130. Caelius Secundus Curio. 1503-1569. (Chapter 15. Doctrinal Controversies.) (History of the Christian Church) (Schaff, Philip)

Curio's works and correspondence. Trechsel, I. 215 sqq., and Wagemann in Herzog, III. 396-400 (where the literature is given).

Celio Secundo Curione or Curio was the youngest of twenty-three children of a Piedmontese nobleman, studied history and law at Turin, became acquainted with the writings of Luther, Zwingli, and Melanchthon through an Augustinian monk, and labored zealously for the spread of Protestant doctrines in Pavia, Padua, Venice, Ferrara, and Lucca. He barely escaped death at the stake, and fled to Switzerland with letters of recommendation by the Duchess Renata, the friend of Calvin. He received an appointment as professor of eloquence in Lausanne (1543-1547) and afterwards in Basel. He was the father-in-law of Zanchius. He attracted students from abroad, declined several calls, kept up a lively correspondence with his countrymen and with the Reformers, and wrote a number of theological and literary works. He sided with the latitudinarians, and thereby lost the confidence of Calvin and Bullinger; but he maintained his ground in Basel, and became the ancestor of several famous theological families of that city (Buxtorf, Zwinger, Werenfels, Frey).

Curio sympathized with Zwingli's favorable judgment of the noble heathen, and thought that they were as acceptable to God as the pious Israelites. Vergerio, formerly a friend of Curio, charged him with the Pelagian heresy and with teaching that men may be saved without the knowledge of Christ, though not without Christ.

Curio advanced also the hopeful view that the kingdom of heaven is much larger than the kingdom of Satan, and that the saved will far outnumber the lost.

Such opinions were disapproved by Peter Martyr, Zanchi, Bullinger, Brenz, John a Lasco, and all orthodox Protestants of that age, as paradoxical and tending to Universalism. But modern Calvinists go further than Curio, at least in regard to the large majority of the saved.