The Project Gutenberg eBook, Servetus and Calvin, by Robert Willis

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SERVETUS AND CALVIN

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MICHEL SERVETUS

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Universal history is at bottom the history of the great men who have lived and worked here. And truly the inexhaustible, the perennial Epic is the story of man’s life from age to age.

Thomas Carlyle

(The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved.) vii

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PREFACE.

Some years ago I was led to make a study of the Life and Writings of Spinoza, and took considerable pains to present the gifted Jew of Amsterdam in such fulness to the English reader as might suffice to convey a passable idea of what one of the great misunderstood and misused among the sons of men was in himself, in his influence on his more immediate friends and surroundings through his presence, and on the world for all time through all his works. This study completed, and leisure from the more active duties of professional life enlarging with increasing years, I bethought me of some other among the sufferers in the holy cause of human progress as means of occupation and improvement. Spinoza led, I might say as matter of course, to Giordano Bruno, with whose writings I was familiar, and who was Spinoza’s master, if he ever had a master. But having, at a former period, undertaken x to edit the works of Harvey for the Sydenham Society, and the discovery of the circulation of the blood having become renewed matter of discussion with medical men and others, labourers in the field of general literature, I was turned from Bruno to Servetus, as the first who proclaimed the true way in which the blood from the right reaches the left chambers of the heart by passing through the lungs, and who even hinted at its further course by the arteries to the body at large.

Of Servetus at this time I knew little or nothing, save that he had been burned as a heretic at Geneva by Calvin; and of his works I had seen no more than the extract in which he describes the pulmonary circulation. But meditating a revision and prospective publication of the Life of Harvey, with which I had prefaced my edition of his works, I went in search of further information concerning the ingenious anatomist who had not only outstripped his contemporaries, but his successors, by something like a century in making so important an induction as the Pulmonary Circulation. Nor had I far to go. In the ample stores of the British Museum Library I found a complete mine of Servetus-literature, and with access to the ‘Christianismi Restitutio,’ as reproduced by a learned physician, Dr. De Murr, and other works of the unfortunate xi Servetus, I encountered not only the physiologist already known to me, but the philosopher and scholar, the practical physician, freed from the fetters of mediæval routine, the geographer and astronomer, the biblical critic, in days when criticism of the kind, as we understand the term, was unimagined, and, alas for him! the most advanced and tolerant of the Reformers,—that sacred band to which Servetus by indefeasible right belongs. Luther, Calvin, and the rest repudiated the discipline and most of the outward rites and shows of the Roman Catholic Church; but they retained the most abstruse of her creeds. Servetus went at least as far as they in the rejection of externals; but, appealing to the scriptures of the New Testament, he satisfied himself and dared to say to the world that some of the fundamentals of Christianity as formulated by the Church of Rome, and acquiesced in by the Reformers of Germany, had no warrant in the teaching of the Prophet of Nazareth. Rejecting, as he did, the whole of the post-apostolic dogmatic accretions of the Church of Rome, Servetus is the source of the more ‘reasonable service’ we are now permitted to render, and—strange conjunction!—through his disastrous intercourse with Calvin, in no small measure the original of the free enquiry that is leading on to conclusions yet xii uncontemplated as to man’s relations to the Unseen and the Eternal.

The life and labours of the man of whom so much may be said can never be otherwise than interesting to the world. Nor is it in his life only that Servetus has been influential. His death has, perhaps, been even more influential than his life; for when his pyre began to blaze, the beacon was lighted that first warned effectually from the shoals of bigotry and intolerance on which religion misunderstood has made shipwreck so long. The custom of consigning heretics, as dissidents in their interpretation of the Jewish Scriptures were called, to death by fire then began to fall into abeyance; princes and chief magistrates ceased from assisting at autos-da-fé as edifying spectacles; and persecution to less terrible conclusions—imprisonment, banishment, fine, and social ostracism—has been coming gradually, however slowly, to an end.

We have more than one book in English purporting to give an account of the life of Servetus, but none, I think, that is not either a compilation at second hand, or a translation wholly or in principal part from the French. No one among us appears to have referred to the works of Servetus and his contemporaries for the information that would have enabled him to give xiii something like a true presentment of the man as he lived and died. To do this—to make the English reader acquainted with another of the great devoted men who have toiled on life’s pilgrimage with bleeding feet, to smooth and make straight the way for others, healers in the strife and in front of the battle, not to strike but to staunch the wounds that men in their ignorance and madness make on one another—such is the purpose of the work now presented to the reader.

In appealing mainly to the original sources of information on the life of Servetus, I have still not failed to make myself master of what has been done in later days by others in this direction. The references that occur in the course of my book to the writings of La Roche, Allwörden, Mosheim, D’Artigny, Trechsel, Rilliet, and, last but not least, of Henry Tollin, make it unnecessary for me to do more in this place than to acknowledge my obligations to them.

One word on the portrait of Servetus. Of the original of this Mosheim gives a particular account; but all Tollin’s enquiries, as well as those I have made myself, lead to the belief that it is no longer in existence. Doubt has even been expressed as to the authenticity of this portrait of which we have indifferent engravings in Hornius’ ‘Kirchengeschichte,’ in xiv Allwörden’s ‘Historia,’ and in Mosheim’s ‘Ketzergeschichte.’ After careful study of these, my daughter has done her best to reproduce in the etching appended what must have been a striking and is certainly a typical Spanish countenance.

The etching of Calvin is after an engraving from one of the numerous more or less authentic portraits of the Reformer that are extant.

Barnes, Surrey: Midsummer 1877. xv

CONTENTS.

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BOOK I.
EARLY LIFE—WORKS—ARREST AND TRIAL AT VIENNE

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CHAPTER I.
MICHAEL SERVETUS, HIS BIRTH, PARENTAGE, AND EARLY EDUCATION.

Michael Serveto, or as we know him best by his name with the Latin termination, Servetus, appears, from the most trustworthy information we possess, to have been born either at Tudela, in the old Spanish kingdom of Navarre, or at Villaneuva, in that of Aragon; but whether here or there, and in the year 1509 or 1511, is an open question. In the course of the Trial he stood at Vienne in Dauphiny, in the spring of 1553, he says himself that he is a native of Tudela, and forty-two years of age; which would make Navarre the country, and 1511 the year, of his birth. But in the Geneva Trial, only four months later, he declares that he is of Villanova, and forty-four years old; which would give us Aragon as the land, and 1509 as the date, of his nativity. When he spoke of himself as a Navarrese at Vienne, it may have been done to conciliate his French judges, Navarre having once been a province of France, and the natives of the two countries having still much in common. It was at a moment, too, when 4 he had paramount motives for seeking to conceal his identity. When he said at Geneva that he was ‘Espagnol Arragonois de Villeneuve’ and forty-four, he was face to face with one who knew him well, and when he had neither motive nor opportunity for concealment. Servetus’s subscription of himself as ‘Michael Serveto, alias Revés, de Aragonia, Hispanus,’ on the title-page of his first work; as ‘Michael Villanovanus,’ on the titles of all the books he edited, and the name ‘Villeneuve’ by which alone he was known through the whole of the years he lived in France, to say nothing of the ‘M. S. V.,’ evidently Michael Servetus Villanovanus, on the last leaf of the ‘Christianismi Restitutio,’ the printing of which led to his death, supply, as it seems, preponderating evidence as to the place of his birth, though the year may still be left uncertain. The alias Revés which appears on the title of the book ‘De Trinitatis Erroribus,’ the first-fruits of his genius, has hitherto been a puzzle and subject of debate with his biographers, but can now be satisfactorily interpreted. Servetus’s mother, it appears, was of French extraction, of the Revés family, and her son took occasion in his first work piously to preserve his mother’s family name beside his proper patronymic.1 Of the parents of Servetus, however, we in fact know 5 little more than that we have from himself when, on his trial at Geneva, he informed the Court that they were d’ancienne race, vivants noblement, of old families and independent, or in easy circumstances, and that his father was a Notary by profession. Report adds that he was of a family which had been jurists for generations, and that his father was nearly related to Andrea Serveto d’Aninon, some time Professor of Civil Law in the University of Bologna, subsequently member of the Cortes of Aragon, and one of the Council of the Indies. So much makes it clear that Michael Servetus was of gentle blood, of Christian parentage, and neither of Jewish nor Moorish descent, as has been said on no better ground apparently than that he shows he was acquainted with Hebrew, had read the Koran, and in his writings is not intolerant towards Jews and Mahomedans, like his countrymen.

Neither have we any very precise information as regards Servetus’s earlier years and education. Of somewhat slender build, and so of presumably delicate constitution, though he showed no trace of this in after life, he is said to have been destined by his parents to the service of the Church; in which view, whilst yet a youth, he was placed for nurture in one of the convents of his native town or its neighbourhood. And this we should imagine must almost necessarily be true; for the rudiments of the liberal education Servetus shows himself to have received, could only have been obtained in the early part of the sixteenth century in the quiet 6 of the cloister, and under the fostering care of some monk more learned than the general.

The precocious ability and pious temperament with which we must credit Servetus may have been a further motive for the line of life chalked out for him by his parents. The Church was then, as it still continues to be, the close through which an easy and a pious life can be best secured where there is neither talent nor aspiration; as it is also the highway to worldly wealth and power, where there is ambition and ability to back what passes for piety. By mental and moral endowment Servetus probably appeared to all about him a born churchman, with the crosier, and even the cardinal’s hat, in perspective. But side by side with so much that pointed in this direction, the reasoning, sceptical, and self-sufficing nature of the man that led the opposite way, as it had not yet appeared, so was it unsuspected. Servetus as a youth unquestionably received the education that would have fitted him for the Priesthood; and we think complacently of the solace and relaxation from the monotony of monastic life, which the worthy brother we evoke as his principal teacher found in imparting all he knew, and pointing out the onward way to one both apt and eager to learn. Before leaving the convent, or the convent school, where he doubtless remained for several years, Servetus must have been not only a tolerable Latin scholar, but, it may have been, also grounded in Greek and the rudiments of Hebrew. 7

At what age Servetus left his convent teachers we are not informed; some time however, we should imagine, before definitive vows are required of the youthful aspirant to the holy office, when aptitude for the prospective vocation is made subject of particular inquiry. Now it may have been that he was discovered to be indifferently qualified by mental constitution to follow further the line of life intended for him—a conclusion to which we are led from all we know of the man in his works. He was pious enough and credulous enough through life; but his religion must be of the kind he thought out for himself, and his beliefs of his own fashioning, not such as could be presented to him ready shaped for acceptance. The very air of Europe at the beginning of the sixteenth century was alive with mutterings of the storm that had long been gathering, and found vent at length through the manly voice of Martin Luther; and when we find hints that fears of the Inquisition had had something to do with Servetus’s subsequent movements, we are disposed to imagine that the call to free thought which had sprung up on the revival of letters and found out the northern Monk in his cell, had also reached the Friar of the south, and from him flowed over upon the receptive mind of his youthful scholar.

Be this as it may, when twelve or fourteen years of age, Servetus appears to have entered as a student at the University of Saragossa, then the most celebrated 8 in Spain; and if he had Peter Martyr de Angleria among the number of his teachers, as we are assured he had,2 he was in the hands of one of the most accomplished as well as liberal-minded men of his age. Angleria was in fact still more distinguished as a scholar, diplomatist, teacher and writer, than as a soldier. Having come to Spain in the suite of one of the Italian embassies to Ferdinand and Isabella, he joined the army of the Catholic king and queen as a volunteer, and having distinguished himself on more than one occasion in the field, he was presented to the sovereigns on the conclusion of hostilities, entered the service of Isabella, in especial, and having taken orders—an indispensable condition to acknowledgment as a teacher—he was engaged by the queen as tutor and general supervisor of the education of the host of young noblemen and gentlemen who thronged the Court. The influence exerted by such a man in such a situation cannot be doubted; and it has been surmised that more than one of the distinguished personages who appeared in Spain, in the early part of the sixteenth century, owed not a little of all that made them notable in after life to their teacher. Angleria was in fact a 9 man in advance of his age, morally, and, we must believe, religiously also—although Spain was not always the devoted slave of Rome we have been accustomed to think her in these our days. He had seen enough in his campaigning and its consequences to disgust him with conversions to Christianity at the point of the sword, and the wholesale deportation from their native country of a great civilised community because of their adhesion to the religion of their fathers. An Italian by birth, it was no part of Angleria’s religion to hate Jews and Saracens with such a hatred as made baptizing, banishing, torturing and putting them to death the virtue it appeared in the eyes of the Spaniards.

At Saragossa Servetus may have remained four or five years, working hard at all that qualified him to appear as he meets us in after life—perfecting himself in classics, and introduced not only to the Ethics of Aristotle and the scholastic philosophy, but also to the more positive domains of human knowledge—the mathematics, astronomy and geography—geography more especially, brought into vogue as it was by the great discoveries of Columbus, Vasco de Gama, and the hardy navigators and travellers who came after them, then made accessible to the general reader by the works of Angleria, Grynæus and others.

Having broken definitively with the idea of the Church as a calling, Servetus must now have made up his mind to follow what might fairly be spoken of as 10 the hereditary vocation of his family—Law; and the School of Toulouse being at this time the most celebrated in Europe, to Toulouse he was sent as a student of Law by his father. Here he seems to have remained for two or three years—short while enough in which to fathom the intricacies of civil and canon law, to say nothing of other studies that must have continued to engage some share of his attention; but that the time given to the study of Law at Toulouse was not misspent, is proclaimed by the occasional scraps of legal lore we notice interspersed in his writings. In the covenant between God and Abraham, to cite one among many instances, he observes that we have the first case on record of one of the four forms of unindentured contract, still spoken of as the form Facio ut facias. Elsewhere also, and at other times, on his trial at Geneva in particular, he is credited by his prosecutor with an adequate knowledge of the Pandects, although he says himself that he had never done more than read Justinian in the perfunctory manner usual with young men at college. On the occasion referred to, nevertheless, we find him quoting the decisions of jurisconsults in support of his conclusions.

But Law, we believe, was never the subject that engrossed the thoughts of Servetus. The natural bent of his mind, and the teaching he had received during his earlier years, led him to Theology; and it was at Toulouse, as he tells us himself, that he first made acquaintance with the Scriptures of the Old and New 11 Testaments. It is not difficult to imagine the effect which the perusal of these writings must have produced on the ardent religious temperament of Servetus. In his earliest work he speaks of the Bible as a book come down from heaven, the source of all his philosophy and of all his science—language, however, that is to be seen as hyperbole to a great extent; for he was already imbued with scholastic philosophy, and, we must presume, with patristic theology also, before he had read a word of the Bible; and in his published works we find him at various times subordinating the teaching of the Scriptures to the conclusions of his reason. Toulouse, indeed, in the early part of the sixteenth century, was an unlikely school for religious study in any but the most rigidly orthodox fashion; and how far Michael Servetus swerved from this—to his sorrow—need not now be more particularly noticed. It was even the boast of the Toulousans for long, that their city had not been infected with what was spoken of as the poison of Lutheranism. So strict a watch had been kept over them by their shepherds, the priests, that, whilst in neighbouring and other more distant cities of France the Reformation had many adherents, it had none—openly, at all events—in Toulouse. It were needless to insist that training of a special kind, in addition to originality and independence of mind, was required to lead to views and conclusions such as those attained to by Servetus.3 12

He had read the Bible, however, at Toulouse; and there, too, if it were not at an earlier period, he must have met with some of the writings of Luther, of which several had been translated into Spanish soon after their publication.4 But there is another book which enjoyed an extensive reputation through the whole of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and seems to supply the kind of aliment precisely of which a mind constituted like that of Servetus must have felt the want. This is the ‘Theologia Rationalis sive Liber de Creaturis’ of Raymund de Sabunde, in which the Creator is reached by a gradual ascent from lower to higher grades of created things.

The ‘Rational Theology’ of Sabunde is indeed a most noteworthy book; full of true piety, resting on the wider and surer grounds of nature at large in harmony with human intelligence, than the dogmatic theologian can show in the written text and unwritten traditions on which he relies for his conclusions. Containing no word that is not thoroughly orthodox, doctrine, nevertheless, is not that which it is the grand object of the ‘Rational Theology’ of Sabunde to propound. Neither is authority paraded, as it would have been had the book been written by a professed 13 theologian, instead of a pious naturalist; for Sabunde was a physician, one of the guild whose destiny it is to lead the van of progress. We cannot believe that the work, though often reprinted, was ever heartily approved by the heads of the Church of Rome. Its title went far to condemn it. The Roman Catholic Church requires faith, submissiveness, subserviency, not reason, of its sons; and we are not, therefore, surprised to find that though the ‘Rational Theology’ of Sabunde, as a whole, long escaped being placed on the index of prohibited books, the prologue with which we find one of the early editions, if it be not the first (Argentorati, 1496), introduced, was soon ordered to be expunged; nor, indeed, as culture extended and the Reformation spread, with ever-increasing alarm to the dominant Church, that the book itself was at length pointedly forbidden to be read by the faithful. It was put upon the ‘Index’ by the Congregation of the Council of Trent in 1595, the author ‘holding too much by Nature,’ say the reverend councillors, ‘to give us a knowledge of God and his providential dealing with the world, and making too little reference to the Fathers and the authority of Holy Writ.’

The Prologue of Sabunde is in truth a very remarkable piece of writing, the age considered in which it flowed from the pen. Beginning in the accredited orthodox fashion: ‘Ad laudem et gloriam altissimæ et gloriosissimæ Trinitatis,’ &c., the author proceeds to say that his purpose is ‘to expose the errors, as well 14 of the ancient philosophers as of pagan and infidel writers, by the science he has to propound; to set forth the catholic faith in its infallible truthfulness, and to show every sect opposed thereunto in its necessary falsity and erroneousness. Two books,’ he continues, ‘are given to us by God for our guidance: one, the universal book of created things, or the book of Nature; the other, the book of the sacred Scriptures. The first was given to man from the beginning, when the world was made; the second is to supplement and solve the difficulties met with in the first. The book of the Creatures lies open to all; but the book of the Scriptures can only be read aright by the clergy. The book of Nature cannot be falsified, neither can it be readily interpreted amiss, even by heretics; but the book of the Scriptures they can misconstrue and falsify at their pleasure.’ The author’s design, therefore, is to write a book which gentle and simple alike may read and understand without a master; and he ends his prologue with a compliment and submission to Holy Mother Church, which her hierarchs, however, have not accepted either gratefully or graciously; for they did not of old, any more than they do now, want books that would enable readers to go their own way without the guiding hand of a master. Shall we wonder, therefore, that this notable prologue was looked on at an early date as highly objectionable, and is not to be found in any of the later editions of the book?5 15

Michel de Montaigne has given an interesting account of this ‘Rational Theology’ of Sabunde. His father thought so highly of it that he set his son, the immortal Essayist, to translate it into French: a task which it were needless to say he performed in a very admirable manner, though the sire did not live to see the work in type and in the hands of the public he was anxious to reach through its means. The book, says Montaigne, is composed by a Spaniard, in indifferent Latin—basti d’un Espagnol, baraguiné des terminaisons Latines—but well adapted to meet a want of the day. The novelties of Luther coming into vogue and shaking old beliefs, Sabunde, as he thinks, ‘gives very good advice against a disease that ever tends towards execrable atheism.’ If Sabunde does give tres bon advis, his ‘Book of the Creatures’ is nevertheless the text from which the most sceptical perhaps of the whole series of the ‘Essays’ is written; and if the ‘Theologia Rationalis’ fell into the hands of the youthful Michael Servetus, as we believe it must almost necessarily have done, we have no difficulty in imagining that it influenced him in a still greater degree, and not much otherwise than it did young Michel de Montaigne. A rational exposition of God’s revelation of himself in nature, we apprehend, must have been a craving in the soul of the serious Spaniard still more than in that of the lively Gascon.6 16

But there is another writer whose influence on his age and the progress of free thought it is impossible to estimate too highly, and from whose teaching Servetus on his death-walk owned that he had had something. This is Erasmus. What Servetus had he does not say. Whatever it may have been, it was unaccompanied by the caution and cold discretion that distinguished the great scholar of Rotterdam. In the Scholia which Erasmus added to his Greek New Testament, however, we fancy we see heralds of the far bolder and more original exegetical annotations with which Servetus, under his assumed name of Villanovanus, accompanied his reprint of the Pagnini Bible, which we shall have to speak of by and by.

In addition to all he learned from his convent teachers, from the professors of Saragossa and Toulouse, from Sabunde, Luther, Erasmus, and others on the subject of theology, Servetus must further have been well read in general history and the works of travellers in foreign lands, as we shall find when we come to study his edition of Ptolemy’s Geography, and refer particularly to his biblical criticisms, in days when criticism of the kind he brought to bear on the text of the Scriptures was unknown. It was only in the early part of the sixteenth century that the Hebrew Bible and Greek Testament began to be appealed to by the 17 learned, and made the subject of critical study in a way never thought of before. Long limited to the letter, the study was widened in its scope by Servetus, and, embracing general history, made to include a new and highly important element in its bearing on the Religious Idea. If Servetus of himself arrived at the interpretation he gives of the Psalms and Prophetical writings of Israel, he must indeed have been possessed of no ordinary share of natural sagacity informed by study, and of moral courage in addition; for it runs counter to all that had been assumed from the date of the New Testament writings almost to the present day. The free use he makes of his historical reading in its application to David, Cyrus, and Hezekiah, may have been that which led some of his biographers to imagine that he was of Jewish descent, and to say that he had visited Africa, and had had Mahomedan as well as Jewish teachers, from whom he imbibed his notions, hostile to the common orthodox interpretation of the Prophets, and the conception of a Triune God.

It were absurd to suppose that Servetus’s early convent education and subsequent studies at Saragossa and Toulouse had made him all he shows himself to be in his works. He continued a student through the whole of his life, and it is indeed among the privileges of the physician that his education never ends; but it was certainly at an early period of his career that he became possessed of the theological ideas which he 18 went on elaborating, even to the day when his ‘Restoration of Christianity’ was in type and ready for the publication it did not obtain. It is therefore of moment with us to seize and follow up every incident in his life that induced or strengthened the bent of his mind towards theological speculation; and the event which now befel, we must presume, had no slight influence in this direction. 19

CHAPTER II.
SERVICE WITH FRIAR JUAN QUINTANA, CONFESSOR OF THE EMPEROR CHARLES V.

School and college days come naturally to an end, or are cut short by one intervening incident or another; and the studies of Michael Servetus at Toulouse were interrupted by an invitation to enter his service from brother Juan Quintana, a Franciscan friar, confessor to the Emperor Charles V., about to attend on his Sovereign to his coronation in the imperial city of Bologna, and, of still greater significance, to the Diet of Augsburg, which followed it closely. In what capacity Servetus joined Quintana we are not informed; but if father confessors ever engaged private secretaries, we can hardly doubt that it must have been in the intimate relationship suggested, for which the accomplishments of the younger man so obviously qualified him. The invitation from Quintana is interesting on many accounts, and was certainly an important element in the mental development of Servetus. Though he may have quitted Spain hurriedly, perhaps secretly—in fear of the Inquisition, as said—he could have left nothing but a good name for conduct and accomplishment behind 20 him, otherwise he would never have been recommended as a fit and proper person to act as secretary to the confessor of the great Emperor. Not forgotten by his old masters of Saragossa, the clever student was thought of by them when Quintana made known his want of a secretary, and must have been recommended to him as in every way qualified to fill a situation of the kind.

Michael Servetus, as we apprehend him, was one of those sensitive natures which, like the stainless plate of the photographer, retains at once and reflects every object presented to it; his service with Quintana, consequently, was one of the incidents that influenced the whole of his after life. Up to the time of his engagement with the confessor he had been but one among hundreds of other students, known to his teachers as a young man of superior abilities, it may be, but not an object of more particular attention to any one of them. In the intimate relationship implied between the elderly principal and the youthful underling matters were entirely changed; and recent inquiries7 lead to the conclusion that the hood of the barefooted friar Juan Quintana covered the head of a man of superior powers, cherishing larger, more liberal and more tolerant views than were current in his age, more especially among the class to which he belonged.

Quintana appears to have attracted the notice of 21 the Emperor so far back as the date of the Diet of Worms, during the sittings of which he had distinguished himself as a preacher and become generally known as a theologian and man of learning. He had at the same time, however, and in like measure, fallen out of favour with his party, opposed at every point to the reform movement, in consequence of the moderation of his views. Matters at Worms had gone in no wise to the satisfaction of the Emperor, owing in no inconsiderable degree, as he must have believed, to the intolerance and mismanagement of his clerical advisers. To give the approaching Diet of Augsburg, of which Charles was thinking far more seriously than of the pageant of Bologna when he made Quintana his confessor, a chance of proving the bond of union he desired between the two great religious parties which now divided his empire, he saw that he must rid himself of the narrow-minded and utterly irreconcilable Dominican Loaysa, whom he had had at Worms as his spiritual director. From Loaysa he knew he had no prospect of receiving those counsels of concession and compromise which, as a politician, he saw were indispensable and to which he was himself at the moment by no means disinclined. He must have another confessor of more liberal views, not utterly opposed to the reformation of the Church in all its aspects and to the whole body of the Reformers with whom, as heretics, it was condescension on the part of a Roman Catholic dignitary to communicate, and contamination, if it were not sin, to 22 sympathise. The old director had therefore to be got rid of, for a time at least; but he must suffer no slight, be subjected to no show of mistrust, to no seeming loss of confidence; he must not even be superseded in his office, but only removed to a distance and so made innocuous. Charles therefore discovered that a representative, who must be presumed to be familiar with the most secret aspirations of his soul, would be required at Rome as the medium of communication between himself and his holiness the Pope, in connection with the important business in prospect at Augsburg. Loaysa, accordingly—greatly to his disgust beyond question—was dispatched with all the honours to Rome, whilst Juan Quintana, summoned from the quiet of the cloister to the bustle of the Court, found himself unexpectedly with a royal and imperial penitent at his ear in the confessional, and an upper seat in the council chamber pending the discussion of affairs of state.

How should we imagine that an invitation to take service with a man possessed of qualities that brought him into such relationships could have been otherwise than instantly embraced by the youthful student of Toulouse; or how doubt that intimate contact with so great a nature as Quintana’s could fail to impress him deeply? Attached forthwith to the service of the confessor and in the suite of the Emperor, not the least observant among all who accompanied him of the pomp and pageantry displayed at the 23 coronation at Bologna, the open-eyed secretary was witness of much besides that sank into his mind, gave matter for future thought, and found free but needlessly offensive expression in his writings. Here, at Bologna, it was in fact, and not at Rome as has been said, that Servetus saw the Pope ‘borne aloft above the heads of the people, the multitude kneeling in the dust, adoring him, and they among them who could but kiss his slipper accounting themselves blessed.’ Nor was it the ignorant multitude alone that showed such abject servility. He saw in addition ‘the most powerful prince of his age, at the head of twenty thousand veteran soldiers, kneeling and kissing the feet of the Pope;’8 an exhibition which appears to have been thought of as simply degrading instead of edifying by the independent-minded secretary.

So great an event as the coronation of the Emperor was too favourable an occasion to be neglected for a stroke of business by the financiers of the Romish Church: indulgences were in the market in plenty, and at prices to suit all purchasers, immunity from the pains of purgatory being to be obtained for terms in the ratio of the money paid. How shall we imagine that so glaring an abuse could fail to touch Servetus, in the state of mind to which he must already have attained, in the same way as the proceedings of Tetzel and his coadjutors touched the common sense and conscience of Luther? It was doubtless with all he now observed 24 before him that we, short while after, find him speaking in such virulent terms of the Papacy and exclaiming: ‘O bestia bestiarum, meretrix sceleratissima’—‘O beast most beastly, most wicked of harlots!’9 Some of Luther’s epithets, we might conclude, had found their way into the vocabulary of Servetus; and it may be that the violence of Luther’s invective, unchallenged by the rest of the Reformers, led him to fancy that he too might indulge without impropriety in language of an unseemly kind.

When we think of the times in which Servetus lived, his early education and subsequent surroundings, the violent hatred he seems already to have conceived against the Papacy is not a little extraordinary. We might be tempted to conclude that the free thought of Europe, of which the Reformation was the outcome and expression, had found even a more genial soil in the mind of this Spanish youth than in that of Luther himself, or any of his accredited followers. They went little way in freeing the religion of Jesus of Nazareth from the accretions which metaphysical subtlety, superstition, and ignorance of the laws of nature and the principles of things had gathered around it in the course of ages. Their business, as they apprehended it, was to reform the Church rather than the religion of which it was presumed to be the exponent; the task that Servetus set himself in the end was to reform religion, with little thought of a Church in any 25 sense in which an institution of the kind was conceived in his day, whether by Papist or Protestant.

From reading the Bible at Toulouse and contrasting the humble life and simple theistic morality of the Prophet of Nazareth with the metaphysical subtleties and dogmatic deductions of the schoolmen, the pomp, the power, the tyranny and the greed of the priests so conspicuously displayed at Bologna, we can readily imagine the impression made on the independent spirit of Servetus—an impression that found more seemly utterance anon than that we have already quoted, and in words like these: ‘For my own part I neither agree nor disagree in every particular with either Catholic or Reformer. Both of them seem to me to have something of truth and something of error in their views; and whilst each sees the other’s shortcomings, neither sees his own. God in his goodness give us all to understand our errors and incline us to put them away. It would be easy enough, indeed, to judge dispassionately of everything, were we but suffered without molestation by the Churches freely to speak our minds; the older exponents of doctrine, in obedience to the recommendation of St. Paul, giving place to younger men, and these in their turn making way for teachers of the day who had aught to impart that had been revealed to them. But our doctors now contend for nothing but power. The Lord confound all tyrants of the Church! Amen.’—The voice of this nineteenth century verging on its close, from the 26 mouth of a man little more than of age, living in the first half of the sixteenth!10

The business of the coronation at Bologna concluded, the Emperor betook himself to Germany in view of the great Diet of Augsburg, formally inaugurated in the summer of 1530, accompanied of course by his confessor, as the confessor was attended by his youthful secretary. And here it must have been that Servetus saw and may perchance have spoken with Melanchthon and others of the leading Reformers, among the number of whom, however, the greatest of them all did not appear. Luther’s friends believed that the danger he must run by showing himself at Augsburg was too great to be incurred. The brave man would himself have faced the peril, but his princely protectors positively forbade the exposure. They feared that at Augsburg the Emperor might be tempted to violate the ‘safe conduct’ he had been reproached by his Papal advisers with having so honourably observed at Worms; for there were still some among the Roman Catholics, high in place, so ill-informed, so blind to events, as to believe that were the head of the man who had inaugurated the movement which compromised their power but off his shoulders, the Reformation would collapse and die! Luther was 27 therefore permitted by his friends to approach the scene of action on this occasion no nearer than Coburg.

Neither at Augsburg any more than at Worms did matters proceed so entirely to the satisfaction of the Emperor as he wished, and may have anticipated. The Protestant princes, with little cohesion among themselves, showed, nevertheless, that severally they were more resolute than ever in their requirements touching religion, less obsequious too to the advances of their suzerain than he found agreeable. They felt themselves in fact, and in so far, masters of the situation, and had mostly quitted Augsburg before the sittings of the Diet came to a close, content to leave Melanchthon and his colleagues to give final shape to the business for which the Diet had been mainly convoked, and in the great Religious Charter of the Age—the Confession of Augsburg—to establish Protestantism as an integral and recognised element, not only in the religious, but in the political system of Europe.

During his attendance on his chief at Augsburg, Servetus, though he saw and may have spoken with more than one of the distinguished Reformers, could have been an object of particular attention to none of them: his youth and subordinate position precluded the possibility of this. That he may have been disappointed at not seeing the original of the great movement which had brought together the august assembly he looked on around him, we may well believe, but we 28 find no evidence in contemporary documents that would lead us to think he had ever come into contact with Luther, as has been said.11 29

CHAPTER III.
THE SERVICE WITH QUINTANA COMES TO AN END.

It is greatly to be regretted that we have nothing from Servetus on the other impressions he received, during the term of his service with Quintana, beside those connected with the pomp and power of the Papacy. We do not even know precisely how long he continued with the confessor of the Emperor, nor where, nor at what moment he left him. Neither have we a word of his whereabouts and mode of life, after vacating his office, until we meet him seeking an interview with Jehan Hausschein, the individual, with his name turned into Greek, so familiar to the world as Œcolampadius. From Servetus himself we have it that he quitted the service of Quintana on his death, which, he says, occurred in Germany. But the truth of this statement has been called in question on very sufficient grounds, Quintana having been seen alive in the flesh, and still in attendance on the Emperor, years after dates at which we know positively that Servetus had been in Basle and Strasburg, communicating with Œcolampadius, Bucer, and others of the Reformers. More than this, he had come before the world as author of 30 the book entitled ‘De Trinitatis Erroribus,’ a copy of which having been found by Joannes Cochlæus, an ecclesiastic in the suite of the Emperor, in a bookseller’s shop at Ratisbon, was by him shown to Quintana, who, we are informed, expressed extreme disgust that a countryman of his own and personally known to him—quem de facie se nôsse dicebat—should have fallen so far into the slough of heresy as to write on the mystery of the Trinity in the style of Michael Servetus, alias Revés.12 Nor indeed is this the last we hear of Quintana. After the settlement of affairs at Ratisbon and Nürnberg, he attended the Emperor to Italy, and thence to his native Spain, where we find him installed as Prior of the Church of Monte Aragon and a member of the Cortes of the kingdom. Quintana appears in fact to have lived for yet two years, actively engaged in his duties, having only been gathered to his fathers towards the end of the year 1534.13

Servetus did not therefore leave the service of Quintana after, or in consequence of, the death of the confessor. We find it difficult indeed to think of one with the decidedly unorthodox opinions to which Servetus had attained at an early period of his life, continuing on terms of intimacy with a man of Quintana’s capacity, without showing something of the leaven of unbelief that must have been already fermenting 31 in his mind. There is, it is true, commonly enough, so much more of policy than of piety among hierarchs of the Church of Rome, and indeed of any church largely possessed of wealth and culture, that their real opinions and beliefs have often been made subject of debate. But Quintana was a monk, although a liberal one, and he was Charles V.’s confessor. Of the Emperor’s orthodoxy, bigotry, and hatred of heresy, however, there can be no question; so that, though policy moved him for a time to entertain as his spiritual adviser a man more tolerant than the general, the occasion for this ceasing, Charles was not likely to find himself altogether at his ease with one at his elbow much more liberally disposed than himself. Quintana consequently on the return to Spain, being absolved of his office of confessor, but handsomely provided for in the Church, Charles recalled Loaysa, his former director in matters of faith, from Rome, and lapsed into the groove of intolerance from which considerations of state had for a moment withdrawn him.

From the false account Servetus gives of the cause of his quitting Quintana, we therefore think it probable that soon after the settlement of matters at Augsburg in the early autumn of 1530, he had incautiously betrayed the state of his mind on some point of the religious question, and been dismissed from his service by the confessor. Service of any sort, indeed, from the estimate we are led to form of the mental constitution of Michael Servetus, could only have been a bondage 32 never patiently to be endured, but to be shaken off at the earliest possible opportunity. His was not a nature that could brook a master; and we have the assurance of Œcolampadius that Michael Servetus was in Basle and making himself obnoxious by his theological fancies previous to the month of October 1530. The coronation at Bologna having taken place in the autumn of 1529, and the Diet of Augsburg assembled at midsummer 1530, Servetus could not, thus, have been in the following of Quintana for more than a year, or eighteen months—no long term if reckoned by the lapse of time, but certainly covering a vast area in the sphere of his mental development. He may have had little leisure for the study of books, but he had his eyes open to the doings of men; and his inner senses were awakened to truths, his reason to conclusions, that influenced him through the rest of his life, and possibly had no insignificant part in bringing him to his untimely end. 33

CHAPTER IV.
INTERCOURSE WITH THE SWISS REFORMERS.

It would appear that Œcolampadius, Bucer, Bullinger, Zwingli and others, their friends, had had a sort of ‘clerical meeting’ for talking over the theological questions of the day at Basle in the autumn of 1530. On this occasion Œcolampadius informed his friends that he had been troubled of late by a hot-headed Spaniard, Servetus by name, overflowing with Arian heresies and other objectionable opinions, maintaining particularly that Christ was not really and truly the Eternal Son of God; but if not, then was he not, and could not be, the Saviour—were Christus nit rächter, warer, ewiger Gott, so were er doch und könte nit seyn unser Heiland. Waxing warm in his tale, and fearing that such poison, as he conceived it, would not be poured into his ears alone, but would reach those of others, he was minded that measures should be taken against such a contingency. To this Zwingli, addressing him as brother Œcolampady, replied, that ‘there did seem good ground for them to be on their guard; for the false and wicked doctrine of the troublesome Spaniard goes 34 far to do away with the whole of our Christian religion.’ ‘God preserve us,’ said he, ‘from the coming in among us of any such wickedness. Do what you can, then, to quit the man of his errors, and with good and wholesome argument win him to the truth.’ ‘That have I already done,’ said Œcolampady; ‘but so haughty, daring and contentious is he, that all I say goes for nothing against him.’ ‘This is indeed a thing insufferable in the Church of God,’ said Zwingli—Ein unleydenliche Sach in der Kyrchen Gottes. Therefore do everything possible that such dreadful blasphemy get no further wind to the detriment of Christianity.’14

Besides the personal communication with Œcolampadius of which we have this interesting notice, Servetus must have written him several letters—unfortunately lost to us—about the same time, for we have two from the Reformer to the Spaniard, which have happily been preserved. In one of these (probably the second that was written), Servetus having, as it seems, complained that he had been somewhat sharply handled by his correspondent, Œcolampadius replies that he, for his part, thinks that he himself has the greater reason to complain. ‘You obtrude yourself on me,’ he says, ‘as if I had nothing else ado than to answer you; asking me questions about all the foolish things the Sorbonne has said of the Trinity, and even taking it amiss that I do not criticise and in your way oppose myself to those 35 distinguished theologians, Athanasius and Nazianzenus. You contend that the Church has been displaced from its true foundation of faith in Christ, and feign that we speak of his filiation in a sense which detracts from the honour that is due to him as the Son of God. But it is you who speak blasphemously; for I now understand the diabolical subterfuges you use. Forbearing enough in other respects, I own that I am not possessed of that extreme amount of patience which would keep me silent when I see Christ dishonoured.’ He then goes on to criticise and rebut Servetus’s theological views—his denial of Two natures in the One person of Christ, and his opinion that in the prophetical writings of the Old Testament it is always a prospective or coming Son of God that is indicated. ‘You,’ continues Œcolampadius, ‘do not admit that it was the Son of God who was to come as man; but that it was the man who came that was the Son of God; language which leads to the conclusion that the Son of God existed not eternally before the incarnation.’

To satisfy the Reformer, or seeking to get upon a better footing with him, Servetus appears now to have composed and sent him a Confession of Faith, which has come down to us. On the face of this there was such a semblance of orthodoxy that Œcolampadius found nothing at first to object to in its statements; but having conversed with the writer and heard his explanations, he had come to see it as utterly fallacious, misleading, and inadmissible. He concludes by exhorting his 36 correspondent to ‘confess the Son to be consubstantial and coeternal with the Father, in which case,’ he says, ‘we shall be able to acknowledge you for a Christian.’15 37

CHAPTER V.
THE REFORMERS OF STRASBURG—PUBLICATION OF THE WORK ON TRINITARIAN ERROR.

The letter of Œcolampadius, as we have it, is without date, but must have been written from Basle at the close of 1530, or the beginning of 1531, and so before the book on Trinitarian Error had been published, as we find no mention made of the work. By this time, however, Servetus must have had the treatise ready for press, for it was now that he put it into the hands of Conrad Kœnig or Rous, a publisher, having establishments both at Basle and Strasburg. Kœnig was not a printer himself; but accepting the work for publication he sent it to Jo. Secerius, of Hagenau, in Alsace, a well-known typographer of the day, to be put into type. To Hagenau accordingly went the MS., followed by the author to superintend the printing; intending from thence to proceed to Strasburg, where he was anxious to have interviews with the leading Reformers of that city, Martin Bucer and W. F. Capito, and propound to them, as he had done to the Switzers, the new views of Christian doctrine at which he had arrived. 38

From what we know already we might conclude that he found little more encouragement from the ministers of Strasburg than he had had from those of Basle. Servetus himself, however, appears to have thought otherwise, and left them with the impression that neither of the Strasburgers was so wholly opposed to his views as Œcolampadius in particular had shown himself at Basle. We find him, by and by, in fact, speaking as if he even believed that in the first instance they were alike disposed to abet rather than condemn his conclusions. And this, from what came out subsequently, seems really to have been the case, in so far, at least, as Capito stands concerned. Capito was, in fact, the most advanced and truly tolerant of all the early Reformers, and if we may rely on the report we have of his opinions from the author of the ‘Antitrinitarian Library,’16 he was really not behind Servetus in his rejection of the orthodox tripartite Deity. A kindly sympathy with a young enthusiast, full of fancies on topics really beyond the reach of demonstration, may have induced Bucer as well as his colleague, Capito, to feel a certain interest in the subject of our study, and so led them both to treat him otherwise than as the irreverent dreamer he had appeared to Œcolampadius; to see him, in a word, as he was in truth—a well-read and piously disposed, albeit in their opinion a more or less mistaken, scholar.

Servetus undoubtedly possessed the character of the enthusiast in perfection, and by natural constitution 39 was not only indisposed, but to a certain extent incapable of seeing a question in any light save that in which he set it himself. Bucer, although he became hostile to Servetus in the end, must in fact have been not a little taken with him on their earlier intercourse, when in a letter to a friend he speaks of him as ‘his dear son’—‘filius meus dilectus.’ When not curtly met as the rash innovator and heretic, Servetus was neither the proud nor the impracticable man he appeared to Œcolampadius and Calvin. During his visit to Strasburg, when he was doubtless busy with his ‘De Trinitatis Erroribus’—revising, polishing, and seeing it through the press—in a notable modification of the terms in which one of the cardinal points of his doctrine is spoken of in an earlier and in a later passage of the work, Bucer’s kindly counsel, it is presumed, may be detected. Whilst in Book IV. we find these words, ‘The Word is never spoken of in Scripture as the Son; the Word was the shadow only, Christ was the substance,’ in Book VII. he says, ‘The Word is never spoken of in Scripture as the Son; but to Christ himself there is ascribed a kind of eternity of engenderment. The things that were under the Law were shadows of the body of Christ.’17

Whatever the two distinguished Reformers of Strasburg may have said, however—and we can hardly doubt of their having tried to win him to the views that were commonly entertained—he was not stayed for a 40 moment in his purpose of getting into print. Nay—and we know not why the right should be refused him—he seems to have thought himself at as full liberty as the leaders of the great movement then afoot to give his own interpretation of the kind of reform which not the Church only, but its doctrine, required. For such an undertaking he was as well qualified by culture as any of the Reformers—better qualified, in fact, than many among them, as in genius we believe he was surpassed, and in liberality and tolerance approached by none. Servetus, in truth, had started in the reforming race unweighted, and so, and in so far with a better chance of reaching the goal of simple truth than either Luther or Calvin; for though he had received the education of the cloister, he was neither professed monk nor priest; and, without detriment to the piety of his spirit, or his belief in what were held by the world as the oracles of God, he had freed himself from the fetters of necessary assent to the interpretations put upon these, formulated into dogmas, by the Church in which he had been born and bred. Servetus seems never to have had any misgivings about his title to show himself among the number of the Reformers. He was in Germany, the land of free thought, as he imagined; among men who had thought freely, and whom he had been used to hear spoken of by his clerical surroundings, whilst in the suite of Quintana, as heretics and blasphemers. These names he did not fear in such respectable company as he found the Reformers 41 of Switzerland and Germany to be; and though he did not agree with them on some topics, he could bear with them as well in that wherein he differed from them as in that wherein they differed among themselves, and saw no reason why they should not in like manner bear with him. He thought of nothing, therefore, but prospective fame for himself in the publication he contemplated. The names of Luther, Melanchthon, Calvin, and the rest, appeared on the title-pages of their works: why, then, should his name be withheld from the world? On the title-page of the ‘Seven Books on Mistaken Conceptions of the Trinity’ accordingly, which now came forth from the press, we find not only his family name, Servetus, but the alias, Revés, from his mother’s side of the house, and the name of the country that called him son:—

The publisher and printer, having an eye to business, not notoriety, and suspicious in all probability of the reception the article in the production of which they were aiding and abetting, might receive, were more cautious than the author; for the name neither of printer, publisher, nor place of publication, appears on the title-page. In the month of July, 1531, however, the book was to be bought at once in the 42 cities of Strasburg, Frankfort, and Basle: but no one knew for more than twenty years where it had been printed, nor who besides the author—who had also vanished out of sight—had been accessory to its publication. The truth only came out in the course of the author’s trial at Geneva in the year 1553. Basle had the credit for a time of having hatched the cockatrice; and that the charge was taken seriously to heart appears from a letter of Œcolampadius to Bucer which has been preserved.

The Swiss churches, as is known, were not all at one with Luther and his followers upon some of the transcendental topics of their common faith; and Servetus in his book having attacked the Doctrine of Justification by Faith—the leading feature in Luther’s theology, in terms neither complimentary nor respectful, the Switzers were anxious to have the great head of the Reform movement informed that they had nothing in common with the Serveto, alias Revés, of the book ‘De Trinitatis Erroribus,’ and that it had not fallen from any of the presses of their country. In his letter to Bucer dated from Basle, August 5, 1531, Œcolampadius informs him that ‘several of their friends had seen Servetus’s book and were beyond measure offended with it.’ ‘I wish you would write to Luther,’ he continues, ‘and tell him it was printed elsewhere than at Basle, and without any privity of ours. It is surely a piece of consummate impudence in the writer to say that the Lutherans are ignorant 43 of what Justification really means. Passing many things by, I fancy he must belong to the sect of the Photinians, or to some other I know not what. Unless he be put down by the doctors of our church, it will be the worse for us. I pray you of all others to keep watch; and if you find no better or earlier opportunity, be particular in your report to the Emperor in excusing us and our churches from the breaking in among us of this wild beast. He indeed abuses everything in his way of viewing it; and to such lengths does he go that he disputes the coeternity and consubstantiality of the Father and the Son—he would even have the man Christ to be the Son of God in the usual natural way.’18

Bucer having perused the ‘De Trinitatis Erroribus’ would seem to have been excessively disturbed or scandalised by its contents. Known as a man of a perfectly humane disposition in a general way, he is now violent even to slaying. Denouncing its author from the pulpit, he is said to have declared that the writer of such a book deserved to be disembowelled and torn in pieces! Yet was not Martin Bützer always of this savage way of thinking. In a Preface and Postscript to an early work—a translation by a friend, of Augustin’s Treatise ‘on the Duty of the Ruler in matters of Religion,’19 he is as mercifully disposed 44 towards the erring as could be desired. They are to be prayed for, instructed, and it may be punished, but it is to be mildly; they are never to be put to death. He refers to his ‘Dialogues’ in which the subject is treated at length.

Luther, too, must have read the work, and it is not a little interesting to us to be made aware from what he says himself that he, like others of the Reformers, as well as Michael Servetus, had been troubled with doubts about the conformity of the orthodox Trinitarian dogma with the dictates of simple reason. In the Table-Talk—Tisch-Reden—of 1532, he refers to what he characterises as ‘a fearfully wicked book—ein greulich bös Buch—’ which had lately come out against the doctrine of the holy Trinity. ‘Visionaries like the writer,’ says Doctor Martin, ‘do not seem to fancy that other folks as well as they may have had temptations on this subject. But the sting did not hold; I set the word of God and the Holy Ghost against my thoughts and got free.’ Luther as usual imagined that the doubts he felt were inspired by the Devil, instead of by God, through the reason given him for his guidance.20

But of all his contemporaries Melanchthon appears to have been more taken with the work on Trinitarian Error than any other of the leading Reformers; and he is much more outspoken in expressing his opinion of the incomprehensible and really unscriptural nature 45 of the dogma which it is the gist of Servetus’s book to impugn. To one of his friends he begins his letter by telling him ‘that he has been reading Servetus a great deal—Servetum multum lego—though I am well aware of the fanatical nature of the man. In his derisive treatment of Justification he sees nothing but the quality of Augustin; and he plainly raves when, misinterpreting the text of the Old and New Testament, he denies to the Prophets the Holy Spirit. I also think he does injustice both to Tertullian and Irenæus, when, treating of the Word, he makes them question its being an hypostasis. But I have little doubt that great controversies will one day arise on this subject, as well as on the distinction of the two natures in Christ.’21

To Camerarius, another friend, he writes: ‘You ask me what I think of Servetus? I see him indeed sufficiently sharp and subtle in disputation, but I do not give him credit for much depth. He is possessed, as it seems to me, of confused imaginations, and his thoughts are not well matured on the subjects he discusses. He manifestly talks foolishness when he speaks of Justification. Περὶ τῆς τρίαδος—on the subject of the Trinity—you know, I have always feared that serious difficulties would one day arise. Good God! to what tragedies will not these questions give occasion in times to come: εἴ ἐστιν ὑπόστασις ὁ λὀγος—is the Logos an hypostasis? εἴ ἐστιν ὑπόστασις τὸ πνεῦμα—is 46 the Holy Ghost an hypostasis? For my own part I refer me to those passages of Scripture that bid us call on Christ, which is to ascribe divine honours to him, and find them full of consolation.’22

This is surely very candid and beautiful. But the spirit of the Prophet of Nazareth did not always find such a resting place as it did in the heart and mind of Philip Schwarzerde, though he too could forget himself and approve of violence, as we shall see, when certain beliefs which he held sacred and thought it a public duty to profess were assailed. At this time, however, on this occasion, he is in his proper placable frame of mind and continues thus: ‘I find it after all of little use to inquire too curiously into that which properly constitutes the nature of a Person, and into that wherein and whereby persons are distinguished from one another. It is very provoking that in Epiphanius, except a few trifling passages, we have nothing from the days when the same questions were agitated by Paul of Samosata—nothing in fact whence we might know what was thought of Paul’s opinions at the time, and of what mind were they who condemned him. I am even greatly distressed when I think of such negligence on the part of the hierarchs of the age of this Paul, as well as of times more near our own.’ When writing thus Melanchthon plainly sympathised more with Paul of Samosata and his opinions than he 47 would have liked to acknowledge at a later period of his life; for he, too, like so many who become narrow and intolerant in age, was liberal enough when younger, and in the earlier editions of his ‘Loci Theologici’ could speak of the Holy Spirit as nothing more than an ‘Afflatus of Deity.’

The above extracts from confidential letters seem to show that Melanchthon was not himself quite clear as to the sense in which a Trinity of the Godhead was to be understood; a state of mind shared in, unless we much mistake, by more than one among the most influential men of the Swiss Churches, by none more certainly than by Calvin, their great head, himself, as we shall show. Melanchthon indeed in his next letter to the same friend, speaking of Servetus’s assumption that Tertullian did not think the Logos an hypostasis—a distinct substantial reality—proceeds:—‘To me Tertullian seems to think on this subject as we do in public—quod publice sentimus, and not in the way Servetus interprets him. But of these things more hereafter when we meet.’ Melanchthon would not therefore trust in writing, even to an intimate friend, all he thought on the subject of the Trinity; and truly there is matter enough when critically scanned in the first edition of his best-known work—‘The Loci Theologici’ of 1521—that puts him out of the pale of orthodox Trinitarianism.23 48

Neither was Joannes Œcolampadius without something of a fellow feeling for Servetus, although he repudiated his conclusions. Writing to Martin Bucer on July 18, 1531, shortly after the publication of the work on Trinitarian misconception, he informs his friend that he had heard from Capito of Strasburg, who tells him that the book is for sale among them there, and has rejoiced some of the enemies of the Church, as it will also afford matter of gratulation to the Papists of France when they see that writings of the kind are suffered to be published in Germany. ‘Read the book,’ continues the writer, ‘and tell me what you think of it. Were I not busy with my Job, I should be disposed to answer it myself; but I must leave this duty to another with more leisure at command. Our Senate have forbidden the Spaniard’s book to be sold here. They have asked my opinion of its merits, and I have said that as the writer does not acknowledge the coeternity of the Son, I can in no wise approve of it as a whole, although it contains much else that is good—Etiamsi multa alia bona scribat.’24

In the days of Philip Melanchthon and Joannes Œcolampadius we therefore see that men had private opinions on subjects to which they were committed by their subscriptions, which differed we know not how widely from their public professions, precisely as among the ancients, and ourselves at the present time: 49 culture would still seem to make an esoteric and an exoteric doctrine a necessity of existence.

Made aware, as we are by these letters of the Reformers, that Servetus’s book was causing a considerable stir both in Switzerland and Germany, it seems, in so far as we have ascertained, to have been entirely neglected by the Roman Catholics of these lands as well as of France. We have searched in vain for any notice of it in French theological writings of the period; neither have we been able to discover, though condemned and ordered to be suppressed by the Emperor Charles V. when brought under his notice by Cochlæus and Quintana at Ratisbon, that it figures at any early date on the Roman Index of prohibited books. There are good reasons for believing, nevertheless, that Servetus’s book on Trinitarian Misconception had a large amount of influence on Italian ground. It had been sent south in numbers; and aware of this Melanchthon took it upon him by-and-by to address the Senate of Venice on the subject, informing them that a highly objectionable work was for sale among them, and suggesting that measures should be taken for its suppression. The Sozzini, uncle and nephew—Lælius and Faustus Socinus—and their followers, the Unitarians, have consequently been seen as the disciples of Servetus, though it may be that they were so only indirectly; for Servetus himself, as we shall find, declares that he does not deny a kind of trinity in the 50 unity of God. But his trinity is modal or formal, not real or personal in the usual sense of the word.

If overlooked by theologians of the Latin races, the work of our author appears to have attracted all the more attention from the men of Teutonic descent who had espoused the cause of the Reformation. In their ranks in the early period of the sixteenth century the intelligence of Europe, in so far as the religious question was concerned, seems to have been concentrated. They took pains to inform themselves generally on all that was going on in the republic of letters, and in so much of it very particularly as bore on the subject they had most at heart. It is among the Swiss and German Reformers consequently that we find any particular notice taken of Servetus’s book on Trinitarian Error. They alone show themselves scandalised by the opinions of its author and his style of expressing them, jealous too, it might seem, at the intrusion of a mere layman into their domain—a phenomenon as yet perfectly unheard of, and startled further by the advances they discovered in the book upon all that they, as inheritors of apostolic traditions in common with their Roman Catholic brethren (from whom in matters of Dogma they differed so little), regarded as the truth. Paul of Tarsus preaching his own independent gospel to the Gentiles, proclaiming the universality of the fatherhood of God, the nothingness of Circumcision, and, in opposition to the whole Levitical code, that all days were alike holy and that it was not what went 51 into the mouth of a man that defiled him, could scarcely have been more ominous to the intolerant Nazarene Church of Jerusalem than was the appearance of this daring innovator upon the religious stage of Germany. His book, everywhere freely sold in the first instance, must have been read by everyone of liberal education, though it became so scarce ere long, denounced and decried as it must have been universally by the ministers, that twenty years afterwards a copy, most pressingly wanted, and eagerly sought after, was nowhere to be found in Switzerland; so effectually had zealotry succeeded in having it committed to the flames!

Strasburg and Basle, however, must have been the emporiums whence the supplies of the ‘De Erroribus Trinitatis’ were sent forth; for after its author’s visit to the capital of Elsass and his happy delivery of this the first-born of his genius at Hagenau, we find him again in Basle and making himself obnoxious to Œcolampadius as before. Writing what we must presume to be a second or third letter to the Reformer, and complimenting him on what he is pleased to style his correspondent’s clear apprehension of Luther’s doctrine of Justification, Servetus goes on to make a personal request. ‘Somewhat fearful of writing to you again,’ he says, ‘lest I should molest you still more than I have already done, I yet venture to ask of you not to interfere with my sending the books to France which I have with me here, the book-fair of Lyons drawing 52 near; for you of all men are better entitled than any one else to pronounce an opinion upon things unheard of until now. If you think it better that I should not remain here, I shall certainly take my leave; only, you are not to think that I go as a fugitive. God knows I have been sincere in all I have written, although my crude style perchance displeases you. I did not imagine you would take offence at what I say of the Lutherans; especially when from your own mouth I heard you declare you were of opinion that Luther had treated Charity in too off-hand a style; adding, as you did, that folks were charitable mostly when they had nothing else to think of. Melanchthon, too, as you know, affirms that God has no regard for charity. Such sayings, believe me, are more hurtful to the soul than anything I have ever written. And this all the more as I see that you are not agreed among yourselves on the subject of faith; for with my own ears I have heard you say one thing, which is otherwise declared by doctor Paulus, otherwise by Luther, and yet otherwise by Melanchthon;25 and of this I admonished you in your own house; but you would not hear me.

‘Your rule for proving the Spirit, I think, deceives you; for, if in your own mind there be any fear, or 53 doubt, or confusion, you cannot judge truly of me; and this the more because, although you know me in error in one thing, you ought not, therefore, to condemn me in others, else there were none who should escape burning a thousand times over. This truth is forced on us on all hands, most especially perhaps by the example of the Apostles, who sometimes erred. And, then, you do not condemn Luther in every particular, although you are well aware that he is mistaken in some things. I have myself entreated you to instruct me, which, however, you have not done. It is surely an infirmity of our human nature that none of us see our own faults, and so commonly look on those who differ from us as impious persons or impostors. I entreat you, for God’s sake, to spare my name and reputation. I say nothing of others who are not interested in the questions between us. You say that I would have no one punished or put to death, though all were thieves alike; but I call the omnipotent God to witness that this is not my opinion; nay, I scout any such conclusion. If I have spoken at any time on the subject (the punishment proper for heresy), it was because I saw it as a most serious matter to put men to death on the ground of mistake in interpreting the Scriptures; for do we not read that even the elect may err? You know full well that I have not treated my subject in so indifferent or indiscreet a manner as to deserve entire rejection at your hands. You make 54 little yourself of speaking of the Holy Spirit as an angel, but think it a great crime in me when I say that the Son of God was a man.

‘Farewell.
‘Michael Serveto.’26

This letter, so characteristic of the writer, is full of interest even at the present hour. Servetus would have Œcolampadius instruct him; but the invariable complaint of all with whom he came in contact was that he could never be made to receive instruction; in other words, secure in his own conclusions, he thought his would-be instructors mistaken in theirs. And this, indeed, for good or ill, is characteristic of all who impress their age, and show themselves leaders in art, in science, in policy, or religion. Genius measures with its own rod, and is its own guide on the way it goes. The world is not moved by men who have all they own from teachers.

But especially worthy of note is the remark our writer makes on the serious responsibility men assume when they put each other to death for mistaken interpretations of Scripture. Had no scholar in modern times before Servetus come to so great and charitable a conclusion, we should still have to hallow the memory of the man who, more than three hundred years ago, had the head and the heart to proclaim 55 so great a principle, in the enforcement of which in all its aspects the better spirits of the world still find such opposition; though it is not now by the infliction of death that bigotry and intolerance revenge themselves on their victims, the advocates of freethought and outspoken religious criticism.

A good deal has been said, by its author as well as others, of the crude style of the book on Trinitarian Error. But this to us seems the least of its faults—the language is generally simple enough, not Ciceronian certainly, but the meaning, save where the writer probably did not quite understand himself, is not doubtful. As a composition, it is the arrangement that is most defective. The parts have so little either of coherence or sequence, that of the seven books or chapters into which it is divided, the last, as it seems, might advantageously have been made the first. For there it is, and not until the penultimate page of the entire treatise is attained, that the key to the writer’s most important conclusions is discovered. ‘Two fundamental rules or principles,’ he says, ‘are to be steadily kept in view:—1st, That the nature of God cannot be conceived as divisible; and 2nd, That that which is accidental to the nature of anything is disposition.’ The corollary he would have to follow from these premisses or postulates being, that the orthodox idea of a Trinity, i.e., of the existence of three distinct persons or entities in the unity of the Godhead, is an impossibility, and so a fundamental religious error. As 56 Servetus himself believed in God, and acknowledged a Son of God and a Holy Spirit—finding mention of these in the Scriptures, no word of which would he overlook, though putting his own interpretation on all they say—he held that the Son and Holy Ghost, in consonance with his Second Principle, must be what he calls dispositions, or dispensations of the one eternal indivisible Deity—in other words, manifestations of God in the world.

The ‘Idea of God’ to which Servetus had attained is unquestionably grand. ‘God,’ he says, ‘is eternal, one and indivisible, and in himself inscrutable, but making his being known in and through creation; so that not only is every living, but every lifeless thing, an aspect of the Deity. Before creation was, God was; but neither was he Light, nor Word, nor Spirit, but some ineffable thing else—sed quid aliud ineffabile—these, Light, Word, Spirit, being mere dispensations, modes or expressions of pre-existing Deity. (‘Dial.’ i. 4.) God, he says, has no proper nature; for this would imply a beginning; and before and after are terms that have no significance when they are referred to God. Though God knew what to man would be a future, his own prescience was without respect to time, and involved no such necessity as is implied in choice. God, he continues, can be defined by nothing that pertains to body; he created the world of himself, of his substance, and, as essence, he actuates—essentiat—all things. (‘Dial.’ ii.) The Spirit of God is the 57 universal agent; it is in the air we breathe, and is the very breath of life; it moves the heavenly bodies; sends out the winds from their quarters; takes up and stores the water in the clouds, and pours it out as rain to fertilise the earth. God is therefore ever distinct from the universe of things, and when we speak of the Word, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we but speak of the presence and power of God projected into creation, animating and actuating all that therein is, man more especially than aught else; ‘the Holy Spirit I always say is the motion of God in the soul of man, and that out of man there cannot properly be said to be any Holy Spirit.’ (‘De Trin. Err.’ f. 85, b, and ‘Dial.’ ii.) This is obviously a statement of what may be called the Exo-pantheistic principle in very broad terms, akin to what we find in the Grecian mythology and certain schools of philosophy; other than the Endo-pantheistic conception of later times—the Causa Principio et Uno of Giordano Bruno,27 the Substantia of Spinoza, the Universum or Kosmos of Goethe,28 58 Hegel, Humboldt, Schopenhauer, D. F. Strauss,29 &c. It is the Principle inseparable from the mighty All as from the individual Atom, or Pantheism proper.

We shall, by-and-by, find our author, on his Geneva trial, damaging his case and exciting, we may imagine, the astonishment of the unlettered among his judges, by the assertion of his pantheistic notions, and arousing the needless, and it may even be, the assumed ire of Calvin—for he was familiar with the idea, having said himself that he only objected to call Nature, God, because it was a hard and improper expression—quia est dura et impropria loquutio.30

Criticising the first verse of the Fourth Gospel: ‘In 59 the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,’ Servetus maintains that the Greek λὀγος, translated Word with us, does not designate an entity but utterance or speech, as appears by its etymology, derived as it is from λἐγω, to speak, to discourse. Of the Word of God, therefore, to make the Son of God is to do as did the heathen, who turned ideas or abstractions into mythical beings—Echo into a Nymph, Fortitude into Minerva, &c., and so to bring discord and dissidence upon the truths of Scripture. (‘De Tr. Err.’ f. 47, b.) The Word spoken by God in the beginning implies fore-thought, fore-knowledge; whence it is characterised as Wisdom, ‘that was from the beginning or ever the earth was. Under the mystery of the Word, the older apostolic tradition understood a certain dispensation whereby God willed to reveal himself to mankind. The Word of God therefore is equivalent to the Act of God; and even as Light came of the spoken word, so too came Creation, so too came Man.’ In this way, says our author, do we readily comprehend the expression of John: ‘The Word was made flesh,’ and learn in what sense Christ is truly the Word: ‘He is, as it were, the voice of God enunciating to mankind the will of the Universal Father.’ (Ib. f. 49 b.) The Word, consequently, is nothing different from God, but is God himself evoking all things, Christ among the number in the fulness of time. If a reasonable meaning is to be attached to mystical language, it seems difficult to 60 imagine any more satisfactory interpretation than this of Servetus, with which we see that of a distinguished liberal divine of our own day essentially to agree, as he says: ‘The Logos of the New Testament means not only the Word as translated, but Reason, Intelligence, communicating itself in thought and speech. It is the divine wisdom which was from the beginning in the mind of God made manifest in time.’31

The title Son of God, again, Servetus maintains is nowhere to be found in the Scriptures otherwise applied than to a man—to the man Jesus in particular; and the word Person he insists is always to be understood in the sense of the Greek προσῶπον and the Latin persona, a mask, an appearance, and not any real or individual thing. With this style of exposition the Reformers could of course by no means agree. They had adopted all the symbols of their predecessors of the Church of Rome; and it seems to have been Servetus’ insistance on his own divergent interpretation of the language of John and the creeds that more especially aroused the enmity of Œcolampadius, Bucer, Calvin, and the rest, they holding that to be accounted a Christian it was necessary not only to acknowledge Christ to be the Son of God, which Servetus was quite ready to do, in the way he understood the filiation, but to acknowledge him to be the Logos or Word of St. John, consubstantial and coeternal 61 with the Father—which, to Servetus, was impossible. It is probable that the way and manner in which in any conceivable fashion such coeternity and consubstantiality could be apprehended was among the topics on which Servetus craved enlightenment from Œcolampadius; and as he could obtain none, pique and personal dislike, opposition and enmity, took the place of dispassionate and friendly discussion; precisely as happened in later years and mainly on the same subjects between our author and Calvin.

In his attempt to develope and explain his own conception of the mystery of the Trinity—for it is a mistake to suppose that Servetus was opposed to something of the kind—he does not set out like the writer of the Fourth Gospel from the transcendental Word, but starts with the historical Jesus, the man, the reputed son of Joseph the Carpenter, but verily or naturally, as he says, the Son of God. To this son the name Jesus was given at the time of his circumcision, the title Christ being conferred by his disciples; whilst it was only at his baptism that he was designated Son of God. The Holy Spirit and power of the Highest overshadowing the Virgin Mary, and acting in her as generator or generative dew, Jesus the Son of God and her Son was engendered. It is not the Word consequently, but Jesus the Son of Mary who is a Son of God: ‘The holy thing that shall be born of thee,’ says the angel addressing the Virgin, ‘shall be called a Son of God.’ ‘They therefore 62 plainly err,’ says Servetus, ‘who speak of the Word as the Son of God: the man Jesus was the Son of God, not the Word; the man Jesus engendered, as stated above, by God in the womb of the Virgin.’ ‘All the Trinitarian errors,’ he concludes, ‘have arisen from not understanding the true nature of the Incarnation.’

When he comes to speak of the Holy Ghost, Servetus unhappily forgets what is due to the discussion of a subject that has engaged the serious thoughts of so many pious men. He would seem to have seen some portions of the catholic Christian dogma as so unreasonable that they were even open to ridicule; and this leads him to the use of improper language. The Holy Ghost, he maintains, is never spoken of save confusedly in the Scriptures, the term being applied variously now to an angel, now to the soul of man, and again to nothing more than wind or breath (Ib. f. 22, a.). The Hebrew word Ruach, of which spirit or wind is a translation, has indeed a still greater variety of meanings. On a subject so indefinite and undefined as the Holy Spirit, we cannot wonder that Œcolampadius in one of his letters should declare he can make nothing of what Servetus says on the matter—‘dicit nescio quid—he says I know not what.’ This much, however, we do make out as our author’s opinion, viz.: that the Holy Spirit is nowhere spoken of in Scripture as a distinct and independent entity, but always as a motion, an agency, an afflatus of God or the power of God,—a view in which he 63 certainly had Melanchthon as his predecessor: ‘Nec aliud spiritus sanctus est nisi viva Dei voluntas et agitatio.’ (‘Loci Theol.’ p. 128, ed. 1521.)

Referring to the dogma of the ‘Two Natures,’ Servetus holds that this, too, is founded in error. ‘To speak of the Nature of God,’ he says, ‘is absurd; for the word nature can only apply to something created, something born (from the Latin natus). But God is from Eternity. For my own part,’ he proceeds, ‘I never take nature to signify aught but the thing to which the term is applied—the nature of a thing is the thing itself. To use the word nature in connection with the name of God is, therefore, to speak of God himself. And so of the Son of God: that which was an idea, image, or type of the Son in the mind of God, when the Word was made flesh, became or was Christ, Reality then superseding Idea (‘De Tr. Er.’ f. 92). There was consequently no aggregate of two natures or two different things in Christ; he was one entity or person, in the usual sense of the word.’ Servetus very inconsistently, as it seems at first sight, often speaks of the man Jesus as God. But he can do so only on the same ground as Cyrus in the Bible, Augustus Cæesar, and other rulers, are called Dii or Divi—gods. The Son of God, to Servetus, in conformity with the pantheistic idea, can only be an aspect or Mode of the One God. If this be not his meaning, I know not what it is.

We have said above that Servetus is not opposed to the idea of a Trinity of dispositions, powers, or properties 64 in the Deity, but only denies such a trinity of persons or entities as is embodied in the symbols of orthodox Christianity. It is not unimportant, therefore, to learn what the precise idea was which he had of the threefold state he acknowledged as extant in the essence of God. His words are these: ‘Tres sunt admirandi Dei dispositiones in quarum qualibet divinitas relucet, ex quo sanissime Trinitatem intelligere posses, &c.—There are three admirable dispositions in God, in each of which divinity appears, and from which you may satisfactorily understand the Trinity. For the Father is the one God, from whom proceed certain dispensations. But these imply no distinction into separate entities. By the economy of God—Dei οἰκονομίαν—they are no more than so many forms or aspects of Deity; for the divineness that is in the Father, the same is in the Son, and in the Holy Ghost.’

In another passage, he asserts his belief in a Trinity still more distinctly: ‘I concede one person of the Father, another person of the Son, another person of the Holy Ghost: three persons in one God, and this is the true Trinity.’ (Ib. f. 64, b.) Had we not our author’s explanation of the way in which he understands the word person, this would make his conception, in so far, not different from the orthodox interpretation of the mystery. But his language here must be regretted, for it is misleading, the word person with Servetus not signifying, as we have seen, any real or 65 individual entity distinct from other entities, but property, appearance, or outward manifestation. The second and third persons, therefore, as understood by Servetus, are to be thought of as dispositions or modes of God, the universal Father, and not as individuals or persons in the usual acceptation of these words, though of them it is that distinct personages have been made, and spoken of as being at once God and other than God, as being three and yet no more than one.

In sequence to this, our author goes on to say that ‘he will not make use of the word Trinity, which is not to be found in Scripture, and only seems to perpetuate philosophical error. It were well, indeed,’ he continues, ‘that all distinction of persons in the one God were henceforth abandoned and rooted out of the minds of men’ (Ib. f. 64, b.); words in which we see reason getting the better of subserviency to the letter of Scripture, and putting an extinguisher, as it were, upon his own as well as other vain attempts to give a rational explanation of the mystical Neo-Platonic Logos-Doctrine of the Fourth Gospel, of which the Trinitarian Church-Dogma is the outcome. Hampered, however, by the idea that everything in the Bible is the word of God, Servetus insists on trying to find, for himself and his readers, something like an acceptable interpretation of the leading words of the Imaginative Mystical Discourse entitled the Gospel according to John. In this he fails, as might have been anticipated; and then, his eyes being opened to the fact, he has nothing for it but 66 to conclude that the orthodox Trinitarian mystery were well discarded from the thoughts and the beliefs of man. ‘To believe, however,’ he continues, ‘suffices, it is said; but what folly to believe aught that cannot be understood, that is impossible in the nature of things, and that may even be looked on as blasphemous! Can it be that mere confusion of mind is to be assumed as an adequate object of faith?’ (Ib. f. 33, b.)

The Trinitarian doctrine of dogmatic Christianity Servetus held to have been a great obstacle to the spread of the religion of Christ. Opposed to the conception of the Oneness of Deity to which the Jews had finally attained, the religious system in which it was made so prominent an element, could not possibly be accepted by them; neither, on the same ground, could it be received by Islam; for Mahomet, whilst he acknowledged Jesus as a prophet and power in the world, born of a Virgin, too, like other distinguished individuals, in some incomprehensible manner, never for a moment thought of him as the Son of God; for ‘God,’ says he, ‘as he is not engendered, so neither does he engender.’

But it is not in connexion with the subject of the Trinity alone that Servetus shows the advances he had made on his age in the sphere of Biblical exposition. Commenting on the text, ‘No man hath ascended up to heaven but he who came down from heaven’ (John iii. 13), he says: ‘It is the spiritual heaven that is here to be understood, and this exists wherever Christ is; 67 “to ascend to heaven” means no more than to discourse of heavenly things. “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father,” says the text (Ib. xiv. 9), i.e., says our expositor, ‘he who appreciates the priceless treasures of Christ’s love easily attains to a knowledge of God the Father. But how should an invisible, intangible Word give us to know God?’ (‘De Tr. Err.’ f. 46 et seq.)

There are others among the accepted doctrines of the reformed Churches which, as repudiated by Servetus and so arraying the whole of their adherents against him and influencing his fate, require a passing notice at our hands. Justification by Faith, for instance, he maintains, comes not by belief in the merits or sufferings of Christ, but by belief in his worth or dignity as Son of God. On this ground, he says, the Lutherans do not understand what Justification really is. It is by belief of the kind he specifies, however, that we show our obedience to God, accept the new covenant instead of the old law, become the children of our heavenly Father, and have the Holy Spirit imparted to us. Such belief is, in fact, the very kernel of the Christian dispensation, and that on which the new covenant of grace reposes. It is the real rock on which Peter was to build the Church, against which the gates of hell should not prevail. But as hell does seem to have got the upper hand, he adds, we can only conclude that neither the Church on the rock nor the true Faith is now to be found among us. The Lutheran Justification by 68 Faith, in a word, is mere magical fascination and folly (f. 82-84, Conf. ‘Ep. ad Calvin.’ xiii.).

But Faith, even the most fervent, is not yet sufficient for salvation. The Justification thereby attained is still no more than negative in kind; to become positive, it must be associated with Love, i.e., with Charity in the widest sense of the word; with the Love, that is the fulfilment of the law, whereby alone do we secure for ourselves treasures in heaven. Faith is the entrance, Charity the sanctuary—Fides ostium, Charitas perfectio; and there is a fine passage in the ‘Christianismi Restitutio’ (p. 349), comparable in some sort to Paul’s eloquent outburst on the excellence of that much misused sentiment. When Servetus speaks of Charity, therefore, it is not the eleemosynary idea of his day that is meant, with its mendicant friars, its convent doles, and its engendered sloth and beggary; neither is it the mistaken view of later days, which gives indolence and improvidence a legal claim on industry and thrift. It is of the nobler, truer kind that, beside good works, gives man a right to think and to speak unfettered, and forbids him to fancy that his brother is damned for divergency in theological opinion.

To the leading Calvinistic doctrines of Predestination and Election, involving as they do fettered instead of free will, Servetus is still more violently opposed than to the Lutheran Justification by Faith. ‘In your fatal, not to say fatuous, necessity of all things, or your servile will,’ says he, at a later period in his life, ‘there is 69 a certain show of folly, seeing that you would have a man do that which you must know he cannot do. You speak of free acts, yet tell us there is no such thing as free action. And it is absurd in you to derive the servile will you abet from this: that it is God who acts in us. Truly God does act in us, and in such wise that we act freely. He acts in us so that we understand and will and pursue. Even as all things consist essentially in God, so do all acts proceed essentially from him. But the power in us to do is one thing, the necessity of doing is another; and though God may deal with us as the potter deals with his clay, it does not follow that we are nothing more than clay, and have no power of action in ourselves.’ (Ib f. 79, b, et ‘Epist. ad Calvinum,’ xxii.)

Another of the most essential doctrines underlying Pauline Christianity, original sin, is made little of by Servetus. Although I spent much time in reading his books, I do not appear to have made a note of more than one or two passages in which he refers to that subject; and when he does, it is by the way rather than more particularly. It is on the necessity of faith in Christ, as he understands the Sonship, that he dwells continually, making of this the prime factor in his scheme of restored Christianity. ‘This faith it is,’ says he, ‘that first makes us aware of our poverty, of our misery; for if we believe that Christ is the Son of God and the Saviour of the world, we already assume that the world is sinful, and requires saving’ (‘Chr. 70 Rest.’ p. 349). He does not refer particularly to what is called ‘the Fall,’ neither does he say very pointedly how the world came into the sorry plight in which he admits that he finds it. The reason usually assigned must have appeared unsatisfactory to an understanding so clear as that of Servetus, when unclouded by fancies of his own creating; but we can hardly think he mends matters by ascribing the origin of sin to heaven and the rebellion of the angels, as he does, instead of to the earth and Adam’s disobedience. Far from maintaining that the heart of man is corrupt and evil by nature, he holds that the cause of good works and well-doing is proper and spontaneous to the individual, who is only answerable for his own sin, not for the sin of another. Faith in Christ, therefore, as the naturally-begotten Son of God; Charity, in which are comprised all the virtues, and a good life, in so far as we can make it out, form the backbone of Servetus’s Christianity, as it is unfolded in his earliest work on ‘Current Misconceptions of the Trinity.’32 71

CHAPTER VI.

THE AUTHORITIES OF BASLE TAKE NOTICE OF HIS BOOK. HE WRITES TWO DIALOGUES BY WAY OF APPENDIX TO IT AND LEAVES SWITZERLAND.

Failing to make any impression on the Swiss and German Reformers whose countenance he had been so anxious to gain, we have seen Servetus in his letter to Œcolampadius declaring his readiness to quit Basle, to which he must have returned, if it were only not said that he went as a fugitive, and giving something like an engagement to his correspondent to review and, reviewing, to modify or retract some things he had said in his book. That some such engagement was given we conclude from the letter of Œcolampadius to the magistrates of Basle, to which we shall refer immediately, and from which it would seem that it was through the forbearance, if not even the more friendly interference, of the Reformer that our author escaped arrest and imprisonment at this time. The seven books or chapters on erroneous ideas of the Trinity had not fallen stillborn from the press; neither had the presence of the writer in Basle passed unobserved. The book being seen as heretical in the 72 highest degree by the ministers, the presence of its writer among them was felt as matter of grievance by both clergy and laity; so that the Civic Council held it within the scope of their duties to take notice of the innovator, of whom they heard so much that was discreditable, and, by laying hands on him, either to make him pay in person then and there, or to send him away, like an infected bale, to spread his poison elsewhere.

Previous to acting, however, they thought it would be well to have the opinion of their chief Pastor, Œcolampadius, on what had best be done, and so requested him to advise with them on the subject. He replied by a long letter in which he recapitulates the chief topics discussed by Servetus in his treatise. ‘He, Œcolampadius, will do what he can to place the good man’s views before them,—if indeed he may venture to speak of the writer as a good man; for it seems that he strives at times as much to darken the light as to enlighten the darkness, mixing up incongruities rashly and not seldom stopping short of contradicting himself. He opposes the orthodox doctors continually, and uses certain words in an arbitrary and unusual sense. He denies the coeternity of the Father and the Son, a doctrine hitherto held sacred by all the Christian churches; and only recognises the sonship from the moment of the engenderment, or rather of the birth of Christ. He even derides the idea of God having a son from eternity, and asks 73 whence the heavenly father had his wife, or whether he were of both sexes in himself? He will only recognise the eternity of the Son as an Idea in the divine mind: the Son was to be, but was not yet, until he appeared in the flesh. He will by no means concede that the Word of St. John was the Christ; yet he speaks of three persons in the one God; but it is with glozing and an arbitrary meaning attached to the word person, and with reasonings which, if they sometimes make for his views, are at other times opposed to them, he neither thinking nor speaking as do the apostles, and wresting the words of the fathers—of Tertullian and Irenæus especially—from the interpretation commonly put upon them.

‘Along with all this and much more that is objectionable, there are still some things in the book that are good; nevertheless as a whole it could not but offend me. God grant that the writer acknowledge the rashness which has led him to speak so unadvisedly as he has done of matters which transcend our human intelligence, and that he may live to amend what he has said. As to the book, it would be well perhaps that it were either totally suppressed, or were read by those only who are not likely to be hurt by objectionable writings. The errors he has fallen into acknowledged, he will retract in his writings—retractârit scriptis. Perhaps he was not himself aware of their extent, or they were not seen by him as of such importance as they are in fact. But I leave all to 74 your prudence and discretion, humbly commending myself and my work to your favour.’33

If we are to understand the retractârit scriptis of the above as a promise from Servetus to retract in a future work what he has said in his first, he certainly did not keep his word in the ‘Dialogi de Trinitate,’34 which he published in the course of the following year. In the Preface to these dialogues, it is true, he informs the candid reader that he retracts all he had ‘lately written in the seven books of erroneous conceptions concerning the Trinity, not because what I say there is false, but because the work is imperfect and written as it were by a child for children. I pray you nevertheless to hold by so much as you find there that may help you to understand the subjects discussed. All that is barbarous, confused and faulty, ascribe to my inexperience and the carelessness of the printer. I would not that any Christian were offended by what I say; for God is used sometimes to make known his wisdom to the world by weak vessels. Look at the thing itself, therefore, I pray you, and if you take good heed, my stammering will prove no hindrance to you.’

The reputed printer of Servetus’s Treatise and Two Dialogues, Jo. Secerius, has no particular name as a 75 typographer. But these little works are by no means incorrectly printed; they show few typographical errors—so few that they must almost certainly have been read for press by the writer himself. The printer therefore is not to be blamed for any shortcomings of the kind referred to by the author—if there be defect it is his own, and it was the matter not the manner that had been found fault with. But the Preface is apologetic in directions uncalled for, and is meaningless in fact. Servetus did not think himself a weak vessel; neither did he look on his work as the work of a child for children; and as for any retractation of his opinions, nothing seems to have been further from his mind. On the contrary the mysticism of the writer of the Fourth Gospel appears to have taken a firmer hold of our author than it had done before, and to have acted as fresh ferment to the mystical element so abundant in his proper nature. There may be modification of some of the views already enunciated, but from none of them is there recession. The opposition he met with from the leading Reformers seems even to have added point and precision to his writing. He is more outspoken than before, and is still less chary in the kind of language he uses towards opponents. The usual conception of a partitioned Deity he declares to be simply blasphemous; they who seriously entertain it are fools, and so blind that were Christ to come among them now and declare he was the Son of God, they would crucify him anew. 76 The Dialogues, instead of any denial and retractation, are a reiteration and defence of almost all he has said in his first production; although, indeed, we do observe that where he can he occasionally approximates somewhat to more orthodox views; in that passage very notably where he speaks of the Son being of the same essence (homousios), and even consubstantial with the Father. (‘Dial.’ i., f. II, b.) But these are really no more than words set down under the varying impulses of mind to which the writer gave way, and are deprived of any meaning that might attach to them by something that has either gone before or that comes immediately after.

The discussion of Luther’s Justification by Faith, to which it must be presumed his attention had been particularly called by Œcolampadius as likely to be offensive to the Lutherans, is renewed in the Dialogues; and the writer is so far carried away by his own exaggerated estimate of the mental condition implied in faith or belief, that he seems even to accept in toto the principle he would controvert. Though he is elsewhere and ever so emphatic in praise of good works or charity, we here find him not sparing in condemnation of those who hope through their doings of any kind to achieve salvation. Monks and nuns accordingly, who sin more especially in this direction and who by the assumption of peculiar habits and behaviour think to make themselves agreeable to God, are an especial abomination to him. Man, he declares, cannot be justified 77 by the observance of vows or rules of any kind; for these are not written in the law of God, and in themselves are without significance. ‘A most pestilent thing it is, that Papal decrees and monastic vows are assumed as means of salvation. When men bind themselves by vows to particular observances, they virtually declare that the salvation they have through Christ is insufficient, and lay themselves fast in those bonds of the law from which Christ came to set them free.’

In spite of frequently recurring contradictions and something that is objectionable on the score of taste, we nevertheless think that no one, however little disposed to abet Servetus’s general views, could peruse these dialogues without coming to the conclusion that the writer was a man of a sincerely pious nature, who had read much, and reflected deeply, feeling it a necessity of his nature to expend himself in the mystical verbiage in which religious enthusiasm loves to robe itself as in a sufficient and seemly garment.

The seven Books and two Dialogues on the Trinity of Servetus have been spoken of as an attempt to hold a middle course between the Roman Catholic and the Reformed churches; and there may be something to warrant such a conclusion from what is said in the chapter ‘De Justitia Regni Christi.’ But Servetus’s Trinity is of another kind from that of either the older or the younger sister, and where not assimilable to the Neoplatonic ideas of Philo, it followed from the Pantheistic 78 principles which, like deep thinkers in general, he had adopted. God to Servetus was the ἓν καὶ πᾶν, the One and the All; and if at any time he speaks of Christ as God, it is as a manifestation of the Divine in human form—a dispensation in his own phraseology, a mode in Spinozistic language. The Divine Unity, and its manifestation in the world in infinite modes, may be said to be the fundamental idea in the philosophical as well as the theological system of Servetus.35 79

CHAPTER VII.

PARIS. ASSUMPTION OF THE NAME OF VILLENEUVE OR VILLANOVANUS. ACQUAINTANCE WITH CALVIN.

His indifferent reception by the German and Swiss Reformers must have satisfied Servetus that there was no abiding place for him among them. He was doubtless disappointed and not a little disconcerted by the treatment he met with at their hands. He had come as a light-bringer, as a fellow striver for the Truth through independent reading of the Scriptures. Studious and learned; smitten with divine philosophy; emancipated from the fetters of the church of Rome; tolerant and charitable, he doubtless thought that the liberal studies in Humanity and the Greek letters in which he knew the Reformers excelled, must as a matter of course have imparted to them something of the liberality and comprehensiveness he felt in himself. Face to face with their leaders in Basle and Strasburg, however, he was undeceived; and when he saw that his book on Trinitarian Error, instead of bringing him fame and friends, earned him nothing but evil report and enemies, and might even compromise his personal 80 safety, there was nothing left for him but to pack up and begone.

He must have quitted Switzerland immediately after writing his letter to Œcolampadius, and in all likelihood taken up his quarters at Hagenau, where he lived quietly for some weeks or months engaged in writing and supervising the printing of the ‘Two Dialogues,’ with which and the concluding anathema against all tyrants of the church, as a parting shot, he went on his way to France, reaching Paris towards the end of 1532. He had in fact made the German-speaking parts of Switzerland and Elsass where he was known, too hot for him, to use a familiar phrase; and the parts where French was the mother tongue had not yet taken up with Calvin or another great name opposed to the Papacy, that might have led his thoughts towards them. He was besides but indifferently acquainted with the German language; in circumstances, too, we may presume, that made it impossible for him to remain in any place where he had not remunerative occupation of some sort; and this, with the whole world of the Reformation against him, he saw he could not now obtain in quarters where he had once hoped to find a welcome and a footing. He had therefore no choice left but retreat; and Paris was the place where accomplishments of the kind he possessed were most likely to find a market.

With all his hardihood and self-confidence, Servetus was not without so much prudence as assured him that 81 a certain amount of caution and reticence was required of everyone who would live at peace among his fellow men. He doubtless imagined at one time, but had already discovered his mistake, that among heretics, as he had been accustomed to hear the Reformers designated, he might freely expend himself in heresy. To the very end of his life, he seems to have had some difficulty in divining why he had not been welcomed by them with open arms as a brother. But he was well aware that Roman Catholic France had yet less in common with Michael Serveto, alias Revés, author of the Seven books and Two dialogues on Trinitarian Error, than Protestant Switzerland and Germany.

Servetus felt that the writer of these works could not safely show himself in Paris under either his proper family or his maternal name, and so fell readily upon one derived from the town of his nativity, Villanueva. Servetus seems indeed at no time to have been very particular as to his name and designation. On his trial at Vienne he is of Tudela in Navarre, on that at Geneva, of Villanova in Aragon; and Tollin finds him inscribed in the academic register of Paris (1536) and in that of Montpellier, which he must have visited some time in 1540, as neither of Tudela nor Villanova, but of Saragossa! During all the years he lived in France, he was never known save as Monsieur Michel Villeneuve, or, when he wrote in Latin, as Michael Villanovanus. Under the name of Villeneuve he now announced himself, entered as student of mathematics 82 and physics at one of the colleges, and at a later period took his degrees of M.A. and M.D. in the University of Paris. Under the same name he subsequently wrote and edited various works at Lyons; and it was as M. Villeneuve that he finally became known in the town of Vienne in Dauphiny, where he lived for twelve years engaged in the practice of medicine, and on terms of intimacy with the Archbishop and all the notabilities of the place, both lay and clerical.

As a man of scholarly acquirements Servetus in the first instance probably found employment, and the means of living with some of the typographers of Paris, as reader and corrector of the press, a line of life which he certainly followed for the next three or four years, in the course of which we find notices of him first at Orleans, then at Avignon, and finally at Lyons, one of the chief centres of the printing and publishing business that had been called into such vigorous life by the revival of learning, the discovery of the art of printing with moveable types, and finally and very essentially by the Reformation.

It was during his first residence of about two years at Paris, 1532-1534, that he made the acquaintance of the man who became in the end his most implacable enemy, and the immediate cause of his untimely and cruel death. This was no other than the celebrated John Calvin, then a young man and about the same age as himself. Partially emancipated from the fetters of the faith in which he had been born and bred, 83 but not less firmly bound in others of his own fashioning, Calvin had already attracted the notice of his friends and the public by his natural abilities and his scholarly acquirements, and been pointed out as likely to influence the progress of the Reformation in his native France. Hearing of Calvin’s presence in Paris, Servetus as Villeneuve must have sought him out, and, still full of the familiar theological subject, have made an attempt upon him as he had already done upon Œcolampadius and the others, for countenance and approval in the discovery he had made of what he believed to be the true saving Christian faith. But with no better success we must conclude; for though the two young men met oftener than once in private, it was without coming to any agreement. They had, therefore, actually resolved on a public discussion, with a view to the voidance of their theological differences.

This, however, never came to pass. Such an exhibition, indeed, could not have taken place at the time without danger to both. Calvin, in his young zeal, and for what he held to be the honour of God, would have faced the danger, but the individual known to his Parisian friends and Calvin as Michel Villeneuve must have seen on afterthought that he could make no public appearance as defender of the outré opinions he entertained, without betraying the Michael Serveto of the De Trinitatis Erroribus and Dialogues who lay hidden behind the adopted name; and this he knew would be not only to disconcert all his present plans, 84 but assuredly to compromise his life. Calvin, we must presume, had not at this time heard of Servetus’s books; very certainly he had not read them; for one so acute and well-informed on theological matters as he, would not have been more than a few minutes face to face with their author without detecting him. But we find no hint in Calvin’s writings that he then surmised who Villeneuve, his Parisian acquaintance, really was, and conclude that he lived for a dozen years or more without suspecting that the individual he discovered as Michael Serveto of the Book on Trinitarian Error in his correspondent of Vienne, of the year 1546, was the same Villeneuve he had known in Paris in 1534.

Calvin then would have faced the danger of the public discussion, though persecution was hot at the time against heresy, and he was not unsuspected on this score. The danger to him, however, would have been slight in comparison with that which Servetus must have incurred. Calvin would not have stood forth on this occasion as the defender of any heresy, but of the very fundamentals of the Christian faith as embodied in its Creeds; to some of the most essential propositions in which Servetus, on the contrary, must have shown himself diametrically opposed. Servetus therefore, in this instance at least, saw perforce that discretion was the better part of valour, and wisely stayed away. He was in truth far too deeply compromised to venture on an appearance; for if discovered to be Michael Serveto, nothing could have saved him from 85 the heretic’s death. He had nothing for it therefore but to forfeit his engagement and lay himself open to Calvin’s reproachful ‘vous avez fuy la luite’—you fled the encounter—of a later and to him more momentous epoch in their common lives. 86

CHAPTER VIII.

LYONS. ENGAGEMENT AS READER FOR THE PRESS WITH THE TRECHSELS. EDITS THE GEOGRAPHY OF PTOLEMY.

Theology, however, after which we see Servetus still hankering—hæret lateri letalis arundo!—and even the study of the mathematics on which he was now engaged, had to be abandoned for present means of subsistence; and as Lyons seemed even a better field for the scholar than Paris, to Lyons, after a short stay at Avignon and Orleans, he betook himself. There he appears immediately to have found employment as reader and corrector of the press in the house of the distinguished typographers, the Brothers Trechsel; and if the Age have its character from the aggregate of its science and culture, and the Individual his bent from his more immediate surroundings, we cannot but think of Servetus’s connection with these light-spreaders as another among the highly influential events in his life.

Books in the early days of printing were much more generally written in Latin than in the vernacular, and ever more and more with references to Greek, 87 lately brought greatly into vogue by Erasmus and the Reformers. The reader for press in the best establishments was therefore, and of necessity, a scholar and man of letters; and the opportunities for improvement now put in the way of one like Servetus, even whilst pursuing the mechanical part of his duties, have only to be hinted at to be appreciated. The reading room of the distinguished typographers of those days was, indeed in some sort, a continuation of school and college to the competent corrector of the press.

Servetus’s liberal elementary education, therefore, stood him in good stead at this time; for the Trechsels ere long, instead of holding him to the subordinate though still important duties of reader and corrector, engaged him further as editor of various costly works that issued from their press. Among the number of these a handsome edition of the Geography of Ptolemy36 deserves particular mention, both as evincing the good repute in which he stood when we find him entrusted with such a work, and also as showing the extent of his reading and general knowledge—strangely enough, also, as influencing in some remote degree the fate that finally befel him.

Earlier editions of the Ptolemy were faulty in several ways, and disfigured in different degrees by 88 errors due, in part at least, to indifferent editing. These, where literal, Villanovanus corrected in the new issue; and where the sense was obscure through faulty wording, he brought light by the better readings he supplied, having formed his text, as he says, by collating all the editions he could lay his hands on, and where these gave him no aid, by suggestions of his own.

In his address to the reader, our editor, whom we shall often speak of under his adopted name of Villanovanus, gives a short account of his author, Claudius Ptolemæus, his birth-place, the Roman emperors under whom he flourished, ‘his knowledge of philosophy and the mathematics, and the more than Herculean glory he achieved by his successful but peaceful invasion of so many lands. Nor indeed was this all, for he may be said to have bound earth to heaven by assimilating the measurements of the one to those of the other; and, coming after Strabo, Pliny, and Pomponius Mela, he as far surpassed them, as they excelled all the geographers who had gone before them.’

But Villanovanus did much more than edit and amend the text of Ptolemy. ‘We,’ he says, ‘have added scholia to the text, whereby the book is made more interesting and more complete. Using our familiarity with the historical, poetical, and miscellaneous writings of the Greeks and Romans, in so far as they bear on our subject, we have given the names by which the countries, mountains, rivers, and cities were known to them; and, to aid the tyro, have further translated the 89 ancient titles of places into those by which they are now designated—into French for France, Italian for Italy, German for Germany, &c., all of which countries we have seen, besides having a knowledge of their languages.’ Extending his vision beyond the mere physical features of the lands he is passing under review, he might have added that he also gives short, but graphic accounts of their inhabitants, the prominent traits of their character, their manners, customs, &c., which are extremely interesting. But Michael Villanovanus is not one of those who hide themselves behind their good works, and so is he now careful to inform his readers of the pains he has taken in their behalf. By them, he says, he hopes his vigils will be properly appreciated, ‘for day and night have I laboured assiduously at my task—dies noctesque jugiter laboravi.’ He concludes his preliminary address in these words: ‘No one, I imagine, will under-estimate the labour, though pleasant in itself, that is implied in the collation of our text with that of other earlier editions, unless it be some Zoilus of the contracted brow, who cannot without envy look on the serious labours of others. But thou, candid reader, whoever thou art, we trust wilt be well disposed, kindly to receive and to approve our work. Farewell!’

Villanovanus’s edition of the Ptolemy is certainly an advance on that of Bilibald Pirckheimer, which formed its groundwork; but it is not so free from literal errors as the laudatory address of the editor might lead us to 90 expect. And it would have been better had he said that he had enlarged and improved the short and meagre scholia of his editorial predecessor than spoken as if he had supplied them wholly of himself. Villanovanus’s improved comments, however, impress us very favourably with a sense of the pains he must have bestowed on the work, and arouse our respect for the extent and variety of the reading he had undertaken to obtain the information he brings to bear on the physical aspects and natural productions of the several countries described, as well as of the customs, manners, and moral qualities of their inhabitants. Now it was that the smattering of geographic and historic lore he may have picked up as a student at Saragossa and elsewhere stood him in good stead, enabling him, as it did, to advance and profit by the ample stores of information of the kind which the city of Lyons placed within his reach. Living immediately after the age of the great navigators—Columbus, Vasco de Gama, Magellan, the Vespucii, and the rest—and in the very days when the works of Peter Martyr of Anghiera, Simon Grynæus, Sebastian Munster, and others enabled the educated to acquire something like a true knowledge of the world they lived in, the new edition of Ptolemy by Michael Villanovanus was a happy thought, and contributed, we need not doubt, no less to his own development than to the spread of useful and humanising information. Engaged on the Ptolemy, the super-subtleties of scholasticism and theology seem to have 91 vanished before the light of the more positive kind of knowledge that now broke around him.

When we turn to the writings of the able individuals mentioned above, we have no difficulty in discovering whence Servetus had most, perhaps all, of his geographical and astronomical knowledge. The Opus Epistolarum of Angleria, in particular, seems to have been the mine from whence he made himself rich in mental wealth of many kinds. We find him imitating, and even improving upon, the lines which head Angleria’s De Rebus Oceanicis and Grynæus’s Typi Cosmographici, as the reader may see by comparing the verse below37 with the one he will find further on, which is prefixed to the 2nd edition of the Ptolemy.

Turning to the Scholia of Villanovanus, we find it not a little interesting in these days to have a glimpse of ourselves in our sires, and of our neighbours in theirs, from the pen of a man of genius hard upon three centuries and a half ago; and as Michael Servetus is really only known to us through his works and the judicial trials he underwent, we make no apology for referring briefly to his additions to the bald and matter-of-fact text of the original Ptolemy.

The map of the first country in the series of fifty 92 by which the work is illustrated is that of Great Britain. The people of Scotland, Villanovanus informs his reader, are hot-tempered, prone to revenge, and fierce in their anger; but valiant in war and patient beyond belief of cold, hunger, and fatigue. They are handsome in person, and their clothing and language are the same as those of the Irish, their tunics being dyed yellow, their legs bare, and their feet protected by sandals of undressed hide with the hair on. They live mainly on fish and flesh; they have numerous flocks, mostly of sheep, for the country is free from wolves; and they have milk and cheese in abundance. Their arms are bows and arrows and broad swords—lati gladii. Instead of wood, they have coal for fuel. Unlike the people of the last few generations, he says the Scotch are not a particularly religious people. He ‘who never feared the face of man,’ as the Earl of Morton said of Knox, when looking down on his dead body, had not yet made himself felt in the land of his birth; and the School-house had not yet risen as a necessary complement to the Kirk and the Manse, to make the people of Scotland what they have become since his day—among the very foremost of the sons of men.

England, Villanovanus observes, is wonderfully well peopled, and the inhabitants are long-lived. Tall in stature, they are fair in complexion, and have blue eyes. They are brave in war, and admirable bowmen. He has the familiar tale of the English children seen as captives at Rome by the blessed Gregory, who said 93 they were called Angli, indeed; but in form and feature showed like Angeli. He must, as it seems, have given some little attention to the English language, if he did not study it more particularly. He says it is so difficult to learn and to pronounce, because the people who speak it are a compound of so many different races.

Of Ireland and the Irish our editor does not speak so favourably. The country, he observes, is generally marshy, so that, unless the summers are dry, the cattle are apt to get lost in the bogs. It is free from noxious creatures of every kind, there being no reptiles, such as snakes, toads, and frogs, and no insects, such as spiders and bees—a state of things which, if it ever obtained, certainly does so no longer. The climate is very temperate, and the soil of great fertility; but the people are rude, inhospitable, barbarous, and cruel, more given to hunting and idle play than to industry. Only three days’ sail from Spain, the Irish, he says, have many customs in common with the Spaniards.

Of Spain, the account given is particularly full, but by no means complimentary, and its people are contrasted—not to their advantage—with their neighbours the French. The extreme dryness of the climate is noticed, which tends to make the country less fertile than France. Irrigation, however, being practised on an extensive scale in many parts, tends to make up for the infrequency of rain, the conduits being often carried to great distances from the rivers. His description of 94 the people is far from laudatory. ‘The Spaniard,’ he says, ‘is of a restless disposition, apt enough of understanding, but learning imperfectly or amiss, so that you shall find a learned Spaniard almost anywhere sooner than in Spain. Half-informed, he thinks himself brimful of information, and always pretends to more knowledge than he has in fact. He is much given to vast projects, never realised; and in conversation he delights in subtleties and sophistry. Teachers commonly prefer to speak Spanish rather than Latin in the schools and colleges of the country; but the people in general have little taste for letters, and produce few books themselves, mostly procuring those they want from France.’ The Spanish language, indeed, he speaks of as defective in many respects, and does not fail to remark on the number of Moorish words incorporated with it. The people, he says, ‘have many barbarous notions and usages,’ derived by implication from their old Moorish conquerors and fellow-denizens. ‘The women have a custom that would be held barbarous in France, of piercing their ears and hanging gold rings in them, often set with precious stones. They besmirch their faces, too, with minium and ceruse—red and white lead—and walk about on clogs a foot or a foot and a half high, so that they seem to walk above rather than on the earth. The people are extremely temperate, and the women never drink wine. Spaniards, he concludes, are notably the most superstitious people in the world in their religious notions; but they 95 are brave in the field, of signal endurance under privation and difficulty, and by their voyages of discovery have spread their name over the face of the globe.’

Of France, M. Villeneuve has less to say than of Spain; but what he tells us of the royal touch for the cure of scrofula is still interesting in the annals of superstition. ‘I have myself seen the king touching many labouring under this disease, but I did not see that they were cured.’

Of Germany, and he uses the title in a very comprehensive sense—he speaks at considerable length. Smarting under the rebuff he had received at the hands of the Swiss and German Reformers, he is nowise disposed to find the Teutons and their congeners or neighbours however designated, an interesting people, or their territories as in any way attractive. Referring to Tacitus’s account of Germany proper, as overgrown by vast forests, and defaced by frightful swamps, its climate he says is at once as insufferably hot in summer as it is bitterly cold in winter. ‘Hungary,’ he observes, ‘is commonly said to produce oxen, Bavaria swine, Franconia onions, turnips and liquorice, Swabia harlots, Bohemia heretics, Switzerland butchers, Westphalia cheats, and the whole country gluttons and drunkards. The Germans, however, are a religious people; not easily turned from opinions they have once espoused and not readily persuaded to concord in matters of schism, everyone valiantly and obstinately defending the heresy he has 96 himself adopted;’ words in which we may presume Villanovanus sought to give ease to the pent-up displeasure he felt against his repudiators, the Reformers of Basle and Strasburg.

Of Italy and its people he has little to say; and that not good. The natives readily enough pretend to forgive injuries, but, occasion offering, none revenge themselves so savagely. They make use in their everyday talk of the most horrid oaths and imprecations. Holding all the rest of the world in contempt and calling them barbarians, they themselves have nevertheless been alternately the prey of France, of Spain, and of Germany.

In his survey of Babylonia, he refers to a certain abominable custom observed by young marriageable women, which is particularly mentioned by Herodotus and also by the writers of the Bible, when read by unsealed eyes, as obtaining among the Jews, and of the money, so objectionably earned in our estimation, being devoted to the service of the Temple.

But the most interesting to us perhaps of all the commentaries attached to the Ptolemy, inasmuch as it influenced the fate of Servetus on his trial at Geneva, is the one appended to the map of Palestine or the Holy Land. Demurring to much that is said in praise of Judæa in the Bible and by Josephus, as a country specially blessed in various ways, as being well-watered, fertile, &c., the commentator says, that in so far as climate is concerned, it is a temperate land, obnoxious 97 to the extremes neither of heat nor of cold; a condition of things that may have led the Israelites or Hebrews to imagine that it must be the land that was promised to their forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; a land metaphorically said to be flowing with milk and honey. ‘The Israelites,’ it is said in continuation, ‘lived at length under laws received from Moses, although they had gone on piously and prosperously enough through countless ages, before his day, without any written law, having had regard to the oracles of divine or natural truth alone, gifted as they were with aptitude and greatness of mind. Moses, however, that distinguished theologian, thinking that no state could exist without a written code of law and equity, gave them one reduced to ten principal heads, engraved on two tables of stone; with the addition of a great number of minor commandments for the regulation of their lives and dealings with one another. But any more particular notice of these, they being so numerous—great birds not sitting in little nests—must here be passed by. Know, however, most worthy reader, that it is mere boasting and untruth when so much of excellence is ascribed to this land; the experience of merchants and others, travellers who have visited it, proving it to be inhospitable, barren, and altogether without amenity. Wherefore you may say that the land was promised, indeed, but is of little promise when spoken of in everyday terms.’

The Ptolemy of Villanovanus was well received, 98 and though costly, a second edition was by and by required. We find it much commended in subsequent reprints by their publishers; and no wonder, for the Ptolemy is really a sumptuous book, upon which a large sum of money must have been spent, the typography being excellent and the text profusely ornamented with woodcuts on the sides of the pages as well as at the heads and tails of the chapters.38 99

CHAPTER IX.
LYONS. DOCTOR SYMPHORIEN CHAMPIER.

It was whilst engaged in the revision of such works as the Ptolemy and others on the natural sciences, anatomy, medicine, pharmacy, &c., in the service of the Trechsels, that Servetus may be said to have entered on the second, if it were not rather the third, stage of his mental development. The typographer’s reading-room had in truth proved the means of his continued education; each new volume he read and corrected being found a teacher not less influential than the Professor from his chair. The Convent school, Toulouse, and his engagement with Quintana had borne fruit of the kind we discover in the book on Trinitarian error; it was the reading-room of the printers of Lyons that brought him back from the empyrean of metaphysics to the earth, and put him in the way of becoming the geographer, astrologian, biblical critic, physiologist and physician we are made familiar with in his subsequent life and writings.

Among the learned works that flowed in a sort of ceaseless stream from the presses of the Trechsels during Servetus’s tenure of his office as reader with 100 them, were several from the fertile pen of Doctor Symphorien Champier, or, when he latinised his name, Campeggius, a man of large and liberal culture, of a truly noble nature, an admirer of learning and a patron of the learned; possessed moreover of that restless vanity which made him feel it as much a matter of necessity to live in the eye of the world as to breathe; the effect of which was that he exerted the widest and most beneficent influence among his fellow men. Indefatigable in his proper calling, there was yet nothing which interested the citizens of Lyons that did not interest him. Fearless in bringing help on the battle-field, to which he accompanied his chief the Duke of Lorraine, he was no less ready to brave pestilence in the city, and was as often to be seen in the hovels of the poor as in the palaces of the great and wealthy—inopibus et infortunatis æque indiscriminatimque succurris opitularisve, says his biographer—a true physician, a great and good man.39

Among Champier’s numerous works published about this time, we note the Pentapharmacum Gallicum (Lyons, 1534), which Servetus we believe read and corrected for press, the gist of the work being to show that each country produces the medicines best adapted to cure the diseases of its inhabitants, and that to them exotics are for the most part not only useless, but 101 injurious; an assumption in which he differs notably from present experience and the great writer, his countryman, who came after him, and said that ‘God had inflicted fever on Europe, but put its remedy in America.’ Correcting the proofs of Champier’s five-fold French Pharmacopœia, Servetus must have introduced himself to, or become acquainted with, the author; and if we may credit Pastor Henry Tollin, who will have everyone as truly interested in Servetus as himself, Champier was so much taken by the accomplishments of the poor scholar as even to make a home for him in Lyons. Be this as it may, certain it seems that contact with Champier was that which led Servetus to study medicine, of which he had not thought until now, for it was a science much looked down on by Spaniards in general, its practice being mostly in the hands of Jews and Moors, whom to contemn, where not to oppress, was a religion with all who boasted of their blue blood.

Another of Champier’s books printed by the Trechsels, which we need not doubt Servetus had also read and put to use, was the ‘Hortus Gallicus’ (Lyons 1533). But more influential on him still, though printed in another establishment (that of Seb. Gryphius) during the time he lived in Lyons, was the great Lyonnese Doctor’s Cribratio Medicamentorum, with the Medulla Philosophle—the Marrow of Philosophy—appended. In his chapter on the Vital, Animal, and Natural Spirits (p. 137), Champier speaks of ‘spirit as a subtle, aerial, translucid substance produced of the 102 finest part of the blood, and carried by it from the heart, as principal vital organ, to all parts of the body. Spoken of as three,’ he continues, ‘there are in truth but two kinds of spirit, the vital and the animal.’ The sameness of this to what we shall find in the ‘Christianismi Restitutio’ will be obvious to all. It strikes us in fact that Villanovanus’s first medical production—the Treatise on Syrups—was wholly inspired by this Marrow of Philosophy of Champier, in which we discover much upon digestion and concoction, the maturation and evacuation of the humours, etc., precisely as in the treatise ‘De Syrupis.’

Nor did Champier’s influence on our scholar end here. One of the Doctor’s treatises is entitled, ‘Prognosticon perpetuum Astrologorum, Medicorum et Prophetarum—The guide of the Astrologer, Physician and Prophet in their prognostications or forecasts.’ Like so many in his age, Champier was a devoted astrologer; and it was he we may conclude who made Servetus one too. Champier having been attacked on the score of his astrology by Leonhard Fuchs, Professor of Medicine in Heidelberg,40 Michael Villanovanus, as grateful pupil, took up the pen in defence of his master, and replied by a pamphlet entitled, ‘Defence of Symphorien Champier, addressed to Leonhard Fuchs,41 and an Apologetic Dissertation on Astrology.’42 Villanovanus, 103 it seems, would not neglect what he must have thought a favourable opportunity of showing himself to the world in company with so distinguished an individual as the great Physician of Lyons, to whom he owns himself much indebted—cui multum debeo, and ventilating a subject that interested him, like so many of his age, only in a less degree than theology itself. 104

CHAPTER X.

RETURN TO PARIS. STUDIES THERE. JO. WINTER OF ANDERNACH; ANDREA VESALIUS. DEGREES OF M.A. AND M.D. LECTURES ON GEOGRAPHY AND ASTROLOGY.

Villeneuve, we must presume, had reached Lyons poor enough in pocket if rich in lore; but so diligently had he laboured and so liberally had he been paid by the princely publishers of the day, that within two years he found himself in funds sufficient to authorise a return to Paris with a view to the study of Medicine, which he had now resolved to make his profession for life. The rebuff he had had from Œcolampadius, Bucer, and the rest, had probably sickened him for a while with theology and scholasticism, from which, however, we may presume he had only been diverted by his failure to make an immediate impression on the Reformers and the necessity of providing for his daily wants. But ‘the fresh fields and pastures new’ brought into sight by the study of Ptolemy, and the healthy influence of Champier, the physician and naturalist, gave another turn to his mind, and with the money he had earned in his purse, but still comporting himself as the poor scholar, he entered first the College of Calvi, 105 and then that of the Lombards. To these as a subject of the Holy Roman Empire he probably had ready access, and in their quiet shades devoted himself to the new course of study he had determined to pursue.

His larger experience and intercourse with Champier must have shown Servetus that medicine was a more assured means of earning a subsistence than theology, and opened up a far wider field to his ambition than continued service with the typographers. Without utterly neglecting older studies, therefore, he now gave his chief attention to the great and useful art and science of medicine; and we shall find as we proceed that the lessons of such teachers as Joannes Guinterus (Jo. Winter of Andernach), Jacobus Sylvius (J. du Bois), Joannes Fernelius, and others of name and fame in their day, found congenial soil in the receptive mind of the student.

Servetus, indeed, would seem immediately to have made his presence felt in the medical school of Paris; he was at once more than a listener to the prelections of its professors. Associated with no less distinguished an individual than Andrea Vesalius, he was one of Winter of Andernach’s two prosectors, and prepared the subject for each day’s demonstration.

And let not the conjunction of talent that meets us here be overlooked. Vesalius, repudiating the authority of Galen, became the restorer—the Creator of Modern Anatomy. Servetus, breaking with scholasticism in theology, and freeing himself from the shackles of Greeks and Arabians in practical medicine, inaugurated 106 Rational Physiology when he proclaimed the course of the blood from the right to the left side of the heart through the lungs. Working together as friends and fellow students for the Professor of Anatomy, Vesalius and Servetus, through diversity of mental constitution, yet saw things diversely. Vesalius, the observer, abiding by the concrete, described with rare felicity and truthfulness what he witnessed; Servetus, gifted with genius, aspiring to the ideal and inferring consequences, deduced the pulmonary circulation from the structure of the heart and lungs!

Nor were the two men associates only in their studies; they were fellows also in the untoward fate that befel them both in after life; for both may be said to have fallen victims to their zeal. Somewhat precipitate, we may presume, in his eagerness for information, the heart of a young nobleman who had died under his care and whose body Vesalius was inspecting, was either seen to palpitate, or was thought to have palpitated, when touched by the knife of the anatomist. Accused forthwith of murder, it was only by the interference of Philip II. of Spain, whose physician Vesalius was, that a formal trial for manslaughter was commuted for a pilgrimage to Jerusalem with confession and absolution at the shrine of the Holy Sepulchre. The penance was undergone, but the pilgrim, homeward bound, suffered shipwreck on the island of Crete, and perished miserably there. Servetus again, as we shall see, in his eagerness to proclaim what he believed to be 107 the truth, and given no chance for his life, had to abide the still more cruel death of the faggot and stake.

Joannes Guinterus, it is interesting to know, bears honourable testimony to the merits of his two assistants. In the preface to his ‘Anatomical Institutions’ he informs us that ‘he had been most effectually aided in the preparation of the work, first by Andrea Vesalius, a young man, by Hercules! singularly proficient in anatomy; and after him by Michael Villanovanus, distinguished by his literary acquirements of every kind, and scarcely second to any in his knowledge of Galenical doctrine. Under the supervision and with the aid of these two,’ he continues, ‘I have myself examined in the Subject and have shown to the students the whole of the muscles, veins, arteries, and nerves, both of the extremities and internal parts of the body.’43 From this we learn whence Servetus had the anatomical knowledge that enabled him as inductive reasoner—true forerunner here of our own immortal Harvey—to proclaim the pulmonary circulation.

The practice of dissecting the human subject had therefore, by this time, extended to France—the bodies of one or more malefactors being now publicly anatomised 108 in the course of each winter session.44 Had we no other evidence of the genius with which Michael Servetus was endowed, beyond the use he made of what he saw in these anatomical demonstrations, we should still feel entitled to speak of him as the most far-sighted physiologist of his age; for he alone of all his contemporaries, though fettered by the prevalent metaphysical theories of life, the soul and the spirits, from which we ourselves have not yet escaped, not only divined, but positively proclaimed the passage of the blood, by way of the lungs, from the right to the left side of the heart, and thence—but stopping short of the whole truth, first proclaimed by Harvey—from the left ventricle of the heart to the body at large. But the book in which his important Induction is contained, though printed in his lifetime, was never published. Seen by none but a few theologians, who took no note of its physiological contents, it remained unknown to the world for nearly a century and a half, after its author had fallen a victim to the hate of Calvin and the intolerance of his age.

With the stimulus of necessity upon him, for he was poor, and the excitement of vanity, with which he was largely endowed, as he could not live on the learning he imbibed from his teachers, Servetus by-and-by 109 appeared before the world as a teacher in his turn. Having by diligence and superior natural capacity, in a singularly short space of time, achieved the degrees of M.A. and M.D., which were required before he could present himself either as Professor or Physician within the domain of the University of Paris, Servetus now came forward as a Lecturer on the Geography of Ptolemy and the science of Astrology—a term which then included the true doctrine of the heavenly bodies as well as the false doctrine of their presumed influence on the life of man and the current of events in the world. In this bold step we have another glimpse of the self-reliant, and it may be, somewhat presumptuous, character of the man; for even as the emancipated novice of the monk’s school and Saragossan professors, when little more than of age, showed himself as Theologian in the ‘De Erroribus Trinitatis,’ so did the newly becapped Magister Artium now come forward as Lecturer on Geography and Astrology, and the scarce fledged doctor in physic, as a teacher of his fellows and the world at large, in the art and mystery of treating Disease.

The course of Lectures on Geography and Astrology was a happy thought, and proved highly successful. It was delivered to a large and distinguished audience, and besides supplying the professor with funds for all his wants, became a means of introducing him to friends, influential for good on his future life. Amongst the number of his auditors there was a young ecclesiastic, 110 a scholar and man of talent, Pierre Paumier, who after employment in various offices of trust by his king, Francis the First, was transferred to a position of no less dignity and emolument than that of Archbishop of Vienne in Dauphiny.

Under the auspices of the Archbishop, and as we believe on his invitation, it was that Servetus found a final resting place by his side. Fresh from editing Ptolemy, with the old stores of classic lore he had at command, and of anecdote and general information he had amassed in reading up for his editorial duties, aided by the natural fluency with which we venture to credit him, it is easy to imagine how interesting these Lectures must have been in days when the world was eager for information on the discoveries of the great voyagers and travellers of the age, and when books were still both scarce and costly, and little read by the many.

But Servetus was a Physician as well as Geographer and Astrologer, and not the man to hide any light he had under a bushel. He must appear in connection with his profession, as well as in the accessory field of general knowledge, by writing a book upon some properly medical subject, a business which he set about forthwith under the immediate inspiration of all he had learned from Dr. Champier of Lyons, as well as his professors of Paris. 111

CHAPTER XI.

THE TREATISE ON SYRUPS AND THEIR USE IN MEDICINE.45

The medical world in the early part of the sixteenth century was divided into two great hostile camps, respectively designated Galenists, or followers of the Greeks, and Averrhoists, or disciples of the Arabians; the former swearing by Hippocrates and Galen, the latter by Averrhoes and Avicenna. Servetus’s initiator into matters medical, Champier, was a fervent admirer of the Greeks; and his pupil, led by his classical training as well as his master’s example, naturally attached himself to the same school. Here, nevertheless, as ever, he showed the independence of his nature by having open eyes for any truth the Arabian writers might present; so that we find nothing of servility or one-sidedness in what he has to say. 112

The treatise in which Villanovanus came before the public in his new capacity of physician was on the practical use of the class of medicines known in those days by the title of Syrups—sweetened decoctions or infusions of different kinds, still in vogue among the French under the name of Tisanes. These syrups appear to have been one of the bones of contention between the two parties, though neither was perfectly agreed in itself as to the indications for their use or of the principles on which they were to be prescribed. This question does not interest us here, and so we leave it; but we turn to the work of Michael Villanovanus for intimations in its style of the intellectual and moral nature of its author.

In his address to the reader he says, ‘I should not have proposed, most learned reader, to take on my weak shoulders this weighty and so much disputed province of the healing art, had I not felt me forced, against my will as it were, to lend my aid in furthering medical studies by a fair defence of Galenical doctrine, and more especially still by my love of truth.... I think it will be found that I have conciliated Galen so far with my own views as to dispel any doubts I may have had of a favourable award, if I have only an equitable judge in my reader. Of this, at all events, I feel well assured that no studious person who carefully weighs what is here set forth will repent him of his reading.’ This is not amiss from a Doctor of a year’s 113 standing! But it is in his Preface to the work that Michael Villanovanus, as we apprehend him, comes still more particularly before us. Aware, as he says, of the fate that so often befals the meddler in a quarrel not his own, and displaying a commendable amount of caution, not without a spice of mock modesty, our author is here considerate enough to tell us that ‘he does not intend to offer himself as censor in the controversy, between the Galenists and Averrhoists, and by finding something to object to in the conclusions of each, to have them both fall foul of him as an enemy;’ after which he proceeds, characteristically still, to say, ‘but that I may not withhold from others that which I possess myself and gratefully acknowledge, which may be of use to my fellow men, I throw aside fear and proclaim what I believe to be the truth.’

The ‘Syruporum Universa Ratio,’ or general Rationale of Syrups, is in truth a very learned little book, extremely well written; much of it, as becomes the young practitioner, having reference to the writings of predecessors of the highest authority in medical science. Hippocrates and Galen, above all others, are freely quoted, and their views discussed, for Servetus was ‘nothing if not critical,’ and a variorum reading or two to show his scholarship is proposed. But he also refers to Avicenna, not thinking it amiss to learn of the enemy, and to Paul of Aegina, Monardus and others, by which he proclaims the extent of his reading, 114 and his readiness to imbibe knowledge at every source.

I looked with interest for some physiological hint or statement in this book, on Syrups or Diet drinks, that might have heralded the brilliant exposition contained in the latest product of his genius—the Christianismi Restitutio or Restoration of Christianity—concerning the way in which the blood from the right reaches the left ventricle of the heart through the lungs, but in vain. We must presume nevertheless that he was already possessed of the anatomical facts on which his later induction is founded. The only physiological reference I discovered in the book on Syrups was to the Mesentery as giving origin to the veins—a step in advance of his predecessors, with whom the liver was the source as it was also the laboratory of the blood, as the veins were the channels for its distribution to the body.

It is not uninteresting, however, to observe the same tendency towards unity or oneness here, in the domain of positive knowledge, which we discover pervading Servetus’s other works that lose themselves in the realm of metaphysical abstraction. He will not acknowledge two or any greater number of concoctions or digestions, whether in health or disease, such as were generally admitted in his day. The processes that take place in disease he declares to be of the same nature, though they are perverted, as those that occur in the healthy body. Diseases are therefore nothing more than perversions 115 of natural functions, not new entities introduced into the body; a conclusion which, on physiological grounds, he sums up in these words: ‘The rationale in the maturation of disease and in the digestion of the food is one and the same.’46 116

CHAPTER XII.

THE MEDICAL FACULTY OF PARIS SUE VILLANOVANUS FOR LECTURING ON JUDICIAL ASTROLOGY.

Servetus’s fate on starting in life was opposition; and how should it have been otherwise?—he found himself through superior endowment and higher culture antagonistic to almost all he saw around him in the world. We have already had him met as a trespasser on their domain by the Reformers of Basle and Strasburg, and we have now to find him looked on as an intruder by the Medical Faculty of Paris. The lecturer on Geography and Astrology had attracted a large amount of public attention, and the author of the book on Syrups began to get into vogue as a practitioner of medicine. The book had in fact been as well received as the lectures; it was extensively read, much commended at the time, and reprinted oftener than once in after years. No wonder, therefore, that Michel Villeneuve M.D. had now as many eyes upon him in Paris as Michael Servetus had had in other days in Switzerland. Before he could well look about him, the whole faculty of Physicians and the heads of the University of Paris were in array against him. 117

It seems that he had gone out of his way in his lectures to say something disrespectful of the doctors, his contemporaries, accusing them of ignorance of many things necessary to the successful practice of their profession, particularly of Astronomy, or more properly Astrology, a science in which Villeneuve plumed himself as being a master. The doctors naturally enough complained of such impropriety, and had him cited before their council. There he was told that something more of respectful bearing was due from him to men who had been his masters; and above all that he was transgressing the boundaries of true science and common sense in making so much of Astrology. The Dean of the Faculty is even said to have had him several times privately before him, and warned him of the difficulties he would inevitably fall into, if he continued casting nativities and prescribing for the ailments of his patients from the aspects of the stars; for this, it appears, was the principal element in his medical practice. Servetus, unhappily for himself, was not one of those who could take even friendly advice in good part. As credulous as he was sceptical, and believing implicitly in himself and in stellar influences, he not only made no submission, but said that his ill-wishers should rue their opposition.

The doctors on their part not only gave no heed to his threats, but publicly denounced him from their chairs as an impostor and wind-bag; with the consequence of arousing him to self-defence, and with his 118 ready pen setting him to work upon a pamphlet, in which he did not fail to lay bare some of the sore places in the persons of his adversaries, characterising them as mannerless and unlettered, and even holding them up in their ignorance as very pests of society. Once in the hands of the printer, Villeneuve’s purpose to expose his detractors through the dreaded press became known; and such alarm does his meditated attack appear to have excited that the Faculty of Physicians, calling the Senate of the University to their side, petitioned the Parliament of Paris to forbid the publication of the pamphlet, as well as to interdict its author from continuing to lecture on Astrology, which they now characterised as Divination.

The Parliament, with becoming judicial impartiality, would take no step in the matter until they had heard Villeneuve in his defence and had something tangible, such as the pamphlet which it was sought to suppress, before them. Nothing more was done, consequently, than the issuing of a summons to Villeneuve to appear at the bar of the house on a certain day and give an account of himself. This gave him all he required: time to have his pamphlet printed. Keeping the compositors at work, with a promise of higher pay if they used despatch, it was not only ready before the day of citation came round, but had been distributed gratis in numbers to the public as well as to the members of the medical profession. They reckoned without their host who thought that Michel Villeneuve 119 was to be cowed by opposition, however imposingly headed.

The doctors were naturally excessively wroth with this daring move on the part of the man they desired to crush. He had not awaited the decision of the Parliament; and neither now did they pause; for believing they had a hold upon him on the score of heresy, implied in the practice of judicial astrology or divination, they had him summoned before the Inquisitor of the king as an enemy to the Church, and contemner of its statutes. There was no regularly established Inquisition at this time in France; but papal inquisitors, often Italians by birth, were commonly enough found accredited by the Holy See, with the sanction of the Sovereign, to the large towns of the country. There they held courts before which cases of imputed heresy were tried and adjudged—the decisions come to, however, being always made subject to revision by the civil tribunals of the realm. Nay, there was a right of demurrage to the jurisdiction of the inquisitor, at the option of the party incriminated, were he minded to be tried by the ordinary civil, rather than the extraordinary ecclesiastical, court.

We might have imagined that Michael Servetus, with the experience he had had of ecclesiastical incapacity to hear reason and ‘true judgment give,’ as he interpreted it, would have paused before venturing to appear before the inquisitor of the king; but so safe must Michel Villeneuve have felt against a charge of 120 heresy at this time, and so secure in his new designation, that he did not hesitate to obey the summons; although we learn that had he been so minded, he might as a member of the Faculty of Physicians have even disregarded it entirely. He appeared accordingly at the proper moment; and so well did he play his part, so thoroughly did he satisfy the inquisitor of the king that he was a good Christian, that he left the court with flying colours, absolved of all suspicion of heresy, to the utter discomfiture of his accusers, who had now nothing for it but patiently to wait the award of the Parliament.

Before this tribunal, acting it would seem as a court of justice, a suit was regularly instituted, with the Rector of the University of Paris and the Dean and Faculty of Physic of the same as pursuers, on the one part, and Michael Villanovanus as defendant, on the other. For the University and Faculty, it was alleged that judicial astrology, otherwise to be styled divination, is forbidden by various statutes, as well canonical and divine as civil, the penalty for practising the same being death by fire, and that the defendant, a man of learning, and so incapacitated from pleading ignorance of these statutes, had notoriously lectured both in public and private on certain books of divination, among others, on the works entitled ‘De Aleabiticis’ and ‘De Divificationibus,’ both of which are full of divination.

It was alleged further, that he had been known to 121 make forecasts for various persons in respect of their fortunes from their nativities, on the assumption that according to the day and the hour of a man’s birth, and the aspect of the heavens at the time, would fortune of a favourable or adverse kind befal him; all of which by the Faculty of Theology is held highly reprehensible. That for his lectures and lessons, moreover, he takes money and attracts numerous auditors, who, seduced by the pleasantness of the poison he sells, have been debauched and led to forsake the true philosophy of Pico de Mirandola, who declares divination to be the most pestilent of frauds, degrading philosophy, invalidating religion, strengthening superstition, corrupting morals, and making men miserable slaves instead of free men.

Not stopping short at such public and private misdeeds, continue the pursuers, he has written and had printed a certain apology or defence of divination,47 with his name attached, which is of a highly objectionable character in every respect; the Theological Faculty declaring in addition that the concluding sentence of this apology has an extremely suspicious appearance, couched as it is in these words: ‘On the following night Mars is eclipsed by the moon, near the star called the King, in the constellation of Leo; whence I predict that in the course of this year the hearts of the Lions, i.e. the princes, will be greatly moved; that with Mars in the ascendant war will prevail, 122 and much havoc be done by fire and sword; that the Church will suffer tribulation, several princes die, and pestilence and other evils abound. To languish, to mourn, to die—all of good or ill that comes to man proceeds from heaven.’

The petition of the pursuers on the above showing therefore is, that the defendant, Villanovanus, be interdicted for the future from professing and practising judicial astrology, whether in public or private; that he be forbidden further to circulate his pamphlet against the Faculty, and commanded to call in all unsold copies; that for what has passed he own himself to blame, and be enjoined for the future to bear himself respectfully towards the Faculty of Physic, to which he belongs.

In his address to the court on behalf of his client, Villanovanus’s counsel opined that the Faculty of Physic had descended somewhat from the dignity that became so great a body in taking steps against one, a stranger, who had been attracted to Paris by the science that distinguished it, of which he had heard so much. The cause of the hostility of the Faculty against his client, he said, was owing to his having insisted on the necessity of a knowledge of astronomy to the Physician. This had been turned into a knowledge of judicial astrology by his enemies; but there were many of his hearers who were ready to testify that he had never even mentioned judicial astrology. As to the paragraph about the Lions, he had only 123 given it as illustrating the rules of astrological science, and the knowledge he has of the possible influence of the stars; but he would by no means insist that events of the kind named must happen as matter of necessity. In all this, however, he is ready to submit himself to the judgment of the court, and on his words being pronounced objectionable, he is willing to be set right. With regard to what he says in his apology about physicians being the plagues of society, he of course only aims at the ignorant and unskilful among them; the saying, indeed, is none of his, but Galen’s, who speaks of the ignorant practitioners of medicine of his day in precisely the same words.

The judgment of the court is nearly in the terms of the counsel’s address for the prosecution. His statements appear to have been taken as trustworthy without further evidence adduced. Villanovanus is ordered to call in his pamphlet and deposit the copies with the proper officer of the court; to pay all honour and respect to the Faculty of Physic in its collective and individual capacity, saying and writing nothing unbecoming of it, but conducting himself at all times peacefully and reverently towards its members; the doctors, on their part, being enjoined to treat Villanovanus gently and amiably, as parents treat their children. Villanovanus is then expressly inhibited and forbidden to appear in public, or in any other way, as a professor or practitioner of judicial astrology, otherwise called divination; he is to confine himself in his 124 discussions of astrological subjects to the influence of the heavenly bodies on the course of the seasons and other natural phenomena, and not to meddle with questions or judgments of stellar influences on individuals or events, under pain of being deprived of the privileges he enjoys as a graduate of the University of Paris.

Done this 18th of March, 1538. 125

CHAPTER XIII.

CHARLIEU—ATTAINMENT OF HIS THIRTIETH YEAR—HIS VIEWS OF BAPTISM.

This decree and interdict of the Parliament of Paris could not have been satisfactory to Servetus. We need not question his belief in the reality of judicial astrology, nor doubt of the application of its presumed principles having been found profitable by him; for a longing to pry into futurity is among the infirmities of human nature, and a belief in the influence of the stars on the fortunes of men was all but universal in the age of Servetus. Nor is it even now entirely extinct in the world; for the ‘Vox Stellarum’ is still regularly printed in England, and finds a sale by thousands every year among the superstitious and the ill-educated of our population. Hardly, moreover, does a child come into the world among us now without a great fuss being made as to the precise moment of the birth; though the particulars obtained may never be thought of afterwards, nor the end for which they were sought be even surmised. But when we look on the cornelian and clay cylinders dug up in such numbers from the ruins of Babylon and Nineveh, engraved with the accredited 126 figures of the Sun, Moon, and Stars, and the emblematical representations of the constellations, such as Cassiopæia, Hercules Ingeniculus, Ursa Major, Leo, Auriga, Cepheus, and others, still depicted on our celestial globes, we learn how old was the belief that every man and woman who came into the world was influenced in after life by the star under which he or she was born.48

Villeneuve might possibly have continued lecturing on astrology, composing horoscopes, and casting nativities, as others did in his day, had he but had the prudence to control his tongue, and not hold up his brethren of the Faculty of Physic to contempt by proclaiming their ignorance of a science in which he himself excelled and held necessary to treat disease in the most effectual manner; but he had been indiscreet, and they had won the day. He could no longer go on making forecasts for a credulous public from the aspect of the heavens at the moment of their birth, and he must show himself forward to call in the unsold copies of his pamphlet which had been found so offensive, perhaps because so well directed and so true. It would have interested us in the present day to have known precisely wherein the sting of this apology lay; but like others among the host of ephemeral publications, hurriedly produced to serve a purpose of the hour, it has perished. There were few collectors of ballads, broadsides, and tracts, three hundred and fifty 127 years ago; and all the searches for a copy of the philippic against the Parisian Faculty have proved in vain.49

From the estimate we are led to form of the self-sufficing and defiant character of Michael Servetus, as displayed in his after life, we are disposed to wonder that he did not continue to dispute the field of Paris with his opponents. He had published his clever and scholarly treatise on Syrups, and through it achieved a title to consideration as a learned practitioner of medicine in the regular way. Such a man as he would soon have lived down the stigma his fellows had fastened upon him as a fortune-teller from the stars, and he must by and by have taken his place in the front rank of his profession. But the physician comes slowly into practice when public confidence is courted through the gate of science. Horoscope-making was probably the main source of Villeneuve’s income; and this forbidden, and the golden stream it fed, arrested, the cold shoulder shown him by his professional brethren, and the averted looks of the public at the man condemned by the Parliament of Paris,—all was against him; his malignant star had culminated, and he seems to have thought it best to yield to fate, and give way.

It must have been immediately after the conclusion of the suit against him that Servetus left Paris; for we have news of him in the course of the same year 128 (1538) as a practitioner of medicine in the town of Charlieu, distant about twelve French miles from the city of Lyons. He may have been led to this retreat through knowledge gained in the course of his former residence in Lyons; but he did not continue long there—certainly for not more than a year and a half, or so. Could we trust the report of one who speaks of him as ‘a most arrogant and insolent person,’ he must have embroiled himself with some of the more influential people of Charlieu, who, as said, made his position so uncomfortable that he was forced to quit and go farther afield.50 But Villeneuve had earned for himself an ill name by his dispute with the University and Medical Faculty of Paris; and coming from the quarter it does, we give no credit to the tale, led as we are by what we know to find a much better reason for the remove than any fresh personal dispute, though there does seem to have been something of the kind complicating matters, as well as certain ‘love passages,’ which, as they came to nothing, may have rendered longer residence in the place unpleasant.

The residence of Villeneuve in Charlieu, however, is not without interest, as giving us a further insight into the character and predominant pious nature of the man. In the course of the year 1539, which he passed at Charlieu, Michael Servetus attained the thirtieth year of his age, the year according to his religious tenets in which only baptism could be rightly received. ‘He who would follow the example of Christ,’ says he in 129 his latest work, ‘ought now to betake him to this Laver of Regeneration—Lavacrum Regenerationis;’ and from the particular account he gives of the manner in which they who think with him on the subject of baptism perform the rite, we can scarcely doubt of his having found occasion to have himself privately baptized by some Anabaptist acquaintance he had made. Servetus was unquestionably a man of so pious a nature, so sincere a believer in the divinity of Christ, according to his way of interpreting it, and so firmly persuaded that the closest possible imitation of him was necessary to salvation, that we may feel assured he found means to have a rite he held so indispensable properly performed at the proper moment. It must have been in the consciousness of having himself done what he thought right in this particular, that we find him by and by urgently exhorting Calvin, with whom he had entered into correspondence, and probably knew to be of his own age, to have himself baptized anew. ‘Christ,’ he says, ‘as an infant, was circumcised, but not baptized; and this is a great mystery; in his thirtieth year, however, he received baptism; thereby setting us the example, and teaching us that before this age no one is a fit recipient of the rite that gives the kingdom of heaven to man. It were fit and proper in you, therefore, would you show true faith in Christ, to submit yourself to baptism, and so receive the gift of the Holy Spirit promised through this means.’ (Epist. xv. ad Jo. Calvinum, Christ. Restit., p. 615.) 130

CHAPTER XIV.

SETTLEMENT AT VIENNE UNDER THE PATRONAGE OF THE ARCHBISHOP—RENEWAL OF INTERCOURSE WITH THE PUBLISHERS OF LYONS—SECOND EDITION OF PTOLEMY.

It was while resident at Charlieu that Villeneuve again met with Pierre Paumier, now Archbishop of Vienne, Dauphiny, whom he had known in Paris, who indeed had been among the number of his auditors when he lectured on geography and the science of the stars. Paumier had the reputation, well deserved as it appears, of being a lover of learning for its own sake, and fond of the society of men learned like himself. Thinking, we may presume, that one with the accomplishments of his old professor would be an addition to the society of the archiepiscopal city of Vienne, when he heard of Villeneuve’s presence in Charlieu as a practising physician, he sought him out, and pressed him to quit the narrower for the wider field. This, under such auspices, we can well imagine Doctor Villeneuve was nowise loth to do; so that we next hear of him installed at Vienne, with apartments found him in the precincts of the Palace, and so under the immediate patronage of the Archbishop. 131

Not overburthened with professional work at first, Villeneuve appears to have renewed, if he had not kept up, his connection with the publishers of Lyons; and, as a means of income, continued his literary labours in various directions for more than one of the fraternity. Among other works, the edition of ‘Ptolemy’ he had supervised for the Trechsels, when in their service in 1535, being exhausted, a second was required; and their old editor having already proved himself abundantly competent, overtures were made to him to undertake the work anew. A proposal of the kind we need not doubt was gladly received, and the Trechsels having set up a branch establishment at Vienne, and the Archbishop consenting to accept the dedication of the new ‘Ptolemy,’ our editor had an opportunity of saying something pleasant to his patron, and of showing himself advantageously to the public around him in connection with a handsome volume from a press of their own city. The work accordingly was entered on with alacrity; and as the editor was not only countenanced, but assisted by the Archbishop, himself no mean geographer, the new edition made its appearance in the course of 1541, amended and improved.51 132

If the first ‘Ptolemy’ of Michael Villanovanus had been seen as an improvement on its predecessors, his second was a marked advance upon it, and is interesting to us on many accounts. Though much lauded and commercially successful, the first edition, in a literary point of view, was still far from what it was capable of being made. The ornamentation of the volume, though profuse, was not highly artistic, and the wood-cuts had already done duty in various other publishing ventures. There was ample room for improvement both in the direction of greater accuracy of text and of better taste. In the re-issue, consequently, we find various alterations, and two or three omissions that are highly significant. It is printed on better paper, too, and new maps are added; the coarse wood-cuts are left out, and the text in various parts is amended. Altogether the volume is a very handsome one, and was obviously produced with every care to secure accuracy and elegance.

In his Dedication to the Archbishop, we have an assurance that life among the polished circles of Vienne had already had a mollifying influence on the hot-headed Michel Villeneuve of Parisian days. The polite terms in which, beside the Archbishop, all and sundry 133 of mark and name in the city are spoken of, are particularly notable. We know how little there was of compliment in the words with which he took leave of his Swiss opponents, and imagine the sting there must be in the paper with which he bade the Parisian Faculty farewell. But now, beneath the wing of the great church dignitary, and referring to the time when as professor of geography and astrology he had had him among the number of his auditors, Villanovanus tells us that he is especially encouraged in his purpose to produce a more correct edition of the great geographer’s work, by the permission he has received to dedicate it to his patron, as well as by the assistance he has had from him in the amendment of numerous faulty passages.

‘For you,’ continues our Editor, addressing the Archbishop, ‘are the one among our church dignitaries I have known who, loving letters and favouring learned men, have given particular attention to geographical science. I am also incited to my work by the many favours I have received at your hand. Under what patronage but yours, indeed, could this work, amended, and printed at Vienne, appear, student as you are of ‘Ptolemy,’ and head of our Viennese society? Nor, sooth to say, will our ‘Ptolemy’ want a welcome from others about us interested in geography; among the foremost of whom I may name your relation John Paumier, prior of St. Marcel, and Claude de Rochefort, your vicar, both of them highly accomplished men, commended of all, and to whom I may say that I 134 myself owe as much in my sphere as students of geography owe to ‘Ptolemy.’ I must do no more than mention Joannes Albus, prior of St. Peter and St. Simeon; for I am forbidden to speak of his virtues. Neither must I make other than a passing allusion to the noble triad, your officials; for words would fail me to speak worthily of their great qualities; and of Doctor John Perell, your physician, my old fellow-student in Paris, so learned in philosophy and skilled in the languages—I can only say that one more apt than I were required fitly to speak his praise.’

From this we learn that Michael Villanovanus, all in laying on flattery somewhat thickly, could still show himself the grateful man; as ready to acknowledge kindness as we have known him apt to take fire at opposition and ready to resent what he held to be unworthy usage. But the matter is even more interesting to us, as giving us to know the kind of society Servetus frequented in Vienne, and the consequent esteem in which he must have been held. The ‘noble triad’ referred to, we imagine, may have consisted of M. Maugiron, the Lieutenant-General of Dauphiny; M. de la Cour, the Vibailly; and M. Arzelier, the Vicar-General.

Among the alterations and omissions to be observed in the new edition of the ‘Ptolemy,’ the most notable occur under the heads of Germany, France, and Judæa. The edition of 1535 was set about and produced shortly after he had been so unhandsomely 135 received, as he thought, by the Swiss and German Reformers; and we are therefore sorry, though not surprised, to find that disappointment and pique had left him with little inclination to say much in praise either of themselves or their respective countries. Hence the generally evil report he makes of Germany, and the notice of Switzerland as remarkable for nothing but the production of butchers! All this is either suppressed or toned down in the edition of 1541. The editor had had time for reflection; and under the soothing influences of the archiepiscopal city and professional success, he now makes a more favourable report of the countries and peoples he had formerly gone out of his way to decry and defame. Instead of the forest-encumbered and swampy land with its inclement sky of the former edition, Germany is now a regio amœna, with a cœlum satis clemens—a pleasant country with quite a temperate climate, and all the damaging statements in regard to its several divisions and their peoples are omitted.

The graphic account we had formerly of the boastful, ignorant, and superstitious people of Spain is also left out in the reprint; but we have an added notice of the people of France which shows us how little nations change in the course of three hundred and fifty years. ‘Not only in the cities and country places,’ says our editor, ‘but even in single families, every Frenchman seems to think he has a right to rule over everybody else. The assertion of individual superiority is so universal 136 that every one among them would have every one else to do his bidding, he himself feeling bound to do the bidding of none.’

The Church and her favoured sons, the hierarchs thereof, having still thriven in the shadow of the throne, as Villeneuve was now living amid the clerical society of an archiepiscopal city, it was thought that the few words in the former edition, which seemed to question the efficacy of the ‘Royal Touch’ in curing scrofula, would be out of place. They are, therefore, now found modified. For the ‘I did not see that any were cured,’ we find ‘I have heard say that many were cured!’ The new edition, moreover, being dedicated to the Archbishop of Vienne, it was felt that any word in dispraise of the Holy Land would seem disrespectful and improper. All that is said in connection with the map of Palestine contradictory to the Bible account of Judæa as a land flowing with milk and honey, or as of signal beauty and fertility, is accordingly entirely expunged from the new impression.

These changes have been said to be due to warnings given by friends to Servetus, on the presumption, probably, that he could hardly have been living on terms of intimacy with many persons of note, both lay and clerical, without betraying something of the sceptical element that distinguished him at the outset of his career, and that got the mastery of him with such disastrous consequences at last. But we have no positive 137 intimation that Servetus ever failed to keep his counsel, or that he was known to a soul in Vienne, save as M. Michel Villeneuve, the physician. Calvin certainly knew him by no other name in Paris when they met there in 1534, a date at which we have surmised he had not yet read the ‘De Erroribus Trinitatis,’ and so escaped having his suspicions aroused through the sameness of the views propounded in that work, and those expressed by his acquaintance, Villeneuve, that he had its author, Michael Serveto, alias Revés, bodily before him.

That this was really the case is confirmed by the statement which he makes on his trial at Vienne, to the effect, that he had only been challenged by Calvin in the course of their correspondence, begun as many as fourteen years after the publication of his first book, with being no other than Servetus. Having read the ‘De Erroribus’ subsequently, Calvin did not fail to discover Michael Serveto under the cloak of Michael Villanovanus, his correspondent of Vienne, and may consequently, some time after the year 1546, have written to Cardinal Tournon, as said by Bolsec,52 or hinted to a friend in Lyons, that they had an egregious heretic, the writer of the work on Trinitarian Error, living among them under an assumed name. But of so much as this we have no reliable assurance, and even if we had, it could 138 have no reference to the year 1541, the date of publication of the second edition of Villanovanus’s ‘Ptolemy.’53 139

CHAPTER XV.

EDITION OF SANTES PAGNINI’S LATIN BIBLE, WITH COMMENTARY.

Servetus must have got through a very considerable amount of literary work during the earlier years of his residence at Vienne. His time not being then fully occupied by professional duties, he had leisure and certainly no lack of inclination for other work, so that he seems to have been kept well employed by the publishers of Lyons. Hardly had the second ‘Ptolemy’ seen the light, than we find another handsome volume in folio not only taking shape under his hands, but actually launched in the course of the following year, 1542. This was a new and elegant edition of the Latin Bible of the learned Santes Pagnini.54 140

Appreciating the naturally pious bent of Servetus’s mind, as we do, to edit the Bible, we imagine, must to him have been like rest to the weary, and we think of the delight with which he received the proposal of Hugo de la Porte, the publisher of Lyons, to undertake a task of the kind. In his own earliest work we have seen him speaking of the Bible as a ‘book fallen down from heaven, to be read a thousand times over, the source of all his philosophy and of all his science.’ But this is from the pen of the younger man; for study and after thought, with the privilege he possessed through his self-reliant spirit of reading without a foregone conclusion, enabled him by and by to discover that the accredited traditional interpretation of holy writ could not at all times be maintained without violence, not only to reason and experience, but to history and the plain meaning of the text. He came to the conclusion, in fact, that whilst the usual prophetical bearing ascribed to the Old Testament was ever to be kept in view, the text had a primary, literal, and immediate reference to the age in which it was composed, and to the personages, the events, and the circumstances amid which its writers lived.

In the Preface to his edition, consequently, we see that, having undertaken the responsible duty of editor, 141 Villanovanus means to be no mere follower in the beaten track, but to take an independent course of his own. ‘They,’ he says, ‘who are ignorant of the Hebrew language and history are only too apt to overlook the historical and literal sense of the sacred Scriptures; the consequence of which is that they vainly and foolishly expend themselves in hunting after recondite and mystical meanings in the text where nothing of the kind exists.’ Before reading the prophets, in particular, he would therefore ‘have every one make himself acquainted not only with the Hebrew tongue, but with Hebrew history; for the prophets, without exception, followed history to the letter, although they also prefigured future events in their writings, led as they were by inspiration to conclusions having reference to the mystery of Christ. The power of the Scriptures, indeed, is of a fertilizing or prolific kind. Under a waning literal sense, they possess a vivifying spirit of renovation. It were, therefore, well that their meaning, apprehended as pointing in one direction, should not be overlooked as also pointing in another; and this the rather, seeing that the historical sense comes out ever the more clearly when the prospective bearing, which has Christ for its object, is kept in view—veiled under types and figures, indeed, and so not seen of the Jews, blinded by their prejudices, but now revealed to us in such wise that we seem to see the very face of our God.’

‘In our Commentaries,’ concludes the Expositor, 142 ‘it will consequently be found that we have made it our particular study to elicit and present the old historical, but hitherto neglected, sense of the Scriptures. In this view, and to make available the author’s annotations, of which he has left a great many, we have taken no small amount of pains—non parum est nobis desudatum. Nor, indeed, had we to do with his annotations only; for the text of the copy we followed is corrected in numberless places by the hand of the author himself. I may, therefore, venture to affirm that Pagnini’s translation, as it now appears, approximates more closely to the meaning and spirit of the Hebrew than any former version. But the Church, and those learned in the Hebrew tongue, must be the judges here—any others are incompetent.’

From what he says, Villanovanus would therefore lead us to believe that he had had the privilege of working from a copy corrected and annotated by Pagnini himself, the author of the translation. But on a somewhat careful collation of the Villanovanus edition of 1542 with that of Lyons of 1527-28 (the editio princeps, we apprehend), and the reprint from this by Melchior Novesianus of Cologne, of 1541, we are forced on the conviction that Villanovanus followed no copy corrected and annotated by Pagnini, but the fine edition of Novesianus, admirably edited by the learned publisher himself. The text of this is in fact identical with that of Villanovanus, and the headings to the chapters and references to corresponding and corroborative 143 texts are all but uniformly alike in the two. There are no variorum readings, if we recollect aright, in the Novesianus; but neither are there any of the slightest significance in the Villanovanus—unless perchance the reader should think that the text is improved by Noah being directed in building the Ark to ‘pitch it with pitch’—picabis eam pice, instead of bitumen—bituminabis eam bitumine!

That Villanovanus followed Novesianus, and not any copy corrected and annotated by Pagnini, is, as it were, demonstrated by this, that each page of the Address to the Reader, with the single exception of the first, begins and ends with the very same word in the two editions—which could not have been accidental: the compositor followed the copy he worked from page for page, line for line, word for word. We are sorry, therefore, to find our editor taking credit to himself in directions where none was due, and seeking, as it might seem, to shelter himself under the pious cowl of the orthodox Pagnini for the new and daring interpretation he himself puts upon so many passages of the Psalms and Prophets. Pagnini, one of the most learned hebraists and classical scholars of his country, was also a thoroughly orthodox monk, and would assuredly have been not a little astonished, and hardly pleased, we imagine, could he have seen himself in the guise in which he is presented by Michael Villanovanus. Had we but a single note from the hand of the learned Italian—and to the best of our belief we have not one—it 144 could not have failed to be of the most rigidly orthodox kind, his own edition having the imprimatur of no fewer than two Popes, and a laudatory epistle from Jo. Franciscus Picus, nephew of the celebrated Joannes Picus de Mirandola, distinguished alike as a philosopher and theologian.

Villanovanus’s procedure in respect of the Pagnini Bible, on the face of the matter, is much to be regretted, and indeed is hardly to be understood. He may possibly have had an annotated copy of his author supplied him by his publisher; but if he had, in so far as we can see, he has followed Novesianus to the letter in his text and has given no comments but his own. The times in which Servetus lived, though different from ours in so many respects, were, as it seems, somewhat like them in so far as the meum and tuum in literature are concerned. Did we judge from the instance before us, we should say that they were still less respected three hundred years ago than they are in the present day. Calvin refers to Villanovanus’s ‘Pagnini’ in the course of the Geneva trial, and subsequently also in his ‘Déclaration pour maintenir la vraye foye.’ But he seems not to have known of the Novesianus edition, or he would certainly have challenged more than the comments, and had better grounds possibly than any he adduces for saying that the editor had dexterously filched—avait grippé beau et belle—five hundred livres from the publisher for his labour.

But all this, though illustrative of one element in 145 the character of the subject of our study, and not to be passed over by us, is of less moment than the insight we gain through the comments—assuredly referable to him alone—into the intellectual side of his nature. In so far as we know, Servetus is nowhere even named as a biblical critic and expositor; yet did he precede by more than a century Spinoza, Astruc, Simon, Eichhorn, and others, founders of the modern school of Scriptural exegesis. The Old Testament texts referred by the writers of the New Testament to events still in the womb of time—to the coming especially of a liberator from their misery for the people of Israel in the shape of an anointed King, the conception of a late epoch in Jewish history—Servetus maintained had individuals in view who were alive and influential when the words were written, although he also admitted that they had a further prophetical or prospective sense of the kind commonly ascribed to them.

But he who believed in judicial astrology was not likely to have freed himself from that other still accredited form of superstitious belief which leads mankind, without so much as the aspects of the heavens to guide them, to fancy they can see into futurity. He had not divined, as we have now come to know, that even the oldest portions of the Hebrew Scriptures, in the shape in which they have reached us, date from no more remote an age than that which followed the Babylonian Captivity; that we have the work of two different writers under the name of Isaiah, the second of whom 146 lived during or after the reign of Cyrus; and that the Apocalyptic Book of Daniel was written long after the personages there darkly shadowed forth had lived and died, and the events referred to had come and gone.

The narratives of the Pentateuch appear to have been accepted as properly historical by our editor. He did not, any more than the commentators who came after him almost to our own day, see them as mythical tales about individuals who lived, if they lived at all, and events that occurred, if they ever did occur, thousands—tens of thousands of years before any account of them could possibly have assumed the shape of legend, much less have been committed to writing. He has little, however, to say on the five books ascribed to Moses, and those of the quasi-historical complexion that follow them. Still his note on the words put into the mouth of Balaam, which tell of a star to come out of Jacob and a sceptre to arise out of Israel, is important. The prediction, as he interprets it, applies immediately to King David, though it has a farther prospective reference to Christ, with whose advent, as we know, it has long been all but exclusively connected. Our editor, however, was not helped by his superior knowledge of the stars to surmise that the writing was of a date long posterior to the reputed days of Balaam, the soothsayer of Mesopotamia, and Balak, king of Moab; that the predictions put into the mouth of the seer were all made after the events they 147 pretend to foretell, and that King David had lived and died long before a word of the text was written; neither did he see that the writer who had King David in his eye could not have been thinking of an anointed king or captain who was only to appear some six or seven hundred years after Israel’s second sovereign had been gathered to his fathers.

Villanovanus is much more copious when he comes to the Psalms. The words in the second of our collection of these sacred lyrics, so much made of in dogmatic lore, Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion.... Thou art my son; this day have I begotten thee—he explains thus: ‘On the day when David had escaped from his enemy (Saul) he said, This day do I begin to live; at length I am king.’

The words in the fifth verse of that fine Psalm, the eighth, For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with honour and glory, he also refers immediately to King David, who, in times of persecution, abased himself; but, subsequently victorious, was crowned at last.

The passages, In Jehovah I put my trust, and How say ye to my soul, flee as a bird to your mountain, of Psalm xi., he refers to the time when David in fear of Saul escaped from the land of Judah.

The comment on the sixteenth verse of Psalm xxii., They pierced my hands and my feet, is again applied to David, when, flying from his enemies, and scrambling like a four-footed beast over rugged and thorny places, 148 his hands and feet were lacerated—fugiente David per abrupta, instar quadrupedis, manus ejus et pedes lacerabantur.

Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire—Psalm xl. 6, signifies, says our commentator, that David, when a fugitive in the wilderness, offered no sacrifices.

In the verse, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever, Psalm xlv. 6, the word God, says our exponent, refers to Solomon, who, like Moses and Cyrus, is here styled Divus—God.

They gave me gall for my meat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar as drink, of Psalm xlix. 22, says Villanovanus, is a passage referring to Nabal’s refusal and churlishness when David asked him for meat and drink.

The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool, Psalm cx. 1. ‘This refers to David and Solomon, types alike of Christ, when David, having set his son on the throne beside him, addressed him as My Lord, and styled him a priest after the order of Melchizedek.’

Whilst thus in these and in many other instances referring the statements met with in the Psalms to individuals living or dead at the time they were written, and to events then in progress or past, Villanovanus still imagines that everything said, besides its literal and immediate signification, is also typical of personages and events to come—a system of exposition that has been pushed beyond all reasonable lengths by 149 ignorance and superstition since his day. We may indeed be well assured that the writers of the Hebrew Psalms knew no more of what would happen five or six centuries after they were dust than we know of what will be going on in the world five or six hundred years after we are no more. Prophets, Seers, Diviners, Fortune-tellers and the like are ignored by the science of our age, although under the first of these designations they are still acknowledged by pious persons in the history of the past, and in its bearing on the religion of the present. The excuse for this is that the Prophets of Israel were inspired, or exceptionally gifted, with the power of seeing into futurity. But God, as we now conceive God, makes no exceptions to his laws. As they are, so have they ever been, and so will they ever continue to be. Said not Servetus himself aright when he declared that out of man there was no Holy Spirit, or Spirit of Inspiration?

But it is not on the Psalms that Villanovanus’s exposition, remarkable as it is, appears the most noteworthy. It is when he comes to the writings of the Prophets, as they are styled, that he puts forth his strength and shows his learning. And it shall come to pass in the last days that Jehovah’s house shall be established on the top of the mountain, and all nations shall flow unto it, says Isaiah (ii. 2 et seq.). These words, according to our expositor, refer to the reign of Hezekiah. Literally seen, they speak of the accession of Hezekiah, and the return of the captive Israelites 150 to Jerusalem, the Assyrians having suffered a signal defeat without a battle fought.

In like manner, commenting on the second verse of the fourth chapter of Isaiah, where it is said, In that day shall the branch of Jehovah be beautiful and glorious, he says it is still Hezekiah and events transpiring in his reign that are alluded to, the king nevertheless being to be seen as a type of Christ.

The remarkable fourteenth verse of chapter vii. of the same writer, of which so much has been made, Villanovanus refers immediately to the times in which it was written. Syria and Ephraim confederate, under their kings Rezin and Pekah, are at war with Judah and threatening Jerusalem, whose king, Ahaz, the Prophet comforts with the assurance that the invasion, however formidable it looks, will come to nothing, and bids him ask for a sign from Jehovah that such will be the case. But Ahaz declining to do so, the Prophet volunteers a forecast of what he declares will come to pass, saying, Behold, a virgin (Almah—a young marriageable woman) shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel; and before the child shall know good from evil [arrive at years of discretion] the land will be freed from its enemies. ‘The Aramæans,’ says Villanovanus, ‘have come up in battle array against Jerusalem, and the prophet speaks of a young woman who shall conceive and bear a son, the young woman being no other than Abijah, about to become the mother of Hezekiah—strength or fortitude of God—and 151 Immanuel—God with us—before whose reign the two kings, the enemies of Judah, will have been discomfited.’

The For unto us a child is born, &c., of chapter ix., he further refers to Hezekiah, for it was in his reign that Sennacherib and the Assyrians suffered such a signal defeat, the angel of Jehovah, according to the account, having slain in one night an hundred and four score and five thousand of them.

For they shall cry unto the Lord of Hosts in the land of Egypt, and he will send them a Saviour and he shall deliver them (Ib. xix. 20). ‘The Saviour,’ says Villanovanus, ‘is still no other than Hezekiah. Egypt as well as Judah, oppressed by the Assyrians, is relieved when the great army of Sennacherib is wrecked by the angel of Jehovah.’

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf be unstopped (Ib. xxxv. 5), i.e. ‘Liberation from the yoke of the Assyrians will do much towards giving the Jewish people clearer and better ideas of God.’

Comfort ye my people.... The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, &c. (Ib. xl. 1-3). ‘These are words addressed to Cyrus, praying him to open a way through the desert for Israel, returning from the captivity of Babylon;’ and the ninth verse, O Zion, that bringest good tidings ... say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God, he says, ‘refers literally to Cyrus, who is here 152 styled God; as does also the eighteenth verse, To whom will ye liken God (i.e. Cyrus), or what likeness will ye compare unto him? ‘In many striking ways,’ adds our expositor, ‘the prophet would lead the rude Jews, on their redemption from the Babylonian captivity, to cease from idolatry and to believe in God, the Creator of the world.’

He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Surely he hath borne our griefs ... he was wounded for our transgressions, &c. (Ib. liii.). ‘In these passages, which also involve a great mystery referable to Christ,’ says Villanovanus, ‘the Prophet laments over Cyrus, slain, as it were, for the sins of the people, who, however, will suffer still more under Cambyses, his successor, when the building of the Temple, now begun, will be interrupted.’

Arise, shine, for thy light is come.... They from Sheba shall come, and shall bring gold and incense, &c., (Ib. lx.), i.e. ‘taken literally, and as it stands, these words refer to the great days of the Second Temple, when Jerusalem was again in its glory.’

Who is this that cometh from Edom with dyed garments from Bozrah (Ib. lxiii.), i.e. ‘Cyrus has inflicted severe chastisement on Edom, and brought back those who had been carried thither from Jerusalem into captivity, as we read in the fifteenth chapter, where it is said, The redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto Zion.’

Behold the days will come, saith the Lord, when I 153 shall raise unto David a righteous branch (Jerem. xxiii. 5). The individual here referred to our exponent believes to be Zerubabel.

Know, therefore, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah, the Prince, is seven weeks, and three-score and two weeks ... and after three-score and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off and be no more (Daniel, ix. 25). ‘The times specified,’ says Villanovanus, ‘refer to those of the exile and the return of the captives by favour of Cyrus, who is the Messiah or Anointed One of God, that is here spoken of. Sixty-two weeks having passed from the great event, Cyrus will have been cut off, and all have gone to wreck again.’

Then shall Judah and Israel be gathered together, and appoint themselves one head, &c., i.e. ‘Judah and Israel will have become united for a season, as they were under Hezekiah.’

The words of the second verse of chapter vi., After two days will he revive us; in the third day he will raise us up, ‘refer to the extraordinary discomfiture of the Assyrians in the reign of Hezekiah.’

For behold, in those days when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all the nations, &c. (Joel, iii. 1). ‘These words have a literal application to the defeat of the Assyrians and the glories of Hezekiah’s reign. Disasters many have befallen the chosen seed; but their oppressors will in 154 turn be desolated, and Judah, restored, shall dwell for ever in Jerusalem.’

The texts in Micah generally spoken of as exclusively prophetical of Christ, our commentator thinks refer literally to Hezekiah and times subsequent to the defeat of the Assyrians. But thou, Bethlehem-Ephratah, out of thee shall he come forth to be a ruler in Israel, viz., ‘Hezekiah, who will deliver the people from the Assyrian.’

Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion; shout, O Daughter of Jerusalem; behold, thy King cometh unto thee lowly, and riding upon an ass, even on a colt, the foal of an ass. This text, which is referred to Christ in Matthew (chapter xxii.), is connected by Villanovanus with the compassionate Zerubabel and his entrance into Jerusalem.

No one will be surprised to learn that these comments of the learned Villanovanus did not escape the notice of the great ecclesiastical centres of his day. That of Lyons is by-and-by found condemning outright both them and the book they pretend to illustrate. That of Madrid is content to order by far the greater number of the glosses to be expunged, but leaves the Bible itself available to the privileged; whilst that of Rome, less tolerant, not only condemns the expositions, but puts the book upon the Index prohibitorius. The perusal of such comments, preparatory to drawing the pen through them, it was surmised by the far-sighted ecclesiastics of Rome might lead to independent thought, 155 and this is precisely what the Church they represent would have every man, woman, and child in the land most carefully to eschew.

Calvin, we may imagine, was not likely to think any better of Villanovanus’s annotations than the heads of the Church of Rome; on the contrary, pinning his faith on its text as prophetical in the very strictest sense of the word, any attack on its sufficiency as a ground for dogmatic conclusion was felt by him to be a matter much more serious than by the Church of Rome, which sets its own traditions as equipollent to, where not even of higher authority than, that of the Bible on all matters of faith. To see the Scriptures of the Jews otherwise than as Calvin and the Reformers saw them was, in their eyes, to question the infallible book they had substituted for the infallible Pope so lately abandoned by them. We should therefore expect to meet Calvin, with occasion serving, making a point against our expositor on the ground of the Pagnini; and accordingly we find Servetus’s comments brought up against him in the most marked manner during his Geneva Trial, whilst in the Déclaration pour maintenir la vraye Foye, and the Defensio orthodoxæ Fidei, they are spoken of as impertinences and impieties, the Publisher being said at the same time to have been nothing less than cheated out of the money he paid the editor for his work. ‘Who,’ says Calvin, ‘shall venture to say that it was not thievish in the editor when he took five hundred livres in payment for the vain trifles 156 and impious follies with which he encumbered almost every page of the book?’ (‘Opusc. Theol. Om.’ p. 703).

Notwithstanding the great Reformer’s denunciations, however, though we may not agree with Villanovanus in all his conclusions, nor approve of his passing without mention Melchior Novesianus, to whom he was indebted for his text, when we look on the beautiful volume he aided in producing, and think of him as the one man of his age who had independent opinions on the real or possible meaning of the poetical writings of the Hebrew people, consonant as these are in so many respects with the views entertained by the most advanced biblical critics of the present day, we are not disposed to think that he was overpaid. Had the Church dignitaries of Vienne seen the Pagnini Bible of Michael Villanovanus with the same eyes as the hierarchs of Rome, Madrid, and Lyons, the matter he added must needs have seriously compromised him with them. His numerous, excessively free, and highly heterodox interpretations of the Psalms and Prophets, nevertheless, in so far as we have been able to discover, appear to have lost Villeneuve neither countenance nor favour at Vienne, which is not a little extraordinary. 157

CHAPTER XVI.

ENGAGEMENT AS EDITOR BY JO. FRELON OF LYONS—CORRESPONDENCE WITH CALVIN.

The Pagnini Bible out of hand, Villanovanus’s time would seem not yet to have been so fully occupied by his profession as to debar him from continuing to engage in a good deal of miscellaneous literary work for his friends the publishers of Lyons, among the number of whom we have now particularly to notice John Frelon, a man of learning, like so many of the old publishers, entertaining tolerant or more liberal views of the religious question, inclined towards, if not openly professing, the Reformed Faith, and the personal friend of Calvin.

For Frelon Villeneuve edited a variety of works, mostly, as it seems, of an educational kind, such as grammars, accidences, and the like; translating several of these from Latin into Spanish, for the laity; and, as the priesthood of the Peninsula appear not to have cultivated the classical languages of Greece and Rome to the same extent as those of France and Germany, also turning the Summa Theologiæ of St. Thomas Aquinas, a work entitled Desiderius peregrinus, and 158 another, the Thesaurus animæ Christianæ, into their vernacular for them.55 Brought into somewhat intimate relationship with Villeneuve, whom Frelon at this time could not have known as Michael Servetus, the Reformation, its principles, its objects, and the views of its more distinguished leaders, would hardly fail to come up as topics of conversation between him and his learned editor. Frelon must soon have seen how much better than common Villeneuve was informed in this direction; and it has been said, not without every show of truth, that at his suggestion Servetus, under his assumed name of Villeneuve or Villanovanus, was led to enter on the correspondence with Calvin which we believe had so momentous an influence on his future fate. Frelon saw Villeneuve full of unusual ideas on many of the accredited dogmas of the Christian faith; and, not indisposed, though indifferently prepared, to discuss these himself, he very probably suggested the great Reformer of Geneva as the man of all others the most likely to feel an interest in them, as well as the most competent to give an opinion on their merits. Hence the correspondence which, begun in 1546, went on into 1547, and may even have extended into the following year.

That Frelon was the medium of communication between Villeneuve and Calvin is satisfactorily shown by the publisher’s letter to the Spaniard, inclosing one for him just received from the Reformer. The correspondence, 159 however, must have already been started and Villeneuve been complaining to Frelon that he had been long without an answer to the last of his letters. Frelon, in turn, would seem to have written to Calvin, reminding him that his friend Villeneuve had for some time past been expecting to hear from him. Writing at length under his well-known pseudonym of Charles Despeville, in reply to Frelon, Calvin says:—

‘Seigneur Jehan, Your last letter found me on the eve of my departure from home, and I had not time then to reply to the inclosure it contained. I take advantage of the first moment I have to spare since my return, to comply with your wishes; not indeed that I have any great hope of proving serviceable to such a man, seeing him disposed as I do. But I will try once more if there be any means left of bringing him to reason, and this will happen when God shall have so worked in him that he become altogether other than he is. I have been led to write to him more sharply than is my wont, being minded to take him down a little in his presumption; and I assure you there is no lesson he needs so much to learn as humility. This may perhaps come to him through the grace of God, not otherwise, as it seems. But we too ought to lend a helping hand. If God give him and us such grace as to have the letter I now forward turn to profit, I shall have cause to rejoice. If he goes on writing to me in the style he has hitherto seen fit to use, however, you will only lose your time in soliciting me farther in his behalf; for I have other business that concerns me more nearly, and I shall make it matter of conscience to devote myself to it, not doubting that he is a Satan who would divert me from studies more profitable. Let me beg of you therefore to be content with what I 160 have already done, unless you see most pressing occasion for acting differently.

‘Recommending myself to you and praying God to have you in his keeping, I am your servant and friend—

‘Charles Despeville.

[Geneva] ‘this 13 of February, 1546.’

This is surely neither an indifferent nor an unreasonable letter; yet does it give us to know that the epistle it enclosed, both in manner and matter, was likely to give offence to one with the haughty and self-sufficing nature of Michael Servetus. He had addressed the Reformer on transcendental dogmatic subjects, and probably urged his views with the warmth that strong conviction lends to language, and without anything like the deferential tone to which Calvin was accustomed. This proved particularly distasteful to the head of the Church of Geneva, who had certainly thought as deeply, and may even have entertained as serious misgivings, on some of the topics propounded, as his correspondent. Hence the unwonted sharpness of the reply; hence, also, the fire which Villeneuve caught at being lectured like a schoolboy; and hence, in fine, the irritating, disrespectful, and regrettable character on either side of the correspondence that followed.

In transmitting Calvin’s letter to Villeneuve, Frelon addresses him thus:— 161

‘Dear Brother and Friend! You will see by the enclosed why you had not sooner an answer to your letter. Had I had anything to communicate at an earlier date, I should not have failed to send to you immediately, as I promised. Be assured that I wrote to the personage in question, and that there was no want of punctuality on my part. I think, however, that with what you have now, you will be as well content as if you had had it sooner. I send my own man express with this, having no other messenger at command. If I can be of use to you in anything else, I beg to assure you, you will always find me ready to serve you. Your good brother and friend, Jehan Frelon.

‘To my good brother and friend, master Michael Villanovanus, Doctor in medicine, Vienne.’

It is matter of deep regret that with the exception of the first communication of Calvin to Villeneuve, which is in the form of an essay rather than a familiar epistle, and was written some time before the stinging missive sent through Frelon, we have nothing from him that would have enabled us to judge of the general style and character of his letters, though of this we may form an estimate from his subsequent writings. Calvin was far too much engaged to make copies of his letters, and we may feel certain that Villeneuve, on the first intimation of danger threatening him from the authorities of Vienne, destroyed every scrap of writing he had ever had from the Reformer, calculated as it was to compromise him in the eyes of Roman Catholics. Forced, for the sake of his French correspondents, to resort to a pseudonym, Calvin had probably 162 addressed Villeneuve in his proper name. The letter to Frelon and the one from Frelon to Villeneuve must have been overlooked, or thought to contain nothing that could be adversely interpreted, and so found their way to the Judicial Archives of Vienne, whence they were recovered and published by Mosheim.56

The letters of Villeneuve to Calvin, or a certain number of them, at all events, have been transmitted to us by their writer in a section of his work on the Restoration of Christianity; and we turned to them with the interest of expectation, thinking we might there find a key to the singular and persistent hostility with which Calvin shows himself to have been animated towards his correspondent. Nor were we disappointed. The style of address indulged in by Villeneuve, as the correspondence proceeds, is as if purposely calculated to wound, if not even to insult, a man in the position of John Calvin, conscious of his own superiority, jealous of his authority, and become so sensitive to everything like disrespectful bearing on the part of those who approached him. But of deference or respect, save at the outset, there is not a trace in any of the letters of Villeneuve. On the contrary, they have often an air of something like familiarity that must have been extremely disagreeable to Calvin. Add to this the unseemly and disparaging epithets with which he pelts the irritable Reformer, and we have warrant enough 163 for our assumption that, mainly out of this unfortunate epistolary encounter, was the enmity engendered which took such hold of Calvin’s mind as led him to see in a mere theological dissident a dangerous innovator and deadly personal foe.

The correspondence at the outset, however, had nothing of the unseemly character it acquired as it proceeded. Villeneuve approached the Reformer at first as one seeking aid and information from another presumed most capable of giving both; and this was precisely the style of address that suited Calvin. The subjects on which he desired the Reformer’s opinion were theological, of course, and of great gravity, involving topics of no less moment than the sense in which the Divinity and Sonship of Christ, the Doctrine of Regeneration, and the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, were to be understood.

In a letter to a friend of a later date Calvin speaks as if he believed that these questions had been proposed in mockery, or to get him into difficulty; but this was an afterthought, and when he had come to persuade himself that Servetus was a man devoid of all religious principle. Nothing of any suspicion of the kind he hints at appears in his reply to the first communication he received, for it is sober, earnest, and to the point, each subject being taken up in succession and discussed, now in conformity with his own particular views, and then with the interpretation of the Churches. 164

Servetus’s questions to Calvin, three in number, were propounded categorically, and in the following order:—

1st.—Was the man Jesus, who was crucified, the Son of God; and what is the rationale of the Sonship (filiatio)?

2nd.—Is the Kingdom of heaven in man; when is it entered; and when is regeneration effected?

3rd.—Is Baptism to be received in faith, like the Supper; and in what sense are these institutions to be held as the New Covenant?

To the first, Calvin replies: ‘We believe and confess that Jesus Christ, the man who was crucified, was the Son of God, and say that the Wisdom of God, born of the Eternal Father before all time, having become incarnate, was now manifested in the flesh. Therefore do we acknowledge Christ to be the Son of God by his humanity; therefore, also, do we say that he is God—sed ideo quod Deus. As by his human nature, he is engendered of the seed of David, and so is said to be the Son of David; by parity of reason, and because of his divine nature, is he the Son of God. Christ, however, is One, not Two-fold; he is at once the Son of God and the Son of Man. You own him as the Son of God, but do not admit the oneness, save in a confused way. We, who say that the Son of God is our Brother, as well as the true Immanuel, nevertheless acknowledge in the One Christ the Majesty of God and the Humility of man. But you, confounding these, 165 destroy both; for, acknowledging God manifest in the flesh, you say the divinity is the flesh itself, the humanity God Himself.’

To the second he answers: ‘The Kingdom of God, we say, begins in men when they are regenerated; and we are said to be regenerated when, enlightened by faith in Christ, we yield entire obedience to God. I deny, however, that regeneration takes place in a moment; it is enough if progress be made therein even to the hour of death.’

To the third he says: ‘We do not deny that Baptism requires faith; but not such as is required in the communion of the Supper; and in respect of Baptism we see it as nugatory until the promise of God involved in the rite is apprehended in faith.’ He concludes by assimilating the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper to the Circumcision and Passover of the olden time.

Calvin, we thus see, addressed himself not only to the questions sent, but also in answer to the letter which doubtless accompanied them, in which the writer must have given some intimation of his own views.

That Calvin’s communication, couched in rigidly orthodox terms, though unobjectionable in style, was not calculated to satisfy Villeneuve, we cannot doubt. His mind was already as thoroughly made up—even more thoroughly made up, we apprehend, on some of the points advanced—than Calvin’s. We are not surprised, therefore, to find that the Genevese Reformer’s 166 expositions were repudiated as little satisfactory by the physician of Vienne, or to discover that the correspondence on his part was not suffered to drop. He appears to have replied immediately, and must have written in sequence no fewer than thirty letters to Calvin on his favourite theological subjects, so many being printed in the ‘Christianismi Restitutio.’ In answer to these Calvin must also have sent him more than one or two, though certainly many fewer than thirty; for by the letter to Frelon, written evidently at an early period of the correspondence, we see him already weary of it.

With his hands more than full in administering the affairs of the Genevese Church, holding his political opponents the Libertines in check at home, and corresponding with friends and the heads of all the other Reformed Churches abroad, it is not wonderful that, besides feeling disquieted by the matter and offended with the manner of Villeneuve’s addresses, he had soon made up his mind to have nothing more to do with the writer. He saw, moreover, that he made no impression on him, each new epistle being, as he says to a friend, but ‘a wearisome iteration of the same cuckoo note.’ Calvin’s vocation, however, was to be helpful in what he believed to be God’s work, and to preach the Gospel as he apprehended it. True to his trust, therefore, and by way of meeting his troublesome correspondent’s further importunities,—as a balsam competent to heal the wounds and strengthen the weak 167 places in the soul of the distempered man, he seems to have thought he might escape further molestation by referring him to his own ‘Institutions of the Christian Religion,’ his master work, the canon of the Church of which he was the founder and acknowledged head. In this view, as we venture to presume, Calvin sent Villeneuve a copy of his ‘Institutions,’ and referred him to its pages for satisfactory replies to all his propositions.

It is impossible to imagine that Servetus had continued until this time unacquainted with Calvin’s writings; he had doubtless read them all; but he may not have made the ‘Institutiones Religionis Christianæ’ the subject of the particular study on which he was now forced, as it were, by its author, and with the result that might have been foreseen: there was hardly a proposition in the text that was not taken to pieces by him, and found untenable, on the ground both of Scripture and Patristic authority.

In the course of the correspondence hitherto, Calvin had stood on the vantage ground, as critic of his correspondent’s views; but matters were now reversed, for Villeneuve became the critic of the Reformer. He by and by returned the copy of the ‘Institutions,’ copiously annotated on the margins, not only in no terms of assent, but generally with the unhappy freedom of expression in which he habitually indulged, and so little complimentary to the author himself, as it seems, that Calvin, in writing to a friend and in language not 168 over-savoury, says:—‘There is hardly a page that is not defiled by his vomit.’ The liberties taken with the ‘Institutions,’ we may well imagine, were looked on as a crowning personal insult by Calvin; and, reading the nature of the man as we do, they may have been that, super-added to the letters, which put such rancour into his soul as made him think of the life of his critic, turned by him into his calumniator, as no more than a fair forfeit for the offence done.

It was at this time precisely, as it appears, that Calvin wrote that terribly compromising letter to Farel, so long contested by his apologists, but now admitted on all hands—as indeed how could it be longer denied, seeing that it is still in existence?—in which he says: ‘Servetus wrote to me lately, and beside his letter sent me a great volume full of his ravings, telling me with audacious arrogance that I should there find things stupendous and unheard of until now. He offers to come hither if I approve; but I will not pledge my faith to him; for did he come, if I have any authority here, I should never suffer him to go away alive.’57

Nor is this the only letter written at this time by 169 Calvin which shows with what despite he regarded Servetus. Jerome Bolsec, a quondam monk, now a physician, opposed to the Papacy and but little less hostilely inclined to Calvin, speaking of the Reformer’s persecution of Servetus—‘an arrogant and insolent man, forsooth,’—and of Servetus having addressed a number of letters to him along with the MS. of a work he had written, and a copy of the ‘Institutions of the Christian Religion,’ full of annotations little complimentary to the author,—goes on to say: ‘Since which time Calvin, greatly incensed, conceived a mortal antipathy to the man, and meditated with himself to have him put to death. This purpose he proclaimed in a letter to Pierre Viret of Lausanne, dated the Ides of February (1546). Among other things in this letter, he says: “Servetus desires to come hither, on my invitation; but I will not plight my faith to him; for I have determined, did he come, that I would never suffer him to go away alive.” This letter of Calvin fell into my hands by the providence of God, and I showed it to many worthy persons—I know, indeed, where it is still to be found.’ Bolsec says further that Calvin wrote to Cardinal Tournon denouncing Servetus of heresy, some time before making use of William Trie in the same view to the authorities of Lyons and Vienne, and that the Cardinal laughed heartily at the idea of one heretic accusing another. ‘This letter of Calvin to Cardinal Tournon,’ says Bolsec in continuation, ‘was shown to me by M. du Gabre, the Cardinal’s secretary. 170 William Trie also wrote several letters to Lyons and Vienne at the instigation of Calvin, which led to the arrest of Servetus; but he escaped from prison.’

These statements of Bolsec, like the letter to Farel, have been called in question and their truth denied by Calvin’s apologists; but they tally in every respect with what else we know, and explain some things that would have remained obscure without them. If Calvin wrote to Farel in the terms he certainly did, we have no difficulty in believing that he addressed his alter ego, Viret, in the same way. What is said of the letter to Cardinal Tournon, also, has every appearance of truth. The Cardinal took no notice of the heresy proclaimed from such a quarter as Geneva; or if he hinted at the matter to his friend the Archbishop of Vienne, Paumier’s good report of Doctor Villeneuve put a stop to further inquiry.58

More has probably been made of the letter to Farel, by the enemies of Calvin, than is altogether fair. Grotius, who was the first to notice it, says: ‘It shows that Antichrist had not appeared by Tiber only, but by Lake Leman also.’ When Calvin wrote to Farel, however, he did not contemplate the likelihood of Servetus ever falling into his hands. Neither, indeed, though grievously offending, had the Spaniard yet 171 shown himself utterly incorrigible, a lost creature, fore-ordained of God, as it seemed, to perdition. At the time Calvin wrote the letter of February, 1546, to Farel

It was at a later period, when the guilt as he held it of the man he persistently regarded as the enemy of God and all religion as well as of himself, was full-blown, and the ‘Christianismi Restitutio’ appeared in print, that the threat of bygone years took the shape of present stern resolve.

Had we but Calvin’s letter to Villeneuve, ‘written more sharply than was his wont,’ we should, beyond question, find matter little calculated to flatter the somewhat presumptuous self-confident man, and may be fully as certain that the terms in which any future missive was couched, were not more soothing or conciliatory. But Servetus had come to look on himself as commissioned in some sort by God to proclaim a purer form of Christianity to the world; and any assumption of superiority on the part of Calvin, was met by a four-fold show of independence from himself. Yet does Servetus, once embarked in the correspondence, satisfy us that he had fallen under the spell of the great Reformer; fascinated as it seems by him and, far from being repelled by either his coldness or his harshness, finding it impossible to forbear making ever new attempts upon his patience for recognition, were it even of a little complimentary kind. 172

The ‘great volume full of ravings,’ spoken of in the letter to Farel, must have been a MS. copy of the ‘Christianismi Restitutio,’ already written, but not perhaps finally revised. Upon this work it does not appear that Calvin ever condescended to offer any strictures; although it was doubtless accompanied by a letter—not printed among the thirty—requesting an opinion on its merits. But even as he never had anything of the kind, neither, although repeatedly asked for, both directly and through others, as we learn, could Servetus ever get back his manuscript. Whether retained in mere contempt, or as evidence against the writer, with occasion presenting, as has been surmised, we do not know; but certain it is that Calvin remained persistently deaf to all the writer’s entreaties to have his work returned to him. If not purposely retained in view of the contingency hinted at, it was eventually used in such wise; for it was among the Documents furnished by Calvin through Trie to the authorities of Vienne with the immediate effect of bringing about the arrest of its writer and imperilling his life.

Turn we to the letters to Calvin, less in view of their theological import—the point from which alone they have hitherto been regarded by the biographers of Servetus—than as calculated to let us into the secret of the misunderstanding and enmity that took such entire possession of the mind of the Genevese Reformer. In Servetus’s style of address, as we have said, we at once note an entire absence of the obsequiousness 173 to which Calvin was accustomed. Far from approaching the Reformer as a Gamaliel at whose feet he was to kneel and take lessons, Servetus assumes the part, not merely of the equal, but often of the superior, and is by no means nice in the terms in which he challenges the points he holds erroneous in the doctrines of the great man he is addressing. In the very first of the thirty epistles he wrote, whilst stating an opinion which he knew Calvin must think heretical or even blasphemous, he ‘desires him to remember—memineris quæso, &c.—that the Man, Jesus Christ, was truly begotten of the substance of God;’ and in the second of the series informs him quite bluntly that he is mistaken in his interpretation of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. He even attempts to fix him on the horns of a dilemma by showing that Calvin’s view, if accepted, would lead to the assumption not of one Son of God, but of three Sons of God. ‘But all such tritheistic notions,’ he continues, ‘are illusions of Satan, and they who acknowledge the Trinity of the Beast (i.e. of Papal Christianity) are possessed by three spirits of demons. False are all the invisible Gods of the Trinitarians, as false as the gods of the Babylonians. Farewell!’ This at the outset is certainly not very respectful from the physician of Vienne to the Spiritual Dictator of Geneva!

The third epistle commences in the same easy style: ‘Sæpius te monui—I have repeatedly admonished you.’ It is on the way in which he imagines 174 Christ to have been engendered by God, and so to be truly and naturally His Son; adding that he has always taught the eternity of the Divine Reason, styled The Word, as prefiguring Christ, in whose face at the Incarnation, he says, Man first verily saw the face of God. ‘You are offended with me,’ he proceeds, ‘for speaking as I do of the human form of Christ; but have patience and I shall lead you up to my conclusion—te manducam,’ etc. Fancy John Calvin feeling himself taken in hand by Michael Servetus!

The fourth, sixth, and seventh epistles are remarkable for their pantheistic views. ‘God,’ says Servetus, ‘is only known through manifestation, or communication, in one shape or another. In Creation God opened the gates of His Treasury of Eternity,’ says he very grandly. ‘Containing the Essence of the Universe in Himself, God is everywhere, and in every thing, and in such wise that he shows himself to us as fire, as a flower, as a stone.’ Existence, in a word, of every kind is in, and of, God, and in itself is always good; it is act or direction that at any time is bad. But evil as well as good he thinks is also comprised in the essence of God. This is indicated, he conceives, by the Hebrew word, ‘π’ (ihei); and he illustrates his position by the text: ‘I form light and create darkness.’ All accidents, further, are in God; whatever befals is not apart from God. Without beginning and without end, God is always becoming—Semper est Deus in fieri. 175

In the eighth and ninth letters he informs Calvin that he ‘would have him know how the Logos and Sapientia, the Divine Word, the Divine Reason, were to be understood, in order that he should not go on abusing these sacred words;’ and it is here that we meet with various expressions which only acquire significance when the pantheistic ideas with which he is full are borne in mind. Here, too, we find the reason why he would not concede that Calvin and the Reformers held the true belief in Christ as the Son of God:—Ille est vere filius Dei quem in muliere genuit Deus, non ille quem tu somniasti! Neither did the Reformers, in his eyes, rightly apprehend Justification, which, according to him, only comes through belief in the Sonship of Christ as he conceives it.

In the eleventh epistle he says he thinks it will be labour well spent if he exposes the error into which his correspondent falls in his interpretation of the Doctrine of James. Calvin and his sect, we know, set little store by works of charity and mercy. ‘All that men do,’ proceeds our letter-writer, ‘you say is done in sin and is mixed with dregs that stink before God, and merit nothing but eternal death. But therein you blaspheme. Stripping us of all possible goodness you do violence to the teaching of Christ and his Apostles, who ascribe perfection or the power of being perfect to us: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” (Matt. v. 48.) You scout this celestial perfection because you have never tasted perfection of 176 the kind yourself. In the works of the Saintly, I say, there is nothing of the corruption you feign. The works of the Spirit shine before God and before men, and in themselves are good and proper. Thou reprobate and blasphemer, who calumniatest the works of the Spirit—Tu improbus et blasphemus qui opera Spiritus calumniaris!’

Can we wonder at Calvin’s rage with the man who dared to address him in such language as this? On his trial at Geneva Servetus tells his judges that the correspondence between him and the Reformer degenerated by degrees on both sides into mutual recrimination and abuse. In the above objectionable passage we see, if not the beginning, yet a significant sample of this unhappy style, which continues even to the end. Had we Calvin’s letters, we should certainly find them not more guarded in expression—for Calvin was a master of invective, with a superabundant vocabulary of epithets at command, and never choice in the use of those he applied to opponents—rascal, dog, ass, and swine being found of constant occurrence among them—had there been any stronger than scoundrel and blasphemer, they would assuredly have been hurled at Servetus.

Referring to the subject of Justification, Calvin, as we presume, must have said, in one of his letters, that Justification is imputed by God, and that no change takes place in him who is justified. To this Servetus, in his thirteenth epistle, exclaims: ‘What do I hear? 177 The spirit of man suffers no change through sin! But if sin cause change, then must there also be change when sin is taken away. He, forsooth, who sits in darkness differs in nothing from him who sits in light! Your justification is Satanic merely if the conscience within you remains as it was before, and your new life of faith differs in nothing from the old death. God grant, O Calvin, that, ridding you of your magical fascinations, you may abound to overflowing in all good things; but Peter’s disputation against Simon Magus refutes you, teaching, as it does, the excellence of works even in the heathen. The justification you preach, therefore, is mere magical fascination and folly.’

In another of his letters Calvin must have asked Servetus where the Apostle John teaches that we in this world are such as was Christ? Which his correspondent answers by referring him to the fourth chapter of the Epistle general, where he would find these words: ‘Because as he is, so are we in this world.’ We can fancy how vexed Calvin must have been with himself for the slip he had made, as well as angry with the triumph of his opponent, who continues: ‘But you neither rightly understand Faith in Christ, nor good works, nor the Celestial Kingdom. In the New Covenant a new and living way was inaugurated; but you, true Jew—tu vero Judaico—would shame me by a show of zeal and whelm me with contumely because I say with Christ, “He 178 who is least shall in this Kingdom be greater than Abraham.”’

If Calvin neither understands the nature of Faith, nor of Justification, we shall not wonder when we find that no more is he credited with comprehending Regeneration, ‘You have not understood true Regeneration, nor the Celestial Kingdom, whereof Faith is the gate. Regeneration, I maintain, comes through baptism; you say that Christ thought nothing of the water. But is it not written that we are born anew by water? and is it not of water that Paul speaks when he designates baptism the Laver of Regeneration, saying, “We are cleansed from sin by washing with water?” Men, you say, are regenerate when they are enlightened; you must therefore concede that they who are baptized in their infancy, being without understanding and so unenlightened, cannot be regenerated. Yet do you contend that they are properly baptized. Dissevering regeneration from baptism you make baptism a sign of adoption; but you deceive yourself in this, the Scriptures declaring that adoption is effected when to the believer is given the spirit of the divine Sonship—πνεύμα Ὑωοθεσίος. On your own showing, then, infants, being unregenerate, can enter the Kingdom of Heaven neither by faith nor by hope; and thou, thief and robber—tu Fur et Latro(!)—keepest them from the gate. As a prelude to Baptism Peter required repentance. Let your infants repent, then; and do you yourself repent and come to baptism, having true faith 179 in Jesus Christ—pœniteat te igitur, et vere Jesu Christi fide ad baptismum accede—to the end that you may receive the gift of the Holy Spirit promised therein. But you satisfy yourself with illusions, and say that the infants who die [unbaptized?] were predestined, impudently misusing sacred speech as is your wont; for in the Scriptures predestination is not spoken of save in connection with belief and believers. God, I say, sees no one justified from eternity unless he believes.’ Let us think of Calvin, spiritual dictator to one half of reformed Christendom, schooled in this style by the poor body-curer of Vienne! called thief and robber to his face, and all the more irate with his teacher from feeling, as we fancy he must have felt, that he had not always the best of the argument. Servetus’s dialectic is at least a match for his own.

But our restorer of Christianity has not yet done with his pædo-baptism: the subject is continued in the next letter, which closes with a prayer in the very finest spirit of piety, but to Calvin may possibly have seemed profane, he having made up his mind that Servetus was not only without religion himself, but bent on effacing religion from the heart of man. Here is the prayer:—

‘O thou, most merciful Jesus, who with such signs of love and blessing didst take the little ones into thine arms, bless them now and ever, and with Thy guiding hand so lead them that in faith they may become partakers of Thy Heavenly Kingdom. Amen!’ 180

Calvin, we believe, treats the ‘Descent into Hell’ as legendary. Servetus thinks the Hebrew word Scheol signifies the grave as well as the traditional hell, and seems to make it a kind of resting-place for the unregenerate until the resurrection. Adam, he says, by his transgression fell both soul and body into the power of the Serpent. But where can the soul of him be after death who is the slave of such a master? Are not the gates of Paradise closed against him?—is not the whole man given over to the power of the mighty tyrant? ‘Who shall set him free? No one, assuredly, but Christ’—and so on, in terms entirely unobjectionable, and in complete conformity with accredited opinion; but tending, we imagine, to what is called Universalism, Servetus believing, as we read him, that all men would be saved in the end, though ordinary sinners would have to wait until the day of Judgment. He nowhere speaks of any lake of burning brimstone, fanned by the Devil, in which the wicked are tortured throughout eternity. Annihilation, with him, is the penalty of unpardonable sin.

The Twentieth Epistle is especially interesting as showing us the very heart of the writer; letting us into his secret, as it were, and showing us the ideas that led him to his scheme of restoring the lapsed faith of mankind in Christ as the naturally begotten Son of God, and of reconstituting his Church, long vanished from the face of the earth. The true Church, however, is not to be thought of as an institution made by man, 181 but as a foundation originated by Christ. And the question as to where this true Church exists, is not difficult of determination if the authority of the Scriptures be admitted as paramount in matters of belief. But the authority of the Scriptures, and of the true Church represented by those purified by the water of baptism and governed by the Holy Spirit, he says, is equal ‘The true Church of Christ, indeed, is independent of the Scriptures. There was a Church of Christ before there was any writing of the Apostles. But where is now the Church? Ever present in celestial spirits and the souls of the blest, it fled from earth as many as 1260 years ago. It is in heaven, and typified by the woman adorned with the sun and the twelve stars (Revelation). Invisible among us now, it will again be seen before long. We with ours, the congregation of Christ, will be the Church. Towards the restoration of this Church it is that I labour incessantly; and it is because I mix myself up with that battle of Michael and the Angels, and seek to have all the pious on my side, that you are displeased with me. As the good angels did battle in heaven against the Dragon, so do other angels now contend against the Papacy on earth. Do you not believe that the angels will prevail? But as the Dragon could not, so neither can the Papacy, be worsted without the angels. The celestial regeneration by baptism it is that makes us equals of the angels in our war with spiritual iniquity. See you not, then, that the question is the restoration of the Church 182 driven from among us? The words of John show us that a battle was in prospect: seduction was to precede, the battle was to follow; and the time is now at hand. Who, think you, are they who shall gain the victory over the Beast? They, assuredly, who have not received his mark. Grant, O God, to thy soldier that with thy might he may manfully bear him against the Dragon, who gave such power to the Beast. Amen!’

In the above we have the whole mystical being of the man laid bare before us, and the nature of the cause in which he was engaged made known. Servetus certainly believed that he was an instrument in the hand of God for proclaiming a better saving faith to the world. It was by a certain Divine impulse, he says himself, that he was led to his subject, and woe to him did he not evangelise! He seems even to have thought that he had his vocation shadowed out to him in his name. The angel Michael led the embattled hosts of heaven to war against the Dragon; and he, Michael Servetus, had been chosen to lead the angels on earth against Antichrist! The Roman interpretation of Christianity, with its Pope and hierarchy, its assumed sovereignty, its pompous ceremonial and ritualistic apparatus, had failed to make the world either wiser or better; the entire system was rotten to the core; hence the revolt of such scholarly monks as Erasmus and Luther, and of such learned priests as Zwingli, Calvin, Melanchthon, Bullinger, Bucer, and the 183 rest. But they, too, still showed more or less of the ‘mark of the Beast.’ They had rid themselves of the Mass and Transubstantiation, of compromises for sin by payments in money, of monkeries, nunneries, the invocation of saints, prayers to the Virgin, and so on; but they had retained much that was objectionable—particularly a Trinity of persons in the Godhead (tantamount, said Servetus, to the recognition of three Gods instead of one God), and infant baptism.

By their strenuous insistance on the effects of Adam’s transgression as compromising mankind at large, and Abraham’s readiness to sacrifice his only son, they had moreover interspersed the religion of Christ with such an amount of Judaism that their Christianity was in many respects a relapse into the bonds of the Law, from which Christ had set us free. A reformation of the Church had been commenced, therefore, but was by no means completed; much still remained to be done; the world was waiting, in fact, for a better interpretation of Christ’s life and doctrine as contained in the Gospels, and this the studies and meditations of Michael Servetus, he believed, qualified him in no mean measure to supply. Hence the books on Trinitarian Error and the Restoration of Christianity; and hence, also, the hostility of Calvin and his followers, who were minded that they had already reformed and restored, and verily represented, or were in fact, the true Church.

Like the leaders of other bands of enthusiasts of 184 which the world has seen so many, Servetus, relying on the New Testament record, thought that the day was at hand when Christ should appear in the clouds to judge the world and consummate all things. He overlooked the fact that Paul, whom he resembled in so many respects, had had the same fancy fifteen hundred years before him, and that matters had nevertheless gone on much as they had always done, without the day of judgment having dawned. Calvin with his educated understanding and his experience of the world, ought to have seen Servetus as the pious enthusiast he was in fact, and not as the enemy of God and Religion, as well as of himself. Failing to cure him of his extravagant fancies, he might safely have left him to indulge them, as being little likely to compromise his own or any other system of Christianity, the Papacy perhaps excepted, to which the would-be Restorer was truly much more violently opposed than the Reformer. But hate had blinded Calvin; considerations personal to himself had complicated and in some sort superseded such as were associated with religion.

On the subject of Faith, to which Calvin’s system gave much less free play than Luther’s, we find Servetus siding with him of the North rather than him of the South. Neither of them, however, as we have seen, had any conception of faith in the way Servetus understood it. Faith, says he, consists in a certain compliant state of mind, proclaimed by unquestioning assent. This, the true saving faith, is of the kind 185 avowed by Peter when he declared Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of the living God. Yet faith even of this kind, distinctly as it has the lead in Servetus’s Christology, is not yet all in all: to become efficient or saving, it must be conjoined with Charity. ‘If faith be not clothed with charity,’ says he, ‘it dies in nakedness; and as habit is strengthened by action, the body by exercise, and the understanding by study, so is faith strengthened by good works.’ The subject-will and fatalism, asserted by Calvin in his doctrine of predestination and election, have therefore no real foundation in Scripture; nay more, there is unreason in the assumption of such a principle, and in the admonition given to mankind to do that which it must be known beforehand they cannot do. ‘You speak,’ says our writer, ‘of free acts, yet really say that there is no such thing as free action. But who so devoid of understanding as to prescribe free choice to one incapable of choosing freely! It is mere fatuity besides to derive subject-will from this: that it is God who acts in us. Truly God does act in us; but in such wise that we act freely. He acts in us so that we understand and will, choose, determine, and pursue. Even as all things consist essentially in God, so do all things proceed essentially from him. The Spirit of God is innate in man, and as the power to do is one thing, so is the necessity to do another. Although God elects us as the potter does his clay, it by no means follows that 186 we are nothing more than clay. Paul’s simile deceives you; it is not universally applicable.’

The Law of Moses, Calvin has said, is still in force and to be observed by us as truly as it was by the Jews; violating it, he says, we violate the Law of God. Servetus’s reply to this is the burden of the Twenty-third and three following Letters. ‘I fancy I hear some Jew or Mussulman speaking here,’ says our respondent. ‘But to what is violence done—is it to a stone, or to certain letters cut in a stone? Christ, I say, accomplished the Law and then it was abrogated; in him we have the New Covenant, the Old superseded; in him are we made free. The law of Moses was unbearable; it slew the soul, it increased sin, it begat anger; virtue itself through it became at times transgression, and in compassion for our frailty it was annulled. You make God exercise a rude and miserable people in a mill-round. What would you say were some tyrant to require mountains of gold or the stars of heaven from your Genevese, and threaten them with death for non-compliance with his demands? But the Old Law bound men to impossibilities. Art thou not then ashamed of slavery and tyrannical violence? Insisting on the observance of this law, you yet go on dreaming with your Luther, and saying that no one ever entirely fulfilled the commandment which says “thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and soul.” David and others, then, who said that they sought God with all their heart and strove with 187 all their might to keep his commandments, are but liars to you. And what, after all, are the laws of Moses? If conformable to Nature then are they the laws of God, the author of Nature, older than Moses, and to be observed of Christians independently of Moses. But God never required obedience of the kind you imagined; he but asks of each according to his strength. Cease then, O Calvin, to torture us with the law of Moses, and to insist on its observance. It looks as if you had a mind to be pitied of God in your impotency—of God who may be said so often to have had to take pity on the Jews when they were under the law.’ Who shall say that Michael Servetus was not in advance of John Calvin?

The twenty-seventh, eighth, and ninth epistles are only significant as expositions of doctrinal views in their bearing on social life. Is it lawful, he asks, for a Christian to assume the magistracy? to administer the laws of the land and to take the lives of evil-doers? Of course it is. The order of the world is maintained by law and justice. But then to take life? Where there is hope of amendment, as in the case of the woman taken in adultery, we see the penalty of death remitted: Go, said Jesus to her, and sin no more. But even where there is malice and unyielding obstinacy, recourse is to be had to chastisement of other kinds than taking life. Among these, banishment, approved by Christ, and excommunication, practised by the Church, are to be commended. Schism and 188 heresy were punished in this way whilst traces of apostolic tradition remained. Criminals, in matters not pertaining to the faith, are variously punished by the laws of every country; and this is in conformity with natural law. They bear the sword aright and lawfully who bear it in the cause of justice and to the repression of crime; and it is not against gospel precepts that we serve as soldiers in defence of our lives and possessions.

Servetus, we find, accords rather extensive powers to Bishops, whom, in opposition to Calvin, he recognises, and to Ministers of the Church generally. Bishops, like good shepherds, are to know their flocks, and to take care that no infection gets in among them; ministers again—he does not use the word priests—are privileged to reconcile sinners to God, and to punish unbelievers by excommunicating them and delivering them over to Satan and spiritual death. Their authority, however, is only to be exercised under the guidance of the Spirit—what spirit he does not say. Confession, too, he approves of, but the minister is not to be consulted save in case of some grave doubt or difficulty arising.

Our writer is greatly displeased with Calvin’s interpretation of the parable of the labourers in the vineyard, in which like wages are given to those hired at every hour of the day; from which the Reformer infers that there is no difference or distinction in glory, in faith, or in works. ‘To you truly,’ says Servetus, 189 ‘there needs no distinction as to less or more; for with you these are all alike of non-avail, some as you maintain being saved with, as some are saved without, merit of their own. But it is faith that of the impious makes the pious, of the dead the living. Ignorant of all gospel truth is he who does not attach supreme significance to faith in Christ as the Son of God.’

The concluding epistle of the series must have given great offence to Calvin, the writer reproaching him with setting the Christian on no higher level than the vulgar Jew. ‘They are alike to you, indeed, alike carnal, because to you are the benefits of Christ’s coming unknown; to you who in the Supper partake of nothing more than a trope or figure, and who treat baptism as the equivalent of a Levitical rite, the sign of a thing that is not. But in the Supper we, nourished by immortal food, for a terrestrial have a new celestial life imparted to us, and how should he perish who has once partaken of Christ? May God give you to receive all these things with a true understanding, led by the spirit of truth, by Jesus Christ and the Father. Amen.’ Scouting the Roman Catholic dogma of transubstantiation, as he did, we here find Servetus speaking as if he believed that it was the body of Christ indeed that was partaken of in the Supper! To understand this in him his pantheistic notions must again be taken into account. But pantheism, when not detached from the idea of personality, in the usual acceptation of the word, leads inevitably to such absurdity. 190 Speaking as he does now, Servetus forgets his philosophy and yields himself up to his mysticism. With as much justice might he have said that Cannibals partake of God when they eat one another, as that the Christian communicant partakes of Christ when he joins the simple, solemn, commemorative feast. 191

CHAPTER XVII.

‘CHRISTIANISMI RESTITUTIO’—THE RESTORATION OF CHRISTIANITY—DISCOVERY OF THE PULMONARY CIRCULATION.

We have seen that Servetus could never recover his MS. of the Restoration of Christianity from the hands of Calvin. But he had not sent his work for the review of the Reformer without retaining a copy for himself, and this he determined now to have printed and sent abroad into the world. With this view he forwarded the Manuscript to a publisher of Basle, Marrinus by name, with whom—if we may infer so much from the address of the publisher’s letter to him declining the work—he must have been on terms of intimacy. Marrinus’s letter is short, to the point, and in the following terms:—

‘Gratia et pax a Deo, Michael carissime!—the grace and peace of God be with you, dearest Michael! I have received your letter and your book; but I fancy that on reflection you will see why it cannot be published at Basle at this present time. When I have perused it [more carefully] I shall therefore return it to you by the accredited messenger you may send for 192 it. But I beg you not to question my friendly feelings towards you. To what you say besides I shall reply at greater length and more particularly on another occasion. Farewell! Thy

Marrinus.
‘Basle, April 9, 1552.’

The MS., even on a cursory perusal, had evidently frightened the worthy publisher of Basle: he would have nothing to do with it; but this did not put our author from his purpose of publication. Not going so far afield as Basle, he took Balthasar Arnoullet, bookseller and publisher, and William Geroult, manager of his printing establishment, both of Vienne, into his confidence, giving them to understand that though the book he wished to have printed was against the doctrines of Luther, Calvin, Melanchthon, and other heretics, there were many reasons why neither his name as the author, nor Vienne as the place of publication, should appear on the title-page.

Arnoullet, like Marrinus, must have had misgivings about the reception the book was likely to meet with from the clergy of France, and, aware of the danger he incurred who printed and published aught out of conformity with the doctrines of the holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church, he too must have declined in the first instance to undertake the work. But Michel Villeneuve had been prosperous; he had money in his purse, and engaging not only to take the whole of the expenses on himself, but to add a gratuity of 100 crowns to the cost, 193 Arnoullet consented at last to run the risk of publication, meaning, however, that the world at large should know nothing of him as instrumental in the business. No one then knew that Secerius of Hagenau had printed the ‘De Trinitatis Erroribus,’ or that its author, Michael Servetus, was Doctor Villeneuve. Why should it ever transpire that Balthasar Arnoullet of Vienne had printed the ‘Restitutio Christianismi,’ or that Monsieur Michel Villeneuve the physician was its writer? To keep the secret within their own circle, therefore, the work must not be composed in the usual place of business, and none but the most indispensable hands be employed upon it. A small house, away from the known printing establishment, was accordingly taken; type cases and a press were there set up, and the work once entered on proceeded regularly without interruption during a period of between three and four months, when the impression, consisting of 1,000 copies, was successfully worked off.

Arnoullet, although we shall by and by find him declaring his entire ignorance of the burden of the book, and charging his manager, Geroult, with having deceived him on this head and by misrepresentations induced him to meddle with the publication at all, must nevertheless have been well aware of its nature. The measures taken to keep the outside world in ignorance of what was going on, the arrangement with the author to be his own reader for press, and the premium paid, give the lie to all his asseverations. Servetus, too, 194 in his determination to keep his name from the title-page, and leave this blank of the place of publication, shows that neither was he blind to the danger that waited on the production of such a book as the Restoration of Christianity in Roman Catholic France. The printing press, though eagerly welcomed on all hands at first, soon fell out of favour with the Church of Rome, and so continues with that conspiracy against the rights, the liberties, and the progress of mankind. But Michael Servetus was too vain, too thoroughly persuaded of his own apostolic mission to the world, to leave his book, the crowning labour of his life, without some sufficient mark of its paternity. On the last page, accordingly, we find the initials of his name and designation in capital letters, thus, M.S.V., immediately over the date MDLIII., the year of the intended publication. But even so much was not wanted to proclaim the author. Innocently or inadvertently he says in his Preface that he had formerly treated briefly of the subjects he is now about to discuss at greater length; and in the body of the work he may even be said to make his appearance in person, and in his proper name; for we there have Michael and Peter as interlocutors, precisely as in the old ‘Dialogi ij de Trinitate’ of the year 1532.

Printed with every precaution to secure secrecy, with nothing intentionally about it to lead the uninitiated to suspect what was meant by the M.S.V. at the end, or a hint, even had it been divined that Michael 195 Servetus Villanovanus was thereby indicated, to show that he and Michel Villeneuve of Vienne were one and the same personage, it is obvious that the ‘Christianismi Restitutio’ was not intended for publication or sale either in Vienne or France—probably not even in Basle or Geneva, in the first instance. Villeneuve would keep the place where he lived, and the country that sheltered him, as well as the nearest neighbouring land, out of the storm which he plainly foresaw would be raised by his daring innovations on accredited Christian doctrine, and his more than Luther-like denunciations of the Papacy. The whole impression was therefore made up into bales of 100 copies in each, of which five were confided to the safe keeping of Pierre Merrin, typefounder of Lyons—a brother in all likelihood of the Marrinus of Basle, with whose name we are already acquainted—in view of their being forwarded by water to Genoa and Venice. A bale or two we know were sent by Arnoullet to his agent at Frankfort; and as Frelon was now in the secret of Servetus, we can hardly doubt of his having taken some share in the venture and despatched at least a bale to the same great emporium of the book trade. It must have been from Frelon, indeed, that Calvin by and by obtained the couple of copies of the ‘Restitutio’ he required for the purposes of the prosecution he had instituted against its author; and it is almost certainly to him, not to Robert Etienne, the bookseller of Geneva, as has been said, that Calvin refers in his letter to the Frankfort Clergy ‘as a well-disposed 196 person who will put no obstacle in the way of the seizure and destruction of the obnoxious book which he has learned had been sent for exposition and sale among them.’ The remainder of the impression—and there could now have been little of it left on hand—for safe stowage away from the Archiepiscopal city of Vienne, was confided by Arnoullet to the custody of a friend, Bertet by name, resident at Chatillon.59 197

The book on the ‘Restoration of Christianity,’60 often spoken of, though so rare as seldom to be seen, comprises a series of disquisitions on the speculative and practical principles of Christianity, as apprehended by the author; thirty letters to John Calvin; a disquisition on as many as sixty signs of the reign of Antichrist, and an apologetic address to Philip Melanchthon and his followers.

‘The task we have set ourselves here,’ says the Author in his Preface or Introduction, ‘is truly sublime; for it is no less than to make God known in his substantial manifestation by The Word and his divine communication by the Spirit, both comprised in Christ, through whom alone do we learn how the divineness of the Word and the Spirit may be apprehended in Man. Hidden from human sight in former times, God is now both manifested and communicated to the world, manifestation taking place by the Word, communication by the Spirit, to the end that we may see him face to face as it were in Creation, and feel him intuitively but lucidly declared in ourselves. It is high time that the door leading to knowledge of this 198 kind were opened; for otherwise no one can either know God truly, read the Scriptures aright, or be a Christian.’

How much the writer is in earnest is farther proclaimed by the Invocation to Christ and the Address to the Reader with which he concludes his Introduction: ‘O Christ Jesus, Son of God, Thou Who wast given to us from heaven, Thou Who in Thyself makest Deity visibly manifest, I, Thy servant, now proclaim Thee, that so great a manifestation may be made known to all. Grant then to Thy petitioner Thy good Spirit and Thy effectual Speech; guide Thou his mind and his pen that he may worthily declare the glory of Thy Divinity, and give pious utterance to the true faith concerning Thee. The cause indeed is Thine, for by a certain Divine impulse it is that I am led to speak of Thy Glory from the Father. In former days did I begin to treat of this, and again do I enter upon it; for now am I to be made known to all the pious; now truly are the days complete, as appears from the certainty of the thing itself and the visible signs of the times. The Light Thou hast said is not to be hidden; so woe to me do I not evangelise!

‘It rests with thee, then, O Reader, that thou show thyself well disposed towards Christ, even to the End, and that thou hear our subject discussed at length in words of truth without disguise.’

After a somewhat careful perusal of the ‘Christianismi Restitutio,’ we know not how it could be better 199 or more briefly characterised, in its theoretical portion at least, than as a paraphrase and new interpretation of the Gospel according to John, in which the Neo-platonic doctrine of the Logos is particularly discussed, and copiously interfused with pantheistic ideas, whilst the dogmatic teaching of the Church of Rome and its practical application is repudiated in toto, and the chief doctrines of Lutheran and Calvinistic Christianity are controverted.

Assuming the leading positions of the writer as guides, we should say that in his philosophy he regards the world as a manifestation and communication of God in time and space, manifestation taking place, as he says, through the Word, communication through the agency called Spirit. The first of things in which God showed Himself, he says, was Light, which he speaks of as uncreated—lux increata, essence or first principle of things—all existence, all generation being effected by the energising power of light. In, and of, and first manifested by light, God, however, is not identified therewith, any more than with the things of creation, in all of which he is still held to be immanent. God indeed in himself is supersensuous and incomprehensible, for he transcends all things—mind as well as matter. When not sought to be defined by negatives, God is to be thought of as Absolute Being, and all existence, as deriving from him, is to be accounted divine, although in diverse degrees.

The manifold manifestations which God makes of 200 himself in nature are referred to a single dispensation or mode, the mode of the Plenitude of Substance, which comprises all other modes or dispensations in their endless diversity, patterns or types of all things that be having been present in the mind of God before they were in themselves. An architypal universe is therefore assumed as having existed before the actual world came into being, and this, says Servetus, is the Logos of Scripture and Philosophy—the Divine Reason, wherein reflected all things showed themselves visibly. Ea ipsa erat λὀγος erat ratio mirifica in qua omnia visibiliter relucebat. The Logos—Divine Word, Divine Wisdom, God himself, in fact—it is that is revealed or manifested in Creation, as in the fulness of time it also became incarnate in Christ; for, even as before Creation the world existed ideally in God, so before the incarnation was Christ potentially present in the Divine mind as the Divine word, in the same way as the future plant is extant in the seed. From the beginning, therefore, it was a virtual or potential Son, not any actual co-eternal Son, who existed beside the Father, the Son first acquiring form and substance in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and being made participant of the Holy Spirit at the moment of his birth when he began to breathe; for Servetus assimilated the abstraction entitled Spirit to breath or wind: God, say the Scriptures, breathed into the nostrils of man and he became a living soul.

Possessed, as he was, by the principles of the Neo-platonic 201 and other more ancient philosophies, Servetus assimilates Christ to the Demiurgos, and makes of him the architect and fashioner of the world—ille mundi Architectus Christus—Creator even of the elements from which, intermingled, are educed the substantial forms of things. How this was brought about if Christ only became a reality at his birth, he does not say. But it is not a little interesting to note how nearly our own Great King of transcendental song approaches some of these fancies of our author, for Milton too speaks of Light as

A little further on he also has the Son as Agent in Creation:—

Creation ended, he continues:—

Into what labyrinths are men led when they give the rein to imagination, and the demon of speculation divorced from science is suffered to have his uncontrolled way!

Coming to a more particular analysis of the ‘Restitutio,’ we find the first book treating of the man 202 Jesus, in which he is shown to be, 1st, Man; 2nd, Son of God; and 3rd, God.

I. The name Jesus [Joshua, Hebraice], says Servetus, is the name of a man and was given on the day of the Circumcision; the cognomen Christ [Χρίστος, Græce, the anointed], was bestowed by the Disciples, but never admitted by the Jews, who only knew Jesus as the son of Joseph. There was indeed frequent discussion among the disciples themselves, whether Jesus was the Messiah or not; and we know that kings, in virtue of the anointing at their coronation, were entitled Christs—Cyrus, for instance, is called Masach by the Prophet, the word Christ being no more than the Hebrew title translated into Greek.

II. It is as a Son of God,—υἵος Θεοῦ—that Jesus is spoken of in the Scriptures. But if so, then is he to be thought of as engendered by God as thou by thy father. God, it is true, is in a certain sense the Father of all men as he is of Jesus; but we are his sons by adoption as Jesus is his Son by nature. Jesus, indeed, was believed to be the son of Joseph, but he was truly the Son of God, having, without any sophistry, been engendered of his substance: the Word of God overshadowed the Virgin like a cloud, and acted in her as generative dew, comparable to the shower from heaven that causes the earth to bring forth flowers and fruit. It follows, therefore, that the son of the Virgin is also truly, naturally, the Son of God.

III. Christ is God, and is so called because in him 203 is God substantially, corporeally present; for he is God by his geniture as by his flesh he is man (p. 15), God and man being truly conjoined in one substance and made one body, one new man. As the Father is true God, so, in bestowing his divineness (Deitas) on his only Son, did he cause it to be that the Son should be true God.

Having spoken of God and Christ, he treats next of the Trinity. In the beginning, it is said, was the word, Ὁ λὀγος, an expression whereby inward Reason and outward Speech are implied. Some, says the writer, have held that God can be defined no otherwise than by negations: ears have not heard God speak, save by the voice of man; hands have not touched Him, for He is incorporeal; place holds Him not, for He cannot be circumscribed; and time gives no measure of Him, for, infinite, He is without beginning and without end. But all this only speaks of what God is not; it does not teach what God is. Now, no one knows God who is ignorant of the mode in which He has willed to manifest Himself to us, plainly exposed though it be in the sacred oracles. These, however, the Sophists do not believe, because they will not see God in Christ (p. 111). In the Word made flesh, in the face of Jesus Christ it is that we see the Light—God Himself—shining upon us. In thinking of the engenderment of Christ, and his appearance on earth, the veil of any intervening time is to be rejected; Christ 204 being to be conceived of as having been eternally engendered in the mind of God, but only begotten of his substance in time in the womb of the Virgin Mary. The man Christ is therefore, and because of this, fitly spoken of as the first-born Son of God, begotten before all worlds (pp. 56, 57), substantially visible before creation, and possessed of eternal substance—visibilem cum (Christum) substantialiter ante omnia fuisse et substantiam æternam habere (p. 57)—the meaning of which we imagine to be this: that the idea of Christ, present in the mind of God from eternity, took form by his immediate agency in the womb of Mary, the wife of Joseph, whose son the man Jesus was believed by his contemporaries to be, though he was indeed the Son of God.

One of the items of transcendental belief, therefore, in which Servetus differed wholly from the Reformers, had reference to the coeternity of the Father and the Son. On this head he says particularly, ‘If there were in eternity two incorporeal beings alike and equal, then were these Twins rather than a Father and Son; and were a third Entity added, like and equal to the other two, then were there a threefold Geryon produced.’ These words, and others of corresponding import, were found highly objectionable or blasphemous by the Reformers, as we have already had occasion to say.

In connection with this part of his subject the writer adds several of the comments he had appended to the Pagnini Bible, particularly the one in which he discusses 205 the verse of Isaiah, beginning: ‘A virgin shall conceive and bear a son,’ &c., in which he maintains that the Almah, the marriageable woman mentioned, refers immediately to Abija, the youthful wife of Ahaz, then pregnant with Hezekiah.

Thus far advanced, it is now that we find the pantheistic conceptions of our author most fully enunciated. Referring to the words quoted by St. Paul, ‘In God we live, and move, and have our being,’ Servetus maintains that God is in all things, and all things are in God; in his own words, ‘It is God who gives its ESSE or essential being to every existing thing—to inanimate creation, to living creatures in general, and to man in especial.’

The fifth book treats of the Holy Spirit. ‘As the essence of God is the Word,’ says our author, ‘in so far as manifestation is made in the world, so, and in so far as communication is made, it is Spirit; manifestation and communication, however, being ever co-ordinate and conjoined. It is spirit that is the architype, eternally present in God, from whom it proceeds’ (p. 163). And it is in this place that our author explains or illustrates some of his metaphysical positions by a reference to Anatomy, with which in various interesting particulars he shows himself more satisfactorily intelligible than in his transcendental speculations. 206

‘There is commonly said to be a threefold spirit in the body of man, derived from the substance of the three superior elements—a natural, a vital, and an animal spirit; there are, however, not really three, but only two distinct spirits. One of these, the first, characterised as natural, is communicated from the arteries to the veins by their anastomoses, and is primarily associated with the blood, the proper seat or home of which is the liver and veins. The second is the vital spirit, whose seat or dwelling-place is the heart and arteries. The third, the animal spirit, comparable to a ray of light, has its home in the brain and nerves. In each and all of these is the force—energeia—of the one spirit and light of God comprised. Now, that the natural spirit is imparted from the heart to the liver, and not from the liver to the heart, is proclaimed by the formation of man in the womb; for we see an artery associate with a vein sent from the mother through the navel of the fœtus; and in the adult body we always find an artery and a vein conjoined. But it was truly into the heart of Adam that God breathed the breath of life or the soul. From the heart, therefore, it is that life is communicated to the liver; for by the breathing into the mouth and nostrils it was that the soul was first truly imparted, the breath tending directly to the heart.

‘The heart is the first organ that lives, and, situate in the middle of the body, is the source of its heat. From the liver the heart receives the liquor, the material 207 as it were of life, and in turn gives life to the source of the supply. The material of life is therefore derived from the liver; but, elaborated as you shall hear, by a most admirable process, it comes to pass that the life itself is in the blood—yea that the blood is the life, as God himself declares (Genes. ix.; Levit. xvii.; Deut. xii.).

‘Rightly to understand the question here, the first thing to be considered is the substantial generation of the vital spirit—a compound of the inspired air with the most subtle portion of the blood. The vital spirit has, therefore, its source in the left ventricle of the heart, the lungs aiding most essentially in its production. It is a fine attenuated spirit, elaborated by the power of heat, of a crimson colour and fiery potency—the lucid vapour as it were of the blood, substantially composed of water, air, and fire; for it is engendered, as said, by the mingling of the inspired air with the more subtle portion of the blood which the right ventricle of the heart communicates to the left. This communication, however, does not take place through the septum, partition or midwall of the heart, as commonly believed, but by another admirable contrivance, the blood being transmitted from the pulmonary artery to the pulmonary vein, by a lengthened passage through the lungs, in the course of which it is elaborated and becomes of a crimson colour. Mingled with the inspired air in this passage, and freed from fuliginous vapours by the act of expiration, the mixture being 208 now complete in every respect, and the blood become fit dwelling-place of the vital spirit, it is finally attracted by the diastole, and reaches the left ventricle of the heart.

‘Now that the communication and elaboration take place in the lungs in the manner described, we are assured by the conjunctions and communications of the pulmonary artery with the pulmonary vein. The great size of the pulmonary artery seems of itself to declare how the matter stands; for this vessel would neither have been of such a size as it is, nor would such a force of the purest blood have been sent through it to the lungs for their nutrition only; neither would the heart have supplied the lungs in such fashion, seeing as we do that the lungs in the fœtus are nourished from another source—those membranes or valves of the heart not coming into play until the hour of birth, as Galen teaches. The blood must consequently be poured in such large measure at the moment of birth from the heart to the lungs for another purpose than the nourishment of these organs. Moreover, it is not simply air, but air mingled with blood that is returned from the lungs to the heart by the pulmonary vein.

‘It is in the lungs, consequently, that the mixture [of the inspired air with the blood] takes place, and it is in the lungs also, not in the heart, that the crimson colour of the blood is acquired. There is not indeed capacity or room enough in the left ventricle of the heart for so great and important an elaboration, neither does it 209 seem competent to produce the crimson colour. To conclude, the septum or middle partition of the heart, seeing that it is without vessels and special properties, is not fitted to permit and accomplish the communication and elaboration in question, although it may be that some transudation takes place through it. It is by a mechanism similar to that by which the transfusion from the vena portæ to the vena cava takes place in the liver, in respect of the blood, that the transfusion from the pulmonary artery to the pulmonary vein takes place in the lungs, in respect of the spirit.

‘The vital spirit (elaborated in the manner described) is at length transfused from the left ventricle of the heart to the arteries of the body at large, and in such a way that the more attenuated portion tends upwards, and undergoes further elaboration in the retiform plexus of vessels situated at the base of the brain, in which the vital begins to be changed into the animal spirit, reaching as it now does the proper seat of the rational soul. Here, still further sublimated and elaborated by the igneous power of the soul, the blood is distributed to those extremely minute vessels or capillary arteries composing the choroid plexus, which contain or are the seat of the soul itself. The arterial plexus penetrates even the most intimate part of the brain, its constituent vessels, interwoven in highly complex fashion, being distributed over the ventricles, and sent to the origins of the nerves which subserve the faculties of sensation and motion. Most wonderfully 210 and delicately interwoven, these vessels, although spoken of as arteries, are really the terminations of arteries proceeding to the origins of nerves in the meninges. They are in truth a new kind of vessels; for, as in the transfusion from arteries to veins within the lungs we find a new kind of vessels proceeding from the arteries and veins, so, in the transfusion from arteries to nerves, is there a new kind of vessels produced from the arterial coats and the cerebral meninges.’ ‘Chr. Rest.’ p. 170.

There can be no question as to the fact that, in the above quotation, the passage of the blood from the right to the left side of the heart through the lungs by the pulmonary artery and vein, is proclaimed, and a farther transmission of its more subtle part at least from the left ventricle of the heart to the arteries of the body is indicated. After so much said, however, the account halts. There is no notice of any transfusion from the arteries to the veins of the body, and so of a return of the blood by their means to the right side of the heart—nor do we believe that anything of the kind was present to the mind of the writer. The truth is that Servetus was not thinking of a circulation of the blood in the sense in which we understand the term, but of a means of engendering the vital and animal spirits. ‘The blood,’ he says happily and well, ‘is not sent to the lungs in such large quantity for their nourishment only. As in the fœtus, so in the adult are they nourished from another quarter.’ To Servetus 211 as to his age the liver was the fountain of the blood, and the venous system connected with it the channel by which materials for the growth and nourishment of the body were supplied. The heart again was the source of the heat of the body, and, with the concurrence of the lungs, the elaboratory of the vital spirits; the arterial system in connexion with it being the channel by which the spirit that gives life and special endowment to the bodily organs is distributed.

Though Servetus saw that the black blood which is attracted, as he says, by the diastole of the heart from the vena cava acquires the florid colour in its passage through the lungs, he never hints at the black blood of the systemic veins having been the florid blood of the arteries. We are not, however, to overlook his remark, though it is only by the way, of ‘the natural spirits being communicated from the arteries to the veins by their anastomoses.’ Servetus may consequently have had an intimation of the systemic circulation; but he did not think out his thought. He does not speak of an intermediate system of vessels between the arteries and veins of the body as of certain other corresponding vessels of the lungs; and when we find him making the arteries of the brain terminate in the nerves or meninges—the source of the nerves to the old physiologists, we can only conclude that he believed the arteries of the body to end in like manner in the several tissues to which they are distributed. From what he says further concerning the life of the fœtus in utero, 212 we learn positively that Servetus had not divined the systemic circulation. ‘The embryo lives through the soul of the mother,’ says he, ‘it is as it were a part of the mother, the vital spirit being communicated to it by the umbilical arteries.’ Instead of afferent canals of the blood from the heart of the fœtus to the placenta of the mother, consequently, Servetus believed the umbilical arteries to be efferent channels of the vital spirit of the mother to the heart of the fœtus. He at the same time, doubtless, saw the umbilical veins as the channels by which material for its growth and nutrition was brought from the mother to be distributed by the venous system proceeding from the liver and vena cava, in conformity with the physiological views of his age. Servetus did not think of the fœtal heart save as the passive recipient of life. He never heard its rapid tick tack, nor dreamt of it any more than he did of the heart of the adult as the agent in the general distribution of the blood in a great circle from arteries to veins, from veins to arteries, unbroken in the embryo, but complicated when independent life is assumed by the necessary passage through the lungs.

Imperfectly, incompletely, therefore, as the great function of the circulation is conceived by Servetus, his account of so much of it as belongs to the pulmonary system is all his own and an immense advance on aught that had been imagined before. Had his ‘Restoration of Christianity’ been suffered to get abroad 213 in the world and into the hands of anatomists, we can hardly imagine that the immortality which now attaches so truly and deservedly to the great name of Harvey would have been reserved for him. But save to a few theologians, who gave no heed to his physiological speculations, Servetus’s book remained unknown in the republic of letters, for more than a century after it had fallen from the press—no naturalist had seen it during all that time. So effectually had it been hunted out and made away with, that of the thousand copies printed, two only, as we have seen, are now known to survive. The ‘Christianismi Restitutio’ of Michael Servetus, consequently, never influenced either speculation or discovery in connection with the circulation of the blood. But reading the book as we are now suffered to do, let us not overlook in its author the Physiological Genius of his age. Who shall say what amount of influence the ‘Restoration of Christianity’ might have had upon both Science and Religion had it been suffered to see the light! For it is not the possession only, but the pursuit of truth that truly ennobles man; and in Servetus’s incomplete induction in the sphere of physics we see the path fairly entered on that has given to modern science all its triumphs. Nor pause we here: in the domain of letters and criticism, he is nowise less in advance of his age than in physiology. Who among biblical scholars before Servetus had seen the applicability of so much that is said in the Psalms and prophetical books of the Jewish 214 Scriptures to men and events contemporaneous with, when they had not preceded, the times in which their authors lived? Servetus’s contemporaries among the Reformers without exception set out from the letter of the New Testament as the source of their faith, the warrant for the conclusions they built upon its text. But he declared that there was a Christian Doctrine before there was any New Testament; and we now know that this came not into existence until thirty, forty, sixty, and in parts as many as 150, years had passed after the great moral teacher of Nazareth had expiated his superiority to the shows and superstitions and errors of his day by the cruel death of the cross.

Had biblical criticism become a science a century sooner than it did, the world might now by possibility be nearer the goal of truth as regards the Religious Idea than it is, and grave doubts have sooner arisen as to the competency of the barbarous Jews to solve the mystery of the ‘Something not ourselves’ which we are led by our nature to conceive and think of as Cause, and to imagine as over and above this ‘bank and shoal of Time,’ whereon we pass our lives.

Quitting physiological discussion for his proper subject, our author approaches the practical part of his theory of Christianity. Faith is the first element, and is spoken of as an emotion rather than a cognition—a spontaneous movement of the heart, not an act of the understanding, its essence being belief in the man Jesus Christ as the Son of God (pp. 297-300). The end and 215 object of the whole New Testament teaching, he says, is to lead men to a belief of this kind (p. 293), whereby they are reconciled and made acceptable to God, conceive a detestation for sin and become exemplars and exponents of the Christian virtues—Love, Hope, and Charity. ‘Faith of this kind,’ he continues, ‘makes us aware of our poverty, of our misery. For if we believe that the man Jesus is the Son of God, the Saviour of the world, we already admit that the world lies in sin and so needs saving.’

Unlike the other Reformers of the Church, Servetus, in this his latest work as in his first, makes much less of the Fall of Man and the wrath of God as consequences of Adam’s transgression. Original sin can hardly be said to have a place in his system. Sin, he even says, was not brought forth on earth, but arose in heaven, through a revolt of the angels under Satan, who, utterly opposed to God in all things, seduced man from his allegiance and so obtained the empire which it was the purpose of Christ’s coming to regain. Instead of holding the heart of man as utterly evil and corrupt, he says, ‘that good works are proper and spontaneous to the individual. By the death of a sinless being on whom, as sinless, Satan had no hold, he was thrown out of the law, forfeited the rights he had acquired, through the disobedience of man, and God recovered the empire he had lost.’ Satan, therefore, performs a highly important part in the Christology of Servetus; but it differs notably from that both of the Roman 216 Catholic and Reformed Churches, in this: that Christ does not suffer death to satisfy divine justice and reconcile God to mankind, but to traverse the Devil in the rights he had acquired by guile. But all such speculations belong to a former age of the world. They are the fossils of the speculative stratum in the nature of man, and only of interest now to reasonable people as records of the chimæras and incongruities that are engendered by imagination dissevered from science, when the understanding, instead of leading, is led, and the unknowable is assumed as foundation adequate to support conclusions affecting the lives of men in this world and their fate in Eternity.

Servetus then makes little or nothing of the ‘Corruption of human nature’ as consequence of Adam’s transgression, so much insisted on by the Reformed Clergy, and he entirely rejects their assumption of man’s incompetence of himself to do anything good. Satan, however, is still seen as the opponent of God in the Restored as in the Reformed system. ‘The Devil intruded himself into all flesh,’ says our ‘Restorer.’ ‘Satan is Sin dwelling within us, and to us is disease and death (p. 385); these being the consequences of Adam’s transgression (p. 358).’ So much our author felt himself bound to accept in a literal sense, for so he finds it written; but he proceeds forthwith to interpret the text in his own way, and declares that Adam’s transgression brought no real guiltiness on mankind; for such can never be incurred through 217 another’s, but only through each man’s own deed, a previous knowledge of what is good and evil being the indispensable condition to responsibility. But as a knowledge of good and evil is only attained when men arrive at years of discretion, so did Servetus think that mortal sin was not committed, nor even guilt incurred, before the twentieth year (pp. 363 and 387). Though made subject to corporal death and scheol by Adam’s fault, men do not for this die spiritually; they will be restored at the last day when Christ comes to judge the world: ‘As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive’ (1 Corinth. xv.), say the Scriptures [of the apostle Paul]; and these words, according to our author, mean that men will not be condemned to the second or spiritual death because of Adam’s disobedience, but only when, knowing good and evil, they have done much amiss of themselves. Servetus, therefore, speaks of that as a punishment for sin to which teeming nations of the East look forward as reward for the ills of life—Nirwana, a state of unconscious, everlasting rest! Servetus himself has no special place,—no hell either of temporary or eternal torture for wrong-doing.

We do not remember to have met with the word atonement in Servetus’s writings. He had evidently passed beyond the idea of the vengeful Hebrew God and the shedding of blood as a propitiatory means believed in by the Christians of his day, and still so commonly accepted in our own; Servetus’s religion was as 218 comprehensive as that of his great Master. ‘Turks,’ says he, ‘pray aright when they address themselves to God, though they neither know nor believe that God ever promised anything to the patriarchs.’

Justification is the dogma that is next entered on, and is said to be by grace: ‘We are justified,’ says Servetus, following Paul, ‘when we believe in Christ as the Son of God,’—in the way he apprehended the sonship, being of course to be understood. But, escaping from leading strings, we find him elsewhere declaring, and still in advance of his day, that all who of their own natural motion lead good lives, be they Jews or Pagans, are justified before God, and that the good life suffices to have men resuscitated in glory. ‘God,’ says he, ‘does not repute us just of his own good grace only, but also by the merits of our works; in other words, of our lives.’

In the book on the perdition of the world and its restoration by Christ, which follows, our author has much on the subject of baptism—the means or preliminary, in his eyes, to Regeneration. He will not, however, allow that unbaptized infants can possibly be looked on as lost souls. ‘The little children whom Christ blessed,’ says he, ‘were not baptized. How should the most clement and merciful Lord condemn those who had never sinned? Did he ever say to the little ones unbaptized: Go ye accursed into everlasting 219 fire? How should he curse those he blessed? They seem to me to attempt to befool me who say that the salvation of an unconscious infant depends on my will to baptize or to leave it unbaptized.’ Opposed to the baptism of infants as a meaningless and inefficient ceremony, Servetus was all the more emphatic in his insistence on the indispensableness of the rite performed later in life. ‘Jesus was circumcised indeed as an infant,’ says he, ‘but only baptized when he was thirty years of age. We ought not, therefore, to approach the Laver of Regeneration before this age if we would imitate Christ.’ ‘Pædobaptism,’ says he, ‘is a detestable abomination, an extinction of the Holy Spirit in the soul of man, a dissolution of the Church of Christ, a confusion of the whole Christian faith, an innovation whereby Christ is set aside and his kingdom trodden under foot. Woe to you, ye baptizers of infancy, for ye close the kingdom of heaven against mankind—the kingdom of heaven into which ye neither enter yourselves, nor suffer others to enter—woe! woe!’ He who is baptized in his infancy, consequently, who believes that he is properly baptized and so neglects the regenerative rite in years of discretion, according to Servetus, loses his chance of instant entrance into Christ’s kingdom on his death. In his comprehensive charity, however, we fancy Servetus must have a salvo for such neglect, though we have missed it. If he has failed to set it forth in words, we feel assured that it was nevertheless alive in his heart. 220

In the book on the Power of Satan and Antichrist, Servetus attacks the Papacy in terms of measureless reprobation, likening the Pope to the Antichrist of the Apocalypse, calling him the son of perdition, and speaking of his dominion as the reign of God’s opposite on earth (p. 393). In exalting himself above his fellow-men and requiring them to look on him as a god, the Pope has usurped the forbidden kingdom. The imposition of a spiritual papacy, he maintains, has brought more mischief on the spiritual world than the carnal Adam brought on the world of flesh. For his sin was Adam condemned to the pain of corporeal death, and for theirs are the beast and his ministers (the pope and his council) doomed in the Apocalypse to the pains of everlasting fire (p. 394).

Against monastic vows of all kinds, Servetus is here most vehemently outspoken. According to him, they are mere sacrileges of tradition. He does not object to the celibate life, however, which he says he has chosen for himself; but Peter, he thinks, would be amazed did he see the shaven, cowled, and bedizened priests engaged in their mimic play, whereby they lead the people to the most open idolatry. But it is the mendicant monk that he has in more especial abhorrence. Him he compares to the locust, which, eating up everything it encounters, leaves desolation behind. ‘The locust,’ he says, ‘has by nature a sort of monk’s cowl; add to this a wallet, and you have a begging friar complete; in other words, a hooded devil.’ 221

In the book on the Lord’s Supper, our author speaks of course of the papistical transubstantiation, the annihilation of the bread as bread and its transmutation into mere whiteness. ‘I rather wonder,’ says he, ‘whether Satan was the circumcisor of common sense from the brains of those who of bread make not-bread, and in its stead produce a vendible whiteness; for these puny sacrificators, for a mouthful of whiteness given without wine, make us count out our money (p. 510). To such degradation of mind are these men brought that they call that the true body of Christ, which, in the whiteness they imagine, rats and dogs might devour. Never was there any such blindness as this among the Jews—blindness the more notable as the Papists say they are infallible (p. 511). But as circumcision of the foreskin makes the Jew, and circumcision of the heart the Christian, so does circumcision of the scalp make the sham Jew, the papal sacrificial priest and slave of Antichrist.’

He is scarcely more complimentary when he speaks of the views of the Reformers on the subject of the Supper, styling the Lutherans Impanators, and the Calvinists Tropists, the Roman Catholics being of course Transubstantiators. If we understand him aright, he looks on the Supper as something more than a simple commemorative feast, to be first partaken of immediately after adult baptism, to which it is the necessary complement; but we are startled after what, as we interpret it, he has just said in this sense, when we 222 by and by find him speaking as if he believed that the body and blood of Christ were really partaken of in the Christian Communion (p. 281 and Letter xxx. to Calvin). The contradictory statements met with in the writings of Servetus, however, as we have had occasion oftener than once already to say, can only be harmonised by taking note of his pantheistic views. In the instance before us, for example, on the pantheistic principle, as God is in and of the substance of all things, so was He in Christ, or Christ, in so far, was God. In consonance with the letter, therefore the bread and wine of the solemn rite are flesh and blood. The language of mysticism, however, is often little intelligible to the naturalist, who in his incapacity here may be likened to those who, with ears otherwise acute, cannot distinguish certain extremely acute or grave sounds, or who, with eyes otherwise excellent, see no difference between such opposite colours as red and green. Like the Reformers of all denominations, Servetus maintained the Cup to be an indispensable element in the celebration of the Supper. In the Papal Mass, he says, there is no true Communion. The bread is not broken in common, and the wine is appropriated by the Sacrificator, even as the Babylonian Priests of old appropriated the oblations of the altar: ‘Quorban,’ says the Popish Priest as he drinks, to the lookers on, ‘it will do you good, too.’ (p. 522).

Singularly enough, when we think of what he has to say in disparagement of the Roman Catholic 223 priesthood, we find him recognising in ministers a power to absolve men from their sins and reconcile them to God—potestas ministris est remittendi peccata et reconciliandi homines Deo (p. 516). This, we can only conclude, is said because of what he found in the Sacred Text;61 no word of which, as we know, would he gainsay. But that Michael Servetus, mystic though he was, believed in his soul that one man can absolve another of his sin, we do not think possible. He did not surmise that the fourth gospel was only written a hundred and fifty years after the death of Jesus, and by a Neo-platonic philosopher, presumably of Alexandria, fashioner, like Paul of Tarsus, of a Christology and Christianity of his own.

In illustration of the character of the man, the study of whose life engages us, the prayer with which he concludes the book on the ‘Restoration of Christianity’—for here the work does end in fact, all that follows being but by way of appendix—ought not to be overlooked. It is in immediate sequence to a renewed phillipic against the baptizers of infants, and to the following effect:—

‘Almighty Father! Father of all mercy, free us miserable men from this darkness of death, for the sake of thy Son Jesus Christ Our Lord. O Jesus Christ, thou Son of God, who died for us, help us, lest we 224 perish! We, thy suppliants, pray to thee as thou hast taught us, saying, Hallowed be thy Name; thy kingdom come; and do thou, Lord, come! thy bride the Church, praying in the Apocalypse, says, Come! The spirits of thy children, praying here, say, Come! Let all who hear this pray and cry aloud, and with John exclaim, Come! Thou Who hast said, I come quickly (Apocalypse xxii.) wilt surely come, and with thy coming put an end to Antichrist. So be it. Amen!’

The first of the additions to the system of ‘Restored Christianity’ are the thirty letters to Calvin, which we have already analysed, in what seemed the appropriate place.

The book or chapter on the ‘Sixty signs of the reign of Antichrist, and of his presence among us,’ which follows, need not detain us. The signs are for the most part arbitrarily assumed by the writer, on the ground that his own views are the truth, those of the Papists and Reformers mistaken, false, or short of the truth. Having shown to his own satisfaction that every evil-doer, in the shape of an exalted personage who has ever appeared in the world, even from Satan, Nimrod, and Nebuchadnezzar, prefigured the Pope, and that the Pope is Antichrist, he then very logically concludes that all the dogmas and doctrines sanctioned by the Papacy are of the Devil. Under this category he places the doctrine of the Trinity in the foremost rank, 225 then the Baptism of Infants, the Mass, Transubstantiation, all but everything, in short, characteristic of Roman Catholic Christianity. As in so many other places, he is here also ready with a prayer, which we quote as ever-recurring testimony to the sincerely, but misunderstood, pious nature of the man:—

‘O Christ Jesus, Son of God, most merciful Liberator, who hast so often freed thy people from their straits, free us too from this Babylonian Captivity of Antichrist, from his hypocrisy, his tyranny, his idolatry! Amen.’

The concluding part of the ‘Restoration of Christianity’ is an address to Melanchthon and his colleagues on the Mystery of the Trinity and the discipline of the ancient Church. We have seen that Melanchthon of all the Reformers was the one who seemed to be most taken by the theological speculations of the seven books on Trinitarian error. ‘I read Servetus a great deal,’ says he to his friend Camerarius; and if he found the work objectionable in many respects, as he says, it yet contained matter that would not be put aside, but that forced itself on his attention, and may be presumed to have influenced his final conclusions on some of the highest and most difficult doctrines of orthodox Christianity. Certain it is that the first and earlier editions of his highly popular work, the ‘Loci Theologici,’ differ notably from those that appeared subsequently to the publication of Servetus’s ‘De Erroribus Trinitatis.’ In the first and earlier editions there is nothing said 226 of God, whether as One or Triune, of Creation, the Incarnation, and other purely speculative matters. ‘These subjects,’ he says, ‘are wholly incomprehensible, and we more properly adore than attempt to investigate the mystery of Deity. What, I ask you,’ he continues, ‘has been the outcome of the scholastic and theological discussions that have gone on for all these ages?’ But the metaphysics of Christianity were not passed over in any such way by Servetus. His earliest work even meets us in some sort as a complementary criticism of the ‘Loci’ of Melanchthon, and that it was so held by the Reformer seems to be demonstrated by the many changes and additions to be noticed in the revised edition of the work of the year 1535, the first that was published after the appearance of the ‘De Erroribus Trinitatis’ and ‘Dialogi duo de Trinitate.’62

Finding himself very freely handled in the revised editions of the ‘Loci,’ his errors, as they are designated as matter of course, being assimilated to those of Paul of Samosata and others, and his references to Tertullian and the ante-Nicæan Fathers proclaimed irrelevant, Servetus retorts, and, throwing moderation to the winds, proceeds in the diatribe we have before us to 227 pour out the vials of his displeasure on the head of the great Wittemberg scholar and theologian. Our Restorer of Christianity does, it is true, see Melanchthon as somewhat nearer the mark than Luther, Calvin, and Œcolampadius; but the references made to Athanasius, Augustin, and the Fathers who came after the Council of Nicæa, are all put out of court—their conclusions are of non-avail; for they had all bowed the knee to the Beast, and bore his mark. The true Church of Christ had already forsaken the earth in their day, and their teaching on the Trinity, Baptism, the Supper, &c., was nought. Strange to say, as proceeding from a scholar, himself no indifferent master of the Latin tongue, he reproaches Melanchthon with the elegance of his Latinity. The Holy Ghost, says he, never spoke in fine phrases! (P. 674.)

It is difficult to conceive a man not utterly bereft of reason and common sense, living among Roman Catholics and in times of deadly persecution for heresy, writing in the style of Servetus on the Papacy and the most accredited tenets of Christianity. Yet is it impossible to imagine that he was blind to the danger he incurred in doing so; neither do we believe that he knowingly and advisedly staked his life against the cause he certainly had so much at heart. He may have said, indeed, that he believed he should die for his opinions; but we see him taking what he must have meant as sufficient precautions against such a contingency; 228 and when first brought face to face with the prospect of accomplishing the destiny he foreshadowed, we find him showing anything but the recklessness of the true martyr. We presume that the security in which he had dwelt so long under his assumed name, the immunity from suspicion of heresy he had enjoyed since the publication of his first work, and the latitude allowed him by his clerical friends of Vienne in discussing the heresies of the Reformers—and it may be also some of a minor sort of their own—misled him. His seven books on erroneous conceptions of the Trinity appear to have been little, if at all, known to the ecclesiastics of France; and he probably imagined that in appealing to the press again and keeping his work from the booksellers’ shops of the country of his adoption, he would continue to be overlooked. Anything of a heretical nature he should publish now might possibly be challenged by the German and Swiss Reformers; but they were heretics in the eyes of the Viennese, and, provided he did not openly proclaim himself the author, their ill report, if perchance it ever reached France, would do the author of the ‘Restoration of Christianity’ no harm, if it did not even tend to exalt him among orthodox adherents of the Church of Rome.

Every reasonable precaution therefore taken that the new book on the Restoration of Christianity should not get abroad in France, Servetus seems to have thought himself safe against detection and pursuit. He was in fact altogether unknown, as we have said, 229 in the place of his residence as Michael Serveto, alias Revés, of Aragon, in Spain. He was M. Michel Villeneuve, Physician of Vienne, and living under the patronage of its Archbishop. There was, however, so strong a family likeness between the ‘Seven Books and Two Dialogues on Trinitarian Error’ and the ‘Restoration of Christianity,’ or the views therein contained, that the most cursory comparison of the two works would have disclosed their common parentage, even if the writer of the ‘Restoration’ had not himself hinted plainly enough at the fact. He must have thought himself perfectly safe in his incognito at Vienne, and seems not to have dreamt of danger from abroad. There could be no reason, therefore, why Calvin, and through him the other Reformers of Switzerland, should not be made aware of what he had been about. He would in truth take his place beside or above them all as the real Restorer of Christianity, proclaimer, as he believed himself to be, of the true doctrine concerning Christ as the naturally begotten Son of God; of the Salvation to be secured by faith in him as such; of the Regeneration to be effected by baptism performed in years of discretion, and of the absurdity implied in imagining division in the essence of God, and instead of the One great Creator of heaven and earth, having a Three-headed chimæra for a Deity! In this view, as we conclude, he sent a copy of his book to Calvin; and with consequences which it will now be our business to follow to their disastrous conclusion; 230 for all that remains of the life of Michael Servetus, cut short in the flower of his age, is entirely subordinated to influences brought to bear on it through the printing of this work and the interference of the Reformer of Geneva.63 231

CHAPTER XVIII.

CALVIN RECEIVES A COPY OF THE ‘CHRISTIANISMI RESTITUTIO.’

Frelon, the publisher of Lyons, whom we already know as the medium of communication between Villeneuve and Calvin in their correspondence, was probably by this time in the secret of the Spaniard. The friend of Calvin as well as intimate with Villeneuve, had he not already been confided in by the subject of our study, he must have been informed by Calvin who Michel Villeneuve really was. The correspondence had long ceased, but the intercourse between the Bookseller and the Reformer continued, and the ‘monthly parcel’ was still the vehicle for new books and literary gossip between Lyons and Geneva. By Frelon’s February dispatch of the year 1553, we therefore conclude that there went a copy of the ‘Christianismi Restitutio,’ hot from the press, specially addressed to Monsieur Jehann Calvin, Minister of Geneva. That it was accompanied by a letter from Frelon we may also presume, giving in all innocency and confidence—little recking what use would be made 232 of the information—those particulars connected with the printing of the work which Frelon must have had from Villeneuve, and which Calvin by and by imparted to the authorities of Lyons and Vienne.

Frelon may be supposed not yet to have read the ‘Christianismi Restitutio;’ but aware of Villeneuve’s appreciation of the Church of Rome, and trusting to the author’s own account of his work as especially hostile to the papacy, he may have thought that it would not be otherwise than well received by Calvin. It is only with Frelon as go-between that we can account for the book having reached Calvin at the early date it did, and for the particular information he possessed concerning Arnoullet as the printer, and the precautions that had been taken to keep the world ignorant of what had been done. That there was no intention of betraying trust on Frelon’s part, we need not doubt; and still less, as we believe, need we question the fact that it was not only with the author’s consent, but by his express desire, that the first copy of the ‘Christianismi Restitutio’ sent abroad went to the Reformer.

Servetus himself could at this time have had as little idea, as Frelon, of the deadly hate with which Calvin was animated towards him. They had corresponded and differed, had quarrelled and called each other opprobrious names; but controversialists did so habitually, when they got heated; and the epithets then so freely bandied about were scarcely seriously meant, and hardly ever seriously taken: they were but the seasoning to 233 the matter, nothing more. Servetus was in truth far too vain, and at the same time too much under the spell of Calvin, to leave him of all men else in ignorance of the important work of which he had just been happily delivered. With the earliest opportunity therefore that occurred, and before the book had been seen by another, as we believe, he sent a copy to Calvin, meaning it doubtless as a compliment—a return perhaps for the copy of the ‘Institutiones Religionis Christianæ’ we credit him with having received from its author.

It is not difficult to imagine the alarm that must at once have taken possession of Calvin’s mind when he saw the errors, the heresies, the blasphemies, as he regarded them, which in bygone years he had vainly sought to combat, now confided to the printed page and ready to be thrown broadcast on the world. And more than this: if his ire had been already roused by the strictly confidential correspondence to the extent of leading him to threaten the life of the writer, did occasion offer, what additional anger must now have entered into his heart, when, besides the offensive heretical matter of the book, he found himself taken to task, publicly schooled, declared to be in error, and his most cherished doctrines not only controverted, but proclaimed derogatory to God, and some of them even as barring the gates of heaven against all who adopted them! What, too, on second thoughts, may have been his exultation when, in perusing the book, he found his enemy committing himself so egregiously in abusing 234 the Papacy, and supplying evidence that would convict him at once of blasphemy against God and the Church, and, in sending him to the stake—as he foresaw it must in a Roman Catholic country—would rid the world at once of an agent of Satan, and a personal enemy! 235

CHAPTER XIX.

CALVIN DENOUNCES SERVETUS THROUGH WILLIAM TRIE TO THE ECCLESIASTICAL AUTHORITIES OF LYONS.

Calvin’s mind must have been immediately made up after perusing the ‘Restoration of Christianity.’ He would denounce its author as a heretic and blasphemer to the ecclesiastical authorities of France, and—Deus ex machina—an instrument was at hand to further his purpose. There lived at this time in Geneva a certain William Trie, a native of Lyons, a convert from the Romish to the Reformed faith, and, as proselyte, well known to Calvin. Trie, it would appear, had not been left altogether at peace in his new profession of faith. He had a relation, Arneys by name, resident in Lyons, who did not cease from reproaching him by letter as a renegade, and exhorting him to think better of it, and return to the faith he had forsaken. Trie would seem to have been in the habit of showing his letters to Calvin, and of having aid and advice from him in answering them; Calvin, it was said, upon occasion even dictating the epistles in reply. But now he could use the neophyte in his own as well as the general behalf, and set about the business forthwith 236 under cover of a letter from the convertite Trie to his relation Arneys:—

Monsieur mon Cousin,—I have to thank you much for your fine remonstrances, and make no question of your friendly purpose in seeking to bring me back to the point from which I started. As I am not a man of letters like you, I do not enter on the points and articles you bring up against me. Not, indeed, but that with such knowledge as God has given me, I could find plenty to say in the way of reply; for, God be praised, I am not so ill-grounded as not to know that the true Church has Jesus Christ for its head, from whom it cannot be dissevered, and that there is neither life nor salvation apart from Holy Scripture. All you say to me of the Church, I therefore hold for phantasm, unless Christ, as having supreme authority, presides therein, and the Word of God is made the foundation of its teaching. Without this, all your formulas are nothing.... As to what you say about there being so much more of freedom, or latitude of opinion, with us here than with you, still we should never suffer the name of God to be blasphemed, nor evil doctrines and opinions to be spread abroad among us, without let or hinderance. And I can give you an instance which, I must say, I think tends to your confusion. It is this: that a certain heretic is countenanced among you, who ought to be burned alive, wherever he might be found. And when I say a heretic, I refer to a man who deserves to be as summarily condemned by the Papists, as he is by us. For though differing in many things, we agree in believing that in the sole essence of God there be three persons, and that his Son, who is his Eternal Wisdom, was engendered by the Father before all time, and has had [imparted to him] his Eternal virtue, which is the Holy Spirit. But when a man appears who calls the Trinity we all believe in, a Cerberus and Monster of Hell, who disgorges 237 all the villainies it is possible to imagine, against everything Scripture teaches of the Eternal generation of the Son of God, and mocks besides open-mouthed at all that the ancient doctors of the Church have said—I ask you in what regard you would have such a man?... I must speak freely: What shame is it not that they are put to death among you who say that one God only is to be invoked in the name of Christ; that there is no service acceptable to God other than that which He has approved by His word; and that all the pictures and images which men make are but so many idols which profane His majesty?... What shame, say I, is it not, that such persons are not only put to death in no easy and simple way, but are cruelly burned alive? Nevertheless, there is one living among you who calls Jesus Christ an idol; who would destroy the foundations of the faith; who condemns the baptism of little children, and calls the rite a diabolical invention. Where, I pray you, is the zeal to which you make pretence; where are your guardians and that fine hierarchy of which you boast so much? The man I refer to has been condemned in all the Churches you hold in such dislike, but is suffered to live unmolested among you, to the extent of even being permitted to print books full of such blasphemies as I must not speak of further. He is a Spanish-Portuguese, Michael Servetus by name, though he now calls himself Villeneuve, and practises as a physician. He lived for some time at Lyons, and now resides at Vienne, where the book I speak of was printed by one Balthasar Arnoullet. That you may not think I speak of mere hearsay I send you the first few leaves as a sample, for your assurance. You say that our books, which contain nothing but the purity and simplicity of Holy Scripture, infect the world; yet you brew poisons among you which go to destroy the Scriptures and all you hold as Christianity. I have been longer than I thought; but the enormity of the case causes me to exceed 238 I need not, I imagine, go into particulars; I only pray you to put it somewhat seriously to your conscience, and conclude for yourself, to the end that when you appear before the Great Judge you may not be condemned. For, to say it in a word, we have here no subject of difference or debate, and ask but this: That God himself may be heard. Concluding for the present, I pray that He may give you ears to hear, and a heart to obey, having you at all times in His holy keeping.

(Signed) Guillaume Trie.

Geneva, this 26th of February [1553].

This on the face of it is no letter from one young man to another. It is the artful production of the zealot and bigot in one, well informed of the antecedents of the man he is denouncing, and but poorly disguised by the name under which he is writing. The letter from first to last is Calvin’s, and was accompanied by the two first leaves of the newly printed book, the ‘Christianismi Restitutio,’ containing the title and table of contents, sufficient, as Calvin knew full well, to alarm the hierarchs of Papal Christianity, which in their estimation needed no restoration, and was indeed susceptible of none; whilst any discussion of such transcendental topics as the Trinity, Faith in Christ, Regeneration, Baptism, and the Reign of Antichrist, smacked at best of schism when undertaken by a layman even of orthodox views, but became flat blasphemy when treated by such a one in any adverse sense.

Cardinal Tournon, at this time Archbishop of Lyons, was the implacable enemy of all innovators, and in his 239 zeal for what he believed to be the truth well disposed to resort to the severest measures against the spread of heresy, which to him and his co-religionists, then as now, was most especially embodied in the principles of Luther and Calvin’s Reformation. Exposed as were the south and east of France from their contiguity with Switzerland to infection of the kind, Tournon had not relied exclusively on himself and his own subordinate clergy as watchers over the faith of the district under his charge. He had further summoned to his aid one of the regularly trained inquisitors from Rome, Matthew Ory by name, who designated himself: Pénitencier du Saint Siége Apostolique, et Inquisiteur général du Royaume de France et dans toutes les Gaules. This man, as we may imagine, had a real relish for his calling and was watchfulness itself in ferreting out heresy, as, with all of his kind, he was relentless in pursuing it to the death.

The notable letter of Trie to Arneys was immediately brought under the notice of the clergy of Lyons, as Calvin intended and foresaw that it would be; and by one of them, was communicated to Ory, the Inquisitor, and to Bautier, Vicar-General, and Canon of the Cathedral Church of Lyons. Here was work of more than common interest to the Inquisitor, who proceeded forthwith, under date of March 12, 1553, to write to Villars, Auditor of Cardinal Tournon, absent at the moment from Lyons, but no farther away than his Château of Roussillon, a few miles distant from Vienne. 240

The letter of Ory is highly characteristic of the jesuitical, stealthy, and underhand style of dealing with all that belongs to free thought and open speech. Premising a few sentences on indifferent and private matters, he comes anon to the real gist of his letter and says: ‘I would advise you in all secrecy of some books that are now being imprinted at Vienne, containing execrable blasphemies against the divinity of Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity, the author and printer of which are both living among you. The Vicar-General and I have seen one of the chapters of this publication, and are of like mind about the propriety of your taking an early opportunity of conferring with Monseigneur (the Cardinal) and making him more particularly acquainted with the business; so that on your return home the necessary orders may be given by Monseigneur to M. Maugiron, the Vibailly of Vienne, and the police. So much at this time M. the Vicar-General desires that you should know through me; but you are to proceed so secretly that your left hand shall not know what your right is about—mais si secrètement que vostre main senextre n’entend point ce que c’est. Only whisper in the ear of Monseigneur and inform us if he has any knowledge of a certain Villeneufve, a physician, and one Arnoullet, a bookseller, both of Vienne, for it is to them that I refer.’

On the following day the Vicar Bautier left Lyons for Roussillon and saw the Cardinal, who immediately sent a letter to Louis Arzelier, Grand Vicar of the See 241 of Vienne, summoning him to Roussillon. After a long conference, Arzelier was ordered to return to Vienne and deliver an autograph letter from the Cardinal to M. de Maugiron, Lieutenant-General of Dauphiny, in which however there is nothing said of the affair he has at heart (for this he will only trust to be communicated by word of mouth by M. the Vicar to M. the Lieutenant); but appealing to the known zeal of his correspondent for the honour of God and his church, and adding, in anticipation of what he knew would follow, a request that he should immediately summon the Vibailly to his assistance, in order that he, on his part, might undertake what M. the Vicar might see necessary to be done. Two things only are especially to be required of the Vibailly: the one that he use extreme dispatch, the other that the business be kept as secret as possible. Roussillon, March 15, 1553.

Acting at once on the advice of the Cardinal, Maugiron sent to the Vibailly, bidding him hold himself ready to act in a certain unspecified contingency. Next day, March 16, the two Vicars in company with the Vibailly proceeded to the office of the Sieur Peyrolles, Lay official of the Primate, before whom Bautier, as the party immediately interested in virtue of his office, made a deposition to the effect that within the last few days letters had been received from Geneva addressed to a personage resident in Lyons, in which great surprise was expressed that a certain Michael 242 Servetus, otherwise called Villanovanus, should be then living unmolested at Vienne; that four printed leaves of a book written by the said Villanovanus had also been forwarded from Geneva and examined by brother Ory, Inquisitor of the Faith, by whom they had been found heretical; and, to conclude, that the Cardinal Archbishop, having been made acquainted with the matter, had written to M. de Maugiron requesting him to take cognizance of the business with all secrecy and dispatch. Bautier, at the same time, put in the Geneva letter of Trie, and the four leaves of the printed book entitled ‘Christianismi Restitutio,’ in support of his allegations; the letter of the Inquisitor and that of the Cardinal to Maugiron being added as further documents on which the Procurator of the King and the Justiciary were to proceed.

The judicial authorities of Vienne lost no time in obeying their instructions. On the same day they met at the house of M. Maugiron, and having consulted with him, they sent to M. Michel de Villeneuve, desiring his presence and saying they had something to communicate to him. Being from home when the message arrived, and not appearing for a couple of hours, the authorities were fearful that he had been somehow warned of the danger which threatened him and so had fled; but their fears were unfounded: he came at length, and with a perfectly confident air, it is said. The authorities informed him that they had certain informations against him which would make it necessary 243 for them to visit and search his lodgings for books or papers of a heretical tendency. Villeneuve replied that he had lived long at Vienne on good terms with the clergy and professors of theology, and had never until now been suspected of heresy; but he was quite ready to open his rooms to them or those they might delegate, to make what search they pleased.

The Grand Vicar and the Vibailly, accompanied by the Secretary of the Cardinal Governor of Dauphiny, then proceeded with Villeneuve to his apartments, which adjoined and were among the dependencies of the archiepiscopal palace, and made a particular examination of his papers; but they found nothing more compromising than a couple of copies of his apology or pamphlet against the Parisian Doctors, of which they took possession.

Next day, the 17th, the Judges made a perquisition in the house of Arnoullet, the publisher and printer, in his absence, he being away at the time on business at Toulouse; and there also they had Geroult, the superintendent of the printing establishment, brought before them. After a lengthened interrogatory of the foreman, in which nothing was elicited, they proceeded to search the house and printing office, examining Arnoullet’s papers minutely, but without finding a word to compromise him in any way. The workmen on the establishment were then severally examined. They were shown the printed leaves of the ‘Christianismi Restitutio’ and asked if they knew anything of the 244 book of which the leaves were a part; or if they recognised the type, or could give any information as to the books they had had a hand in composing or printing during the last eighteen months or so. But they all agreed in saying that the four leaves shown them had not been printed in the office; and among all the books that had issued from their presses during the last two years, a list of which was supplied, there was not one in the octavo form. The search and inquiry over, the officials had the entire staff of the printing establishment brought into their presence, and cautioned them against saying a word of all they had been asked about, on pain of being declared suspected or even convicted of heresy and punished accordingly.

On the 18th, Arnoullet, having but just returned from Toulouse, was visited and examined; but all the papers about him being found in order and his replies in complete conformity with those of his manager Geroult, he too was dismissed. The authorities found themselves at fault, but by no means satisfied that the information they had had from Geneva was groundless. An adjournment was therefore resolved on, an informal consultation being, however, held meantime at the archiepiscopal palace of Vienne. And it is not perhaps without significance that it is only now that we find the archbishop of Vienne, Pierre Paumier, named in connection with the proceedings, and his palace spoken of as the place of assembly. It was at this moment in fact that Paumier had the first intimation 245 of what was going on. At the meeting it was decided that nothing had been discovered sufficiently positive to warrant the arrest of anyone.

The archbishop of Vienne, once made a party to the proceedings, appears to have taken up the case warmly. The known protector and frequent associate of Villeneuve the physician, he seems to have thought it incumbent on him to show the world that he had no sympathy with heresy, and nothing in common with a suspected heretic. He accordingly wrote immediately to Brother Ory, the Inquisitor, begging him to come to Vienne and have some conversation with him on matters touching the Faith. In the course of the interview which followed, Ory suggested that, in order to have further or more satisfactory information against Villeneuve, Arneys should be made to write again to his relation Trie at Geneva, and ask him to send the whole of the printed book from which the leaves already forwarded had been cut. Returning to Lyons, Ory himself, we must presume, dictated the letter which Arneys was required to write to his cousin Trie. This epistle unhappily has not reached us. It would have been both curious and interesting to have had the Inquisitor of three centuries and a half ago brought so immediately before us, as we should there have had him. But as Ory doubtless led the pen at Lyons, so did Calvin assuredly guide it again at Geneva in reply; and as his letter has been preserved, we come face to face with one who is still more interesting to us than 246 brother Matthew Ory, Inquisitor of the kingdom of France and all the Gauls—with the great head of the Reformed Churches of France and Switzerland, at the zenith of his power, though not without misgivings as to its stability, zealous as brother Ory could have been in upholding the Faith as he apprehended it, and as ruthless as Cardinal Tournon in dealing with all who called it in question. The letter is to the following effect:—

Monsieur mon Cousin!—When I wrote the letter you have thought fit to impart to those who are taxed therein with indifference and neglect, I thought not that the matter would be taken up so seriously as it seems to be. My sole purpose was to show you the fine zeal and devotion of those who call themselves pillars of the Church, suffering as they do such disorder among themselves, yet persecuting so cruelly poor Christians who only desire to obey God in simplicity. As the instance was so notable, however, and I was advised of it, an opportunity presented itself, as I thought, of touching on it, the matter falling, as it seemed, fairly within the scope of my writing. But as you have shown to others the letter I meant for yourself alone, God grant that it tend to purge Christianity of such filth, of pestilence so mortal to man! If your people are really so anxious to look into the matter as you say, there will be no difficulty in furnishing you, besides the printed book you ask for, with documents enough to carry conviction to their minds. For I shall put into your hands some two dozen pieces written by him who is in question, in which some of his heresies are set prominently forth. Did you rely on the printed book by itself, he might deny it as his; but this he could not do if his own handwriting were brought against him. In this way, the parties you speak of, having the thing completely proven, will be without excuse if 247 they hesitate further, or put off taking the steps required. All the pieces I send you now—the great volume as well as the letters in the handwriting of the author—were produced before the printed work; but I have to own to you that I had great difficulty in getting these documents from Mons. Calvin. Not that he would not have such execrable blasphemies put down; but that, as he does not wield the sword of justice himself, he thinks it his duty rather to repress heresy by sound teaching, than to pursue it by force. I importuned him, however, so much, showing him the reproaches I might incur did he not come to my aid, that he consented at length to entrust me with the contents of my parcel to you. For the rest, I hope, when the case shall have been somewhat farther advanced, to obtain from him something like a whole ream of paper, which the fine fellow—le Galand—has had printed. At the moment, I fancy you are furnished with evidence enough, and that there need be no more beating about the bush, before seizing on his person and putting him on his trial. For my own part, I pray God to open the eyes of those who speak of us so evilly, to the end that they may more truly judge of the motives by which we are actuated.

As I learn by your letter that you will not trouble me further with the old proposals, I, on my side, will do nothing to displease you; hoping nevertheless, that God will lead you to see that I have not, without due consideration, taken the step you disapprove. Recommending myself to your favour, and praying God to give you his, &c., I remain,

(Signed) Guillaume Trie.

Geneva, this 26th of March.

The art and purpose so plainly to be seen in the foregoing letter need not be dwelt on. Anxious to 248 escape appearing in the odious light of informer, Calvin was still eager to furnish the zealots of the Church he had quitted himself, and by the heads of which he was looked on as standing in the foremost ranks of heresy, with evidence which he believed would assuredly bring the man he held in despite to a cruel death by fire. But Ory, whose special business was the prosecution of heretics, and who knew much better than Calvin what constituted evidence against them, was aware that the MS. book and the two dozen pieces, written as said by Michael Servetus, were not adequate to convict Michel Villeneuve of the charge against him. Handwriting, it seems, could be put out of court as evidence in cases of heresy, through simple denial on oath by the party accused. The point upon which evidence was particularly required, by Ory and his coadjutors, was in fact the printing of the book entitled the ‘Restoration of Christianity;’ and none of the pieces furnished gave any assurance either that Michel Villeneuve was the writer, or Arnoullet and Geroult the printers of this. Arneys must therefore be desired to write to Cousin Trie once more, and ask him to do his best with M. Calvin to furnish evidence of the kind required. So anxious indeed were Ory and his friends for this, that they despatched this, the third letter of Arneys to Trie, by a special messenger, who was ordered to wait and bring back the answer with all speed.

The answer came in due course, hardly, however, 249 so soon as we can fancy it was looked for, but to the following effect:—

Monsieur mon Cousin!—I had hoped I should satisfy your demands, in essentials at least, by sending you, as I did, the handwriting of the author of the book. With my last letter, indeed, you will find an acknowledgement by the man himself of his real name, which he had disguised, and the excuse he makes for calling himself Villeneuve, when his proper name is Servetus or Revés. For the rest, I promise you, God willing, to furnish you, if need be, not only with the entire book he has just had printed, but with another in his handwriting, in addition to the letters [already forwarded]. I should indeed have already sent the book [in MS.] which I refer to, had it been in this city; but it has been at Lausanne these two years past. Had M. Calvin kept it by him, I believe he would long ago, for all it is worth, have returned it to the writer; but having lent it for perusal to another, it was, as it seems, retained by him. I have formerly heard Monsieur [Calvin] say that, having given answers sufficient to satisfy any reasonable man, to no purpose, he had at length left off reading more of the babble and foolish reveries, of which he soon had had more than enough, there being nothing but reiteration of the same song over and over again. And that you may understand that it is not of yesterday that this unhappy person persists in troubling the Church, striving ever to lead the ignorant into the same confusion as himself, it is now more than twenty-four years since he was rejected and expelled by the chief Churches of Germany; had he remained in that country, indeed, he would never have left it alive. Among the letters of Œcolampadius, you will see that the first and second are addressed to him under his proper name and designation: Serveto Hispano neganti Christum esse Dei Filium, consubstantialem Patri—To Servetus the Spaniard, 250 denying that Christ is the Son of God, consubstantial with the Father. Melanchthon also speaks of him in some passages of his writings. But methinks you have really warrant enough in what is already sent you to dive deeper into the matter, and to put him on his trial. As to the printers of the book, I did not send you the table of contents as any proof that Balthasar Arnoullet and William Geroult, his brother-in-law, were the parties; but of the fact that they were so we are well assured, nor indeed will it be possible for them to deny it. The printing was probably done at the author’s expense, and he may have taken the impression into his own keeping; he must have done so, indeed, if you find it has left the premises of the persons named. I rather think I omitted to say that when you have done with the epistles, I beg you will be good enough to return them to me. And now, commending myself to your good grace, and praying God so to guide you that you may do all that is agreeable in his sight,

I am yours, &c.,
Guillaume Trie.

Geneva, this last day of March, 1553.

It must still be needless to say that neither is this any letter of young Trie. What could he have known of the printed works of Michael Serveto, alias Revés, or of his being condemned by the Churches of Germany—which by the way he never was—or of his expulsion from that country—which is also against the fact? What intimation could he have had that Œcolampadius had written to Servetus, the Spaniard, combating his heresies and that Melanchthon had mentioned him in sundry passages of his work, the ‘Loci communes’? Calvin, on the other hand, was not only well 251 informed of much that had happened to Michael Servetus from the date of their meeting in Paris in 1534, even to the hour in which he was now writing by the hand of William Trie, but was himself the author of some of the statements put into the mouth of that worthy.64 252

CHAPTER XX.

ARREST OF SERVETUS AND ARNOULLET, THE PUBLISHER.—THE TRIAL FOR HERESY AT VIENNE—SERVETUS IS SUFFERED TO ESCAPE FROM PRISON.

April 4. After the receipt of Trie’s third epistle, a solemn council was convened within the Archiepiscopal Château of Roussillon, at which were present the Cardinal Tournon, the Archbishop of Vienne, the two Grand Vicars, the Inquisitor Ory, and many Ecclesiastics and Doctors in Divinity. There and then the letters of Trie, the printed leaves of the ‘Christianismi Restitutio,’ and more than twenty epistles addressed to John Calvin, were examined with every care and attention, all being reported the work of Michael Servetus, alias Revés, living at Vienne under the assumed name of Michel Villeneuve. The documents being held of the most seriously compromising character, the Cardinal Archbishop of Lyons and the Archbishop of Vienne, with the concurrence of the whole assembly, now gave orders for the arrest of Michel Villeneuve, Physician, and Balthasar Arnoullet, bookseller, to answer for their faith on certain charges and informations to be laid against them. 253

The Archbishop of Vienne returned home in the afternoon in company with his Grand Vicar, Arzelier, and having summoned the Vibailly de la Cour to the Palace, informed him of the resolutions come to and the pleasure of the Cardinal. In order that nothing might transpire, and no understanding be come to between the parties incriminated, the Vicar and Vibailly agreed so to arrange matters that Villeneuve and Arnoullet should be arrested at the same moment, but imprisoned separately. The Vibailly accordingly proceeded to the house of Arnoullet, and having sent in a message desiring him to bring a copy of the New Testament but just printed, Arnoullet was arrested on the spot, and carried off to the Archiepiscopal prison. Proceeding next to the house of M. de Maugiron, the Lieutenant-Governor of Dauphiny, then indisposed, and on whom it was known that Doctor Villeneuve was in attendance, the Vibailly informed the Doctor that there were several prisoners sick and some wounded in the hospital of the royal prison who required his services, as was indeed the case. Doctor Villeneuve replied that independently of his profession making it imperative on him immediately to obey such a summons, he still took pleasure in being so usefully employed. He therefore went at once; and whilst engaged in his visit, the Vibailly sent requesting the presence of the Grand Vicar. On his arrival Villeneuve was informed that certain charges having been made and informations laid against him, he must consent to 254 hold himself a prisoner until he had given satisfactory answers to the questions that would be put to him. The gaoler, Anton Bonin, was then summoned and enjoined to guard the prisoner strictly, but to treat him respectfully, according to his quality. He was to be allowed his personal attendant or valet, Benoît Perrin, a lad fifteen years of age, to wait on him; and his friends were to have free access to him.

April 5. Archbishop Paumier now hastened to inform Brother Ory, the inquisitor, that they had Villeneuve in custody, and begged him to come immediately to Vienne. Ory, like a vulture swooping on the carcass, is said to have made such haste—pressa tellement sa monture—that he arrived in an incredibly short space of time at Vienne. As it was then about the hour of the midday meal, however, the Archbishop and he, thinking it well to recruit the inward man before entering on the serious business they had on hand, sate themselves quietly down to table and dined. The cravings of nature satisfied, Arzelier the Vicar-General, and De la Cour the Vibailly of Vienne, were summoned to the Palace—the secular in aid of the spiritual arm—and the party proceeded to the prison.

Having had Michel Villeneuve, sworn physician, and now prisoner at their instance, brought before them in the Criminal Court of the Palace, they proceeded to question him on matters of which they at the moment knew more than he, though we may well believe his fears pointed in the true direction. 255 Informing the prisoner, as a preliminary, that he was bound to answer truthfully to the interrogatories put to him, which he promised to do, he was then sworn on the Gospels and asked his name, his age, his place of birth, and his profession.

His name, he replied, was Michel Villeneuve, doctor in medicine, forty-four years of age, and a native of Tudela, in the kingdom of Navarre, residing for the present, as he had done during the last twelve years or thereabouts, at Vienne.

Asked where and in what places he had lived since he left his native country; he said that some seven or eight and twenty years ago, before the Emperor Charles V. left Spain for Italy, in view of his coronation, he had entered the service of brother John Quintana, the Confessor of the Emperor, being then no more than fifteen or sixteen years old; that he had gone to Italy in the suite of the Emperor, and been present at his coronation at Bologna. That he then accompanied Quintana to Germany, in which country he resided for about a year, when his patron died; since which time he had lived without a master, first at Paris, having had lodgings in the Collége de Calvi, and then in the Collége des Lombards, engaged in the study of Mathematics. From Paris he had gone to Lyons, and spent some time between that city and Avignon, but had finally settled at Charlieu, where, having lived practising his profession, for about three years, he had finally been induced by Messeigneurs the Archbishop of 256 Vienne and the Archbishop of Maurice, to quit Charlieu and establish himself at Vienne, in which city, as said, he had lived since then to the present time.

Asked whether he had not had several books printed for him? he replied that at Paris he had a book printed, the title of which was: Syruporum universa ratio ad Galeni censuram disposita—a treatise on Syrups according to the principles of Galen; and a pamphlet entitled: In Leonartum Fussinum, Apologia pro Symphoriano Campeggio—an apologetic address to Leonard Fuchs for Symphorian Campeccius. He had further edited and annotated the ‘Geography of Ptolemy.’ Other than these, the works now named, he had written none, nor had he had any others printed for him; but he admitted that he had corrected the text of many more, without adding to them anything of his own, or taking from them anything of their writers.

Being now shown two sheets of paper, printed on both sides and having marginal annotations in writing, and admonished that the matter of the writing might bring him into trouble, he was informed, further, that he, if he were the writer, might be able to explain or to say in what sense he understood what was there set down. One of the propositions in the writing was particularly pointed out to this effect: Justificantur ergo Parvuli sine Christi fide, prodigium, monstrum dæmonum!—Infants therefore are justified without faith in Christ, a prodigy, a portent of devils! and he was informed that if he understood the words to say that 257 infants had not by their regeneration [through baptism, understood] received the perfect grace of Christ and so were acquitted of Adam’s sin, this would be to contemn Christ. He was therefore required to declare how he understood the words. He replied that he firmly believed that the grace of Christ, imparted by baptism, overcame the sin of Adam, as St. Paul declares (Rom. v.): ‘Where sin abounds there doth grace more abound;’ and that infants are saved without faith acquired, but through faith then infused by the Holy Ghost.

Having shown him how necessary it was that he should alter several words in the written matter, he promised to do so, saying however that he was not prepared at a moment’s notice to say whether the writing was his or not. It was very long, indeed, since he had written anything. On examining the character particularly, however, he now thinks it must be his. In all that concerns the faith he yet begs to say that he submits himself entirely to his holy mother the Church, from whose teachings he has never wished to swerve. If there be some things in the papers before the Court open to objection, he believes he must have written them inconsiderately, or only advanced them as subjects for discussion. He then goes on to say that, having now looked closely at the writing on the two leaves, he acknowledges it as his, having the opportunity at the same time of explaining the sense in which he would have it understood. If there were anything else, he 258 concluded, that was found objectionable or that savoured of false doctrine, he was ready on having it pointed out to him to alter and amend it. The two leaves paged from 421 to 424, and treating of baptism,65 were then ordered to be marked by the clerk of the Court, and with the other papers produced, to be taken under his charge; after which the sitting was suspended.

April 6. Sworn as before upon the Gospels to speak the truth (and from what we know and have just seen feeling assured how indifferently he had hitherto kept his word), Villeneuve was further interrogated as follows: 1st. How he understands a proposition in an epistle numbered xv., wherein the Living Faith and the Dead Faith are treated of in terms that seem perfectly Catholic, and wholly opposed to the errors of Geneva, the words being these, Mori autem sensim dicitur in nobis Fides quando tolluntur vestimenta—now faith dies perceptibly in us when its vestments are thrown off? To this he answered that he believed the vestments of faith to be works of charity and mercy. 2nd. Shown another epistle, numbered xvi., on Free will, in opposition to those who hold that the will is not free, he is asked how he understands what is there said? With tears in his eyes he replies, ‘Sirs, these letters were written when I was in Germany, now some five and twenty years ago, when there was printed in that country a book by a certain Servetus, 259 a Spaniard; but from what part of Spain I know not, neither do I know in what part of Germany he dwelt, though I have heard say that it was at Agnon (Hagenau in Elsass), four leagues from Strasburg, that the book in question was printed. Having read it when I was very young—not more than fifteen or sixteen—I thought that the writer said many things that were good, that were better treated by him, indeed, than by others.’ Quitting Germany for France, without taking any books with him, Villeneuve went on to say, that he had gone to Paris with a view to study mathematics and medicine, and had lived there, as already said, for some years. Whilst residing there, having heard Monsieur Calvin spoken of as a learned man, he had, out of curiosity, and without knowing him personally, entered into correspondence with him, but begged him to hold his letters as private and confidential—sub sigillo secreti. ‘I, on my part,’ he proceeds, ‘seeking brotherly correction, as it were, but saying that if he could not wean me from my opinions or I wean him from his, I should not feel myself bound to accept his conclusions. On which I proposed certain weighty questions for discussion. He replied to me shortly after, and seeing that my questions were to the same effect as those discussed by Servetus, he said that I must myself be Servetus. To this I answered that, though I was not Servetus, nevertheless, and that I might continue the discussion, I was content for the time to personate Servetus, and should reply, 260 as I believed he would have done, not caring for what he might please to think of me, but only that we might debate our views and opinions with freedom. With this understanding we interchanged many letters, but finally fell out, got angry, and began to abuse each other. Matters having come to this pass, I ceased writing, and for ten years or so I have neither heard from him nor he from me. And here, gentlemen, I protest before God and before you all, that I had no will to dogmatise, or to substitute aught of mine that might be found adverse to the Church or the Christian Religion.’

The prisoner being shown a third epistle numbered xvii., on the Baptism of Infants, in which he says, ‘Parvuli carnis non sunt capaces doni Spiritus—Infants as mere carnal beings are incapable of receiving the gift of the Spirit,’—was desired to say in what sense he meant these words to be taken. He answered that he had formerly been of opinion that infants were incompetent in the matter, as stated; but that he had long given up such an opinion and now desired to range himself with the teaching of the Church. Shown a fourth epistle, numbered xviii., its heading or argument being, ‘Of the Trinity, and the Generation of the Son of God, according to Servetus,’ he acknowledged it as having been written by him in the course of his discussion with Calvin, when he was assuming the part of Servetus; but as he had said of the former letter, No. xvii., so he says of this, that he does not now believe what is there set down, everything in the 261 letter having only been propounded to learn what Calvin might have to advance in opposition to the views set forth. A fifth letter, the burden of which is, ‘Of the glorified flesh of Christ absorbed in the Glory of the Deity more fully than it was at the Transfiguration,’ being handed to him, he said that when he addressed his correspondent on this subject, he felt at greater liberty than usual to say all he thought of it individually, and was now ready to answer any question put to him bearing upon it. None, however, were asked.

But the letters to Calvin were not yet done with. A whole bundle of them, fourteen in number, was exhibited, and the prisoner informed that the judges found much matter there for which very particular answers would be required. Having looked at the letters, the prisoner said he saw that they were all addressed to Calvin long ago, and with a view to learn from him what he thought of the questions raised, as already said. But he added that he was by no means now disposed to abide by all he had written of old, save and except in respect of such views as might be approved by the Church and his Judges. He was therefore ready to answer to each particular head on which he might be interrogated. This the Judges proposed to do at their next meeting, and meantime having ordered a schedule of the principal points upon which there appeared to be error against the faith to be drawn up from the writings, all the documents being duly 262 labelled and signed, the session was suspended until the morrow.

Immediately after the second interrogatory to which he was subjected, Servetus on his return to prison sent his servant Perrin to the Monastery of St. Pierre to ask the Grand Prior if he had received the 300 crowns owing to him—Villeneuve by M. St. André. The money having been received, was remitted by the hands of Perrin to his master. Had Servetus put off his message to the Prior but for an hour, he would have lost his money, the Inquisitor Ory having given fresh orders to the gaoler to guard M. Villeneuve very strictly, and to suffer him to see and have speech of no one without his—the Inquisitor’s express permission. Ory, we may presume, had not only no favour for Servetus, but, with so much against him as already appeared, could have had little doubt of bringing conviction home to him and so having him sent in smoke as an acceptable sacrifice to heaven. But Villeneuve had friends among his other judges who were every way disposed to aid him, if it were possible. Matters certainly looked very black indeed: Michel Villeneuve was plainly Michael Servetus of evil theological reputation; flagrant heresy was already manifest in the documents produced, and his answers to the interrogatories were so little satisfactory that acquittal from the charges laid against him, even at the outset of the process, seemed out of the question. The judges, however, were not all Brother Orys nor Cardinal Tournons, 263 though most of them were churchmen, and, to their honour, both tolerant and merciful in circumstances where their creed prescribed intolerance and deadening of the heart to pity. Servetus had however to be sent back to his prison; but the door of the cage might be left open and the bird allowed to fly. And everything leads to the conclusion that this was exactly what was done.

Connected with the prison there was a garden having a raised terrace looking on to the court of the palace of justice; and, abutting on the garden wall, a shed, by the roof of which and a projecting buttress on the other side a descent into the court-yard of the palace could easily be made. The garden as a rule was kept shut, but prisoners above the common in station were permitted to use it for exercise and also for occasions of nature. Having enjoyed this privilege from the first, Servetus appears to have scrutinised everything in the afternoon of April 6, after the conclusion of his second examination. On the morning of the seventh he rose at four o’clock and asked the gaoler, whom he found afoot and going out to tend his vines, for the key of the garden. The man, seeing his prisoner in velvet cap and dressing-gown, not aware that he was completely dressed and had his hat under his robe de chambre, gave him the key and went out shortly afterwards to his work. Servetus, on his part, when he thought the coast must be clear, left his black velvet cap and furred dressing-gown at the foot of a tree, leaped from 264 the terrace on to the roof of the outhouse and from that, without breaking any bones, gained the open court of the Palais de Justice Dauphinal. Thence he made for the gate of the Pont du Rhône, which was at no great distance from the prison and passed into the Lyonnais—these latter facts being by and by deposed to by a peasant woman who had met him. Two hours or more elapsed before his escape became known in the prison, the gaoler’s wife having been the first to discover it. She in her zeal and alarm committed a hundred extravagances; and in her vexation tore her hair, beat her children, her servants, and some of the prisoners who chanced to come in her way. Her rage that anyone should have had the audacity to break the dauphinal prison of Vienne, of which her husband was custodier, was such, that she even ran the risk of her life by clambering to the roof of a neighbouring house, in her eagerness to find traces of the fugitive.

The authorities, informed of what had happened, did all that became them, ordering the gates of the town to be shut and more carefully guarded than usual through the next few days and nights. Proclamation was made by sound of trumpet and beat of drum, and almost every house not only of the town, but of the neighbouring villages, was visited. The magistrates of Lyons and other towns, in which it was thought probable their late prisoner might have taken refuge, were written to by the Vienne authorities and inquiries made whether or not he had money in the bank, or had drawn 265 out any he might have had there. His apartments were again visited, and all his papers, furniture and effects inventoried and put under the seal of justice.

In the town of Vienne it was generally thought that the Vibailly De la Cour had been the active party in favouring the evasion of Villeneuve. He was known to be intimate with the doctor, who had lately carried his daughter successfully through a long and dangerous illness, and had been loud in praise of the skill and devotion that had been shown with so happy a result. Chorier,66 the historian of Dauphiny, hints guardedly at something of the kind when he speaks of the imprisonment of M. Villeneuve on religious grounds. ‘It fell out,’ says Chorier, ‘that by his own ingenuity and the assistance of his friends, M. Villeneuve escaped from confinement.’

In the record of proceedings after the flight the only thing mentioned is the fact of the gaoler having given the prisoner the key of the garden; on all else there is absolute silence; whence, as D’Artigny says, we may infer that there is mystery of some sort connected with the escape. We, for our part, should have no difficulty in finding a key to the mystery, had there been fewer grounds for the presumption of friendly connivance than there undoubtedly were in the business. John Calvin, arch-heretic in the eyes of the Gallic Church and its heads, could not, we must 266 presume, have been held in the highest possible esteem by the Cardinal Archbishop of Lyons, to say nothing of brother Mathias Ory, Inquisitor of the king of France and all the Gauls. But the arrest of Villeneuve and the proceedings against him thus far, had depended entirely on information supplied by the Reformer of Geneva.

The managers of the process against Servetus were men much too astute, much too clear-sighted not to see that it was John Calvin who was writing under the mask of William Trie; and one among them at least may have known that the state of feeling between the Reformer of Geneva and the Physician of Vienne had long been such that he of Geneva might not be indisposed to make use of them to wreak his vengeance against a personal enemy under the guise of a common heretic. The Judges indeed must all have seen from the letters of Villeneuve to Calvin that the two men were at daggers-drawn, and that the provocation on either part was neither new nor slight, but of long standing, and, judging by his present attitude, on Calvin’s side deadly. We can fancy brother Mathias Ory chuckling over the sweet simplicity of the Viennese mediciner’s sorry subterfuge in pretending to enact the part of ‘Servetus the Spaniard, though he was no such personage, and knew nothing of the place in Spain where he was born!’

The authorities of Vienne, however, had no desire to have their friend Villeneuve burned alive for heresy on 267 testimony gratuitously supplied by the arch-heretic of Geneva, and thereby give him, whom they hated and feared far more than a thousand lay schismatics, a triumph not only over an enemy, but over themselves, for their lack of insight and zeal as guardians of the only saving faith. And then, and in addition to all this, there was Monseigneur Paumier to be considered—Paumier, under whose patronage Villeneuve had settled at Vienne and lived so long in the very shadow of the archiepiscopal palace, on terms of intimacy with its distinguished occupant. How should the great man escape suspicion of heresy himself if it were known that he had been living as a friend with one who held all the most holy mysteries of the Roman Religion as mere vanities or inventions of the Devil! The man had lived, it is true, long and peaceably among them, respected in his life and trusted in his calling; and if Calvin found heresy and to spare in his writings against the tenets which he as well as they held in common, they discovered outpourings enough there against Predestination and Election by the Grace of God, Effectual calling, Justification by Faith, and the rest, that formed the groundwork of the objectionable doctrines both of Luther and Calvin. If M. the Vibailly De la Cour connived at the escape of Villeneuve, and that he did there can hardly be a doubt, we may be well assured that he acted with the concurrence of his more immediate associates in the administration of justice—lay and clerical. The Vibailly remained unchallenged in his office; the gaoler was not 268 dismissed, and Arnoullet the printer, for the present at least, was set at liberty. Nothing of all this could have happened had Justice not consented to be hoodwinked. The gaoler’s wife, in fact, seems to have been the only person in downright earnest in the business of the escape. 269

CHAPTER XXI.

DISCOVERY OF ARNOULLET’S PRIVATE PRINTING ESTABLISHMENT—SEIZURE AND BURNING OF THE ‘CHRISTIANISMI RESTITUTIO’ ALONG WITH THE EFFIGY OF ITS AUTHOR.

The remainder of the month of April was spent in making a renewed and more particular examination of the books, papers, and letters of Villeneuve, and in having copies made of the letters addressed to Calvin, the originals of which were placed for safe custody under the official seals. And here, if our surmises be well founded: that the authorities of Vienne had really no wish, on testimony supplied by Calvin, to convict of heresy a man who had always comported himself as a good Catholic and still professed himself a true son of the Church, every way disposed to receive instruction and bow to the decisions of those who must know so much better than himself what was the true saving faith—the matter would probably have ended, in so far as those of Vienne were concerned. But Ory, the Inquisitor, nowise anxious like the others to hush up so promising an affair, had by some means been informed in the beginning of the month of May that 270 there had been a couple of presses kept at work away from the proper printing establishment of Arnoullet.

Of this significant fact, no mention had been made either by Villeneuve or Arnoullet on their examination, and whence Ory had the intimation we are left to conjecture. There seems hardly room for doubt, however, that it reached him through the old channel, viz., Arneys; that Arneys had the news he gave to Ory from Trie, and that Trie had the tale he told from Calvin. Frelon, as we have seen, must have been in the secret of Servetus, and Frelon was also the friend of Calvin; from Frelon alone could Calvin have had the particular information he shows he possessed concerning the terms on which the ‘Christianismi Restitutio’ was printed; and it was only from Calvin that Trie could have obtained intelligence of the kind he communicates to his relative Arneys of Lyons. The process against Servetus, as we know, began from Lyons; and from Lyons was it now resuscitated. But who living there was so likely to have heard of a printing press worked privately at Vienne, twelve miles away, as he who had all he knew about the heretic Villeneuve from Geneva, and had been the instrument in setting on foot the movement that was now to proceed to more disastrous issues?

With the new and important hint but just received, Ory sped off to Vienne from Lyons, his head-quarters; and he may possibly have used even greater diligence on this occasion than he did before when he is said to 271 have spurred his steed so vigorously. Summoning the Vibailly and Grand Vicar to his side, the three proceeded immediately to the premises that had been indicated as the private printing place of the publisher Arnoullet; and entering, sure enough, they found three compositors at work, Straton, Du Bois, and Papillon by name. It is not difficult to imagine the terror of these men at the sight of such visitors. Before proceeding to interrogate them severally, the Inquisitor took care to address them generally on the enormity of the crime of which he assumed they had been guilty, and to say that they deserved the severest punishment for having withheld the important information they could have supplied. When proceedings were commenced against their master and M. Villeneuve, he said, they must be aware that it had been specially enjoined upon all and sundry, under pain of being dealt with as heretics, to communicate whatever they knew about the book, which he declared they must have known to be written by Villeneuve and printed by their master Arnoullet. Stretching a point, as we may imagine, he told the men further, that he had proofs in his hands that they were the very parties who had worked at the composition and printing of the book in question. He now, therefore, exhorted them to speak the truth and to ask pardon if they had been guilty or hoped for favour, the authorities he added, indeed, intending correction, not punishment.

The workmen, terribly alarmed, fell as with one 272 accord upon their knees, and Straton, speaking for himself and the others, owned that they had printed an octavo volume entitled ‘Christianismi Restitutio,’ but were not aware that it contained heretical doctrines, being ignorant of the Latin language in which it was written, and never having heard that it did, until after the prosecution had been set on foot. He informed his questioner further that he and his associates had been steadily engaged on the book from the feast of St. Michael to January 3 last—over three months—when the printing was completed; yet more, that they had not dared to give information of their part in the business for fear of being burned alive; and to conclude, they now sought forgiveness, and threw themselves on the mercy of the authorities. More particularly questioned, Straton said that Michel de Villeneuve had had the book in question printed at his own expense, and had corrected the proofs in person. To end the tale, and he may have thought to make amends for his past silence, he said further that on January 13 he had despatched five bales of the book to the care of Pierre Merrin, typefounder, of Lyons.

Delighted with the great discovery just made, inasmuch as they would now have grounds of their own to proceed upon, the three associates hastened to communicate the information they had acquired to the Archbishop of Vienne, who in turn imparted it to Cardinal Tournon. Next day the Inquisitor Ory and the Grand Vicar Arzelier set off for Lyons. Proceeding 273 at once to the establishment of Pierre Merrin, they questioned him as to what he knew of the business, and particularly about certain bales, five in number, that had lately come into his possession and were believed to contain heretical books. Merrin, having no motive for concealment, informed his visitors that about four months back he had received by the canal boat of Vienne five bales with the following address: From M. Michel de Villeneuve, doctor in medicine, these five bales, to be delivered to Pierre Merrin, typefounder, near Notre Dame de Confort, Lyons. On the day the bales were received, he added, a priest of Vienne, Jacques Charmier by name, had come to him and requested him to keep the bales until called for, saying that they contained nothing but printing-paper. From the time named, however, he had heard nothing from the sender, neither had anyone called to enquire after the bales or to take them away; and for his part he knew not whether they contained white paper for printing as said, or printed books as now alleged.

Having finished their interrogatory and seen the bales, the Inquisitor and Vicar made no scruple about seizing them in the name of the public authorities. Carrying them off at once, they were taken to Vienne and deposited in a room of the Archiepiscopal palace.

The priest Charmier was of course the next person visited and questioned. He persistently denied all knowledge of the contents of the bales which he, as he was proceeding to Lyons, recommended to the care of 274 Merrin, at the request of M. Villeneuve. The mere act of the poor priest, however, and his known intimacy with Villeneuve, were held to have compromised him to such an extent that he was put on his trial some time afterwards, and sentenced to imprisonment for three years!

The bales once safe in the Archiepiscopal palace of Vienne, were speedily undone, and there, sure enough, as Straton had said, five hundred copies of the ‘Christianismi Restitutio,’ complete, were displayed to the eager eyes of the lookers-on. A single copy was abstracted and given to Ory, to enable him at his leisure to extract and take exception to such passages as he might deem heretical; the rest were left in safe custody under the palace roof.

Every information up to June 17—for so long had it taken to get at the facts as they have been stated—having now been acquired, and the proofs in the process being held complete, the Vibailly of Vienne, in a session of the Court duly summoned, and in the absence of Michel de Villeneuve, proceeded to pass sentence on him, finding him attainted and convicted of the crimes and misdemeanours laid to his charge, viz., Scandalous Heresy and Dogmatisation; Invention of New Doctrines; Writing heretical books; Disturbance of the public peace; Rebellion against the King; Disobedience of the ordinances touching heresy, and Breach of the Royal Prison of Vienne. ‘For reparation of the crimes and misdeeds set forth,’ said the 275 Judge, ‘we condemn him, and he is hereby condemned, to pay a fine of 1000 livres Tournois to the King of Dauphiny; and further, as soon as he can be apprehended, to be taken, together with his books, on a tumbril or dust-cart to the place of public execution, and there burned alive by a slow fire until his body is reduced to ashes.’ The sentence now delivered, moreover, is ordered to be carried out forthwith on an effigy of the incriminated Villeneuve, which is to be publicly burned along with the five bales of the book in question, the fugitive being further condemned to pay the charges of justice, his goods and chattels being seized and confiscated, to the advantage of anyone showing just claims to the proceeds, the fine and expenses of the trial, as aforesaid, having been first duly discharged.

On the same day about noon the effigy of Villeneuve, made by the executioner of the High Court of Justice, having been put upon a tumbril along with the bales of the book, was paraded through the streets of Vienne, brought to the place of public execution, hanged upon a gibbet erected for the purpose, and finally set fire to, and with the five bales burned to ashes.

The matter, however, did not rest here; it was not yet concluded in all its parts. The secular arm had done what was required of it, having burned the criminal in effigy, failing his person, along with his heretical book; but the ecclesiastical authorities must also have their say in the case. When the utterance came, and it came not until six months after the civil 276 trial and sham execution, it was in every particular confirmatory of the sentence already delivered, the grounds of the decision however being gone into with greater minuteness than before. Among other matters particularly mentioned now, are the marginal notes in the handwriting of the culprit on two printed leaves, cut out of a copy of Calvin’s ‘Institutions;’ Seventeen letters addressed to John Calvin and acknowledged by Villeneuve to be from him; his answers to the Inquisitor Ory, the Vibailly, and the rest, and the minutes which had been made of his escape from the prison; finally, his books, one entitled ‘Christianismi Restitutio,’ and another in two parts: ‘De Trinitatis Erroribus, Libri septem,’ and ‘De Trinitate, Dialogi duo.’ ‘From all that has been brought to light,’ the judgment proceeds, ‘it is made manifest that the said Villeneuve is a most egregious heretic, and as such is hereby adjudged, convicted and condemned, his body to be burned, and his goods to be confiscated, the judicial expenses incurred and yet to be incurred to be defrayed out of the proceeds of the sale.’ All the books written by Villeneuve are further ordered to be diligently searched for, and wherever found, to be seized and burned.

It is not unimportant to notice that Arnoullet, the publisher and printer, is associated with Servetus in this ecclesiastical judgment. ‘The said Villeneuve and Balthazar Arnoullet are attainted and to be held conjoined in the sentence because of their complicity and connection.’ Arnoullet however was more mercifully 277 dealt with than Villeneuve; he was not condemned to be burned alive; neither did he suffer imprisonment for any great length of time, but was by and by set at liberty on giving security for his good behaviour in future. If Charmier, the priest, was sentenced to incarceration for three years, having, as far as we know, done nothing more than deliver a message from Villeneuve to Merrin the type-founder, we might have imagined that Arnoullet would scarcely have escaped with so little scath; for to have aided and abetted in the printing of such a book as that entitled the ‘Restoration of Christianity,’ which impugned the system that placed the whole of his judges—Cardinal Tournon, Archbishop Paumier, Ory, Arzelier, and the rest—in positions of affluence and influence, could only have been looked upon as a crime little less heinous than that of which the author of the book himself had been guilty. But Charmier was known to have been on friendly terms with Villeneuve; and Paumier may have guessed what that implied; for let us not forget that all we speak of came to pass shortly after Giovanni de Medici, under the title of Leo X., had been Pope; and that if the Reformation had more well-wishers in France than dared to proclaim themselves, Scepticism too, and of the deepest dye, was at the same time rife in high places. The poor priest Charmier, however, being of the rank and file only, must pay for having meddled; but let us hope that Archbishop Paumier interfered in due season and succeeded in greatly abridging the term of his imprisonment. 278 279

BOOK II.
SERVETUS IN GENEVA, FACE TO FACE WITH CALVIN. 280

Ioanis Calvinus

281

CHAPTER I.

SERVETUS REACHES GENEVA—DETAINED THERE, HE IS ARRESTED AT THE INSTANCE OF CALVIN.

Escaped from the Dauphinal prison of Vienne, Servetus must, in all likelihood, have found hiding at first with friends in Lyons. But there, as indeed anywhere else in France, his life was in imminent danger; so that for his own sake, as well as that of his friends, terribly compromised by his presence, he had to seek safety at a distance—even in another country. Nor was it present safety only that was in question: the means of living in time to come had further to be thought of. But master of a profession that is welcome everywhere, he may have had little anxiety on that score; and he who had lived so long unmolested as Villeneuve or Villanovanus, after compromising himself as Serveto, alias Revés, would have been at no loss to find another name to shield him from recognition. His first thoughts carried him in the direction of Spain, but he found so many difficulties from the French gendarmerie, that he turned back; believing then that the best course he could follow would be to betake himself to Naples, where he knew there was a large 282 settled population of his own countrymen, among whom he would find a sufficient field for the exercise of his calling.

Calvin—erroneously beyond question—speaks of Servetus having wandered for four months in Italy after his escape from the prison of Vienne. Had he reached Italian ground at this time, he would not have returned upon Geneva, and then—presuming that he escaped Calvin’s further pursuit—he might have lived, usefully engaged, to a good old age, and died quietly in his bed. Servetus arrived in Switzerland from the side of France, and must have been in hiding in that country, or wandering about in disguise from place to place between April 7, the date of his evasion from Vienne, and the middle of July when he reached Geneva. The hue and cry from Vienne was probably not of a kind to be heard afar; they who left the prison door open may have seen to that—Servetus indeed says himself that they did. It was not such, at all events, as to prevent his baffling pursuit and escaping recognition: for he entered Geneva in safety; and feeling the soil of a state beneath his feet where other than Roman Catholic views of religion prevailed, he could hardly have thought that he would suffer molestation did he but keep quiet during the day or two he meant to remain in order to rest and recruit.

The experience Servetus had had so lately must have satisfied him that he could hope for nothing from the forbearance of Calvin; but he did not mean to put 283 this to the test: his business was to make no noise, and to be gone as quickly as possible. Though he had made the latter part of his journey on horseback, the usual mode of locomotion in those days, he even deemed it prudent, as less likely to attract attention, to enter Geneva on foot. He therefore discharged his steed at Louyset, a village a few miles distant, where he passed the night, and reached the city in the early morning of some day after the middle of July, 1553. Putting up at a small hostelry on the banks of the lake, having the sign of the Rose, he appears to have lain there privily and unchallenged for nearly a month.

What could have induced Servetus to linger in a place where we see, from the precautions he took both in arriving and subsequently, that he could not have thought himself safe, long remained a mystery; but is cleared up in a great measure by the information we obtain through the particulars of the trial to which he was immediately subjected, and of which it is only of late years that a full and entirely satisfactory account has been obtained. We were disposed, at one time, to ascribe the delay in setting out for Italy to the fascination which the strong have over the weak, and to imagine that our wanderer was still anxious for the personal interview with Calvin he had formerly sought, but been forced to forego, in Paris, and for which, as we learn by the letter of Calvin to his friend Farel, he had made fresh proposals at a later date.67 He was 284 now aware, however, that it was by Calvin he had been denounced to the authorities of Lyons and Vienne, arrested in consequence, put upon his trial, and only saved his life by escaping from prison. He could not possibly, therefore, have flattered himself that the man who was so disposed towards him would receive him in any friendly mood; though it probably never came into his mind to imagine that the Reformer would be disposed to take the knife in hand himself.

As we now read the tale, we perceive that Servetus’s presence in Geneva could not have been unknown to all in the city, even from the day of his arrival; and our persuasion is, that for some time at least he was kept there against his will. On his trial we find him stating, incidentally, that the windows of the room he occupied at the Rose had been nailed up! What interpretation can possibly be put on this? The nailing up could not have been done to keep anyone out of a place of public entertainment. It was therefore to keep someone in. Servetus must in fact have been anxious from the first to be gone; but he was detained by certain parties in Geneva, not among the number of Calvin’s friends, who thought to make political capital out of his presence among them.

Nor were it hard to imagine that he, smarting as he then was under the sense of all that had but just befallen him through the interference of the Reformer, and listening for the moment to the influential persons who promised him support, and possibly redress, was not altogether 285 indisposed to pay his enemy back for the irreparable injury he had suffered at his hands. But there is nothing in all we know of Michael Servetus that leads us for a moment to think of him as a revengeful man; and though he may have lent an ear for a while to the suggestions of his new friends, he must soon have come to conceive misgivings as to the real meaning of their attentions.

Even whilst lying hidden in his inn he could hardly have failed, after a while, to learn something of the state of political partisanship prevalent in the theocratic republican city of Geneva, and so have been more than ever anxious to be gone. Hence the nailing up of his chamber windows. On Sunday, August 13, he had even spoken to the landlord of the ‘Rose’ to procure him a boat for the morrow, to take him by the Lake as far as possible on his way to Zürich. But his resolution to delay his departure no longer was taken too late. Weary of confinement, and always piously disposed, he ventured imprudently to show himself at the evening service of a neighbouring church; and being there recognised, intimation of his presence in Geneva was conveyed to Calvin, who, without loss of a moment, and in spite of the sacredness of the day, denounced him to one of the Syndics, and demanded his immediate arrest.

To effect this in the city of Geneva of the year of grace 1553 was no matter of difficulty, little being made in those days of seizing on the person, and not 286 much of taking the life. The accredited officer, armed with a warrant, found Servetus in his inn; informed him he was to consider himself a prisoner; led him away, and threw him into the common jail of the town. 287

CHAPTER II.

GENEVA AND THE STATE OF POLITICAL PARTIES AT THE DATE OF SERVETUS’S ARREST.

‘The year 1553,’ says Beza, in his life of Calvin, ‘by the impatience and fury of the factious, was a year so full of trouble that not only was the Church, but the Republic of Geneva, within a hair’s breadth of being wrecked and lost; all power had fallen into the hands of the wicked (i.e., the patriotic party of freethought, opposed to Calvin, and designated the Libertines), that it seemed as though they were on the point of attaining the ends for which they had so long been striving.’ Eighteen years had then elapsed since the Reformation first found footing in Geneva, and twelve since Calvin had resumed his position—interrupted during a period of two years—as a sort of spiritual dictator—‘the Lycurgus of a Christian Democracy’—not only as Organiser of the Faith, and Minister in the Church, but as regulator and supervisor of the morals and manners of the people.

The Reformation, in so far as Geneva was concerned, seems to have been hailed on political much more than on religious grounds. Emancipation from 288 the yoke of the Roman Catholic bishop, under which its citizens had long fretted, meant escape from the political machinations, through the Priest, of France on the one hand, of Savoy on the other. The change from Romanism to Protestantism appears to have been due, in fact, to no particular discontent of the Genevese with the old Popish forms, or to any zeal for the new doctrines of Luther and his followers, but to a cherished hope of being suffered to pass their lives with as little control as might be from authority of any kind, and that little imposed and administered by themselves.

Moral discipline was notoriously lax over Europe in the early years of the sixteenth century, nowhere perhaps more so than at Geneva; and the liberty after which its people sighed was often understood as license rather than as life within the limits of moral law. Accident, however, having brought John Calvin, already a man of mark, to Geneva in the course of the year 1536, he was seized upon by William Farel, then in principal charge of the spiritual concerns of the city, and yielding to his most urgent entreaties—conjured, indeed, in the name of God, to remain and aid in the work of the Reformation—Calvin consented to cast in his lot with the Genevese, still jubilant over their lately recovered liberties and little amenable to discipline of any kind.

A more unlikely conjunction of elements can hardly be conceived than that of the ascetic, gloomy Calvin 289 with the lively, self-indulgent Genevese, to whom life meant present enjoyment, and religion a pleasant addition to existence on festivals and Sundays, to be put off and on with their holiday garments and less to be thought of than the next excursion to the mountains in summer, or the approaching assembly for merriment and the dance in winter.

To Calvin life and its import wore a totally different aspect. To him the present was but a prelude to the future, a discipline preparing for eternity, and religion therefore the great end and aim of existence. Anchorite himself in the truest sense of the word, he would possibly have had herbs the food, the crystal spring the drink of the community. Fatalist too to a great extent through his doctrine of election and predestination, the joys of life—if life perchance had any joys—and its trials—and they were many, were to be taken with like passiveness and equanimity. Even the inclemencies of the seasons, as dispensations of providence, were not to be over-anxiously guarded against: the school-house windows, it is true, were to be glazed or protected in some sort by diaphanous skins or horn; but this was to be no higher than their lower halves; and in so much only that the snow-drift, the wind and the rain might not interfere with the work of the scholars.

Conscious himself, through natural endowment and added learning, of superiority to all about him, Calvin had little or no sympathy with the liberty the Genevese 290 were so proud of having achieved. A despotism was his ideal of civil government; and his proclaimed purpose from the first in settling at Geneva was to make the city a stronghold of the Gospel, its people subjects of the Lord, and their faith and morals a model of all that had been proposed by the Reformation in the sense in which he understood it. And how much he differed in this from Luther, and Zwingli, need not be said. The

of him of the Wartburg, must have sounded as simple profanity to Calvin.

That Calvin’s heavy hand was borne with by the Genevese for two years, in the first instance, with no small amount of discontent, indeed, but with no outbreak of rebellion, must be set down, we imagine, to the credit of human nature, which endures for a season the irksome and even the ill, in hope of the good to follow; but when the pressure is crushing, and there is no prospect of alleviation, resistance, inevitably, follows in the end.

Calvin and the special Court he had inaugurated under the title of the Consistory, had been anxious to impose some new and still more stringent ordinance on the city, but the Council, whose sanction was required before any of the consistorial edicts could have way, 291 refused assent, and the citizens, emboldened by this, forthwith appeared in open rebellion against what they rightly construed as the tyranny and self-assertion of the clergy. So unpopular in fact did the whole clerical party become at this time, that its leader and his colleague Farel were formally banished from the city, and the subordinate ministers had to shrink into something like obscurity if they would escape the necessity of accompanying them.

In sore displeasure with the ungrateful conduct of the people, as he regarded it, Calvin sought shelter first in Basle and then in Strasburg, where he was welcomed by his brother Reformers, and by and by provided with honourable means of subsistence, by an appointment as Professor of Theology in the University.

But he was not destined long to enjoy the leisure of the Professor’s chair. Before two years had elapsed, the more moderate, orderly, and pious party had come again into power in Geneva, and he was waited on by a deputation, headed by Amied Perrin, a man of the highest influence among his fellow citizens, and entreated to return and save them from themselves; orderly existence, not otherwise attainable as it seemed, being seen after all to be not too dearly bought even by heavy payments in the shape of subserviency to theocratic rule.

Calvin returned to Geneva, then, and under circumstances that gave him a great advantage over the 292 difficulties he had formerly encountered in carrying into effect the system of discipline he was bent on introducing. Perrin’s appearance at the head of the deputation to Strasburg, he had seen as an omen of the best augury; for Perrin’s influence in the Civic Council was very great, and his approval of any measure proposed, was taken as a sufficient guarantee by the citizens at large, of its value. But Perrin was ambitious, and certainly reckoned without his host when he hoped by patronising John Calvin to make him in any way the instrument of his own selfish or party designs;

and if Perrin was bent on power, so was Calvin.

Perrin, it may be, had never heartily sympathised with the Reformation in its religious aspects; he certainly sympathised still less with the Reformer. A man of pleasure at heart, he was perhaps somewhat indifferent to religion. Ready enough to abet Calvin in his austerities towards the many, he was minded to keep his own neck and the necks of his friends out of the yoke. Calvin, however, had no idea of anything of the kind: his law was of general application, or it had no significance; his rule was one and it was for all. No wonder, therefore, that Perrin’s league with the Reformer came to an end ere long; and that when it was not open dissidence between them, it was always smouldering enmity.

Calvin’s grand instrument in enforcing his discipline 293 was the Consistory, an assembly made up of the entire acting clergy of Geneva, with a limited number—no more than twelve—of the laity added. This body was entrusted with very extensive powers, which it may be imagined were not suffered to lie idle, when we find it pretending to regulate the head, and even the foot, gear of the women; intruding itself into the dwellings of the people, too, and looking into their saucepans and pint pots to see that there was no indulgence in the way of eating and drinking!

Supported by a certain number of the native Genevese, Calvin’s hands were immensely strengthened by the crowd of refugees for conscience sake who poured into Geneva from France and Italy, to escape the persecution that had already begun to rage in these countries. Henry II. of France, having presented his mistress, Diana of Poitiers, with the proceeds of all confiscations for heresy, her agents were indefatigable in hunting out converts to the doctrines of Luther and bringing them to justice, as it was called: the greater the number of heretics burned, the higher rose the fame for piety of the profligate king, and in like measure the revenue of the heartless courtesan.

The refugees as a rule, and almost as a matter of necessity, were entirely devoted to the Reformer; and having been most liberally met by the Genevese at first, and put on a footing of all but perfect political equality, they made themselves felt, through their numbers, in the frequently recurring elections that 294 formed elements in the Genevese Republican system. Favoured in all by Calvin, the strangers, as they increased in numbers, came at length to be ever more and more disliked and distrusted by the native population; so that Calvin may be found using language such as this, when, speaking in the same breath of the fugitives, his friends, and of the people who sheltered both him and them within their walls:—‘They (the Genevese) are dissatisfied with you (the Refugees), because you run not riot with them in their disorderly and barren lives.’ The native population, in a word, found themselves, ere long, controlled and overcrowed by a host of aliens, led by a bigoted and intolerant ecclesiastic—a state of things never to be patiently endured, but to be ended at the first favourable moment; and it is to the culminating dissatisfaction of the Genevese with clerical rule in 1553, much akin to that of the year 1538, when Calvin had been forced to quit the field, that Beza refers in the passage quoted above.

So unpopular had Calvin again become in the year 1553, that, in writing to one of his friends, he speaks of discontent and distrust as universally prevalent, especially among the more youthful of the population. ‘The accumulated rancour of their hearts,’ he says, ‘breaks out from time to time; so that when I show myself in the street, the curs are hounded on me: hiss! hiss! is shouted to them; and they snap at my legs and tear my clothes.’ Calvin must in truth have had a trying time of it during most of the years he lived among the 295 Genevese; his own bed could as little have been of roses without thorns, as he suffered the beds of the citizens to be of down; for, save during brief lulls, he and they seem to have passed their lives in a state of covert, when it was not one of open, warfare.

One of the earlier hostile moves of the civil Council in the present crisis against the Reformer was the exclusion, from the Greater Council of the State, of some members of the Minor Council, known to be among the number of his adherents. More than this, his enemies having come to outnumber his friends in the lately elected Council, he found himself frequently outvoted in directions in which he had been used to think of his wish or his will as already the law. Among those who had now obtained a seat in the Supreme Council, was one whom he had put under the consistorial ban for some infringement of discipline, and forbidden, until he showed signs of amendment, to present his child for baptism. To choose Councillors from among persons such as this, however, was, in Calvin’s eyes, to fly in the face not only of all authority, but of the Almighty himself.

Another move against him was a resolution taken by the Council to deprive the Refugees of the arms with which they, like the native population, had been entrusted at an earlier period for the common defence. This was taken greatly to heart by Calvin, who stigmatised it as a ‘barbarous and brutal act, perpetrated by enemies of the Gospel against exiles for Christ’s 296 sake.’ But the Council did not stop here in showing its hostile mood. The priests, in the olden time, had been privileged like the rest of the Community to be present at the deliberations of the Council, and the Ministers, their successors, had never been challenged in their title to show themselves as auditors in the same way. They were now, however, by a resolution of the Council, declared incompetent to appear at its sittings without special permission given. Of no great moment in itself or politically considered, this interdict pointed with even needless significance to mislike and mistrust of the clergy as a body, and of their distinguished head in particular—the Council would neither have him nor his followers immediately informed of all the business they had in hand.

How keenly all these proceedings were felt by Calvin is apparent from the tone of the letters he wrote to more than one of his friends at this time. To his friend Sulzer, of Basle, he says that for the last two years they pass their lives at Geneva as if they were living amid the declared enemies of the Gospel! and he complains bitterly of the interference he suffers in the exercise of his multifarious functions.

Among the particular incidents that tended to widen the breach between Calvin with the ecclesiastical party behind him, and the civil authorities backed by the more liberally disposed of the citizens, was the case of Philibert Berthelier, one of the Councillors, a man of note, respected and much looked up to by the 297 Genevese; for he was the son of that Philibert Berthelier who had nobly striven for the liberties of the city, in former years, and gone to his death on the scaffold in their assertion. Berthelier, some eighteen months or so before, for an offence against one or other of the arbitrary ordinances of the Consistory—for having gone to a ball with his wife and daughter, we think, they having further exceeded in the matter of dress—had fallen under the interdict of the Ministers, and been forbidden to present himself at the celebration of the Lord’s supper, until he had made submission and promised amendment.

Now Berthelier was not only a man of weight in the Republic politically, but in the opinion of his fellow citizens, of really irreproachable life and conversation; and, his friends being then in power, he took steps to have the interdict removed, which kept him from gratifying his pious feelings by partaking of the commemorative feast. To this end he presented a petition to the Council, setting forth the grievance under which he laboured, and praying for relief; and they, on their part, took it on them forthwith not only to absolve him of the disability of which he complained, but, proceeding a step farther, they declared the Consistory incompetent in time to come to pronounce sentences of Excommunication at all; transferring the right to do so from the Ecclesiastical Assembly to the Minor Council of the State.

This was felt by Calvin as the heaviest blow that 298 had yet been dealt him. Of course he opposed the measure with all his might. Heard in opposition to its adoption, he declared that if it were maintained the very foundations of the Reformation, in so far as Religion was concerned, would be compromised. But all his eloquence was thrown away; after long and eager discussion the decree was finally confirmed. Disgusted with the opposition he encountered at every point, Calvin—though he soon shows that he is anxious to free himself from any suspicion of the kind—appears at the time to have had serious thoughts of throwing up his charge and abandoning the city of Geneva to its own evil devices. It was probably the consciousness that if he left Geneva he would seem to be turning his back on the whole of the Reform movement, which kept him from taking the extreme step he may probably have meditated. He had become accustomed, moreover, to play the despot, and he who has once indulged in the bitter sweets of arbitrary power scarcely retires otherwise than by compulsion into the shade of private life. And then, whither was he to betake himself? Not to France, though he still looked with longing eyes towards his native country; for open heresy, such as he must have felt himself bound to profess, there led inevitably to the stake; neither to Germany, where his own peculiar views were not popular, and the several centres of the great and glorious movement towards light and freedom, brought to a head by Luther, were all adequately occupied. He must stay at Geneva, 299 then, his ‘coign of vantage;’ abide the storm of the present, and hope for better days to come. But it was in bitterness of heart, waiting till reaction had spent itself, and his voice could again be heard as the voice of authority.

It was at this moment precisely, whilst debate and dispute, ecclesiastical and civil, were at their height, that Michael Servetus reached Geneva, and altogether unwittingly and unwillingly on his part became a subject of contention between the party of free thought, now in open rebellion against Calvin and the more rigid of his blind or compliant followers. And we shall possibly see reason to conclude that Servetus, though tried for heresy and finally condemned and done to death by slow fire for blasphemy against God, was in some measure also the victim of the political situation—the scape-goat of the two parties contending for supremacy in Geneva. Had there been less of political rancour there in the year 1553, and Servetus been allowed competent counsel to defend him, it seems to us, on the most careful consideration of the whole subject, that the proceedings would not have been suffered to take the turn they did, which led inevitably to his condemnation to death, whilst the memory of Calvin would have escaped the portentous blot that goes so far to obscure all the other great qualities that attach to his name. The world might then have had triumphs within the domain of physical science other than the discovery of the lesser circulation of the blood, 300 from the man of genius; and the Reformation—type of the holy cause of human progress—have advanced without the lamentable compromise of principle it suffered when its leaders sent one of the very foremost men of his age to the stake.

In presence of the individual he had come to look on as his personal enemy as well as the enemy of God, Calvin appears to have forgotten all his earlier aspirations after toleration. He was not now thinking of himself as editor of ‘Seneca on Clemency,’ when to the text of his author enjoining self-control or moderation of mind—animi temperantia—having the power to take vengeance, he adds: ‘It belongs to the nature of the merciful man that he not only uses opportunities of vengeance with moderation, but does not avail himself of even the most tempting occasions to take revenge;’69—a noble sentence, but written in days long past, when he saw persecution for conscience sake inaugurated by Francis I. Neither had he himself as author of the 301 earlier editions of the ‘Institutions’ in his mind, where he is as emphatic in denouncing the ‘Right of the Sword’ in dealing with heresy as he was now, having become the spiritual dictator of Geneva, ready to call it at all times into requisition. Calvin’s natural temperament, in fact, disposed him to severity in furtherance of his purposes and his will. We have seen him in his letter to Farel of February 1546, threatening Servetus with death, did opportunity serve; and writing to a French lady—Madame de Cany—about or a little before the time that now engages us, in referring to some one who had behaved ungratefully both to his correspondent and himself, he says: ‘I assure you, madam, that had he not taken himself off so speedily, I should have held it my duty, in so far as it lay with me, to have had him burned alive.’70

But everything seemed to conspire against Servetus at the moment of his reaching Geneva; for almost immediately after his arrival there, and whilst his presence was still unknown to Calvin, the Reformer received a letter from a correspondent, Paul Gaddi of Cremona by name, that must have greatly strengthened his fears of Servetus’s objectionable influence in the world, and, on theological grounds, confirmed him in his purpose of pushing matters to extremities and silencing the dangerous heretic for ever, did he but find the opportunity. Gaddi, as it seems, had lately reached Zürich from the north of Italy. At Ferrara, he informs 302 his correspondent that he had had many long and interesting conversations with the Duchess, who showed the very best and most friendly dispositions towards the Reformed Faith. But she was sorely in want of a competent person, ‘a faithful Minister of the word of God,’ as a guide against those by whom she was surrounded. Gaddi, therefore, at the desire of the Duchess requests Calvin to send her some one who would give her true instruction, and free her from the teaching ‘of the miserable Monk she has at her elbow, who seeks not after what Christ requires, but after the things that be profitable to himself.’

‘Much have I seen in these [northern] Italian cities,’ continues Gaddi, ‘and many have I met with who profess Christ; but few and far between are those who faithfully serve the Lord. Various, truly, are the heresies that there abound, so that the land is, in truth, a very Babylon. This, you may be sure, I have not beheld without extreme distress of mind and tearful eyes; but the heresy that flourishes the most of all, is the doctrine of the proud and Satanic Servetus, insomuch that many of the faithful entreat you to come forward, and controvert his writings; a task to which they think you are the more bound to apply yourself, as he boasts that no one has yet dared to write against him. I, too, if my entreaty may be of any avail, beseech you to undertake the business. I know the influence your writings have with all in Italy, who fear God. If you deigned to take pen in hand against George [he had published a tract against predestination], who was every way unworthy of your notice, for he was plunged in the deepest ignorance, how much rather ought you to come forward against this diabolical spirit, who is looked on by so 303 many as having the highest authority in matters of doctrine. And truly his teaching, though it be of the most impious and pestilent kind, is calculated to impose on those whose eyes serve them not to see far before them. Wherefore, I entreat you yet again, to undertake the task I propose. Postpone, I pray you, for a few days your other studies; betake you to this most necessary work, and be the hammer that shall smite the enemy.

Your most devoted,
Paulus Gadius Cremonensis.

Zürich, July 23rd, 1553.71 304

CHAPTER III.

SERVETUS IS ARRAIGNED ON THE CAPITAL CHARGE BY CALVIN.

In ordering the summary arrest of Servetus at the instance of Calvin, as we have seen, the Syndic only conformed with usage. But by the law of Geneva grounds for an arrest on a criminal charge must be delivered to an officer styled Le Lieutenant Criminel, or the Lieutenant of Criminal Process—a personage evidently holding a responsible position in the city—within twenty-four hours thereafter, failing which the party attached was set at liberty. To prepare the articles of impeachment required, Calvin must have spent the greater part of the night, turning over the leaves of the ‘Christianismi Restitutio,’ for the matter of his charges. These bear very obvious marks of the haste in which they were put together, several of them being repetitions of others that had gone before, and scarcely anything like order being observed in the arrangement of the particulars adduced. Within the legal time, however, the prosecutor was ready with his articles, no fewer than thirty-eight in number, upon which, as a preliminary to further proceedings, it was 305 the duty of the ‘Lieutenant Criminel’ to interrogate the prisoner, and from his replies to determine whether or not there were grounds to found what we should call a True Bill against him.

Nor was this all. Criminal charges must be made at the instance of some one who should avow himself aggrieved, and not only bind himself over to prosecute the suit he sought to institute to a conclusion, but be content to go to prison with the party he accused, and, in conformity with the requirements of the Lex Talionis, or law of retaliation, engage, in case his charges were not made good, to undergo the penalty that would befall the incriminated party if they were substantiated.

It would of course have been not only inconvenient, but unbecoming for Calvin, the real prosecutor in the case, to go into durance vile, his presence in the outer world being so much required. He had therefore to procure a substitute; and we might have expected to find William Trie again brought forward, and made to figure in setting on foot the trial for life or death at Geneva, as he had already lent himself to figure in that of Vienne. But Trie was not produced; it was a certain Nicolas de la Fontaine, a French refugee in the service of Calvin, in what capacity report speaks variously, some designating him cook, whilst others, to enhance his dignity, call him the Reformer’s Secretary. Calvin himself speaks of him familiarly as Nicolaus meus, my man Nicolas. That Fontaine was really the Reformer’s cook seems now to have been satisfactorily 306 ascertained; but he may have been a man of parts and education for all that; refugees for conscience sake could not always choose their calling in their new abodes.72

On the morning of August 14th, accordingly, Nicolas de la Fontaine presented himself before the Lieutenant Criminel, Tissot, and the prisoner having been produced, De la Fontaine declared himself formally the Prosecutor of Michael Servetus of Villanova on certain criminal charges, demanding at the same time that the prisoner should, under penalties, be required to answer truthfully to each of the articles now to be alleged against him.

These articles, thirty-eight in number, are taken exclusively from Servetus’s work entitled ‘Christianismi Restitutio,’ which is assumed as having been published and found detrimental to the public peace (although it had as yet been seen by no one in Geneva but Calvin himself), not any of them from the earlier work entitled ‘De Trinitatis Erroribus,’ the printing of which and its presumed influence in troubling the Churches of Germany, infecting the world with heresy and causing many to lose their souls, being nevertheless, as we see, the first item in the list of its author’s delinquencies. Calvin must have seen the propriety of producing the treatise on Trinitarian Error, published two and twenty years ago; but he had not a copy himself, neither could he hear of one either in Geneva or Lausanne; for he 307 had written to his friend Viret for aid in the matter. But Viret could not help him—he had no copy himself; his friend Sonnerius, however, he thinks, has one; ‘were he at home he would not assuredly refuse us the use of it.’ Obtaining it on Sonnerius’s return, he will send it with the least possible delay to Geneva.73

The articles of impeachment, classified and summarised, with the answers of Servetus, are as follows:

I. and II. That about twenty-four years ago he began to trouble the Churches of Germany with his errors and heresies, and published an execrably heretical book by which he infected many, and for which he had been condemned and forced to fly the country that he might escape punishment.

To this Servetus replies: That he is not conscious of having troubled any of the Churches of Germany; and though he owns that he had published a little book at Hagenau, he is not aware that he had infected anyone, and certainly was never either tried or condemned for anything he had done in Germany, neither had he been forced to fly from that country to escape punishment.

III. and IV. Item: That he has not ceased since then from spreading abroad his poison, in annotations to the Bible and to the Geography of Ptolemy, and more recently in a second book, clandestinely printed, containing an infinity of blasphemies, &c.

Replies: That it is true he wrote notes to the 308 Bible and to Ptolemy; but thinks he said nothing in them that is not good; and in the book lately printed, he does not believe that he blasphemes; but if it be shown him that he says anything amiss he is ready to amend it.

V. Item: That having been imprisoned at Vienne, when he saw that the authorities there would not accept of his retractations, he had found means to escape from prison.

Replies: That he was indeed prisoner at Vienne, having been denounced to the authorities there by Monsieur Calvin and Guillaume Trie, and had made his escape from prison, because the Priests would have burned him alive had he stayed; the prison, however, having been so kept that it seemed as though the authorities meant him to save himself.

VI., VII., VIII. Item: That he had written, published, and said that to believe there were three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in the single essence of God was to forge or feign so many phantoms; to have a God parted into three, like the three-headed Cerberus of the heathen poets; all this being said in the face of such doctors of the Church as Ambrose, Augustin, Chrysostom, Athanasius, and the rest, as well as of many holy men of the present day—Melanchthon among the number, whom he had called a Belial and Satan.

Replies: That in the book he wrote on the Trinity, he had followed the teaching of the Doctors who lived 309 immediately after Christ and the Apostles; that he believes in a Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost—but owns that he does not attach the same meaning to the word person as do modern writers; and though he admits that he spoke of Melanchthon in the terms stated, it was not in any printed book or in public, but in a private letter; whilst Melanchthon, on his part, and in a printed book, had used language of the same kind towards him.

IX. to XX. and XXVI. The whole of these articles, with wearisome prolixity and iteration, refer to the transcendental theological dogmas that touch on the way and manner in which Christ is to be regarded as the Son of God; the relationship in which He stands to the ‘Word’ of the Gospel according to John, and how the Word was made Flesh; in what respect Christ is God, and in what respect he is Man, and how, as the Son of God, he could have died like a man. To these recondite propositions Servetus replies in a way that has a sufficient look of orthodoxy, and was evidently intended by him so to appear. He avows his belief in the items generally on which he is challenged with unbelief; and it may be that he could do so with a clear conscience, he putting his own interpretation on the language he used. Christ he acknowledged as the Son of God, but this was because of his having been begotten in some mysterious way by the Deity in the womb of the Virgin Mary, He not having existed actually but only potentially in the mind of God before 310 the epoch of his incarnation. Christ, however, he says, was prefigured by the angels who make their appearance from time to time in the Hebrew Scriptures. When persons are spoken of, further, they are to be thought of as images, formalities, not real entities or individuals; so that the three persons he acknowledges in the Godhead are but so many dispensations, modes, or manifestations which the Invisible God makes of himself in creation.

XXIV., XXV. and XXXV. These articles bear upon Servetus’s conceptions of the Deity, in whose Oneness of Being he declares that he yet acknowledges not merely three hypostases, as generally said, but a hundred thousand dispositions or dispensations, so that God is part of ourselves, we part of His Spirit; the ideas or patterns of all creatures and of all things having been eternally present in the Divine Mind, though they only acquired form and substance in Creation.

XXVII. and XXIX. Item: That he had said that the soul of man was mortal; that there was nothing immortal in fact, but an elementary breath, the soul having become mortal after Adam’s transgression.

He replies by denying the allegations, and declares that he never thought the soul of man to be mortal; all he has said in his writings in connection with the subject of immortality being to the effect that the soul was clothed in corruptible elements which perished, not that the soul itself was mortal or died in its essence.

XXX., XXXI., and XXXIII. Item: That he 311 had spoken of Infant Baptism as a diabolical invention, competent to destroy the whole of Christianity.

He admits that he has said so, and is still of this opinion; believing as he does that none should be baptized until they had attained to years of discretion. But he adds, that if it be shown him he is mistaken in this, he is ready to submit to correction.

XXXVII. Item: That in his printed book he has made use of scurrilous and blasphemous terms of reproach in speaking of M. Calvin and the Doctrines of the Church of Geneva.

Replies: That he himself had had abusive language applied to him by Calvin in public; Calvin having said that he, Servetus, was intoxicated with his opinions; a reproach which had led him to reply in similar terms to his opponent, and to show at the same time from his writings that he was mistaken in many things.

XXXVIII. Item: That knowing his last book would not be suffered, even among the Papists, he had concealed his views from Geroult, the superintendent of the office where it was printed.

Replies: That he corrected the press at Vienne, but did not conceal his views from Geroult, who knew well enough what his opinions were.

August 15. The information taken by the Lieutenant in conformity with the course of procedure required having been communicated to the Syndics 312 and Council now constituted Judges in a criminal case, and, the Court of Judicature solemnly inaugurated, the prosecutor and prisoner were produced; when Nicolas de la Fontaine made a formal demand that Michael Servetus of Villanova, whom he charged with heresy, should be put upon his trial. He presented an address or petition, at the same time, in which the heads of the charges he proposed to prove against the prisoner were briefly enumerated, namely, the grave scandals and troubles he had caused among Christians for twenty-four years or thereabout; the heresies and blasphemies he had spoken and written against God with which he had infected the world; the wicked calumnies and defamations he had published against the true servants of God, more especially against Monsieur Calvin, whose honour as his Pastor, he—the prosecutor—felt bound to uphold if he himself would be accounted a Christian, and also because of the discredit that would attach to the Church of Geneva, did the prisoner go at large, condemning, as he does, and in an especial manner, the doctrine that is there preached. ‘In as much, therefore,’ continues Calvin through the mouth of Fontaine, ‘as the prisoner on his examination yesterday replied in nowise satisfactorily and simply by yea or nay to the questions put to him, as you must have perceived, the greater number of his answers being mere frivolous songs, may it please your Lordships to compel him to answer formally, without divergence or circumlocution, to each of the articles 313 proposed; to the end that he be not suffered to go on mocking God and your Excellencies, and that the proponent be not frustrated in his rights.

‘Now the proponent having prima facie made good his allegations and satisfied you that the prisoner has been guilty of writing heresy and dogmatising in the manner alleged, he begs you humbly to recognise the prisoner Michael Servetus as a criminal deserving of prosecution by your attorney-general; and that he, the proponent, be now declared free of all charge, damage, and interest in the business. Not that he shuns or declines to follow up a cause of the kind, which every child of God ought indeed to pursue to the death, but in compliance with the usages of your city, and because it is not for him to undertake duties that belong to another.’

Having taken this petition into consideration, and determined that there was prima facie evidence of criminality on the part of the prisoner, the Council proceeded in the afternoon of the same day to the old Episcopal Palace, now turned into the Court in which criminal causes were tried, and commenced proceedings according to the forms in such cases used and provided. 314

CHAPTER IV.

THE TRIAL IN ITS FIRST PHASE.

Formally installed in the Court of Criminal Judicature, Nicolas de la Fontaine and Michael Servetus were ordered to be brought before them by the Judges; and the prosecutor declaring that he persisted in his allegations, and the prisoner being put on his oath to speak the truth under penalties to the extent of 60 sols, the Trial commenced.

To the question as to his name and condition, the prisoner replied that his name was Michael Serveto, of Villanova, in the kingdom of Aragon, in Spain, and that by profession he was a physician. The articles of impeachment already produced were then restated seriatim, and to each he was required to answer categorically. This he did, and generally in the terms he had used in his preliminary examination, but accusing Calvin, and Calvin alone, more imperatively than before, of having provoked his arrest and prosecution at Vienne, adding that had Calvin had his way, he—the prisoner—would assuredly have been burned alive. To all that had reference to the Doctrine of the Trinity, the Nature of Christ, the relations 315 between God and created things, he spoke as he had already done. He again and pointedly denied that he had ever said the soul was mortal; but admitted having written that he thinks man commits no mortal sin before the age of twenty years, adding that ‘under the Law God had so ordered it.’ The Baptism of Infants he acknowledged to be in his eyes a diabolical invention, and calculated to corrupt the whole of Christianity; declaring however, as formerly, that if it were shown he erred in this opinion he was ready to retract and amend.

As to the alleged attacks on the Church of Geneva through the person of Calvin, he answered as before, and now added that all he had written against Calvin was with no view or desire to calumniate or injure him, but only to show him his errors; and he now offers in open congregation to make good his words by a variety of reasons, and the authority of the Scriptures.

This was to throw down the gauntlet to Calvin and offer him battle on ground he could not decline, since he too acknowledged no authority but holy writ, and we need not doubt of his readiness to take up the pledge: there was nothing indeed, as he declared, for he was present in Court watching the proceedings, that he desired more than to show himself in such a cause before all the world.74 The Court may be excused for having imagined that in agreeing to such a wordy duel between Calvin and Servetus they would be letting the 316 question slip out of their proper hands; or, as M. Albert Rilliet75 suggests, the friends whom Servetus had among its members, measuring the mental calibre of the two men, may have feared to see him they favoured worsted by his redoubtable opponent, whose dialectical skill and theological lore were so well known to all. Deciding against the proposal of the prisoner, therefore, the tribunal determined that the trial should proceed in the usual way.

So far as they had gone we can readily conceive that the answers of Servetus must have seemed little satisfactory to the Court. On even a large proportion of the allegations made, they may have felt their incompetency to form an opinion; but upon a few they believed themselves fully able to come to a conclusion. What he had said on Infant Baptism in particular was greatly calculated to prejudice him in the minds of his Judges; the doctrine he held being one among the dangerous moral, social, and political principles of the Anabaptists, though the whole of these were emphatically disavowed and condemned by Servetus, who really appears to have had nothing in common with the dreaded sect but the opinion that Baptism should not be performed until years of discretion were attained, and that the rite should be solemnised by immersion or affusion, not by merely sprinkling the face with water.

The decision of the Court at the end of the day’s proceedings was to the effect that, as the answers of the 317 prisoner Michael Servetus implied criminality, the trial should go on; but that the prosecutor, Nicolas de la Fontaine, whilst bound over to continue the suit, might be released on the production of sufficient bail; and this being immediately forthcoming in the person of Monsieur Antoine Calvin, brother of the Reformer, Calvin’s substitute and Chef de Cuisine was discharged from custody, whilst Servetus was remanded to gaol. Thus formally constituted prisoner on a criminal charge, Servetus now delivered to the gaoler all the money and valuables he possessed, the coin amounting to ninety-seven gold crowns, the valuables being a gold chain of the value of twenty crowns, and as many as seven gold rings set with a table diamond, a ruby and other stones of price.

August 16, the Court, constituted as usual, was observed to be less numerously attended than on the day before, but with two important additions: Philibert Berthelier among the Councillors, by right, and Germain Colladon, introduced as Counsel for De la Fontaine. Between these two men, says M. Rilliet, more perhaps than between any other notable members of the Republic of Geneva, the contrast was striking and complete. They might even severally have been assumed as representatives of the parties which divided the state and contended for mastery. Berthelier was the acknowledged head of the patriotic party, mostly native Genevese, the Libertines as they were called, from their 318 zealous defence of the immunities and privileges of the citizens against the old tyranny of the Roman Catholic Bishops and the recently introduced consistorial rules and regulations of the Reformer. As son of one of the martyrs to the public liberties of Geneva, and possessed of wealth and influence, Berthelier had long been opposed to the authority of Calvin; his patriotism and his self-respect revolting against the domineering character of the man and the stringency of his religious and sumptuary regulations, so that the struggle in which he and Colladon now engaged, with the unhappy Servetus as their subject of contention, was but an interlude in the strife that had been carried on between Berthelier and Calvin for years.

In Calvin’s arrest and prosecution of Servetus there can be no question that Berthelier, making light of the theological grounds on which the Spaniard was arraigned, and trusting to the strength of his party in the Council, believed he saw a means and opportunity of worsting his old irreconcilable enemy. He thought little, and it may be perhaps felt somewhat indifferent as to the fate that would befal the individual whose cause he espoused, did he fail in the purpose he proposed to himself. Hate of Calvin blinded him to more remote contingencies.

Colladon, engaged of course by Calvin on behalf of Nicolas de la Fontaine and the prosecution, was a man of a totally different stamp from Berthelier. A refugee from France, his native country, for conscience sake, 319 and seeking in Geneva freedom to enjoy his religious convictions; austere in disposition, rigid in morals and punctilious in outward observance, he had been forced to fly from his home in consequence of zeal too openly expressed for the cause of the Reformation. Safe in Geneva, he gave himself heart and soul to Calvin, and was found by him among the most useful of his auxiliaries in formulating his discipline and enforcing its observance, Colladon’s familiarity with business and his legal knowledge qualifying him in every way for the part he was ambitious to play. The party of which he was a distinguished member were now in the minority, but did not so remain for long. Within two years of the time that engages us, they had gained the ascendency, and were not slow to avenge themselves on the legitimate sons of Geneva by forcing them in numbers into banishment, and filling their places by naturalising the French and Italian refugees, who continued pouring into Geneva in crowds, to escape the persecution that then raged in their native countries.

The fiery dispute in which Berthelier and Colladon engaged at this day’s sitting, seems to have concerned Calvin much more than Servetus, its ostensible subject: the French Reformer of Christianity far more than its would-be Spanish Restorer, was the true object of the attack and defence. The debate in the old episcopal palace, in a word, was between the representatives of the two factions that contended for supremacy in Geneva. 320

We have unfortunately no complete account of what transpired on this the first encounter between Berthelier and Colladon. The Records of the Criminal Court are significantly silent on the subject; but that it was violent there can be no question, so violent that the morning sitting had to be suspended before the usual hour of rising. Yet are we at no loss to divine the ground on which the presumed altercation arose, when we note the point where the blank in the proceedings occurs, coming as it does in immediate connection with the articles having reference to the subject of the Trinity. Servetus, in the course of the interrogatory to which he was subjected, having replied equivocally or unsatisfactorily as to the sense in which the word person is to be understood in speaking of the Trinitarian Mystery, Colladon must have contended that he could show by various passages of the printed book before the Court, that the prisoner now spoke otherwise of the Trinity than he really believed, and proceeded to handle him somewhat sharply, in the way Counsel learned in the Law are still wont to treat those they have under cross-examination; somewhat unfairly, too, as Berthelier may have thought, so that he interposed, and must even have said something not only in defence of the prisoner, but of the opinions incriminated. And here it was, and in consequence of the warmth of the debate, that the proceedings had to be suspended.

Before breaking up, a number of books, which had been produced by the Counsel for the prosecution in 321 support of his case, were directed to be left with the clerk of the Court; and each party in the suit, having noted its case, was ordered to be in readiness to go on at the next sitting. The books in question were the works of Melanchthon and the letters of Œcolampadius, the Geography of Ptolemy, and the Bible of Pagnini; the two last of which the prisoner owned to having edited and annotated. The most important of all, however, was the ‘Christianismi Restitutio,’ upon the interpretation of some of the passages of which, in contrast with the present replies of the prisoner, arose the altercation that led to the momentary suspension of the proceedings.

From the Registers of the Grand Council we learn that on the morrow of the stormy session of the sixteenth, Calvin presented himself before the Council and demanded an audience. He had learned, he said, that Philibert Berthelier had meddled in the suit against Michael Servetus, and even spoken in defence of some of the incriminated passages of the prisoner’s book—a mortal offence in Calvin’s eyes, and an indication, not to be mistaken, of hostility to himself as virtual pursuer of the obnoxious heretic. The time had come, in fact, when, throwing aside disguise, Calvin must come from behind Nicolas de la Fontaine, avow himself the prosecutor, and nip in the bud, if he could, the new growth of rebellion against his rule for which Servetus, he saw, was now to be made the pretext.

In the interference of Berthelier, which we see 322 must have given such umbrage to Calvin, we have the first open indication by the Libertine party of their sympathy with the prisoner; sympathy, real or pretended, that may be said to have sealed the fate of the unhappy Servetus; for the issue, though continuing to be debated on the ground of speculative theology, on which so many questions might be raised and doubts entertained, was henceforth to a certain extent transferred to the domain of politics, on which there was the one practical issue involved, as to who or which party that divided the state of Geneva should have the upper hand.

It may be fairly presumed that Calvin, with the great advantage he had in natural talent and acquirements, had no difficulty in satisfying the majority of the Judges of the culpability of Servetus on theological grounds; his opinions differed too obviously from all they had ever been led to believe concerning the Trinity and Infant Baptism, especially, to leave them in any doubt as to this. Servetus differed, in fact, on every point brought forward, from the doctrine familiar to the mind of Geneva—enough of itself to lay him under suspicion; and, accepting Calvin’s interpretation of the incriminated passages of his book, which his Judges must have felt bound in some sort to do, they could have had nothing for it, had the prosecution now insisted on having made out their case, but to proceed to judgment, and pronounce the prisoner guilty. But this was not done; the Judges appear not only to have felt 323 no kind of hostility towards the solitary stranger in the singular and painful position in which he stood, but even to have been moved to something like compassion in his behalf.

After the suspension of the early sitting of the 16th in consequence of the stormy scene between Berthelier and Colladon, and a pause to permit the minds of all to regain a state of calm befitting the circumstances, proceedings of an informal kind only were taken later in the day. These are interesting, nevertheless, because of the recommendation of the Judges to Calvin in sequence to his avowal of himself as virtual prosecutor, to use every fair endeavour to bring the prisoner to what were thought to be better views, as well as to furnish the Court with further and more satisfactory evidence of his heretical guiltiness. To this end Calvin was requested by the Court to visit the prisoner, ‘the better to show him his errors—affin que myeux luy puyssent estre remonstrées ses erreurs: to assist him, à assister luy, and to do what he could with him in respect of the interrogatories put to him, et qu’il vouldra avec luy aux interrogatoires. This surely is both interesting and important. The Court would have spared the man, and given him an opportunity of coming to an understanding with the prosecutor on the difficult matters in debate between them. We shall accordingly find by-and-by that Calvin, accompanied by a number of ministers, in compliance with the benevolent intentions of the Court, paid Servetus a visit in 324 prison; but with results that might have been foreseen—not only not advantageous to him, but damaging in the highest degree to his interests.

On the resumption of proceedings next day, August 17, Calvin took his seat on the Bench, and under him, in the area, were seen a number of ministers, his colleagues, specially introduced, as said, to show the prisoner his errors, but all, like their leader, we fear, rather bent on convicting the dangerous heretic than hopeful of convincing and winning over the mistaken theologian.

Colladon, as counsel for the prosecution, now went on with his interrogatories as at the last meeting; and various particulars which had hitherto remained in the shade were brought prominently forward. Among others it was positively averred that the prisoner had been tried and condemned in Germany, a point only hinted at before; and passages from private letters by Melanchthon and Œcolampadius were quoted in support of the allegation. In these the severest censure is certainly passed on the views of the prisoner; but, as he observed, the adverse opinions of the Reformers referred to by no means implied that he had ever been the subject of any judicial trial or condemnation in Germany; a remark for which Colladon had no better rejoinder than to say that had he and his printer been apprehended and tried, they would undoubtedly have been condemned.

Questioned as to who was the printer of his book 325 on ‘Trinitarian Error,’ he said it was Joannes Secerius of Hagenau. On this, Colladon went on to say that the book was full of heretical poison, and that it was impossible it should not have infected many persons. But there was no evidence adduced to show that it had; and it is not unimportant to observe that Colladon’s statements here are based on a document which is not before the Court, a copy of the book on ‘Trinitarian Error,’ though eagerly sought after, as we have seen, not being anywhere to be found.

On the note or scholium in the Ptolemy, calling in question the truth of the Bible account of Judæa as a land flowing with milk and honey, on which he was challenged, Servetus declared that it was not by him, but quoted from another writer, adding incautiously, from himself, however, that the note contained nothing reprehensible or that was not true. This aroused the ire of Calvin, who now interposed, not certainly in agreement with the recommendation of the Court to show the prisoner that he had been led into error through false information, as he might have done, but to declare that he who approved the words of another characterising Judæa as no land flowing with milk and honey, but as meagre, barren, and inhospitable, necessarily inculpated Moses; and that to use such language was egregiously to outrage the Holy Ghost.

Servetus, however, would not agree to this, coolly denying any such conclusion; insomuch so, as Calvin himself tells us, in no very choice terms, that ‘the villainous 326 cur—ce vilain chien—though put to shame by the obvious reasons adduced, did but wipe his muzzle, ne fit que torcher son museau, and say: Let us go on, there is no harm here—passons oultre, il n’y a poynt là de mal’.76

Another important article of the impeachment brought into prominence in this day’s proceedings was from among the prisoner’s annotations to the reprint of Santes Pagnini’s Bible, which he supervised, as we know, for Hugo de la Porte, the publisher of Lyons. This Bible was said by the prosecution to be encumbered with many glosses or comments totally opposed to the Faith; the one most notably so of all perhaps being appended to the thirty-third chapter of Isaiah, where the servant of God who took on himself the sins of the people is spoken of by the Prophet. ‘This passage,’ said Calvin, ‘is referred by the prisoner to Cyrus, whilst every Christian Church refers it to Jesus Christ.’ But Servetus was again bold enough to maintain his position in so far as to say that the interpretation he had given of the passage was borne out in 327 some sort by the opinions of the old Doctors of the Church, who acknowledged, as he said, a twofold sense in the Scriptures—one, literal and historical, applying to contemporaneous personages and events; another, mystical and prophetic, bearing on Christ and the future. ‘In speaking of the individual referred to, as he had done, and calling him Cyrus, he said that he nevertheless held the prophetical and most important bearing of the text to be on Christ.’ But this did not satisfy Calvin. He would by no means accept such an explanation, and far from attempting by reason and kindness to win the prisoner to views which he himself believed to be more in conformity with the truth, he launched out in passion, and declared that ‘the prisoner would never have had the hardihood thus villainously to corrupt so grand a passage had he not, abandoning all shame, taken he knew not what diabolical pleasure in getting rid of the whole Christian faith.’ The cool way in which Servetus stood this outburst appears to have irritated the Reformer extremely. Servetus was in truth far in advance of Calvin and his age in his exegesis. He was not blind, like all about him, to the true import of the Hebrew writings styled prophetical, but divined their only possible bearing upon events and individuals contemporaneous with their writers—in some cases even past and gone. It was to escape doing violence to the idea of the inspiration under which Servetus credited these ancient writings to have been composed, that he acknowledged a prospective 328 reference to incidents still in the womb of far distant time.

The printing of the ‘Christianismi Restitutio’ was next adduced and made a principal topic of accusation against the prisoner. To the question what object he had proposed to himself in having the book printed, he replied that his main purpose was to ventilate his opinions and have them controverted in case they were seen to be erroneous. But Calvin rejoined that it was by no means necessary to print in order to obtain correction of erroneous opinions, and this more especially in a case such as his, where, as writer, he had already been admonished of his errors.

The delicate, difficult, and most essential element in the impeachment, that, namely, having reference to the Doctrine of the Trinity, was now and again brought into the foreground. Particularly questioned on this subject, Servetus maintained, that previous to the Council of Nicæa no Doctor of the Church had used the word Trinity; and that if the Fathers did acknowledge a distinction in the Divine Essence, it was not real but formal; that the persons were nothing more in truth than dispensations or modes, not distinct entities or persons in the usual acceptation of that word. If he had called the Doctrine of the Trinity, as commonly understood, a dream of St. Augustine and an invention of the Devil, which he did not deny; if he had further characterised the Trinity of modern theologians as a three-headed monster, like the Cerberus 329 of the poets, and styled those who overlooked the true Trinity, which he himself recognised, as Tritheists, it was solely because he believed the unity of God to be denied or annulled by such a procedure. Colladon on this—and prompted we may presume by Calvin—maintained that the views imputed to the Fathers of the Church by the prisoner were false as well as mischievous, and that he could adduce none but apocryphal writings full of absurdities in support of what he said.

Most of the other views and opinions of the prisoner which were quoted as heretical in the act of impeachment were either owned to by him, interpreted in the way he understood them, or were taken as proven by the Court; passages in support of this conclusion having been referred to not only in the printed copy of the ‘Restoration of Christianity,’ but in the manuscript sent privately six years before to Calvin for his strictures. There is one particular, however, not mentioned in the record of proceedings, but given by Calvin,77 that is not uninteresting, as showing the extreme pantheistic views to which Servetus had attained, and may have prejudiced him not a little in the eyes of his Judges, the air of offensive absurdity which the pantheistic doctrine—adversely understood—assumes when pushed to extremes, being made so prominently to appear. The question had turned on the relations between the Divine substance and the substance 330 of creatures and things. ‘All things, all creatures,’ said Servetus, ‘are portions of the substance of God.’ Speaking in his own person, and interposing at this point, Calvin says: ‘Annoyed as I was by so palpable an absurdity, I answered: What, poor man, did one stamp on this floor with his foot and say he trod on God, would not you be horrified in having subjected the Majesty of God to such unworthy usage?’ He, on this, replied: ‘I have not a doubt but that this bench, this table, and all you can point to around us, is of the substance of God.’ When it was then objected to him that on such showing the Devil must be of God substantially; he, smiling impudently, said: ‘Do you doubt it? For my part,’ continued he, ‘I hold it as a general proposition that all things whatsoever are part and parcel of God, and that nature at large is His substantial manifestation.’ Calvin, we imagine, might have spared Servetus on this head when we call to mind how he commits himself to pantheistic views in that passage of his ‘Institutions’ we have already referred to, where he says he only objects to call Nature God because of the harshness and impropriety of the expression. He might further, with reference to the Devil, have bethought him of the verse of Isaiah xlv. 7, where these words occur as coming from Jehovah himself: ‘I form the Light and create Darkness; I make peace and create evil.’ Or of this from Amos iii. 6: ‘Shall there be evil in a city and the Lord hath not done it?’ Or yet this of Ezekiel xx. 25: 331 ‘I gave them statutes that were not good,’ &c. The Jews, through by far the greater part of their history, as a people acknowledged no Dualism in their Deity, as, indeed, they only looked on their God Jahveh as the greatest among the Gods. He was the good and the evil principle in one. But it is easy to imagine the damaging impression which Servetus’s logical but terribly unorthodox statement must have made on the minds of his Judges, ill-informed presumably as they were on such questions. Had Calvin been minded to help instead of determined to crush Servetus, he might even have quoted Luther, who speaks in this wise in his Table Talk: ‘God is present in all created things, and so in the smallest leaflet and tiniest poppy-seed—Gott also gegenwärtig ist in allen Creaturen; auch im geringsten Blättlein und Mohnkörnlein.’

Nor were the personal griefs of Calvin overlooked in the inculpation of the prisoner. Beside the thirty letters printed in the ‘Christianismi Restitutio,’ addressed to the Reformer, a copy of his ‘Institutions’ was now laid before the Court. This, like the MS. of the ‘Restitutio,’ sent privately and confidentially to Calvin, was covered on the margins with numerous annotations, little in conformity, as may be supposed, with the accepted tenets of the Church of Geneva, and more rarely still complimentary to the author. At such insolent procedure we know that Calvin was greatly offended, as appears by the language he thought fit to use when writing to Viret and incidentally noticing the 332 liberties that had been taken with him by the annotator: ‘There is not a page of the book,’ he says, ‘that is not befouled with his vomit.’

Neither was the tergiversation of the prisoner in what he had said about Geroult’s part in the printing of the ‘Restitutio’ unnoticed. He is now reproached with the variations in his replies on the subject to the Lieutenant on the 14th, and to the Court on the 15th. His first answer we believe was truthful—Geroult knew all about the book, as we shall find from a letter of Arnoullet to his friend Bertet; his second was untruthful, but uttered to shield the man who had aided him in his enterprise, compromised, as he had come to see, by what he had said before. 333

CHAPTER V.

THE TRIAL IN ITS SECOND PHASE, WITH THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL OF GENEVA AS PROSECUTOR.

Arrived at this stage, all the documents on which it was proposed to proceed being before the Court, and something more than a presumption of the prisoner’s heretical opinions having already been made to appear, Nicolas de la Fontaine, on his petition to that effect, and his bail, Anthony Calvin, were formally discharged as parties to the suit, its further prosecution being handed over to Claude Rigot, the Attorney-General of the city of Geneva.

Before breaking up, however, and as if to occupy the time until the usual hour of rising, a number of questions irrelevant to the main plea, but tending to gratify the curiosity of the Court, were put to the prisoner. Among the number of these he was asked particularly how he had contrived to escape from the prison of Vienne. He informed the Judges, that he had only passed two nights there; that the Vibailly, De la Cour, was well disposed towards him, he having been of great service to M. Maugiron, an intimate friend of the Vibailly, who had ordered the gaoler to use 334 him well, and allow him the freedom of the garden. Taking advantage of this, he had scaled the wall and got away in the manner already described, the Vibailly having taken care that he should not be pursued and recaptured.

He added that he had intended and even tried in the first instance to get to Spain, his native country; but finding the obstacles so many, and fearing arrest at every moment, he retraced his steps and made his way to Geneva, purposing to proceed to Italy.

Questioned further about the printing of the ‘Restitutio Christianismi,’ he said it had been thrown off to the extent of 1,000 copies, of which the publisher had sent a bale to Frankfort in anticipation of the Easter book-fair of that great mart. This was a piece of information that was not lost on Calvin. He wrote a few days after, having meantime gained further information, to one of the Frankfort members, giving him intimation of what had been done, telling him where the packet was bestowed, and recommending its immediate seizure and destruction, for which he seems also to have furnished some sort of warrant or authority, how obtained we are not informed, though it was probably from Frelon.

Interrogated as to the money he had about him when imprisoned at Vienne, he replied that his cash and valuables had not been taken from him on his arrest there, but were still in his possession when he reached Geneva. 335

The result of the unwarranted and eventful prosecution of which he was the subject had thus far been anything but favourable to the prisoner. The intervention of Berthelier, above all, may be said to have been highly prejudicial by bringing Calvin into the field in person, and supplying him with an additional motive for urging the suit to the issue that could alone prove satisfactory to him—the condemnation capitally of his insolent, personal, and dreaded theological opponent, now associated with his political enemies. Calvin was in truth much too formidable a personage to be gainsaid on trifling grounds. More than one member of the Court who might have been disposed to favour the prisoner, could it have been done without open defiance of the Reformer, quailed under his glance, and shrank from the responsibility of opposing him, when the direction the prosecution had taken came to be understood. It was even said to be more dangerous to offend John Calvin in Geneva than the King of France on his throne! The prisoner whose life was in debate was a stranger, unknown to the majority of the Councillors; and it was doubtless thought better by the timid to leave him to his fate, than to compromise themselves by taking part with one who on his own admission entertained opinions adverse not only to the doctrine of the Church of Geneva, but to all they had ever had presented to them as characteristic of the Christian faith. There could be no doubt that the man was a schismatic, a heretic; and heretic in Geneva 336 meant an opponent of the head of its Church and the form of Christianity it represented.

Having by this time arrived at a better knowledge of the state of affairs around him, and more than ever aware of the possible danger in which he stood; beginning moreover to feel less confidence in the support which we may be certain had been privately promised him, face to face in fact with the man who had already sought his life and so nearly succeeded in bringing him to a fiery death, Servetus seems now to have seen the necessity of changing the somewhat confident tone he had hitherto maintained in defending his opinions: reticence takes the place of open assertion, and instead of any clear avowal or defence of the views he held, he is now found fencing with the obvious meaning of the language he has used, and the conclusions to which it leads, prevaricating too at times; in a word, doing all in his power to appear not to have written in the way the charges brought against him show from his works that he had.

The trial from this time may be said to have acquired new significance. The private prosecutor and his bail discharged, and the further conduct of the suit handed over to the public prosecutor of the city, gave it additional importance in the eyes of the community at large, and heightened the interest felt in the issues involved.

Thrown into fresh hands, proceedings were necessarily stayed for a few days to give the State Attorney 337 time to get ready his case, so that there was no meeting of the Court until the 21st. Between this date and that of the suspension on the 17th, Calvin is said to have been busy among those of the Council he reckoned either as friends or not as avowed antagonists, satisfying their doubts or strengthening their presumptions of the prisoner’s guilt; showing them the importance to the cause of religion and society that he should be convicted; picturing him as perhaps even less dangerous, if that were possible, on account of the particular theological grounds set forth, than as the enemy of all religion, sole foundation, as he said, of the entire social fabric. The man had been already tried, convicted, and condemned to death by the Roman Catholics of Vienne. Would they, the Senators of Geneva, show themselves less zealous than the Papists of France in the cause of God and their own true faith? Surely they would not, but doing their duty and finding on the evidence, which Calvin relied on as overwhelming, declare the prisoner guilty of the heresies laid to his charge.

Whether seen from a Popish or Protestant point of view, though the matters in debate had no more to do with real piety, with morality, or the foundations of society than with the course of the seasons, Servetus certainly entertained opinions on various topics of transcendental theology different from those commonly received, and in so far was a heretic. Of this much Calvin had no difficulty in satisfying his supporters, 338 who consequently felt themselves absolved of any scruples they might have entertained about condemning one to death on purely speculative grounds which they did not even pretend to understand.78

Although what is said above about Calvin’s private interference with the course of justice has been questioned, when we know that he denounced his opponent from the pulpit in no measured terms, and tampered with the ministers of the Swiss Churches when they were consulted on the case, we need not be too scrupulous in accepting the statement as true. He may have been alarmed by reports of something like wavering on the part of certain members of the Court, and even of questions raised as to the propriety of continuing a suit involving matters so much out of the usual course of criminal procedure as known at Geneva, and the competence of laymen to take such subjects into consideration at all. Rumours to this effect reaching his ears may have led him into a course the impropriety of which in calmer moments he might possibly have understood. But Calvin was wholly without that freedom from passion and that sense of relative equity which go to the constitution of the judicial mind. He lived in a perpetual imbroglio of quasi-criminal proceedings, mostly begotten by his own arbitrary legislation; and he was in the constant habit of interfering in suits before the Courts of Geneva, less as jurisconsult than as judge—as judge, too, in causes so commonly his 339 own. Clerical writers who have lauded his comments on the criminal proceedings of Geneva have not seen these in their true bearings, or they would have expressed themselves more guardedly than they have done.79

That proposals had really been made at the meeting of the 21st to abandon further proceedings against the prisoner, though overruled by the majority, seems to be proclaimed by the resolution then come to, viz., ‘Inasmuch as the heresies charged against Michael Servetus appear to be of great importance to Christianity, resolved to continue the prosecution.’ Such a resolution, though we have no intimation of that which led up to it, coupled with Calvin’s activity out of doors, suffices to show that Servetus had really had a chance of escape from the grip of his pursuer at this particular moment. But the occasion passed; and by way of strengthening themselves in their determination to go on with the questionable business in which they were engaged, we now find the Councillors of the Protestant city of Geneva actually writing to the Popish authorities of Vienne, and making inquiry of them as to the grounds on which Michael Servetus of Villanova, physician, had been imprisoned and prosecuted by them, and how he had escaped from confinement.

To confirm themselves still further in their purpose to proceed, it was moreover resolved that the Councils 340 of Berne, Basle, Zürich, and Schaffhausen, together with the ministers of their Churches, should be written to and informed of what had thus far been done and was still in progress. In yielding to the instigations of Calvin, the Court in these last acts is plainly enough seen to hesitate, and be indisposed to trust entirely to his guidance. They would have the authorities of the other Protestant cantons of Switzerland informed of what was going on, and feel the pulse of their confederates as to the propriety of proceeding farther, they, under all the circumstances, being likely to be more impartially disposed than the Church of Geneva and its distinguished head.

The Council of Geneva had in fact already had occasion to know that where simple justice, whether in the interest of the General or the Individual, was concerned, Calvin’s lead should not always be too blindly followed. In the case of Jerome Bolsec, whom Calvin had arraigned for heresy two years before, against whom he had used all his influence to secure a conviction, and in which he would have succeeded (and the man, almost as much a personal enemy as Servetus, would have been beheaded) had he not been foiled by the recommendations of the Swiss Churches and Councils, which were unanimous in counselling moderation, the minor Council of Berne even went so far as to express a distinct opinion against the enforcement of pains or penalties of any kind in cases of imputed heresy. 341

But Calvin in his prosecution of those who opposed him always shows himself both vindictive and pitiless. Speaking of the way in which he would have had Bolsec disposed of he says: ‘It is our wish that our Church should be so purged of this pestilence that it may not, by being driven hence, become injurious to our neighbours.’ These words will bear one interpretation only—Calvin would have had Bolsec put to death. But he was withstood in his design, and mainly so by the Church of Berne, the language of which must have been highly displeasing to him; for the Reporter, in counselling moderation, says: ‘How much easier is it to win a man by gentleness than to compel him by severity;’ and still more displeasing perhaps was that which follows: ‘It cannot be said of God that He blinds, hardens, and gives to perdition any man, without at the same time assuming that it is God who is the Author of human blindness and reprobation, and therefore the cause of the sin committed.’ Now Bolsec’s offence had been in saying that men are not saved because elect, but are elect because of their faith. ‘None are reprobate,’ continues the Reporter from Berne, ‘by the eternal decrees of God, save those who of their own choice refuse the election freely offered to all. How shall we believe that God ordains the fate of men before their birth; foredooming some to sin and death, others to virtue and eternal life? Would you make of God an arbitrary tyrant, strip virtue of its goodness, vice of its shame, and the 342 wicked of the reproaches of their conscience?’ But this is to cut the ground from under the feet of Calvin. No wonder, therefore, that as the proud man would not, and the self-satisfied man could not, bring himself to admit his error, he would have had him who exposed and led to such an exposition of it put out of the way.80

It was whilst expecting replies from Vienne, and waiting the convenience of M. Rigot, the Attorney-General, that the Court proceeded to make inquiries of the prisoner concerning his relations with Arnoullet, the printer of the ‘Restoration of Christianity,’ a letter of his to a friend of the name of Bertet having now been put in and read to the Court. In this letter, dated July 14, 1553, Arnoullet informs his friend Bertet that he is still in prison, but is promised his liberty next week, having got six substantial sureties for his good behaviour in time to come. He had been villainously deceived, he says, by his manager Geroult, who corrected the rough proofs of the book, but never said a word of the heresies it contained.

‘I asked him,’ the letter proceeds, ‘whether it was all according to God? And he replied that it was; and further, that it contained a number of Epistles addressed to Mons. Calvin, which he was minded to translate into French. But this I forbade—without the permission of the author, which was refused. 343 When last in Geneva, Geroult saw and informed M. Calvin that I had lately been there, without having waited on him. The truth is, that I did not think he would have me in such friendship now as in times past—by reason of my having had anything to do with such a monster, whom God look after! Geroult was in fact in league with the writer, and never let fall a syllable to me until after your departure for Frankfort [in charge of the Bale of the “Christianismi Restoratio” among other book merchandise]. This, as you know, gave occasion to your speaking to me so seriously as you did about the book in question.

‘As to what you say about my sending someone else to Frankfort,—understand me, that I will have no one go but yourself, and that you are to see every copy of the book destroyed, so that there shall be left of it neither a leaf nor half a leaf. Understand, too, that this is to be done without prejudice to anyone. I am only sorry that we have all been so grossly deceived in the business; but if God, our Father, leave us the other goods we possess—more by far than those we shall destroy—it will be well. As to what you say of my having known that Villanovanus had been rejected by the Christian Churches, and that avarice had something to do with my having undertaken the work, let it suffice that I deny this; and our long intimacy must have made you so well acquainted with me, that you will not doubt I now speak the truth. How the Inquisitor came to have your name, I cannot tell. I can only assure you that in all the interrogations to which I have been subjected by him I never named a living soul; nor indeed was there ever mention made of you in my hearing.... Be good enough to say to Mons. Calvin that I shall not be in Geneva again without seeing him; and that if I have not done my duty towards him in all respects, beg him to find some excuse for me. He who is the cause of this [meaning Geroult, doubtless] is now there; and when Monsieur Calvin 344 shall have spoken with me, he will understand the reason of my saying nothing more at present. Make my respects to him meantime, and forgive me if I do not now write more particularly of our affairs.’

This letter we see by the date was written either shortly before or about the time of Servetus’s arrival in Geneva, whither Geroult, who was a native of the city, had betaken himself for safety on the arrest of Servetus and Arnoullet. Bertet, fearing that Arnoullet might suffer in the estimation of Calvin, seems to have thought that the best means of exculpating his friend of complicity with the writer of the heretical book was now to show the letter he had lately received from Vienne to Calvin; and he, we must conclude, laid it forthwith before the Court, with no purpose assuredly of aiding the prisoner in his defence. Arnoullet’s letter in exculpation of himself goes far, as we see, to compromise Geroult; and he being at this time in Geneva, his liberty, perhaps even his life, was brought into danger.81

The letter to Bertet being shown to the prisoner, he averred that he could not take it upon him to say 345 whether it was from Arnoullet or not, he never having seen any of the publisher’s handwriting; he said, however, that it certainly was at Arnoullet’s establishment that the ‘Christianismi Restitutio’ was printed, and that Arnoullet had been arrested and imprisoned at the same time as himself. Arnoullet’s disclaimer of having known anything of the burden of Servetus’s book must certainly be untrue. Unless all else we know in connection with the business be false, he must have had shrewd suspicions of its nature, and the suppression of his name as publisher, and of Vienne as the place of publication, shows that he was not without misgivings of possible unpleasant consequences following the appearance of the work were it known that he had had anything to do with it.

Arnoullet’s letter gave Calvin a hint which he did not fail to improve upon; for he too wrote to Frankfort informing his friends, the Protestant ministers there, of the bale of Servetus’s books that had been sent to their city—by Frelon, as I believe, not by Robert Etienne, the bookseller of Geneva, as has been said,82—recommending its seizure and the destruction of its contents.

Calvin begins his letter thus:—

‘I doubt not you have heard of Servetus, the Spaniard, who more than twenty years ago infected Germany with a villainous book, full of sacrilegious error of every kind. The scoundrel having fled from Germany and lain concealed in 346 France under a false name, has lately concocted a second book out of the contents of the first, but replete with new figments, which he has had printed clandestinely at Vienne, a town not far from Lyons. Of this book we learn that many copies have been sent to Frankfort, in prospect of the approaching Easter fair. The printer, a pious and respectable person, when he came to know that the book was a mere farrago of Errors, suppressed the copies he had on hand. It were long did I enumerate the many Errors, the prodigious blasphemies against God, that are scattered over its pages. Imagine to yourselves a rhapsody made up of the impious ravings of every age; for there is no kind of impiety which this wild beast from hell has not appropriated. You will assuredly find in every page matters that will horrify you. The author is now in prison here at the instance of our magistracy, and I hope will shortly be condemned and punished. But you are to aid us against the further spread of such pestiferous poison. The messenger [the bearer of this] will tell you where the books are bestowed and their number; and the bookseller to whom they are consigned will, I believe, make no objections to their being given to the flames. Did he throw any obstacle in the way of this, however, I venture to think you are so well disposed, that you will take steps to have the world purged of such noxious corruption. You shall not want authority, indeed, for what you do in the business. If you are allowed to have your way, it will not then be necessary to seek the interference of your magistrates. But I have such confidence in you, that I feel persuaded my hint will suffice to guide your action. The matter, nevertheless, is of such moment, that I entreat you, for Christ’s sake, not to allow the occasion of showing yourselves zealous in your office to pass unheeded.

‘Farewell, &c.

‘Geneva, 6 Calends of September, 1553.’

347

The session of the 21st, preliminaries ended, was occupied in the beginning with a dispute between the prisoner and Calvin, who came into Court on this occasion again accompanied by a number of ministers, his colleagues, introduced, says the Record of proceedings, to maintain the contrary of the prisoner’s allegations in respect of the authorities he cites as favouring his views. Calvin thereupon, taking the lead, proceeded to interpret the passages of the Fathers referred to by the prisoner in a sense different from that put upon them by him, and showed satisfactorily that the word Trias or Trinity had really been used by writers before the date of the Nicæan Council.

It was on this occasion, as we learn from Calvin,83 that on a copy of Justin Martyr being produced by him in support of his statement, Servetus expressed a wish to see a Latin translation as well as the original Greek, a slip which Calvin did not fail to turn to the prisoner’s disadvantage, for knowing that there was no Latin translation of Justin, he immediately challenged the prisoner with being ignorant of Greek. ‘Look’ee,’ says he in his Déclaration pour maintenir la vraie foy, ‘this learned man, this Servetus, who plumes himself on having the gift of tongues, is found to be about as much able to read Greek as an infant to say the A. B. C. ‘Seeing himself thus caught’ continues Calvin, ‘I took occasion to reproach him with his impudence. What means this, said I? The book has not been 348 translated into Latin, and you cannot read Greek. Yet, you pretend you are familiar with Justin. Tell me, I pray you, whence you have the quotations you produce so freely as if you had Justin in your sleeve? But he with his front of brass, as was his wont, though he had leapt from the frying pan into the fire—sauta du coq à l’ânc—quite unabashed, gave not the slightest sign of feeling shame.’ No one, however, who has been at the pains to look into the works of Servetus will doubt for a moment that he was not only a competent Greek scholar, but well advanced in the Hebrew also, with both of which languages he shows that he was even critically acquainted. Seeing himself beaten on the occurrence of the word Trinity in the Greek of Justin, he may have thought to find a makeweight in a Latin translation against the original produced by Calvin. There is indeed an ample display both of erudition and linguistic accomplishments even in Servetus’s first work, the seven books on Trinitarian Error.

Another and still more significant discussion now arose between the Reformer and the prisoner—and in these ever-recurring debates we see the persistency with which Calvin stuck to his opponent—as to the sense in which the expression Son of God was to be understood. Servetus maintained that it was not properly applied to him who bore it until the moment of his birth. Calvin, on the contrary, insisted that in conformity with the usual interpretation of the first chapter of the Gospel according to John, the authority of the 349 Creeds and the teaching of the Churches, the words must be held to refer to the Divine Word which became incarnate in Jesus Christ, having until then been a distinct subsistence in the essence of God from Eternity. In reply to this, Servetus explained and said that the common interpretation of the language of John was mistaken; the Son, as he declared, having only existed formally or as an idea, dispensation or mode in the mind of God previous to the Incarnation and Birth of Christ, not as an entity—a person, in the usual acceptation of the word, possessed of distinct individual existence.

Speaking authoritatively now and as from himself, Calvin rejoined that if the Word had not been a distinct reality in the essence of God, it could not have united itself as such with the humanity of Christ; that the body of Christ must then have been wholly of the substance of God; and being so—not being perfect man as well as perfect God—the redemption of mankind could not have been effected by his death. Why the impossibility, thus assumed, is not said. But let us pause an instant and think of one pious man tried for his life by another pious man, on grounds such as these!—grounds on which neither the one nor the other could find footing for a moment.

Without opposing his prosecutor by urging his own views more particularly at this stage, Servetus now requested that he might be furnished with the books necessary to him in his defence, and have pens, 350 ink, and paper supplied to him, with which to write a petition to the Council. Calvin on this agreed to leave the volumes he had brought into Court in the hands of the prisoner, and the Judges ordered that any others he required should be purchased for him at his proper cost. The jailer finally was directed to supply him with writing materials; the paper, however, being limited to a single sheet! and to see particularly to his being kept secluded—indication in either case, we must presume, that the prisoner was believed not to lack friends or prompters from whom Calvin thought it would be well to keep him apart. 351

CHAPTER VI.

THE TRIAL IN ITS SECOND PHASE—continued.

When the Court assembled, on August 23, a series of articles, embodying what may be characterised as a new Act of Impeachment, was presented to it by M. Rigot the Attorney-General, headed as follows: ‘These are the questions and articles on which the Attorney-General of Geneva proposes to interrogate Michael Servetus, prisoner, accused of heresy, blasphemy, and disturbance of the peace of Christendom.’

The questions and articles now presented differ materially from those proposed in the first instance by Calvin in the name of his man, Nicolas de la Fontaine. These, we have seen, refer almost exclusively to the speculative theological opinions of Servetus, his disrespectful treatment of Calvin, and his challenge of the doctrine preached in the Church of Geneva. The articles of the Attorney-General bear on matters more purely personal to the prisoner; on his antecedents; his relations with the theologians of Basle and Germany; the printing of his books, more particularly the last of them, and the fatal consequences that must follow from its publication; his coming to Geneva, and 352 so on. Save his views on Infant Baptism, his other dogmatical opinions are not particularly specified or brought prominently forward; and his differences with Calvin and the Church of Geneva are not even hinted at. The theological element in the prosecution, in a word, is almost entirely abandoned for denunciations of the socially dangerous nature of the prisoner’s doctrines, and his persistence in their dissemination.

In the present mood of the Court, and aspect of the prosecution, it would almost seem that had Servetus been guilty of nothing more than offences in the region of speculative theology and the use of uncivil language towards Calvin and the Church of Geneva, his delinquencies would not have put him beyond the pale of escape from all but punishment of a secondary or insignificant kind. The Attorney-General’s articles appear in fact to have been framed under the mistaken idea that Servetus, through the whole course of his life, had been an immoral and so a dangerous and turbulent spirit, of the kind with which he was himself, perhaps, but too familiar in the City of Geneva. He did not, any more than Calvin and the other Reformers, think of Servetus as he was in truth—a speculative, yet perfectly pious scholar, intent on bringing the Reformation of Christian doctrine, begun by Luther, still nearer to the simplicity of Apostolic, or even of pre-Apostolic, times; for Michael Servetus had the mind to see and to say that there was a Christian Religion, based on love of God and man, with added faith in its Author, 353 before there were any Gospels; so that these are truly but the varying and often discrepant reports of the Master’s teaching, with mythological accretions and interpolated Greek philosophoumena.

Rigot appears from his articles, which have no look of having been dictated by Calvin, to have regarded Servetus as one whose efforts from first to last had been directed to the confusion of society through the teaching of an immoral doctrine and the example of a dissolute life. To force an avowal of so much from the lips of the prisoner himself was therefore the main drift of the Attorney’s interrogatories. Must not the prisoner be aware, said he, that his teaching gives licence to youth to overflow in debauchery, adultery, and other social crimes, as he maintains that there is neither sin nor misdemeanour in such misdeeds, and no punishment due to them under the age of twenty years? Why had he not himself entered into the holy state of matrimony? Had he not studied the Koran and other profane books for arguments in favour of Jews, Turks, and the like, and to controvert the doctrines of all the Christian Churches? Had he not been imprisoned elsewhere than at Vienne through having been guilty of various crimes and misdemeanours? Had he not been a party to quarrels in which he had wounded another as well as been wounded himself? If he had not led a dissolute and immoral life, showing neither care nor zeal for all that became a Christian, what could have induced him to treat adversely so much 354 that lies at the root of the Christian Religion? Had he not come, in fact, to Geneva with a view to spread his doctrines and to trouble the Church as there established? With whom had he had communication since he came? Had he not spoken with William Geroult, and was not Geroult aware of his intention to come to Geneva? and so on, in the same strain, the questions amounting to as many as thirty.

But this was ground on which Servetus felt himself secure; he could reply to all that was asked of him now with a clear conscience, and without reticence or prevarication. He had nothing to hide in his past life. No moral delinquency had been laid to his charge, and though he may have had a squabble with the Faculty of Paris, the doctors were notoriously a contentious crew, always quarrelling among themselves, though they never, like the theologians, went the length of burning one another. There was little, therefore, to be said on that head; for the rest, he had lived soberly, honourably, industriously; earning his bread in the sweat of his brain, and for the last twelve or fourteen years had been incessantly engaged in the practice of his profession, neither using the sword nor the spear, but salving the bruises and stanching the wounds that men in their madness inflict on one another, and nobly ministering to the yet longer list of ills in the shape of fevers, fluxes, consumptions, apoplexies, cancers, dropsies, &c., &c., that waylay us on our course and give us rest at length. 355

The task which the public Prosecutor had set himself of showing up Servetus as an ill-conditioned and quarrelsome person, as a debauchee and evil-liver, and in the imputed licentiousness and irregularities of his life to find a motive for his attack on the dogmas of the Christian faith, was, therefore, a complete failure.

The Attorney-General of Geneva did not imagine, as it seems, that the man who differed in his speculative theological opinions from the masses, who follow their leaders like sheep, could be other than an enemy to both God and man.

All the charges in the direction now taken, unsupported as they were by a shadow of evidence, fell to the ground. Servetus could say with truth that he was no disturber of the peace—had never in the whole course of his life provoked a personal quarrel, and if he had once drawn his sword, as hinted, it was not as aggressor, but in self-defence. By physical constitution he said he was indisposed to matrimony; his not having entered into that holy state being, as we have seen, one of the items laid to his charge! Far from having failed in chastity of life, he declared that he had been ever studious of Scripture precepts on the subject, and was even bold enough to think that he had always lived as a Christian. And truly and in so far as aught to the contrary was made to appear in the course of the protracted and searching trial to which he was subjected, Servetus must be held to come out stainless. The logical conclusion, however, that speculative 356 theological opinions, whether in conformity with or adverse to accredited systems of belief, had no influence one way or another on man’s moral conduct, was lost upon Calvin and his age; and the vulgar world of to-day cannot yet be said to have bettered their opinion.

The prosecution, losing ground the longer it continued on this tack, reverted to what for it was the surer course—the assumed danger to the cause of society and the peace of Christendom from the publication of books having the character ascribed to those written by the prisoner. In spite of all the warnings he had had, said Mr. Attorney Rigot, the kind and repeated admonitions of learned theologians, sole authorities on such subjects, and the unanimous condemnation his first publication had encountered, he not only continued to adhere to his errors, but with a view to spread them farther had written and printed a second, which was in fact but a reproduction and enlarged edition of the first.

To this Servetus answered that he thought he should have offended God had he not done so; ‘he had acted,’ he said, ‘with as perfect sincerity as if his salvation had been in question.’ ‘Our Lord,’ he continued, and quoting the tenth chapter of Matthew, ‘commands us to speak in Light that we have been told in Darkness; and in the fifth chapter, the Evangelist says further that we are not to put the Light we have under a bushel, but to set it where it 357 may be seen of all.’ Taking God and his conscience for guides, therefore, he thought he was but following the injunctions of the Scriptures and the ancient Doctors of the Church in all he had written, nor does he now think that he has done amiss, for his intentions were good; and, as the Evangelist already quoted (ch. v.) declares: ‘If the eye be single then is the whole body full of Light,’ he therefore believes that his intention having been good, the deed which followed must be accounted good also. As to the printing of the book entitled ‘The Restoration of Christianity,’ he had no regrets. He had written and had it printed because he hoped to bring back to its primitive meaning much that he thought was erroneous in current interpretations of Christian Doctrine; his title of itself showed that he intended the Restoration, not the Destruction, of Christianity, with which he had been charged. With all this, however, he did not presume to say that they who had written before him, and in a different sense, understood nothing of the Christian Religion; he only thought they had misconceived and misconstrued some things, they especially who had formulated their opinions subsequently to the date of the Council of Nicæa.

To the particular charge that he had spoken of the Doctrine taught in the Reformed Churches as being nowise Christian, and condemned all who did not think with himself, he replied that he never imagined that the Churches of Geneva and Germany were doomed 358 to perdition because of their teaching; he only thought their ministers mistaken on some things.

At this point, a private letter addressed by the prisoner to Abel Poupin, one of the Ministers of Geneva, written many years before, was produced and read to the Court. Whence it came, or how it was obtained, is not said; but as highly characteristic of the writer, and foreshadowing the fate that was to befal him, it must have a place in our story.

Monsieur Abel!—Although it is most plainly shown, in my twelfth letter to Calvin, that the Law of the Decalogue had been abrogated, I shall add a few words that you may the better understand the innovation brought about by the advent of Christ. If you turn to Jeremiah xxxi., verse 31 et seq., you will find it stated distinctly that the law of the Decalogue was to be annulled. The prophet teaches that the Covenant entered into with the Fathers, when they left Egypt, was to be no longer in force. But this was the Covenant of the Decalogue. For in I Kings, chapter viii., it is said that the Covenant or Testimony—the Decalogue, to wit—was in the Ark with the Fathers at their exodus from Egypt, whence the Ark is called the Ark of the Covenant, that is of the Tables, or Ten Commandments of the Law. Now this was the form of the Covenant: God promised the Israelites that they should be his people, if they did according to the words of the Law, and they on their part engaged that they would obey them. Such was the Covenant. And it is of this Covenant that Jeremiah (chapter xviii.) speaks as being repealed, as does Ezekiel (chapter xvi.), and Paul likewise in his Epistle to the Hebrews. If God took us for his own under that Law, we should lie under the curse, and perish by its pressure. The Law therefore was repealed. God does 359 not now receive us as his children but by faith in his beloved Son, Jesus Christ. See then what becomes of your Gospel when it is confounded with the Law. Your Gospel is without the One God, without true faith, without good works. For the One God you have a three-headed Cerberus; for faith a fatal dream, and good works you say are vain shows. Faith in Christ is to you mere sham, effecting nothing; Man a mere log, and your God a chimæra of subject-will. You do not acknowledge celestial regeneration by the washing with water, but treat it as an idle tale, and close the kingdom of heaven against mankind as a thing of imagination. Woe to you, woe, woe!

This, my third Epistle, is addressed to you with the wish that you may be brought to better thoughts, and I mean not to admonish you any more. It offends you, perchance, that I meddle in those battles of the angel Michael, and seek to bring you into the strife. But study the part I refer to carefully, and you will see that there are men who do battle there, exposing their lives for Christ’s sake. That the Angels speak truth is proclaimed by the Scriptures. But see you not that the question is of the Church of Christ fled from Earth these many years? Is it not of division, of difference that John himself makes mention? And who is the Accuser challenging us with transgression of the Law and its precepts? Accusation and seduction of the world, he says, were to precede the battle; the battle therefore was to follow, and the time is at hand, as he also tells us. And who are they who shall gain the victory over the Beast? They who do not accept his mark. I know for sure that I shall die in this cause; but my courage does not fail me because of this; I shall show me a disciple worthy of my master.

I much regret that, through you, I am not allowed to amend some places in my writings now in Calvin’s hands. Farewell, and look for no more letters from me. 360

I stand to my post and meditate, and look out for what may further come to pass. For come it will, surely it will come and that without long delay.84

This remarkable letter, interesting in so many respects, is unfortunately without a date; it is the last of three he had written, however, and must have been produced either in 1546, or early in 1547. Highly characteristic of the self-confidence and assurance of the writer, we see him as ready to challenge the Reformers as they were eager to denounce him. He does not call them heretics and blasphemers, it is true, nor does he speak of having them punished for the mistaken views they entertain; and therein he shows himself their superior. Crying woe upon them for their errors, he never hints at the propriety of burning them alive, though he is not blind to the great probability of being subjected himself to a fate of the kind.

The letter to Abel Poupin, said Servetus to his Judges, contains scholastic disputations on difficult subjects, in the course of which controversialists make use of strong language with no purpose but to enforce their views or bring their opponents to the same way of thinking as themselves, and not because they believe them to be lost souls by reason of the dissimilar opinions they entertain. For himself, he continues, he had had more objectionable terms of reproach applied 361 to him, than any he had used to others; and these not by word of mouth or in private letters like his own, but through printed books both in the French and Latin tongues. What he had written to M. Abel, now more than six years ago, was with no view to publicity, but simply to elicit the truth—certainly with no intention of slandering the Republic of Geneva and its Churches.

On the important question of baptism, he admitted being of opinion that they who were baptized in their infancy were not truly baptized; but added, that if it were shown him he was mistaken in this, he was ready to amend and ask forgiveness.

The prosecutor reverting to the book lately printed and asking the prisoner if he did not think it was calculated, through the doctrine it taught, to bring great troubles on Christendom? he replied that he did not think his book calculated to introduce dispute or difference among Christians; on the contrary, he thought it would be found profitable, and give occasion to the better spirits among men to speak better things; and the truth, once admitted and proclaimed by the few, would by and by spread to the many.

Challenged with having come to Geneva to disseminate his doctrines and sow dissension among the Churches, he gave sufficient reason for his presence among them when he said that he had only come on his way to Italy, having been turned from his first intention of trying to reach his native country, after his 362 escape from the prison of Vienne, through fear of arrest by the police of France.

It is but fair to infer, as M. Albert Rilliet observes, that the present bearing of Servetus, and the moderation and pertinence of his replies to all the questions put to him, must have made a favourable impression on the Court. He was not now confronted with Calvin, in whose presence he seemed to lose all self-control, neither was he pressed upon questions of speculative theology, upon which he either dared not declare himself openly, or, if he did, was at once in opposition to all his Judges knew of religion. In Rigot as his questioner he had nothing more than an officer discharging a public duty, not the hostile partisan he had encountered in Colladon who, as agent of Calvin, may have thought it incumbent on him to give the most unfavourable turn to everything capable of being construed to the advantage of the prisoner. The good impression presumed could hardly fail to be strengthened by the petition of the prisoner addressed to the Court and read on the next day of the trial, August 24, to this effect:

To the most honourable my Lords, the Syndics and Councillors of Geneva.

The Petition of Michael Servetus, now lying under a criminal charge, humbly showeth—That it is a thing new and unknown to the Apostles, Disciples, and ancient Churches, to make the interpretation of the Scriptures, and questions thence arising, grounds of criminal accusation. This is clearly seen from Chapters xviii. and xix. of the Acts of the Apostles, 363 where accusers are referred to the Churches, when the matters in question bear upon Religion only. So too in the time of Constantine, when the Arian heresy was broached, and accusations were brought on the part both of Athanasius and Arius, the great Emperor, by his Council and the Councils of the Churches, decided that, according to the old doctrine, suits of the kind could not be entertained by civil tribunals—not even in the case of such notorious heresy as that of Arius,—but were to be taken into consideration and decided by the Church. Further, that heretics were either to be brought to reason by argument, or were to be punished by banishment, when they proved refractory and refused to amend. Now that banishment was the award of the ancient Churches against heretics can be proved by a thousand histories and authorities. Wherefore, my Lords, in consonance with Apostolic teaching and the practice of the ancient Church, your petitioner prays that the Criminal Charge under which he lies may be discharged.

Secondly, my Lords, I entreat you to consider that I have committed no offence within your territory; neither, indeed, have I been guilty of any elsewhere: I have never been seditious, and am no disturber of the peace. The questions I discuss in my works are of an abstruse kind, and within the scope and ken of men of learning only. During all the time I passed in Germany, I never spoke on such subjects save with Œcolampadius, Bucer, and Capito; neither in France did I ever enter on them with anyone. I have always disavowed the opinions of the Anabaptists, seditious against the magistrate, and preaching community of goods. Wherefore, as I have been guilty of no sort of sedition, but have only brought up for discussion certain ancient doctrines of the Church, I think I ought not to be detained a prisoner and made the subject of a criminal prosecution.

In conclusion, my Lords, inasmuch as I am a stranger, ignorant 364 of the customs of this country, not knowing either how to speak or comport myself in the circumstances under which I am placed, I humbly beseech you to assign me an Advocate to speak for me in my defence. Doing thus, you will assuredly do well, and our Lord will prosper your Republic.

In the City of Geneva, the 22nd day of August, 1553.

Michael Servetus,
In his own cause.

This well-worded, and in its demands most reasonable address, strange to say, received no notice beyond an order to the clerk of the Court to enter it on the minutes; the prisoner being at the same time curtly admonished to go on answering the questions addressed to him. But how hardly the poor man was being used by his self-constituted Judges we shall see by the tenor of the next petition he addressed to them. He had been thrown into one of the foul cells or dungeons appropriated to criminals of the vilest class, accused of crimes against person and property; and there, in addition to mental anguish, he had to suffer all the bodily miseries that filth, foul air, cold and vermin inflict.

The feeling evinced of late by the Court, in the prisoner’s favour, appears now to have extended to the town; the liberal party, the native Genevese, opposed to Calvin, making of his prosecution of the solitary stranger a handle against him; his friends on the contrary speaking of it as proclaiming him the undaunted defender of the cause of God and religion! The trial we therefore see had become the occasion of alarm to one political party in the state, of hope to another, and 365 of peculiar significance to both. Under present circumstances, matters proceeding in nowise to his satisfaction, Calvin must come again to the front; and we have it on unquestionable authority that it was at this, the very crisis in the fate of Servetus, that the Reformer was guilty of the crying injustice of availing himself of his pulpit, and in the face of numerous congregations denouncing and vilifying his opponent in no measured terms, exposing his unorthodox opinions in their most glaring and repulsive aspects, proclaiming what he characterised as their impious, blasphemous, demoralising nature, and thundering reproaches on the mistaken sympathy that had lately begun to be entertained for the author of such infamies. By right or by wrong Calvin was resolved that his old theological enemy, now turned, as he believed, into their tool for his humiliation by his political opponents, should not escape him. 366

CHAPTER VII.

THE TRIAL CONTINUED—THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL RECEIVES FRESH INSTRUCTIONS FOR ITS CONDUCT.

In the course of this extraordinary trial there seems never to have been the slightest difficulty made about shifting the grounds of the Accusation. The particulars on which the prisoner was interrogated were scarcely the same in all respects on any two successive days, and often wide as the poles asunder of the proper articles of impeachment produced against him. The petition just presented by the prisoner was thus, without scruple as without challenge, now made the ground of a series of questions and harangues by the prosecutor, studiously calculated to prejudice him in the eyes of his Judges.

Rigot had in fact made a great mistake in his own articles of inculpation. The prisoner, as it seemed, was even likely to escape through his mismanagement; but, otherwise advised, and as if to make amends for the line he had taken at first, he now showed himself either indisposed or afraid to follow further the dictates of his own more equitable nature. He had been in conclave with Calvin and received fresh instructions 367 from him, as Servetus affirmed without being contradicted. Rigot, in truth, was no longer free, but cowed by the stern resolve of the man of mind and iron will.85

August 28.—Abandoning the moderate tone he had hitherto observed, and taking the petition of the prisoner for his text, Rigot now entered on the task prescribed him of showing that the early Christian Emperors, contrary to the allegation in the petition, did take cognisance of heresy, and by their Laws and Constitutions consigned all who denied the doctrine of the Trinity to death. ‘But the prisoner,’ said Rigot, ‘his own conscience condemning him and arguing him deserving of death, would have the magistrate deprived of the right to punish the heretic capitally. To escape such a fate it is that he has now put forward the false plea that for false doctrine the guilty are never to be summarily punished. Not to seem to favour the errors of the Anabaptists, moreover, ever rebellious against the authority of the magistrate, it is that the prisoner in his petition now pretends to repudiate their doctrines; yet can he not show a single passage in his writings in which he reprobates their principles and 368 practices.’ All this was obviously most unfair to the prisoner. He was certainly opposed to infant baptism, and in so much agreed with the Anabaptists; but, far from declaring himself inimical to the constituted authorities of the state, he is emphatic in proclaiming the necessity of upholding them in the exercise of their lawful authority, and on the duty incumbent on subjects to obey.87

‘The further allegation of the prisoner,’ continued the public prosecutor, still harping on the petition, ‘that he never communicated his opinions to anyone, is manifestly false; for here we have had him saying that he should think he offended God did he not impart to others that which God had revealed to him. How shall we believe that, for the thirty years during which he has been engaged in elaborating and printing his horrible heresies, he has never communicated a word of them to anyone? Bethink ye, that he began at the age of twenty—an age when young people invariably communicate their views and opinions to one another, their friends and fellow-students—and by this judge of the kind of conscience the man puts into his answers with a view to abuse justice—as if he repented in any way of his horrible misdeeds! for though now saying that he is ready to submit to correction and ask pardon, he again and far oftener audaciously maintains that he has said nothing and done nothing amiss.’

Whether influenced by Calvin, to whose party in 369 the State Rigot appears to have belonged, or involved in the suit, and believing it his duty to do all in his power to obtain the conviction of the prisoner, we see him now speaking as if he were intimately persuaded of Servetus’s culpability, and even looking on him as already condemned; hence the indignation with which he repels the petitioner’s request to have Counsel to assist him in his defence. This, indeed, was a demand that could by no means be granted without taking the case from the criminal category in which it had been placed by Calvin from the first. It is not so very long since the felon or the incriminated for felony among ourselves was denied the advantage of Counsel, and we are not to wonder at the same rule obtaining in the Republic of Geneva more than three hundred years ago.

Had Servetus succeeded in obtaining Counsel, he could not, by the laws of Geneva, have been dealt with capitally; and this would not have met the views of Calvin, it being impossible in his opinion adequately to punish the crime of which he held the man had been guilty by any infliction short of death. Rigot therefore became eloquent on the petitioner’s insolence, as he called it, in asking for Counsel to aid him in his defence. ‘Skilled in lying as he is,’ said M. Rigot, ‘there is no reason why he should now demand an advocate. Who is there indeed,’ he proceeds, ‘who would or who could consent to assist him in his impudent falsehoods and horrible propositions? It has not yet come to this 370 that such seducers as he have been allowed to speak through Counsel; and then there is not a shadow of the simplicity that might seem to require assistance of the kind. Let him therefore be disabused of any hope he may have conceived that so impertinent a demand can for a moment be entertained, and ordered to reply by yea or nay to the further questions to be put to him.’ Rigot, we might fancy, must have thought that artful lying was a principal part of a counsel’s duties to his client.

Descending to further particulars suggested by the petition, the prisoner was asked, ‘On what grounds he rested the statement he makes concerning the judgment of heretics in the ancient church?’ To which he answered: ‘On the histories we have of Constantine the Great.’ ‘In the course of his law studies at Toulouse, however,’ said the prosecutor, ‘the prisoner must have made acquaintance with the code of Justinian, with the chapters in particular which treat of the Trinity, of the Catholic Faith, and of Heresy and Apostacy, in which he must know that opinions such as those he professes are condemned.’ The prisoner replied that ‘it was now twenty-four years since he had seen Justinian, and indeed he had never read him save in a cursory way, as young men at school or college are apt to do; and then,’ he went on to say, ‘Justinian did not live in the age of the primitive church, but in times when many things had become corrupted; when Bishops had begun to tyrannise and had already made the 371 Church familiar with criminal prosecutions.’ To this most pertinent reply, no answer was attempted.

Reproached with having calumniated the Ministers of the Word of God as teachers of false doctrine—which on his part, said Monsieur Rigot, amounts to a capital crime—Servetus admitted that calumny of the kind deserved the severest punishment, but maintained nevertheless that in disputation it was common and not unpardonable for opponents to gainsay one another in strong language, without being held guilty of calumny or defamation, and so of deserving punishment by the civil authorities for what they say.

Referring next to his intercourse with Œcolampadius and Capito, to whom he had ascribed conformity with his views, although, said Rigot, he must know that they were both doctors well approved by the reformed churches, and consequently could not possibly be of his mind on the subjects in debate; he replied ‘that consonance in every particular was not universal either among the Reformers or the reformed churches; Luther and Melanchthon, for instance, had both of them written against Calvin on the subject of the sacraments and free will. Without being in a condition to prove what he says in his petition, he declares nevertheless that in conversation with Capito, when they were private and without other witness than God, he—Capito—did assent to his views. Œcolampadius, he owned, had withdrawn the approval he seemed to accord in the first instance.’ 372

When we refer to Œcolampadius’s letters,88 we have no difficulty in believing what Servetus here asserts to be the truth. It was only after Servetus had more thoroughly exposed his opinions in conversation, that the Reformer of Basle saw the unsoundness, which had not appeared in the confession of faith sent him at an earlier period by his correspondent. And here let us observe that, whilst Œcolampadius is now particularly cited, nothing is said of Capito, still a Minister in the Reformed Church. Capito, however, was, as it seems, not entirely to be relied on in his views of the Trinity, that stumbling-block in the way of the first Reformers, so many of whom we have found giving but a half-hearted assent to the verbal contradictions it involves: the Reformers could spare one another as it seems, on the subject, though they had no mercy for Servetus!

It being objected to the prisoner that he was in manifest contradiction with himself when he said he thought he should offend God did he not impart the doctrine that had been revealed to him; he replied that what he had stated was his opinion and the truth; not-withstanding which he had spoken of his views to none but the doctors of the Reformed Church particularly named; a course he had followed, indeed, in consonance with the commandment of our Lord, not to cast pearls before swine: ‘I would not proclaim myself to incompetent persons, and I was living among Papists 373 in times when there was active persecution going on and much cruelty practised.’

The prosecutor now alleged, but as usual without a tittle of evidence, that the prisoner had had extensive epistolary relations with Italy, a country in which it was believed his doctrines had many followers—a fact, said Rigot, which it was unlikely he did not know, and less likely, still, not to improve upon, did he know it. To this Servetus replied by a simple denial: he had had no communications with Italy by letter or otherwise; adding that his only correspondents had been Œcolampadius, Calvin, Abel Poupin, and F. Viret, from whom alone the Court had any information concerning letters of his. Had we no other intimation of Calvin’s prompting, at this stage of the proceedings, than the reference now made to the spread of Antitrinitarian doctrines in Italy, we should feel assured that it was he who was fighting under the mask of Rigot, as he had formerly fought under that of Trie and of De la Fontaine. Rigot was not likely to know much of the spread of Antitrinitarian views in Italy, but Calvin was, as we learn distinctly through the letter of Paul Gaddi to him, which we have quoted. Calvin, indeed, makes pointed and angry reference to such a state of things both in his ‘Refutatio Errorum’ and ‘Déclaration pour maintenir la vraie Foy.’

The circumstances connected with the printing of the ‘Restoration of Christianity’ at Vienne were once more brought up, the prisoner being particularly questioned 374 as to his relations with the publisher Arnoullet and his manager Geroult. In contradiction to what he had already admitted on this head, and with the letter of Arnoullet to Bertet lying open before the Court, he now averred that he had not had any, even indirect, communication with Geroult on the subject of his book! This, we regret to think, must necessarily be untrue. The difficulty he had had to find a publisher, as we see by the letter of his friend Marrinus; the premium he had paid Arnoullet to have the work undertaken, the secrecy with which the printing had been carried on, added to other minor terms of the contract—that all was to be at his proper cost, that he was to be his own corrector of the press, &c.—-everything, in a word, assures us that both Arnoullet and Geroult were as well aware of what they were about as the author himself. Arnoullet, we may be certain, never intended to appear as either the printer or publisher of the heretical work. It was to come out in Italy, in Switzerland, in Germany—anywhere, everywhere, save at Vienne, Lyons, or Paris, the principal emporia of the book trade of France. Neither, indeed, did Michel Villeneuve, the Physician, intend to show himself at once as its author. The M.S.V., on the last page, was a private mark by which the child might be known and claimed by the parent at some future time, when his fame had spread over Europe, when he had been eagerly enquired after by an admiring world, and raised above the heads of Luther, Melanchthon, 375 Œcolampadius and Calvin, as the great ‘Restorer of Christianity’!

The persistence with which Servetus stuck to the untruth now uttered is not difficult of explanation: his first admission of complicity on the part of the Viennese publisher and his manager was made inadvertently and without forethought; his retractation and denial came of reflection and better feeling, when he saw that the admission was calculated to bring the two men who had aided him in his undertaking into the same trouble as himself. In spite of what M. Rigot says, Michael Servetus never meets us save as a man of a perfectly guileless nature—more guileless perhaps than truthful.

As every point in the several indictments was made subject of renewed inquiry, so do we now find further questions addressed to the prisoner on his life and social habits; for the prosecution, as we have seen, held it matter of moment to present him, if possible, as a person of immoral and ill-regulated life. They had not now, however, any more than formerly, a particle of evidence to show that he had ever lived otherwise than soberly, chastely, and respectably; and as to the allegation, brought up against him for the second time, that he had said women were not such paragons of virtue as to make matrimony necessary to secure their more intimate converse, he declared, as he had done already, that he had no recollection of ever having said anything of the kind; but if he had, it was 376 by way of bravado, and to conceal a certain infirmity under which he laboured which indisposed or incapacitated him, as he believed, from entering on matrimony.89

Making an abrupt change of front, the prosecutor now inquired of the prisoner what he meant by the passage in his book where he says that, ‘The Truth begins to declare itself and will be accomplished for all ere long.’ ‘Do you mean that your doctrine is the Truth, and will shortly be universally received?’ ‘I mean to speak of the progress of the Reformation,’ said Servetus; ‘the truth began to be declared in the time of Luther, and has gone on spreading since then until now.’ Had he stopped here, all would have been well and the answer must have been scored to his credit; but he went on to particularise and to say that ‘the Reformation would have to advance upon some matters which in his opinion were not yet well set forth.’

This was immediately seized upon as a challenge by the men who believed that the Reformation had already been accomplished or completed through them; so that he was forthwith required to explain what he meant by such language. Here, however, he dared not be outspoken; and though he made no denial of his doctrine, which was seen of all to be in his estimation the complement and crown of the Reformation, he 377 diverged into a variety of topics, floundered, and wound up by proposing to enlighten the Court by a reference to the Bible and the Fathers, or to explain himself more fully than he had done in his book if they would grant him a conference, in their presence, with one or more men of learning. Pressed further, he said that he could not divine whether his doctrine would ever be generally accepted or not; but he believed and should continue to believe that it was founded in truth until shown to be otherwise. ‘Such things,’ said he in conclusion, ‘are commonly enough denounced and condemned as erroneous at first, but are by and by acknowledged for truth and universally accepted.’

The prisoner had much the same difficulty in justifying his singular opinion that persons under the age of twenty were not accountable agents, or incapable of sin, and so not obnoxious to punishment for their misdeeds. He, in fact, made but an indifferent escape from such a paradox by declaring that, in speaking as he did, he had capital punishment only in view; not that he thought there should be penalties of no kind for evil-doers under age. They, he said, might be properly punished by flogging, seclusion, and the like. From what he says on another occasion we see that this fancy of Servetus was founded on a literal and arbitrary interpretation of the text where Jehovah, to punish the Israelites, determines that no one over twenty years of age is to enter the Land of Promise; 378 all others are to leave their carcasses in the wilderness.

Having said a few words in his book implying no disapproval of the infidel Alkoran, the prisoner, in reply to the reproaches made him for having spoken without reprobation of such a personage as Mahomet and his book, now averred that he had only adduced Mahomet and the Koran to the greater glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, and even ventured to add: ‘That though the book generally is bad, it nevertheless contains good things, which it is lawful to use’—language that was looked on as little short of blasphemy by his auditors, but that to us proclaims the superiority of the speaker over the bigots around him.

The last question in this day’s proceedings referred to a sojourn he was said to have made in Italy immediately before coming to Geneva, and how he had passed his time since he arrived there. And here again we find Calvin the prompter; for it is he who speaks of Servetus having wandered for four months in Italy before reaching Geneva. Any such journey or sojourn, however, as that now hinted at, Servetus positively denied; ‘and for such information as the Court might require of his doings since he had entered their city, he referred them to his host of the Rose, where he had had his quarters before being thrown into their prison.’ It is not difficult to see the drift of the latter clause of the question; but Servetus was on his guard now, and did not commit himself or his 379 prompters, the Libertines, as he had done when the printer of his book was in question.

August 31.—After the lapse of three days an answer was received to the letter addressed by the Syndics and Council of Geneva to the authorities of Vienne. In this missive the Genevese were informed that it was impossible to comply with the request they had made to have the documents connected with the trial of Michel Villeneuve sent to them, inasmuch as the authorities of Vienne could not sanction any review or possible inculpation of their proceedings. They therefore only forwarded duplicates of the warrant of arrest and sentence of death passed upon the said Villeneuve, and for themselves they demanded ‘the delivery of that individual into their hands, in order that the sentence passed upon him might be carried into effect,’ engaging, as they went on to say, ‘that it should be of a sort that would make any search for further charges against him unnecessary.’90

To this communication from Vienne, the Council ordered a gracious answer to be returned; but they declined to send back the prisoner, ‘inasmuch as he was at present under trial before themselves for matters in which they, too, promised that strict justice should be done.’ To be sent back to Vienne, Servetus knew would be to be consigned to certain death at 380 the shortest possible notice; so that to the somewhat needless question now put to him by the Court, their own expressed determination considered: ‘whether he preferred remaining in the hands of the Council of Geneva, or to be sent back to Vienne? he fell on his knees and entreated to be judged by the Council in presence, who might do with him what they pleased; but he begged them in no case to send him back to Vienne.’ There he knew that the stake was driven, and the faggots piled, whilst in Geneva, we must imagine from his bearing, he did not at present fear that anything of the kind could possibly come into requisition.

The business of Vienne thus brought into prominence, the Council proceeded to inquire of the prisoner concerning the trial there; touching once more on his escape from the prison, his coming to Geneva, and any communication he might have had since his arrival in the city with persons resident therein. On the subject of the trial and escape he could be open and communicative; but he denied explicitly that since he reached Geneva he had spoken with anyone save those who waited on him and brought him his meals in the hostel where he lodged—a denial against the truth of which more than suspicion may fairly be allowed. But let us observe that Servetus’s swervings from the absolute truth are mostly to screen others rather than to save himself. On the vital question of his religious opinions be never blenched before his judges of Geneva. 381

It was now that the prisoner mentioned incidentally the singular fact that the windows of the room he occupied in the Rose Inn had been nailed up. But why this was done he did not say; neither, strangely enough, was any notice taken of it by the Court. There can be little doubt, however, as we interpret the matter, that it was to prevent him from taking himself off without the knowledge of his prompters of the Libertine party. Realising the full hostility of Calvin, knowing that his life was aimed at, he was anxious to be gone; but Perrin and Berthelier had resolved to keep him and play him off against their tyrant and the Clericals, reckless of the risk he was thereby made to run, so as they might use him for their own selfish ends. Hence the otherwise inexplicable delay of the month in Geneva before his presence became known to Calvin—the fatal delay that cost him his life!

How it happened that Servetus was ever made an object of interest to the Libertine party, detained as he certainly was by them in his passage through Geneva, is a question not altogether irrelevant. That he was unknown even by name to the chiefs of this party, and to everyone else resident in Geneva, save Calvin, seems certain; and Calvin who had not seen his Parisian acquaintance for nearly twenty years, had no intimation of his presence there for nearly a month. But William Geroult, the printer of Vienne, was in Geneva when Servetus reached the city. Having heard of his escape from prison, he may have been on 382 the look-out for the possible coming of the fugitive. Geroult, though of the Reformed Faith, we have seen reason to believe was not among the number of Calvin’s admirers. But native of Geneva and of the Libertine party, we venture to think it was through him that Servetus was made known to Perrin and Berthelier; such particulars being further communicated as suggested to them the use that might be made of the fugitive against their clerical enemy. We have seen the proceedings of August 23rd concluded by a number of questions having reference to those with whom the prisoner might have held communication since he reached the city, and particularly if he had not seen and spoken with William Geroult, and if Geroult did not know that he intended to come to Geneva?

That they might leave no incident in the previous history of the prisoner unnoticed, the Court now questioned him on his opinions touching the Mass, which it was known he had declared to be a mockery and a wickedness, his habit nevertheless having been to attend its celebration during his residence at Vienne. To this, put to him reproachfully, he replied that he had but imitated Paul, who frequented the synagogue like the Jews in general, though he had inaugurated a new religion of his own; but for himself, he added that he had sinned through fear of death, and regretted what he had been obliged to do.

Confronted with the gaoler of Vienne, who had brought the missives of his masters to Geneva, and 383 asked if he knew the man, he replied that of course he did, having been under his charge in prison for two days; but he exonerated the gaoler from all complicity with his escape. Furnished with a certificate to this effect, the gaoler was dismissed, and returned to Vienne.

September 1.—At the sitting on this day a letter was received from M. Maugiron, Lieutenant-General of the King of France for Dauphiny, which gave fresh occasion for recurrence to the affairs of Vienne. In his letter Maugiron informed the Syndics and Council of Geneva that the goods and chattels and debts due to Michel Villeneuve, estimated to amount to 400 crowns, had been escheated by his Majesty the King, and given to his—Maugiron’s—son; but that to come into possession it was necessary to have a list of the parties indebted to the doctor. He therefore requested the Council to interrogate their prisoner on this head, and furnish him with a list of the names and surnames of debtors to the prisoner’s estate, as well as of the sums severally due by each. The noble correspondent, Lieutenant of the King of France for Dauphiny, must have been oblivious of the professional services of the physician Villeneuve when he consented to write as he did to the Syndics and Council of Geneva; for we have seen that Servetus was actually taken from the house of this Monsieur Maugiron when in attendance on him, to find himself a prisoner. Anxious to clear himself of all suspicion of having aided and abetted in 384 the evasion from the prison of Vienne, Maugiron goes on in his letter to express himself ‘rejoiced to know that Villeneuve is now in the hands of Messieurs de Geneve, and I thank God,’ he continues, ‘for the assurance I feel that you will take better care of him than did the Ministers of Justice of Vienne, and award him such punishment as will leave him no opportunity for dogmatising, or writing and publishing heretical doctrines in time to come.’

Let us not doubt that the heart of Michael Servetus swelled with indignation and contempt at this exhibition of heartlessness and meanness on the part of the man he had tended in his sickness. The experience of the physician, however, leads him to form no very high estimate of the world’s thankfulness for services in sickness: the fee at the moment is mostly held to close the account. Sick men are weak; and when they recover are usually well-disposed to forget not only their weakness, but the physician who has seen it.

The appeal made to the self-esteem of the Council of Geneva, and a possible desire on their part to enter into rivalry with the judicial tribunal of Vienne, may have contributed in some measure to the final condemnation of Servetus. We do not read that they took the becoming course at once of declining to question the 385 prisoner on matters having not even the most remote connection with the cause; they seem actually to have tried to elicit information from him, that would have been of use to M. Maugiron, in making the gift of his Majesty the King of France of much avail; but Servetus positively declined to give any information of the kind desired, as having no bearing on the matters for which he was now on his trial, and being likely to distress many poor persons who were indebted to him. 386

CHAPTER VIII.

SERVETUS IS VISITED IN PRISON BY CALVIN AND THE MINISTERS.

We have seen symptoms of something like a leaning of the Court towards the prisoner. They had requested Calvin and others of the Clergy to visit and confer with him, and do their best to bring him to what all regarded as a better understanding; and it would appear that immediately after the last sitting, Calvin, accompanied by several Ministers, proceeded to the gaol and had an interview with the prisoner. Calvin of course was the spokesman, and opened upon him with an address in which he strove to show him not only the load of error under which he laboured in his exposition of Scripture generally, but the grave offence he had committed in attacking the particular dogma of the Trinity, as interpreted by the Churches, and in calling all who believed in it Tritheists and even Atheists.

From what we already know we may divine how little a visit from John Calvin with such an exordium was likely to lead to any satisfactory conclusion; Servetus appears at first, indeed, to have declined even to hear his visitors: he was too much oppressed by sorrow, 387 sickness, and long confinement, he said, to enter on any defence of his views, and a prison was no fit place for theological discussion.

Stern, bigoted, and uncompromising as he was by nature, Calvin would have been false to his calling as a Minister had he not striven, though thus encountered, to bring even a personal enemy to what he believed to be proper thoughts of the Trinity, the nature of the Logos and the Sonship of Christ; and we do not question his will and inclination to do so; but in Servetus Calvin saw the man who had insulted and so had mortally offended him, whilst in Calvin, Servetus beheld the individual who so lately, by underhand means and the violation of his confidential correspondence, had wrecked his fortunes and sought his life; the man, moreover, at whose instance he was now in prison and subjected to what he rightfully regarded as unworthy usage and an unauthorised and unjust trial.

We can but excuse the irritation that mastered Servetus now, and lament that with Berthelier’s disastrous countenance misleading him, he neglected the chance that was undoubtedly offered him to save his life, had it been but by a show of moderation and conciliatory bearing. Calvin, however, must have persevered for a while with the unfortunate physician, and brought him to reply to more than one of the principles of his system produced against him. Among others, we find him reported as maintaining that wherever the word Son is met with in the Scriptures, it is the man 388 Jesus that is to be understood; and when Christ is spoken of as the Word and the Eternal Son, the language is to be taken in a potential not in an actual sense; neither Light, Logos, nor Son having existed otherwise than in the mind of God before creation; the actual or real Son in particular having only begun to be when engendered in the womb of the Virgin Mary—and so on, the discourse turning upon matters transcending man’s power to know, and falling wholly within the domain of faith or belief. On the last topic brought under review, Servetus from the beginning of his career was always empathic. ‘Si unum iota mihi ostendas quo Verbum illud Filius vocetur, aut de Verbi generatione fiat mentio, fatebor me devictum. Ubi Scriptura dicit Verbum, dicit et ipse Verbum; ubi Filius, Filius; scilicet: olim Verbum, nunc vero Filius.’ These are his words in his earliest work, and from their tenor he never swerved.91

The interview ended as we may imagine it could only end—with increased irritation on the part of the Ministers at the obstinate self-will of the heretic, as they interpreted it, and without a ray of new light having made its way into the mind either of the prisoner or his visitors. His would-be enlighteners, however—he thinking that they stood much in need of enlightenment from him—were particular, before taking their leave, in insisting on the right of the temporal power in the state to repress and punish theological error. 389 Heretics, as they said, being liable by the Justinian Code, still in force over Europe, to be proceeded against and punished as criminals; and he having, in a highly objectionable manner, attacked many among the most sacred of the divine ordinances, would have no reason to complain did he find himself dealt with in the severest fashion as a blasphemer of the Church of God, and disturber of the peace of Christendom.

But neither, as we may imagine, were the words of the deputation in this direction found of any avail in leading the prisoner to their views. Civil tribunals, he maintained, were utterly incompetent in matters of faith, and had no right of the sword in cases of imputed heresy. The Code of Justinian was in truth no authority, having been compiled in times when the Church had already lapsed from its original purity. The violent repressive measures it sanctioned were wholly unknown to the Apostles and their immediate successors. Besides all this, he held the Church of Geneva to be specially precluded from giving an opinion or pronouncing a judgment upon his views; his opponent and personal enemy, Calvin, wielding such paramount authority there, as to make him in fact and in himself the Church. How little all this, however true (and all the less, perhaps, because true), was calculated to win either Calvin or his followers to more friendly feelings, may be imagined; but it shows us the brave, consistent, conscientious, religious man, face to face with fate, and a proffered opportunity to conciliate and save his life, 390 abiding by his convictions, and, with the warning but just given him, rather than belie himself, verily courting death. What would have happened had Galileo been as conscientious and firm as Servetus? 391

CHAPTER IX.

THE COURT DETERMINES TO CONSULT THE COUNCILS AND CHURCHES OF THE FOUR PROTESTANT CANTONS.

It was at this time and on the suggestion of Servetus—as Calvin affirms, of the Council, according to its own minutes—that a resolution was come to, by which the Church of Geneva was no longer to have the sole say in the final decision of the guilt or innocence of the prisoner. The Councils and the other reformed Churches of Switzerland, it was resolved, were to be consulted on the merits of the case. There was a precedent for such a course; it had been followed only two years before, under somewhat similar circumstances, when Jerome Bolsec was tried for heresy at the instance of Calvin. Calvin and the Ministers were consequently directed by the Court to extract from the works of the prisoner, and to deliver in writing, but without note or comment, the particular passages involving the erroneous or heretical opinions in debate between the prosecution and him.

This appeal to the Swiss Churches we cannot help thinking of as fatal to Servetus. If his own concluding reply to the deputation which visited him in prison 392 did not lead to it, it was probably suggested to him by Berthelier, who knew that it had saved Bolsec. But Berthelier was not theologian enough correctly to appreciate the dissimilarity of the propositions involved in the two cases; and he certainly took no note of the difference in the political circumstances of the several times, or he would not have given the advice we presume he did.

From the letters which Calvin now wrote to several of his friends, particularly to Sulzer, of Basle, we learn that he was much averse to the idea of this appeal to the Churches. Having been foiled by them in his prosecution of Bolsec, he must have feared that what had happened before might happen again. He knew that he was less considered abroad than at home, and seems not to have apprehended that the appeal now resolved on, was not only to ensure his own triumph, but to make the Reformed Churches of Switzerland participators in his sin of intolerance and abettors of the error (to give it no worse name) he committed when he brought Servetus to his death. 393

CHAPTER X.

THE TRIAL IS INTERRUPTED THROUGH DIFFERENCES BETWEEN CALVIN AND THE COUNCIL.

The Churches were to be appealed to, then, and Calvin applied himself immediately to make the best he could of the case as it stood. With the diligence that distinguished him, we need not doubt of his having been soon ready with the Articles upon which the trial of Servetus may be said to have entered on its third, if it were not its fourth and definite, phase.92 But a notable interval elapsed before we find the Council giving any heed to the new Articles of Indictment, or taking steps to have them despatched to the Cantons. The Council had business of another kind to engage them, with Calvin and his friends as their opponents on grounds of policy, instead of their instigators and guides in a trial for heresy. It was at this precise time that the struggle to which we have alluded in our review of the political situation took place between Calvin and the Council on the right exercised by the Consistory to excommunicate or deprive of Church privileges 394 those who were known to have infringed one or another of its arbitrary religious, moral, or sumptuary regulations. Philibert Berthelier, having offended in this direction, had fallen under the ban of the Consistory some time before; but, having now appealed to the Council for redress against what he held to be an unjust award, his party were powerful enough not only to obtain a decision in his favour, but to have the Consistory deprived of the right to excommunicate at all.

This was felt, of course, as a heavy blow by Calvin and his supporters. Berthelier, formally absolved of the Consistorial interdict, was declared at liberty to present himself at an approaching celebration of the Solemn Supper. And he would probably have shown himself there, and an unseemly scene would have ensued; for Calvin was as resolute to have his authority respected within the walls of St. Peter’s Church, as the Council could have been to have theirs upheld within the precincts of the City. Berthelier himself, however, being advised that though he was fully entitled to present himself at the Table, it would perhaps be as well did he abstain from doing so for the present, took the hint and stayed away. But several members of the Libertine party—each of whom we must presume, in Calvin’s estimation, might have subscribed himself as

uninformed of this, and expecting countenance from the presence of their leader, offered themselves among 395 the other communicants. Being all well known to Calvin, however, they were resolutely warned off by him. Covering the typical Bread and Cup with his outspread hands, he declared that they should sooner hack them off than bring him to minister to those he looked on as notorious scoffers at religion and its most solemn rites. Here the minister was in his place and within the pale of his office; so that they who came to browbeat and humble him had to retreat from his presence with shame to themselves and damage to their party, whilst he stood erect in the fearless discharge of his duty, and rose higher than ever in the estimation of all lovers of law and order, even of the stringent kind that prevailed in the theo-autocratic city of Geneva.

The letter which Calvin wrote, at this stormy time, to his friend Viret, of Lausanne, is too interesting and characteristic not to have a place here:

... I had thought to have been silent about our affairs of Geneva, fearing that I should only add needlessly to your other anxieties; but lest rumours reaching you from other quarters should distress you more than knowledge of the truth, I think it best to tell you exactly what has happened.

When Ph. Berthelier was forbidden to present himself at the Lord’s Table some year and half ago, he then appealed to the Council against the decree of the Consistory. We were called into court to hold the scoundrel (nebulo) in check; and when the case had been heard, the Senate declared that he had been properly excommunicated. From that time until now he has been quiet; whether in despair of mending 396 matters or through indifference, I know not. But now, and before the Syndicate of Perrin expires, he would have himself reinstated by the Council in spite of the Consistory. I was again summoned, and in copious words I showed that this could with no propriety be done; that it would not be lawful, indeed, to counteract in any such way the discipline of the Church. When my back was turned, however, the Consistory not having been further heard or represented, permission was given him by the Council to present himself at the Table. This being told to me, I took care immediately to have the Syndic summon a special meeting of the Council, at which I entered with such fulness into the question, as to leave nothing which in my opinion could be said further to make them change their mind—now vehement, now more persuasive, I strove to bring them to a right way of thinking. I even declared that I would sooner die, opposing their decree, than profane the Sacred Table of the Lord.... The Senate nevertheless replied that they saw no reason to depart from the judgment already given.

From this you will perceive that I should have nothing for it but to quit my ministry, did I suffer the authority of the Consistory to be trodden under foot, and consented to administer the Supper of Christ to the openly contumacious who declare that we Pastors of the Church are nothing to them. But, as I say, I would sooner die a hundred deaths than subject Christ to so foul a mockery. What I said yesterday at two meetings, I need not recapitulate. But the wicked and lost among us will now have all they desire. In so far as I am concerned, it is the Church’s calamity that distresses me. If God, however, give such licence to Satan that I am to be thwarted in my ministry by violent decrees, I am as good as dead in my office. But he who inflicts the wound will find the salve; and truly, when I see how the wicked have gone on all these years with such impunity, the Lord perhaps prepares 397 some judgment for me, in respect of my unworthiness. Whatever befals, it is nevertheless for us to submit to his will. Farewell, and may God be with you always, guide you and protect you! Pray incessantly that He consider this our miserable Church!

Geneva, The day before the nones (4th) of September, 1553.

398

CHAPTER XI.

THE TRIAL IS RESUMED ON THE NEW ARTICLES SUPPLIED BY CALVIN.

It fell out, unfortunately for Servetus, that the decree of the Council against the Consistory was the immediate prelude to the resumption of his trial. The decision come to had been warmly contested by Calvin, as we see by the preceding letter, he looking on any interference of the civil magistrate in questions which he regarded from a purely ecclesiastical point of view, as a blow not only to his spiritual authority in Geneva, but to the cause of religion. He saw the late awards of the Council in favour of Berthelier and against the Consistory in the light of triumphs of his enemies over himself, and mainly due to the influence of his particular opponent, Amied Perrin, under whose presidency the adverse decisions had been obtained.

On the resumption of the Servetus trial, then, the hot blood engendered by the recent struggle had not yet had time to cool; and Calvin, on taking his place in the reconstituted Criminal Court, found himself once more not only face to face with his theological opponent, but set beside his chief political enemies, Perrin 399 and Berthelier. Elate with the advantage just gained, they had kept their seats on the Bench, intending doubtless to do what in them lay to secure a further victory through Michael Servetus over the uncompromising Reformer. It is not difficult to imagine the influence, in the present state of affairs, which the attitude of these men had on the fate of our unhappy Servetus; for Calvin, with his many supporters acting as his spies, was well informed of the countenance they had given the prisoner privately, and seems to have construed their presence at this particular moment as a public demonstration in his favour. To convict Servetus was therefore to thwart them, and the discomfiture of the solitary stranger had become more than ever a personal and political necessity to the Reformer.

The articles from the works of Servetus from the ‘Christianismi Restitutio’ exclusively, on this occasion, thirty-eight in number, had been laid before the Court so long back as September 1, and are headed: ‘Opinions or Propositions taken from the Books of Michael Servetus which the Members of the Church of Geneva declare to be in part impious and blasphemous, in part full of profound errors and absurdities, all of them alike opposed to the Word of God and the orthodox assent of the Church.’

September 15.—The Court constituted in the usual manner, with Servetus before them sworn to speak the truth, Calvin, who seems now to have taken the place 400 of the Attorney-General, proceeded to interrogate the prisoner on the new Articles of Impeachment. One of the first of these, referring to the relationship of the Son to the Father in the mystery of the Trinity, appears to have given rise to another long, and we may imagine excited debate between Calvin and the prisoner; from which, however, the judges were able to gather so little light that they interposed, and came to a resolution to have any further discussion that might arise carried on in writing and in the Latin tongue, instead of by word of mouth and in French as heretofore.

The substitution of Latin for French had in fact become a necessity when the determination to consult the other Reformed Churches of the Confederation was adopted. Native to Geneva with its French-speaking population, French was little understood at Berne, Basle, Zürich, and Schaffhausen with their German inhabitants; but the liberally educated among them were generally familiar with Latin. Calvin, we must therefore presume, had presented his new Articles in French, so that they had to be translated and turned back into Latin; but the trial appears to have suffered no particular delay on this account. Presented anew in the Latin tongue and approved by the Court, they were ordered by it to be submitted to the prisoner, with the intimation that he was required to answer them, and to feel himself at liberty to alter or retract anything he might now think he had written unadvisedly; to explain anything he had said that was misunderstood; 401 and to defend such of his opinions as were challenged, by the citation of Scripture in their support. Nor was he to be hurried in sending in his replies; he was to take his own time, and to enter as fully as he pleased into every question.

As it is part of our business here to learn on what grounds men of the highest culture burned one another to death three hundred and twenty-four years ago—and it is thought by some that there still remains such an amount of ignorance, bigotry, and intolerance in the world as might lead to a rekindling of the fires, were the power to do so but added to the will—we feel bound to make a somewhat particular study of the Articles on which the unfortunate Servetus was finally incriminated and doomed to die. We therefore proceed to lay before the reader, in slightly condensed form, these Articles, which will be seen, on the most cursory perusal, to involve none but topics of transcendental dogmatic theology—a subject which to reasonable men has now lost almost all the significance it once possessed, but which has still a large historical interest as showing, in contrast with present views, the progress that has been made from darkness into light; and as illustrating the great, yet persistently neglected, truth, that the religious feelings are no safe guides of conduct when dissevered from the other emotional elements of human nature in balanced action among themselves, enlightened by science and associated with reason. Religion has in fact at no time been the civiliser of mankind, as so 402 commonly said, but has itself been the civilised through advances made in science or the knowledge of nature, and in general refinement. Brutal and blood-stained among savages and the barbarous but policied peoples of antiquity, Assyrians, Chaldæans, Egyptians, Hebrews; cruel and intolerant among Newer Nations well advanced in art and letters, but ignorant of the world they lived in and the universe around them, religion has only become humane as Science has been suffered to shed her ennobling light, and will first prove truly beneficent when Piety is seen to consist in study of the laws of nature, which are the laws of God, and Worship is acknowledged to be comprised in reverential observance of their behests. What adequate idea of God could be formed—if, indeed, it be possible for man to form any adequate idea of God!—so long as this earth—this mote in the ocean of Infinity—was thought of as the centre of the universe, the one object of God’s care, and a single family among the myriads that people it as the sole recipients of his revealed word and will!

But turn we to our Articles, which we proceed to pass under review in connection with the answers made to them by Servetus. In these we shall now find him more intemperate than he has yet shown himself; more aggressive, too; not only indisposed to yield in jot or tittle, but negligent of opportunities to defend his conclusions, and eager to attack his pursuer; ready to call him opprobrious names, and to charge him with wilful misrepresentation and malignity. The recent 403 triumph of Perrin and Berthelier had obviously infected Servetus, and not only lost him his chance of continuing to improve his position with his judges, but even made him careless of making any serious effort to prove himself in the right.

At the very outset of his replies, and by way of preface, assuming the Articles to be Calvin’s and Calvin’s alone, Servetus says: ‘It is impossible not to admire the impudence of the man, who is nothing less than a disciple of Simon Magus, arrogating to himself the authority of a Doctor of the Sorbonne, condemning everything according to his fancy, scarcely quoting Scripture for aught he advances, and either plainly not understanding me or artfully wresting my words from their true significance. I am therefore compelled, before replying to his Articles, to say, in brief, that the whole purpose of my book is to show, first, that when the word Son is met with in Scripture it is always to the man Jesus that the term is applied, he having also the title Christ given him; and, second, that the Son or second Person in the Trinity is spoken of as a person because there was visibly relucent in the Deity a Representation or Image of the man Jesus Christ, hypostatically subsisting in the Divine mind from eternity. It is because this rationale of the Person is unknown to Calvin, and because the whole thing depends thereon, that I refer as preliminary to certain passages from the ancient Doctors of the Church on which I rest my conclusions.’

Passages sixteen in number, from Tertullian, 404 Irenæus, Clemens Romanus, and others, are then cited to justify the sense he attaches to the words Person and Son; from which we see that Servetus, following his authorities, adopts the Neo-platonic view of the Son as a pre-existing idea in the Divine mind, not as an entity distinct from the essence of God, having a proper life and subsistence of its own, and only proceeding in time to become incarnate in the man Jesus.

We were interested, of course, in referring to these passages from the Fathers (they are given at length in Calvin’s Refutation); and, though disappointed in finding them less cogent and conclusive than we had expected, we yet discover the germs of almost all that is more fully developed by Servetus in connection with the subjects of which they speak. ‘Tertullian,’ says he, ‘declares, that to conform with things human, God, in former times, assumed human senses and affections, and made himself visible to man in the divinity of Christ; and that the words Person and Son of God are used in Scripture because God, invisible, intangible in himself, was made visible in Christ. He who spoke with Adam in the garden, with Noah, with Abraham, and came down to see what the Babylonians were about, and so on, was no other than Christ or a prefiguration of Christ. He who spoke with Moses, too, at different times was Christ—the Relucent visible Image or Figuration of the invisible Deity. In the essence of God there is no real distinction between the Father and the Son; they do not constitute two invisible 405 entities such as the Tritheiti imagine; it is no more than a formal distinction that is made between the invisible Father and the visible Son. It is the idea of prolation or procession of one thing out of another that has given occasion to certain dispositions, dispensations, or modes in the Deity being turned into so many entities, and so into a Trinity of Persons. Quoting St. Paul, Tertullian says that “in the face of Christ is seen the very light of God;” and to this I myself refer repeatedly in my Third Book on the Trinity; but Calvin, persisting in his blindness, will not see God thus.’

From Irenæus we find little that is not repetition of what is said by Tertullian. ‘The Jews,’ he says, ‘did not know that he who spoke with Adam and Abraham and Moses in human form, was the Word, the Son of God. But Jesus, as the Image, as the Word, was then the Divine manifestation of God, being at once, but without real distinction, both Word and Spirit; for in the spiritual substance of the Father was comprised the figuration and representation of the Word. Abraham was taught and knew that the Angel who visited him was the representative of the Word which was, or was to be, the future man, the Son of God—dost hear, Calvin?—the Word was the figuration of the man Jesus! The Word is always spoken of as something visible; so that when John says, “In the beginning was the Word,” we are to understand the prefiguration of Christ in the Deity: invisible in himself, God 406 the Father is visible in the Son. The Logos and the Spirit imply nothing of personal distinction in God so that, when it is said, “God made all things by his Word,” it is himself as Creator, and not another, that is to be understood: the Word and the Holy Ghost are not to be thought of as distinct entities, but as dispositions in God.’

But enough of this—more than enough, indeed, is before the reader to enable him to judge of the kind of matter that never yet influenced man in his conduct towards either God or his fellow, on which Michael Servetus was adjudged to die.

The answers of Servetus to the incriminated passages of his book are obviously by no means either so full or so satisfactory as he might easily have made them; neither are they always so worded as unequivocally to express his proper views; but of more moment than all, they are given without the references to Scripture which the Court had suggested, and would certainly have had greater weight with it than aught else that could be urged. Though he uses the words person and hypostasis, we know that he did not understand 418 them in the same way as theologians generally. He did not acknowledge any proper personality in the nature of God, who to him was invisible, all-pervading Essence, inscrutable too, save as manifesting and making himself known in Creation. Servetus’s persons and hypostases are modes or manifestations of God in nature, and, not limited to three, are, in truth, infinite in number, and proclaimed in an infinity of ways. To accommodate himself in some sort to such conceptions as were current on the subject of the Trinity, he uses language at times which it seems might fairly bring him within the pale of orthodoxy, were we not aware of the arbitrary meaning he attaches to the terms employed: God, Father, all-pervading Being; Christ, Son, visible manifestation of God to man; Holy Ghost, Angel—ἐνέργεια, actuating force in nature. Such, as we understand him, was the kind of Trinity formulated by Servetus.

The answers of the prisoner to the new articles of incrimination were now ordered by the Court, which has nothing to say to them itself, to be put into the hands of the Reformer for his strictures. This gave Calvin the opportunity which he did not fail to turn to the best advantage. Treating Servetus’s Replies in a very different spirit from that in which the Spaniard had treated his Articles, he proceeded elaborately to criticise and refute them; in other words, and more properly, to demonstrate the incongruity and incompatibility of Servetus’s admitted beliefs and opinions 419 touching the transcendental propositions involved, with the orthodox conclusions of himself and the Churches generally. To a theologian like Calvin such a task presented no difficulties; but the thoroughness of his exposition or refutation, and the length to which it runs, assure us of the pains he bestowed on the work. Calvin is said to have spent no more than two or three days in the composition of this elaborate paper; had the time been two months and more, it would have been little, and few men, we apprehend, could have got through the work in less time.

Signed by as many as thirteen ministers beside himself—for Calvin would not forego the backing of his colleagues in such a cause—the Refutation of the prisoner’s replies to his prosecutor’s Articles of Inculpation was laid before the Court at their next meeting; and in a spirit of entire judicial fairness, was by them ordered to be forthwith submitted to the prisoner, for his observations in assent to, or dissent from, the interpretations put upon his words. He was even particularly told, as he had been before, that he was at liberty to answer in the way and at the length he pleased.

The understanding of the Court when giving Calvin his instructions, was that his Extracts were not to be accompanied by either note or comment—they were to be ‘word for word’ from the writings of the prisoner. But we see that he gave little heed to this injunction; for many of the Articles are either prefaced or concluded by a comment; Art. XVI. for example, 420 begins in this way: ‘That he may corrupt the saying of the apostle,’ &c.; XVII.: ‘To say that God is Father of the Holy Ghost, is to confound the persons,’ &c.; XVIII.: ‘To show that he plays with the word person,’ &c.; XXXV.: ‘After jumbling together many insane and pernicious notions on the substance of the soul,’ &c.; XXXVIII.: ‘That he has written and published horrible blasphemies against the baptism of infants,’ &c. Calvin, in short, could not resist the opportunity of helping the Judges to a conclusion in consonance with his own views, and therefore adverse to those of his opponent.

When we turn to Calvin’s Refutation of the Errors of Michael Servetus, we observe him setting out by saying that he will not imitate the prisoner in the use of uncivil language, but confine himself strictly to the matters in question. He would not be John Calvin, however, did he keep his word; and truly his language is at times little less offensive than that of Servetus; whilst his comments, uniformly adverse, are ever studiously calculated to damage the prisoner in the eyes of his Judges. ‘Whosoever,’ says Calvin in concluding his work, ‘will duly weigh all that is here adduced, will not fail to see that the whole purpose of Servetus has been to extinguish the light we have in the true doctrine, and so put an end to all religion.’ But we, for our part, say, after some pains bestowed, that whoever peruses the writings of Servetus without a foregone conclusion that any one among the various formulated 421 systems of religious doctrine he sees around him is the Absolute Truth, and alone essential to constitute Religiousness, will not fail to discover that not only had Servetus no thought of putting out the light of religion in the world, but that he was animated by a most earnest desire, through another interpretation of the Records which he, too, looked on as Revelations from God, to set Christianity on another, and, as he believed, a better foundation than it had yet obtained from the labours of Luther, Calvin, and the rest of the Reformers. Servetus was, in truth, but one among the host of Reformers of every shade and colour who made their appearance on the field at the trumpet-call of Luther, and who had but this in common: hostility to the ignorance and immorality of monk and priest, to the pride and lust and abuse of power so conspicuous in Pope and Roman Hierarch. And shall we in these days think of him as impious and irreligious who held that it was less than reasonable to speak of the coeternity of a Father and a Son, taking the words in any common-sense acceptation; and that a single entity could not be conceived as subdivided into three distinct entities or persons, without loss of its essential unity, nor three distinct entities or persons be thought of as amalgamated into one without loss of their several individualities? Who said, moreover, that he believed God to be the all-pervading essence and order of the universe; man to be fitted for his state, each individually answerable for his own sin, not for the sin of another, 422 and that faith in the highest exemplar of humanity as he conceived it, that had ever appeared on earth, added to a good life and its associate charities, was that which was required for salvation? Shall we, we ask, think of such a man as less pious, less religious, less likely to be acceptable to God than one who believed that there was a certain Word which was with God from the beginning, and was indeed God, and yet another than God; or that God, beside his proper all-sufficing substance, was supplemented by several hypostases or offsets, which were at once himself, yet other than himself; that from eternity God had elected and fore-ordained a relatively limited proportion of mankind to salvation and eternal life, and doomed an infinitely larger proportion to perdition and everlasting death? Shall we, we say further, think that the man who was tolerant of the speculative opinions of others, and whose business in life it was to visit the sick and reach the healing potion, was less of a good, and a true, and a useful member of society, than he who aspired through the unseen, the unknown and the unknowable, to rule the world with a rod of iron, who was utterly intolerant of other speculative opinions than his own, and in enforcing his arbitrary rules for the regulation of life and conversation, was merciless in the use of the scourge, the branding iron, the sword, and the slow fire? Surely we shall not. Were greatness associated in the world with true nobility of nature, light-bringers, like Michael Servetus, would assuredly be set on a higher level than conquerors of kingdoms. 423

CHAPTER XII.

THE TRIAL IS CONTINUED, AND SERVETUS ADDRESSES LETTERS TO CALVIN AND HIS JUDGES.

On returning to his dungeon after his examination on September 15, Servetus addressed his prosecutor in the following characteristic epistle, which the reply to Art. XXI. appears to have suggested:

To John Calvin, health!—It is for your good that I tell you you are ignorant of the principles of things. Would you now be better informed, I say the great principle is this: All action takes place by contact. Neither Christ nor God himself acts upon anything which he does not touch. God would not in truth be God were there anything that escaped his contact. All the qualities of which you dream are imaginations only, slaves of the fields as it were. But there is no virtue of God, no grace of God, nor anything of the sort in God which is not God himself; neither does God put quality into aught in which he himself is not. All is from him, by him, and in him. When the Holy Spirit acts in us, therefore it is God that is in us—that is in contact with us, that actuates us.

In the course of our discussion I detect you in another error. To maintain the force of the old law, you quote Christ’s words where he asks: ‘What says the law?’ and answers himself by saying: ‘Keep the commandments.’ But here you have to think of the law not yet accomplished, not 424 yet abrogated; to think further, that Christ, when he willed to interpose in human things, willed to abide by the law; and that he to whom he spoke was living under the law. Christ, therefore, properly referred at this time to the law as to a master. But afterwards, all things being accomplished, the newer ages were emancipated from the older. For the same reason it was that he ordered another to show himself to the priest and make an offering. Shall we, therefore, do the like? He also ordered a lamb and unleavened bread to be prepared for the Passover: Shall we, too, make ready in this fashion? Why do you go on Judaising in these days with your unleavened bread? Ponder these things well, I beseech you, and carefully read over again my twenty-third letter. Farewell.94

How little likely this epistle, however reasonable in itself, was calculated to win the favour of Calvin, need not be said. To pretend to set John Calvin right in anything could, indeed, only be taken by him as an impertinence.

In the present disposition towards the prisoner—the purely metaphysical and undemonstrable nature of the matters in debate, taken into account—we may reasonably conclude that the Judges had hoped he would be able to explain away the offensive and heretical sense in which his views were regarded by the head of their Church—and indeed, and in so far as they could be understood, as they must have been seen by themselves.

But Servetus, unhappily for himself, did not improve 425 the opportunity presented him of righting himself in any way with the Court by the manner in which he set about dealing with Calvin’s strictures on his replies to the incriminated passages of his book. He does not now, as he had done before, however curtly and imperfectly, reply to the Reformer’s refutations, and show wherein he is misinterpreted or misunderstood; neither does he present his views in another and more questionable light than they are set by his accuser, which he could readily have done in numerous instances at least; and, where this was impossible, he might have appealed to the reason and common sense of his Judges for latitude in interpreting matters that really lie beyond the scope of the human understanding. He, however, did nothing of all this, but proceeded as though he thought it neither necessary nor worth his while to defend himself or his opinions any further—he did not even take paper of his own for his reply, but contented himself with jottings on the margins and between the lines of Calvin’s elaborate refutation! the remarks he makes, moreover, being rarely in the way of answer or explanation. They are mostly curt expressions of dissent, or simply abusive epithets applied to the Reformer, who is called Simon Magus, liar, calumniator, persecutor, homicide, and more besides. Instead of persisting in his legitimate plea that he was but another in the ranks of the Reformers, interpreting the Scriptures by the understanding he had by nature and his education, or declaring, as he had done before, 426 that he would be found ready to abjure those of his opinions that were shown him to be opposed to their teaching, and adverse to the peace of the world, he threw down the gauntlet on the whole question, not to Calvin only, but to the religious world at large. But this, the point of view from which the religious question was regarded in the middle of the sixteenth century, considered, was simply to ensure his condemnation. Men less bigoted, and, above all, less under the influence of the most intolerant of bigots, might possibly have been led to take pity on the writer, and to see him for what he was in truth—a sincerely pious zealot of irreproachable life, if much mistaken, as they believed, in his theological conclusions; and so, and save in the use of intemperate language, excusable on every ground of Christian charity. But this, perhaps, was more than could possibly be expected in the fifteen-hundred-and-fifty-third year of the Christian æra.

In returning the document so unhappily annotated, Servetus appears to have felt that an apology was due to the Court for the style of response he had adopted. He therefore accompanied it with the following letter, in which he seeks to excuse himself for the course he has taken:

My Lords,—I have been induced to write on Calvin’s paper as there are so many short, interrupted expressions which, apart from the context, would have neither sense nor signification. But doing as I have done, setting the pros and cons in juxtaposition, Messieurs the Judges will be able more readily to decide on the questions in debate. Calvin must 427 not be offended with me for this, for I have not touched a word of his writing; and it was not possible, without infinite confusion, to do otherwise than as I have done. Be pleased, my Lords, to let those who may be appointed to judge or report, have the two books now sent, as they will be thereby spared the trouble of searching out the passages referred to, these being all duly indicated. If Calvin makes any remarks on what is now said, may it please you to communicate them to me.

Your poor prisoner,
Michael Servetus.

This epistle, like the petitions presented to them, received no notice from the Council, which at this time was seriously engaged with business more interesting to them in their civil and administrative spheres; so that for some fourteen days no heed was given to the unfortunate Servetus rotting in the felon’s gaol of Geneva, or to the preparation and despatch of the documents to be submitted to the Councils and Churches of the four Protestant Cantons. 428

CHAPTER XIII.

CALVIN ANTICIPATES THE JUDGES IN THEIR APPEAL TO THE SWISS CHURCHES.

Calvin, unlike Servetus, was never remiss. Sedulous to leave as little as might be to accident, and nothing, if he could guard against it, to independent conclusion, he did not fail to take advantage of the pause in the proceedings that now occurred, by being beforehand with the judges, and writing to the leading ministers of the Swiss Churches, every one of whom was of course personally known, and, with few exceptions, even servilely devoted, to him. Addressing Henry Bullinger, on September 7, he says:—

The Council will send you, ere long, the opinions of Servetus in order to have your advice. It is in spite of us that you have this trouble forced on you; but the folks here have come to such a pass of folly and fury that they are suspicious of all we say. Did I declare that there was daylight at noon, I believe they would question it. Brother Walter [Bullinger’s son-in-law] will tell you more [of the state of affairs here].

Calvin, it would therefore appear, did not like the appeal to the Churches. We have said that he had formerly been baffled in his pursuit of Jerome Bolsec, 429 by the moderation they recommended when consulted on the case. He would have had his own and the Church of Geneva’s decision suffice; the motion for appeal to the wider sphere, moreover, seems really to have come from Servetus, and this of itself would have sufficed to make it distasteful to Calvin. The Council’s giving in to it must have been regarded by him, if not as an insult, yet as a mark of distrust: hence his angry allusion to the fury and folly of the Genevese. He made the best of the matter, however, as we have said, by having the start of the Council; and not only writing to the chiefs of the four Churches, but in the case of Zürich at least, by sending a messenger—Brother Walter—specially commissioned to give Bullinger, its head pastor, information of a kind he would not trust to writing.

Bullinger, in reply to the written and verbal communication, informs Calvin that—

‘Walter’s news has indeed saddened and disquieted him greatly.’ In some sort of trouble himself, as it seems, Bullinger can heartily sympathise with his brother of Geneva; yet is he ‘without fear for the future, though there be in the town around him more dogs and swine than he could desire! Still many things are to be put up with for the sake of the Elect, and we have to enter the Kingdom of Heaven through great tribulation. But do not, I beseech you, forsake a Church which has so many excellent men within its pale. Bear all for the sake of the Elect. Think what cause of rejoicing your retreat would give to the enemies of the Reformation, and with what danger it would be fraught to the French refugees. Remain! The Lord will not forsake you. He has, indeed, 430 now presented the noble Council of Geneva with a most favourable opportunity of clearing itself from the foul stain of heresy, by delivering into its hands the Spaniard Servetus. You will have heard, of course, that he has put forth another book, wherein he surpasses himself in impiety; but if the blasphemous scoundrel be dealt with as he deserves, the whole world will own that the Genevese have the impious in horror, that they are forward to pursue the obstinate heretic with the sword of justice, and well disposed to assert the glory of the Divine Majesty! Nevertheless, and in any case should they not do so, you ought not to abandon your post and expose the Church to new misfortunes. Fight on bravely, then, trusting in God.’95

From what he says, we see that Bullinger had not been informed of all that had taken place in Geneva, and that the printing of ‘the other book,’ which he could not yet have seen, had been the occasion of its author’s arrest and trial. But the letter to Calvin, prompted by the news he had received through Brother Walter, satisfies us that Calvin at this time felt little at his ease in Geneva, and in nowise sure of the support he was to have from his friend Bullinger. He had no doubts as to the theological criminality of Servetus; neither had he any qualms as to the kind of punishment he designed for him; but he was wroth with the Council for the impartiality it showed towards one who had dared, as he believed, to beard him in his own domain, and ventured to subscribe himself as having the support of the great heavenly 431 head of all the Churches. As Calvin interpreted the latest proceedings of the Council, they appeared simply hostile to himself. Failing now in his prosecution of the Spaniard, his social influence would be compromised, and with the check he had just received in the affair of Berthelier, and the power of the Consistory to excommunicate, whereby his religious foothold was seriously shaken, he must have threatened, if he did not really contemplate, the extreme step of abandoning the Genevese to their own evil devices. Bullinger probably took Calvin’s threat of quitting his charge in Geneva, as conveyed to him by Brother Walter, too literally. From the suspicion of any such purpose, we find him anxious immediately to clear himself by the letter he forthwith addressed to the Zürich pastor:

‘From your letter, most excellent Brother (he says), I learn that you have not been so accurately informed of the griefs whereof I complain as I could have wished. The wicked people about me, knowing that I am irritable, my stomach troubling me often and in various ways, have lately been striving to get the better of my patience. But sharp as the struggle has been, they have not succeeded in turning me in the slightest measure from my course. I have been armed against all the arrows they have aimed at me. The Lord may have put me of late so sorely to the proof among this people, that I might learn by experience what heavy trials have to be borne by his ministers. He who has upheld me hitherto will not, I trust, fail to possess me with less fortitude in time to come. Wherefore, trusting in his aid, I have never been really minded to quit the station in which he has placed me. Never once, when your Walter was here lately, 432 did I think of giving way and yielding to the contumelies and indignities that were heaped upon me. The report to the contrary was raised by the factious, that they might injure me.’

Calvin then goes on to inform his friend of the affair of Berthelier, and the permission he had received from the Council to present himself at the Lord’s Supper, and continues: ‘Knowing the brazen face of the man who, with every occasion given him, has still stood in my way; and believing that he would be disposed to vanquish me if he could, I declared to the Council that I would not administer to him, and said that I would sooner die than prostitute the bread of the Lord by giving it to dogs or such as made a mockery of the Gospel, and trod the ordinances of the Church under foot. You have not understood aright what I said. Do not imagine that anything is changed. Something more may possibly be attempted at the next meeting of the Council. May the Lord lead the perverse to desist from their efforts! For my part, it is certain that I will never suffer the discipline sanctioned by the senate, and the decree of the people, to be set aside. If I am prevented from discharging the duties of my office, I may have to yield to force, but I will never renounce the liberty I possess; for, that abandoned, my ministry would be in vain. I am not made of such stubborn stuff, however, as not to feel sorely distressed when I think of the future scattering of this flock; but whilst I have the power, I shall do all I can to hold them in the right way. Do you with your prayers come to our aid, and entreat that Christ may keep to himself his flock of this place.

Things go on no better in France. Wherever there is the pretext, they do not spare bloodshed. Three are condemned to death at Dijon, if they be not already burned; and the danger is that the commotions we hear of in Scotland will add fuel to the fires. Seven or eight youthful persons have 433 been thrown into prison at Nemours, and in several other French towns many more have met with a like fate. Farewell!

The letter which Calvin wrote about the same time to Sulzer, pastor of Basle, also deserves a place here, as showing the pains he took to influence the minds of his friends in his own favour and against Servetus.

The name of Servetus, who, twenty years ago, infected the Christian world with his vile and pestilent doctrines, is not, I presume, unknown to you. Even if you have not read his book, it is scarcely possible that you should not have heard something of the kind of opinions he holds. He it is of whom Bucer, of blessed memory, that faithful minister of Christ, a man otherwise of the most gentle nature, declared that ‘he deserved to be disembowelled and torn in pieces.’ As in days gone by, so of late he has not ceased from spreading abroad his poison; for he has just had a larger volume secretly printed at Vienne, crammed full of the same errors. The printing of the book having been divulged, however, he was thrown into prison there. Escaping from prison—by what means I know not—he wandered about in Italy for some four months; but driven hither at length by his evil destiny—tandem hic malis auspiciis appulsum—one of the syndics, at my instigation, had him arrested.

Nor do I deny that I have been led by my office to do all in my power to restrain this more than obstinate and indomitable individual, so that the contagion should continue no longer. We see with what licence impiety stalks abroad, scattering ever new errors; and we have also to note the indifference of those whom God has armed with the sword to vindicate the glory of his name. If the Papists approve themselves so zealous and so much in earnest for their superstitions, 434 that they cruelly persecute and shed the blood of innocent persons, is it not disgraceful in Christian magistrates to show so little heart in defending the assured Truth? But where there is the power of prevention, there are surely limits to the moderation that suffers blasphemy to be vented with impunity.

As regards this man, then, there are three things to be considered: First, the monstrous errors with which he corrupts all religion, the detestable heresies with which he strives to overthrow all piety, and the abominable fancies with which he surrounds Christianity, and seeks to upset from the foundation every principle of our Faith. Secondly, the obstinacy with which he has comported himself, the diabolical persistency with which he has despised all the counsels given him, and the desperate insistance wherewith he has been forward to spread his poison. Thirdly, the daring with which he, even now, produces his abominations. So far is he from showing any sign or giving any hope of amendment, that he does not scruple to fasten his plague-spot on those holy men, Capito and Œcolampadius—as if they were his associates! Shown the letters of Œcolampadius, he said he wondered by what spirit he, Œcolampadius, had been induced to depart from his first opinion!...

There is but one thing more on which I would have you advised, viz.: That the Questor of our city, who will deliver you this, is of a right mind in the business, which is, that the prisoner shall not escape the fate we desire—ut saltem exitum quem optamus non fugiat.

I say nothing now of French affairs; there being no news here of which I imagine you are not as well informed as we, unless it be that on last Sabbath-day three of our pious brothers were burned to death at Lyons, and a fourth met a like fate in a neighbouring town. It is scarcely credible how these men, illiterate, but enlightened by the spirit of God, and 435 ennobled by the perfections of the Doctrine, behaved on the occasion; with what unswerving constancy they met their fate. But it is not there only; in other parts of France burnings of the same sort go on incessantly; nor seems there any prospect of mitigation. Farewell!

Geneva; v. of the Ides (19) of Septr. 1553.

Calvin, we see from this epistle, believed that he would be fully justified in having Michael Servetus burned alive at Geneva because they differed in their interpretation of the Trinity; but that the Papists of Lyons were inexcusable for sending to a fiery death those who with himself did not acknowledge the Pope as God’s vicegerent on earth, and Romish doctrine as the true and only saving faith. It is the evil destiny of Servetus, too, that has led him into the toils of the Reformer; and to be of a right mind in the business of the prosecution, then proceeding is, so to play into the hands of the prosecutor that his victim shall not escape the death designed him!

It was of Zürich, however, more than of any of the Churches consulted, that Calvin felt most in doubt. The tolerant views of Zwingli were in some sort hereditary there; and Bullinger, who was its chief pastor, had disappointed him in the case of Bolsec. But he must also have had strong misgivings of Basle, when he was induced to write the long and particular letter to Sulzer, its leading minister, which we have just perused. The more refined and delicate tone that is said to have pervaded society in the city of Basle indisposed 436 its people to violence or extremes; and ‘Thorough’ was always the word on Calvin’s banner.

If he had doubts of Zürich and Basle, Calvin could place implicit reliance on Neuchatel, where Farel, his oldest, most devoted, and most obsequious friend presided as head of the Church. Addressing Farel soon after the arrest of Servetus, he writes:

It is even as you say, my dear Farel,—we are indeed variously and sorely tried and tossed about by storms! We have now a new business with Servetus—jam novum habemus cum Serveto negotium. His intention may, perchance, have been to pass through this city; but it is not precisely known why he came hither. When he was recognised, however, I thought it right to have him arrested, my man Nicholas presenting himself as accuser on the capital charge, and binding himself by the law of retaliation, to proceed against him. Articles of accusation under as many as forty heads were presented in writing on the day following the arrest. He prevaricated at first, which led to our being called in. Recognising me, he behaved as though he held me obnoxious to him. I, as became me, gave no heed to him. The senate, in fine, approved of all the charges, and he was sent back to prison. On the third day after, my brother becoming bail for Nicholas, he was set at liberty.

I say nothing of the effrontery of the man; but such was his madness that [in the course of the interrogatory] he did not hesitate to say the Devil was in the Deity—Diabolus inesse Divinitatem—and more, that in so many men there were so many gods, Deity being substantially communicated to them, as, indeed, he said it was to stocks and stones! I hope the sentence will be capital at the least—Spero capitale saltem fore judicium; but I would have the cruel manner of carrying it out remitted. Farewell!

437

Calvin’s charge was therefore, as we see, to no halting or half-way conclusion. He proceeded from the first for a capital conviction—he hoped it would be nothing short of this; and being so, he knew the kind of death the man must die. It is a poor show of humanity, therefore, that he makes at the end of his letter. But there is a phrase at the beginning of the epistle which deserves very particular notice: ‘Iam novum habemus cum Serveto negotium—we have now on hand a new business with Servetus.’ But there was no older business with Servetus at Geneva. It was at Vienne that this took place. Writing to Farel, his oldest and most trusted friend, Calvin reverts in mind to the fact, and his words reflect or echo back his inward thought. Of the justice of this surmise we seem to find confirmation in Viret’s letter of August 22, which we have seen in reply to the one in which Calvin inquires after a copy of the book on Trinitarian Error; for there the pastor of Lausanne says: Nunc vobis est alia cum Serveto disputatio—and now you have another contention with Servetus;96 an obvious reference to a passage in one of the Reformer’s letters of the same tenor as that he has just addressed to Farel. Calvin, it is notorious, always shirked acknowledgment of the part he played in the affair of Vienne. Even the self-complacency that comes of theological zeal did not permit him to find an excuse for underhand 438 dealing, and the violation of a correspondence that was private and entirely confidential. He was, by no means, insensible to the infamy that cleaves to an act of the kind, however, and in his own case could say, ‘Zebedæus has been perfidiously showing confidential letters of mine, which I wrote to him fifteen years ago from Strasburg!’97

Farel’s reply to the last epistle of Calvin, dated from Neufchatel on September 8, is as follows:

I have returned from Normandy, restored to my usual good state of health.... It is a wonderful dispensation of God that has brought Servetus to this country. I wish he may come to his senses, late though it be. It will indeed be a miracle if he prefer death, and, turning to God, consent to edify the spectators—he dying one death who has caused the death of so many others!

Your judges will only show themselves hard-hearted contemners of Christ, enemies of the true Church and of its pious doctrine, if they prove insensible to the horrible blasphemies of so wicked a heretic. But I hope God will so order it that they may merit commendation by putting out of the way the man who has so long and so obstinately persevered in his heresies to the perdition of so many! In desiring to have the cruelty of the punishment mitigated, you appear as the friend of him who has been your greatest enemy. There are some, however, who would let heretics be doing—as if there were any difference between the office of the pastor and that of the magistrate! Because the Pope condemns the faithful for the crime of heresy, and hostile judges cause innocent persons to undergo the punishment that should 439 be reserved for blasphemers, it is absurd to conclude that heretics are not to be put to death, in order that the faithful may be preserved. But do you act, I pray, in such a manner as to show that in time to come no one will be suffered to promulgate new doctrines and to throw everything into confusion, as this Servetus has done. For my own part, I have often said that I should be ready to suffer death did I teach aught that was opposed to the true doctrine, and should deem myself deserving of the most terrible tortures did I turn even one from the faith that is in Christ. I would not, therefore, apply to another a different rule.

Farel is neither an elegant nor an agreeable, still less a logical, writer; but he is zealous in behalf of the true doctrine—the doctrine, to wit, he holds himself. God, the father of mankind, who sends the rain and the sunshine indifferently on all, has, in the opinion of this poor bigot, by a special dispensation of his providence, led a sincerely pious man, according to his lights, to Geneva, there to be first harshly and ignominiously treated by another sincerely pious man, according to his lights; and finally through the influence he exerts over its clergy and magistracy, to be put to a lingering death by slow fire! Farel never thought of himself, with his ‘True Doctrine,’ as a heretic in the highest degree in the eyes of his neighbours the Roman Catholics of France with their ‘True Doctrine.’

It is more than questionable, indeed, whether Farel had ever read a word of Servetus’s writings. He was a man of action, fearless, full of fiery zeal, and a ready 440 talker, but with no great amount of scholarly acquirement, and still less of philosophy. In anything of his we have seen, and save in what is said of his harangues, he never meets us otherwise than as a man of narrow mind, utterly intolerant and entirely under the influence of Calvin. If Servetus had sinned by persevering in heresy, and corrupting souls, so had he, so had Calvin, so had Melanchthon and the rest, in the estimation of their neighbours the Papists of neighbouring lands; and, though he speaks glibly of myriads who had lost their chance of salvation through Servetus, there was never a tittle of evidence adduced on the trial to show that even a single individual had been influenced by his writings. On the contrary, all who are brought forward in connection whether with the man or his works—Œcolampadius, Bucer, Melanchthon—are proof and more than proof against both him and them. Calvin and Farel, as we see, had made up their minds that Servetus was to be condemned to death weeks before the conclusion of his trial. 441

CHAPTER XIV.

SERVETUS SENDS A LETTER AND A SECOND REMONSTRANCE AND PETITION TO HIS JUDGES.

Smarting under a sense of the unjustifiable treatment to which he was so relentlessly subjected, and weary of the delays that had taken place through the disputes between the Consistory represented by Calvin, and the Council, Servetus now gave vent to the pent-up storm within him in the following characteristic remonstrance. Alluding to the backing his persecutor received from the clergy, and the number of names attached to the Refutation of his Replies, he exclaims:

Thus far we have had clamour enough and a great crowd of subscribers! But what places in Scripture do they adduce as their authority for the Invisible Individual Son they acknowledge? They refer to none; nor, indeed, will they ever be able to point to any. Is this becoming in these great ministers of the Divine Word, who everywhere boast that they teach nothing that is not confirmed by distinct passages of Holy Writ? But no such places are now forthcoming; and my doctrine, consequently, is impugned by mere clamour, without a shadow of reason, and without the citation of a single authority against it.

Michael Servetus,
who signs alone, but has Christ for his sure protector!

442

Engaged with more immediate and interesting business in the political and administrative sphere of their duties, the Council had, in fact, left that in which their prisoner Michael Servetus was so particularly concerned unnoticed for something like fourteen days. This long delay gave him reasonable cause for complaint, and furnished him with grounds not only for the outburst given above, but for a further petition and remonstrance to the following effect:

To the Syndics and Council of Geneva.

My most honoured Lords!—I humbly entreat of you to put an end to these great delays, or to exonerate me of the criminal charge. You must see that Calvin is at his wit’s end and knows not what more to say, but for his pleasure would have me rot here in prison. The lice eat me up alive; my breeches are in rags, and I have no change—no doublet, and but a single shirt in tatters.

I made another request to you, which was for God’s sake; but to prevent your granting it, Calvin alleged Justinian against me. It is surely unfortunate for him that he brings against me that which he does not himself believe. He neither believes nor does he agree with what Justinian says of the Church, of Bishops, of the Clergy, nor of many things besides connected with religion. He knows well enough that [in Justinian’s day] the Church was already corrupted. This is disgraceful in him—all the more disgraceful as he keeps me here for the last five weeks in close confinement, and has not yet adduced a single passage [of Scripture] against me.

I have also demanded to have counsel assigned me. This would have been granted me in my native country; and here I am a stranger and ignorant of the laws and customs of the 443 land. Yet you have given counsel to my accuser, whilst refusing it to me, and have further set him at large before having taken any true cognisance of my cause. I now demand that my cause may be referred to the Council of Two Hundred. If I am permitted to appeal to it, I hereby appeal; declaring, as I do, that I will take on me all the expenses, damages, and interests, and abide by the award of the Lex Talionis as well in respect of my first accuser [De la Fontaine] as of Calvin his master, who has now taken the prosecution into his own hands.

From your prison of Geneva, this 15th of Septr. 1553.

Michael Servetus,
in his own cause.

The Council appear to have been nowise moved by this very reasonable petition. The request for counsel, here reiterated, was not noticed—it had already been disposed of, and could not be granted; but the petition to have his case referred to the Council of the Two Hundred was discussed and rejected: the tribunal before which he was on his trial was competent in every respect by the laws of the State. Orders, however, were given that the articles of clothing he required should be procured for him at his proper cost; but as it seems to have been the business of no one to see the order carried into effect, or because the Council and custodians of the gaol of Geneva were accustomed to see their prisoners in rags and devoured by vermin, it was unheeded at the time, although attended to at a somewhat later period in this eventful history. 444

Had there been no resolution to take the opinion of the Councils and Churches of the confederate Reformed Cantons, everything necessary to a decision was again before the Court. The term had indeed been exceeded within which by the law of Geneva the proceedings ought to have ended—the law positively forbidding the protraction of a criminal suit beyond the term of a calendar month. The law had, therefore, been violated; but there was no one to urge the point in behalf of the prisoner, any more than there had been to expose Calvin’s disobedience of the Council’s orders to present his Articles of Incrimination without note or comment. Neither the Clerical nor the Libertine party, however, had yet done with the unfortunate Servetus, although it was not before their meeting of September 21 that the Council found itself at leisure to take up the tangled skein of the Servetus-prosecution again, and to order the necessary documents to be prepared for submission to the Councils and Churches they had determined to consult. Before despatching these when ready, they seem to have thought it would be well to show Calvin the short demurrers of Servetus to his elaborate Refutation; expecting, probably, that he would have something to say to them, but not meaning to let Servetus see anything Calvin might think proper to add. There was no occasion however, as it fell out, to act on this rather partial reservation. The Reformer did not think fit to notice even one of the unhappy annotations of his enemy, in which the lie direct is given 445 him something like fifty times; and the epithet nebulo—knave—is not the most offensive that is applied to him. He did not add a word to what he had already written. A mere glance at the unhappy jottings sufficed, as it seemed, to make him feel sure of his suit; Servetus, he saw, stood self-condemned in his neglect to adduce Scripture authority for his peculiar views, or to show that they had either been misinterpreted or misunderstood by his pursuer. The abusive epithets so plentifully heaped on Calvin only recoiled upon himself. 446

CHAPTER XV.

THE SWISS COUNCILS AND CHURCHES ARE ADDRESSED BY THE COUNCIL OF GENEVA.

From the duel as heretofore carried on between Calvin, backed by the Ministers of Geneva, and Servetus, seconded by Christ alone, as he said, the process was now to be widened in its scope and debated between the solitary stranger and the Reformation at large, or so much of it at least as was represented by the Protestant Churches of Berne, Basle, Zürich, and Schaffhausen. As many as four copies of the writings that had passed between the prosecution and the prisoner had, therefore, to be made, and for this a couple of days were required; so that it was not until after the third week of September that the messenger usually charged by the authorities of Geneva with their despatches was furnished with his credentials to the Councils and Ministers of the four towns named. The documents forwarded were copies of the ‘Christianismi Restitutio,’ and of the works of Tertullian and Irenæus; the thirty-eight articles from the writings of Servetus extracted by Calvin; Servetus’s replies to these in defence of his views; and Calvin’s Refutation of his errors, as he 447 characterised them, having Servetus’s jottings, disclaimers, and abusive epithets interspersed. Grounding their opinions on these lengthy documents, the Swiss Churches were requested to declare themselves on the orthodox or heretical nature of the passages inculpated, and so, in fact, to pronounce on the guilt or innocence of the prisoner in respect of the heresy and blasphemy imputed to him; their standard being, of course, the particular form of Christianity professed by the prosecutor and themselves.

In referring to the Churches in communion with that of Geneva, the Council is careful to say that it would not be supposed to entertain any doubts of the competency of the Church of Geneva to pronounce a definitive opinion on the questions at issue; it would only have further light before coming to a decision in a matter of so much moment. The style of address adopted by the Council of Geneva to the Councils and Churches of the Cantons consulted will be sufficiently appreciated from the letters sent to Zürich. And first the one addressed to the Ministers:

Geneva, September 21, 1553.

Honourable Sirs!—Well assured that you are every way disposed to persevere in the good and holy purpose of upholding and furthering the Word of God, we have thought we should do you an injustice did we not inform you of the business in which we have been engaged for some time past. It is this. There is a man now in prison with us, Michael Servetus by name, who has thought fit to write and have printed certain books on the Holy Scriptures, containing matters which 448 we think are nowise according to God and the holy evangelical doctrine. He has been heard [in his defence] by our ministers, who have drawn up Articles against him, to which he has replied, and to his replies answers have been given—all in writing; and we pray you, for the honour of God, to take the papers now forwarded to you into consideration, and to return them by the same messenger with your opinion and advice. We beg you further to look into the book which will be delivered to you by our messenger, so that you may be well and fully informed of the unhappy propositions of the writer.

In writing thus and asking your advice we desire to say that we do so without any mistrust of our own ministers.

To the Burgomaster and Council of Zürich.

Geneva, September 22, 1553.

High and mighty Lords!—We know not if your Lordships are aware that we have in hand a prisoner, Michael Servetus by name, who has written and had printed a book containing many things against our religion. This we have shown to our ministers; and, although we have no mistrust of them, we desire to communicate the work to you, in order that, if it so please you, you may lay it before your clergy, together with the replies and rejoinders that have been made in connection therewith. We therefore pray you to be good enough to submit the documents now sent to your ministers and request them to give us their opinion of their merits, to the end that we may bring the business, to which they refer, to a close.

On the result of the course now taken the fate of Servetus evidently depended. Did the four Swiss Churches find the extracts from his writings heretical and blasphemous, the Council of Geneva, in their capacity of criminal judges, would find themselves justified 449 in passing upon him the extreme sentence of the law; and Calvin’s determined pursuit not only of his theological opponent and personal enemy, but of his political antagonist and, in some sort, rival, as he had been made to appear through the espousal of his cause by the leaders of the Libertine party, would be brought to the conclusion he desired. 450

CHAPTER XVI.

SERVETUS AGAIN ADDRESSES THE SYNDICS AND COUNCIL OF GENEVA, AND ACCUSES CALVIN.

If Calvin, then, as we apprehend, had every reason to anticipate an answer in his favour from the Churches, so do we find Servetus possessed by the assured hope that he would be acquitted, or, at most, be found guilty of nothing involving a heavier penalty than banishment from the Republic of Geneva. Of heresy he did not think for a moment he had been more guilty than every one of the Reformers whom he had been accustomed to hear spoken of in the polite circles of Vienne not only as schismatics, but as heretics of the deepest dye. If his ‘Restoration of Christianity’ had been burned by the hangman of Vienne, had not Calvin’s ‘Institutions of the Christian Religion’ been summarily condemned by the whole Catholic world, and put on the Index of prohibited books by the Roman Curia? So sure does Servetus appear to have felt of final acquittal at this time—guiltless of blasphemy as in his soul he knew himself to be, and bolstered by the 451 false hopes of his false friends, that whilst the scales of justice were still trembling on the beam, he, from his filthy cell, in rags, and devoured by vermin, even he aspired to become the accuser of the man by whom he was himself accused, and subjected to all the indignities he endured! It could only have been under the excitement of some such persuasion that he now wrote the following extraordinary letter to the Council:—

To the Syndics and Council of Geneva.

My most honoured Lords,—I am detained on a criminal charge at the instance of John Calvin, who has accused me, falsely saying that in my writings I maintain—

1st. That the soul of man is mortal, and

2nd. That Jesus Christ had only taken the fourth part of his body from the Virgin Mary.

These are horrible, execrable charges. Of all heresies and crimes, I think of none greater than that which would make the soul of man to be mortal. In every other there is hope of salvation, but none in this. He who should say what I am charged with saying, neither believes in God nor justice, in the resurrection, in Christ Jesus, in the Scriptures, nor, indeed, in anything, but declares that all is death, and that man and beast are alike. Had I said anything of the kind—said it not in words only, but written and published it, I should myself think me worthy of death.

Wherefore, my Lords, I demand that my false accuser be declared subject to the law of retaliation, and like me be sent to prison until the cause between him and me, for death or other penalty, is decided. To this effect I here engage myself against him, submit myself to all that the Lex Talionis requires, and declare that I shall be content to die if I am 452 not borne out in everything I shall bring against him. My Lords, I demand of you, justice, justice, justice!

From your prison of Geneva, this 22nd of September, 1553.

Michael Servetus,
pleading his own cause.

The letter was followed by a series of articles in form like those lately brought against himself, headed—

Articles on which Michael Servetus demands that John Calvin
be interrogated.

I. Whether in the month of March last he did not write, by the hand of William Trie, to Lyons, and say many things about Michael Villanovanus called Servetus. What were the contents of the letter, and with what motive was it sent?

II. Whether with the letter in question he sent half of the first sheet of the book of the said Michael Servetus, entitled ‘Christianismi Restitutio,’ on which were the Title, the Table of Contents, and the beginning of the work?

III. Whether this was not sent with a view to its being shown to the authorities of Lyons, in order to have Servetus arrested and impeached, as happened in fact?

IV. Whether he has not heard since then that in consequence of the charges thereby brought against him, he, the said Servetus, had been burned in effigy, and his property confiscated; he himself having only escaped burning in person by escaping from prison?

V. Whether he does not know that it is no business of a minister of the gospel to appear as a criminal accuser and pursuer of a man judicially on a capital charge?

My Lords, there are four great and notable reasons why Calvin ought to be condemned:

First: Because doctrinal matters are no subjects for 453 criminal prosecutions, as I have shown in my petition, and will show more fully from the Doctors of the Church. Acting as he has done, he has therefore gone beyond the province of a minister of the Gospel, and gravely sinned against justice.

Second: Because he is a false accuser, as the above articles declare, and as is easily proved by reading my book.

Third: Because by frivolous reasons and calumnious assertions he would suppress the Truth as it is in Jesus Christ, as will be made obvious to you, by reference to my writings; what he has said of me, being full of lies and wickedness.

Fourth: Because he follows the doctrine of Simon Magus, in great part, against all the Doctors of the Church. Wherefore, magician as he is, he deserves not only to be condemned, but to be banished and cast out of your city, his goods being adjudged to me in recompense for mine which he has made me to lose. These, my Lords, are the demands I make.

Michael Servetus,
in his own cause.

Although we have only conjecture to aid us in understanding the temper that now shows itself in Servetus, and the hope he evidently entertains of triumphing over his prosecutor, we cannot be mistaken in ascribing it to the influence of Perrin and Berthelier. They must have imagined that the same result would ensue from the appeal to the Churches as had followed the reference made to them in the case of Jerome Bolsec, and believed that the worst that would befal their puppet would be banishment from the city and territory of Geneva. If they could but cross and spite the refugee Frenchman, their clerical tyrant, through the 454 fugitive Spaniard, their end would be attained, although at the cost, perhaps, of a certain amount of inconvenience to their instrument. The conclusion of Servetus’s last address to the Council shows clearly the opinion he had been led to form of Calvin’s present position in Geneva. ‘As the magician he is,’ says Servetus, ‘he ought to be condemned, and cast out of your city, his property being adjudged to me in recompense for all I have lost through him!’ The Council appear to have taken no more notice of this last address and demand of their prisoner than they had of his preceding more reasonable petitions and remonstrances.

The pause in the proceedings that ensued, pending the receipt of replies from the Churches consulted; the silence of the Council upon his letter and inculpation of Calvin, combined with the effects of continued imprisonment, anxiety, and hope deferred, on a body not of the strongest, would seem before long to have induced a frame of mind different from that so unmistakably displayed of late by the prisoner. The petition forwarded three weeks later to the Council is pitched in a much lower key than the one last presented.

Most noble Lords,—It is now about three weeks since I petitioned for an audience, and still have no reply. I entreat you for the love of Jesus Christ not to refuse me that you would grant to a Turk, when I ask for justice at your hands. I have, indeed, things of importance to communicate to you, very necessary to be known. 455

As to what you may have commanded to be done for me in the way of cleanliness, I have to inform you that nothing has been done, and that I am in a more filthy plight than ever. In addition, I suffer terribly from the cold, and from colic, and my rupture, which cause me miseries of other kinds I should feel shame in writing about more particularly. It is very cruel that I am neither allowed to speak nor to have my most pressing wants supplied; for the love of God, Sirs, in pity or in duty, give orders in my behalf.

From your prison of Geneva,
Michael Servetus.

October 10, 1553.

This appeal to the duty as well as the compassion of the Council was the first of any he had addressed to it which met with an immediate response. One of the Syndics, attended by the Clerk of the Court, was commissioned to visit the prisoner, and inquire into his state, being requested, further, to see measures taken to have him furnished with the articles of clothing he required, so that the resolution formerly come to in this direction should no longer remain a dead letter.

October 19 and 23. A month had all but elapsed before the messenger to the Councils and Churches of the Protestant Swiss Cantons returned with the replies of the Magistrates and Pastors to the Documents submitted to them by the Council of Geneva. But he came at last. As the answers were in Latin, translations into French had to be made for the behoof of those among the councillors of Geneva who were indifferently versed in the Latin tongue. Some days 456 more were required for this; so that though the messenger arrived on October 19, the papers in Latin and French were only ready on the 23rd, when they were laid before the Council, once more solemnly assembled in its judicial capacity, with the prisoner before them.

The Church of Berne which was the first referred to [and had its head pastor, Haller, as reporter of its conclusion?], blames Servetus not only for his heresies, but for his insolence and want of respect for Calvin.

He seems (says the report) to have thought himself at liberty to call in question all the most essential elements of our religion, to upset everything by new interpretations of Scripture, and to corrupt and throw all into confusion by reviving the poison of the ancient heresies.... We pray that the Lord will give you such a spirit of prudence, of counsel, and of strength, as will enable you to fence your Church and the other Churches from this pestilence, and that you will at the same time take no step that might be held unbecoming in a Christian magistracy.

The Church of Zürich [of which Bullinger must have been the reporter], replied at greater length than that of Berne, or, indeed, any of the other Churches, going minutely into the question of Servetus’s opinions, which are pronounced to be at once heretical and blasphemous. The Ministers of this Church are particular also in insisting on the propriety of upholding Calvin in his prosecution of the heretic.

We trust (say the pastors of Zürich), that the faith and zeal of Calvin, your pastor, and our brother, his noble devotion to the refugees and the pious, will not be suffered by you 457 to be obscured by the unworthy accusations of this man, against whom, indeed, we think you ought to show the greater severity, inasmuch as our Churches have the evil reputation abroad of countenancing heretics, and even of favouring heresy. But the holy providence of God, they proceed, waxing in fervour, presents you at this moment with an opportunity of clearing yourselves as well as us, from such injurious imputations, if you but resolve to show yourselves vigilant, and well disposed to prevent the further spread of the poison. We do not doubt, indeed, that your Excellencies will act in this wise.

Schaffhausen was content to subscribe to all that had been said by Zürich (whose conclusion, consequently, had been communicated to it); but could not resist insinuating how it thought the Spaniard should be dealt with.

We do not doubt (say its Ministers) that you, with commendable prudence, will so repress this attempt of Servetus, that his blasphemies shall not be suffered to eat like a gangrene into the limbs of Christ. To use lengthy reasonings with a view to free him from his errors, would but be to rave with a madman.

The pastors of the Church of Basle [with Sulzer as reporter], the last consulted, are rejoiced to see Servetus in the hands of the magistrates of Geneva; feeling persuaded that they will not be wanting either in saintly zeal or Christian prudence, in finding a remedy for an evil that has already led to the ruin of vast numbers of souls. The theological culpability of the man is also much aggravated in their opinion by the obstinacy and insolence with which he persists in 458 his errors, instead of yielding to the reflections which imprisonment and the instructions of the pastors of Geneva ought to have led him to make.

We exhort you, therefore (they conclude), to use, as it seems you are disposed to do, all the means at your command to cure him of his errors, and so to remedy the scandals he has occasioned; or, otherwise, does he show himself incurably anchored in his perverse opinions, to constrain him, as is your duty, by the powers you have from God, in such a way that henceforth he shall not continue to disquiet the Church of Christ, and so make the end worse than the beginning. The Lord will surely grant you his spirit of wisdom and of strength to this end.

We thus see that the Churches, whilst they all agree in condemning, refrain from declaring in precise terms the kind of punishment they would have awarded the prisoner—they do not in so many words say they would have him put to death; but finding him guilty of heresy and blasphemy, they knew that by the law of the land he must die. Condemning him unequivocally, therefore, for his theological views, they, in fact, pronounce his doom. To have done so directly, would have been trenching on the rights of the Council of Geneva, by whom, under the circumstances, a covert wish was sure to be better taken than an open recommendation. And let us not overlook the base and selfish motive that underlies the severity counselled: by putting the heretical Spaniard to death, the Swiss Churches will free themselves from the imputation of favouring heresy! 459

So much for the conclusions and implied wishes of the Ministers. The Magistrates of the cities consulted, differ but little, if at all, from their Clergy. The Council of Berne express a hope that their brothers of Geneva will not allow the wickedness and evil intentions of their prisoner to make further head, all he says being so manifestly opposed to the Christian religion, which they think it must be his purpose to vilipend and do what in him lies to exterminate. They, therefore, ‘entreat the Senate of Geneva so to comport themselves—and they do not question their inclination in this—that such sectaries and disseminators of error as their prisoner shall no longer be suffered to sow in the Church of Christ.’

The reply of Berne is said by Calvin to have had greater influence on the Judges of Servetus than that of any of the other Councils. Geneva had oftener than once in former years been indebted to Berne for assistance in her straits, and still continued, to a considerable extent, under the influence of the Canton that was looked up to as Chief in the Swiss Confederation. The Magistrates of Berne, moreover, were more outspoken, perhaps, than those of any of the other Cantons.

But we discover, after all, that neither the Churches nor Councils were acting independently and of knowledge self-acquired of the business. The Clergy were dominated by Calvin, the Councils by the Clergy; and there appears to have been collusion and concert among the reporters both of the Churches and Senates. 460

Yesterday (September 26), (writes Haller of Berne, to Bullinger of Zürich) we received the documents in the case of Servetus, and have since been studying them in view of our reply. But we should like to know what your answer is before we send ours. We therefore entreat you immediately to inform us of its tenor. Yet wherefore so much ado! the man is a heretic, and the Church must get rid of him. Let me, however, I beseech you, speedily know the conclusion you have come to.

The Zürich pastor would seem to have been the most active of all the ministers in collecting and imparting information of a kind that would lead to unanimity of conclusion among the Churches and Councils. His friend, Ambrose Blaurer, acknowledging receipt of a letter from him communicating the decision of Zürich, says that he ‘had thought the pestilent Servetus, whose book he had read twenty years ago, must long since have been dead and buried.’ But the self-righteous man must add further: ‘We are surely tried by heresies and satanic abortions of the sort, in order that they who are steadfast in the faith may be made known.’ Sulzer of Basle has also been primed by him of Zürich, for, in reply to the intimation he has received of what has been done, he says that he, Sulzer, ‘is rejoiced to have heard of the arrest of Servetus in a quarter where it seems he may be effectually kept from infecting the Church with his heretical dogmas in time to come; although I know there be some who are violently opposed to Calvin’s proceedings, and the subserviency of the Senate in the business.’ 461

So much for the Churches and Councils of the Cantons consulted; and how little the latter were disposed to act, or, indeed, were capable of acting of themselves, and on their own appreciation of the questions submitted to them, is made manifest by the letter which Haller wrote to Bullinger at this time:

I have to give you my best thanks, dear Sir and Brother, for your diligence in communicating with the Genevese [and, of course, with the Bernese also] so speedily. Our Council have been of the same mind as yours in their reply. We, as ordered by them, have exposed the principal errors of Servetus, article by article. When our Councillors had been made aware of their nature, they were so horror-struck, that I have no doubt, had the writer been in prison here, he would have been burned alive. But as the matters in question were very little intelligible to them, they desired that I should reply in a letter as from myself to the Council of Geneva. They added, however, from themselves, that they exhorted the Genevese so to deal with the poison that it should not, by any negligence of theirs, be suffered to spread to neighbouring districts; and, indeed, it has often happened that commotions in Geneva have extended from its walls and got footing within ours. I think I need not send you a copy of our reply, as it agrees so entirely in every respect with your own.

Yours most truly,
J. Haller.

Berne: October 19, 1553.

The Churches and Councils consulted, then, were at one in their condemnation of Servetus. But it has been presumed that ecclesiastical conclusion and innuendo backed by civilian assent, might still have failed 462 to bring matters to the issue aimed at by the prosecution, had not political considerations intervened to complicate and sway judicial action. We are ready enough to believe that there was so much common sense in the Senate of Geneva, and such a feeling of the impossibility of attaining to absolute certainty in questions of dogmatic theology, that they were even more indisposed than they plainly show themselves to have been to come to a final decision in the case of their prisoner. But to assume that political considerations had the lead in the condemnation of Servetus, would, we venture to think, be a great mistake. To remove the prosecution from the sphere of theology to that of policy, were to take from it its chief interest and significance. But the arrest was made, the trial was begun, and the sentence was delivered exclusively on theological grounds. The political element that got mixed up with the business, was no more than an accident, and cannot truly be said to have influenced the judgment finally given. The four Swiss cantonal Councils and Churches which condemned Servetus, condemned him on theological grounds alone; they knew little or nothing of the political strife that agitated Geneva, and were not swayed by it in their decision.

Servetus himself, ill-advised and misled by those who had access to him, fully persuaded of the truth of his opinions, and relying on their consonance with Scripture, as he read it, may be said to have left his Judges one way only out of the difficult and delicate 463 position in which they found themselves; and this was by finding him guilty of the theological errors laid to his charge. He appeared to be opposed not only to every religious principle as known to them, and as understood alike by Catholics and Protestants, but he had used such objectionable language in speaking of subjects held so sacred as the Trinity and the Baptism of Infants, that even the most tolerant in the present day would find it inexcusable; how much less warrantable must it have appeared amid the universally prevalent intolerance of three centuries ago! Nevertheless, it may be that the mind of every member of the Council had not yet been made up as to the degree of the prisoner’s guiltiness, or even granting him guilty of everything imputed to him, that he, therefore, deserved to die; and die he must if they so declared him.

All the grounds for a definitive decree being before the Court on their meeting of the 23rd, we must presume that the sense of the members generally as to the guiltiness of the prisoner had been ascertained, and that the opinion of the majority to this effect was only not formulated and pronounced because of the absence of some of the leading Councillors—that of Amied Perrin, the first Syndic, being particularly remarked. An adjournment was therefore moved; but to afford no further excuse for delay in bringing the protracted business of the Servetus Trial to an end, summonses for a special session on the 26th were 464 ordered to be issued. Doubtful of the decision, as it might seem, and anxious for delay in consequence of the tenor of the letters from the Churches, Perrin had absented himself from the meeting of the 23rd, through indisposition, as he said himself, through feigned indisposition, according to Calvin, as we learn from a letter of his to his friend Farel of the 26th, in which he speaks of his great political antagonist by the derisive title of Cæsar comicus. Meantime, the members of the Court present determined to proceed to the gaol, and inform the prisoner of their purpose to have him before them with the least possible delay, to hear their final award. Before taking their leave, and as if to intimate to the unhappy Servetus what was to follow, they placed him under the care of two special warders, who were to hold themselves responsible with their lives for his safe custody.

The unusual visit of his Judges, and the additional guard set over him must, we should imagine, have sent a chill to the heart of the unfortunate Servetus, and gone far to damp out the hope he had been led to entertain either of acquittal or a sentence short of that which he knew Calvin had made up his mind from the first to extort. Yet does he not appear even now to have thought it possible that his Judges would condemn him to death. Self-conscious rectitude alone, and a better belief than it deserved in the world’s will to do justly and mercifully, had blinded him to the fate that awaited him. 465

During the three days’ pause that now ensued, some faint show of sympathy for the prisoner was manifested outside the walls of the Council chamber; but it came from no one of weight or standing in the Republic. Zebedee, the pastor of Noyon, a known opponent of Calvin on some of his theological tenets, and Gribaldo, an Italian by birth, by profession a lawyer, now a refugee from his home for conscience’ sake, were bold enough to proffer something in his behalf; Gribaldo even going so far as to defend certain of his conclusions, and having a word to say in favour of toleration. But he was not backed by the congregation of his countrymen, domiciled in Geneva, so that the move he made had no result. The show of opposition on the part of the Italian to his sovereign will and pleasure was not, however, forgotten by Calvin. Denounced by him at a later period for irregularity of some sort, in contravention of consistorial law, Gribaldo found it advisable for safety’s sake to quit Geneva.

Still there were not wanting many, both laymen and clerics, natives of Geneva, as well as refugees, devoutly attached to Calvinistic doctrines, who showed a lively repugnance to pushing matters the length of capital punishment in cases of heresy; the instinctive feeling of all pointing to this as the conclusion aimed at by the prosecution. For Reformers—heretics themselves in the eyes of the dominant European Church—to have recourse to measures that appeared in such an odious light when brought into requisition by Roman 466 Catholics, seemed illogical, unwarrantable, and dangerous. But the number who raised their voices in this direction was small. The prisoner was not an object of interest to the Libertine party in general; a stranger in Geneva, he was in some sort the particular puppet of Perrin and Berthelier, rather than the representative of a principle. Even to the leaders he was nothing more than a counter in the political game of the day. In a word, and in so far as anything was known about him to the public, the man entertained extraordinary, and what seemed blasphemous opinions on religion, as they had learned to understand the word, and so must be a wicked and worthless person, who might safely be left to be dealt with by the ministers and civil authorities in the way they judged best.

Calvin, at this momentous juncture, maintained an attitude of entire confidence as to the pending decision. He had been informed of the tenor of the letters received from the Swiss cities; and, aware of their uniform agreement in the theological culpability of Servetus, he could rely on the effect this must produce on the minds of the Judges. He seems even to have thought it unnecessary any longer to exert the special influence he could always bring to bear on any question in debate before the Council—he refrained from preaching against the prisoner and holding him up as a blasphemer against God and religion, as had been his wont.

October 26.—The Council, in its capacity of High 467 Court of Criminal Justice, solemnly convoked for this day, was well attended, though not quite complete as to numbers; Amied Perrin, cured of his indisposition, presiding.

The Governing Body of the Republic of Geneva consisted, as we have seen, of two extreme and mutually opposed parties—the Libertines, or patriots, and the Clericals, or abettors of Calvin and theocratic rule. Each of these had representatives in the Council whose voices could be implicitly relied on. But—as in all general assemblies that ever came together, there are still found a certain number of neutrals or waverers, men of no strong convictions one way or another; too weak in some cases to rely on themselves and act independently; too strong in others to be led by any convictions but their own, whose votes could make the balance incline one way or another, so were they not wanting in the Council of Geneva at this time. Now, in the fateful meeting of October 26, it was observed that several of the most constant opponents of Calvin had absented themselves, whilst not one of his regular supporters failed to appear.

The resolution to be come to was delicate, on matters unfamiliar, and apt to excite the scruples of the conscientious and timid. It was the life of no brutal offender against person or property, no criminal, in fact, save by construction, that was in debate, but that of a scholar of varied accomplishments, against whom no social delinquency had been charged, or, if 468 charged, which had not been rebutted, and fallen to the ground. Yet was this man accused of heresy and blasphemy against God and religion, not only by the distinguished head of the Church of Geneva and its other ministers, but was now found guilty of these theological crimes, involving, as they were said to do, disruption of the entire social fabric, by every one of the Confederate Churches and Councils consulted. What, forsooth, could be urged in behalf of him who had spoken of the Trinity as a three-headed monster, comparable to the hell-dog of the heathen poets, and declared the Baptism of Infants to be an invention of the devil?

And then, and yet more, it was not by the Reformed Churches only that the prisoner had been challenged for heresy, and found guilty; he had been tried and convicted on this ground by their neighbours the Roman Catholics of Vienne, been burned in effigy by them along with his books, and only escaped burning in person by breaking from his prison. The Genevese, moreover, had been frequently reproached as well by papists as by professors of other forms of Christianity akin to their own, with laxity in matters of doctrine, and even called abettors of heresy and shelterers of heretics; and they had, indeed, been invaded of late by a host of individuals fleeing for their lives, through entertaining all manner of new and hitherto unheard-of opinions on religion.

Weary on every side of wranglings upon subjects 469 they did not understand, the clerical party in the Senate would not be thought less than zealous for the true Faith—the Faith which was their own; whilst the more timid of their adversaries sought excuse and escape from responsibility by absenting themselves at the moment the vote must be given on the guilt or innocence of the prisoner. But everything at the moment conspired to associate theological dissidence with social criminality, and to make of the independent critic of particular religious dogmas the enemy of all religion.

In the light, therefore, in which Servetus was regarded, his cause was not seen as one through which, in the event of a decision in his favour, the Liberal party in the Council of Geneva might hope to find greater freedom to lead their lives in the way they listed; neither, through a sentence adverse to him, was it one through which they foresaw that the iron hand of Calvin would be made either lighter or heavier than it was. There were, in fact, more reasons for letting Calvin have his way here than for opposing him—for suffering Servetus to burn, than for saving his life. The Council had been hard upon the Reformer of late, and were not disposed to quarrel with him in a matter that had but a remote connection with their domestic concerns. Backed as their great theologian was by the Swiss Churches, they believed that they might safely and with propriety now show themselves on his side, by condemning the heretic to death. 470

The meeting of the Court on the 26th, then, not so fully attended as we have said by the usual opponents of Calvin as by his supporters, had to face the painful duty of pronouncing sentence on their prisoner at last. A resolution finding him guilty of the charges alleged, and so deserving of death, must now have been moved by one of the members—by whom we are not informed—for we find it immediately met, on the part of Perrin, by a counter-resolution, declaring him not guilty. Perrin, we must presume, maintained that the charges were not of a nature that fell properly under their cognisance as a Court of Criminal Justice. Nothing had been brought home to the prisoner that showed him to be a disturber of the public peace, and so came within the sphere of what he held to be their proper jurisdiction. Perrin must, therefore, have argued that the Court could only pronounce him not guilty. But this would plainly have been to stultify the whole of their proceedings during the last two months and more. The Court, by the laws of the country, was competent in causes of every complexion, and the prosecution had proceeded from the first on the ground of theological criminality. The proposition of the First Syndic, consequently, could not be entertained, but was rejected as a matter of course. Perrin then moved that the cause should be remitted to the Council of the Two Hundred. But this proposal was also negatived: the General Council in its capacity of Criminal Court, could not waive its right of decision in 471 a case in which its competence was recognised, and such ample pains had been taken to get at the merits of the case. Perrin must then, doubtless, have pleaded for some punishment short of the extreme penalty of death awarded to the heretic by the law of the land. This last effort failing like the others, and the Records of the Court giving no intimation of any further motion in favour of the prisoner, the following resolution was moved, and by a majority of votes adopted:

‘Having a summary of the process against the prisoner, Michael Servetus, and the reports of the parties consulted before us, it is hereby resolved, and, in consideration of his great errors and blasphemies, decreed, that he be taken to Champel, and there burned alive; that this sentence be carried into effect on the morrow, and that his books be burned with him.’98

The sentence once resolved on, appears to have been immediately communicated to Calvin, and he in the same hour proceeded to inform his most intimate friend Farel of the result. In anticipation of the event, he had, indeed, written to Farel some days before, begging him to come to Geneva. The clergy of the city having acted with Calvin to a man in the prosecution, it was thought more seemly that a stranger should attend the prisoner in his last moments, than one of themselves; 472 hence Calvin’s first letter of October 14, in anticipation of the final sentence, and to the following effect:

I have no words, my dear Farel, adequately to express my thanks to you for your great solicitude in respect of ourself and our Church. I purposely abstained from writing to you for fear of inducing you to take horse so soon (Farel had been dangerously ill), and I would not be troublesome to you until time pressed. You say, indeed, that you do not thank me for sparing you; and I know how willing, nay, how eager you are at all times to labour for the Church of God, how ready ever to come to our aid.

As to the state of affairs with us, I imagine you are already well informed, through Viret, or rather through my letters to him, which, however, were really meant for you both in common. The enemy is now intent on the business that comes on for discussion before the General Council about the Ides of November, and I think it would be well were Viret to come to us then; but I would have you here somewhat sooner—about the time when the affair of Servetus will be drawing to a close; and this I hope will be before the end of the ensuing week.... I would not, however, incommode you, or have you stir, where no immediate necessity compels.

Farel had not arrived so soon as Calvin expected, so he writes again on the 26th, and informs his friend that answers had been received from the Churches unanimous in their condemnation of Servetus. Alluding to the proceedings during the last few days of the trial, when Perrin, the First Syndic, made vain attempts by delay and entreaty to save the prisoner’s life, Calvin speaks of the merciful man by the nickname under which he was wont to characterise his great Libertine opponent, and says: 473

Our comical Cæsar having feigned illness for three days, mounted the tribune at length with a view to aid the wicked scoundrel—istum sceleratum—to escape punishment. Nor did he blush to demand that the cause might be remitted to the Council of the Two Hundred. But in vain, all was refused, the prisoner was condemned, and to-morrow he will suffer death.

Self-centred, resolute as he was, we yet see in Calvin’s anxiety to have Farel beside him, that he felt the want of such support as an all-devoted friend alone can give in supreme moments of our lives. His last letter could not have reached Farel in such time as would have enabled him to be in Geneva on the day of the execution; but when it was despatched Farel was already on his way from Neuchatel, and reached Geneva in the evening of the 26th, so that he had the news of all that had taken place, and of the fate that awaited the unhappy Servetus on the morrow, from the mouth of Calvin himself. 474

CHAPTER XVII.

THE ATTITUDE OF CALVIN—THE HOPES OF SERVETUS.

Informed of the decree of the Court, Calvin tells us that he bestirred himself to have the sentence carried out in the way usual in criminal cases, by beheading with the sword, instead of burning by slow fire. The heretic must be got rid of, he must die, but the Reformer would give a civil rather than an ecclesiastical complexion to the business, and escape imitation of the Roman Catholic cruel mode of putting God’s enemies, as heretics were called, to death. The Council, however, did not enter into his views. The Canon Law, still in force over Europe, condemned the convicted heretic to death by fire, and the majority of the Court determined to abide by the statute as it stood. Bigotry and intolerance, fanned to fever heat, were in the ascendant, and would forego none of their most terrible means of punishing the offender, and striking terror into the vulgar mind. The oblation in such cases provided, would even have appeared to lose its significance, had it been presented otherwise than as ‘a sacrifice of a sweet savour made by fire to the Lord’; for still influenced by the ritual of the old Hebrew Law, which, 475 in earlier days, required the first-born of man and beast for the altar, and had criminals of all sorts ‘hung up before the sun,’ lives forfeited for theological errors, were, in reality, offerings to appease the wrath or win the favour of the Supreme!

Servetus, meanwhile, made aware that the trial was at an end, and that nothing more remained for him but to learn his fate, though he may have been alarmed by the additional measures taken for his safe custody, seems not yet, as we have said, to have abandoned the persuasion that he would either be acquitted or subjected to some minor or merely nominal penalty. He was not conscience-stricken; he knew himself guilty of no impiety or intentional blasphemy; his object from first to last had been to present what he thought were higher, truer views of the Revelation which he believed God had made of himself to mankind in the olden time in Judæa; and the proclaimed purpose of his latest work, as he said himself to his Judges, was the Restoration, not the destruction of Christianity. More than this: he was not now among Papists bound to intolerance by their creed, but among Protestants in Geneva—the stronghold of free thought and its necessary logical adjunct, toleration; among men who had studied, reasoned, and, like himself, put their own construction on writings which he as well as they believed to be the Word of God. And then, had he not all along been upheld by Perrin and Berthelier, in the belief of triumphing over his persecutor? How should hopes of 476 longer life in view of further effort in the cause that was dear to him, and of freedom to shape out thoughts on matters high and holy, have forsaken him? True, Calvin had aimed at his life through the people of Vienne; and in his present bonds, and all the unworthy usage he suffered, he could not fail to realise the persistent hostility of the man who held him in such despite. Still he was in Geneva, though a prisoner, and Calvin was not all in all within that Republican city. There was a powerful party opposed to the tyranny and self-assertion of the ecclesiastic, the distinguished heads of which gave him their countenance and support—there seemed hardly room for doubt: he would not be found guilty of having blasphemed, but would be acquitted and set at liberty.

Cherishing such hopes and so supported, are we to wonder that the Sentence of Death took the unhappy Servetus entirely by surprise? Only imparted to him in the early morning of the day on which he was doomed to die, he was at first as if struck dumb by the intelligence. He did but groan aloud and sigh as if his heart would burst; and when he recovered speech at length, it was only to rave like one demented, to strike his breast, and cry in his native Spanish, Misericordia, Misericordia! By degrees, however, he recovered his self-possession and became more calm. Master of himself, and reverting in thought to his pursuer, his first coherent words were to request an interview with Calvin, which he, we need not doubt, was nowise slow 477 to grant, for he must have thought it both a flattering and a hopeful proposal. Now had the sinner come to his senses; now would he make a clean breast of it, abjure the convictions of his life, and with a lie on his lips be made meet for glory! But nothing of all this was in the mind of Servetus. He had no misgivings about his theological conclusions; in these he was securely anchored; but he felt like a true man in the face of impending fate, and would own that he had not comported himself with all the respect that was rightfully due to his theological opponent. Hence his request for the interview.

Accompanied by two of the Councillors, Calvin entered the prison an hour or two before noon of the fateful October 27, 1553, and prefacing the account he has left us of what transpired at the meeting, by saying that Servetus had received the notice of his sentence and impending doom with a ‘sort of brutish stupidity—cum belluina stupiditate,’ he proceeds: ‘I asked him what he wanted with me—quidnam vellet? To which he replied, that he desired to ask my pardon.’ I then said that I had never prosecuted anyone on merely personal grounds; that I had admonished him with all the gentleness I could command as many as sixteen years ago, and not without danger to my own life had spared no pains to cure him of his errors. But all in vain! my expostulations appeared rather to excite his bile. Quitting speech of myself, however, I then desired him rather to ask pardon of 478 the Eternal God, towards whom he had shown himself but too contumelious, presuming, as he had done, to take from his Essence the three hypostases that pertain to it; and saying that were it possible to show a personal distinction between the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, we should have a three-headed Cerberus for a God; with much beside that need not now be repeated. Seeing, ere long, that all I said went for nothing, and feeling indisposed to trespass on the time of the Magistrates, or to appear something more than my Master, in obedience to the precept of Paul, I took my leave of the heretic, αὐτοκατάκριτος—self-condemned.99

But there is a deep-lying truth in the French adage: ‘Qui s’excuse s’accuse—he who excuses accuses himself.’ The first impulse of the tolerant Servetus, on coming to his senses, was to ask pardon of the man who had brought him to his death; the first impulse of the implacable Calvin was to apologise for his deed, and to shift to a sense of public duty, a course to which his secret soul informed him he had been mainly prompted by private hate. Nor is that which Calvin connects with his apology, when he speaks of having imperilled his life for Servetus’s sake, to be received as true in fact. That he would have braved any danger that might have accompanied the public discussion of their opinions proposed by Servetus in 1534, we can well believe; but he was not required 479 to face it, and all their subsequent correspondence, private and confidential as it was, could have been attended with peril neither to him nor Servetus—or if to either it must have been to Servetus had he been discovered in correspondence with the arch-heretic of Geneva. We can hardly imagine Calvin to have been so totally devoid of humanity as to have felt no compunctious visitings when he stood face to face with the man whom his persistent enmity alone had brought to such a pass; but he would also have been other than he meets us in history, and otherwise circumstanced than he was as αὐτοκράτωρ—despot of Geneva—had he not felt something of self-gratulation and even of triumph, when pardon was asked of him by his humbled foe. 480

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE SENTENCE AND EXECUTION.

An hour before noon of October 27, 1553, the ‘Lieutenant Criminel,’ Tissot, accompanied by other officials and a guard, entered the gaol, and ordered the prisoner to come with them, and learn the pleasure of My Lords the Councillors and Justices of Geneva.

The tribunal, in conformity with custom, now assembled before the porch of the Hotel de Ville, received the prisoner, all standing. The proper officer then proceeded to recapitulate the heads of the process against him, Michael Servetus, of Villanova, in the Kingdom of Aragon, in Spain, in which he is charged—

First: with having, between twenty-three and twenty-four years ago, caused to be printed at Hagenau, in Germany, a book against the Holy Trinity, full of blasphemies, to the great scandal of the Churches of Germany, the book having been condemned by all their doctors, and he, the writer, forced to fly that country. Item. With having, in spite of this, not only persisted in his errors and infected many with them, but with having lately had another book clandestinely printed at Vienne in Dauphiny, filled with the like heresies and execrable blasphemies against the Holy Trinity, the Son of God, the Baptism of Infants, and other sacred doctrines, the foundations 481 of the Christian religion. Item. With having in the said book called all who believe in a Trinity, Tritheists, and even Atheists, and the Trinity itself a dæmon or monster having three heads. Item. With having blasphemed horribly, and said that Jesus Christ was not the Son of God from all Eternity, but only became so from his Incarnation; that he is not the Son of David according to the flesh, but was created of the substance of God, having received three of his constituent elements from God, and one only from the Virgin Mary, whereby he wickedly proposed to abolish the true and entire humanity of Jesus Christ. Item. With declaring the Baptism of Infants to be sorcery and a diabolical invention. Item. With having uttered other blasphemies, with which the book in question is full, all alike against the Majesty of God, the Son of God, and the Holy Ghost, to the ruin of many poor souls, betrayed and desolated by such detestable doctrines. Item. With having, full of malice, entitled the said book, though crammed with heresies against the holy evangelical doctrine, ‘Christianismi Restitutio—the Restoration of Christianity,’ the better to deceive and seduce poor ignorant folks, poisoning them all the while they fancied they were sitting in the shadow of sound doctrine. Item. With attacking our faith by letters as well as by his book, and saying to one of the ministers of this city that our holy evangelical doctrine is a religion without faith, and indeed without God, we having a Cerberus with three heads, for our God. Item. For having perfidiously broken and escaped from the prison of Vienne, where he had been confined because of the wicked and abominable opinions confessed in his book. Item. For continuing obstinate in his opinions, not only against the true Christian religion, but, as an arrogant innovator and inventor of heresies against Popery, which led to his being burned in effigy at Vienne, along with five bales of his book. Item. And in addition to all of which, being confined in the gaol of this city, he has not ceased 482 maliciously to persist in the aforesaid wicked and detestable errors, attempting to maintain them, with calumnious abuse of all true Christians, faithful followers of the immaculate Christian religion, calling them Tritheists, Atheists, and Sorcerers, in spite of the remonstrances made to him in Germany, as said, and in contempt of the reprehensions and corrections he has received, and the imprisonment he has undergone as well here as elsewhere.

Now, we the Syndics and Judges in criminal cases within this city, having reviewed the process carried on before us, at the instance of our Lieutenant having charge of such cases, against thee, Michael Servetus of Villanova, in the Kingdom of Aragon, in Spain, whereby guided, and by thy voluntary confessions made before us, many times repeated, as well as by thy books produced before us, we decree and determine that thou, Michael Servetus, hast, for a long time, promulgated false and heretical doctrine, and, rejecting all remonstrance and correction, hast, maliciously, perversely, and obstinately, continued disseminating and divulging, even by the printing of books, blasphemies against God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, in a word, against the whole foundations of the Christian religion, thereby seeking to create schism and trouble in the Church of God, many souls, members of which may have been ruined and lost—horrible and dreadful thing, scandalous and contaminating in thee, thou, having no shame nor horror in setting thyself up in all against the Divine Majesty and the Holy Trinity, and having further taken pains to infect, and given thyself up obstinately to continue infecting the world with thy heresies and stinking heretical poison (tes heresies et puante poyson hereticale)—case and crime of heresy grievous and detestable, deserving of severe corporal punishment.

These and other just causes moving us, desiring to purge the Church of God of such infection, and to cut off from it so 483 rotten a member, we, sitting as a Judicial Tribunal in the seat of our ancestors, with the entire assent of the General Council of the State, and our fellow-citizens, calling on the name of God to deliver true judgment, having the Holy Scriptures before us, and saying: In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, we now pronounce our final sentence and condemn thee, Michael Servetus, to be bound and taken to Champel, and there being fastened to a stake, to be burned alive, along with thy books, printed as well as written by thy hand, until thy body be reduced to ashes. So shall thy days end, and thou be made an example to others who would do as thou hast done. And we command you, our Lieutenant, to see this our sentence carried forthwith into execution.

The staff, according to custom, was then broken over the prisoner, and there was silence for a moment.

The terrible sentence pronounced, the pause that followed was first broken by Servetus; not to sue for mercy against the final award, from which he knew there was no appeal, but to entreat that the manner of carrying it out might be commuted for one less dreadful. ‘He feared,’ he said, ‘that through excess of suffering he might prove faithless to himself, and belie the convictions of his life. If he had erred, it was in ignorance; he was so constituted mentally and morally as to desire the glory of God, and had always striven to abide by the teachings of the Scriptures.’ The appeal to the humanity of the Judges, however, met with no response. Farel, indeed, who was present, interposed, telling him that to obtain any favour he should begin by acknowledging and showing contrition for his errors. But he 484 gave no heed to this, and went on to say that ‘he had done nothing to deserve death; he prayed God, nevertheless, to forgive his enemies and persecutors.’ Rising from the suppliant attitude he had assumed, he exclaimed, ‘O God, save my soul; O Jesu, Son of the eternal God, have compassion upon me!’

From the porch of the Hotel de Ville, where the sentence was delivered, a solemn procession was now formed for Champel, the place of execution, passing by the Rue St. Antoine, and leaving the city by the corresponding gate: the ‘Lieutenant Criminel,’ and other officers on horseback, a guard of archers surrounding the prisoner and Farel, who accompanied him on his death walk, and did not cease from efforts to wring from him an avowal of his errors. But in vain; he had no answer other than broken ejaculations and invocations on the name of God. ‘Is there no word in your mouth but the name of God?’ said Farel. ‘On whom can I now call but on God?’ said the unhappy Servetus. ‘Have you no last words for anyone—for wife or child, perhaps, if you have either?’ said the well-meaning pastor; but he met with no reply; though when admonished to do so, the doomed man made no difficulty about asking the people to join him in his prayers. This gave Farel an opportunity to say to the crowd, ‘You see what power Satan has when he has taken possession of the soul. This is a learned man, who perhaps even meant to do well; but he fell into the power of the devil, and the same thing might 485 happen to any one of you. Though he has said that you have no God, he yet asks you to join him in his prayers!’

But this is not all we have on the last moments of Servetus. Writing to his friend, Ambrose Blaurer, soon after the fatal October 27, Farel says, ‘You ask me about Servetus, so justly punished by a pious magistracy. I was at Geneva when the sentence was delivered, and with him when he died. The wretched man could not be brought to say that Christ was the Eternal Son of God. When I urged him on the subject, he desired me to point to a single place in the Scriptures in which Christ is spoken of as the Son of God before his birth. All that could be done had no effect in turning him from this error; he said nothing against what was urged, but went on his way; we could by no means obtain what we desired, viz., that he should own his error and acknowledge the truth. We exhorted, we entreated, but made no impression. He beat his breast, asked pardon for his faults, invoked God, confessed his Saviour, and much besides, but would not acknowledge the Son of God, save in the man Jesus. Nor was I alone in my exhortations; some of the brethren also interposed, and admonished him ingenuously to admit and say that he hated his errors; but he only replied that he was unjustly condemned to death. On this I said: “Do you, who have so greatly sinned, presume to justify yourself? If you go on thus I shall leave you to the judgment of God, and 486 accompany you no farther. I meant to exhort the people to pray for you, hoping you would edify them; and thought not to leave you till you had rendered your last breath.” After this he said nothing more of himself, although when I spoke of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, whom we preach in our churches, and in whom the faithful believe, he said that it was right and good to do so; but when I went on to say that he did not really think thus, and had written otherwise, he would not admit it. He told me by the way that he had had some things from a man who enjoyed no small reputation among some of us. But though I do not doubt of Erasmus having been infected in no trifling degree by the writings of the Rabbins, I know that in his later works at least he expresses himself otherwise than in those of earlier date. But the unhappy Servetus could not readily be made to imbibe the truth and put it to increase; neither could he be cured of his errors by the sound teaching of others.

‘It were long did I repeat—I do not think, indeed, I can remember—all that was said between seven in the morning and mid-day. In sum, however, although he made no particular confession of his faith, God hindered his name and doctrine from being impugned by any open contumelious expression.’

When he came in sight of the fatal pile, the wretched Servetus prostrated himself on the ground, and for a while was absorbed in prayer. Rising and advancing a few steps, he found himself in the hands 487 of the executioner, by whom he was made to sit on a block, his feet just reaching the ground. His body was then bound to the stake behind him by several turns of an iron chain, whilst his neck was secured in like manner by the coils of a hempen rope. His two books—the one in manuscript sent to Calvin in confidence six or eight years before for his strictures, and a copy of the one lately printed at Vienne—were then fastened to his waist, and his head was encircled in mockery with a chaplet of straw and green twigs bestrewed with brimstone. The deadly torch was then applied to the faggots and flashed in his face; and the brimstone catching, and the flames rising, wrung from the victim such a cry of anguish as struck terror into the surrounding crowd. After this he was bravely silent; but the wood being purposely green, although the people aided the executioner in heaping the faggots upon him, a long half-hour elapsed before he ceased to show signs of life and of suffering. Immediately before giving up the ghost, with a last expiring effort he cried aloud: ‘Jesu, Thou Son of the eternal God, have compassion upon me!’ All was then hushed save the hissing and crackling of the green wood; and by-and-by there remained no more of what had been Michael Servetus but a charred and blackened trunk and a handful of ashes. So died, in advance of his age, one of the gifted sons of God, the victim of religious fanaticism and personal hate. 488

CHAPTER XIX.

AFTER THE BATTLE—VÆ VICTORIBUS!

Even before the trial of Servetus had come to an end we have seen it attracting the attention of some of the freer minds of Geneva—such as were not over-awed by the dominant spirit of Calvin or not absorbed in the political strife of the hour. A criminal suit on the ground of a new interpretation of Scripture, as it had been made in fine so clearly to appear, struck reasonable men not only as illogical but as indefensible in a city whose autonomy and entire religious system were founded on a right of the kind assumed by itself. Calvin’s dictum, that Servetus’s purpose was the overthrow of all religion, was not seen to be borne out by the facts of the case when calmly considered, and, to the popular apprehension, was wholly belied by the pious bearing of the man in the last hours of his life. Even Farel, misled as he was by his fanaticism, could not help saying to the people, that ‘after all the man may have meant well.’

The protracted trial at an end, the sacrifice made, the Councillors of Geneva seem immediately to have come to their senses, and discovered that they had transgressed 489 the true limits of their authority in condemning to death one who owed them no allegiance, who had been guilty of no crime or misdemeanour whether within the bounds of their jurisdiction or elsewhere, and whose heresies implied no rejection of the Scriptures as the Word of God, or of the teaching of Christ and his Apostles as the means of salvation. Servetus’s heresy amounted to no more than repudiation of what he maintained to be erroneous interpretations of the language of the Gospels, of metaphysical assumptions from heathen philosophies, and mystical procedures unwarranted by a line whether of the Old or the New Testament. They overlooked the fact that the presence of the man among them was due to flight from the fate that waited on all who had the courage of their opinions amid the blood-stained intolerance of Roman Catholicism; that he was only another among the host of refugees—their spiritual Dictator himself not excepted—who now crowded the streets of Geneva; and that, but for the hostile interference of Calvin, he, like so many more, would have been welcomed as ‘a bird escaped from the net of the fowler;’ sheltered had he elected to remain, furthered on his way had he chosen to depart.

That thoughts of the kind had taken possession of the Council is proclaimed by the fact of their quashing the indictment preferred by Farel and the Consistory against Geroult, Arnoullet’s foreman, three days after the death of Servetus, on the score of the 490 part he had had in printing the ‘Restitutio Christianismi,’ and concealing the character of its contents from his master. Farel and the clergy in their blind zeal would have persevered in their efforts to have another victim. But the civilians interposed. Enough—more than enough had already been done to satisfy the outer world that the Genevese, if reputed heretics themselves, were no favourers of heresy of another complexion than their own. Left to calm reflection, the Council may well have come to see that they had only lent themselves to theological intolerance, when they imagined they were fulfilling an important part of their magisterial duties.

The entire ground, indeed, on which the trial had been instituted would not bear close scrutiny. The book, on the presumed publication and dissemination of which it had been set on foot, had not yet been seen in Geneva save by Calvin: there was not then another copy in the city but the one sent, as I believe, by its hapless author through Frelon to the Reformer. Neither had the ostensible institutor of the suit, Nicolas de la Fontaine, the shadow of a grievance against Michael Servetus, the writer of the book. He could never have seen it out of Calvin’s hands, he was almost certainly unacquainted with the language in which it was written, and, if he were not, he could still never have read a word of it but at Calvin’s prompting—he had not, in all probability, even heard the name of Servetus until he had it from the mouth 491 of his master! De la Fontaine, moreover, was no citizen of Geneva any more than Calvin himself100—neither of them could have had a legal title to prefer a criminal charge; master and man were aliens alike, and in Geneva on the same plea as Servetus; they fleeing for their lives from the Inquisitors and agents of the concubine of Henry of France, he from the Inquisitor and Church authorities of Dauphiny.

More than this. ‘He,’ it is said, ‘who casts the first stone should be himself without sin.’ Calvin pursued Servetus to death mainly on the ground of his divergent interpretation of the Trinitarian mystery. But was Calvin himself quite sound on this head, and was he equally hostile to all who called the dogma in question? We have had him saying that he only objected to speak of God and Nature as signifying the same thing, because of the harshness or impropriety of the expression. But he who so delivers himself identifies God and the Universe, and excludes ideas of personality and subdivision in the essence of the Deity. No wonder, therefore, that Calvin was oftener than once charged with unorthodoxy from the Catholic point of view on the subject of the Trinity. In the Confession of Faith which he formulated for the Church of Geneva in the year 1536, it is certain that neither the word Trinity nor the word 492 Person is to be found;101 and when challenged at a later period by Caroli, the colleague of Viret at Lausanne, on the matter, he did not so express himself as to satisfy his accuser. In a remarkable note, moreover, ‘On the word Trinity and the word Persons,’ written apparently to meet the surmises suggested by the absence of the sacred vocables from the Confession, Calvin says:

‘Inasmuch as these words, ‘Trinity’ and ‘Persons,’ are found by us to be very serviceable in the Church of Christ, as by them the true distinction of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is more clearly expressed, and controversial discussions are better served by their means, we say that we have no such objection to them as forbids us to receive them from others or to make use of them ourselves. Therefore, do we again declare, as we have formerly declared, that we accept the words, and would not that they ceased to be used in the Churches. For neither in our expositions of the Scriptures or when preaching to the people do we shun them; and we have instructed others [in private]—docebimus alios, that they should not superstitiously avoid them. Did anyone, however, from religious scruples, feel indisposed to make use of the words—although we avow that such superstition is not approved by us, and we shall continue striving to correct it—still, this seems no sufficient reason why a man, otherwise pious and having like religious views as ourselves, should be rejected. His want of better knowledge in this direction ought not to carry us the length of casting him out of the Church, or lead us to conclude that he was therefore altogether unsound in the faith. Neither, meantime, are we to think 493 evilly of the Pastors of the Church of Berne, if they refuse to admit anyone to the ministry who declines to use the words.’102

We leave the reader to draw his own conclusions from this, and only ask him to say, on its showing, what excuse can be found for Calvin’s deed in burning Servetus? Scattered throughout the writings of the Genevese Reformer we encounter many expressions which prove plainly enough how much against the grain he finally confessed partition in the unity of God. ‘The first principle to be acknowledged in the Scriptures,’ he says, ‘is the Being of One God; but as the same Scriptures speak of a Father, a Son, and a Holy Ghost, what have we for it—quid aliud restat—but to own three Persons in the Godhead? These, however,’ 494 he proceeds in the usual orthodox fashion to say, and in contradiction to the words first made use of, ‘imply no plurality of persons, neither do they destroy the essential unity of God; for where were Quaternity to be found does the one God comprise in himself three properties—ubi autem quaternitas reperitur si unus Deus tres in se proprietates contineat?’104 Where, indeed! But the question is of persons not of properties; as in the affair with Caroli it was of an Eternal Son not of an Eternal Word.

In another place we find him using such language as this: ‘The words of the Council of Nicæa are these: God of God—a hard expression I admit, for the removal of the ambiguity of which no better interpreter can be found than Athanasius, who indited it—Deum a Deo—dura loquutio fateor, sed ad cujus tollendam ambiguitatem nemo potest esse magis idoneus interpres quam Athanasius qui eam dictavit.’

Elsewhere, though we have omitted to note the place, he declares that the Athanasian symbol was never approved by any of the legitimate [i.e. Protestant] Churches—cujus symbolum nulla unquam legitima ecclesia approbâsset.’105 Such writing is surely very noteworthy. Calvin’s acknowledgment of a Trinity is neither of his understanding nor his faith; it is enforced merely and obviously in opposition to the reason 495 he had from God for his guidance. But Michael Servetus, whom he sent to a fiery death, not only does not deny, but expressly, and oftener than once, avows that he acknowledges a Trinity in the Essence of God. He, too, found the words Father, Son, and Holy Ghost in the Scriptures; and, as little disposed as Calvin to gainsay a word they contain, he actually uses language the simple sense of which is that precisely under which Calvin seeks to shield himself; only he employs the word dispositions instead of properties. Calvin, when he attempts to reconcile the idea of a Trinity of persons co-existing with an unity of Being, and does not use language that contradicts itself, speaks no otherwise than Servetus, and arrives in fine at the same interpretation of the Trinitarian Dogma: the persons are dispositions to the one, properties to the other!

After the most careful study of the writings of Servetus we have been able to bestow, we have it forced upon us that had Calvin been so minded he could from them, more readily, and far more consistently, have defended their author as a sincerely pious, though in his opinion, a much mistaken man in his interpretation of Christian doctrine, than prosecuted him as the enemy of all religion, a monster, as he says, made up of mere impieties and horrible blasphemies! But to the intolerant bigot, engrossed by his own conceits and dislikes, all Servetus’s confiding piety was hypocrisy, his touching prayers mockery, and his eloquence as 496 becoming in him as a coat of mail to a hog—‘qu’une jaserame un Truie’(!)

Nor can Calvin have credit given him for religious zeal, as the principal, still less as the sole ground for his prosecution of Servetus. He would condone the Church of Berne for repudiating him who denied the Trinitarian mystery, but could not forgive the Spaniard’s intemperate and disrespectful style of address to himself. In this lay the prime cause of offence to the man, accustomed to have all the world bowing down before him, who was always addressed as ‘Monsieur,’ not as ‘Maître,’ like the rest of the clergy, and whose appointments, however modest in our eyes, equalled those of a dignitary of the Church in neighbouring lands. One of Nicolas de la Fontaine’s counts against the man he did not even know, but whom he arraigned for life or death, is the objectionable language indulged in towards his pastor; and we have Calvin’s own words against himself when he says that Servetus’s ‘arrogance, not less than his impiety, led to his destruction;’ whilst he elsewhere owns, that ‘had Servetus but been possessed of even a show of modesty he would not have pursued him so determinedly on the capital charge.’

By way of conclusion here, let us observe that Calvin’s fundamental principle of Election by the Grace of God ought to have stayed his hand from all persecution on religious grounds. He is constantly spoken of as a man possessed of a peculiarly logical 497 mind. But if it be by the eternal decrees of God that some are ordained to salvation and some to perdition, how should Servetus or anyone else come between God and his purposes? How should the Elect be prejudiced, or the Reprobate made worse by the act of man? 498

CHAPTER XX.

CALVIN DEFENDS HIMSELF.

Dissatisfaction with what had been done appears to have become general immediately after the execution of Servetus. It extended beyond the walls of the Council chamber and found wider expression than in the arrest of proceedings against Geroult. Ballads and pasquinades, little complimentary to Calvin and his party, circulated freely, and were all the more persistently spread in private if none dared to utter them in public or sing them in the streets. Calvin himself acknowledges that fear alone of consequences repressed for a time any open expression of abhorrence for the death of Servetus. Certain it is, that before the year was out, save among friends and obsequious followers, the act in which he had taken the prominent part came to be so unfavourably construed that he felt forced to appear as his own apologist, and in justification of his deed to proclaim his victim not only a heretic because of theological dissidence, with which the people of Geneva were familiar enough and not always greatly scandalised, but to hold him up as wholly without religious convictions himself, the open 499 enemy of all religion in others, the conspirator against the moral well-being of the world, and the conscience-stricken craven in face of his impending fate!

To this task Calvin would seem to have been more especially incited by Bullinger, who loses no opportunity of showing himself hostile to Servetus; and even thinks that ‘were Satan to come back from hell and take to preaching for pastime, he would make use of much the same language as Servetus the Spaniard.’106 Writing to Calvin at this time, and thinking doubtless of the growing unpopularity of his friend, Bullinger says: ‘See to it, dear Calvin, that you give a good account of Servetus and his end, so that all may have the beast in horror—ut omnes abhorreant a bestia!’ To which Calvin replies: ‘If I have but a little leisure I shall show what a monster he was.’107

Such were the inducements Calvin had for entering on the apologetic defence of himself through denouncing the errors, impugning the motives, and blackening the fame of Servetus to which he now applied himself and had ready for publication both in French and Latin early in the year 1554, the title of the French book in brief being ‘Déclaration pour maintenir la vraye Foy;’ that of the Latin, ‘Defensio Orthodoxæ Fidei de sacra Trinitate contra errores Michaelis Serveti, &c.’108 500

In his introduction Calvin informs the reader that he had ‘not at first thought it necessary to come forward with any formal refutation of the errors of Servetus,’ the ponderous absurdity of his ravings appearing so plainly that he imagined it would be like winnowing the wind to do so, for there was really no danger of anyone of sound mind and ordinary understanding not being found superior to such follies. ‘But better informed, knowing the poison to be deadly in its kind, and having regard to the amount of stupidity and confusion which God, to avenge Himself, inflicts on all who despise his doctrine, I have felt myself compelled as it were to take up the pen, and in exposing the errors of the man to furnish grounds for better conclusions. When Servetus and his like, indeed, presume to meddle with the mysteries of religion, it is as if swine came thrusting their snouts into a treasury of sacred things. May God pay all with the wages they deserve whose vicious proclivities lead them to burn after one novelty or another, which they can no more resist than can the 501 man from scratching who has the itch!—pas plus que celui qui a la ratelle qui démange.’

‘The punishment that befel Servetus,’ he continues, ‘is always ascribed to me. I am called a master in cruelty, and shall now be said to mangle with my pen the dead body of the man who came to his death at my hands. And I will not deny that it was at my instance he was arrested, that the prosecutor was set on by me, or that it was by me that the articles of inculpation were drawn up. But all the world knows that since he was convicted of his heresies I never moved to have him punished by death. There needs no more than simple denial from me to rebut the calumnies of the malevolent, the brainless, the frivolous, the fools, or the dissolute.’

There is much in what precedes to challenge comment, and the language, self-condemnatory of the writer in one respect, if not purposely meant to mislead, is yet greatly calculated to do so in another. If Servetus’ teaching was such ponderous folly that it could by no possibility have any influence in the world, why did Calvin proceed against him from the first on the capital charge? It is God, too, who inflicts such stupidity on mankind as makes the intervention of John Calvin necessary to set things right; and the denial and vituperative epithets at the end of the paragraph last quoted do not cover an obvious intention on his part to have the reader conclude that he had had nothing to do with the doom which befel the Spaniard. But Calvin knew 502 that by the law of Geneva the convicted heretic must die; and he had written to his friend Farel on August 20, within a week of the arrest, that he hoped the sentence would be capital at the least—spero capitale saltem judicium fore. All the favour Calvin ever asked for Servetus was that he might die by the sword instead of by brimstone and slow fire. He does not say so much indeed, but it almost looks as if he would have the world believe that he had moved to save the man’s life! We have his own acknowledgment, however, of the active part he took in the prosecution of Servetus at Geneva, and his expressed hope of what the sentence should be. This much he could not deny; the facts of the case put it out of his power. But he always shirked complicity with all that happened at Vienne. There there was underhand dealing and betrayal of trust, and he would fain have the world believe that he had had nothing to do with the ugly business. But here, too, everything we know, is against him, and all he says by way of freeing himself from the charge of having denounced Servetus to the authorities of Lyons seems but to strengthen the conclusion that he did. Calvin was an able man undoubtedly, but he was not a cunning man, and often lets his pen give expression to thoughts of things gone by, which he would not have suffered to appear had he been more artful.

In one of his epistles he says, ‘Nothing less is said of me than that I might as well have thrown Servetus amid a pack of wild beasts as into the hands of the professed enemies of 503 the Church of Christ; for I have the credit given me of having caused him to be arrested at Vienne. But why such sudden familiarity between me and the satellites of the Pope? Is it to be believed that confidential letters could have passed between parties who had as little in common as Christ and Belial? Yet why many words to refute that which simple denial from me suffices to answer! Four years have now passed since Servetus himself spread this report. I only ask why, if he had been denounced by me, as said, he was thereafter suffered to remain unmolested for the space of three whole years? It must either be allowed that the crime I am charged withal is a pure invention, or that my denunciation did him no harm with the Papists.’

True, and answers to all he says are not far to seek. Why the familiarity with the satellites of the Pope? That he might be avenged through them on one whom he regarded at once as a dangerous heretic and a personal enemy. How should confidential letters have passed between parties who had so little in common as himself and the Roman Catholics of Lyons? Because he would have had them the instruments of his vengeance. If denounced by him, as said, how did Servetus remain unmolested for three whole years? Because denunciation for heresy of one who lived in good repute with his friends as a true son of the Church, by another standing in the very foremost ranks of heresy, was taken no notice of by Cardinal Tournon and his advisers.—All that Calvin says now seems but to demonstrate the truth of what we have from Bolsec, and may possibly have been the ground 504 of the warning against the over free expression of his opinions which Servetus is said to have received long before the denouement that followed the printing of the ‘Christianismi Restitutio.’ Calvin continues:

‘Would that the errors of Servetus might have been buried with him; but as his ashes continue to spread a pestiferous stench I go on to expose his heresies, a task delayed till now through no fear of measuring myself with one like him, for I have coped with adversaries much more redoubtable than he, but because I had other work in hand of more importance as I believed. He, however, who contends that it is unjust to punish heretics and blasphemers, I say, becomes their deliberate associate. You tell me of the authority of man; but we have the word of God and his eternal laws for the government of his Church. Not in vain has He commanded us to suppress every human affection for the sake of religion. And wherefore such severity, if it be not for this, that we are to prefer God’s honour to mere human reason.’

But the St. Bartholomew and all the nameless horrors that have been perpetrated in the name of religion and to uphold what is called the honour of God, are the logical outcome of principles that lead to such language. Calvin’s treatment of Servetus was in truth nothing less than a direct encouragement to the Roman Catholics of France to persevere in their atrocities towards the Protestants. Geneva, which had been looked on as the bulwark of independent thought and of freedom to worship God according to conscience came to be regarded as the seat of another Inquisition. All and sundry who pretended to 505 think for themselves, and who did not include Election and Predestination in their creed, must be silent. Did they speak or say a word against the rules and regulations of the modern propounder of the doctrine of God’s partiality, they were mercilessly hunted down, fined, imprisoned, scourged on the back, branded on the cheek, banished from their homes, or, as in the case of Servetus, put to death; even as the moving cause of all these atrocities would himself have been dealt with in France had he there avowed what were there styled the heretical opinions he entertained—the damnable doctrines he taught. Persecution which follows necessarily from the principles on which the Church of Rome is founded, could not be entered on by the Reformed Churches without a total abnegation of those to which they owe their existence.109

But it is not with Servetus’s doctrines alone that 506 Calvin occupies himself in his ‘Declaration’ and ‘Defence.’ He must further darken the fame of the man whom he slew, for the consistency and fortitude he displayed when confronted with death, as we have seen him essaying to detract from the purity and probity of his life on his trial. ‘Servetus,’ says Calvin, ‘was only bold when he had no fear of punishment before him; but so overwhelmed was he in face of his impending fate, that he was lost to all and everything about him. Praying with the people he had said were Godless, he yet prayed as if he had been in the midst of the Church of God, and thereby showed that his opinions were nothing to him! Giving no sign of regret or repentance, saying never a word in vindication of his doctrines, what, I ask you, is to be thought of the man who, at such a time, and with full liberty to speak, made no confession one way or another, any more than if he had been a stock or a stone? He had no fear of having his tongue torn out; he was not forbidden to say what he liked; and though at last he declined to call on Jesus as the eternal Son of God (Calvin omits to say that he called devoutly with his latest breath on Jesus as Son of the eternal God), inasmuch as he made no declaration of his faith, who shall say that this man died a martyr’s death?’ ‘Theological hatred,’ says a late esteemed writer,110 ‘never inspired words more atrociously cruel and unjust than 507 these of Calvin;’ and we do not hesitate to indorse the dictum. Calvin’s challenge of Servetus’s fortitude in the face of death is most unjust. Servetus went bravely to his death; though to him, in the vigour of life, and possessed of all his powers,

life assuredly was sweet; and to lose it not only for no crime, but for the avowal of what he believed to be holy truth, was hard indeed. To Servetus existence was not summed up in ministering to mere material wants and putting off and on at eve and morn; it meant doing in the knowable, speculating in that which transcends the known, furthering knowledge of the world we live in, striving after congruous conceptions of the Almighty Cause of the good, and ministering to the ill that befals—a truly noble life!

But Calvin could no more forgive Servetus his constancy and consistency than he could endure his theological divergences and his personal insults. ‘Could we but have had a retractation from Servetus as we had from Gentilis!’ exclaims he, upon another occasion. Strange! that men in whom the religious sense is strong should still be blind to the truth that if there be sincerity in the world, they, too, who feel strongly though divergently on religion, must be as truly religious and sincere as themselves; and that convictions in the sphere of faith—those garments of the soul—cannot be put off and on at pleasure, like the garments of the body! 508

It were needless to say that Calvin’s refutation, or shall we say condemnation of Servetus, is full and complete, if it be not at all times of the complexion which unimpassioned weighing of the argument, considerate appreciation of the purpose, and truthful interpretation of the language of an opponent would have secured. Both of the forms in which the book appeared were well received by the public; the ‘Déclaration pour Maintenir la Vraye Foy’ having been extensively read by those who were not masters of the Latin; the ‘Fidelis expositio Errorum’ by those who were. Bullinger, it appears from what Calvin says, must formerly have urged him on to severity; and, as we have just seen, now shows himself anxious to have his friend appear in defence of what had been done. Writing immediately after the publication of the book, he congratulates the writer on his work; the only fault he has to find with it being the terseness of the style, which leads at times to obscurity, and its brevity. Calvin, in reply, excuses himself for the conciseness of his language and the modest length of his work. But his letter, in so far as it relates to our subject, is too important not to have a place in our narrative.

Your last letter, Calvin says, was duly delivered by our excellent brother Tho. Jonerus. I was from home at the time, so that I could not show him the hospitality he deserved, but it so fell out that the Lord in my absence provided for him in a way that could not have been bettered.... I have always feared that in my book my conciseness may have 509 occasioned some obscurity; but I could not well guard against it. I may say, indeed, that with the end I had in view other motives led me to the brevity you speak of. In writing at all it was not only my principal but my sole object to expose the detestable errors of Servetus. It seemed to me that the subjects handled were best discussed in the plainest terms, and that the impious errors of the man should not be overlaid by any lengthy or ornate writing of mine. I, therefore, say nothing more of the severity of the style on which you animadvert. I have, indeed, taken every possible pains to show the common reader how without much trouble the thorny subtleties of Servetus may be exposed and refuted. I am not blind to the fact, however, that though I am wont to be concise in my writings I have felt myself more bound to brevity here than usual. But so it be only allowed that the sound doctrine has been defended by me in sincerity of faith and with understanding, this is of far more moment than any regrets I may feel for having been forced on the task. You, however, for the love you bear me, and led by the candour and equity of your nature, will judge me favourably in what I have done. Others may construe me more harshly; say I am a master in severity and cruelty, and that with my pen I lacerate the body of the man who came to his death through me. Some, too, there are, not otherwise evilly disposed, who say that the world is silent as to what was done, and that no attempt is made to refute my argument on the punishment of heresy, through fear of my displeasure. But it is well that I have you for the associate of my fault, if, indeed, there be any fault; for you were my authority and instigator. Look to it, therefore, that you gird yourself for the fight....

Jo. Calvin.

Geneva, November 3, 1554.

This interesting letter111 seems to show that Calvin 510 had already conceived misgivings of his conduct in the affair of Servetus. When John Calvin condescends to seek support beyond himself, and to charge a friend with having egged him on to the deed whose memory seems now to rankle in his mind, he must have felt less sure than was his wont that all he did was well done

Self-reliant as he was, and ready else to take on himself the responsibility of his acts, we yet see that he, the strong man among the strong, now felt the want not only of sympathy and approval, but of some one to share the ‘fault, if fault there were,’ in a relentless pursuit and terrible deed. When he would thus associate Bullinger with himself in his pitiless persecution of the ill-starred Servetus, Calvin must refer to the letter he had had from the Zürich pastor of September 14, as well as to the one in which the reply of the Church of Zürich to the Council of Geneva is couched—reply of which there need be no question Bullinger was the writer. Of all the ministers of the Swiss Churches Calvin, we believe, had the highest respect for Bullinger, who, as he did not always truckle to him, fell out of favour at times, but only to come back anon with heartier consideration than before. 511

Melanchthon, too, whom we have found taking more notice of the work on Trinitarian Error than any of the other Reformers, would seem to have gone on to the end of his life increasing in hostility to its author. He, indeed, shows little of the mildness with which he is commonly credited whenever in later years the name of Servetus meets him. Writing to Calvin in October 1554, a year consequently after the death of Servetus, and when he had probably read the ‘Apologia de Mysterio Trinitatis,’ addressed to him, and printed at the end of the ‘Christianismi Restitutio,’ Melanchthon congratulates the Reformer ‘for all he had done in bringing so dangerous a heretic to justice.’ ‘I have read your able refutation of the horrible blasphemies of the Spaniard; and for the conclusion attained give thanks to the Son of God who was umpire in your contest. The Church, too, both of the day and of the future, owes you thanks, and will surely prove itself grateful.’112

Calvin’s more intimate friends and partisans, with few exceptions, approved of his zeal in vindicating the honour of God, as they said, and treading out, as they imagined, the threatening spark of heresy kindled by Servetus. Later admirers and adherents, again, unable to condone his deed, attempt to find, and flatter themselves that they do find, excuse for him in the ruder and sterner temper of the times in which he lived. But we own, regretfully, that with all we know, we 512 cannot follow them in this. Calvin was not only a man of the highest intelligence, he was also possessed of a carefully cultivated mind. An admirable scholar, deeply read in the humanities, and familiar with history, he had in earlier life, and in face of the persecution for conscience’ sake beginning under Francis I., manfully raised his voice for toleration. He had even gone out of his way, as we have seen, and spent his money in republishing Seneca’s ‘Treatise on Clemency,’ with added comments of his own, by way of warning, beyond question, to his sovereign against the fatal course on which he saw him entering.

Addressing another among the monarchs of the earth in a later work,113 he says: ‘Wisdom is driven from among us, and the holy harmony of Christ’s kingdom, that makes lambs of wolves and turns spears into pruning-hooks, is compromised when violence is impressed into the service of religion.’ And yet again we have him using words like these: ‘Although we are not to be on familiar terms with persons excommunicated by the Church for infractions of discipline, we are still to strive by clemency and our prayers to bring them into accord with its teaching. Nor, indeed, are such as these only to be so entreated; but Turks, Saracens, and others, positive enemies of the true religion, also. Drowning, beheading, and burning are far from being the proper means of bringing them and their like to proper views.’114 513

Calvin had, therefore, got beyond his age and its spirit of intolerance; and, having turned his back on the Church of Rome, no shelter can be found for him in an appeal to its sanguinary principles and practice. Calvin, in a word, is inexcusable for refusing to Servetus the liberty he arrogated for himself, and for turning the city that sheltered him into a shambles for the man of whom religiousness alone had made an enemy, and persecution had driven into his power.

Servetus, however, it is said, was a heretic, a blasphemer. But what was Calvin in the eyes of those he had forsaken? The most egregious of heretics, whose teaching had led thousands from the faith of their fathers, and imperilled their salvation; a traitor, too, whose independent principles turned subjects into rebels, and tended to make despotic rule by Priest and King impossible. And this is true; for we are not to overlook the fact that it is to Calvin, with however little purpose on his part, that we mainly owe the large amount of civil and religious liberty we now enjoy.

Of Calvin, more truly perhaps than of any man that ever lived, may the dictum of the poet, where he says:

be held to be reversed. In Calvin’s case it was the ill he did that died, the good that lived. With no respect for civil liberty himself, and still less for religious liberty beyond the pale of his own narrow confession of faith, Calvin must nevertheless be thought of as the real 514 herald of modern freedom. Holding ignorance to be incompatible with the existence of a people at once religious and free, Calvin had the school-house built beside the church, and brought education within the reach of all. Nor did he overlook the higher culture. He restored the College of Geneva, founded half a century before by a pious and liberal citizen, but utterly neglected in Roman Catholic times; and as a complement to the University he founded the Academy. Forbidden to set foot on the land of his birth, he was nevertheless the genius of its religious growth, and in company with this, of its aspirations after freedom. But for the fickleness and falseness of its princes, France might have had reformed Christianity for her faith; and with the intelligence, morality, and true piety of her Huguenot sons in possession of their homes, might possibly have been spared her Grand Monarques and despotism, her Revolutions, her Buonapartes, and her wars that have drenched the soil of Europe in blood ever since Henry of Navarre proved untrue to himself and Liberty. But Scottish Presbyterianism and English Puritanism and Nonconformity in its multifarious, sturdy, self-sufficing forms, and 1688, were each and all the legitimate outcome of a system which told the world that there was no such thing in the law of God as divine right to govern wrongly; and in asserting free-thought for itself in matters of opinion, by indefeasible logic gave a title to all to think freely.

There can be little question, in fact, that Calvinism, 515 or some modification of its essential principles, is the form of religious faith that has been professed in the modern world by the most intelligent, moral, industrious, and freest of mankind. If Calvinism, however, tend to make men more manly and more fit for freedom, it has also a certain hardening influence on the heart, disposing to severity. Yet has not even this been without its compensating good; for when Calvin—impersonation of relentless rigour—sent the pious Servetus to the flames, it may be said that the knell of intolerance began to toll. Persistence in consigning dissidents from the religious dogmas of the day to death was made henceforth impossible, and persecution on religious grounds to any minor issue has come by degrees to be seen not only as indefensible in principle, but immoral in fact; for it strikes at the root of the very noblest elements in the constitution of humanity—Conscience and Loyalty to Truth.

But Calvinism has had its day. The free inquiry of which it sprang has slowly, yet surely, carried all save its wilfully blind or ignorant adherents beyond the pale of their old beliefs. More than a century ago the Church of Geneva broke not only with its Confession of Faith as formulated by its founder, but with confessions of faith of every complexion; so that one of its leaders, on occasion of the late tercentenary commemoration of the death of the Reformer, could say: Nous ne sommes plus Calvinistes selon Calvin. Nor has the defection of the Swiss been singular; they 516 have been followed more or less closely by the Dutch, the Germans, the more advanced of the Protestant Church of France, and finally and at length by the Scotch. In the land of Knox, the very stronghold of Judaic Christianity as defined by Calvin and his great disciple, open rebellion has broken out against the narrowness of the Creed and Catechism of the Westminster Assembly of Divines so obsequiously followed until now; prelude, doubtless, to further disruption and greater change than have yet been seen; for modern criticism and exegesis, and ever advancing science, proclaim arrest at any grade in the Religious Idea yet attained by the Churches to be impossible. 517

CHAPTER XXI.

CALVIN’S DEFENCE IS ATTACKED.

Even whilst the trial was proceeding, we have seen that Calvin was not without opposition in his pursuit of Servetus. Amied Perrin, his great political rival, had striven for mercy or a minor punishment to the last; and he was not without followers in the Council. But they were outnumbered and out-voted there, so that the light of the ‘blessed quality that is not strained’ was quenched. Outside the circle of the governing body also, more than one voice was raised against the manifest aim of Calvin to have his theological opponent capitally convicted. But it was by persons of inferior note. David Bruck, among others, a man of talent and quondam minister of a congregation of Anabaptists in the North, now living privately and respected under the name of David Joris at Berne, went so far as to speak of Servetus as a pious man, and to declare that if all who differed from others in their religious views were to be put to death, the world would be turned into one sea of blood.115

But the writer who received most notice from 518 Calvin and his friends was he who appeared under the assumed name of Martin Bellius. Taking as his text the 29th verse of the 4th chapter of Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians: ‘As then he that was born of the flesh persecuted him that was born of the Spirit, even so is it now,’ Bell proceeded to show that persecution to death on religious grounds, though it might be Judaism was not Christianity, and that many learned men and eminent doctors of the Church, both of older and more modern times, had been emphatic in condemnation of all intolerance in the sphere of religion. Bell’s book, small in bulk but weighty in argument, was felt as a home-thrust by the Reformer of Geneva, his own words in favour of toleration among others being quoted against him. It is often spoken of at the time as the Farrago—Calvin himself so designates it when sending a copy of it to his friend Bullinger. But neither Calvin nor his friends liked the book; and it is in depreciation of its real significance that it is spoken of as a medley.116

Premising an Introduction, addressed to Frederick, the reigning Duke of Würtemberg, in which the writer sets forth his own views, he asks the Duke whether 519 he should think a subject of his deserving of death who, avowing belief in God and his earnest desire to live in conformity with the precepts of Scripture, should say that he did not think baptism was properly performed on an infant eight days old; but was of opinion that the rite should be deferred until years of discretion had been attained and the recipient could give a reason for the faith that was in him? Did the subject think further that if he were required by law to baptize infants he was running counter to Christ’s ordinance, and felt that he was doing violence to his conscience, Bell asks the Duke again, ‘Did he think, if Christ were present as Judge, that He would order the man who so delivered himself to be put to death?’ Replying to his question himself, he says: ‘I venture to believe that He would not.’

Our author then proceeds to quote from the works of many writers, who maintain that the punishment of heretics is no part of the civil magistrate’s duty; from Erasmus, who declares that God, the Great Father of the human family, will not have heretics, even hæresiarchs, put to death, but tolerated in view of their possible amendment. ‘When I think how reprehensible are heresy and schism,’ says the great scholar, ‘I am scarce disposed to condemn the laws against them; but when I call to mind the gentleness wherewith Christ led his disciples, I shrink from the instances I see of men sent to prison and the stake on the ground of their disagreement with scholastic dogmas.’ From Aug. Eleutherius, 520 who opines that ‘they are not always truly heretics whom the vulgar so designate.’ From Lactantius, who says ‘Force and violence are out of place in matters of faith; for religion cannot be forced on mankind; words not stripes are here the proper instruments of persuasion.’ From Augustin, who goes so far as to say that ‘for the sake of peace even dogs are to be tolerated in the Church. The Catholic servants of God are not to stain themselves with the blood of their enemies, but to be examples of patience and forbearance. It is no business of theirs to gather the tares for burning before the harvest is ready; they who err are men, and it is man’s part to bear with the erring; the tares do no real harm to the wheat; and if the erring be not cured here, they do not escape punishment hereafter.’

There is much besides from others, which we spare the reader; but we have to show that clemency for theological divergence was no novelty in the age of Calvin; and no one will imagine for a moment that he had forgotten what he had written himself, or was ignorant of a word that had ever been said on the subject by others.

Martin Bell’s tractate was so eagerly seized upon by the public, and proved so influential in turning the tide of self-gratulation on which Calvin had been floating somewhat at his ease since the appearance of his ‘Declaration’ and ‘Defence,’ that it was thought necessary to find an antidote to the bane of reason and mercy, 521 so modestly but so convincingly presented in its pages. Calvin would probably have felt himself constrained to take the field again, and, ‘confronting Bell with self-comparisons,’ to answer him ‘point against point’ in person, had he not had his friend De Beza at hand to take his place. Engaged at the moment with his Commentary on Genesis, Calvin felt little disposed to interrupt his work by entering anew on an old theme, though ever ready to gird himself for the fight on one with novelty to recommend it. The task of meeting Martin Bell he therefore delegated to De Beza, who appeared anon in a volume three or four times the size of the Farrago in answer to its plea for latitude in the interpretation of the Scriptures, and against the infliction of death for the religious divergence called heresy in any or all of the multifarious forms in which it shows itself.

With the terrible text of the Jewish Bible, ‘If thy brother, thy son, the wife of thy bosom, or the friend that is as thine own soul, entice thee, saying, Let us go and serve other Gods; thou shalt not consent to him, neither shall thine eye have pity on him, neither shalt thou spare him, but thou shalt surely kill him, thy hand shall be first upon him to put him to death,’ &c. (Deut. xiii. 6 and seq.), and much besides, akin to this, assumed as the command of God, Beza had no very difficult task before him in persuading himself and his party that they had abidden by the Law in all that had been done; satisfied as they were besides that those who 522 gainsaid them were the enemies of God and man when they presumed to defend doctrines dishonouring, it was said, to the Supreme and destructive of the peace of the world.—God, in a word, was with them; the Devil and corrupt humanity on the side of their opponents, and there an end.

We do not observe, however, that Beza’s reply, though very ably conceived, and written with the skill of the practised controversialist, had any great influence. It was not reprinted in a separate form, and although translated into Dutch, seems to have been little read beyond the circle of Calvin’s friends and followers. Short as was the time that had elapsed since Servetus perished, the apologists of the man who sent him to his death were already in the rear of public opinion on the subject. The jurisdiction of the magistrate had come to be seen ever more and more clearly to lie within the sphere of Act, and to have nothing to do with Opinion.

A conclusion so wholesome as this was greatly strengthened by the appearance of another book in immediate reply to Calvin’s ‘Declaration’ and ‘Defence,’ entitled: ‘Contra Libellum Calvini, &c. against Calvin’s book, in which he strives to show that heretics are to be dealt with capitally.’117 This is the little work that is often referred to as ‘a Dialogue between Calvin 523 and Vaticanus,’ ‘Dialogus inter Calvinum et Vaticanum.’ In the Preface to the copy I have used, the work is ascribed to Sebastian Castellio, and several short papers from this distinguished scholar are appended to the text; but he most certainly was not its author. An old and determined opponent of Calvin, whose doctrine of Predestination and Election he had had the hardihood, in a special pamphlet, to criticise and controvert, Castellio had aroused the ire of Calvin; and it was on this ground probably that he had the credit given him of having written the ‘Dialogus.’ Calvin’s displeasure, we know, never meant anything less than personal hate and persecution, so that, in his answer to what he styles the ‘calumnies’ of Castellio, after the preliminary abuse in which he calls him ‘faithless and unmannered,’ he says, ‘They who do not know thee to be shameless and a deceiver, do not know thee aright. I should like to be informed how thou wilt prove that I am cruel? By throwing the death of thy master Servetus in my face, perhaps; and saying, that with my pen I mangle the body of the man who came to his death through me; but did I not entreat for him? His judges will bear me out in this; two of whom, at least, were his particular patrons.’118

In the passage just quoted, Calvin seems to reply to what Vaticanus has said in his introduction to the 524 book that engages us, viz., that Servetus was the first who had been put to death at Geneva on grounds of religion, and that it was done at the instance and on the authority of Calvin—‘impulsore et authore Calvino.’ Vaticanus continues: ‘Calvin will perhaps say, as is his wont, that I am a disciple of Servetus. But let not this frighten anyone. I am no defender of the doctrines of Servetus, but I shall so expose the false doctrines of Calvin, that every one shall see as plain as noonday that he thirsted for blood. I shall not deal with him, however, as he dealt with Servetus, whom he proceeded to tear in pieces with his pen, after having burned him and his books. I do not, therefore, discuss the Trinity, Baptism, &c., seeing that I have not the books of Servetus, whence I might learn what he says on these subjects, Calvin having taken such pains to have them burned—quippe combustos diligentia Calvini. I shall not burn the books of Calvin; their author is alive, and his books may be had both in French and Latin, so that every one may see whether I falsify aught he writes. But Servetus was a blasphemer of God, says Calvin. The man himself, however, believed that he honoured God, and persuaded himself that he glorified God in his death. But the persuasion is false, says Calvin. Be it so; yet Servetus himself was not false; had he been so, he would assuredly have saved his life; he therefore died for his opinions.’

Without defending the views of Servetus we thus 525 see Vaticanus asserting the courage and consistency of the victim which had been unjustly called in question by Calvin.

Coming to the burden of the book we find as many as 150 passages from Calvin’s ‘Defensio orthodoxæ fidei’ commented and controverted, and in addition, four from the reply of Zürich to the Council of Geneva.

By much the most complete and able of the works against Calvin and those who would have heretics punished by being put to death, is that of Minus Celsus of Sienna.119 A fugitive from his native country to escape arrest and punishment for having forsaken Popery, Minus Celsus found safety at length after passing through many perils in Switzerland. ‘Escaped from the hands of Antichrist, as he says, and safe amid the Rhetian Alps,’ he was not a little scandalised to find nothing of the unity of doctrine among the Reformed Churches he had been led to expect before leaving his native country. ‘They held together as one, indeed, in hate of the Pope, calling him Antichrist and looking on the Mass as idolatry, but they differed on innumerable other points among themselves, and not only persecuted but went the length of putting each other to death, and this in no such primitive way as by stoning, in old Hebrew fashion, but by roasting the living man with a slow fire, vivum lento igne torrendo—punishment more horrible than Scythian or Cannibal ever contrived.’ 526

Celsus had heard of the execution of Servetus at Geneva, and been assured by some who were present, persons worthy of all trust, that the constancy of the sufferer was such that many of the spectators, finding it impossible to imagine anything of the kind endured without the immediate support of God, instead of feeling horror for a blasphemer rightfully put to death, were led to look on him as a martyr to the cause of truth, and so made shipwreck of the faith in which they had hitherto lived.

This led Celsus to think of the treatise he had formerly written in his native language on the proper way of dealing with heresy, and turning it into Latin he resolved to have it printed. He did not live, however, to carry out his purpose; his book was only published some years after his death by a friend who gives no more than the initials of his name, J. F. D., but adds M.D., whereby we learn that he was a physician.

‘No man,’ says Mosheim,120 ‘can write more amiably or controvert more gently than this Minus Celsus. He never uses a word that is either bitter or insulting. His principal opponents are Calvin and Beza, of course, but he does not name them specially when he controverts their conclusions, although he proclaims his horror of all violence in matters of faith. He does, indeed, speak of Calvin once by name, but it is with mingled commendation and sorrow that ‘one who had deserved so well of the Church on many counts, and who thought 527 in earlier years that religion was not to be furthered by severity or violence, should have finally fallen away from his better persuasion. Why he changed, I know not: God knows.’ Calvin did not live to see this excellent work of the Siennese Celsus. Although written in his lifetime, the great Reformer died twenty years before it saw the light. How it would have affected him we can only say with our pious Celsus, God knows! 528

CHAPTER XXII.

CALVIN’S BIOGRAPHERS AND APOLOGISTS.

Among writers nearer our own time there are few who openly and unreservedly uphold Calvin in his conduct to Servetus, none who now advocate persecution unto death for divergence in religious opinion. Even they who hold the memory of Calvin in the highest honour are driven, as we have seen, to find excuses for him in his pursuit of the indiscreet but pious Spaniard. We in these days do, indeed, believe that they who should approve his deed would sin even as he did. Paul Henry, the author of one of the latest lives we have of Calvin, and his measureless partisan and apologist, even with the moderate acquaintance he has with Servetus’ works, feels himself forced at times to pause in the unmitigated condemnation of their author he is disposed to indulge in. Like Farel, in contact with the victim, telling the people that ‘after all the man perhaps meant well;’ Henry says, that ‘from the executed man, der Gerichtete, we hear certain echoes of Christianity which sadden as they flow not from the true faith. But his pyre still gleams portentous to the world, and even when it burned it was a herald of the 529 dawn of better days to come. Servetus, in his steadfast protestation even unto death, became a true Reformer. His fate has for ever impressed the Protestant (Henry has the Evangelical) Church with hate of the besetting sin of the Church of Rome, the crime of dealing with religious error by inflicting death. It has even familiarised the world with the thought that there is a still higher development of the religious principle in man than has yet found expression in either the Roman or Reformed Churches, awaiting a coming time.’

This surely is noble writing. Nor does the apologist pause here, but goes on to speak of him who to Calvin and his age was a blasphemer of God, as being really and in truth ‘a pious man.’ ‘Were an assembly of Deputies from every Christian Church now to meet on Champel,’ says Henry, ‘to take into consideration all that is extant on the life and fate of Servetus, and to review the facts in the light of the times to which they refer, they would speak Calvin free from reproach and pronounce him not guilty; of Servetus, on the other hand, they would say, guilty, but with extenuating circumstances.’ We venture to believe, and trust we have shown cause sufficient to warrant our conclusion, that the sentence would be precisely the reverse. Calvin would be found guilty, but with extenuating circumstances; Servetus not guilty in all but the use of intemperate and sometimes improper language.

Henry, to his honour, goes yet farther; he does not approve of Calvin’s attempt to detract from the horror 530 and pity we feel for Servetus’ fate, by charging him with cowardice in the face of death. ‘Let us observe in Servetus,’ says the biographer of Calvin, ‘those beautiful traces of the true life which he showed at the last: his regret for former tergiversations, his humility, his constancy, his earnest prayer to God, and his forgiveness of his enemies. Had he but had the truth in his heart he would have died a true martyr; but he must tremble in his death hour, for he had blasphemed the Majesty of God.’ But Servetus did not tremble in his death hour, he never blasphemed the Majesty of God, and he died in charity with all men, even with him who had brought him to his untimely end, and who ten years after the death of his victim had no better title for him than Chien et meschant Garnement,—dog and wicked scoundrel!

Mosheim, to whom we owe the gathering and preservation of much that is interesting in connection with Servetus, working in the middle of the bygone century, and referring to what Calvin himself avows, viz., ‘that he would not have persevered so resolutely on the capital charge had Servetus been but modest and not rushed madly on his fate,’ exclaims, ‘What an avowal! Servetus, after all, must burn not because he had outraged the word of God, and infected the world with error, but because he had addressed John Calvin in disrespectful language! Calvin’s avowal is truly a hard knot for those to untie who hold that revenge had nothing to do with the death of Servetus. For my 531 own part I am not bound to weigh all the grounds that tell for or against the Reformer, and I am not, perhaps, altogether impartial. I am minded, however, that they are not wholly in the right who say that Calvin proceeded against the unhappy Spaniard led on by hatred and revenge alone; and I am not so certain that they are in the wrong who think it was not mere religious zeal which suggested and carried the tragedy to its conclusion. What is man! The very best often serve God and themselves when they fancy they are serving God alone.’

With these words of the pious historian of the Church we conclude; tempering the severer criticism suggested by the facts as they present themselves, with the more charitable construction of the ecclesiastic. 532 533

APPENDIX

534 535

APPENDIX.

An account of the extant copies of the ‘Christianismi Restitutio;’ of the reprints of the work by Dr. de Murr and Dr. Mead, and of the notices the work has received in earlier and later times.

The ‘Christianismi Restitutio’ of Michael Servetus is one of the rarest books in the world. Of the thousand copies known to have been printed, two only are now known to survive; one of these being among the treasures of the National Library of Paris, the other among those of the Imperial and Royal Library of Vienna. The history of both of these copies, curiously enough, is complete from rather a remote date, and it is somewhat provoking to know that both of them were once in this country; but bigotry sent the one, and want of religious sympathy, presumably, suffered the other to leave our shores. The Paris copy certainly belonged to Dr. Richard Mead, the distinguished physician and medallist, who lived in the reign of Queen Anne, and is believed, before it came into Mead’s possession, to have formed part of the Library of the Landgrave of Kur-Hesse. How it got dissevered from this is not known. It was probably stolen and brought to England as to a sure market. Mead, liberal in politics and presumably in religion also, appears to have felt so much interest in Servetus’ work, not only by reason of the physiological matter it contained, but because of the free spirit of inquiry it breathed, that he was minded to have it reprinted 536 and made generally accessible. He had accordingly got half-way with a new and handsome edition of the work in 4to. form, so far back as the year 1723, when his purpose reached the ears of Gibson, the then Bishop of London. Alarmed at the idea of light being let in on the world that had not been strained through the haze of Episcopalian orthodoxy, Gibson addressed himself immediately to the Censor of the Press for an injunction; and at his instance and order the impression, so far as it had gone, was seized, adjudged heretical, and publicly burned. A few copies of the reprint, however, must have escaped the conflagration, of which one is now in the Library of the London Medical Society. This I have had an opportunity of examining, and find that there wanted but little to have completed the most essential part of the work, the last page printed being the first of the chapter entitled ‘De Justitia Regni Christi.’

Disgusted, we may imagine, with the bigotry of Bishop Gibson and his abettors, and, it may be also, to secure his copy of the original against the chance of seizure, confiscation, and the fire, Doctor Mead exchanged it with M. de Boze, Member of the French Academy of the Fine Arts, for a series of medals, of which the Doctor was a known collector. The library of M. de Boze being purchased after his death by M. Boutin, late Intendant of Finance, and the President de Cotte, in common, the Servetus fell to the share of De Cotte, who sold it by-and-by at an exorbitant price, as said, to M. Gaignat, who parted with it in turn for a still larger sum—as much as 3,810 livres—to the Duc de la Vaillière, the greatest book collector of the age. On the death of De la Vaillière, and the dispersion of his magnificent library under the hammer, in 1784, the ‘Rest. Christianismi,’ believed at the time to be the only copy in existence, was secured for the sum of 4,120 livres tournois for the Bibliothèque du Roi, and it now remains one of the treasures of the great National 537 Library of France. Much of the above information we gather from the letter of M. l’Abbé Rive, Librarian to the Duc de la Vaillière, which is appended to the London edition of Dutens’ ‘Recherches sur l’origine des Découvertes attribuées aux Modernes,’ of the year 1766.

But this is not all, nor even the most interesting of all we know about the Paris copy of the rare and remarkable book. It has the name of ‘Germain Colladon’ on the title-page, and the various passages on which Servetus was finally arraigned and condemned are underscored. It can, therefore, be no other than the copy which belonged to Colladon, the barrister, who prosecuted Servetus at Geneva, and must have been given him along with his brief by the attorney in the case. But the attorney in the case of Servetus was John Calvin; and we need not, therefore, doubt that the underlining is by ‘l’impitoyable Calvin’—the ruthless Calvin, as M. Flourens, who gives so much of the foregoing information as we have not supplemented, characterises the Genevese Reformer. The book shows what M. Flourens supposed to be scorching in one part; and this he gratuitously accounts for, by supposing that it is the copy which was to have been burned along with its author, but was saved in some unaccountable way. That copy, we may be well assured, was reduced to ashes and scattered to the winds with those of its hapless writer; and the presumed scorching, on the careful examination it received from the Rev. Henry Tollin, turns out to be the effect of damp. See Flourens’ ‘Histoire de la Découverte de la Circulation du Sang’ (Paris, 1854), 2nd Ed. Ib. 1857, p. 154.

The Vienna exemplar of the ‘Christianismi Restitutio,’ again, when we first meet with a notice of it, belonged to Markos Szent Ivanayi, a Transylvanian gentleman, resident in London in the year 1665. Szent Ivanayi must, we presume, have held Unitarian principles, and on his return to his 538 native country (in some districts of which Unitarianism is the established or prevailing form of religion), he presented his copy of the ‘Restitutio’ to the Congregation of Claudiopolis, with which he was in communion; and they, at a later date, by the hands of their superior, Stephen Agh, gave it, as the most valuable thing they possessed, to Samuel, Count Teleki de Izek, in acknowledgment of some act of favour from the magnate. The Count, on his part, informed of the rarity of the book, and rightly deeming that it was a gift such as a subject might offer to his sovereign, presented it to the Emperor Joseph the Second of Austria, by whom it was graciously accepted and forthwith enshrined in the great Library of Vienna. This copy of the ‘Restitutio’ is in better condition than that of Paris—‘præstat nitiore,’ says Dr. de Murr, from whom we have the foregoing information (De Murr, Chr. Th., M.D., ‘Adnotationes ad Bibliothecas Hallerianas, cum variis ad Scripta Michaelis Serveti pertinentibus.’ 4to. Erlangen. 1805).

The authorities of Roman Catholic Austria, in 1790, more liberally disposed than those of Protestant England in the year of grace 1723, not only gave Dr. de Murr permission to have a transcript made of the ‘Restitutio,’ but raised no objections to his having his copy printed and published—a task which he happily accomplished in 1791, ‘when the work appeared anew, like a Phœnix from its ashes,’ as he says. The reprint is, indeed, an exact counterpart of the original—line for line, page for page being followed throughout; and as the letter and paper have also been chosen to correspond as nearly as possible with those of the prototype, it might have been found difficult to distinguish between the one and the other, were a third copy of the original ever to turn up, had not Dr. de Murr put a mark upon his edition in the date of its publication in extremely small figures—thus, 1791, at the bottom of the last page. This, too, is a scarce book, so we presume the edition was small. 539

The earliest intimation the world at large received of the existence of the ‘Christianismi Restitutio’ of Servetus is to be found in Dr. Wm. Wotton’s ‘Reflections upon Learning, Ancient and Modern’ (London, 1694); but his reference is to nothing more than the passage bearing on the way in which the blood from the right side of the heart reaches the left. ‘The passage,’ says Wotton, ‘was communicated to him by his friend Mr. Charles Barnard, a very learned chirurgeon, who had had it transcribed for him by a friend who copied it from Servetus’ book.’ Wotton, therefore, had never seen the book himself. The copy from which the passage was transcribed, in all likelihood was the one which either was at the time or afterwards became the property of Dr. Mead.

The next writer who refers to Servetus and his new views of the pulmonic circulation is Dr. James Douglas, in his ‘Bibliographiæ Anatomicæ Specimen’ (London, 1715). But neither had Douglas had an opportunity of examining the work for himself. He does no more, in fact, than copy the passage as given by Wotton.

The first member of the medical profession who gave any account of Servetus’ physiological and psychological opinions from an actual survey of the ‘Christianismi Restitutio,’ from De Murr’s reprint, I believe to have been the late Dr. G. Sigmond, an amiable man and accomplished scholar, who has not been very long gone from among us. Sigmond, however, has left us the result of his study in an appreciative Dissertation in Latin and English; the introduction being in our mother tongue, the text in the old language. Sigmond’s work is entitled, ‘The Unnoticed Theories of Servetus; a Dissertation addressed to the Medical Society of Stockholm. 8vo., London, 1826.’ To his great honour, Dr. Sigmond is the first naturalist in these days who dared to see Michael Servetus for what he was in truth: an accomplished and sincerely 540 pious man, but differing, to his sorrow, from both Catholics and Protestants on some of the dogmatical assumptions of their common creeds. The copy of the ‘Christianismi Restitutio’ which Dr. Sigmond possessed, as said above, was one of Dr. de Murr’s reprints, which had been bequeathed to him by his friend Dr. James Sims, for many years President of the Medical Society of London, a learned man and lover of books, who believed it to be the original—a belief not shared in by Sigmond, however, though he seems to have known nothing of De Murr or his edition. This copy, I think, must be the one which is now in the Library of the British Museum, purchased in 1855, when Sigmond, having lost the property he inherited from his father, seems to have parted with his books, though he only died in 1873.

The question touching the Discovery of the Circulation of the Blood, which will ever make Servetus an object of interest to the medical profession, and had been in abeyance for some considerable time past, has been brought under renewed consideration of late, and busts and statues of several learned and meritorious individuals have been inaugurated to their memory as ‘discoverers of the circulation.’ In the porch of the Instituto Antropologico of Madrid, for example, there is a statue raised by Dr. Velasco to the memory of Michael Servetus on this score, and we have but just heard of a bust set up at Rome to Andrea Cæsalpino on the same ground. So distinguished a physiologist as Dr. Valentin, moreover, has come forward as an advocate of the claims of another and until now unheard of discoverer of ‘the great physiological fact’ in anticipation of Harvey. In his work entitled, ‘Versuch einer physiologischen Pathologie des Herzens,’ Leipzig, 1866, Dr. Valentin will be found saying that ‘it must now be conceded that the pulmonary circulation was known to Servetus in 1553 [and he might have added, to Realdus Columbus in 1559], and both this and the general systemic circulation to Ruini, 541 in 1598. That the pulmonic or lesser circulation—more properly the passage or mode of transference of the blood from the right to the left side of the heart—was known to Servetus and to both Columbus and Cæsalpinus after him, there can be no question; but I have assured myself, from a careful study of the works of these distinguished individuals, that none of them, least of all Ruini [Dell’ Anatomia del Cavallo, Bologna, 1598], was fully or truly informed on the subject. None of them apprehended the circulation of the blood as did Harvey, and as we his followers do in the present day.

It were out of place did I pursue this subject further now; but I hope to take it up anon in a new ‘Life of Harvey,’ long meditated and all but completed, in which I shall show that after all that had been done by those who went before him, there still wanted the combining intellect, the inductive genius of a Harvey to bring light out of darkness, order out of confusion, and to lay the foundations, strong and sure, of our modern physiology and rational medicine by proclaiming the heart the moving power, and the arteries and veins the channels of a continuous, general circulation of the blood.

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⁂ Can also be had in a variety of other bindings. 29

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Blessing and Blessed: a Sketch of Girl Life. New and Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo. cloth, price 3s. 6d.

Rose Gurney’s Discovery. A Book for Girls. Dedicated to their Mothers. Crown 8vo. cloth, price 3s. 6d.

English Girls: Their Place and Power. With Preface by the Rev. R. W. Dale. Third Edition. Fcp. 8vo. cloth, price 2s. 6d.

Just Anyone, and other Stories. Three Illustrations. Royal 16mo. cloth, price 1s. 6d.

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ROSS (Mrs. E.), (‘Nelsie Brook’)—Daddy’s Pet. A Sketch from Humble Life. With Six Illustrations. Royal 16mo. price 1s.

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Seven Autumn Leaves from Fairy Land. Illustrated with Nine Etchings. Square crown 8vo. price 3s. 6d.

STOCKTON (Frank R.)—A Jolly Fellowship. With 20 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. cloth, price 5s.

STORR (Francis) and TURNER (Hawes).—Canterbury Chimes; or, Chaucer Tales retold to Children. With Six Illustrations from the Ellesmere MS. Fcp. 8vo. cloth, price 3s. 6d.

STRETTON (Hesba)—David Lloyd’s Last Will. With Four Illustrations. Royal 16 mo. price 2s. 6d.

The Wonderful Life. Thirteenth Thousand. Fcp. 8vo. cloth, price 2s. 6d.

Sunnyland Stories. By the Author of ‘Aunt Mary’s Bran Pie.’ Illustrated. Small 8vo. price 3s. 6d.

Tales from Ariosto Re-told for Children. By a Lady. With 3 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. cloth, price 4s. 6d.

WHITAKER (Florence)—Christy’s Inheritance. A London Story. Illustrated. Royal 16mo. price 1s. 6d.

ZIMMERN (H.)—Stories in Precious Stones. With Six Illustrations, Third Edition. Crown 8vo. price 5s.

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