Lelio Sozzini

Lelio Francesco Maria Sozzini, or simply Lelio (Latin: Laelius Socinus; 29 January 1525 – 4 May 1562), was an Italian Renaissance humanist and anti-Trinitarian reformer, and uncle of the better known Fausto Sozzini (Latin: Faustus Socinus) from whom the Polish Brethren and early English Unitarians came to be called "Socinians".

Lelio Sozzini

Life

Lelio Sozzini was born at Siena. His family descended from Sozzo, a banker at Percenna (Buonconvento), whose second son, Mino Sozzi, settled as a notary at Siena in 1304. Mino Sozzi's grandson, Sozzino (d. 1403), was the founder of a line of patrician jurists and canonists, Mariano Sozzini the elder (1397–1467) being the first and the most famous, and traditionally regarded as the first freethinker in the family.

Lelio (who spelled his surname Sozzini, Latinizing it Socinus) was the sixth son of Mariano Sozzini the younger (1482–1556) by his wife Camilla Salvetti, and was educated as a jurist under his father's eye at Bologna. He told Melanchthon that his desire to reach the fontes juris led him to Biblical research, and hence to rejection of "the idolatry of Rome."

Lelio Sozzini gained some knowledge of Hebrew and Arabic (he gave a manuscript of the Qur'an to Bibliander) as well as Greek, but was never a laborious student. His father supplied him with means and, on coming of age, he repaired to Venice, the headquarters of the evangelical movement in Italy. A tradition - first published by Christopher Sandius in 1684 in his book Bibliotheca antitrinitariorum and Andrzej Wiszowaty in 1668 in his book Narratio Compendiosa - and amplified by subsequent writers makes him a leading spirit in alleged theological conferences called the Collegia Vicentina at Vicenza about 1546-1547.[1][2]

At this period the standpoint of Sozzini was that of evangelical reform; he exhibits a singular union of enthusiastic piety with subtle theological speculation. At Chiavenna in 1547 he came under the influence of Paolo Ricci "Camillo Renato" of Sicily, a gentle mystic whose teaching at many points resembled that of the early Quakers. Pursuing his religious travels, his family name and his personal charm ensured him a welcome in Switzerland, France, England and the Netherlands.

1548–1554

Returning to Switzerland at the close of 1548, with commendatory letters to the Swiss churches from Nicolas Meyer, envoy from Wittenberg to Italy, we find him (1549–1550) at Geneva, Basel (with Sebastian Münster) and Zürich (lodging with Konrad Pelikan). He was next at Wittenberg (July 1550–June 1551), first as Melanchthon's guest, then with professor Johann Forster, for improvement of his Hebrew. From Wittenberg he returned to Zürich (end of 1551), after visiting Prague, Vienna and Kraków.

Political events drew him back to Italy in June 1552; with two visits to Siena. In Siena freedom of speech was for the moment possible, owing to the War over Siena (1552–1559) and shaking off of the Spanish yoke. This brought him into contact with his young nephew Fausto. Lelio was at Padua (not Geneva, as is often said) at the date of Servetus's execution (27 October 1553). Thence he made his way to Basel (January 1554), Geneva (April) and Zürich (May), where he took up his abode.

Calvin, like Melanchthon, received Sozzini with open arms. Melanchthon (though a phrase in one of his letters has been strangely misconstrued) never regarded him with theological suspicion. To Calvin's keen glance Sozzini's over-speculative tendency and the genuineness of his religious nature were equally apparent. A passage often quoted (apart from the context) in one of Calvin's letters (1 January 1552) has been viewed as a rapture of amicable intercourse; but, while more than once uneasy apprehensions arose in Calvin's mind, there was no breach of correspondence or of kindliness. Of all the Reformers, Bullinger was Sozzini's closest intimate, his warmest and wisest friend. Sozzini's theological difficulties turned on the resurrection of the body, predestination, the ground of salvation (on these points he corresponded with Calvin), the doctrinal basis of the original gospel (his queries to Bullinger), the nature of repentance (to Rudolph Gualther), the sacraments (to Johann Wolff). It was the fate of Servetus that directed his mind to the problem of the Trinity.

At Geneva (April 1554) he made, incautious remarks on the common doctrine, emphasized in a subsequent letter to Martinengo, the Italian pastor. Bullinger, at the instance of correspondents (including Calvin), questioned Sozzini as to his faith, and received from him an explicitly orthodox confession (reduced to writing on 15 July 1555), with a frank reservation of the right of further inquiry.

A month before this Sozzini had been sent with Martino Muralto to Basel, to secure Ochino as pastor of the Italian church at Zürich; and it is clear that in their subsequent intercourse the minds of Sozzini and Ochino (a thinker of the same type as Camillo, with finer dialectic skill) acted powerfully on each other in the radical discussion of theological problems.

1555–1562

In 1555, Lelio turned 30 years old. From 1556 following the death of his father, who left him nothing by will, Sozzini was involved in pecuniary anxieties. With influential introductions (one from Calvin) he visited in 1558 the courts of Vienna and Kraków to obtain support for an appeal to the reigning duke at Florence for the realization of his own and the family estates. Curiously enough Melanchthon's letter introducing Sozzini to Maximilian II invokes as an historic parallel the hospitable reception rendered by the Emperor Constantine to Athanasius when he fled from Egypt to Trier.

Well received out of Italy, Sozzini could do nothing at home, and apparently did not proceed beyond Venice. The Inquisition had its eye on the family; his brother Cornelio Sozzini was imprisoned at Rome; his brothers Celso Sozzini and Camillo and his nephew Fausto were "reputati Luterani," suspected of Lutheranism, and Camillo Sozzini had fled from Siena. In August 1559 Sozzini returned to Zürich, where his brief career was closed by his death on 4 May 1562, at his lodging in the house of Hans Wyss, a silk-weaver.

Legacy

Plaque in the Sozzini's palace in Siena to remember Fausto and Lelio Socini. The inscription say: "During ages of fierce despotism, with their new doctrines they awoke the free thought"

No authentic portrait of him exists; alleged likenesses on medals, etc., are spurious. The news of his uncle's death reached Fausto at Lyons through Antonio Maria Besozzo. Repairing to Zürich Fausto got his uncle's few papers, comprising very little connected writing but a good many notes.

Fausto continually gave credit to his uncle for many of his ideas, in particular noting:

1. Fausto derived from Lelio in conversations (1552–1553) the germ of his theory of salvation;
2. Fausto derived many interpretations of specific Bible verses from Lelio. For example, Lelio's reading (1561) of "In the Beginning" in John 1:1 as "the beginning of the gospel" was taken up in Fausto's interpretation which denied the pre-existence of Christ. Likewise Lelio's interpretation of "Before Abraham was I am" John 8:58 as relating to the resurrection of Abraham was taken up by Fausto.

The author of the 1911 Britannica Article on Lelio concluded that "The two men were of contrasted types. Lelio, impulsive and inquisitive, was in quest of the spiritual ground of religious truths; the drier mind of Fausto sought in external authority a basis for the ethical teaching of Christianity." yet this is clearly subjective and does not take into account the different circumstances of Fausto's later settled life in Poland.

Works

Sozzini’s extant writings are:

• De sacramentis dissertatio (1555), On the sacrament. four parts
• De resurrectione On resurrection (a fragment 1549?)
• Brevis explicatio in primum Iohannis caput Short explanation of John 1. published posthumously by Ferenc David in De falsa et vera unius Dei Patri, filii, et spiritus sancti 1568, Alba Iulia. This is often confused with the similarly titled Brevis explicatio in primum Iohannis caput Amsterdam 1565[3]
• Confessio Fidei (Zurich July 1555)

An extensive correspondence in Latin and Italian exists, consisting of 53 letters from and to Sozzini with Bullinger, Calvin and B. Amerbach.

Notes

1. Philip Knijff, Sibbe Jan Visser, Piet Visser, 2004, Bibliographia Sociniana: a bibliographical reference tool for the Study of Dutch Socinianism and Antitrinitarianism, p.11
2. Earl Morse Wilbur, 1952, A history of Unitarianism, Volume 1, p. 81
3. also published Alba Iulia 1568, by Francis David in his Refutatio propositionum Melii but misattributed as a second version of the commentary by Lelio Sozzini - which to an extent it is, but by the nephew.

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Socinus". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
• Marian Hillar, Laelius and Faustus Socinus : Founders of Socinianism, Their Lives and Theology, in "The Journal from the Radical Reformation. A Testimony to Biblical Unitarianism." (Part I, Vol. 10, No. 2, 2002; Part II, Vol. 10, No. 3, 2002)