ning 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.

266. Davidis and Socinus.

Francis Davidis in Transylvania was an Antitrinitarian of the most
radical stripe. He had studied in Wittenberg 1545 and 1548. In 1552 he
joined the Lutherans, in 1559 the Calvinists. Secretly after 1560 and
publicly since 1566 he cooperated with Blandrata to introduce
Unitarianism in Transylvania. In numerous disputations he attacked the
doctrine of the Trinity as unscriptural and contradictory. In 1567 he
published his views in _De Falso et Vera Unius Dei Patris, Filii et
Spiritus Sancti Cognitione Libri Duo_. He contended that the doctrine of
the Trinity was the source of all idolatry in the Church; that Christ,
though born of Mary in a supernatural way, was preexistent only in the
decree of God, and that the Holy Spirit was merely a power emanating
from God for our sanctification. He also rejected infant baptism and the
Lord's Supper. After the prince and the greater part of the nobility had
been won for Unitarianism, Davidis, in 1568, was made Superintendent of
the Unitarian Church in Transylvania. In 1571 religious liberty was
proclaimed, and Unitarians, Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists were
tolerated equally. Before long, however, a reaction set in. The Catholic
Stephan Bathory, who succeeded to the throne, removed the Unitarians
from his court and surrounded himself with Jesuits. On March 29, 1579,
Davidis delivered a sermon against the adoration of Christ, declaring it
to be the same idolatry as the invocation of Mary and the saints. Three
days after he was deposed and imprisoned. In the proceedings instituted
against him he was convicted as a blasphemer and sente