Later Unitarians in Christianity 183• It had the courage to simplify questions conceming
the reality and content of religion and to discard the
burden of the ecclesiastical past.• It broke the contracted bond between religion and
philosophy, between Christianity and Platonism.• Ithelped spread the idea that the religious statement
of truth must be clear and intelligible if it is to have
strength.• It tried to free the study of the Holy Scriptures from
the bondage of old dogmas which themselves were
not in the Scriptures. It was said by someone that,
'The ignorance of the laity is the revenue of the clergy.'
The teachings of Socianus did much to diminish both.The Socian religion crossed Europe and spread to England. Bishop
Hall of Norwich is recorded as bewailing the fact that 'the minds
of Christian men were seduced ... through the infernal Socian her
esy by Anti-trinitarians and New Arians so that the final destruc
tion of Christianity was to be feared.' 21
In 1638, a brutal and organised persecution of the Socians in
Poland began. Their College at Rokow was closed down, and the
followers of Socianus were deprived of all civil rights. Many peo
ple who affirmed the Unity of God were bumt alive. Thus in 1639,
for example, Catherine Vogal, the wife of a jeweller in Poland was
burnt alive at the age of eighty. Her crime was that she believed
that God was One; that He was the Creator of the Seen and the
Unseen worlds; and that God could not be conceived of by the
human intellect. This is, of course, the pure metaphysics of Islam.
Fuller writes that, 'such burning of heretics startled the common
people, because of the hideousness of the punishment ... and so
they were ready to entertain good thoughts even of the opinions of
the heretics who sealed them so manfully with their blood.' Zl
'Therefore, adds Wallace,'James 1 indulged his propensity for incen
diarism by the more harmless practice of burning their books.' 23
In 1658, the people of Poland were given the option of either
accepting Roman Catholicism or else going into exile. The Unitar
ians dispersed throughout Europe. They spread with theii teach
ing, and continued to remain a separate entity for a long time.