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GOMER See Table of Nations.

GONESIUS (GONIADZKI, CONYZA), PETRUS:

Polish antitrinitarian; b. at Goniadz (32 m. n.w. of Bielostok) c. 1525; place and date of death unknown. By his opposition to the anti-Catholic teachings of Francesco Stancaro at Cracow he attracted the attention of the bishop and clergy of Samogitia, who sent him abroad to complete his education. During the following years he resided in Germany (especially at Wittenberg), Switzerland (including Geneva), and probably Italy. His association with Italian antitrinitarians in Switzerland and his study of the writings of Servetus seem to have inspired him with heretical doctrines concerning the Trinity, while from the Moravian Anabaptists he received the teaching that the Christian can neither accept office nor engage in war, and took a hostile attitude toward infant baptism. At a synod held at Secymin Jan. 22-23, 1556, Gonesius boldly polendzed against the doctrine of the Trinity, accepting the Apostles' Creed, but rejecting the Nicene and Athanasian Symbols. The Father alone

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is God; the Logos is not the Son, but the seed of the Son; and the doctrine of consubstantiality is rejected. The man Christ was transformed into God, and God or the Word into man, so that the Son is at once subject to the Father, and at the same time the two are identical. Refusing to retract, Gonesius was sent to Wittenberg in the hope that Melanchthon might convince him of error. The treatise which he there prepared, De communications idiomatum nee dialediea nee physics ideoque prorsus nulls, was so filled with the heresy of Servetus that Melanchthon declined to have any further dealings with him, and dismissed him. Gonesius's reception in Poland, however, was most unfavorable, and at a synod held in the same year at Pinczow his doctrines were condemned as Arian. Two years later at the Synod of Brzesk in Lithuania, he repeated his assertions, and found a strong defender in the atarost of Samogitia, Jan Kiszka, who appointed him preacher at Wengrow and placed a press at his disposal for the promulgation of his views. He now won to his side many of the clergy and nobility of Podlachia and Lithuania, and in 1565 the Reformed openly divided into trinitarian and unitarian factions. The latter party soon far outstripped Gonesius, and he was forced to struggle in vain against the " Ebionite " and " Artemonite " heresies which denied the preexistence of Christ. Of the latter part of his life nothing is known.

A. Hegler†. (K. HOLL.)

Bibliography: F. S. Rock, Hist. andidrinitariorum, i. 108, ii. 1079, Leipsic, 1774-84; 0. Fock, Der Socinianismus, pp. 143 sqq., Kiel, 1847.

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