Socinus, the name of two celebrated heresiarchs, uncle and nephew, who have given name to a sect of Christians, the Socinians, whose doctrines, though by no means identical, are to a large extent those of the modern Unitarians.—LÆLIUS SOCINUS, or LELIO SOZZINI, was born in 1525 at Siena in Tuscany, of a family long distinguished for its cultivation of literature and science. His father, Marianus Socinus, was an able lawyer, and designed his son for the same profession. But Lælius soon displayed a strong preference for theological inquiry, and in order to better prosecute his biblical studies he made himself familiar with Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic. The only result of his legal training that one can discern is an obstinate aversion to believe anything 'unreasonable.' The principles of the Reformation had slowly found their way into Italy, and in 1546 a secret society of forty distinguished men was formed at Vicenza for the discussion of religious questions. The conclusions at which they arrived were unfavourable to the dogma of the Trinity, which they held to have been borrowed by the early church from the speculations of Greek philosophers. The purpose of their meetings together having been discovered, the society broke up. Some of the members were arrested and put to death, others sought safety in flight. Among the latter was Socinus, who travelled in France, England, Holland, Germany, and Poland, making the acquaintance, and acquiring the esteem, of many transalpine scholars, and finally settled in Zurich, where he died in 1562, when only thirty-seven years of age. Lælius Socinus, unlike most heretics, was a modest and reticent man. He united in altogether unexampled degree the warmest piety with complete freedom in theological speculation.—See Ilgeu's Vita Lælii Socini (Leip. 1814), and Symbolaæ ad Vitam et Doctrinam Lælii Socini (Leip. 1826).
FAUSTUS SOCINUS, or FAUSTO SOZZINI, nephew of the preceding, was born at Siena, 5th December 1539. He lost his parents while still young, hence his education was neglected; but this rather helped than hindered him to become a heretic before he was out of his teens. At twenty-two he repaired to Lyons, where he was when he got news of his uncle's death. He immediately proceeded to Zurich to take charge of his papers, next entered the service of the Grand-duke of Tuscany's sister, and during twelve years seemed to forget, amid the cares of office and the dissipations of society, the thorny questions of theology. In 1575 he retired to Basel, to prosecute his studies more closely, and in November 1578 he set out for Klausenburg, at the request of George Blandrata, whence next year he went to Poland. Anti-Trinitarianism was even stronger here than in Transylvania, and Socinus soon obtained great influence. He preached and disputed and wrote with a zeal that his successors never displayed. His position in relation to the Reformers was that Luther and Calvin had rendered great services to the cause of religion, but that they had not gone far enough, that the only solid basis on which Protestantism could rest was human reason, that everything that contradicted it should be rejected as false and incredible, and that dogmas that were absurd should not be allowed to shelter themselves from criticism because their defenders chose to call them mysteries. The Protestants were alarmed, and the ablest among them undertook publicly to confute Socinus. A disputation was held in the college of Posna, which ended in Socinus reducing all his opponents to silence; but they retaliated after the unscrupulous fashion of the times by trumping up against their vanquisher a charge of sedition, which, although ridiculously groundless, made it necessary for Socinus to withdraw from Cracow. While living in retirement on the estate of a Polish noble, Christopher Morszyn, he married the daughter of his protector. She seems to have been a tender and affectionate wife; and when Socinus lost her in 1587 he almost broke his heart through grief. About this period his property in Italy was confiscated; but he had powerful and wealthy friends in Poland, who proved generous to him in his needs. In 1588 he took part in the synod of Brest (on the borders of Lithuania), and combatted all the principal dogmas of the church—the divinity of Christ, propitiatory sacrifice, original sin, human depravity, the doctrine of necessity, and justification by faith. In 1598, on the publication of his De Jesu Christo Servatore, his enemies stirred up the populace of Cracow against him; and Socinus was torn from a sick-bed and nearly murdered. Soon after he left the city and found a refuge with one of his friends in the village of Luclawice, where he died, 3d March 1604. The works are no longer read; but his opinions have never wanted advocates in any Protestant country. He and his uncle may be regarded as precursors of that spirit of Rationalism which has rooted itself so deeply in the thought of the modern world.
See Przypkowski's Life, prefixed to a collection of the works of Socinus in the Bib. Frat. Polonorum (Amst. 1636; Eng. trans. 1653); Bayle's article in the Dictionnaire; Toulmin's Memoirs (Lond. 1777); a Life by Wallace (1850). See also Fock, Der Socinianismus (1847), and the article UNITARIANISM.