Chapter 18 17. The Sozny Family

The Italian Reformation never succeeded.In fact, it can't succeed.First of all, people in the south don't take religion very seriously, and they don't need to fight for it; second, Rome is close at hand, it is the center of the Inquisition, and it has all the internal organs. It is dangerous to express opinions casually, and you have to pay a price . But there are thousands of humanists living in the peninsula, and of course there will be a few black apples among them, who prefer Aristotle to Saint Chrysostom.But these people also had plenty of opportunities to let off steam, with clubs, cafés, and formal salons where men and women could develop their intellectual zeal without offending the Empire.

It's all so laid back and pleasant.In fact, isn't life all about harmony?Hasn't it always been this way?Is there no reconciliation before the end of the world? Why get so angry over trivial matters of faith? After a few introductions, the reader will not expect any more fanfare or booming when our two protagonists enter the scene.They are gentlemen who speak politely and pay attention to decency in everything they do. Yet they have done more than all the blustering reformers in overthrowing a tyranny that has tortured people for so long.But this is an unforeseen oddity.It happened, we thank God, but to ask why, alas, even we don't quite understand.

These two people who work quietly in the grape circle of reason are called Sozny. They are uncles and nephews. For unknown reasons, the older Relio Francisco spelled his name with one "Z" while the younger Fausto Paolo spelled it with two "Z".However, people are more familiar with the Latin form of their name, Socinius, than the Italian form, Socinius, a detail we can leave to grammarians and etymologists. In terms of influence, uncles are far less important than nephews, so we will talk about uncles first, and then nephews. Relio Sozzini was a Sienese, born into a family of bankers and judges, destined to practice law after graduating from the University of Bologna.But he, like many of his contemporaries, took up theology on his own accord, stopped studying law, played with Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic, and finally (like most of his kind ended up) To be an intellectual mystic - very worldly and not so sophisticated.This sounds quite complicated, but those who understand me don't need to explain it, and those who don't understand it don't need me to explain it.

However, his father also believed that his son could become a figure in the world literary world. He gave his son a check and asked him to go out and open his eyes.So Relio left Siena, and in the next ten years traveled from Venice to Geneva, from Geneva to Zurich, from Zurich to Wittenberg, and then to London, Prague, Vienna and Krakow, from time to time in the towns. Or live in a small village for a few months or a year or so, hoping to find interesting companions and learn interesting new things.In those days, people talked endlessly about religion, just like we talk about business now.Lelio had accumulated a lot of weird ideas, he pricked up his ears and asked around, and soon became familiar with all the heresies from the Mediterranean to the Baltic.

But when he came to Geneva with his luggage of knowledge, he was greeted with unfriendly expressions of courtesy.Calvin's dark eyes looked suspiciously at the Italian visitor.He was a distinguished young man of noble birth, not so poor and friendless as Servetus.But it is said that he leaned toward Servetus.In Calvin's mind, with the burning of the Spanish heretic, the Trinity was a matter of finality.In fact, quite the opposite!From Madrid to Stockholm, the fate of Servetus has been the subject of talk, and serious minds around the world have taken sides against the Trinity.It's not over yet.They also use Gutenberg's goddamn invention to spread their views around, and because they are far from Geneva, their words are also very irreverent.

Not long before this, there appeared a brilliant pamphlet containing everything that the priests of the Church had said and written about the persecution and punishment of heretics.The book was an instant hit among what Calvin called "God-haters," or, as they retorted, "Calvin-haters."Calvin let the word out that he would have a private conversation with the author of this precious pamphlet.The author, however, foresaw the invitation and wisely omitted the name from the cover. It is said that his name is Sebastian Castellio, and he used to be a teacher in a middle school in Geneva.His views on various theological sins contributed to his hatred of Calvin and his admiration of Montaigne.But this has not been confirmed by anyone, it is just hearsay.But as soon as someone takes the lead, others follow.

So Calvin, keeping Sozny at arm's length, suggested that the soft air of Basel was more suitable to his Sienese friend than the damp climate of Savoy; He sincerely wished him a safe journey. Fortunately for Calvin, Uncle Sozny and his nephew soon aroused the suspicion of the Inquisition. Relio was confiscated of funds and died of a high fever in Zurich at the age of thirty-seven. His untimely death caused jubilation in Geneva, but not for long. Apart from his widow and a few boxes of notebooks, Lelio had a nephew.Not only did he inherit his uncle's unfinished manuscripts, but he soon became a greater fan of Servetus than his uncle.

Faustus Sozny had traveled as widely as old Relio since childhood.His grandfather left him a small piece of real estate.He didn't marry until he was in his late fifties, so he could devote his full time to his favorite theology. He seems to have been doing business in Lyon for a while. I don't know what kind of businessman he was, but his experience of buying and selling physical goods rather than spiritual wealth convinced him that it was useless to kill or lose one's temper if the other party was in a better position in the business.All his life he had maintained that lucid mind, the sort of mind you might find in a corporate office but a needle in a haystack in a seminary.

In 1563 Faustus returned to Italy.On his return journey he came to Geneva.He does not seem to have gone to pay his respects to the local bishop.Besides, Calvin was already ill at that time, and the visit of the Sozny family only added to his troubles. For the next ten years, Sozny worked for Isabella de Medici.But in 1576, just a few days after the wife's wedding ecstasy, she was killed by her husband Paul Orsini.So Sozny resigned, left Italy forever, and came to Basel, where he translated the Psalm into the vernacular Italian and wrote a book on Jesus. Faustus, just as he revealed in his works, is a cautious person.First of all, his ears are not good, and deaf people are cautious by nature.

Secondly, that he could profit from several estates on the other side of the Alps, the rulers of Tuscany insinuated him, that men suspected of "Lutheranism," when they commented on subjects that annoyed the Inquisition, only Not too much will do.So he adopted many pseudonyms, and before publishing a book, he had to ask his friends to read it, and only sent it for printing if he thought it was safer. As a result, his book was not included in the list of banned books, and the book on the life of Jesus spread all the way to the Southern Carpathians, where it fell into the hands of another free-thinking Italian.He was personal physician to some of the noble ladies of Milan and Florence, and was married to the nobles of Poland and the Southern Carpathians.

The Southern Carpathians, then the "Far East" of Europe, remained a wilderness until the early twelfth century, and were used to settle the surplus population of Germany.Industrious Saxon farmers turned this fertile land into a prosperous, well-ordered little country with cities, schools, and a few universities.But this small country is still far from the arteries of travel and commerce.Those who, for one reason or another, wished to be far away from the cronies of the Inquisition, preferably a few miles away from them by the swamps and mountains, made this little country an ideal place to live. As for Poland, for centuries conservatism and chauvinism have been associated with this unfortunate country.But I will tell the reader that it is a happy surprise that in the first half of the sixteenth century it was a veritable sanctuary for all those who were tortured elsewhere in Europe for their religious beliefs. This unexpected situation is formed in typical Polish fashion. For a long time this republic was known to be the most ill-governed state in Europe.The Polish clergy were neglecting their duties, but the debauchery of the bishops and the drunkenness of the country priests in the West had become such commonplace annoyances that insufficient attention was paid to the situation in Poland. But in the second half of the fifteenth century, the rapid increase in the number of Polish students at Germanic universities attracted the attention of those in power in Wittenberg and Leipzig.The students started asking questions.Then, the situation developed to the point where the Polish Academy in Krakow, run by the Polish Church, collapsed, and the poor Poles had to leave their homes if they wanted to be educated.Soon after, the Teutonic University came under the influence of the new doctrine, and students from Warsaw, Radum and Częstochowa followed. When they returned home, they were already full-fledged Lutherans. In the early days of the Reformation, kings, nobles, and priests had no difficulty in eradicating the spread of false ideas.But such a measure requires the rulers of the republic to unite under a definite and general policy, which is of course contradictory, since it is the most sacred tradition of this strange country that a law can be overturned by a single vote of no, even if there are Neither does the support of every other member of Congress. Not long afterward, an economic by-product of the preaching of his religion by that famous Professor Wittenberg was the confiscation of all Church property, from the Borlaus family on the fertile plains between the Baltic and the Black Sea, The Uratis, and other knights, counts, barons, princes, and dukes, were clearly inclined to another belief, that of having money in their pockets. With this discovery came the unholy scramble for the real domain of the monastery, resulting in the famous "pause" by which the Poles procrastinated for thought since the earliest records of man.During this period, all powers were put on hold, and the Protestants took advantage of the opportunity to build their own churches in less than a year, and spread them all over the country. Of course, the quarrel between the new patriarchs finally brought the peasantry back to the arms of the Church, and Poland became once again a stronghold of Catholicism.However, in the second half of the sixteenth century, Poland obtained a license to allow the coexistence of various religious sects.The Catholics and Protestants in Western Europe started a war to exterminate the Anabaptists, and the remnants fled eastward and finally settled on the banks of the Vistula River.It was at this time that Dr. Brandrata got Sozny's book on Jesus and expressed his desire to know the author. Giorgio Brandrata is Italian, a doctor, and a man of many talents.He graduated from the University of Montpellier and is an excellent gynecologist.He was rebellious from beginning to end, but very smart.Like many physicians of his day (think Rabelais and Servetus), he was both theologian and neurologist, playing alternate roles.He successfully cured the Empress Dowager of Poland, who always had hallucinations that anyone who doubted the Trinity was wrong. After recovering from her illness, she began to regret her mistakes and only sentenced those who agreed with the doctrine of the Trinity. The good queen was dead (killed by her lover), and her two daughters were married to local nobles.As a medical adviser, Brandrata exerted great influence in politics.Knowing that civil war was imminent unless something was done to end the religious strife, he tried his best to raise the card of immunity between the rival sects.But getting there would require someone more adept at the intricacies of religious polemics than he was.He had an idea and thought of the author who wrote the life of Jesus. He wrote Sozny a letter asking him to go east. Unfortunately, when Sozny arrived in the Southern Carpathians, a major scandal in Brandrata's private life had just been announced, and the Italian had been forced to resign and go somewhere unknown.Sozny remained in this distant land, married a Polish girl, and died there in 1604. The last twenty years of his life are the most interesting period, for this is when he embodied his ideas of tolerance. The second half of the sixteenth century was a time of mass publication of religious catechisms, of confessions of beliefs, creeds, and dogmas, which were being written in Germany, Switzerland, France, Holland, and Denmark.But sloppy pamphlets printed everywhere proclaim a bad creed: they (and they alone) represent the true truth, and it is the duty of all sworn rulers to support this particular form of truth, by sword, cross, and fire Pillar to punish those who wantonly believe in other inferior truths. Sozny's faith has a very different spirit.It began by saying straight to the point that its real intention was never to quarrel with others. He continued: "Many devout people have rightly complained that the various doctrines and religious handbooks that have been published and are being published by various churches are a source of division among Christians because they all try to impose certain principles on the People's conscience sees dissent as heresy." Accordingly, he declared in the most formal way that the Soznyians in no way advocated the expropriation or suppression of anyone's religious beliefs.Speaking of human nature in a broad sense, he made the following appeal: "Let every man be free to judge his religion, for it is the law laid down in the New Testament, and the first Church has set the precedent. What right have we wretched people to suppress me to extinguish God has kindled in the hearts of men The fire of the Holy Spirit? Who among us has the meaning of the Bible alone? Why don't we remember that our only Lord is Jesus Christ, and we are all brothers, and who is endowed with power over others? Perhaps one of the brothers is more powerful than Others are a bit more learned, but we are equal in freedom and connection to Christ." All of them are stunningly beautiful, only three hundred years too early.Neither Sozinite nor other new sects could hope to hold their ground for long in that turbulent world.The tide against the Reformation had begun in full force.Hordes of Jesuit priests were rampant in the lost provinces.The Protestants quarreled as they worked, and the Easterners quickly returned to Rome's side.Tourists today who come to these places far from civilized Europe can hardly imagine that once upon a time there was a fortress of the most advanced and free, or that there was once a small village in the terrible Lutheran grove, where the world was on There, for the first time, a clear path to tolerance is obtained. In the interest of idle curiosity, I visited the library one recent morning and browsed the most popular textbooks for our country's youth about the past.Not a single word is mentioned about Soznyites or Uncle Sozny, and all the books skip from Social Democracy to Sofia in Hanover, from Saracens to Sobieski.In fact, during this skipped period, there were many leaders of the Great Religious Revolution, including Eklanpacius and some minor figures. There is only one volume that mentions the two Sienese humanists, but in a vague appendix to what Rolle-Luther or Calvin said and did. Foresight is indeed dangerous, but I suspect that in the next three hundred years of popular history, all this will be changed, and Uncle Sozny and Nephew will have a small chapter to themselves, while the traditional protagonists of the Reformation will be relegated to the secondary status. Their names would look aggressive even in footnotes.