Monday, September 24, 2012

radical religious ideas from 16th C Italians

1.  Christ is not God but man, born of Joseph and Mary, but filled with all the powers of God;
2.  Mary had other sons and daughters after Christ;
3.  There is no angelic being created by God, but where Scripture speaks of angels it means men appointed by God for a given purpose;
4.  There is no other Devil but human prudence [i.e., cunning], for no creature of God is hostile to him but this;
5.  The wicked do not rise at the last day, but only the elect, whose head is Christ;
6.  There is no hell but the grave;
7.  When the elect die, they sleep until the judgement day, when all will be raised;\
8.  The souls of the wicked perish with the body, as do all other animals;
9.  The seed of man has from God the power of producing flesh and spirit;
10.  The elect are justified by the eternal mercy and love of God without any outward work, that is, without the merits, the blood, or the death of Christ; Christ died to show forth the righteousness of God, that is, the sum of all the goodness and mercy of God and of his promises.

[the resultant points of doctrine agreed to at a mid-sixteenth century council held in venice by antitrinitarian anabaptist groups who had organized throughout italy, ordaining ministers and bishops.]

--from for faith and freedom:  a short history of unitarianism in europe by charles howe

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