28 Facts About Jacob Palaeologus

Jacob Palaeologus was continually pursued by his many enemies, repeatedly escaping through his many covert supporters.

Jacob Palaeologus played an active role in the high politics of European religion and diplomacy over a period of twenty years before he lost imperial favour; and having been extradited to the Papal States, was executed for heresy by the Roman Inquisition.

Jacob Palaeologus was born at the Genoese colony on Chios, one of the Aegean Islands near the coast of Anatolia, of a Greek father and an Italian mother.

Jacob Palaeologus was educated in Dominican schools at Genoa and Ferrara, and later at the University of Bologna.

Jacob Palaeologus adopted the name "Jacob Palaeologus" and claimed kinship with the former Palaiologos emperors of Byzantium.

In 1556 Jacob Palaeologus returned to Chios and actively supported the secular Genoese commissioners and the agents of the Holy Roman Emperor against the authority of the bishop of Chios; this led to his being denounced to the Inquisition and arrested in Genoa in 1557.

Jacob Palaeologus escaped from prison when a mob stormed the headquarters of the Roman Inquisition and released inmates.

Jacob Palaeologus escaped initially to France, where, in 1562, he unsuccessfully petitioned Cardinal Ippolito d'Este, the papal legate, to have the Inquisition heresy conviction overturned.

Jacob Palaeologus advised Dudith in the presentation to the Council of the imperial arguments for permitting communion under both kinds; and in exchange Dudith attempted to have Jacob Palaeologus's heresy conviction overturned by the Ecumenical Council, stirring up in the process a major disruption to the Council's proceedings.

In 1569, Jacob Palaeologus was proposed to the emperor as the Utraquist candidate to the office of Archbishop of Prague.

Jacob Palaeologus was openly advancing antitrinitarian views but became embroiled in a bitter controversy with Gregory Paul of Brzeziny and the Ecclesia Minor over the Polish antitrinitarians' condemnation of Christian service in the military.

Jacob Palaeologus supported Gaspar Bekes, the pro-imperial and antitrinitarian candidate, against Stephen Bathory, the Catholic candidate.

Jacob Palaeologus wrote polemical works supporting David and attacking Fausto Sozzini for siding against David.

Maximilan II died in 1576, and the new emperor Rudolph II was much less sympathetic, becoming convinced that Jacob Palaeologus was spying for the Ottoman Empire and possibly Poland too.

The College of Cardinals argued for his death, but Pope Gregory XIII insisted that if Jacob Palaeologus would denounce his former antitrinitarian opinions then he would be more useful alive.

Jacob Palaeologus was formidably skilled in academic debate and wrote eloquently in high Latin style.

Until 1571, Jacob Palaeologus claimed to be an Erasmian humanist, critical of the excesses of Papal Authority and of the Inquisition and sympathetic to some of the ideas of the Reformers, but still a faithful Catholic.

In common with all 16th century antitrinitarians, Jacob Palaeologus rejected three fundamental propositions:.

Jacob Palaeologus held these propositions to be frauds, perpetrated on the faithful under the prompting of Satan as devices by which the clergy might establish and maintain control; and he sees Calvinism as presenting these false doctrines in their most developed form, although the same doctrines are similarly exploited in other churches.

Salvation, for Jacob Palaeologus comes only through faith, which he understands as being achieved, through hearing and sharing the revealed word of God in the congregation of the faithful.

Jacob Palaeologus emphasises that all mankind has free will and God offers to all a free choice of blessedness.

Jacob Palaeologus had encountered the Polish Brethren of the ecclesia minor in Krakow, and much of his antitrinitarian teaching accords with theirs, while being more systematically expressed; and much more learned in presentation.

Jacob Palaeologus departed from their doctrines and practices in two key respects; which proved the occasion for bitter controversy.

Nevertheless, although Jacob Palaeologus perceived the arguments of his Polish opponents as Satanic perversions, this did not lead him to seek their suppression or that of their supporters.

Just as hearing the revealed scriptures provides for Jacob Palaeologus an assured route to truth; so the exposure and confounding of error in free and open debate ensures the defeat of the Master of Lies.

For Jacob Palaeologus this was wholly unacceptable, as he understood the task of anti-trinitrarians in the present age to be "witnesses of the truth", standing in open opposition to a world given temporarily over to the dominance of Satan.

For Jacob Palaeologus, seeking the security offered by secular power, possessions and status was a valid, if fragmentary and inadequate, response to the universal human need for blessedness; and accordingly such motivations were not sinful in themselves; nor should believers reject distinctions of secular power and possession amongst one another, although distinctions of religious power and possessions were to be condemned.

Jacob Palaeologus strongly resisted any suggestion that full participation in the fellowship of believers necessarily excludes either full participation in civic rights and allegiances, or the obligation to defend the legitimate civil order by military force; moreover he unreservedly condemned the practice of separation from the world, especially as this was enforced through the sanction of excommunication, a sanction that must necessarily deprive those subjected to it of eternal life.