Universität Erfurt

Projekt von Dr. Pablo Toribio Perez

Paul of Samosata in the Antitrinitarian Narratives of Christoph Sand, Benedytkt Wiszowaty and Isaac Newton (1668–1715)

Dr. Pablo Toribio Perez

Paul of Samosata, bishop of Antiochia deposed by a Church council in the year 268 or 269, was blamed for having considered Christ “a mere man”, as well as for having used the term homoousios (consubstantial) in order to describe the relationship between God and His Word. Early modern Antitrinitarians were called Samosatenians by their opponents. But “the Samosatenian” was a heretic for some Antitrinitarians as well: In his Nucleus historiae ecclesiasticae (1669, 1676), Christoph Sand considered him a precursor of the prevailing Trinitarian “orthodoxy”. Isaac Newton developed a similar interpretation in his unpublished writings on ancient Church History (1680s and 1710s). On the other hand, Polish Socinian Benedykt Wiszowaty engaged in the polemic by arguing that Paul of Samosata was indeed a holder of the true Christian faith; he developed this view in his unpublished Medulla historiae ecclesiasticae (1680s). I intend to analyze the role played by this “heresiarch” in the antitrinitarian narratives of the afore mentioned authors, relying on the manuscripts which have preserved Newton’s and Wiszowaty’s relevant works (Hamburg, Cluj, Geneva, Jerusalem) and on early modern printed sources held in Gotha.




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