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formulated syllogisms that exposed the Trinity, but also attempted to outline a minimal program
acceptable even for Melius and his circle. Thus during the debate of his creed, which he said on the sixth
day, he declared the following about Christ. +We do not say that he was the son of God by predestination
but that he was a real and present son with respect to the father, for whom everything is real and present.
For us, however, he existed hidden and as a secret."142 The solution proposed here, i.e. the Son existing
really in the Old Testament with respect to the Father but not to men, was not acceptable for either party.
Melius and his friends saw merely a trap in this, and Gáspár Békes, an aristocrat on the Antitrinitarians'
side accused the Italian physician of inconsistency. Of course, it was not inconsistency but merely the
quest for a solution acceptable for the opponents. (Yet, this detail has come down in Transylvanian
Unitarian church historiography as Blandrata's wavering, and related to the role the Italian would play in
the conviction of Ferenc Dávid in 1579.)
On the other hand, it can be observed that the Antitrinitarian party was far from representing a
unified view, expressing opinions once in the spirit of Servet, then again in that of the new Christology. A
case in point was the relationship of the two creations and the spiritual nature of the second. Pál Gyulai
said that the Bible never claims that Christ was the creator of the universe, therefore the omnia in John's
gospel cannot refer to both creations, and the creation by Christ is not the shaping of the universe but the
spiritual renewal of the faithful. Blandrata, also in this phase of the debate, was trying to find solutions
that would ensure the transition from the old to the new notion, namely that Christ was creator a
creatore. István Basilius at the same time accepted that Christ had recreated both the heaven and the earth
and Ferenc Dávid used similar expressions: +...Because of sin, for every creature had become corrupted,
even the heaven and the earth, it was necessary that they also get rid of corruption through Christ."143 It
caused further complications that wishing to avoid the charge of making two creators, two gods, Dávid
elsewhere diverged from this attitude, also suggested in Rövid útmutatás, and seemed inclined to accept
the purely spiritualistic character of the second creation. This, however, did not make his situation easier,
indeed, it lead to new fierce clashes as to which of the celestials had to be reconciled with God. A lengthy
debate ensued here on the nature of the angels, on the question whether they had been corrupted or
remained pure (no answer was found, of course) and the Hungarian Antitrinitarian was obliged to admit
that he was not able to support his position with arguments. +We have entirely failed, unlike the angels;
but even the angels are not so perfect that they can stand before God without Christ as head. But we
cannot know why this is so."144
All this shows very well that the Antitrinitarians did not wish to sharpen the points of the
questions under debate since they had come to Gyulafehérvár with the intention to convert Melius and his
friends to a version of a moderate Antitrinitarianism. This can be observed in the events of the last two
days when the first chapter of John's gospel was discussed. The explication put forth by Ferenc Dávid as
the premises of the debate strictly insisted on using such theological considerations only that had been
raised during the earlier discussions. Thus it was perfectly logical that he himself did not bring new
aspects into the debate. This, of course, followed from their tactics of trying to make Melius and his
followers appear as the disrupters of union because it was they who had returned to the use of the
extrabiblical technical terms already denied earlier. Melius and his friends, however, saw by then that
they had made a mistake and they chose the tactics of intensifying the controversies. They wanted to
create situations where the Antitrinitarians could not leave anything unsaid. It was in these terms that
Melius gave his very lengthy answer saying that the apostle John wrote his gospel against Ebion and
Cerinthus, who denied Christ's eternal existence. From the protocols it turns out that Dávid's reply
minutely listed the biblical passages interpreted by Melius and before he could really have got in his
speech, enlivened by verbal altercation, and answered the said argument, Mihály Csáki, at the order of the
Prince, put an end to the religious dispute. So it would seem that the Antitrinitarian protocols of the
debate are telling the truth when it says that they are attaching the adequate answer in an appendix only.
The answer ran in the following way:
+Cerinthus and Ebion, unlike Melius, held that the Man Christ had not been deified before Mary.
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