UNITARIANISM. In general, the religious system of all who affirm the unity of God; specifically, the belief of certain free Christian churches and individuals whose religious faith is expressed in the doctrines of "the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, the leadership of Jesus, salvation by character, and the prog ress of mankind onward and upward forever." The declaration of the National Conference of Unitarian and other Christian churches (Amer ican) is: "These churches accept the religion of Jesus, holding, in accordance with his teaching, that practical religion is summed up in love to God and love to man." The most generally ac cepted covenant of the Unitarian churches reads, "In the love of truth and the spirit of Jesus Christ, we unite for the worship of God and time service of man." Unitarians do not appeal to the Bible as a final and infallible authority, hut they consider that in the prophetic teaching against idolatry, formalism, and all unrighteousness. there is set forth what are now recognized as essential Uni tarian principles. They assert that the teach ing of Jesus was simply that of one God, the heavenly Father, and they profess to teach what was central and essential in his message. They lay emphasis on the Beatitudes, the Golden Rule, the Two Commandments. They find the way of salvation described in the Gospels, where "purity is set forth as the condition, growth the method, love the motive, character the fmit, and ser vice the expression of eternal life, of the King dom of God." Original Christianity, they main tain, was not the acceptance of any formal creed, but the adoption of a spirit like that of Jesus, whom they regard not as a God to be worshiped, but as a divinely prepared teacher to be loved and followed. They point to the fact that the view of Jesus as God, equal to the Supreme Being, was ardently resisted, especially by the Arians, who in the fourth century con stituted nearly half of Christendom. (See Aunts; ATIIANASILIS.) The Arian view of Jesus as a separate and subordinate being was widely held by the forerunners of modern Unitarians, but it was not a successful solution of the problem respecting the nature and rank of Jesus. Arian
ism was declared heresy in the fourth century, and was steadily crushed out by the growing power of the orthodox Church.
Among the earliest movements of the Reforma tion epoch were some in which we find the seeds of modern Unitarianism. The study of the Bible brought new appreciation of the original teach ings of Jesus. The reformers, indeed, carried over into Protestantism many of the character istics and thoughts of the dogmatic Christianity which they rejected, yet they opened the way to larger interpretations. A definite affirmation of the doctrines now called `Unitarian' was made at Vicenza in Italy in 1546, when a number of leading scholars of Northern Italy came together to discuss and promulgate their anti-Trinitarian views. They were dispersed or destroyed, and the exiles found refuge in Switzerland. Poland, and Transylvania. In Poland the doctrines taught by these fugitives fell into fruitful soil. The leaders in this movement were two Italians, uncle and nephew—La.lius and Faustus Socinus. The prominence of these men in the movement for a more rational interpretation of Christianity gave to their societies and teachings the name Socinian. (See Somxtts.) At the close of the sixteenth century there were more than four hundred Socinian churches in Poland. At Rakow there was a, Unitarian college with more than a thousand students, and in 1605 there was pub lished the so-called "Racovian Catechism," which is the definite and formal statement of the Unitarian theology of the Reformation period. The bitter hostility of the Roman Catholics and the tacit consent of the orthodox Protestants of Poland united to overthrow the prosperity of the 'Free Brethren.' In 1658, after increasing persecutions, King John Casimir finally decreed the death or expulsion from Poland of all So cinians who would not embrace Catholicism. Thousands were killed and thousands more ex iled, until by 1670 all trace of this Unitarian movement had disappeared from Poland.