Stancarists

Stancarists the followers of Francesco Stancari (q.v.), who was brought into note by his controversies with Osiander, Bullinger, Melancthon, and others of the Lutheran and Calvinistic reformers. Osiander and his followers had maintained peculiar views respecting the atonement of our Lord, alleging that it was as God alone he offered it, for that as man Christ was under obligation to keep the divine law on his own account; and, therefore, that he could not, by obeying the law, procure righteousness for others. The Stancarists went to the opposite extreme, and attributed the atonement to our Lord's human nature alone, excluding from it altogether his divine nature. Further, they maintained that the divine nature in its propriety had no existence in Christ, and that he was only called God the Word metaphorically. They also held a theory that he had two natures — the one as mediator, the other as the author of mediation, and was, therefore, in one sense "sent," and in the other "one who sent." Another notion they held was that the holy eucharist is not the medium of any present gift of grace, but only the pledge, or ἀῤαβών, of one to come. The heresy of the Stancarists was eventually absorbed by that of the Socinians.