups in Scotland, Belgium, Brazil, Czechoslovakia, Iceland, India, Japan, Norway, and Switzerland. In Italy, the members of the “Italian Association of Free Believers,” founded in 1912 by Gaetano Conte and with its principal center in Florence, are Unitarians. They published Riforma italiana, Bollettino della Associazione italiana di liberi credenti; this title was changed in 1921 to Progresso religioso, Rivista mensile del movimento contemporaneo.
4. Other a. sects.—The Swedenborgians must also be counted among the a. sects. To the question put to him by Tommaso Hartley, Swedenborg in fact replied: « Sacrosancta Trinitas in una persona persipenda est sicut divinum esse, divinum humanum et divinum procedens, sicut anima, corpus et virtus seu operatio ».
The Scientists (Christian Science) regard as revealed the book by M. Baker Eddy (v.), in which one reads: « God the Father is nothing but a principle; he is not a being »; « Life, truth, and love constitute the Triune God, or the threefold divine principle »; « God without man would be a nonentity », etc.
The Quakers, although they profess orthodox doctrines concerning the mystery of the Trinity, do not wish to hear its name mentioned. In the article of faith on the Trinity one finds the phrase: « Of the Three who bear witness in heaven »; and it is added that the use of terms not found in Sacred Scripture must be avoided.
For the second period.—Th. McCrie, Histoire des progrès et de l'extinction de la Réforme en Italie au seizième siècle, Paris 1831; R. Wallace, Antitrinitarian Biography, III, London 1850; C. Cantù, Gli Eretici d'Italia, 3 vols., Milan 1865–66; P. Sbarbaro, Da Socino a Mazzini, Rome 1886; Fr. Church, The Italian Reformers, London 1932; D. Cantimori and E. Feist, Testi raccolti per la storia degli eretici italiani del sec. XVI in Europa, Rome 1937; D. Cantimori, Gli Eretici Italiani del Cinquecento, Florence 1939.
For the third period.—In addition to the two Italian journals mentioned: F. R. Beard, Unitarism Exhibited in its Actual Condition, London 1846; Ch. de Rémusat, Channing, sa vie et ses oeuvres, Paris 1857; J. Freeman Clarke, Orthodoxy, its Truths and Errors, Boston 1866; W. Lloyd, The Story of the Protestant Divest and English Unitarianism, London 1899; W. G. Tarrant, The Story and Significance of the Unitarian Movement, London 1910; I. W. Cooke, Unitarism in America, Boston 1910; Freedom and Truth, Modern Views of Unitarian Christianity, London 1923; J. Sunderland, What do Unitarians Believe, Boston 1926; Unitarian Year-Book, Boston 1924–25, 1931.
For the other a. sects.—M. Baker and G. Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scripture, 1968 ed., Boston 1896; Quartiere, novem de Trinitate... ad Emmausolem Swedenborg proponitae a Thomas Hartley, cum Illus responsis, New York 1904; W. Lefroy, Christian Science Contrasted with Christian Faith and with Itself, London 1906; Th. Evans, A Concise Account of the Religious Society of Friends, Philadelphia n. d. Camillo Crivelli