Christian Francken

Christian Francken (Gardelegen c.1550 - Rome? after 1610) was a former Jesuit who became an anti-Trinitarian writer.

In 1577 Francken left his position as professor of the Jesuit college in Vienna and commenced the publication from Basel and La Rochelle of many tracts against the order.[1] François Du Jon in 1584 wrote his Defensio catholicae doctrinae de s. trinitate personarum in unitate essentiae Dei, adversus Samosatenicos errores against Francken.[2] Francken's printer was arrested in Poland.[3]

On July 9, 1587 Franken was in Prague and introduced to John Dee. Later, on Oct.13 1592, Dee would show Franken's book of "blasphemie" (Poland 1585) to John Whitgift, the Archbishop of Canterbury, desiring it be confuted.[4]

Francken worked alongside Francis David, Johannes Sommer, Jacob Palaeologus as lector at the Unitarian Gymnasium in Cluj (German: Klausenburg, Hungarian: Kolozsvár, Latin: Claudiopolis) in 1585 and between 1589-1591.

He published two works in Prague in 1595. In 1598 Francken travels to Italy in the company of papal delegate Cesare Speciano, where he was arrested and imprisoned by the Inquisition. The last document among the Inquisition's acts mentioning his name stems from 1611.

Works

Secondary literature

References

  1. Otto Henne am Rhyn Kulturgeschichte der neuern Zeit: vom Wiederaufleben d. Wiss. bis Reformation 1870 "Im Jahre 1577 entwich der Professor Christian Franken aus ... zu Wien, wurde Protestant und schleuderte von Basel und La Rochelle aus zahlreiche Streitschriften gegen den Orden,..."
  2. Théodore de Bèze ed. Hippolyte Aubert, Fernand Aubert, Henri Meylan Correspondance de Théodore de Bèze: 1590
  3. Robert Wallace, Sketches of the lives and writings of distinguished antitrinitarians
  4. Dee Diary p42
  5. Leandro Perini La vita e i tempi di Pietro Perna
  6. Jesús Martínez de Bujanda, Index de Rome 1590, 1593, 1596: avec étude des index de Parme 1580 ..., Volume 9 "Christian Francken est condamné comme auteur supra, Munchen, 1582"
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