SG Heritage Dictionary

Socinianism [Noun] Webster's Dictionary 1828

The tenets or doctrines of Socinus, who held Christ to be a mere man inspired, denied his divinity and atonement, and the doctrine of original depravity.

Socinianism [Noun] Webster's Dictionary 1913

The tenets or doctrines of Faustus Socinus, an Italian theologian of the sixteenth century, who denied the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the personality of the Devil, the native and total depravity of man, the vicarious atonement, and the eternity of future punishment. His theory was, that Christ was a man divinely commissioned, who had no existence before he was conceived by the Virgin Mary; that human sin was the imitation of Adam's sin, and that human salvation was the imitation and adoption of Christ's virtue; that the Bible was to be interpreted by human reason; and that its language was metaphorical, and not to be taken literally.