BERZI, ANGELO. - Bergamasque theologian, born in Chiuduno on 8 May 1815 and died there on 10 January 1884. He completed his studies at the seminary in Bergamo and, after being ordained a priest, taught philosophy there. Of sincere piety and keen intellect, he exerted a powerful fascination over the seminarians, whom he introduced to a new philosophical-theological-mystical system that, as he claimed, he was developing through inner impulses. The novelty of his doctrine and methods provoked violent reactions, forcing B. to leave Bergamo for Rome, Cremona, and Brescia. Condemned by the Holy Office (7 March 1855) and suspended *a divinis* for five months, he withdrew to his family home in Chiuduno, where he spent 28 years in solitude, prayer, and indefatigable study, leaving around 80 works, all unpublished except for two.
*Berzism* is a mystically inclined theology with a fundamentally Gnostic tendency and a substantially monistic method. Starting from the problem of disconnectedness, it concludes that reason is incapable of bridging the abyss between the finite and the infinite, as manifested in the order of knowledge (the immense distance between particular sensation and universal idea) and in the real order (creation and the crossroads), without recourse to the only bridge that unites these two extremes, Jesus Christ (hence the necessity of revelation and the futility of rationalism). The Incarnate Word is the link between the finite and the infinite, the measure of the universe, the principle and end of all things, because in Him there is, beyond the temporal aspect, an eternal one (especially). Indeed, Christ’s humanity participates in eternity according to the concept of *aevum* and in immensity according to the concept of heaven; yet in this participation it does not become eternal or immense (attributes exclusive to God), but attains a celestial expansion across all times and places (by a certain analogy with the sacramental presence of Christ’s body in the Eucharist), by virtue of which it is not eternally simultaneous with all times nor diffused in all places, but internally (mystically, celestially, inaccessibly) is interior, subsequent, and present to all places and times, whence from the mystical hiding place it can at any moment break forth into external reality and manifest itself. Thus the God-Man, as if grafted between eternity and time, is the firstborn of all creation and the immanent force that unites all things. The Virgin shares in this prerogative; the Eucharist must be regarded as the *eviternal* communion between the Son and the Mother. Christ then pours forth the Holy Spirit into all creation; therefore all beings enjoy a real, though varied, participation in the Spirit, which in man forms the third constitutive principle (trichotomy) and the ultimate reason for the supernatural. If the Spirit of Love, immanent in beings, recalls them to God, then the beings are good; if it does not recall them, they are evil. Thus human history is explained by the opposing circulation of the Holy Spirit (the City of God) and the evil spirit (the City of Satan). The Christian must cultivate within himself the circulation of the Holy Spirit through the Sacraments; thus he will attain perfection.
This system, which clashes with the patristic-Scholastic tradition but is strongly coherent, seduced many pious and unwary souls. B. had numerous disciples, gathered in small circles in the cities where he resided, especially in the diocese of Brescia. Despite the suspicion that surrounded them and the abjurations to which they were subjected, they remained steadfastly loyal to their “angelic” father.