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I.
THE CHRISTOLOGY OF TRANSYLVANIAN ANTITRINITARIANS IN THE LATE 1560S
Intellectual orientation in the first phase
The framework described in the Preface significantly determined both the way Antitrinitarianism
rose and unfolded during the period under discussion.1 It must be noted, however, that we have only
sporadic data on the so-called latent period before 1566 and/or the antecedents. Therefore, it will
immediately be a moot point to what extent the movement of Tamás Arany, who appeared with his
Antitrinitarian spiritualistic ideas at the end of 1561, can be regarded as the forerunner of Transylvanian
Antitrinitarianism.2 His views can be inferred indirectly only from a refuting tract by Péter Melius Juhász,
Calvinist bishop of Debrecen, but recent studies have clearly established that his dogmatic system was
different from the Antitrinitarianism unfolding at Kolozsvár, and could be compared mainly with that of
Camillo Renato. Anyway, it is strange that the Transylvanian Antitrinitarians kept total silence about him,
and no matter how much, as we shall see, they liked naming their forerunners, Arany's name cannot be
found in any of their works.
The most mysterious evidence of the latent period is contained in a letter from Ian Maczynski,
secretary to Mikolaj Czarny Radziwill to Stanislaw Hosius on December 8, 1564.3 In that letter
Maczynski recalls the contents of the epistles written to him from Transylvania by Blandrata and Ferenc
Dávid. According to those, the Protestant churches in Transylvania and in Hungary rejected the technical
terms of the Trinity, and even John Sigismund himself joined this view. Although recent literature on the
subject is justified in considering this statement 'overoptimistic'4 since John Sigismund would join the
Antitrinitarians much later, probably in 1569, the information concerning Ferenc Dávid should still make
one pause. The least that can be claimed on the basis of it is that well before the overt appearance of
Antitrinitarianism these ideas had been discussed in the circles closely surrounding Blandrata. This would
seem to be supported by the evidence testifying to the sojourn of Blandrata's Italian colleagues in
Transylvania. Both Gentile and Gianpaolo Alciati are certainly known to have paid visits to Transylvania
after April, 1564, and Géza Kathona thinks it most probably happened in the second half of 1565.5 There
must have been fiery debates at Kolozsvár in 1565 since a decision of the town council dated December
21, 1565 mentions that recently many had appeared with false biblical interpretations, and these people
would be allowed to stay in town only if they could defend their views against the preachers.6 It is also
these discussions that the formation of Lukács Egri's views should be attributed to. He left Kolozsvár,
where he had been active as a preacher since the late 1550s, in the spring-summer of 1565. In his native
town Eger, outside the boundaries of Transylvania, he started preaching in a Antitrinitarian spirit,
obviously under the influence of the ideas he had picked up at Kolozsvár.7
The open appearance had thus been preceded by serious workshop activities and intellectual
simmering, but it is the experiences Blandrata had gained at his previous stations, at Geneva and Poland
that will have to be regarded as most important of all. With these experiences Blandrata first of all wanted
to demonstrate that the traditional Trinitarian terminology had no origins in the Bible. He was of course
well aware that the refusal of the +philosophical" terms meant questioning the whole of the traditional
dogma, but he did not stress this point at all in the first period. Instead, he placed emphasis on biblicism,
regarded as the common achievement of the Reformation, and it was by referring to biblicism that he
argued for the consistent assertion of +sola scriptura". Of course, neither he nor his comrades could do
without philosophical concepts, but it became possible to use these only when refuting the theses of their
opponents or explaining their own statements. They, however, avoided non-biblical terms when
formulating their views as a credo.
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