Adam Gosławski

From ARIANIE POLSCY by Aleksander Brückner

Przywódcy duchowni, Polacy (Moskorzewski, Gosławski, Szlichtyng, Przypkowski, Wiszowaty, Lubienieccy) i Niemcy (Smalcjusz, Crell, Ostorodt, Volkel, Ruar i inni) pisali uczone traktaty teologiczne, które z drukarni rakowskiej potajemnie rozchodziły się po całym Zachodzie. Najbardziej był atakowany i palony, lecz najwięcej zainteresowania budził "Katechizm" rakowski, streszczający ich doktrynę. http://www.zwoje.com/zwoje31/text02p.htm

Spiritual leaders, Poles (Moskorzewski, Gosławski, Szlichtyng, Przypkowski, Wiszowaty, Lubienieccy) and Germans (Smalcjus, Crell, Ostorodt, Völkel, Ruar and others) wrote learned theological treatises which, from the Rakow press, clandestinely went about the entire West. The work most attacked and burned, which yet awakened the most interest, was the Racovian 'Catechism' containing the nucleus their doctrine. (transl. WPT)

From SOCINIANISM IN POLAND, 1932 by Stanislas Kot

The extreme radicalism of the Moravians did not, however, pass without having some trace among the German Antitrinitarians of Danzig and the vicinity. Christopher Ostorodt, a man on whom Socinus once counted and who was himself formerly engaged in controversy with the communists, succumbed to it. Transferred in 1605 from Smigiel to Busków as minister of the church, he found himself in an environment purely plebeian and began to stir it up against what was in is view the excessively aristocratic leadership of the Racovians. He attacked in particular his old friend and fellow-laborer at Smigiel, Smalcius. When the latter, adapting the doctrine of the Church to the demands of Polish conditions, interpreted the rules of the Gospel in a moderate sense and taught that not all the doctrines of Christ and the Apostles are necessary for salvation, Ostorodt adopted the opposite position ; and he who in 1591 had so strongly criticized the sectarian spirit now called for the breaking of fraternal relations with those who thought differently. He set forth without compromise the questions of war, office-holding, resort to courts, oaths, and the owning of property, and excluded from the Church those who did not meet his demands. When he also came out in writing against the Racovians, the synod in 1610 voted that a formal delegation be sent to Danzig to remonstrate with him. Under the leadership of Sienienski, the ablest Raków theologians, Moskorzowski, Smalcius, Goslawski, Wojdowicz, and Völkel, set out and were joined by deputies from the young German church at Miedzyrzecz (Meseritz). Ostorodt at first gave way, but after his death, which occurred soon afterwards, it appeared that he was preparing for a cleavage. A fresh delegation composed the dispute, receiving back into the Church those expelled by Ostorodt.¹⁰

      ¹⁰ Moskorzowski and Smalcius took advantage of these journeys to carry on conversations with the Mennonites about union. A part of the Dutch at Danzig favored this idea, and in Holland itself one branch of the Mennonites, the so-called young Flemings, at whose head stood Jakob Outerman, preacher at Haarlem, also supported the plan. But the settlers at Danzig, chiefly laboring people, distrusting their own judgment, sent the proposition of the Racovians together with their letters to the fatherland to Hans de Ries, leader of the moderate branch. Out of dislike to radicalism in doctrine and fear of persecution on the part of the dominant Reformed Church, he brought about the rejection of an alliance with the . . "Socinians." On this, cf. in detail van Douwen, Socinianen en Doopsgezinden.

Translated from the Polish by Earl Morse Wilbur
Beacon Hill     Boston : Starr King Press 1957, pp. 151-2.

From SOCINIANISM IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND, 1951 by John McLachlan

Adam Goslavius (fl. 1627-38) which he calls 'Gostavius (sic] a Bebelno Disp. De Persona, et idem Libro Keckermanno opposito, de Trinitate'. Neither appears in the Bodleian Catalogue of 1674. There was, however, a copy of the latter (published in Rakow, 1613); in All Souls Library, one of a small but representative collection of Socinian and anti-Socinian works (etc).

page 123

* * *

At Cambridge the Socinian school of writers . . does not appear to have been read on the same scale as in Oxford.    ...     In the early nineteenth century, John Bowtell, library-keeper from 1820 to 1852, composed a large manuscript catalogue. By; this date the writings of the following Socinian authors could be seen : F. Socinus (12), V. Smalcius (15), J. Crell (10), A. Goslavius (2), J. Völkel (2), H. Moscorovius (1), S. Przipcovius (1). On the English side there were : John Bidle, four works, the Latin translation of his Twofold Catechism by Nathaniel Stuckey (1664) and the Latin life of Bidle (1682) ; T. Lushington The Expiation of a Sinner.

page 126

* * *

. . Prideaux was a moderate conservative who thought it his duty seriously to consider and combat the Socinian position.     ...     Thus, for example, in a lecture on the Holy Trinity delivered at Oxford on 11 July 1632, he mentions among those who do not accept the doctrine the 'Servetian, Sociniani and crudiores nunnulli Remonstrantes', and cites the works of Smalcius and Goslavius. Lecturing 'de Christi satisfactione' (10 July 1634) he traces back the doctrine of Faustus Socinus on this subject through Sebastian Castellio to Bernardino Ochino's Dialougues, especially the tenth, gives Socinus's chief reasons for denying the satisfaction of Christ, and cites the books in which they may be found.³ He pays the Socinian theologians the compliment of calling them 'the most acute and astute critics of the doctrine of satisfaction'.     (Etc.)

      ³ ...     He also mentions as important works in this connexion : Ostorod's Institutio, Smalcius against Wolfgang Franzius, Michael Gittichius against Ludovicus Lucius, John Crell against Grotius, John Stoinski's Disputatio Lubliana against John Maria the Carmelite, and John Völkel 'contra omens' (i.e. de vera religione).

pages 127-128

* * *

Another library rich in 'Socinian' was that of Dr. Benjamin Worsely (d. 1677?), the friend of Samuel Hartlib and John Dury and one-time Surveyor-General in Ireland, sold on 13 May 1678. This also contained books from the Rakow press : F. Socinus (16), including the praelectiones theologicae, J. Crell (12), J. Schilchting (2), and single works by Völkel, Smalcius, Goslavius, and Przipcovius (Vita F. Socini). In addition, Worsley also had two sets of the Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum, one in eight volumes, the other in nine, (etc).

page 134

Oxford 1951

 

Bibliographic

Adami Goslavi a Bebelno, refutatio eoru, quae Bartholomaeus Keckermannus in libro primo systematis sui theologici disputat, adversus eos, qui solum patrem domini nostri Jesu Christi, esse illum deum Israëlis ; filium vero dei, neminem alium praeter et ante eum, qui ex Maria Virgine est natus, confitentur, tribus partibus distincta.   Racoviae, typis Sebastiani Sternacii, 1613.
[ per Socinianism in Seventeenth-Century England by John Mc Lachlan, Oxford 1951, page 144. ]