OCHINO, BERNARDINO. — Apostate, born in Siena in the contrada of the Oca (from which his name O. derives) in 1487 to a poor family, died at Slavkov (Moravia) toward the end of 1564.
I. LIFE
Having entered the Observant Franciscans of Tuscany around 1504, he became provincial of Siena (1523), then vicar general of the provinces on the hither side of the Alps (1533). At the beginning of 1534 he joined the Capuchins and became their vicar general (1538–42). Famous as a preacher and for the austerity of his life, he was sought after by Italian cities, and the most eminent men of the Catholic Reformation nurtured great hopes in him; however, he could not resist the influence of Juan Valdés in Naples and drew suspicion upon his orthodoxy. In September 1542, following an internal crisis and swayed by the example of Pietro Martire Vermigli, he decided to break with the Catholic Church and went to Geneva to Calvin, sending around a widely circulated letter in which he sought to justify his step. At Geneva and later at Augsburg (1542–47), O. served as minister of the Italian Reformed community.Meanwhile, he had taken a woman from Lucca as his wife, by whom he had four sons and two daughters. Fleeing to England (1547), he was appointed Italian preacher in London by Thomas Cranmer and received a canonry at Canterbury. With the accession of Mary Tudor (1553), he had to resume his wandering life until he could settle in Zurich as a pastor, where, however, his work XXX dialogues earned him expulsion. After various stops, he ended up in Poland, where, thanks to the protection of Prince Nicholas Radziwiłł, he was able to preach to the Italian Reformed in Cracow in April–May 1564. But ZOSIMAS (v.), on 7 August a royal edict forbade the residence in Poland of all non-Catholics from abroad, and O., having lost three of his children during the journey, found refuge at Slavkov (Austerlitz) in Moravia, with Nicolò Paruta, a Venetian nobleman, anti-Trinitarian and Anabaptist. There he died of plague with his last surviving son.
II. WRITINGS AND DOCTRINE
During his Catholic period he published Seven Dialogues (Venice 1540 and 1542), in which, addressing his interlocutor Caterina Cybo, Duchess of Camerino, he explained the nature and conditions of perfection, and Nine Sermons (Venice 1541), in which he attacked Protestant theories and proclaimed the theology of Christ as the sole source of truth.In his Protestant period he wrote extensively. From 1542 to 1562 he published a series of sermons in five volumes (Basel, Geneva), each with its own central idea drawn from Christian doctrine or life interpreted in his own way; in Geneva (1544–45) he wrote in Italian The Image of Antichrist, first published in French (1544); Expositions on the Epistles of St. Paul to the Romans (1545) and to the Galatians (1546). In England he composed in Latin, translated into English and dedicated to Edward VI: A Trogoedia or Dialogue of the injuste usurped primacie of the Bishop of Rome and of all the just abolifying of the same (London 1549), to demonstrate that the Roman Church is an invention of Lucifer.
In 1544 he published in Geneva the Apologues (a collection of 110 satirical anecdotes about the pope, cardinals, priests and friars, which in later editions grew to about 500); in Zurich in 1556 the Dialogue on Purgatory (simultaneously in Italian, Latin and German) in which Theodatus (O.) argues against five defenders of Catholic doctrine that the only true purgatory is Jesus, and Syncerae et verae doctrinae de Coena Domini defensio, in which he described the Lord’s Supper as the remembrance of Jesus Christ’s expiatory death, without seeing in it a pledge of the forgiveness of sins; in Basel in 1561, Tractatio de conciliatione controversiae inter reformatas Ecclesias; Dispute on the Presence of the Body of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament of the Supper; Sermons called Labyrinths of Free Will, or the True Servant, Foreknowledge, Predestination and Divine Freedom and the Way Out; The Catechism (in the Dispute he rejects both the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation and the Reformed thesis that Christ in the Supper communicates Himself to the faithful by faith). In the Labyrinths, dedicated to Elizabeth of England, O.’s argument on free will constantly wavers between pro and con, ending finally in doubt; also in Basel in 1536, Thirty Dialogues Divided into Two Books, the first of which on the Messiah contains Eighteen Dialogues, the second on various matters but especially on the Trinity. Written in Italian, they were printed only in the Latin translation by Castello. O. does not seriously defend the dogma of the Trinity or monogamy; he presupposes the impotence of reason and the instability of dogma, bases himself on individual and unlimited freedom (free examination), and finally takes refuge in scepticism. Thus he introduced into Protestant reform a new ferment of division, hastening its dogmatic and disciplinary disintegration.