EARLY TRANSILVANIAN ANTITRINITARISM, 1566-1571:From Servet
to Palaeologus
John C Godbey
564 words
1 March 1998
Church History
157
Vol. 67, No. 1
English
Copyright (c) 1998 Bell & Howell Information and Learning
Company. All rights reserved.
By Mihaly Balazs. Translated by Gyorgy Novak. Bibliotheca
Dissidentium scripta et studia 7. Baden-Baden: Editions Valentin
Koerner, 1996. 256 pp. DM 200.
This important book is devoted to the late 1560s, the "latent"
period when Transylvanian antitrinitarianism emerged, prior
to the 1570s and 1580s when it developed rapidly in a form
referred to as dogmatic radicalism. Balazs has two questions:
"why Transylvanian antitrinitarianism became a centre
of such dogmatic radicalism, and whether Transylvanian antitrinitarianism
displayed peculiarities that would explain this phenomenon"
(p. 8). In this early period, Prince John Sigismund of Transylvania
worked to achieve a religious compromise between Francis David
and George Biandrata, the leaders of early Transylvanian antitrinitarianism,
and the Reformed Church leader, Peter Melius Juhasz. Biandrata
urged that only biblical terms be used, avoiding technical
philosophical terms not found in Scripture. As a result of
this compromise, an antitrinitarian version of the Heidelberg
Catechism was published in the summer of 1566 as Catechismus
ecclesiarum Dei in natione Hungarica per Transylvaniam with
a Sententia concors pastorum et ministrorum in the appendix.
By late 1566 it was clear that the compromise could not endure,
for Melis had to use nonbiblical (philosophical) terms. This
compromise was followed by an era in which differing antitrinitarian
views were blended, an era that lasted until the early 1570s,
when the Christology of Jacobus Palaeologus found open acceptance
in Transylvania.
Balazs supports the view of Antal Pirnat that differing forms
of antitrinitarian theology developed rapidly in Transylvania
and that forms of antitrinitarianism that appeared sequentially
in Poland developed rapidly and appeared almost simultaneously
in Transylvania.
This study discusses four major themes-Christology, baptism,
socialethical views, and religious tolerance-with short sections
on David's chiliasm and "Restitutio Christianismi as
Moral and Philosophical Background." In the first major
section, "The Christology of Transylvanian Antitrinitarianism
in the Late 1560s," Balazs describes the influences of
tritheism, the thought of Michael Servetus, and modifications
of Servetus's thought to omit Neoplatonism, hermetic thought,
and other influences of "philosophy." Balazs describes
the new theology appearing in the thought of Lelio Sozzini
and Fausto Sozzini, and the effort of David and others to
integrate the (modified) thought of Servetus with the new
theology. He understands Christological issues very well.
This first section is one of the best parts of the book. He
gives particular attention to Servetus's influence in De falsa
et vera unius Dei,filii, et spiritu sancti cognitione libri
duo (1568) and in De regno Christi (1569), and to the new
theology expressed in Lelio Sozzini's Brevis explicatio in
primum Joannis caput and in Fausto Sozzini's Explicatio primae
partis primi capitis Iohannis. He presents clearly the opposition
of adherents to the new theology to the doctrine of Christ's
pre-existence and their desire to "cleanse" the
thought of Servetus of influences from "philosophy."
Balazs is particularly helpful by translating into English
quotations from Hungarian, Polish, and Latin sources. The
book's importance rests in Balazs's thorough awareness of
the relationships of Transylvanian antitrinitarianism to European
antitrinitarianism. He is clear about the influence of Servetus
on both Polish and Transylvanian antitrinitarianism and about
the issues on which these two groups disagreed with him. This
is a very instructive book.
John C. Godbey
Meadville // Lombard Theological School
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