Fausto Sozzini
Fausto Paolo Sozzini, or simply Fausto Sozzini (Latin: Faustus Socinus; Polish: Faust Socyn; 5 December 1539 – 4 March 1604), was an Italian Renaissance humanist and theologian, and, alongside his uncle Lelio Sozzini, founder of the Nontrinitarian Christian belief system known as Socinianism. His doctrine was developed among the Polish Brethren in the Polish Reformed Church between the 16th and 17th centuries, and embraced by the Unitarian Church of Transylvania during the same period.
Fausto Sozzini | |
|---|---|
| Born | Fausto Paolo Sozzini 5 December 1539 Siena, Republic of Siena in the Holy Roman Empire |
| Died | 4 March 1604 (aged 64) Lusławice, Crown of the Kingdom of Poland in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth |
| Notable work | Explicatio primae partis primi capitis Evangelistae Johannis (1563), Disputatio de Jesu Christo servatore (1578), De sacrae Scripturae auctoritate (1580s), De statu primi hominis ante lapsum disputatio (1610) |
| Theological work | |
| Language | Italian, Neo-Latin |
| Tradition or movement | Socinianism |
| Notable ideas | Denial of divine foreknowledge regarding the actions of free agents, Rejection of the pre-existence of Christ |
Fausto Sozzini | |
|---|---|
| Era | Protestant Reformation Radical Reformation |
Main interests | Nontrinitarian Christian theology |
Fausto Sozzini recollected most of his uncle Lelio's religious writings by traveling over again his routes throughout early modern Europe, and systematized his Antitrinitarian beliefs into a coherent theological doctrine. His polemical treatise De sacrae Scripturae auctoritate (written in the years 1580s and published in England in 1732, with the title A demonstration of the truth of the Christian religion, from the Latin of Socinius) was highly influential on Remonstrant thinkers such as Simon Episcopius, who drew on Sozzini's arguments for viewing the sacred scriptures as historical texts.