Sebastian Franck and John Campanus must also be numbered among the
Antitrinitarians. Franck was a pantheist, who had been pastor in the
vicinity of Nuernberg till 1528, when he resigned and engaged in soap
manufacturing, writing, and printing. Campanus appeared in Wittenberg,
1527. At the Colloquy of Marburg he endeavored to unite Luther and
Zwingli by explaining the words: "This is My body" to mean: This is a
body created by Me. In 1530 he published a book: "Against the Entire
World after the Apostles--_Contra Totum post Apostolos Mundum_," in
which he taught that the Son is inferior to the Father, and denied the
personality of the Holy Spirit. "He argues," says Melanchthon, who in
his letters frequently refers to the "blasphemies of Campanus," "that
Christ is not God; that the Holy Spirit is not God; that original sin is
an empty word. Finally there is nothing which he does not transform into
philosophy." (_C. R._ 2, 33. 34. 93. 29. 513; 9, 763; 10, 132.) When
Campanus endeavored to spread his doctrines, he was banished from
Saxony, 1531. He returned to Juelich, where he preached on the imminence
of Judgment Day, with the result that the peasants sold their property
and declined to work any longer. Campanus was imprisoned for twenty
years and died 1575.
Prominent among the numerous Antitrinitarians who came from Italy were
Ochino, Servetus, Gribaldo, Gentile, Blandrata, and Alciati. Bernardino
Ochino, born 1487, was Vicar-General of the Capuchins and a renowned
pulpit orator in Siena. In 1542 he was compelled to leave Italy in order
to escape the Inquisition. He served the Italian congregation in Zurich
from 1555 to 1564, when he was banished because he had defended
polygamy. He died in Austerlitz, 1665. In his _Thirty Dialogs_,
published 1563, he rejects the doctrines of the Trinity, of the deity of
Christ, and of the atonement. (_Herzog R_. 14, 256.)--Michael Servetus
was born in 1511 and educated at Saragossa and Toulouse. In 1531, at
Hagenau, Alsace, he published _De Trinitatis Erroribus Libri VII_. He
was opposed by Zwingli and Oecolampadius. In 1540 he wrote his
_Christianismi Restitutio_, a voluminous book, which he published in
1553. In it he opposes the Trinity as an unbiblical and satanic
doctrine, and at the same time rejects original sin and infant baptism.
The result was that, while passing through Geneva on his way to Italy,
he was arrested at the instance of Calvin, tried, condemned, and burned
at the stake, October 27, 1553--an act which was approved also by
Melanchthon. (_C. R._ 8, 362; 9, 763.)--Matteo Gribaldo, in 1554,
uttered tritheistic views concerning the Trinity in the Italian
congregation at Geneva. Arrested in Bern, he retracted his doctrine. He
died 1564.--John Valentine Gentile also belonged to the Italian
fugitives in Geneva. In 1558 he signed an orthodox confession concerning
the Trinity. Before long, however, he relapsed into his Antitrinitarian
errors. He was finally beheaded at Bern. (_Herzog R_. 6, 518.)
George Blandrata, born 1515, was influenced by Gribaldo. Fearing for his
liberty, he left Geneva and went to Poland and thence to Transylvania.
Here he published his _Confessio Antitrinitaria_, and was instrumental
in introducing Unitarianism into Transylvania. He died after 1585. In
1558 Gianpaolo Alciati of Piedmont accompanied Blandrata to Poland. He
taught that Christ was inferior to the Father, and denied that there
were two natures in Christ.