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AND THEIR REFUTATION. 41
he went to Basil, and lived there three years, and published his
impious work on Theology, in two volumes, and spread his
doctrines not only there, but in Poland and Transylvania, both
by word and writing. His writings were very voluminous, for
not only did he publish his Theology, but several Treatises,
besides, especially Commentaries on the fifth and sixth chapters
of St. Matthew, on the first chapter of St. John, on the seventh
chapter of St. Paul to the Romans, on the first Epistle of St.
John, and many more enumerated by Noel Alexander, all of a
heretical tendency (3). He was obliged to fly from Cracow (4),
in 1598, and went to a village, where he continued to write
works of the same tendency, and where, at last, he died in
1604, the sixty-fifth year of his age, leaving one daughter after
him.
42. The Socinian errors are very numerous, and Noel Alex
ander and Cardinal Gotti (5) give them all without curtailment.
I will only state the principal ones : They say, first, that the
knowledge of God and of Religion could not come from Nature.
Second That there is no necessity for Christians reading the
Old Testament, since they have every thing in the New.
Third They deny Tradition. Fourth They assert that in the
Divine Essence there is but one Person. Fifth That the Son
of God is improperly called God. Sixth That the Holy Ghost
is not a Divine Person, but merely a Divine power. Seventh
That Jesus Christ is true man, but not a mere man, for he was
honoured by the filiation of God, inasmuch as he was formed
without the assistance of man ; and they also blasphemously
assert that he did not exist before the Blessed Virgin. Eighth
They deny that God assumed human nature in unity of person.
Ninth That Christ is our Saviour, only because he showed us
the way of salvation. Tenth Man was not immortal, nor had
he original justification before he committed original sin.
Eleventh Christ did not consummate his sacrifice on the Cross,
but only when he went into heaven. Twelfth Christ did not
rise from the dead by his own power ; the body of Christ was
annihilated after his Ascension, and it is only a spiritual body
that he has in heaven. Thirteenth Baptism is not necessary
(3) Nat. Alex. loc. cit. n. 1. (5) Nat. Alex. n. 2 ; Gotti, n. 3.
(4) Gotti, cit. n. 2.