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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #54226 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/54226)
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-The Project Gutenberg eBook, Servetus and Calvin, by Robert Willis
-
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-
-
-
-Title: Servetus and Calvin
- A Study of an Important Epoch in the Early History of the Reformation
-
-
-Author: Robert Willis
-
-
-
-Release Date: February 23, 2017 [eBook #54226]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-
-***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SERVETUS AND CALVIN***
-
-
-E-text prepared by Josep Cols Canals, Wayne Hammond, and the Online
-Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images
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- Images of the original pages are available through
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- https://archive.org/details/servetuscalvinst00willrich
-
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-
-SERVETUS AND CALVIN
-
-
- * * * * * *
-
-_By the same Author._
-
-BENEDICT D’ESPINOZA; his Life, Correspondence, and Ethics.
-
-G. E. LESSING’S NATHAN THE WISE. With an Introduction.
-
-THE SUDORIPAROUS AND LYMPHATIC GLANDULAR SYSTEMS; the Vital Nature
-of their Functions, and the Effect of Implications of these on the
-Diseases ascribed to Malaria.
-
- * * * * * *
-
-
-[Illustration: MICHEL SERVETUS]
-
-
-SERVETUS AND CALVIN
-
-A Study of an Important Epoch in the
-Early History of the Reformation
-
-by
-
-R. WILLIS, M.D.
-
-
- Περὶ τῆς τριάδος--scis me semper veritum fore. Bone Deus, quales
- tragœdias excitabit ad posteros hæc questio: εἰ ἐστὶν ὑπόστασις ὁ λόγος;
- εἰ ἐστὶν ὑπόστασις τὸ πνεῦμα? MELANCHTHON
-
-
-
-
-
-
-Henry S. King & Co., Londo
-1877
-
-
-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.)
-
-
-
-
- TO
-
- HIS FRIENDS
-
- SAMUEL DAVIDSON, D.D.
-
- AND
-
- R. W. MACKAY, M.A.
-
- This Work is Dedicated
-
- WITH EVERY EXPRESSION OF AFFECTIONATE REGARD
-
- AND ESTEEM
-
- BY THE WRITER
-
-
-
-
-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 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 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 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 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 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_.
-
-
-
-
-CONTENTS.
-
-
- _BOOK THE FIRST._
-
- EARLY LIFE--WORKS--ARREST AND TRIAL AT VIENNE.
-
- CHAPTER PAGE
-
- I. MICHAEL SERVETUS: HIS BIRTH, PARENTAGE, AND EARLY EDUCATION 3
-
- II. SERVICE WITH FRIAR JUAN QUINTANA, CONFESSOR OF THE EMPEROR
- CHARLES V. 19
-
- III. THE SERVICE WITH QUINTANA COMES TO AN END 29
-
- IV. INTERCOURSE WITH THE SWISS REFORMERS 33
-
- V. THE REFORMERS OF STRASBURG. PUBLICATION OF THE WORK ON
- TRINITARIAN ERROR 37
-
- VI. THE AUTHORITIES OF BASLE. THE TWO DIALOGUES ON THE TRINITY.
- LEAVES SWITZERLAND 71
-
- VII. PARIS. ASSUMPTION OF THE NAME OF VILLENEUVE OR VILLANOVANUS.
- ACQUAINTANCE WITH CALVIN 79
-
- VIII. LYONS. ENGAGEMENT AS READER FOR THE PRESS WITH THE
- TRECHSELS. EDITS THE GEOGRAPHY OF PTOLEMY 86
-
- IX. LYONS. DR. SYMPHORIEN CHAMPIER 99
-
- X. RETURN TO PARIS. STUDIES THERE. JO. WINTER OF ANDERNACH;
- ANDREA VESALIUS. DEGREES OF M.A. AND M.D. LECTURES ON
- GEOGRAPHY AND ASTROLOGY 104
-
- XI. THE TREATISE ON SYRUPS, AND THEIR USE IN MEDICINE 111
-
- XII. THE MEDICAL FACULTY OF PARIS SUE SERVETUS FOR LECTURING
- ON JUDICIAL ASTROLOGY 116
-
- XIII. CHARLIEU. ATTAINMENT OF HIS THIRTIETH YEAR. VIEWS OF
- BAPTISM 125
-
- XIV. SETTLEMENT AT VIENNE UNDER THE PATRONAGE OF THE ARCHBISHOP.
- RENEWAL OF INTERCOURSE WITH THE PUBLISHERS OF LYONS.
- SECOND EDITION OF PTOLEMY 130
-
- XV. EDITION OF SANTES PAGNINI’S LATIN BIBLE WITH COMMENTARY 139
-
- XVI. ENGAGEMENT AS EDITOR BY JO. FRELON OF LYONS. CORRESPONDENCE
- WITH CALVIN 157
-
- XVII. ‘CHRISTIANISMI RESTITUTIO,’ THE RESTORATION OF
- CHRISTIANITY. DISCOVERY OF THE PULMONARY CIRCULATION 191
-
- XVIII. CALVIN RECEIVES A COPY OF THE ‘CHRISTIANISMI RESTITUTIO’ 231
-
- XIX. CALVIN DENOUNCES SERVETUS THROUGH WILLIAM TRIE TO THE
- ECCLESIASTICAL AUTHORITIES OF LYONS 235
-
- XX. ARREST OF SERVETUS AND ARNOULLET, THE PUBLISHER. THE TRIAL
- FOR HERESY AT VIENNE. SERVETUS IS SUFFERED TO ESCAPE FROM
- PRISON 252
-
- XXI. DISCOVERY OF ARNOULLET’S PRIVATE PRINTING ESTABLISHMENT.
- SEIZURE AND BURNING OF THE ‘CHRISTIANISMI
- RESTITUTIO,’ ALONG WITH THE EFFIGY OF ITS AUTHOR 269
-
-
- _BOOK THE SECOND._
-
- SERVETUS IN GENEVA, FACE TO FACE WITH CALVIN.
-
- I. SERVETUS REACHES GENEVA. DETAINED THERE, HE IS ARRESTED AT
- THE INSTANCE OF CALVIN 281
-
- II. GENEVA, AND THE STATE OF POLITICAL PARTIES AT THE DATE OF
- SERVETUS’ ARREST 287
-
- III. SERVETUS IS ARRAIGNED ON THE CAPITAL CHARGE BY CALVIN 304
-
- IV. THE TRIAL IN ITS FIRST PHASE 314
-
- V. THE TRIAL IN ITS SECOND PHASE, WITH THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL
- OF GENEVA AS PROSECUTOR 333
-
- VI. THE TRIAL IN ITS SECOND PHASE, CONTINUED 351
-
- VII. THE TRIAL CONTINUED. THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL RECEIVES
- FRESH INSTRUCTIONS FROM CALVIN 366
-
- VIII. SERVETUS IS VISITED IN PRISON BY CALVIN AND THE
- MINISTERS 386
-
- IX. THE COURT DETERMINES TO CONSULT THE COUNCILS
- AND CHURCHES OF THE FOUR PROTESTANT SWISS CANTONS 391
-
- X. THE TRIAL IS INTERRUPTED THROUGH DIFFERENCES
- BETWEEN CALVIN AND THE COUNCIL 393
-
- XI. THE TRIAL IS RESUMED ON NEW ARTICLES SUPPLIED BY CALVIN 398
-
- XII. THE TRIAL CONTINUED. SERVETUS ADDRESSES A
- LETTER TO CALVIN AND PETITIONS HIS JUDGES 423
-
- XIII. CALVIN ANTICIPATES THE JUDGES IN THEIR APPEAL
- TO THE SWISS CHURCHES 428
-
- XIV. SERVETUS SENDS A LETTER AND A SECOND REMONSTRANCE
- AND PETITION TO HIS JUDGES 441
-
- XV. THE SWISS COUNCILS AND CHURCHES ARE ADDRESSED
- BY THE COUNCIL OF GENEVA 446
-
- XVI. SERVETUS AGAIN ADDRESSES THE SYNDICS AND COUNCIL
- OF GENEVA, AND ACCUSES CALVIN. THE
- ANSWERS OF THE COUNCILS AND CHURCHES CONSULTED 450
-
- XVII. THE ATTITUDE OF CALVIN. THE HOPES OF SERVETUS 474
-
- XVIII. THE SENTENCE AND EXECUTION. VÆ VICTIS! 480
-
- XIX. AFTER THE BATTLE. VÆ VICTORIBUS! 488
-
- XX. CALVIN DEFENDS HIMSELF 498
-
- XXI. CALVIN’S DEFENCE IS ATTACKED 517
-
- XXII. CALVIN’S BIOGRAPHERS AND APOLOGISTS 528
-
- APPENDIX 535
-
-
-
-
-BOOK I.
-
-EARLY LIFE--WORKS--ARREST AND TRIAL AT VIENNE
-
-
-
-
-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 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 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 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.
-
-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 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 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 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 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]
-
-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 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 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]
-
-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]
-
-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 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 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.
-
-
-
-
-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 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
-inquiries[7] 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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]
-
-
-
-
-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 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 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 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.
-
-
-
-
-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 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 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 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]
-
-
-
-
-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.
-
-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 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
-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 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:--
-
- ‘De Trinitatis Erroribus, Libri Septem.
- Per Michaelem Serveto, alias Revés,
- Ab Aragonia, Hispanum,
- 1531.’
-
-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 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 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
-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 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 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 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]
-
-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: 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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] 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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; “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 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 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. 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]
-
-
-
-
-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
-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 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 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 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. 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 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
-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]
-
-
-
-
-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 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 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 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, 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,
-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 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.
-
-
-
-
-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, 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 Ptolemy[36] 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 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 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 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 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 below[37] 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 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 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 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 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 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
-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, 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]
-
-
-
-
-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 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 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 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, 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.
-
-
-
-
-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, 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 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 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 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 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, 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.
-
-
-
-
-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.
-
-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 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, 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 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]
-
-
-
-
-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.
-
-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
-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 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 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 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,
-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 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 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.
-
-
-
-
-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 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 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 (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 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.)
-
-
-
-
-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.
-
-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]
-
-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 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 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 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 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 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 have no
-reference to the year 1541, the date of publication of the second
-edition of Villanovanus’s ‘Ptolemy.’[53]
-
-
-
-
-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]
-
-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, 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, ‘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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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
-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 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 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, 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 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.
-
-
-
-
-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
-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, 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 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:--
-
- ‘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 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 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.
-
-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, 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 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 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 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 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. 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
-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
-
- His murder yet was but fantastical,
-
-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.
-
-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 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 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_.
-
-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 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? 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 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 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!’
-
-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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, ‘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.
-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.
-
-
-
-
-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 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, 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, 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 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 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]
-
-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 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 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 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 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
-
- Offspring of heaven firstborn,
- Or of the eternal coeternal beam;
- Since God is light,
- And never but in unapproached light,
- Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee,
- Bright effluence of bright essence increate.
-
-A little further on he also has the Son as Agent in Creation:--
-
- And thou, my Word, begotten Son, by thee
- This I perform: speak thou and be it done.
-
-Creation ended, he continues:--
-
- The filial Son arrived and sat him down
- With his great Father!
-
-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 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 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 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 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.
-
-‘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 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 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
-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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.
-
-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.’
-
-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 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 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 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, 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 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 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; 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, 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; 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]
-
-
-
-
-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 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 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 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!
-
-
-
-
-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 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 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 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 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.
-
-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 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 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 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
-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 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 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 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 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, 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, 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 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]
-
-
-
-
-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.
-
-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 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. 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 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 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 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, 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, 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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
-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.
-
-
-
-
-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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.
-
-
-
-
-BOOK II.
-
-SERVETUS IN GENEVA, FACE TO FACE WITH CALVIN.
-
-[Illustration: Ioanis Calvinus]
-
-
-
-
-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 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 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 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
-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 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.
-
-
-
-
-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 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 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 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
-
- Wer liebt nicht Weiber, Wein und Gesang
- Ein Narr ist er und bleibts sein Lebenslang[68]
-
-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, 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 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;
-
- Two stars keep not their orbit in one sphere;
-
-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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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, 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
-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 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 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]
-
-
-
-
-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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.
-
-
-
-
-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 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 question slip
-out of their proper hands; or, as M. Albert Rilliet[75] 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 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 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, 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.
-
-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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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: ‘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 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.
-
-
-
-
-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 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.
-
-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 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 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, 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 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 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.
-
-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
-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. 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 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 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 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.’
-
-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
-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 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, 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.
-
-
-
-
-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 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, 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 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.
-
-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 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 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 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 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.
-
- 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
-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 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, 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
- 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 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.
-
-
-
-
-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 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 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 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 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 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.’
-
-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 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 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, 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 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 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; 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 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 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.
-
-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 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 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 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.’
-
- ‘Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
- Thou art not so unkind
- As man’s ingratitude!’
-
-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 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.
-
-
-
-
-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, 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_ 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. 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, 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?
-
-
-
-
-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 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.
-
-
-
-
-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 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
-
- Parcus Deorum cultor et infrequens,
-
-uninformed of this, and expecting countenance from the presence of
-their leader, offered themselves among 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 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
- 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.
-
-
-
-
-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 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 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; 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
-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 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, 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 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 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.’
-
-_The Thirty-eight final Articles of Impeachment, and Servetus’s
-Replies._
-
-ARTICLE.
-
-I.-IV. Servetus, says Calvin, maintains that all who believe in a
-Trinity in the essence of God are Tritheists, or have three Gods
-instead of one God; or they are Atheists, and properly have no God at
-all, their God being tripartite or aggregative, not absolute. That
-the three Persons of the Trinity are Phantoms; and that there should
-be distinct entities in the one God is a thing impossible; so that a
-Trinity of Persons in an Unity of Being is a dream. Further: That the
-Jews, resting on numerous authorities, wonder at the Tripartite Deity
-we acknowledge; and, yet more, That it was the admission of _real_
-distinctions in the Incorporeal Deity which led Mahomet to deny Christ.
-
-REPLY.
-
-I.-IV. From the authors quoted, it is evident that in the Essence and
-Oneness of God there is no _real_ distinction into three invisible
-entities. That there is a figurative or personal distinction between
-the Invisible Father and the Visible Son, however, I admit; so that
-in this way I religiously believe in a Trinity, though denying it
-as usually understood. The truth of what I say about the Jews and
-Mahometans, I maintain to be amply borne out by history and what we see
-among the Turks of the present time.
-
-ARTICLE.
-
-V. To colour his infamous opinions, he speaks of a personal distinction
-in the Godhead; but this is external only, not internal, or inherent
-in the Essence of God; the Word, according to him, having been Ideal
-Reason from the beginning—mere Reflection, Figure, or Semblance; Person
-only in the sense of appearance; and that this prefigured the future
-Man, Jesus Christ.
-
-REPLY.
-
-V. I have always acknowledged the subsistence of the Son in God, both
-externally and internally. And you contradict yourself; for if the
-Reason was Ideal, then was it Internal. It plainly appears you know not
-what you say.
-
-ARTICLE.
-
-VI. Confounding the Persons, the Wisdom of Scripture is said to
-have been formerly both Word and Spirit, no real distinction being
-acknowledged between them; the mystery of the Word and Spirit being
-defined to have been the effulgent glory of Christ.
-
-REPLY.
-
-VI. Irenæus thus interprets the matter; Wisdom, he says, was the Holy
-Spirit. So does Tertullian. Solomon understands the wisdom that was
-given him as the Holy Spirit. And in my Eighth Letter, I show that the
-whole mystery of the Word and the Spirit was to the glory of Christ,
-because in him was the plenitude both of the Word and the Spirit. O
-wretched man, thus to go on condemning what you do not understand!
-
-ARTICLE.
-
-VII. Denying any real distinction in the Persons of the Godhead Christ
-is said 408 to have been invested with such glory as to be not only God
-of God, but very God from whom another God might proceed.
-
-REPLY.
-
-VII. Did I say another God? I meant another mode of Deity. But if it
-offend you that I say another God, say another Person [i.e. as Servetus
-understands the word, another manifestation] of Deity. Why quote that
-against me which I have myself corrected? But you show your candour on
-all occasions!
-
-ARTICLE.
-
-VIII. Christ is said to be the Son of God not only and in as much as he
-was engendered by God in the womb of the Virgin Mary; and this, not by
-the virtue of the Holy Ghost, but by God of his proper substance.
-
-REPLY.
-
-VIII. Is not he rightly called the son of him by whom he is begotten?
-Therefore do I say that God from eternity and of his substance produced
-[protulit] this Son; and therefore is he said to be of God naturally.
-
-ARTICLE.
-
-IX. The Word of God coming down from heaven, is said to have been the
-flesh of Christ; so that the flesh of Christ is from heaven, his body
-being the body of God, his soul the soul of God; both his soul and body
-having existed from Eternity in the proper substance of Deity.
-
-REPLY.
-
-IX. The Word, I say, is now the flesh of Christ by hypostatical union.
-I say well, therefore, that the flesh of Christ is from heaven, and
-indeed is the heavenly Manna. What else I say, I admit in the sense in
-which I conceive it. You fasten on such things as these, and neglect
-the main truth!
-
-ARTICLE.
-
-X. The essence of the soul and body of Christ is declared to be the
-Deity of the Word and the Spirit, and Christ to have existed from the
-beginning in respect of his body as well as his soul, 409 the substance
-of the Deity being not only in the soul but in the body of Christ.
-
-REPLY.
-
-X. Essence is spoken of as that by which anything is sustained. Art
-thou not ashamed to calumniate me, or dost thou think that with thy
-savage barking thou wilt dull the ears of the Judges?
-
-ARTICLE.
-
-XI. As if to show that to him the divinity of Christ is mere mockery,
-he says that it means the wisdom, the power, and the splendour of God;
-as if it were only a certain wisdom and power that in him was excelling.
-
-REPLY.
-
-XI. You do unjustly ever; you quote me falsely. I do not say what you
-charge me with saying. and the splendour of God; as if it were only a
-certain wisdom and power that in him was excelling.
-
-ARTICLE.
-
-XII. The man Jesus is said to have been from the beginning in his
-proper person and substance, in or with God; and yet two persons are
-elsewhere ascribed to Christ.
-
-REPLY.
-
-XII. What you say first is most true, and I wish you understood it.
-Christ in himself is one person; but in him verily is the Holy Spirit,
-who is also a person.
-
-ARTICLE.
-
-XIII. Having said that the Word of God was made man, he says that this
-Word was the Seed of Christ; also that it was different from the Son;
-and that the Word by which the world was created, was produced by the
-grace of God; whence it would follow that Christ was not the Word in
-question. It is said, further, that the Word of God was the Dew, the
-natural engenderer of Christ in the womb of the Virgin, similar to the
-generative element of animals; and, yet further, that the Son 410 of
-God was naturally begotten of the Holy Ghost by the Word.
-
-REPLY.
-
-XIII. I speak here as do Tertullian, Irenæus, Philo, and others. In
-the passage you quote, the Word is taken for the voice from heaven
-saying, ‘This is the Son of God.’ Who does not see that the Word of God
-is something other than the man his Son? You have not read me aright,
-neither do you understand me. What else you say, I admit.
-
-ARTICLE.
-
-XIV. The Word of God is said to be itself the seed generative of
-Christ; and as the generative element is in creatures, so is it in the
-Deity, in whom was the seed of the Word before the son was conceived of
-Mary; the paternal element in God acting in the engenderment of Christ
-in the same way as that of our fathers in us.
-
-REPLY.
-
-XIV. All this I admit. God acted as generator in the way I explain in
-my first Dialogue. [The Celestial influence overshadowing the Virgin
-acted in her as the dew or the rain of heaven acts on the ground, and
-brings forth herb and flower.]
-
-ARTICLE.
-
-XV. The Divine Word, it is said, mingling with created elements,
-was the agent in the generation of Christ. The divine and the human
-elements coalescing, there came forth the one hypostasis of the Spirit
-of Christ, which is the hypostasis of the Holy Ghost; though it had
-been asserted previously that the three elements in Christ were of the
-substance of the Father.
-
-REPLY.
-
-XV. I grant everything here if you understand what you say as having
-reference to the paternal elements, so called because of their
-existence as ideal reason in God.
-
-ARTICLE.
-
-XVI. To corrupt what the Apostle says—viz. that Christ did not take on
-himself the nature of the angels, but that of the seed of Abraham—it is
-said, by way of explanation, 411 that he delivered us from death.
-
-REPLY.
-
-XVI. I corrupt nothing, but accept both interpretations; you, however,
-quote everything falsely and teach falsely also.
-
-ARTICLE.
-
-XVII. God, he says, is father of the Holy Ghost. But this is nothing
-less than to confound the persons—even such persons as he feigns.
-
-REPLY.
-
-XVII. The confounding is in your own mind, so that you cannot
-comprehend the truth.
-
-ARTICLE.
-
-XVIII. Playing with the word Person, he says there was one sole
-personal image or face, which was the person of Christ in God, and was
-also communicated to the angels.
-
-REPLY.
-
-XVIII. I play fast and loose with nothing. I make use of the language
-of those I quote, which you treacherously pervert.
-
-ARTICLE.
-
-XIX. As from either parent there are in us three elements, so are there
-three in Christ; but in him the material element is derived from the
-mother only. Whence it would follow that Christ had not a body like to
-ours, and this were to do away with our Redemption.
-
-REPLY.
-
-XIX. The body of Christ, I say, is like to ours, sin excepted; excepted
-also this: that his body is participant of Deity.
-
-ARTICLE.
-
-XX. The celestial Dew, overshadowing the Virgin and mingling with her
-blood, transformed her human matter into God.
-
-REPLY.
-
-XX. The Transformation referred to here is Glorification.
-
-ARTICLE.
-
-XXI. Confounding the two natures, he says that the created and
-uncreated light were in Christ one light; and that of the Divine Spirit
-and the human Soul there was constituted 412 one substantial Soul in
-Christ; so that the substance of the flesh and the substance of the
-Word were one substance.
-
-REPLY.
-
-XXI. He, I say, who is of and in God, is with Him one Spirit. Is there
-confusion when two unite in one? Are soul and body confounded when
-they constitute an individual man? Wretch that thou art, thou dost not
-understand the principles of things! [See the letter to which this
-remark gave occasion.]
-
-ARTICLE.
-
-XXII. Partaking of the nature of God and man, Jesus Christ, it is said,
-cannot be spoken of as a creature, but as a partaker of the nature of
-creatures.
-
-REPLY.
-
-XXII. And what then?
-
-ARTICLE.
-
-XXIII. One and the same Divineness which is in the Father, it is
-said, was communicated immediately, bodily, to his Son, Jesus Christ;
-from whom, mediately, by the ministry of the Angelic Spirit, it was
-communicated to the Apostles. That in Christ only is Deity implanted
-bodily and spiritually; all of the Divine that others have, being given
-through him by a holy substantial halitus, or breath.
-
-REPLY.
-
-XXIII. This, I say, is the Truth.
-
-ARTICLE.
-
-XXIV. As the Word went into the flesh of Christ, so, it is said, did
-the Holy Ghost enter into the souls of the Apostles.
-
-REPLY.
-
-XXIV. In some sort, in a certain way, as I show in the place you refer
-to.
-
-ARTICLE.
-
-XXV. Confounding the Persons, he asserts that the λὀγος was naturally,
-voluntarily, 413 ideal reason and procession,—the resplendence of
-Christ with God, the Spirit of Christ with God, and the light of
-Christ with God; whence it would follow that the λὀγος was nothing
-substantial, inasmuch as it was the figure only of a thing that was not
-yet in being, and yet did not differ from the Spirit.
-
-REPLY.
-
-XXV. You confound yourself in what you say, and do not understand what
-you speak about—as if that which subsisted hypostatically in God was no
-real substance!
-
-ARTICLE.
-
-XXVI. Before the advent of Christ, he says, there was no visible
-hypostasis of the Spirit. Whence it would follow that there was neither
-hypostasis nor real person, seeing that there can be no person that is
-not visible, as he declares in his book and asserts in his answers;
-speaking also, as he does in another place, of the Spirit of God, as
-The Shadow in the Creation of the world.
-
-REPLY.
-
-XXVI. Person in the Word is called a visible hypostasis, and in the
-Spirit is spoken of as a perceptible hypostasis.
-
-ARTICLE.
-
-XXVII. As all things are said by Servetus to be in God, so and in the
-same order were they in God before creation, Christ being first and
-foremost of all—such being the kind of Eternity he allows to the Son of
-God. Further, that God, by his Eternal Wisdom, decreeing 414 to himself
-from Eternity a visible Son, gives effect to his decree by means of the
-Word.
-
-REPLY.
-
-XXVII. All this is good, and you would see it so were you not
-perversely minded.
-
-ARTICLE.
-
-XXVIII. Christ, he says, so long as he abode in the flesh, had not
-yet received the new Spirit which was to be his portion after the
-resurrection, and was verily afterwards imparted to him; so that he now
-possesses hypostatically the glory both of the Word and the Spirit,
-prefigured by the dove descending on him in Jordan.
-
-REPLY.
-
-XXVIII. There is nothing here that is not true, would you but be
-willing to understand it.
-
-ARTICLE.
-
-XXIX. In God, he maintains, there are no parts and partitions as
-in creatures, but Dispensations, and this in such wise that in the
-partition or imparting of the Spirit every portion is God. Beside this,
-he says that our spirits substantially are from Eternity, and so are
-consubstantial and coeternal; although he elsewhere declares that the
-spirit wherewith we are enlightened may be extinguished.
-
-REPLY.
-
-XXIX. All you say here at first is true; but I do not say that the
-Spirit of God in itself is extinguished, because, when we die, the
-spirit departs from us.
-
-ARTICLE.
-
-XXX. The Divine Spirit, it is said, was infused into us in the
-beginning by the breath of God.
-
-REPLY.
-
-XXX. This is most true; and you, miserable man, deluded by Simon Magus,
-ignorest it. Making a slave of 415 our will, you turn us into stocks
-and stones.
-
-ARTICLE.
-
-XXXI. When we find it stated in the Law that the Spirit of God is in
-any one, this is not to be taken as meaning the Spirit of regeneration.
-
-REPLY.
-
-XXXI. The words quoted, I say, are for the most part so to be
-understood.
-
-ARTICLE.
-
-XXXII. Angels, he says, were worshipped by the Jews of old; so that he
-calls Angels their Gods; but, this being so, the true God could never
-have been worshipped by them—by Abraham in particular—but Angels, only,
-prefiguring Christ.
-
-REPLY.
-
-XXXII. Almost everything, I say, presented itself to the Jews in the
-way of Figure.
-
-ARTICLE.
-
-XXXIII. Admitting that Christ or the Word had no hypostatic [actual]
-existence from the beginning, he nevertheless declares that Angels and
-the Elect were verily in God from the first.
-
-REPLY.
-
-XXXIII. What you mix up and make me say here, is false. Nothing
-created—no creature—existed before the moment of its creation.
-
-ARTICLE.
-
-XXXIV. He maintains that the Deity is present substantially in all
-creatures.
-
-REPLY.
-
-XXXIV. God, I say, is present in all creatures by his essence and
-power, and himself sustains all things.
-
-ARTICLE.
-
-XXXV. Having mixed up many vain, perverse, and pernicious dreams about
-the substance of Souls, he concludes at length that the Soul is from
-God and of his substance; 416 that a created inspiration was infused
-into it along with its divineness; and that in respect of substance it
-was united through the Holy Spirit by a new inspiration into one light
-with God.
-
-REPLY.
-
-XXXV. Take away the words, of his substance, you will find the rest to
-be true; and that it is you yourself who dream with Simon Magus.
-
-ARTICLE.
-
-XXXVI. Though the soul is not primarily God, yet does it become Divine
-or is made God by the Spirit, which, indeed, is very God, so that it
-is improper to doubt that our Souls and the Holy Spirit conjoined with
-Christ are of the same elementary substance as the Word conjoined with
-the flesh. Further, that created and uncreated things combine and unite
-in one substance of Soul and Spirit.
-
-REPLY.
-
-XXXVI. This is so; many things thus unite in one—bones, flesh, nerves,
-soul, spirit, and form, for instance, to make the one substance of Man.
-
-ARTICLE.
-
-XXXVII. He has written and published horrible blasphemies against the
-Baptism of Infants, and has said that mortal sin is not committed
-before the age of twenty years.
-
-REPLY.
-
-XXXVII. I own to having written so; but when you have convinced me that
-I am in error in this, I will not only acknowledge my fault, but kiss
-the ground under your feet.
-
-ARTICLE.
-
-XXXVIII. The Soul, he says, was made mortal by sin, even as the flesh
-is mortal—not meaning to say that the Soul is annihilated, but that
-deprived by pain of the vital 417 actions of the body, it languishes,
-and is shut up in hell as if it were to live no more. Thence he
-concludes that the Regenerate have souls other than they had before,
-new substance, new divineness being added to them [by the Water of
-Baptism].
-
-REPLY.
-
-XXXVIII. The passage you quote against me, shows that you act
-perfidiously. I there say that it is as if the Soul died, and,
-languishing, is detained in Hell. But if it languishes, it still lives.
-See what I have elsewhere said of the ‘Survival of the Soul,’ pp. 76,
-229, and 718 [of the Chr. Rest]. The souls of the regenerate, I say,
-are other than they were before; even as a thing is said to be new or
-altered by the accession of new properties.[93]
-
-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 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 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, 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 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, 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.
-
-
-
-
-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 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 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, 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 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.
-
-
-
-
-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, 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, 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 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,
- 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 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, 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 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 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!
-
-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 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 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 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.
-
-
-
-
-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!
-
-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 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.
-
-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 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.
-
-
-
-
-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 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 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 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.
-
-
-
-
-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 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
- 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
- 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 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.
-
- 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 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 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 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!
-
-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.
-
- 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.’
-
-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 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 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
-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.
-
-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 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 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 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 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.
-
-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 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; 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:
-
- 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.
-
-
-
-
-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, 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 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 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 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 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.
-
-
-
-
-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 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 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
- 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 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 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 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 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.
-
-
-
-
-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 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 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 of his master! De la Fontaine, moreover, was no citizen of
-Geneva any more than Calvin himself[100]--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 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 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,’ 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
-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 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 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?
-
-
-
-
-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 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]
-
-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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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,
-
- With thoughts that wandered through Eternity,
-
-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!
-
-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 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 letter[111] seems to show that Calvin 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
-
- This even-handed justice
- Commends the ingredients of our poison’d chalice
- To our own lips; (and tells us) we but teach
- Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
- To plague the inventor.
-
-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.
-
-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
-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]
-
-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:
-
- The evil that men do lives after them,
- The good is oft interred with their bones,
-
-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 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, 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 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.
-
-
-
-
-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 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 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, 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, 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 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 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 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 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.’
-
-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 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!
-
-
-
-
-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 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 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 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.
-
-
-
-
-APPENDIX
-
-
-
-
-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 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 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 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.
-
-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 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
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-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.
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-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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-
-FOOTNOTES:
-
-[1] The Reverend Henry Tollin, Pastor of the French Protestant
-Church, of Magdeburg, who has made the life and works of Servetus the
-particular subject of his studies for many years, inclines to Tudela as
-the place, and 1511 as the year, of Servetus’s birth. See his ‘Servet’s
-Kindheit und Jugend’ in Kahnis’ _Zeitschrift für die Historische
-Theologie_. Jahrg. 1875, S. 545.
-
-[2] _Vide_ Tollin: ‘Servet’s Kindheit und Jugend,’ in Kahnis’
-_Zeitschrift für die Historische Theologie_, 1875, S. 557. We have,
-however, searched in vain for any evidence of Angleria’s presence in
-Saragossa at any time, even as a casual resident. In his comprehensive
-and highly entertaining work, the ‘Opus Epistolarum,’ we find letters
-of his from Valladolid, Burgos, Vittoria, Madrid, and elsewhere, but
-not one from Saragossa during the years covered by Servetus’s stay at
-the university, according to Tollin.
-
-[3] Tollin (Toulouser Studenten-Leben im Anfang des 16ten
-Jahrhunderts), in Riehl’s _Historisches Taschenbuch von 1874_, S. 76,
-speaks as if he had been present with Servetus at Toulouse; accompanied
-him over the St. Michael’s bridge that spanned the Garonne; beheld the
-iron cage suspended from its balk above the river for ducking heretics
-until they died; looked on at the religious processions that filed
-incessantly through the streets, etc.
-
-[4] McCrie’s _Hist. of the Reformation in Spain_.
-
-[5] The last edition of Sabunde we have seen is neat and available,
-‘curante Joachim Sighart,’ Solisbach. 1852, 8vo. It is unfortunately
-without the Prologue.
-
-[6] There is a copy of what we believe to be the second edition of
-Sabunde, fol. Argentorat. 1495, in the British Museum, over which
-we spent some hours with much delight. Also a copy of Montaigne’s
-translation, beautifully printed, and in fine preservation.--8vo.
-Paris, 1569.
-
-[7] Tollin: ‘Die Beichtväter Kaiser Karls V.;’ in _Magazin für die
-Literatur des Auslandes, April, Mai, 1874_. A series of three short
-papers, but of surpassing interest, to which we are happy to refer.
-
-[8] Robertson, _History of Charles V._, vol. ii. book v. p. 40.
-
-[9] ‘Christianismi Restitutio,’ p. 462.
-
-[10] Dialogi de Trinitate II., ad calcem (1532). ‘Ce n’est point par
-des réticences hypocrites qu’on fait durer un jour de plus une croyance
-qui a fait son temps. Toute opinion librement conçue est bonne et
-morale pour celui qui l’a conçue. De toutes parts on arrive à résumer
-la législation extérieure de la Religion en un seul mot: LIBERTÉ.’
-Renan, ‘Fragments philosophiques,’ 1876.
-
-[11] By Tollin, who makes him visit Luther at Coburg, in company with
-Bucer. See his _Luther und Servet, eine Quellenstudie_. 8vo. Berlin,
-1875.
-
-[12] Cochlæus, _De Actis et Scriptis Martini Luther_, p. 233, fol.
-Mogunt. 1549.
-
-[13] Tollin, _Die Beichtväter Karls V._, S. 261.
-
-[14] _Jo. Œcolampadii et Huldrici Zwinglii Epist._ Lib. iv. Basil,
-1536, fol.
-
-[15] Op. cit. ut supra.
-
-[16] Sandius, _Bibliotheca Antitrinitariorum_, 12mo. Freistadt. 1684.
-
-[17] Tollin in _Magazin für ausländische Literatur_, Juni 10, 1876.
-
-[18] _Epist. Zwinglii et Œcolampadii._ Basil. 1535, fol.
-
-[19] _Vom Ampt der Oberkait in Sachen der Religion. Ain Bericht auss
-götlicher Schrüft des hailigen alten Lerers und Bischoffs Augustini,
-&c._ 4to. Augsb. 1535.
-
-[20] Luther’s Werke by Walch, vol. xxii.
-
-[21] _Epist. Melanchthonis apud Bretschneider: Corpus Reformatorum._
-
-[22] _Epist. Melanchthonis apud Bretschneider: Corpus Reformatorum._
-Ep. ad Camerarium.
-
-[23] Conf. H. Tollin, _Melanchthon und Servet, eine Quellenstudie_.
-8vo. Berlin, 1876, pp. 9-31.
-
-[24] Ep. ad Camerar. apud Bretschneider, ut sup.
-
-[25] It is upon this passage, which we translate and interpret somewhat
-differently from Tollin, that he grounds his statement of Servetus
-having come into contact with Luther; a presumed meeting of which we
-fail to find a trace in any contemporary document. See Tollin’s _Dr. M.
-Luther und Dr. M. Servetus--Eine Quellenstudie_. 8vo. Berlin, 1875.
-
-[26] _Epistolæ ab Ecclesiæ Helveticæ Reformatoribus, a Jo. Fueselino
-editæ._ 8vo. Tigur., 1742.
-
-[27] ‘E noi non cercano la Divinità fuor del Infinito Mondo e le
-Infinite Cose, ma dentro questo et in quelle’ (1585). _Opere di
-Giordano Bruno, da Dottore Adolpho Wagner_, i. 275. Lips. 1830.
-
-[28]
-
- ‘Natur hat weder Kern noch Schale:
- Sie ist das All mit einem Male.’
-
- Nor core nor husk in nature see:
- The All and All in One is she.
-
- Im Innern ist ein Universum auch;
- Daher der Völker löblicher Gebrauch,
- Ein jeglicher das Beste das er kennet
- Er Gott--ja seinen Gott--benennet.--_Goethe._
-
-Which may be rendered somewhat literally thus:--
-
- Within there is an Universum too;
- Whence the folks’ custom, good and true,
- That each the Best he knows of all,
- He God--his God, indeed--doth call.
-
-
-[29] ‘Der alte und der neue Glaube.’ All Theists agree in this: that
-God is One, Changeless, and Eternal. But God without the Universe would
-not be the same as God with the Universe; whence the conclusion that
-God and the Universe can only be conceived of as correlatives. Seeing
-the impossibility of dissevering Property from the Object in which it
-inheres, the modern philosopher discards hypothetical agencies, under
-the name of Spirits, of every kind; from the all-pervading force that
-keeps suns and planets in their spheres, to such special agencies as
-those of brain and nerve. Servetus, we have seen, had himself got the
-length of saying that out of man there was no Holy Spirit.
-
-[30] To Calvin God was no other than the Immanent Pantheistic principle
-of Modern Philosophy: ‘Ubique diffusus, omnia sustinet, vegetat et
-vivificat in cœlo et in terra--everywhere diffused, he gives life and
-growth and continuance to all things in heaven and earth.’ These are
-his words. He then goes on to say: ‘Fateor quidem pie hoc posse dici,
-modo a pio animo proficiscatur, _Naturam esse Deum_--I own, indeed,
-that provided we speak reverently it may be said that _Nature is God_.’
-As this would be a ‘hard and inappropriate expression,’ however, and
-as in using it ‘God is confounded with his works,’ he thinks it is
-objectionable. _Institut. Religionis Christianæ_, I. iv. 14, and I. v.
-5 of an early edition.
-
-[31] Newspaper report of a Sermon preached by Dean Stanley on Christmas
-day, 1875.
-
-[32] At the end of the copy of the ‘De Trin. Error.,’ which Alwörden
-describes in his _Historia Michaelis Serveti_, now in the National
-Library at Paris, there is a MS. _Refutation_ of the views of the
-writer, which Tollin ascribes with great show of probability to Bucer,
-who, as we know, was personally acquainted with Servetus. Of this
-Refutation (Confutatio) Tollin has given an extended analysis in _Riehm
-und Köstlin’s Theologische Studien und Kritiken für 1875_, S. 711.
-
-[33] Conf. _Epist. Zwinglii et Œcolampadii_. Basil, 1592.
-
-[34] _Dialogi de Trinitate_, 12mo. (1532), in the same form and type
-as the _De Erroribus_, and still without the name of the publisher or
-place of publication.
-
-[35] Servetus’s _De Trinitatis Erroribus_ is generally believed to be
-one of the rare books, yet it is commonly enough met with in England.
-So long ago as the year 1725, however, a copy bound with the _Dialogi_
-sold for the large sum of between four and five hundred French livres.
-There is a counterfeit edition published in Holland, and only to be
-distinguished from the original by the paper being somewhat better and
-the type a shade larger. The Book was never, in so far as we know,
-publicly condemned and burned. It was translated into Dutch (4to. 1620)
-with the epigraph: Prœft alle Dingen ende behout het gœde, 1 John iv.
-
-[36] ‘Claudii Ptolemæi Alexandrini Geographicæ Enarrationis Libri Octo;
-ex Bilibaldi Pirckhemeri Tralatione, sed ad Græca et prisca exemplaria
-a Michaele Villanovano jam primum recogniti. Adjecta insuper ab eodem
-Scholia,’ etc. Lugduni, ex Officina Melch. et Gasp. Trechsel, 1535. Fol.
-
-[37]
-
- Accipe non noti præclara volumina mundi,
- Oceani et magnas noscito lector opes.
- Plurima debetur typhis tibi gratia, gentes
- Ignotas, et aves quas vehis orbe novo;
- Magna quoque autori referenda et gratia nostro
- Qui facit hæc cunctis regna videnda locis.
-
-
-[38] Tollin has collected a great deal of very interesting information
-on Servetus’s geographical studies, in his paper entitled ‘Michel
-Servet als Geograph,’ in the _Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für
-Erdkunde_, 1875, S. 182 et seq.
-
-[39] Quoted by Tollin in his Essays: ‘Wie Servet ein Mediciner wurde,’
-in Goschen’s _Deutsche Klinik_, No. 8, 1875; and ‘Servet und Symphorien
-Champier,’ in Virchow’s _Archiv für pathologische Anatomie_, Bd. 61.
-Berlin, 1875.
-
-[40] _Paradoxorum Medicinæ_, Libri iii., fol. Basil. 1535.
-
-[41] In _Leonhardum Fuchsium Defensio Apologetica_, pro Symphoriano
-Campeggio.
-
-[42] _Disceptatio Apologetica pro Astrologia._ I have searched the
-libraries of London in vain for either of these Treatises of Servetus.
-That the one addressed to Fuchs once existed among us, however, is
-certain; for its title is to be seen in the catalogue of Dr. Williams’s
-Library (Grafton Street, University College); but unfortunately the
-work is not now to be found--it had disappeared before the present
-Librarian, Dr. Hunter, came into office. Mosheim went so far as to
-maintain that the Defence of Champier was a myth (Versuch, &c.,
-einer Ketzergeschichte, S. 72), and Dr. de Murr, though he did not
-question its existence, never saw it. (_In Bibliothecas Hallerianas
-additamenta_, 4to. Helmst.) The Rev. Henri Tollin of Magdeburg has been
-more fortunate; for he has not only seen but actually possesses copies
-of both the Apologetic defences, as well as a copy of the pamphlet
-against the Parisian Doctors, if I understand him aright. In a letter
-with which I was lately favoured, he informs me that he intends to
-publish the more interesting passages from the Defence of Champier, and
-the entire Tract on Judicial Astrology.
-
-[43] ‘Qua in re auxiliarios habui, primum Andreum Vesalium, juvenem
-Mehercule! in Anatome diligentissimum; post hunc, Michael Villanovanus
-familiariter mihi in consectionibus adhibitus est, vir omni genere
-literarum ornatissimus, in Galeni doctrina vix ulli secundus.
-Horum duorum præsidio atque opera, tum artuum, tum aliarum partium
-exteriorum, musculos omnes, venas, arterias et nervos in ipsis
-corporibus examinavi studiosisque ostendi.’ _Io. Guinteri Institutionum
-Anatomicarum_, Lib. iv., 4to. Basil, 1539.
-
-[44] The reader who is curious on this matter will find what I believe
-to be the first representation of the anatomist engaged in dissecting
-the human body in the _Fasciculus Medicinæ of Io. à Ketham_, fol.
-Venet. 1495, of which there is a copy in fine preservation in the
-library of the Royal College of Surgeons.
-
-[45] Syruporum universa Ratio ad Galeni censuram diligenter exposita;
-cui, post integram de Concoctione disceptationem, præscripta est vera
-purgandi methodus, cum expositione Aphorismi: Concocta medicari.
-
-Michaele Villanovano Authore.
-
- Πρὸς τὸν φιλιατρον. εύροα ποιήσον τατεσώματα
- τατεπεπανων Ωμὰ Χυμων, ταυτης δογματα ἴσθι βιθλιου.
-
-Parisiis ex officino Simonis Colinæi. [1537].
-
-[46] _Syr. Universa Ratio_, fol. 9.
-
-[47] Doubtless the _Disceptatio Apologetica pro Astrologia_.
-
-[48] See Landseer’s _Sabæan Researches_, 4to. London.
-
-[49] _Vide_ De Murr, _Annotamenta ad Bibliothecas Hallerianas_, 4to.
-Helmstadt, 1805. Since this was written I have an interesting letter
-from Pastor Tollin, in which he informs me that he actually possesses a
-copy of the pamphlet!
-
-[50] Bolsec, _Vie de Calvin_, 12mo. Paris, 1557.
-
-[51] The title is the same as before. In addition to the old address to
-his reader, however, Villeneuve now appends these lines:--
-
-Ad Eundem.
-
- Si terras et regna hominum, si ingentia quæque
- Flumina, cœruleum si mare nôsse juvat,
- Si montes, si urbes, populos opibusque superbos,
- Huc ades, hæc oculis prospice cuncta tuis.
-
-Which may be paraphrased thus:--
-
- This world and all its kingdoms wouldst thou know,
- What mighty rivers to blue oceans flow,
- What mountains rise, what cities grace the lands,
- Thick-peopled, rich through toil of busy hands,--
- --If for such lore thou hast a mind to call,
- Open this book, and there survey it all.
-
-
-[52] _Vie de Calvin_, &c.
-
-[53] This, the second edition of Villanovanus’s Ptolemy, is one of the
-very rare books. All of the impression that could be discovered when
-Servetus was burned in effigy at Vienne, along with his _Christianismi
-Restitutio_, appears to have been seized and committed to the flames. I
-find both editions in the library of the British Museum.
-
-[54] _Habes in hoc Libro, prudens Lector, utriusque Instrumenti novam
-Tralationem editam a Reverendo sacræ theologiæ Doctore Sancte Pagnini._
-Lugdun. 1527-28, fol. Such is the title of this, which we presume to
-be the first edition of Pagnini’s Bible. Between it and the one of
-Cologne of 1541, edited by Melchior Novesianus, we find no other until
-we come to that of Villanovanus. Pagnini is said in the letter of J. F.
-Pico de Mirandola, which precedes the text, to have been twenty-five
-years engaged on the work. It is accompanied by no fewer than two
-commendatory epistles from Popes Adrian VI. and Clement VII., and is
-said to be the first edition of the Bible that is found divided into
-chapters. Richard Simon (_Hist. du vieux Testament_, liv. ii.) speaks
-slightingly of its merits; but it has been highly prized by others, as
-good judges as he. To us it appears a very admirable version, our own
-English Bible being generally so like it, that we fancy it must have
-been used by our Translators.
-
-[55] Sandius, _Bibliotheca Antitrinitariorum_.
-
-[56] _Neue Nachrichten_, etc. Helmst. 1750, 4to., S. 89-90.
-
-[57] ‘Servetus nuper ad me scripsit, ac literas adjunxit longum volumen
-suorum deliriorum, cum thrasonica jactantia, dicens me stupenda et
-hactenus inaudita visurum. Si mihi placeat, huc se venturum recepit.
-Sed nolo fidem meam interponere. Nam si venerit, modo valeat mea
-authoritas, vivum exire nunquam patiar.’ Calvin to Farel, dated Ides
-of February, 1546. From the original letter in the Paris Library; a
-certified copy, published by Paul Henry in his _Leben Johann Calvins_,
-3ter. Band; Beilagen, S. 65; from which the above paragraph is
-transcribed.
-
-[58] Cont. Bolsec (Hieron. Hermes), Docteur Médecin à Lyon: _Histoire
-de la Vie, Mœurs, Actes, Doctrine, Constance et Mort de Jean Calvin,
-Grand Ministre à Genève_. Paris 1577, 12mo. Also in Latin, but of later
-date--_Vita Calvini, &c._
-
-[59] It is a capital mistake to suppose, as Mosheim and others have
-done, that the _Christianismi Restitutio_ was ever exposed for sale,
-or readily to be had either at Geneva or elsewhere. It cannot be shown
-that more than four or five copies at most of the book ever left the
-bales in which the whole impression was packed. There was, _first_,
-the copy sent, as I venture to think, by Servetus through Frelon to
-Calvin, which led to the arrest and trial at Vienne. _Second_, the copy
-taken from the five bales seized at Lyons for the use of the Inquisitor
-Ory. _Third_, the copy transmitted for their inspection to the Swiss
-Churches and Councils. _Fourth_, the copy given to Colladon by way
-of Brief by Calvin, with the passages underscored, on which Servetus
-was finally arraigned and condemned. And _Fifth_, the copy which we
-find Calvin sending to Bullinger at his request. Of these copies one
-may even have served two ends: after making the round of the Churches
-and coming again into Calvin’s hands, it may very well have been that
-which he despatched to Bullinger. That the book was not to be had
-immediately after the execution of Servetus is proved conclusively by
-what Sebastian Castellio, the accredited author of the work entitled,
-_Contra Libellum Calvini_, says on the subject: _He had not been able
-to obtain a sight of Servetus’s book, so as to inform himself of what
-he writes, Calvin having taken such pains to have it burned--‘cum
-Serveti libros, quippe combustos diligentia Calvini, non habeam, ut ex
-iis possem videre quid scriberet.’_ The _Christianismi Restitutio_, in
-fact, remained completely unknown in the Republic of Letters until its
-existence was proclaimed by Wotton in his _Reflections on Learning,
-Ancient and Modern_, in the year 1694 (all but a century and a half
-after the death of its author), by the publication of the passage on
-the pulmonary circulation, extracted, we must conclude, from the copy
-that was then in England, and subsequently became, if it were not
-already, the property of Dr. Meade--the identical copy with the name
-on the title-page of Germain Colladon, the advocate who prosecuted
-Servetus at the instance of Calvin, now in the national library of
-Paris.
-
-[60] The title of the original, in full, is as follows:--
-
-_Christianismi Restitutio._ Totius Ecclesiæ Apostolicæ est ad sua
-limina vocatio, in Integrum Restituta Cognitione Dei, Fidei Christi,
-Justificationis nostræ, Regenerationis Baptismi, et Cœnæ Domini
-Manducationis Restitutio denique nobis Regno Cœlesti, Babylonis impia
-Captivitate soluta, et Antichristo cum suis penitus destructo.
-
- בעת ההיא יעמוד מיכאר השׂר
- καὶ ὲγένετο πόλεμος ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ.
- MDLIII.
-
-
-[61] ‘Whose soever sins ye remit,’ etc., John, xx. 23--writing added to
-the original text, beyond doubt, and dating from long after the time of
-Jesus, when the Church had acquired a status and was looking for power.
-
-[62] It were beyond the scope of my work to pursue this subject
-further; but let me say that having compared the first edition of
-the ‘Loci’ (1521) with the one of 1536 and others, of which there
-are copies in the British Museum Library, I find it impossible to
-overlook the influence of Servetus on Melanchthon, as of Melanchthon
-on Servetus. For fuller information the reader is referred to
-Tollin’s exhaustive, _Philip Melanchthon und Michael Servet, eine
-Quellenstudie_. 8vo. 1876.
-
-[63] For some account of the existing copies of the _Christianismi
-Restitutio_, see the Appendix to this book.
-
-[64] It may be well to remark on the confusion in the notice of the
-_volume_ or book which in Trie’s second letter, as we read it, is
-said to have been sent among other documents, twenty-four in number;
-whilst in his third epistle he regrets that _the volume_ cannot be
-forwarded at the moment, because of its having been lent two years ago
-to a friend of Calvin, resident in Lausanne. The ‘great book’ first
-sent may have been the copy of Calvin’s ‘Institutes,’ annotated on the
-margins by Servetus; a conclusion that is borne out by the reference,
-by and by made in the impending trial, towards the end of the first
-day’s proceedings, to pages 421-424, where Baptism is the subject
-treated. The volume that cannot be forwarded at the time, because it
-had been lent to some one in Lausanne, is certainly the MS. copy of
-the ‘Restitutio Christianismi,’ sent by Servetus to Calvin some years
-before for his strictures, which he could never get returned, Calvin
-having lent it to Viret of Lausanne, and grown careless to take so
-much notice of the writer as would have been implied in recovering and
-returning him his work.
-
-[65] They were leaves from the _Institutions_ of Calvin, with
-annotations by Servetus.
-
-[66] Chorier, _Etat politique de Dauphiné_, tome i., p. 335, quoted by
-D’Artigny.
-
-[67] _Calvin to Farel_, Book I., p. 169.
-
-[68]
-
- Who loves not woman, wine, and song,
- A fool is he his life-time long.
-
-
-[69] _Lucii Annæi Senecæ De Clementia Libri Tres_, Paris, 1532.
-The work was published by Calvin at his own expense, as a warning,
-unquestionably against persecution on religious grounds. It is of great
-rarity in its original shape, but is reprinted in the Geneva Edition of
-his _Opera Minora_ of the year 1597.
-
-_Seneca on Clemency_ is also to be found translated into English:
-‘Lucius Annæus Seneca, his first Book of Clemency, written to Nero
-Cæsar,’ Lond. 1553. The sentence quoted above and commented by the
-French editor is rendered by the English translator briefly but not
-unhappily thus:
-
- For it doth rather cowardice appear
- Than clemency an injury in mind to bear:
- ’Tis he in whose command revenge doth lie
- That’s merciful if he do pass it by.
-
-
-[70] _Thesaur. Epist. Calvini a Cünitz et Reuss_, v. 450.
-
-[71] _Thes. Ep. Calvini a Cünitz et Reuss_, v. 577.
-
-[72] Conf. Mosheim, op. cit. Beylagen. S. 255.
-
-[73] _Thes. Epist. Calvini a Cünitz et Reuss_, v. 591.
-
-[74] _Déclaration pour maintenir la vraie foy_, p. 357, in ed. of
-collected minor works in French.
-
-[75] _Mém. de la Société d’histoire et d’Archéologie de Genève_, tom
-iii., 1844.
-
-[76] _Déclaration pour maintenir la vraie foy_; original ed., p. 354.
-Let us reiterate that Servetus spoke truly when he said that the
-comment on Palestine was none of his. We have already said that it is
-copied without change of a word from the Ptolemy of Pirckheimer. We
-add further that the scholium of the German editor was not challenged
-by Erasmus, Melanchthon, or Œcolampadius, who seem all to have
-corresponded with Pirckheimer on his edition. (_Vide_ Tollin, in
-_Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Erdkunde zu Berlin_. Bd. für 1875.)
-It was only, therefore, when the comment came to be looked at through
-the distorting medium of personal enmity that it was seen as libelling
-Moses and outraging the Holy Ghost.
-
-[77] _Déclaration pour maintenir la vraie foy._
-
-[78] See a letter of Jo. Haller to H. Bullinger, quoted farther on.
-
-[79] Compare Galiffe in _Mém. de l’Institut National Genevois_, 1862,
-p. 75.
-
-[80] The documents connected with the case of Bolsec must, we
-apprehend, have been communicated to Servetus. He often uses the same
-words as his predecessor in Calvin’s displeasure; and imitates him also
-in the desire he expresses to have Calvin interrogated and put on his
-trial for certain matters especially interesting to himself.
-
-[81] There is in fact a minute in the _Records of Geneva_ of a formal
-requisition made by Farel on October 30, and so three days after the
-execution of Servetus, to have Wm. Geroult summoned to appear and give
-an account of himself to the Council. The Lieutenant-Criminel, Tissot,
-had even, as it seems, been charged with the business of making the
-necessary inquiries preliminary to the institution of a criminal suit.
-But we find no mention of any further step being taken in the matter.
-The civil authorities, with three days for reflection, probably thought
-that enough, more than enough perhaps, had already been done by the
-burning of the principal offender.
-
-[82] By the writer of the _Dialogus inter Vaticanum et Calvinum_.
-
-[83] _Fidelis Refutatio_, and _Déclaration pour maintenir_, &c.
-
-[84] From the _Criminal Records_, first published by Mosheim, op. cit.
-Beylagen, S. 414.
-
-[85] In the summary of the trial given by Trechsel[86] from the
-archives of Berne, the articles now brought forward by Rigot, and the
-questions founded on them, are in the handwriting of the amanuensis
-usually employed by Calvin to make copies of his letters and papers;
-and beyond question were all dictated by Calvin himself. He perceived
-that he could trust Rigot no further without risk of failure, and so
-resumed the position he had taken with Trie, his servant Fontaine, and
-even in person, as we have seen.
-
-[86] _Die Antitrinitarier: Michel Servet und seine Vorgänger_, S. 307.
-
-[87] Conf. _Chr. Rest._ pp. 433 and 655, and Ep. 29 to Calvin.
-
-[88] _Vide_ pp. 34, 48, Book I.
-
-[89] Herniosus ab utero Servetus dicit se uno latere _resectum_ fuisse,
-ad lævandam infirmitatem. Uno oculo amisso, attamen, non ideo cæcus
-homo; neque teste uno ablato impollens.
-
-[90] The letter of the Council of Geneva and the reply of the
-authorities of Vienne are published in the new ed. of Calvin by Cünitz
-and Reuss, vol. xiv.
-
-[91] Conf. _De Trin. Error._ fol. 93.
-
-[92] First under Calvin with Nicolas de la Fontaine as his agent; then
-under Colladon engaged by Calvin; next under Rigot as public prosecutor
-and now under Calvin and the Swiss Churches.
-
-[93] Here is what Servetus says on this subject, in connection with the
-Sabellian or Patripassian heresy, in his earlier work: As the proper
-passion of the flesh is to be born, so is it the proper passion of the
-flesh to suffer, to be scourged, to be crucified, to die. But all this
-does not touch the spirit, for it is not the soul that suffers or that
-dies, but the body. Who so profane as to imagine that the angel in me
-dies although I die? (_De Trinitatis Erroribus_, f. 76, b.)
-
-[94] From Mosheim’s _Neue Nachrichten, Beilagen_, S. 102, copied from
-the archives of the Church of Zürich.
-
-[95] Bullinger’s letter bears date from Zürich, Sep. 14, 1553, and is
-printed in Calvin’s correspondence by Cünitz and Reuss.
-
-[96] The letter is given at length in the _Thes. Epist. Calvini a
-Cünitz et Reuss_, v. 591.
-
-[97] Calvin to Bullinger, April 21, 1555, in _Epist. Calvini_, 8vo.
-Hanov. 1597.
-
-[98] Vue le sommaire du procés de Michel Servet, prisonnier, le rapport
-de ceux, esquel on a consultez, et considéré les grands erreurs et
-blasfémes--Est este arreté: Il soyt condamné à estre mené a Champel, et
-la brulez tout vivfz, et soyt exequeté a demain, et ses livres bruslés.
-
-[99] Defensio Orthodoxæ Fidei, &c.
-
-[100] Calvin only took letters of naturalisation as a citizen of Geneva
-four years before his death in 1564, eleven years after the death of
-Servetus.
-
-[101] See the Confession in full, in Cünitz and Reuss’s edit. of the
-_Opera Calvini_, viii. 704.
-
-[102] _De Voce Trinitate et Voce Persona._[103]
-
-Quoniam voces istas Trinitatis et Personarum plurimum Ecclesiæ Christi
-commodare intelligimus, ut et vera Patris, Filii et Spiritus Sancti
-distinctio clarius exprimatur, et contentiosis controversiis melius
-occurratur, ab his usque adeo non abhorremus, ut libenter amplexemur,
-sive ex aliis audiendæ sive a nobis usurpandæ sint. Itaque quod antea
-a nobis factum est, in posterum quoque operam daturos, quoad licebit
-recipimus, ne earum usus in Ecclesiis nostris aboleatur. Nam neque ab
-iis inter scribendum, vel in Scripturæ ennarrationibus in concionibus
-ad populum, abstinebimus ipsi, et alios docebimus ne superstitiose
-refugiant. Si quis autem, præpostera religione, teneatur quominus eas
-usurpare libenter ausit, quanquam ejusmodi superstitionem nobis non
-probari testamur, cui corrigendæ non sit defuturum nostrum studium;
-quia tamen non videtur nobis hæc satis firma causa cur vir alioqui
-pius et in eandem religionem nobis sensu consentiens repudietur,
-ejus imperitiam hac in parte eatenus feremus ne abjiciamus ipsum ab
-Ecclesia, aut tanquam male sentientem de fide notemus. Neque, interim
-maligne interpretabimur si Bernensis Ecclesiæ Pastores eos ad verbi
-ministerium admittere non sustineant quos comperint voces istas
-aspernari.
-
-[103] Op. sup. cit. viii. p. 707.
-
-[104] _Fidelis expositio Errorum Michaelis Serveti_, &c.
-
-[105] These words I have, however, since found quoted by Henry: _Leben
-Calvins_, i. 181, and by Kampschulte, _Johann Calvin_, i. 297.
-
-[106] _Fuessli, Epistolæ ab Ecclesia Helvet. Reformatoribus._ 8vo.
-Tigur. 1748.
-
-[107] _Calvini Epist. et Respons._
-
-[108] The full titles are these: Déclaration pour maintenir la vraye
-Foy que tiennent tous Chrétiens de la Trinité des Personnes en un seul
-Dieu. Par Jean Calvin. Contre les Erreurs de Michel Servet, Espaignol;
-où il est aussi monstré qu’il est licite de punir les heretiques; et
-qu’a bon droit ce meschant à esté executé par justice en la Ville de
-Genève. Chez Jean Crespin. A Genève, 1554, p. 356. 8vo.
-
-Defensio orthodoxæ fidei de sacra Trinitate contra prodigiosos
-errores Michaelis Serveti, Hispani; ubi ostenditur hæreticos jure
-gladii coercendos, et nominatim de homine hoc, tam impio, justè et
-merito sumptum Genevæ fuisse supplicium, per Johannem Calvinum. Apud
-Olivum Roberti Stephani, 1554, p. 262. 8vo. Both of the versions are
-subscribed by all the Genevese clergy, and though they differ somewhat
-in minute particulars, they agree in everything essential. We have fine
-copies of both originals in our national Library.
-
-[109] For a more particular account of Calvin’s severities, the
-reader is referred to a paper by M. Galiffe in the _Mémoires de
-l’Institut National de Genève_ for 1862, p. 79. But torture was an
-old institution in Geneva, and Servetus is said only to have escaped
-the rack on the remonstrance of Vandel, one of the senators of the
-libertine party. In older days we read of one Postel, who, failing to
-answer so satisfactorily as was desired when cited before the Roman
-Catholic bishop and his court, for some offence, was ‘suspended by
-the rope’--by the wrists we believe. A first suspension, however,
-not proving effectual, a second was ordered; but it being now dinner
-time, the culprit was suspended a second time whilst his lordship the
-bishop dined! In more recent times, and under Calvin’s rule, a certain
-Billiard, having been guilty of jeering at the thunder and lightning
-during a terrible storm, whilst the inhabitants of Geneva generally
-were on their knees praying to God for mercy, was adjudged to be lashed
-by the common hangman at the tail of a cart through the streets of the
-city! Germain Colladon declared that he deserved death; but as he had a
-wife and family they might be content with the scourging!
-
-[110] _Em. Saisset: Michel Servet comme philosophe. In Mélanges de
-Critique et d’ Histoire._ 12mo., Paris, 1865.
-
-[111] First printed by Mosheim from the autograph, in his _Neue
-Nachrichten von dem berühmten Spanischen Aertzte Michael Serveto,
-Beilagen_, S. 106. 8vo., Helmst. 1750.
-
-[112] _Corpus Reform. Ep. Melanch. ad An._, 1554.
-
-[113] Comment. in _Acta Apostol. ad Regem Daniæ_.
-
-[114] _Institutiones Religionis Christ._ Lib. i. Cap. 2, of the earlier
-editions.
-
-[115] Joris’s able letter in low German is given by Mosheim, op. cit.,
-p. 421.
-
-[116] The proper title of this rare book, of which we have a copy in
-the library of the British Museum is: _De Hæreticis an sint persequendi
-et omnino quomodo sit cum eis agendum, doctorum virorum, tum veterum
-tum recentiorum, sententiæ_, &c. The opinions of the learned, both
-of ancient and modern times, concerning heretics: Are they to be
-persecuted; or how otherwise are they to be dealt with? A book most
-necessary and useful in these distracted times to sovereign princes and
-magistrates in dealing with a matter of such difficulty and danger.
-12mo., Magdeburgh, 1554.
-
-[117] _Contra libellum Calvini quo ostendere conetur hæreticos jure
-gladii coercendos esse._ S. L. [1554]. Of this rare book I have not met
-with an original copy; but there is the reprint (after 1602) in the
-Brit. Mus. Library.
-
-[118] Conf. _Fuessli: Sebastian Castellio, eine Lebensgeschichte zur
-Erläuterung der Reformation_. 8vo. Zürich und Leipz. 1767.
-
-[119] _Mini Celsi Senensis de Hæreticis capitali supplicio
-afficientibus; adjuncta sunt Theod. Bezæ ejusdem argumenti et And.
-Duditii Epistolæ duæ contrariæ._ 8vo. s. L. 1584.
-
-[120] _Ketzergeschichte_, S. 301.
-
-
-
-
- * * * * * *
-
-
-
-
-Transcriber’s note:
-
-Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.
-
-
-
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-<h1 class="pg">The Project Gutenberg eBook, Servetus and Calvin, by Robert Willis</h1>
-<p>This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
-and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
-restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
-under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
-eBook or online at <a
-href="http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you are not
-located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the
-country where you are located before using this ebook.</p>
-<p>Title: Servetus and Calvin</p>
-<p> A Study of an Important Epoch in the Early History of the Reformation</p>
-<p>Author: Robert Willis</p>
-<p>Release Date: February 23, 2017 [eBook #54226]</p>
-<p>Language: English</p>
-<p>Character set encoding: UTF-8</p>
-<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SERVETUS AND CALVIN***</p>
-<p>&nbsp;</p>
-<h4>E-text prepared by Josep Cols Canals, Wayne Hammond,<br />
- and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
- (<a href="http://www.pgdp.net">http://www.pgdp.net</a>)<br />
- from page images generously made available by<br />
- Internet Archive<br />
- (<a href="https://archive.org">https://archive.org</a>)</h4>
-<p>&nbsp;</p>
-<table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff;margin: 0 auto;" cellpadding="10">
- <tr>
- <td valign="top">
- Note:
- </td>
- <td>
- Images of the original pages are available through
- Internet Archive. See
- <a href="https://archive.org/details/servetuscalvinst00willrich">
- https://archive.org/details/servetuscalvinst00willrich</a>
- </td>
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-</table>
-<p>&nbsp;</p>
-<div class="transnote">
-<h3>Transcriber’s Note:</h3>
-<p>This project uses utf-8 encoded characters. If some characters are
-not readable (e.g., empty squares), check your settings of your browser to ensure you have a
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-or the original page images noted above.</p>
-</div>
-<p>&nbsp;</p>
-<hr class="full" />
-<p>&nbsp;</p>
-<p>&nbsp;</p>
-<p>&nbsp;</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<img id="coverpage" src="images/cover.jpg" alt="" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_i">i</span></p>
-
-<h1>SERVETUS AND CALVIN</h1>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_ii">ii</span></p>
-
-<div style="border: #004200 4px solid; padding: 25px">
-
-<h3><i>By the same Author.</i></h3>
-
-<p class="hang">BENEDICT D’ESPINOZA; his Life, Correspondence,
-and Ethics.</p>
-
-<p class="hang">G. E. LESSING’S NATHAN THE WISE. With
-an Introduction.</p>
-
-<p class="hang">THE SUDORIPAROUS AND LYMPHATIC
-GLANDULAR SYSTEMS; the Vital Nature of their
-Functions, and the Effect of Implications of these on the
-Diseases ascribed to Malaria.</p>
-</div>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_iii">iii</span>
-<br />
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_iv">iv</span></p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<img src="images/i-002.jpg" alt="" />
-<p class="caption">MICHEL SERVETUS</p></div>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_v">v</span></p>
-
-<div class="ph1">SERVETUS AND CALVIN<br />
-
-<span class="large table"><i>A STUDY OF AN IMPORTANT EPOCH<br />
-IN THE EARLY HISTORY OF<br />
-THE REFORMATION</i></span><br />
-
-<span class="small">BY</span><br />
-
-<span class="large">R. WILLIS, M.D.</span><br />
-
-<p class="medium">Περὶ τῆς τριάδος&mdash;scis me semper veritum fore. Bone Deus, quales
-tragœdias excitabit ad posteros h&aelig;c questio: εἰ ἐστὶν ὑπόστασις ὁ λόγος;
-εἰ ἐστὶν ὑπόστασις τὸ πνεῦμα?</p>
-
-<p class="author medium"><span class="smcap">Melanchthon</span></p>
-
-<p class="center"><i>HENRY S. KING &amp; CO., LONDON</i><br />
-1877</p>
-</div>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_vi">vi</span></p>
-
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p class="author smcap">Thomas Carlyle</p>
-
-<p class="copy">(<i>The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved.</i>)
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_vii">vii</span></p>
-
-<div class="ph1">
-<span class="small">TO</span><br />
-
-<span class="medium">HIS FRIENDS</span><br />
-
-<span class="large">SAMUEL DAVIDSON, D.D.</span><br />
-
-<span class="small">AND</span><br />
-
-<span class="large">R. W. MACKAY, M.A.</span><br />
-
-<span class="large antiqua">This Work is Dedicated</span><br />
-
-<span class="small">WITH EVERY EXPRESSION OF AFFECTIONATE REGARD<br />
-AND ESTEEM</span><br />
-
-<span class="medium">BY THE WRITER</span><br />
-</div>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_viii">viii</span>
-<br />
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_ix">ix</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="PREFACE">PREFACE.</h2>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_x">x</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xi">xi</span>
-Servetus, I encountered not only the physiologist
-already known to me, but the philosopher and scholar,
-the practical physician, freed from the fetters of
-medi&aelig;val 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,&mdash;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&mdash;strange conjunction!&mdash;through his disastrous intercourse
-with Calvin, in no small measure the original
-of the free enquiry that is leading on to conclusions yet
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xii">xii</span>
-uncontemplated as to man’s relations to the Unseen
-and the Eternal.</p>
-
-<p>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-f&eacute; as edifying spectacles; and persecution
-to less terrible conclusions&mdash;imprisonment, banishment,
-fine, and social ostracism&mdash;has been coming gradually,
-however slowly, to an end.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiii">xiii</span>
-something like a true presentment of the man as he
-lived and died. To do this&mdash;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&mdash;such is
-the purpose of the work now presented to the reader.</p>
-
-<p>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,
-Allw&ouml;rden, 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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiv">xiv</span>
-Allw&ouml;rden’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.</p>
-
-<p>The etching of Calvin is after an engraving from
-one of the numerous more or less authentic portraits
-of the Reformer that are extant.</p>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">Barnes, Surrey</span>: <i>Midsummer 1877</i>.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xv">xv</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS.</h2>
-
-<table class="toc">
- <tr>
- <th colspan="3"><a href="#BOOK_I"><i>BOOK THE FIRST.</i></a><br />
- EARLY LIFE&mdash;WORKS&mdash;ARREST AND TRIAL AT VIENNE.</th>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="small">CHAPTER</td>
- <td />
- <td class="small tdr">PAGE</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">I.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_I_CHAPTER_I"><span class="smcap">Michael Servetus: his Birth, Parentage, and early Education</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">3</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">II.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_I_CHAPTER_II"><span class="smcap">Service with Friar Juan Quintana, Confessor of the Emperor Charles V.</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">19</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">III.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_I_CHAPTER_III"><span class="smcap">The Service with Quintana comes to an End</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">29</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">IV.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_I_CHAPTER_IV"><span class="smcap">Intercourse with the Swiss Reformers</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">33</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">V.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_I_CHAPTER_V"><span class="smcap">The Reformers of Strasburg. Publication of the Work on Trinitarian Error</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">37</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">VI.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_I_CHAPTER_VI"><span class="smcap">The Authorities of Basle. The Two Dialogues on the Trinity. Leaves Switzerland</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">71</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">VII.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_I_CHAPTER_VII"><span class="smcap">Paris. Assumption of the Name of Villeneuve or Villanovanus. Acquaintance with Calvin</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">79</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">VIII.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_I_CHAPTER_VIII"><span class="smcap">Lyons. Engagement as Reader for the Press with the Trechsels. Edits the Geography of Ptolemy</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">86</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">IX.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_I_CHAPTER_IX"><span class="smcap">Lyons. Dr. Symphorien Champier</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">99</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">X.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_I_CHAPTER_X"><span class="smcap">Return to Paris. Studies there. Jo. Winter of Andernach; Andrea Vesalius. Degrees of M.A. and M.D. Lectures on Geography and Astrology</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">104</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">XI.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_I_CHAPTER_XI"><span class="smcap">The Treatise on Syrups, and their Use in Medicine</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">111<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xvi">xvi</span></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">XII.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_I_CHAPTER_XII"><span class="smcap">The Medical Faculty of Paris sue Servetus for Lecturing on Judicial Astrology</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">116</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">XIII.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_I_CHAPTER_XIII"><span class="smcap">Charlieu. Attainment of his thirtieth Year. Views of Baptism</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">125</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">XIV.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_I_CHAPTER_XIV"><span class="smcap">Settlement at Vienne under the Patronage of the Archbishop. Renewal of Intercourse with the Publishers of Lyons. Second Edition of Ptolemy</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">130</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">XV.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_I_CHAPTER_XV"><span class="smcap">Edition of Santes Pagnini’s Latin Bible with Commentary</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">139</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">XVI.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_I_CHAPTER_XVI"><span class="smcap">Engagement as Editor by Jo. Frelon of Lyons. Correspondence with Calvin</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">157</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">XVII.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_I_CHAPTER_XVII"><span class="smcap">‘Christianismi Restitutio,’ the Restoration of Christianity. Discovery of the Pulmonary Circulation</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">191</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">XVIII.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_I_CHAPTER_XVIII"><span class="smcap">Calvin receives a Copy of the ‘Christianismi Restitutio’</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">231</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">XIX.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_I_CHAPTER_XIX"><span class="smcap">Calvin denounces Servetus through William Trie to the Ecclesiastical Authorities of Lyons</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">235</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">XX.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_I_CHAPTER_XX"><span class="smcap">Arrest of Servetus and Arnoullet, the Publisher. The Trial for Heresy at Vienne. Servetus is suffered to escape from Prison</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">252</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">XXI.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_I_CHAPTER_XXI"><span class="smcap">Discovery of Arnoullet’s private Printing Establishment.
- Seizure and Burning of the ‘Christianismi
- Restitutio,’ along with the Effigy of
- its Author</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">269</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <th colspan="3"><a href="#BOOK_II"><i>BOOK THE SECOND.</i></a><br />
- SERVETUS IN GENEVA, FACE TO FACE WITH CALVIN.</th>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">I.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_II_CHAPTER_I"><span class="smcap">Servetus reaches Geneva. Detained there, he is arrested at the Instance of Calvin</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">281</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">II.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_II_CHAPTER_II"><span class="smcap">Geneva, and the State of Political Parties at the Date of Servetus’ Arrest</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">287<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xvii">xvii</span></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">III.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_II_CHAPTER_III"><span class="smcap">Servetus is arraigned on the Capital Charge by Calvin</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">304</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">IV.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_II_CHAPTER_IV"><span class="smcap">The Trial in its First Phase</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">314</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">V.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_II_CHAPTER_V"><span class="smcap">The Trial in its Second Phase, with the Attorney-General of Geneva as Prosecutor</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">333</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">VI.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_II_CHAPTER_VI"><span class="smcap">The Trial in its Second Phase, continued</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">351</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">VII.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_II_CHAPTER_VII"><span class="smcap">The Trial continued. The Attorney-General receives fresh instructions from Calvin</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">366</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">VIII.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_II_CHAPTER_VIII"><span class="smcap">Servetus is visited in Prison by Calvin and the Ministers</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">386</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">IX.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_II_CHAPTER_IX"><span class="smcap">The Court determines to consult the Councils and Churches of the four Protestant Swiss Cantons</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">391</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">X.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_II_CHAPTER_X"><span class="smcap">The Trial is interrupted through Differences between Calvin and the Council</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">393</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">XI.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_II_CHAPTER_XI"><span class="smcap">The Trial is resumed on new Articles supplied by Calvin</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">398</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">XII.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_II_CHAPTER_XII"><span class="smcap">The Trial continued. Servetus addresses a letter to Calvin and Petitions his Judges</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">423</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">XIII.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_II_CHAPTER_XIII"><span class="smcap">Calvin anticipates the Judges in their Appeal to the Swiss Churches</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">428</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">XIV.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_II_CHAPTER_XIV"><span class="smcap">Servetus sends a Letter and a second Remonstrance and Petition to his Judges</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">441</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">XV.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_II_CHAPTER_XV"><span class="smcap">The Swiss Councils and Churches are addressed by the Council of Geneva</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">446</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">XVI.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_II_CHAPTER_XVI"><span class="smcap">Servetus again addresses the Syndics and Council of Geneva, and accuses Calvin. The answers of the Councils and Churches consulted</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">450</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">XVII.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_II_CHAPTER_XVII"><span class="smcap">The Attitude of Calvin. The Hopes of Servetus</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">474</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">XVIII.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_II_CHAPTER_XVIII"><span class="smcap">The Sentence and Execution. V&aelig; Victis!</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">480<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xviii">xviii</span></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">XIX.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_II_CHAPTER_XIX"><span class="smcap">After the Battle. V&aelig; Victoribus!</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">488</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">XX.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_II_CHAPTER_XX"><span class="smcap">Calvin defends himself</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">498</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">XXI.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_II_CHAPTER_XXI"><span class="smcap">Calvin’s Defence is attacked</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">517</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr1">XXII.</td>
- <td><a href="#BOOK_II_CHAPTER_XXII"><span class="smcap">Calvin’s Biographers and Apologists</span></a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">528</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td colspan="2"><a href="#APPENDIX">APPENDIX</a></td>
- <td class="tdr2">535</td>
- </tr>
-</table>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">1</span></p>
-
-<p id="BOOK_I" class="ph1">BOOK I.<br />
-
-<span class="large">EARLY LIFE&mdash;WORKS&mdash;ARREST AND TRIAL
-AT VIENNE</span></p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">2</span><br />
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">3</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_I_CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.<br />
-
-<span class="medium">MICHAEL SERVETUS, HIS BIRTH, PARENTAGE, AND
-EARLY EDUCATION.</span></h2>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">4</span>
-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 Rev&eacute;s, 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 <i>alias</i> Rev&eacute;s 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 Rev&eacute;s family, and her
-son took occasion in his first work piously to preserve
-his mother’s family name beside his proper patronymic.<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">1</a>
-Of the parents of Servetus, however, we in fact know
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">5</span>
-little more than that we have from himself when, on his
-trial at Geneva, he informed the Court that they were
-<i>d’ancienne race, vivants noblement</i>, 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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">6</span>
-of the cloister, and under the fostering care of some
-monk more learned than the general.</p>
-
-<p>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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">7</span></p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">8</span>
-in Spain; and if he had Peter Martyr de Angleria
-among the number of his teachers, as we are assured
-he had,<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">2</a> 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&mdash;an indispensable condition to acknowledgment
-as a teacher&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">9</span>
-man in advance of his age, morally, and, we must
-believe, religiously also&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;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&mdash;the
-mathematics, astronomy and geography&mdash;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, Gryn&aelig;us and others.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">10</span>
-the hereditary vocation of his family&mdash;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&mdash;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
-<i>Facio ut facias</i>. 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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">11</span>
-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&mdash;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&mdash;to his sorrow&mdash;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&mdash;openly,
-at all events&mdash;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.<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">3</a>
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">12</span></p>
-
-<p>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.<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">4</a> 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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">13</span>
-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.’</p>
-
-<p>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 altissim&aelig; et
-gloriosissim&aelig; Trinitatis,’ &amp;c., the author proceeds to
-say that his purpose is ‘to expose the errors, as well
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">14</span>
-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?<a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">5</a>
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">15</span></p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;<i>basti
-d’un Espagnol, baraguin&eacute; des terminaisons Latines</i>&mdash;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 <i>tres bon advis</i>, 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.<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">6</a>
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">16</span></p>
-
-<p>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 <i>something</i>.
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">17</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">18</span>
-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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">19</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_I_CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.<br />
-
-<span class="medium">SERVICE WITH FRIAR JUAN QUINTANA, CONFESSOR OF
-THE EMPEROR CHARLES V.</span></h2>
-
-<p>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&mdash;in fear of
-the Inquisition, as said&mdash;he could have left nothing but
-a good name for conduct and accomplishment behind
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">20</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 inquiries<a id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">7</a> 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.</p>
-
-<p>Quintana appears to have attracted the notice of
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">21</span>
-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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">22</span>
-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&mdash;greatly to his disgust beyond
-question&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">23</span>
-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;’<a id="FNanchor_8" href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">8</a> an exhibition which appears to have
-been thought of as simply degrading instead of
-edifying by the independent-minded secretary.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">24</span>
-before him that we, short while after, find him speaking
-in such virulent terms of the Papacy and exclaiming:
-‘O bestia bestiarum, meretrix sceleratissima’&mdash;‘O beast
-most beastly, most wicked of harlots!’<a id="FNanchor_9" href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">9</a> 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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">25</span>
-sense in which an institution of the kind was conceived
-in his day, whether by Papist or Protestant.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;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.’&mdash;The voice of this
-nineteenth century verging on its close, from the
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">26</span>
-mouth of a man little more than of age, living in the
-first half of the sixteenth!<a id="FNanchor_10" href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">10</a></p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">27</span>
-therefore permitted by his friends to approach the
-scene of action on this occasion no nearer than
-Coburg.</p>
-
-<p>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 <span class="smcap">Religious Charter of the Age</span>&mdash;the
-Confession of Augsburg&mdash;to establish Protestantism
-as an integral and recognised element, not only
-in the religious, but in the political system of Europe.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">28</span>
-find no evidence in contemporary documents that
-would lead us to think he had ever come into contact
-with Luther, as has been said.<a id="FNanchor_11" href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">11</a>
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">29</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_I_CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.<br />
-
-<span class="medium">THE SERVICE WITH QUINTANA COMES TO AN END.</span></h2>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">30</span>
-the book entitled ‘De Trinitatis Erroribus,’ a copy of
-which having been found by Joannes Cochl&aelig;us, 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&mdash;<i>quem
-de facie se n&ocirc;sse dicebat</i>&mdash;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
-Rev&eacute;s.<a id="FNanchor_12" href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">12</a> Nor indeed is this the last we hear of Quintana.
-After the settlement of affairs at Ratisbon and N&uuml;rnberg,
-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.<a id="FNanchor_13" href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">13</a></p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">31</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">32</span>
-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&mdash;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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">33</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_I_CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.<br />
-
-<span class="medium">INTERCOURSE WITH THE SWISS REFORMERS.</span></h2>
-
-<p>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&mdash;<i>were Christus nit r&auml;chter,
-warer, ewiger Gott, so were er doch und k&ouml;nte nit seyn
-unser Heiland</i>. 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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">34</span>
-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&mdash;<i>Ein unleydenliche
-Sach in der Kyrchen Gottes</i>. Therefore do
-everything possible that such dreadful blasphemy get
-no further wind to the detriment of Christianity.’<a id="FNanchor_14" href="#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">14</a></p>
-
-<p>Besides the personal communication with Œcolampadius
-of which we have this interesting notice, Servetus
-must have written him several letters&mdash;unfortunately
-lost to us&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">35</span>
-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&mdash;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.’</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">36</span>
-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.’<a id="FNanchor_15" href="#Footnote_15" class="fnanchor">15</a>
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">37</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_I_CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.<br />
-
-<span class="medium">THE REFORMERS OF STRASBURG&mdash;PUBLICATION OF THE
-WORK ON TRINITARIAN ERROR.</span></h2>
-
-<p>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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">38</span></p>
-
-<p>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,’<a id="FNanchor_16" href="#Footnote_16" class="fnanchor">16</a>
-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&mdash;a well-read and piously disposed,
-albeit in their opinion a more or less mistaken, scholar.</p>
-
-<p>Servetus undoubtedly possessed the character of the
-enthusiast in perfection, and by natural constitution
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">39</span>
-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’&mdash;‘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’&mdash;revising, polishing, and seeing it
-through the press&mdash;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 <i>Law</i> were
-shadows of the body of Christ.’<a id="FNanchor_17" href="#Footnote_17" class="fnanchor">17</a></p>
-
-<p>Whatever the two distinguished Reformers of Strasburg
-may have said, however&mdash;and we can hardly
-doubt of their having tried to win him to the views that
-were commonly entertained&mdash;he was not stayed for a
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">40</span>
-moment in his purpose of getting into print. Nay&mdash;and
-we know not why the right should be refused him&mdash;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&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">41</span>
-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, Rev&eacute;s, from
-his mother’s side of the house, and the name of the
-country that called him son:&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<span class="center">‘De Trinitatis Erroribus, Libri Septem.<br /></span>
-<span class="center">Per Michaelem Serveto, alias Rev&eacute;s,<br /></span>
-<span class="center">Ab Aragonia, Hispanum,<br /></span>
-<span class="center">1531.’<br /></span>
-</div></div></div>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">42</span>
-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&mdash;who had
-also vanished out of sight&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;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 Rev&eacute;s, 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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">43</span>
-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&mdash;he would
-even have the man Christ to be the Son of God in the
-usual natural way.’<a id="FNanchor_18" href="#Footnote_18" class="fnanchor">18</a></p>
-
-<p>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 B&uuml;tzer always
-of this savage way of thinking. In a Preface and
-Postscript to an early work&mdash;a translation by a friend,
-of Augustin’s Treatise ‘on the Duty of the Ruler
-in matters of Religion,’<a id="FNanchor_19" href="#Footnote_19" class="fnanchor">19</a> he is as mercifully disposed
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">44</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;Tisch-Reden&mdash;of 1532, he
-refers to what he characterises as ‘a fearfully wicked
-book&mdash;ein greulich b&ouml;s Buch&mdash;’ 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.<a id="FNanchor_20" href="#Footnote_20" class="fnanchor">20</a></p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">45</span>
-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&mdash;<i>Servetum multum lego</i>&mdash;though I am well
-aware of the fanatical nature of the man. In his
-derisive treatment of Justification he sees nothing but
-the <i>quality</i> 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
-Iren&aelig;us, 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.’<a id="FNanchor_21" href="#Footnote_21" class="fnanchor">21</a></p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;on the subject
-of the Trinity&mdash;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&mdash;is the
-Logos an hypostasis? εἴ ἐστιν ὑπόστασις τὸ πνεῦμα&mdash;is
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">46</span>
-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.’<a id="FNanchor_22" href="#Footnote_22" class="fnanchor">22</a></p>
-
-<p>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 <i>Person</i>, 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&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">47</span>
-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.’</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;a
-distinct substantial reality&mdash;proceeds:&mdash;‘To me Tertullian
-seems to think on this subject as we do in public&mdash;<i>quod
-publice sentimus</i>, 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&mdash;‘The Loci Theologici’ of 1521&mdash;that
-puts him out of the pale of orthodox Trinitarianism.<a id="FNanchor_23" href="#Footnote_23" class="fnanchor">23</a>
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">48</span></p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;<i>Etiamsi
-multa alia bona scribat</i>.’<a id="FNanchor_24" href="#Footnote_24" class="fnanchor">24</a></p>
-
-<p>In the days of Philip Melanchthon and Joannes
-Œcolampadius we therefore see that men had <i>private</i>
-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:
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">49</span>
-culture would still seem to make an esoteric and an
-exoteric doctrine a necessity of existence.</p>
-
-<p>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 Cochl&aelig;us 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&mdash;L&aelig;lius
-and Faustus Socinus&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">50</span>
-unity of God. But his trinity is <i>modal</i> or <i>formal</i>, not
-<i>real</i> or <i>personal</i> in the usual sense of the word.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">51</span>
-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!</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">52</span>
-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;<a id="FNanchor_25" href="#Footnote_25" class="fnanchor">25</a> and of this I admonished
-you in your own house; but you would not
-hear me.</p>
-
-<p>‘Your rule for proving the Spirit, I think, deceives
-you; for, if in your own mind there be any fear, or
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">53</span>
-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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">54</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p class="author">
-<span class="n10">‘Farewell.</span><br />
-‘<span class="smcap">Michael Serveto.</span>’<a id="FNanchor_26" href="#Footnote_26" class="fnanchor">26</a><br />
-</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">55</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;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:&mdash;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>i.e.</i>, 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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">56</span>
-Servetus himself believed in God, and acknowledged a
-Son of God and a Holy Spirit&mdash;finding mention of
-these in the Scriptures, no word of which would he
-overlook, though putting his own interpretation on all
-they say&mdash;he held that the Son and Holy Ghost, in
-consonance with his Second Principle, must be what
-he calls <i>dispositions</i>, or <i>dispensations</i> of the one eternal
-indivisible Deity&mdash;in other words, manifestations of
-God in the world.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;<i>sed quid aliud
-ineffabile</i>&mdash;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 <i>before</i> and <i>after</i> 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
-<i>time</i>, and involved no such necessity as is implied in
-<i>choice</i>. 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&mdash;<i>essentiat</i>&mdash;all
-things. (‘Dial.’ ii.) The Spirit of God is the
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">57</span>
-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&mdash;the Causa
-Principio et Uno of Giordano Bruno,<a id="FNanchor_27" href="#Footnote_27" class="fnanchor">27</a> the Substantia
-of Spinoza, the Universum or Kosmos of Goethe,<a id="FNanchor_28" href="#Footnote_28" class="fnanchor">28</a>
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">58</span>
-Hegel, Humboldt, Schopenhauer, D. F. Strauss,<a id="FNanchor_29" href="#Footnote_29" class="fnanchor">29</a> &amp;c. It
-is the Principle inseparable from the mighty All as
-from the individual Atom, or Pantheism proper.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;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&mdash;<i>quia
-est dura et impropria loquutio</i>.<a id="FNanchor_30" href="#Footnote_30" class="fnanchor">30</a></p>
-
-<p>Criticising the first verse of the Fourth Gospel: ‘In
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">59</span>
-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&mdash;Echo
-into a Nymph, Fortitude into Minerva, &amp;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">60</span>
-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.’<a id="FNanchor_31" href="#Footnote_31" class="fnanchor">31</a></p>
-
-<p>The title <i>Son of God</i>, again, Servetus maintains is
-nowhere to be found in the Scriptures otherwise applied
-than to a man&mdash;to the man Jesus in particular;
-and the word <i>Person</i> he insists is always to be understood
-in the sense of the Greek προσῶπον and the
-Latin <i>persona</i>, a mask, an appearance, and not any <i>real</i>
-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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">61</span>
-with the Father&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>In his attempt to develope and explain his own
-conception of the mystery of the Trinity&mdash;for it is a
-mistake to suppose that Servetus was opposed to
-something of the kind&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">62</span>
-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.’</p>
-
-<p>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 <i>Ruach</i>, 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&mdash;‘<i>dicit nescio quid</i>&mdash;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,&mdash;a view in which he
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">63</span>
-certainly had Melanchthon as his predecessor: ‘<i>Nec
-aliud spiritus sanctus est nisi viva Dei voluntas et
-agitatio.</i>’ (‘Loci Theol.’ p. 128, ed. 1521.)</p>
-
-<p>Referring to the dogma of the ‘Two Natures,’
-Servetus holds that this, too, is founded in error. ‘To
-speak of the <i>Nature</i> of God,’ he says, ‘is absurd; for
-the word nature can only apply to something created,
-something born (from the Latin <i>natus</i>). 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&mdash;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 C&aelig;esar, and
-other rulers, are called <i>Dii</i> or <i>Divi</i>&mdash;gods. The Son
-of God, to Servetus, in conformity with the pantheistic
-idea, can only be an aspect or <i>Mode</i> of the One God.
-If this be not his meaning, I know not what it is.</p>
-
-<p>We have said above that Servetus is not opposed
-to the idea of a Trinity of dispositions, powers, or properties
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">64</span>
-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: ‘<i>Tres sunt
-admirandi Dei dispositiones in quarum qualibet divinitas
-relucet, ex quo sanissime Trinitatem intelligere posses</i>,
-&amp;c.&mdash;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&mdash;<i>Dei</i>
-οἰκονομίαν&mdash;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.’</p>
-
-<p>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 <i>person</i>, 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 <i>person</i> with
-Servetus not signifying, as we have seen, any real or
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">65</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">66</span>
-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.)</p>
-
-<p>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.’</p>
-
-<p>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;
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">67</span>
-“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
-<i>et seq.</i>)</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">68</span>
-Faith, in a word, is mere magical fascination and folly
-(f. 82-84, Conf. ‘Ep. ad Calvin.’ xiii.).</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;<i>Fides ostium, Charitas perfectio</i>; 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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">69</span>
-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.)</p>
-
-<p>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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">70</span>
-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.’<a id="FNanchor_32" href="#Footnote_32" class="fnanchor">32</a>
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">71</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_I_CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.</h2>
-
-<p class="hang">THE AUTHORITIES OF BASLE TAKE NOTICE OF HIS BOOK.
-HE WRITES TWO DIALOGUES BY WAY OF APPENDIX TO
-IT AND LEAVES SWITZERLAND.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">72</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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,&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">73</span>
-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 <i>Idea</i> 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&mdash;of Tertullian
-and Iren&aelig;us especially&mdash;from the interpretation commonly
-put upon them.</p>
-
-<p>‘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, <i>he will retract</i> in his writings&mdash;<i>retract&acirc;rit
-scriptis</i>. 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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">74</span>
-your prudence and discretion, humbly commending
-myself and my work to your favour.’<a id="FNanchor_33" href="#Footnote_33" class="fnanchor">33</a></p>
-
-<p>If we are to understand the <i>retract&acirc;rit scriptis</i> 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,’<a id="FNanchor_34" href="#Footnote_34" class="fnanchor">34</a>
-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.’</p>
-
-<p>The reputed printer of Servetus’s Treatise and
-Two Dialogues, Jo. Secerius, has no particular name as a
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">75</span>
-typographer. But these little works are by no means
-incorrectly printed; they show few typographical
-errors&mdash;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&mdash;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 <i>partitioned</i>
-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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">76</span>
-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. <small>II</small>, 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.</p>
-
-<p>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 <i>in toto</i> 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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">77</span>
-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.’</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">78</span>
-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&mdash;a <i>dispensation</i> in his own phraseology,
-a <i>mode</i> 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.<a id="FNanchor_35" href="#Footnote_35" class="fnanchor">35</a>
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">79</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_I_CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.</h2>
-
-<p class="center">PARIS. ASSUMPTION OF THE NAME OF VILLENEUVE OR
-VILLANOVANUS. ACQUAINTANCE WITH CALVIN.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">80</span>
-safety, there was nothing left for him but to pack up
-and begone.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>With all his hardihood and self-confidence, Servetus
-was not without so much prudence as assured him that
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">81</span>
-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 Rev&eacute;s, author
-of the Seven books and Two dialogues on Trinitarian
-Error, than Protestant Switzerland and Germany.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">82</span>
-and physics at one of the colleges, and at a later period
-took his degrees of <small>M.A.</small> and <small>M.D.</small> 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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">83</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 <i>outr&eacute;</i> 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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">84</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">85</span>
-the heretic’s death. He had nothing for it therefore
-but to forfeit his engagement and lay himself open
-to Calvin’s reproachful ‘<i>vous avez fuy la luite</i>’&mdash;you
-fled the encounter&mdash;of a later and to him more momentous
-epoch in their common lives.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">86</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_I_CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
-
-<p class="center">LYONS. ENGAGEMENT AS READER FOR THE PRESS WITH
-THE TRECHSELS. EDITS THE GEOGRAPHY OF PTOLEMY.</p>
-
-<p>Theology, however, after which we see Servetus
-still hankering&mdash;<i>h&aelig;ret lateri letalis arundo!</i>&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">87</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 Ptolemy<a id="FNanchor_36" href="#Footnote_36" class="fnanchor">36</a>
-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&mdash;strangely enough,
-also, as influencing in some remote degree the fate that
-finally befel him.</p>
-
-<p>Earlier editions of the Ptolemy were faulty in
-several ways, and disfigured in different degrees by
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">88</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-Ptolem&aelig;us, 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.’</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">89</span>
-ancient titles of places into those by which they are
-now designated&mdash;into French for France, Italian for
-Italy, German for Germany, &amp;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, &amp;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&mdash;<i>dies noctesque jugiter laboravi</i>.’ 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!’</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">90</span>
-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&mdash;Columbus, Vasco de Gama, Magellan,
-the Vespucii, and the rest&mdash;and in the very days
-when the works of Peter Martyr of Anghiera, Simon
-Gryn&aelig;us, 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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">91</span>
-vanished before the light of the more positive kind of
-knowledge that now broke around him.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<i>De Rebus Oceanicis</i> and Gryn&aelig;us’s <i>Typi Cosmographici</i>,
-as the reader may see by comparing the verse
-below<a id="FNanchor_37" href="#Footnote_37" class="fnanchor">37</a> with the one he will find further on, which is
-prefixed to the 2nd edition of the Ptolemy.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>The map of the first country in the series of fifty
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">92</span>
-by which the work is illustrated is that of Great Britain.
-The people of <span class="smcap">Scotland</span>, 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&mdash;<i>lati
-gladii</i>. 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&mdash;among the very foremost of the sons of men.</p>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">England</span>, 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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">93</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>Of <span class="smcap">Ireland</span> 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&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>Of <span class="smcap">Spain</span>, the account given is particularly full, but
-by no means complimentary, and its people are contrasted&mdash;not
-to their advantage&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">94</span>
-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&mdash;red
-and white lead&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">95</span>
-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.’</p>
-
-<p>Of <span class="smcap">France</span>, 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.’</p>
-
-<p>Of <span class="smcap">Germany</span>, and he uses the title in a very comprehensive
-sense&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">96</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>Of <span class="smcap">Italy</span> 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.</p>
-
-<p>In his survey of <span class="smcap">Babylonia</span>, 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.</p>
-
-<p>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 <span class="smcap">Palestine</span> or the
-Holy Land. Demurring to much that is said in praise
-of <span class="smcap">Jud&aelig;a</span> in the Bible and by Josephus, as a country
-specially blessed in various ways, as being well-watered,
-fertile, &amp;c., the commentator says, that in so far as
-climate is concerned, it is a temperate land, obnoxious
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">97</span>
-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&mdash;great birds
-not sitting in little nests&mdash;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 <i>promised</i>,
-indeed, but is of <i>little promise</i> when spoken of in
-everyday terms.’</p>
-
-<p>The Ptolemy of Villanovanus was well received,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">98</span>
-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.<a id="FNanchor_38" href="#Footnote_38" class="fnanchor">38</a>
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">99</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_I_CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.<br />
-
-<span class="medium">LYONS. DOCTOR SYMPHORIEN CHAMPIER.</span></h2>
-
-<p>It was whilst engaged in the revision of such works
-as the Ptolemy and others on the natural sciences,
-anatomy, medicine, pharmacy, &amp;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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">100</span>
-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&mdash;<i>inopibus
-et infortunatis &aelig;que indiscriminatimque
-succurris opitularisve</i>, says his biographer&mdash;a true
-physician, a great and good man.<a id="FNanchor_39" href="#Footnote_39" class="fnanchor">39</a></p>
-
-<p>Among Champier’s numerous works published
-about this time, we note the <span class="smcap">Pentapharmacum Gallicum</span>
-(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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">101</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="smcap">Cribratio Medicamentorum</span>, with the <span class="smcap">Medulla
-Philosophle</span>&mdash;the Marrow of Philosophy&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">102</span>
-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&mdash;the
-Treatise on Syrups&mdash;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.’</p>
-
-<p>Nor did Champier’s influence on our scholar end
-here. One of the Doctor’s treatises is entitled, ‘Prognosticon
-perpetuum Astrologorum, Medicorum et
-Prophetarum&mdash;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,<a id="FNanchor_40" href="#Footnote_40" class="fnanchor">40</a> 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,<a id="FNanchor_41" href="#Footnote_41" class="fnanchor">41</a>
-and an Apologetic Dissertation on Astrology.’<a id="FNanchor_42" href="#Footnote_42" class="fnanchor">42</a> Villanovanus,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">103</span>
-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&mdash;<i>cui multum debeo</i>, and ventilating
-a subject that interested him, like so many of
-his age, only in a less degree than theology itself.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">104</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_I_CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.</h2>
-
-<p class="hang">RETURN TO PARIS. STUDIES THERE. JO. WINTER OF
-ANDERNACH; ANDREA VESALIUS. DEGREES OF M.A.
-AND M.D. LECTURES ON GEOGRAPHY AND ASTROLOGY.</p>
-
-<p>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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">105</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>And let not the conjunction of talent that meets
-us here be overlooked. Vesalius, repudiating the
-authority of Galen, became the restorer&mdash;the <i>Creator</i> of
-Modern Anatomy. Servetus, breaking with scholasticism
-in theology, and freeing himself from the shackles
-of Greeks and Arabians in practical medicine, inaugurated
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">106</span>
-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 <i>concrete</i>, described with rare
-felicity and truthfulness what he witnessed; Servetus,
-gifted with genius, aspiring to the <i>ideal</i> and inferring
-consequences, deduced the pulmonary circulation from
-the structure of the heart and lungs!</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">107</span>
-the truth, and given no chance for his life, had to abide
-the still more cruel death of the faggot and stake.</p>
-
-<p>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.’<a id="FNanchor_43" href="#Footnote_43" class="fnanchor">43</a> From this we learn whence Servetus had the
-anatomical knowledge that enabled him as inductive
-reasoner&mdash;true forerunner here of our own immortal
-Harvey&mdash;to proclaim the pulmonary circulation.</p>
-
-<p>The practice of dissecting the human subject had
-therefore, by this time, extended to France&mdash;the bodies
-of one or more malefactors being now publicly anatomised
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">108</span>
-in the course of each winter session.<a id="FNanchor_44" href="#Footnote_44" class="fnanchor">44</a> 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&mdash;but stopping short of
-the whole truth, first proclaimed by Harvey&mdash;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, <i>was never published</i>.
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">109</span>
-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&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">110</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">111</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_I_CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI.</h2>
-
-<p class="center">THE TREATISE ON SYRUPS AND THEIR USE
-IN MEDICINE.<a id="FNanchor_45" href="#Footnote_45" class="fnanchor">45</a></p>
-
-<p>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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">112</span></p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">113</span>
-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.’</p>
-
-<p>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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">114</span>
-and his readiness to imbibe knowledge at every
-source.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;the Christianismi
-Restitutio or Restoration of Christianity&mdash;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&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">115</span>
-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.’<a id="FNanchor_46" href="#Footnote_46" class="fnanchor">46</a>
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">116</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_I_CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII.</h2>
-
-<p class="center">THE MEDICAL FACULTY OF PARIS SUE VILLANOVANUS
-FOR LECTURING ON JUDICIAL ASTROLOGY.</p>
-
-<p>Servetus’s fate on starting in life was opposition; and
-how should it have been otherwise?&mdash;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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">117</span></p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">118</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">119</span>
-was to be cowed by opposition, however imposingly
-headed.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">120</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>It was alleged further, that he had been known to
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">121</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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,<a id="FNanchor_47" href="#Footnote_47" class="fnanchor">47</a>
-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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">122</span>
-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&mdash;all of good or ill that comes to man
-proceeds from heaven.’</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">123</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">124</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>Done this 18th of March, 1538.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">125</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_I_CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
-
-<p class="center">CHARLIEU&mdash;ATTAINMENT OF HIS THIRTIETH YEAR&mdash;HIS
-VIEWS OF BAPTISM.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">126</span>
-figures of the Sun, Moon, and Stars, and the
-emblematical representations of the constellations, such
-as Cassiop&aelig;ia, 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.<a id="FNanchor_48" href="#Footnote_48" class="fnanchor">48</a></p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">127</span>
-years ago; and all the searches for a copy of the philippic
-against the Parisian Faculty have proved in vain.<a id="FNanchor_49" href="#Footnote_49" class="fnanchor">49</a></p>
-
-<p>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,&mdash;all was against
-him; his malignant star had culminated, and he seems
-to have thought it best to yield to fate, and give way.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">128</span>
-(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&mdash;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.<a id="FNanchor_50" href="#Footnote_50" class="fnanchor">50</a> 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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">129</span>
-his latest work, ‘ought now to betake him to this
-Laver of Regeneration&mdash;<i>Lavacrum Regenerationis</i>;’
-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.)
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">130</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_I_CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
-
-<p class="hang">SETTLEMENT AT VIENNE UNDER THE PATRONAGE OF THE
-ARCHBISHOP&mdash;RENEWAL OF INTERCOURSE WITH THE
-PUBLISHERS OF LYONS&mdash;SECOND EDITION OF PTOLEMY.</p>
-
-<p>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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">131</span></p>
-
-<p>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.<a id="FNanchor_51" href="#Footnote_51" class="fnanchor">51</a>
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">132</span></p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">133</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>‘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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">134</span>
-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&mdash;I can only say that one more apt
-than I were required fitly to speak his praise.’</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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 Jud&aelig;a. The edition of 1535 was set about and
-produced shortly after he had been so unhandsomely
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">135</span>
-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 <i>regio amœna</i>,
-with a <i>cœlum satis clemens</i>&mdash;a pleasant country with
-quite a temperate climate, and all the damaging statements
-in regard to its several divisions and their
-peoples are omitted.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">136</span>
-that every one among them would have every
-one else to do his bidding, he himself feeling bound to
-do the bidding of none.’</p>
-
-<p>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 Jud&aelig;a as a land flowing with milk and honey, or as
-of signal beauty and fertility, is accordingly entirely
-expunged from the new impression.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">137</span>
-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
-Rev&eacute;s, bodily before him.</p>
-
-<p>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,<a id="FNanchor_52" href="#Footnote_52" class="fnanchor">52</a> 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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">138</span>
-have no reference to the year 1541, the date of
-publication of the second edition of Villanovanus’s
-‘Ptolemy.’<a id="FNanchor_53" href="#Footnote_53" class="fnanchor">53</a>
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">139</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_I_CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV.</h2>
-
-<p class="center">EDITION OF SANTES PAGNINI’S LATIN BIBLE, WITH
-COMMENTARY.</p>
-
-<p>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.<a id="FNanchor_54" href="#Footnote_54" class="fnanchor">54</a>
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">140</span></p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>In the Preface to his edition, consequently, we see
-that, having undertaken the responsible duty of editor,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">141</span>
-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&mdash;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.’</p>
-
-<p>‘In our Commentaries,’ concludes the Expositor,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">142</span>
-‘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&mdash;<i>non parum est nobis desudatum</i>.
-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&mdash;any others
-are incompetent.’</p>
-
-<p>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 <i>editio princeps</i>,
-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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">143</span>
-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&mdash;unless perchance
-the reader should think that the text is improved
-by Noah being directed in building the Ark to
-‘pitch it with pitch’&mdash;<i>picabis eam pice</i>, instead of bitumen&mdash;<i>bituminabis
-eam bitumine</i>!</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;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&mdash;and to the best of our belief we have not one&mdash;it
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">144</span>
-could not have failed to be of the most rigidly
-orthodox kind, his own edition having the <i>imprimatur</i>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 <i>meum</i> and <i>tuum</i> 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 ‘D&eacute;claration 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&mdash;<i>avait gripp&eacute; beau et belle</i>&mdash;five
-hundred livres from the publisher for his labour.</p>
-
-<p>But all this, though illustrative of one element in
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">145</span>
-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&mdash;assuredly referable to
-him alone&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">146</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;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 <i>a
-star to come out of Jacob and a sceptre to arise out of
-Israel</i>, 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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">147</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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, <i>Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill
-of Zion.... Thou art my son; this day have I begotten
-thee</i>&mdash;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.’</p>
-
-<p>The words in the fifth verse of that fine Psalm, the
-eighth, <i>For thou hast made him a little lower than the
-angels, and hast crowned him with honour and glory</i>, he
-also refers immediately to King David, who, in times
-of persecution, abased himself; but, subsequently victorious,
-was crowned at last.</p>
-
-<p>The passages, <i>In Jehovah I put my trust</i>, and
-<i>How say ye to my soul, flee as a bird to your mountain</i>,
-of Psalm xi., he refers to the time when David in
-fear of Saul escaped from the land of Judah.</p>
-
-<p>The comment on the sixteenth verse of Psalm xxii.,
-<i>They pierced my hands and my feet</i>, is again applied to
-David, when, flying from his enemies, and scrambling
-like a four-footed beast over rugged and thorny places,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">148</span>
-his hands and feet were lacerated&mdash;<i>fugiente David per
-abrupta, instar quadrupedis, manus ejus et pedes lacerabantur</i>.</p>
-
-<p><i>Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire</i>&mdash;Psalm
-xl. 6, signifies, says our commentator, that David, when
-a fugitive in the wilderness, offered no sacrifices.</p>
-
-<p>In the verse, <i>Thy throne, O God, is for ever and
-ever</i>, Psalm xlv. 6, the word <i>God</i>, says our exponent,
-refers to Solomon, who, like Moses and Cyrus, is here
-styled <i>Divus</i>&mdash;God.</p>
-
-<p><i>They gave me gall for my meat, and in my thirst
-they gave me vinegar as drink</i>, of Psalm xlix. 22, says
-Villanovanus, is a passage referring to Nabal’s refusal
-and churlishness when David asked him for meat and
-drink.</p>
-
-<p><i>The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right
-hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool</i>, 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.’</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;a system of exposition
-that has been pushed beyond all reasonable lengths by
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">149</span>
-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 <i>inspired</i>, 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?</p>
-
-<p>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. <i>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</i>, says Isaiah (ii. 2 <i>et seq.</i>). 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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">150</span>
-to Jerusalem, the Assyrians having suffered a signal
-defeat without a battle fought.</p>
-
-<p>In like manner, commenting on the second verse of
-the fourth chapter of Isaiah, where it is said, <i>In that
-day shall the branch of Jehovah be beautiful and
-glorious</i>, 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.</p>
-
-<p>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, <i>Behold, a virgin</i> (Almah&mdash;a young
-marriageable woman) <i>shall conceive and bear a son, and
-shall call his name Immanuel; and before the child shall
-know good from evil</i> [arrive at years of discretion] <i>the
-land will be freed from its enemies</i>. ‘The Aram&aelig;ans,’
-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&mdash;strength or fortitude of God&mdash;and
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">151</span>
-Immanuel&mdash;God with us&mdash;before whose reign the two
-kings, the enemies of Judah, will have been discomfited.’</p>
-
-<p>The <i>For unto us a child is born</i>, &amp;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.</p>
-
-<p><i>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</i> (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.’</p>
-
-<p><i>Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the
-ears of the deaf be unstopped</i> (Ib. xxxv. 5), <i>i.e.</i> ‘Liberation
-from the yoke of the Assyrians will do much
-towards giving the Jewish people clearer and better
-ideas of God.’</p>
-
-<p><i>Comfort ye my people.... The voice of one crying
-in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord</i>, &amp;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, <i>O Zion, that bringest good
-tidings ... say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your
-God</i>, he says, ‘refers literally to Cyrus, who is here
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">152</span>
-styled God; as does also the eighteenth verse, <i>To
-whom will ye liken God</i> (<i>i.e.</i> Cyrus), <i>or what likeness
-will ye compare unto him</i>? ‘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.’</p>
-
-<p><i>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</i>,
-&amp;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.’</p>
-
-<p><i>Arise, shine, for thy light is come.... They from
-Sheba shall come, and shall bring gold and incense</i>, &amp;c.,
-(Ib. lx.), <i>i.e.</i> ‘taken literally, and as it stands, these words
-refer to the great days of the Second Temple, when
-Jerusalem was again in its glory.’</p>
-
-<p><i>Who is this that cometh from Edom with dyed
-garments from Bozrah</i> (Ib. lxiii.), <i>i.e.</i> ‘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, <i>The redeemed of the Lord shall return, and
-come with singing unto Zion.</i>’</p>
-
-<p><i>Behold the days will come, saith the Lord, when I</i>
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">153</span>
-<i>shall raise unto David a righteous branch</i> (Jerem.
-xxiii. 5). The individual here referred to our exponent
-believes to be Zerubabel.</p>
-
-<p><i>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</i> (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.’</p>
-
-<p><i>Then shall Judah and Israel be gathered together,
-and appoint themselves one head</i>, &amp;c., <i>i.e.</i> ‘Judah and
-Israel will have become united for a season, as they
-were under Hezekiah.’</p>
-
-<p>The words of the second verse of chapter vi.,
-<i>After two days will he revive us; in the third day he
-will raise us up</i>, ‘refer to the extraordinary discomfiture
-of the Assyrians in the reign of Hezekiah.’</p>
-
-<p><i>For behold, in those days when I shall bring again
-the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather
-all the nations</i>, &amp;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">154</span>
-turn be desolated, and Judah, restored, shall dwell for
-ever in Jerusalem.’</p>
-
-<p>The texts in <span class="smcap">Micah</span> generally spoken of as exclusively
-prophetical of Christ, our commentator thinks
-refer literally to Hezekiah and times subsequent to the
-defeat of the Assyrians. <i>But thou, Bethlehem-Ephratah,
-out of thee shall he come forth to be a ruler in
-Israel</i>, viz., ‘Hezekiah, who will deliver the people from
-the Assyrian.’</p>
-
-<p><i>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.</i> This text, which is referred to Christ
-in Matthew (chapter xxii.), is connected by Villanovanus
-with the compassionate Zerubabel and his entrance
-into Jerusalem.</p>
-
-<p>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 <i>Index prohibitorius</i>. 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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">155</span>
-and this is precisely what the Church they represent
-would have every man, woman, and child in the land
-most carefully to eschew.</p>
-
-<p>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 D&eacute;claration pour maintenir
-la vraye Foye, and the Defensio orthodox&aelig; 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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">156</span>
-and impious follies with which he encumbered almost
-every page of the book?’ (‘Opusc. Theol. Om.’ p. 703).</p>
-
-<p>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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">157</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_I_CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
-
-<p class="center">ENGAGEMENT AS EDITOR BY JO. FRELON OF LYONS&mdash;CORRESPONDENCE
-WITH CALVIN.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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 <i>Summa Theologi&aelig;</i> of St. Thomas
-Aquinas, a work entitled <i>Desiderius peregrinus</i>, and
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">158</span>
-another, the <i>Thesaurus anim&aelig; Christian&aelig;</i>, into their
-vernacular for them.<a id="FNanchor_55" href="#Footnote_55" class="fnanchor">55</a> 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.</p>
-
-<p>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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">159</span>
-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:&mdash;</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>‘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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">160</span>
-have already done, unless you see most pressing occasion for
-acting differently.</p>
-
-<p>‘Recommending myself to you and praying God to have
-you in his keeping, I am your servant and friend&mdash;</p>
-
-<p class="author">‘<span class="smcap">Charles Despeville</span>.</p>
-
-<p>[Geneva] ‘this 13 of February, 1546.’</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>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
-<i>sharpness</i> 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.</p>
-
-<p>In transmitting Calvin’s letter to Villeneuve, Frelon
-addresses him thus:&mdash;
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">161</span></p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>‘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.</p>
-
-<p>‘To my good brother and friend, master Michael Villanovanus,
-Doctor in medicine, Vienne.’</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">162</span>
-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.<a id="FNanchor_56" href="#Footnote_56" class="fnanchor">56</a></p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">163</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">164</span></p>
-
-<p>Servetus’s questions to Calvin, three in number,
-were propounded categorically, and in the following
-order:&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>1st.&mdash;Was the man Jesus, who was crucified, the
-Son of God; and what is the rationale of the Sonship
-(filiatio)?</p>
-
-<p>2nd.&mdash;Is the Kingdom of heaven in man; when is
-it entered; and when is regeneration effected?</p>
-
-<p>3rd.&mdash;Is Baptism to be received in faith, like the
-Supper; and in what sense are these institutions to
-be held as the New Covenant?</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;<i>sed ideo quod Deus</i>. 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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">165</span>
-destroy both; for, acknowledging God manifest in the
-flesh, you say the divinity is the flesh itself, the
-humanity God Himself.’</p>
-
-<p>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.’</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;even
-more thoroughly made up, we apprehend, on some of
-the points advanced&mdash;than Calvin’s. We are not surprised,
-therefore, to find that the Genevese Reformer’s
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">166</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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,&mdash;as a balsam competent
-to heal the wounds and strengthen the weak
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">167</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 ‘<span class="smcap">Institutiones Religionis Christian&aelig;</span>’
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">168</span>
-over-savoury, says:&mdash;‘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.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;as indeed how could it be longer denied,
-seeing that it is still in existence?&mdash;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.’<a id="FNanchor_57" href="#Footnote_57" class="fnanchor">57</a></p>
-
-<p>Nor is this the only letter written at this time by
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">169</span>
-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&mdash;‘an arrogant and insolent man,
-forsooth,’&mdash;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,&mdash;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&mdash;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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">170</span>
-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.’</p>
-
-<p>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 <i>alter
-ego</i>, 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.<a id="FNanchor_58" href="#Footnote_58" class="fnanchor">58</a></p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">171</span>
-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</p>
-
-<div class="poetry"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i0">His murder yet was but fantastical,<br /></span>
-</div></div></div>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">172</span></p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;not
-printed among the thirty&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>Turn we to the letters to Calvin, less in view of
-their theological import&mdash;the point from which alone
-they have hitherto been regarded by the biographers
-of Servetus&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">173</span>
-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&mdash;<i>memineris
-qu&aelig;so</i>, &amp;c.&mdash;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!</p>
-
-<p>The third epistle commences in the same easy
-style: ‘<i>S&aelig;pius te monui</i>&mdash;I have repeatedly admonished
-you.’ It is on the way in which he imagines
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">174</span>
-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&mdash;<i>te
-manducam</i>,’ etc. Fancy John Calvin feeling
-himself taken in hand by Michael Servetus!</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;<i>Semper est Deus
-in fieri</i>.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">175</span></p>
-
-<p>In the eighth and ninth letters he informs Calvin
-that he ‘would have him know how the <i>Logos</i> and
-<i>Sapientia</i>, 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:&mdash;<i>Ille
-est vere filius Dei quem in muliere genuit Deus, non ille
-quem tu somniasti!</i> Neither did the Reformers, in
-his eyes, rightly apprehend <span class="smcap">Justification</span>, which, according
-to him, only comes through belief in the Sonship
-of Christ as he conceives it.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">176</span>
-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&mdash;<i>Tu
-improbus et blasphemus qui opera Spiritus calumniaris!</i>’</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;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&mdash;rascal, dog,
-ass, and swine being found of constant occurrence
-among them&mdash;had there been any stronger than scoundrel
-and blasphemer, they would assuredly have been
-hurled at Servetus.</p>
-
-<p>Referring to the subject of Justification, Calvin, as
-we presume, must have said, in one of his letters, that
-Justification is <i>imputed</i> 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?
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">177</span>
-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.’</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;<i>tu vero Judaico</i>&mdash;would
-shame me by a show of zeal and whelm
-me with contumely because I say with Christ, “He
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">178</span>
-who is least shall in this Kingdom be greater than
-Abraham.”’</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;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&mdash;<i>tu Fur et Latro</i>(!)&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">179</span>
-in Jesus Christ&mdash;<i>pœniteat te igitur, et vere Jesu Christi
-fide ad baptismum accede</i>&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>But our restorer of Christianity has not yet done
-with his p&aelig;do-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:&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>‘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!’
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">180</span></p>
-
-<p>Calvin, we believe, treats the ‘Descent into Hell’
-as legendary. Servetus thinks the Hebrew word
-<i>Scheol</i> signifies the <i>grave</i> as well as the traditional <i>hell</i>,
-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?&mdash;is not
-the whole man given over to the power of the mighty
-tyrant? ‘Who shall set him free? No one, assuredly,
-but Christ’&mdash;and so on, in terms entirely unobjectionable,
-and in complete conformity with accredited
-opinion; but tending, we imagine, to what is called
-<i>Universalism</i>, 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.</p>
-
-<p>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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">181</span>
-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 ‘<i>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.</i>
-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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">182</span>
-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!’</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">183</span>
-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&mdash;particularly
-a Trinity of persons in the Godhead
-(tantamount, said Servetus, to the recognition of three
-Gods instead of one God), and infant baptism.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>Like the leaders of other bands of enthusiasts of
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">184</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">185</span>
-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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">186</span>
-we are nothing more than clay. Paul’s simile deceives
-you; it is not universally applicable.’</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">187</span>
-all their might to keep his commandments, are but
-liars to you. <i>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.</i>
-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&mdash;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?</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">188</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;he does not use the word priests&mdash;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&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">189</span>
-‘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.’</p>
-
-<p>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 <i>personality</i>, in the usual acceptation
-of the word, leads inevitably to such absurdity.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">190</span>
-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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">191</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_I_CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII.</h2>
-
-<p class="hang">‘CHRISTIANISMI RESTITUTIO’&mdash;THE RESTORATION OF
-CHRISTIANITY&mdash;DISCOVERY OF THE PULMONARY CIRCULATION.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;if we may infer so much from the
-address of the publisher’s letter to him declining the
-work&mdash;he must have been on terms of intimacy. Marrinus’s
-letter is short, to the point, and in the following
-terms:&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>‘Gratia et pax a Deo, Michael carissime!&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">192</span>
-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</p>
-
-<p>
-<span class="author smcap">Marrinus.</span><br />
-‘Basle, April 9, 1552.’</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">193</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">194</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">195</span>
-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&mdash;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&mdash;a brother in all likelihood of the Marrinus of
-Basle, with whose name we are already acquainted&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">196</span>
-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&mdash;and
-there could now have been little of it left on hand&mdash;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.<a id="FNanchor_59" href="#Footnote_59" class="fnanchor">59</a>
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">197</span></p>
-
-<p>The book on the ‘Restoration of Christianity,’<a id="FNanchor_60" href="#Footnote_60" class="fnanchor">60</a> 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.</p>
-
-<p>‘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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">198</span>
-kind were opened; for otherwise no one can either
-know God truly, read the Scriptures aright, or be a
-Christian.’</p>
-
-<p>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!</p>
-
-<p>‘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.’</p>
-
-<p>After a somewhat careful perusal of the ‘Christianismi
-Restitutio,’ we know not how it could be better
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">199</span>
-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 <i>in toto</i>, and the
-chief doctrines of Lutheran and Calvinistic Christianity
-are controverted.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;<i>lux increata</i>, essence or first
-principle of things&mdash;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&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>The manifold manifestations which God makes of
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">200</span>
-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&mdash;the Divine Reason,
-wherein reflected all things showed themselves visibly.
-<i>Ea ipsa erat λὀγος erat ratio mirifica in qua omnia
-visibiliter relucebat.</i> The Logos&mdash;Divine Word, Divine
-Wisdom, God himself, in fact&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>Possessed, as he was, by the principles of the Neo-platonic
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">201</span>
-and other more ancient philosophies, Servetus
-assimilates Christ to the Demiurgos, and makes of him
-the architect and fashioner of the world&mdash;<i>ille mundi
-Architectus Christus</i>&mdash;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</p>
-
-<div class="poetry"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i8">Offspring of heaven firstborn,<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">Or of the eternal coeternal beam;<br /></span>
-<span class="i13">Since God is light,<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">And never but in unapproached light,<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee,<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">Bright effluence of bright essence increate.<br /></span>
-</div></div></div>
-
-<p>A little further on he also has the Son as Agent in
-Creation:&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i0">And thou, my Word, begotten Son, by thee<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">This I perform: speak thou and be it done.<br /></span>
-</div></div></div>
-
-<p>Creation ended, he continues:&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i0">The filial Son arrived and sat him down<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">With his great Father!<br /></span>
-</div></div></div>
-
-<p>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!</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>Coming to a more particular analysis of the ‘Restitutio,’
-we find the first book treating of the man
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">202</span>
-Jesus, in which he is shown to be, 1st, Man; 2nd, Son
-of God; and 3rd, God.</p>
-
-<p>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,
-Gr&aelig;ce, 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&mdash;Cyrus, for instance, is called Masach
-by the Prophet, the word Christ being no more than
-the Hebrew title translated into Greek.</p>
-
-<p>II. It is as a Son of God,&mdash;υἵος Θεοῦ&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>III. Christ is God, and is so called because in him
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">203</span>
-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
-(<i>Deitas</i>) on his only Son, did he cause it to be that
-the Son should be true God.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>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&mdash;God
-Himself&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">204</span>
-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&mdash;<i>visibilem
-cum</i> (<i>Christum</i>) <i>substantialiter ante omnia fuisse et substantiam
-&aelig;ternam habere</i> (p. 57)&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">205</span>
-the verse of Isaiah, beginning: ‘A virgin shall conceive
-and bear a son,’ &amp;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.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>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 <small>ESSE</small>
-or essential being to every existing thing&mdash;to inanimate
-creation, to living creatures in general, and to man in
-especial.’</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">206</span></p>
-
-<p>‘There is commonly said to be a threefold spirit
-in the body of man, derived from the substance of the
-three superior elements&mdash;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 <i>natural</i>, 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 <i>vital</i>
-spirit, whose seat or dwelling-place is the heart and
-arteries. The third, the <i>animal</i> spirit, comparable to
-a ray of light, has its home in the brain and nerves.
-In each and all of these is the force&mdash;<i>energeia</i>&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>‘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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">207</span>
-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&mdash;yea that the blood
-is the life, as God himself declares (Genes. ix.; Levit.
-xvii.; Deut. xii.).</p>
-
-<p>‘Rightly to understand the question here, the first
-thing to be considered is the substantial generation of
-the vital spirit&mdash;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&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">208</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>‘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&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>‘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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">209</span>
-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 <i>vena port&aelig;</i> to the <i>vena cava</i> 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.</p>
-
-<p>‘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 <i>vital</i> begins to be changed into the
-<i>animal</i> 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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">210</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 <i>return</i> of the blood by their means to the right side
-of the heart&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">211</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 <i>anastomoses</i>.’ Servetus may consequently have
-had an <i>intimation</i> 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&mdash;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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">212</span>
-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 <i>afferent</i> canals
-of the blood from the heart of the fœtus to the placenta
-of the mother, consequently, Servetus believed the
-umbilical arteries to be <i>efferent</i> 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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">213</span>
-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&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">214</span>
-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 <i>letter</i>
-of the New Testament as the source of their faith,
-the warrant for the conclusions they built upon its text.
-But he declared that <i>there was a Christian Doctrine
-before there was any New Testament</i>; 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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<i>Cause</i>, and to imagine as over and above this ‘bank
-and shoal of Time,’ whereon we pass our lives.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">215</span>
-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&mdash;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.’</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">216</span>
-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 chim&aelig;ras 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.</p>
-
-<p>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.’
-‘<i>Satan is Sin dwelling within us</i>, 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 <i>Adam’s transgression brought no real guiltiness on
-mankind; for such can never be incurred through</i>
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">217</span>
-<i>another’s, but only through each man’s own deed</i>, 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 <i>scheol</i> 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&mdash;Nirwana, a state of unconscious,
-everlasting rest! Servetus himself has no
-special place,&mdash;no hell either of temporary or eternal
-torture for wrong-doing.</p>
-
-<p>We do not remember to have met with the word
-<i>atonement</i> 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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">218</span>
-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.’</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p><span class="smcap">Justification</span> is the dogma that is next entered on,
-and is said to be by <i>grace</i>: ‘We are justified,’ says
-Servetus, following Paul, ‘when we believe in Christ
-as the Son of God,’&mdash;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.’</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>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&mdash;the means or preliminary,
-in his eyes, to <span class="smcap">Regeneration</span>. 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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">219</span>
-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 <span class="smcap">Laver of Regeneration</span> before this age
-if we would imitate Christ.’ ‘P&aelig;dobaptism,’ 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&mdash;the
-kingdom of heaven into which ye neither enter
-yourselves, nor suffer others to enter&mdash;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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">220</span></p>
-
-<p>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).</p>
-
-<p>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.’
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">221</span></p>
-
-<p>In the book on the Lord’s Supper, our author
-speaks of course of the papistical transubstantiation,
-the annihilation of the <i>bread</i> as bread and its transmutation
-into mere <i>whiteness</i>. ‘I rather wonder,’ says
-he, ‘whether Satan was the circumcisor of common
-sense from the brains of those who of <i>bread</i> make
-<i>not-bread</i>, 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&mdash;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.’</p>
-
-<p>He is scarcely more complimentary when he speaks
-of the views of the Reformers on the subject of the
-Supper, styling the Lutherans <i>Impanators</i>, and the
-Calvinists <i>Tropists</i>, the Roman Catholics being of
-course <i>Transubstantiators</i>. 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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">222</span>
-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 <i>letter</i>, 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
-<span class="smcap">Cup</span> 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).</p>
-
-<p>Singularly enough, when we think of what he
-has to say in disparagement of the Roman Catholic
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">223</span>
-priesthood, we find him recognising in <i>ministers</i> a
-power to absolve men from their sins and reconcile
-them to God&mdash;<i>potestas ministris est remittendi peccata
-et reconciliandi homines Deo</i> (p. 516). This, we can
-only conclude, is said because of what he found in the
-Sacred Text;<a id="FNanchor_61" href="#Footnote_61" class="fnanchor">61</a> 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.</p>
-
-<p>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’&mdash;for
-here the work does end in fact, all that follows being
-but by way of appendix&mdash;ought not to be overlooked.
-It is in immediate sequence to a renewed
-phillipic against the baptizers of infants, and to the
-following effect:&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>‘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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">224</span>
-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!’</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">225</span>
-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:&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>‘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.’</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">226</span>
-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.’<a id="FNanchor_62" href="#Footnote_62" class="fnanchor">62</a></p>
-
-<p>Finding himself very freely handled in the revised
-editions of the ‘Loci,’ his <i>errors</i>, 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-Nic&aelig;an Fathers proclaimed irrelevant,
-Servetus retorts, and, throwing moderation to the
-winds, proceeds in the diatribe we have before us to
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">227</span>
-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 Nic&aelig;a, are all put out of court&mdash;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, &amp;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.)</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>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;
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">228</span>
-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&mdash;and it may be
-also some of a minor sort of their own&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">229</span>
-in the place of his residence as Michael Serveto, alias
-Rev&eacute;s, 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 chim&aelig;ra 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;
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">230</span>
-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.<a id="FNanchor_63" href="#Footnote_63" class="fnanchor">63</a>
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">231</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_I_CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>
-
-<p class="center">CALVIN RECEIVES A COPY OF THE ‘CHRISTIANISMI
-RESTITUTIO.’</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;little recking what use would be made
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">232</span>
-of the information&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">233</span>
-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&mdash;a return perhaps for
-the copy of the ‘Institutiones Religionis Christian&aelig;’
-we credit him with having received from its author.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">234</span>
-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&mdash;as he foresaw it must
-in a Roman Catholic country&mdash;would rid the world at
-once of an agent of Satan, and a personal enemy!
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">235</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_I_CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX.</h2>
-
-<p class="center">CALVIN DENOUNCES SERVETUS THROUGH WILLIAM TRIE
-TO THE ECCLESIASTICAL AUTHORITIES OF LYONS.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;<i>Deus
-ex machina</i>&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">236</span>
-under cover of a letter from the convertite Trie to his
-relation Arneys:&mdash;</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>Monsieur mon Cousin,&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">237</span>
-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&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">238</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p class="author">
-(Signed) <span class="smcap">Guillaume Trie</span>.</p>
-<p>Geneva, this 26th of February [1553].</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>Cardinal Tournon, at this time Archbishop of Lyons,
-was the implacable enemy of all innovators, and in his
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">239</span>
-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: <i>P&eacute;nitencier du
-Saint Si&eacute;ge Apostolique, et Inquisiteur g&eacute;n&eacute;ral du
-Royaume de France et dans toutes les Gaules</i>. 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.</p>
-
-<p>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 Ch&acirc;teau
-of Roussillon, a few miles distant from Vienne.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">240</span></p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;<i>mais si secr&egrave;tement
-que vostre main senextre n’entend point ce que c’est</i>.
-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.’</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">241</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">242</span>
-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 ‘<i>Christianismi Restitutio</i>,’ 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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">243</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">244</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">245</span>
-of what was going on. At the meeting it was decided
-that nothing had been discovered sufficiently positive
-to warrant the arrest of anyone.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">246</span>
-brother Matthew Ory, Inquisitor of the kingdom of
-France and all the Gauls&mdash;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:&mdash;</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>Monsieur mon Cousin!&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">247</span>
-they hesitate further, or put off taking the steps required.
-All the pieces I send you now&mdash;the great volume as well as
-the letters in the handwriting of the author&mdash;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&mdash;<i>le Galand</i>&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>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, &amp;c., I remain,</p>
-
-<p class="author">
-(Signed) <span class="smcap">Guillaume Trie</span>.</p>
-<p>Geneva, this 26th of March.</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>The art and purpose so plainly to be seen in the
-foregoing letter need not be dwelt on. Anxious to
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">248</span>
-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 <i>printing</i> 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.</p>
-
-<p>The answer came in due course, hardly, however,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">249</span>
-so soon as we can fancy it was looked for, but to the
-following effect:&mdash;</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>Monsieur mon Cousin!&mdash;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 Rev&eacute;s. 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: <i>Serveto Hispano neganti Christum esse Dei
-Filium, consubstantialem Patri</i>&mdash;To Servetus the Spaniard,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">250</span>
-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,</p>
-
-<p class="author">
-I am yours, &amp;c.,<br />
-<span class="smcap">Guillaume Trie</span>.</p>
-
-<p>Geneva, this last day of March, 1553.</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>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
-Rev&eacute;s, or of his being condemned by the Churches of
-Germany&mdash;which by the way he never was&mdash;or of his
-expulsion from that country&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">251</span>
-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.<a id="FNanchor_64" href="#Footnote_64" class="fnanchor">64</a>
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">252</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_I_CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX.</h2>
-
-<p class="hang">ARREST OF SERVETUS AND ARNOULLET, THE PUBLISHER.&mdash;THE
-TRIAL FOR HERESY AT VIENNE&mdash;SERVETUS IS
-SUFFERED TO ESCAPE FROM PRISON.</p>
-
-<p>April 4. After the receipt of Trie’s third epistle, a
-solemn council was convened within the Archiepiscopal
-Ch&acirc;teau 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 Rev&eacute;s, 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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">253</span></p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">254</span>
-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, Beno&icirc;t Perrin,
-a lad fifteen years of age, to wait on him; and his friends
-were to have free access to him.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;<i>pressa tellement
-sa monture</i>&mdash;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&mdash;the secular in aid of the spiritual arm&mdash;and
-the party proceeded to the prison.</p>
-
-<p>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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">255</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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 Coll&eacute;ge de Calvi, and then in the
-Coll&eacute;ge 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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">256</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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: <i>Syruporum universa
-ratio ad Galeni censuram disposita</i>&mdash;a treatise on Syrups
-according to the principles of Galen; and a pamphlet
-entitled: <i>In Leonartum Fussinum, Apologia pro Symphoriano
-Campeggio</i>&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>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: <i>Justificantur
-ergo Parvuli sine Christi fide, prodigium, monstrum
-d&aelig;monum!</i>&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">257</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">258</span>
-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,<a id="FNanchor_65" href="#Footnote_65" class="fnanchor">65</a> 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.</p>
-
-<p>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, <i>Mori autem
-sensim dicitur in nobis Fides quando tolluntur vestimenta</i>&mdash;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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">259</span>
-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&mdash;not more than fifteen or
-sixteen&mdash;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&mdash;<i>sub sigillo secreti</i>. ‘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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">260</span>
-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.’</p>
-
-<p>The prisoner being shown a third epistle numbered
-xvii., on the Baptism of Infants, in which he says,
-‘<i>Parvuli carnis non sunt capaces doni Spiritus</i>&mdash;Infants
-as mere carnal beings are incapable of receiving
-the gift of the Spirit,’&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">261</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">262</span>
-labelled and signed, the session was suspended until
-the morrow.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;Villeneuve by M. St. Andr&eacute;. 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&mdash;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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">263</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">264</span>
-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 Rh&ocirc;ne, which was at
-no great distance from the prison and passed into the
-Lyonnais&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">265</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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,<a id="FNanchor_66" href="#Footnote_66" class="fnanchor">66</a> 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.’</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">266</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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!’</p>
-
-<p>The authorities of Vienne, however, had no desire to
-have their friend Villeneuve burned alive for heresy on
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">267</span>
-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&mdash;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&mdash;lay and clerical. The Vibailly remained
-unchallenged in his office; the gaoler was not
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">268</span>
-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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">269</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_I_CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI.</h2>
-
-<p class="hang">DISCOVERY OF ARNOULLET’S PRIVATE PRINTING ESTABLISHMENT&mdash;SEIZURE
-AND BURNING OF THE ‘CHRISTIANISMI
-RESTITUTIO’ ALONG WITH THE EFFIGY OF
-ITS AUTHOR.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">270</span>
-there had been a couple of presses kept at work away
-from the proper printing establishment of Arnoullet.</p>
-
-<p>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?</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">271</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>The workmen, terribly alarmed, fell as with one
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">272</span>
-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&mdash;over three months&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">273</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">274</span>
-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!</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>Every information up to June 17&mdash;for so long had
-it taken to get at the facts as they have been stated&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">275</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">276</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">277</span>
-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&mdash;Cardinal Tournon,
-Archbishop Paumier, Ory, Arzelier, and the rest&mdash;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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">278</span>
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">279</span></p>
-
-<p id="BOOK_II" class="ph1">BOOK II.<br />
-
-<span class="large">SERVETUS IN GENEVA, FACE TO FACE
-WITH CALVIN.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">280</span></span></p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<img src="images/i-280.jpg" alt="" />
-<p class="caption">Ioanis Calvinus</p></div>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">281</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_II_CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</h2>
-
-<p class="center">SERVETUS REACHES GENEVA&mdash;DETAINED THERE, HE IS
-ARRESTED AT THE INSTANCE OF CALVIN.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;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 Rev&eacute;s, 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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">282</span>
-settled population of his own countrymen, among
-whom he would find a sufficient field for the exercise
-of his calling.</p>
-
-<p>Calvin&mdash;erroneously beyond question&mdash;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&mdash;presuming that he
-escaped Calvin’s further pursuit&mdash;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&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">283</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.<a id="FNanchor_67" href="#Footnote_67" class="fnanchor">67</a> He was
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">284</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 <i>had been nailed up!</i> What interpretation
-can possibly be put on this? The nailing up could not
-have been done to keep anyone <i>out</i> of a place of public
-entertainment. It was therefore to keep someone <i>in</i>.
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">285</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 Z&uuml;rich. 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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">286</span>
-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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">287</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_II_CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.</h2>
-
-<p class="center">GENEVA AND THE STATE OF POLITICAL PARTIES AT
-THE DATE OF SERVETUS’S ARREST.</p>
-
-<p>‘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&mdash;interrupted during a period
-of two years&mdash;as a sort of spiritual dictator&mdash;‘the
-Lycurgus of a Christian Democracy’&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>The Reformation, in so far as Geneva was concerned,
-seems to have been hailed on political much
-more than on religious grounds. Emancipation from
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">288</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;conjured,
-indeed, in the name of God, to remain and aid in
-the work of the Reformation&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>A more unlikely conjunction of elements can hardly
-be conceived than that of the ascetic, gloomy Calvin
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">289</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;if life perchance had any joys&mdash;and
-its trials&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">290</span>
-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</p>
-
-<div class="poetry"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i0">Wer liebt nicht Weiber, Wein und Gesang<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">Ein Narr ist er und bleibts sein Lebenslang<a id="FNanchor_68" href="#Footnote_68" class="fnanchor">68</a><br /></span>
-</div></div></div>
-
-<p>of him of the Wartburg, must have sounded as simple
-profanity to Calvin.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">291</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>Calvin returned to Geneva, then, and under circumstances
-that gave him a great advantage over the
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">292</span>
-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;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i0">Two stars keep not their orbit in one sphere;<br /></span>
-</div></div></div>
-
-<p>and if Perrin was bent on power, so was Calvin.</p>
-
-<p>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 <i>one</i> 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.</p>
-
-<p>Calvin’s grand instrument in enforcing his discipline
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">293</span>
-was the Consistory, an assembly made up of the entire
-acting clergy of Geneva, with a limited number&mdash;no
-more than twelve&mdash;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!</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">294</span>
-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:&mdash;‘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&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">295</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">296</span>
-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&mdash;the Council would neither have him nor
-his followers immediately informed of all the business
-they had in hand.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">297</span>
-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&mdash;for having
-gone to a ball with his wife and daughter, we think,
-they having further exceeded in the matter of dress&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>This was felt by Calvin as the heaviest blow that
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">298</span>
-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&mdash;though he soon shows that he is anxious
-to free himself from any suspicion of the kind&mdash;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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">299</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">300</span>
-from the man of genius; and the Reformation&mdash;type of
-the holy cause of human progress&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;<i>animi temperantia</i>&mdash;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;’<a id="FNanchor_69" href="#Footnote_69" class="fnanchor">69</a>&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">301</span>
-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&mdash;Madame de Cany&mdash;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.’<a id="FNanchor_70" href="#Footnote_70" class="fnanchor">70</a></p>
-
-<p>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
-Z&uuml;rich from the north of Italy. At Ferrara, he informs
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">302</span>
-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.’</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>‘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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">303</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p class="author">
-Your most devoted,<br />
-<span class="smcap">Paulus Gadius Cremonensis</span>.</p>
-<p>Z&uuml;rich, July 23rd, 1553.<a id="FNanchor_71" href="#Footnote_71" class="fnanchor">71</a>
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">304</span></p></blockquote>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_II_CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.</h2>
-
-<p class="center">SERVETUS IS ARRAIGNED ON THE CAPITAL CHARGE
-BY CALVIN.</p>
-
-<p>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 <i>Le Lieutenant Criminel</i>,
-or the Lieutenant of Criminal Process&mdash;a personage
-evidently holding a responsible position in the city&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">305</span>
-the duty of the ‘<i>Lieutenant Criminel</i>’ 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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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 <i>Nicolaus meus</i>,
-my man Nicolas. That Fontaine was really the Reformer’s
-cook seems now to have been satisfactorily
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">306</span>
-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.<a id="FNanchor_72" href="#Footnote_72" class="fnanchor">72</a></p>
-
-<p>On the morning of August 14th, accordingly, Nicolas
-de la Fontaine presented himself before the <i>Lieutenant
-Criminel</i>, 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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">307</span>
-had written to his friend Viret for aid in the matter.
-But Viret could not help him&mdash;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.<a id="FNanchor_73" href="#Footnote_73" class="fnanchor">73</a></p>
-
-<p>The articles of impeachment, classified and summarised,
-with the answers of Servetus, are as follows:</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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, &amp;c.</p>
-
-<p>Replies: That it is true he wrote notes to the
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">308</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;Melanchthon
-among the number, whom he had called
-a Belial and Satan.</p>
-
-<p>Replies: That in the book he wrote on the Trinity,
-he had followed the teaching of the Doctors who lived
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">309</span>
-immediately after Christ and the Apostles; that he
-believes in a Trinity&mdash;Father, Son, and Holy Ghost&mdash;but
-owns that he does not attach the same meaning to
-the word <i>person</i> 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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">310</span>
-the epoch of his incarnation. Christ, however, he
-says, was <i>prefigured</i> by the angels who make their appearance
-from time to time in the Hebrew Scriptures.
-When <i>persons</i> are spoken of, further, they are to be
-thought of as <i>images</i>, <i>formalities</i>, not real entities or
-individuals; so that the three persons he acknowledges
-in the Godhead are but so many <i>dispensations</i>, <i>modes</i>,
-or <i>manifestations</i> which the Invisible God makes of
-himself in creation.</p>
-
-<p>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 <i>hypostases</i>, as generally said, but a
-hundred thousand <i>dispositions</i> or <i>dispensations</i>, so that
-God is part of ourselves, we part of His Spirit; the
-<i>ideas</i> or <i>patterns</i> of all creatures and of all things having
-been eternally present in the Divine Mind, though
-they only acquired form and substance in Creation.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>XXX., XXXI., and XXXIII. Item: That he
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">311</span>
-had spoken of Infant Baptism as a diabolical invention,
-competent to destroy the whole of Christianity.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>Replies: That he corrected the press at Vienne,
-but did not conceal his views from Geroult, who knew
-well enough what his opinions were.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p><i>August 15.</i> The information taken by the Lieutenant
-in conformity with the course of procedure
-required having been communicated to the Syndics
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">312</span>
-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&mdash;the
-prosecutor&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_313">313</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>‘Now the proponent having <i>prima facie</i> 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.’</p>
-
-<p>Having taken this petition into consideration, and
-determined that there was <i>prima facie</i> 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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_314">314</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_II_CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.</h2>
-
-<p class="center">THE TRIAL IN ITS FIRST PHASE.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;the prisoner&mdash;would assuredly have been
-burned alive. To all that had reference to the Doctrine
-of the Trinity, the Nature of Christ, the relations
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">315</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.<a id="FNanchor_74" href="#Footnote_74" class="fnanchor">74</a> 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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_316">316</span>
-question slip out of their proper hands; or, as M.
-Albert Rilliet<a id="FNanchor_75" href="#Footnote_75" class="fnanchor">75</a> 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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>The decision of the Court at the end of the day’s
-proceedings was to the effect that, as the answers of the
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_317">317</span>
-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 <i>Chef de Cuisine</i> 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.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_318">318</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">319</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 <i>Reformer</i> of Christianity far more than its
-would-be Spanish <i>Restorer</i>, 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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_320">320</span></p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>Before breaking up, a number of books, which had
-been produced by the Counsel for the prosecution in
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_321">321</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>In the interference of Berthelier, which we see
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_322">322</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_323">323</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;<i>affin que
-myeux luy puyssent estre remonstr&eacute;es ses erreurs</i>: to
-assist him, <i>&agrave; assister luy</i>, and to do what he could with
-him in respect of the interrogatories put to him, <i>et qu’il
-vouldra avec luy aux interrogatoires</i>. 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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_324">324</span>
-prison; but with results that might have been foreseen&mdash;not
-only not advantageous to him, but damaging in
-the highest degree to his interests.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>Questioned as to who was the printer of his book
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_325">325</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>On the note or scholium in the Ptolemy, calling in
-question the truth of the Bible account of Jud&aelig;a 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 Jud&aelig;a 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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_326">326</span>
-cur&mdash;<i>ce vilain chien</i>&mdash;though put to shame by
-the obvious reasons adduced, did but wipe his muzzle,
-<i>ne fit que torcher son museau</i>, and say: Let us go on,
-there is no harm here&mdash;<i>passons oultre, il n’y a poynt l&agrave;
-de mal</i>’.<a id="FNanchor_76" href="#Footnote_76" class="fnanchor">76</a></p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_327">327</span>
-some sort by the opinions of the old Doctors of the
-Church, who acknowledged, as he said, a twofold sense
-in the Scriptures&mdash;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&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_328">328</span>
-reference to incidents still in the womb of far distant
-time.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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 Nic&aelig;a no Doctor of the Church had used
-the word <i>Trinity</i>; and that if the Fathers did acknowledge
-a distinction in the Divine Essence, it was not
-<i>real</i> but <i>formal</i>; that the <i>persons</i> were nothing more
-in truth than <i>dispensations</i> or modes, not distinct entities
-or <i>persons</i> 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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_329">329</span>
-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&mdash;and prompted we may presume by Calvin&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>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,<a id="FNanchor_77" href="#Footnote_77" class="fnanchor">77</a> 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&mdash;adversely understood&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_330">330</span>
-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:
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_331">331</span>
-‘I gave them statutes that were not good,’ &amp;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&mdash;Gott
-also gegenw&auml;rtig ist in allen Creaturen; auch im
-geringsten Bl&auml;ttlein und Mohnk&ouml;rnlein.’</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_332">332</span>
-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.’</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_333">333</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_II_CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.</h2>
-
-<p class="center">THE TRIAL IN ITS SECOND PHASE, WITH THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL
-OF GENEVA AS PROSECUTOR.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_334">334</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_335">335</span></p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_336">336</span>
-meant an opponent of the head of its Church and the
-form of Christianity it represented.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>Thrown into fresh hands, proceedings were necessarily
-stayed for a few days to give the State Attorney
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_337">337</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_338">338</span>
-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.<a id="FNanchor_78" href="#Footnote_78" class="fnanchor">78</a></p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;as judge, too, in causes so commonly his
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_339">339</span>
-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.<a id="FNanchor_79" href="#Footnote_79" class="fnanchor">79</a></p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>To confirm themselves still further in their purpose
-to proceed, it was moreover resolved that the Councils
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_340">340</span>
-of Berne, Basle, Z&uuml;rich, 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.</p>
-
-<p>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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_341">341</span></p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_342">342</span>
-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.<a id="FNanchor_80" href="#Footnote_80" class="fnanchor">80</a></p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>‘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&mdash;without the permission of the author, which was refused.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_343">343</span>
-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&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>‘As to what you say about my sending someone else to
-Frankfort,&mdash;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&mdash;more by far than those we
-shall destroy&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_344">344</span>
-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.’</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>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.<a id="FNanchor_81" href="#Footnote_81" class="fnanchor">81</a></p>
-
-<p>The letter to Bertet being shown to the prisoner,
-he averred that he could not take it upon him to say
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_345">345</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;by Frelon, as I believe, not by Robert
-Etienne, the bookseller of Geneva, as has been said,<a id="FNanchor_82" href="#Footnote_82" class="fnanchor">82</a>&mdash;recommending
-its seizure and the destruction of its
-contents.</p>
-
-<p>Calvin begins his letter thus:&mdash;</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>‘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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_346">346</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p class="author">
-‘Farewell, &amp;c.</p>
-
-<p>‘Geneva, 6 Calends of September, 1553.’</p></blockquote>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_347">347</span></p>
-
-<p>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 Nic&aelig;an Council.</p>
-
-<p>It was on this occasion, as we learn from Calvin,<a id="FNanchor_83" href="#Footnote_83" class="fnanchor">83</a>
-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 <i>D&eacute;claration pour maintenir la vraie
-foy</i>, ‘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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_348">348</span>
-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&mdash;<i>sauta du coq &agrave;
-l’&acirc;nc</i>&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>Another and still more significant discussion now
-arose between the Reformer and the prisoner&mdash;and in
-these ever-recurring debates we see the persistency with
-which Calvin stuck to his opponent&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_349">349</span>
-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
-<i>formally</i> or as an idea, dispensation or mode in the
-mind of God previous to the Incarnation and Birth of
-Christ, not as an entity&mdash;a <i>person</i>, in the usual acceptation
-of the word, possessed of distinct individual
-existence.</p>
-
-<p>Speaking authoritatively now and as from himself,
-Calvin rejoined that if the Word had not been a distinct
-<i>reality</i> 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&mdash;not being perfect man
-as well as perfect God&mdash;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!&mdash;grounds on which neither the one nor the other
-could find footing for a moment.</p>
-
-<p>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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_350">350</span>
-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 <i>single sheet</i>! and to see particularly to his
-being kept secluded&mdash;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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_351">351</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_II_CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.</h2>
-
-<p class="center">THE TRIAL IN ITS SECOND PHASE&mdash;<i>continued</i>.</p>
-
-<p>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.’</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_352">352</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_353">353</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_354">354</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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, &amp;c., &amp;c., that waylay us
-on our course and give us rest at length.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_355">355</span></p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_356">356</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>The prosecution, losing ground the longer it continued
-on this tack, reverted to what for it was the
-surer course&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_357">357</span>
-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 <i>the Restoration,
-not the Destruction</i>, 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 Nic&aelig;a.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_358">358</span>
-to perdition because of their teaching; he only thought
-their ministers mistaken on some things.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>Monsieur Abel!&mdash;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
-<i>et seq.</i>, 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 <small>I</small> Kings, chapter viii., it is said that
-the Covenant or Testimony&mdash;the Decalogue, to wit&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_359">359</span>
-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 chim&aelig;ra 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!</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_360">360</span></p></blockquote>
-
-<p>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.<a id="FNanchor_84" href="#Footnote_84" class="fnanchor">84</a></p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_361">361</span>
-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&mdash;certainly with no intention
-of slandering the Republic of Geneva and its
-Churches.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_362">362</span>
-escape from the prison of Vienne, through fear of
-arrest by the police of France.</p>
-
-<p>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:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p class="center"><i>To the most honourable my Lords, the Syndics and Councillors
-of Geneva.</i></p>
-
-<p>The Petition of Michael Servetus, now lying under a
-criminal charge, humbly showeth&mdash;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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_363">363</span>
-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&mdash;not
-even in the case of such notorious heresy as that of
-Arius,&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>In conclusion, my Lords, inasmuch as I am a stranger, ignorant
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_364">364</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>In the City of Geneva, the 22nd day of August, 1553.</p>
-
-<p class="author">
-<span class="smcap">Michael Servetus</span>,<br />
-In his own cause.<br />
-</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_365">365</span>
-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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_366">366</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_II_CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.</h2>
-
-<p class="center">THE TRIAL CONTINUED&mdash;THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL RECEIVES
-FRESH INSTRUCTIONS FOR ITS CONDUCT.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_367">367</span>
-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.<a id="FNanchor_85" href="#Footnote_85" class="fnanchor">85</a></p>
-
-<p><i>August 28.</i>&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_368">368</span>
-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.<a id="FNanchor_87" href="#Footnote_87" class="fnanchor">87</a></p>
-
-<p>‘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&mdash;an age when young people invariably
-communicate their views and opinions to one
-another, their friends and fellow-students&mdash;and by this
-judge of the kind of conscience the man puts into his
-answers with a view to abuse justice&mdash;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.’</p>
-
-<p>Whether influenced by Calvin, to whose party in
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_369">369</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_370">370</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_371">371</span>
-Church familiar with criminal prosecutions.’ To this
-most pertinent reply, no answer was attempted.</p>
-
-<p>Reproached with having calumniated the Ministers
-of the Word of God as teachers of false doctrine&mdash;which
-on his part, said Monsieur Rigot, amounts to a capital
-crime&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;Capito&mdash;did
-assent to his views. Œcolampadius, he
-owned, had withdrawn the approval he seemed to accord
-in the first instance.’
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_372">372</span></p>
-
-<p>When we refer to Œcolampadius’s letters,<a id="FNanchor_88" href="#Footnote_88" class="fnanchor">88</a> 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 <i>unsoundness</i>, 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!</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_373">373</span>
-in times when there was active persecution going on
-and much cruelty practised.’</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;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 ‘D&eacute;claration pour maintenir la vraie Foy.’</p>
-
-<p>The circumstances connected with the printing of
-the ‘Restoration of Christianity’ at Vienne were once
-more brought up, the prisoner being particularly questioned
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_374">374</span>
-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&mdash;that all was to be at his proper cost, that he
-was to be his own corrector of the press, &amp;c.&mdash;-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&mdash;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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_375">375</span>
-Œcolampadius and Calvin, as the great ‘Restorer of
-Christianity’!</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;more guileless
-perhaps than truthful.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_376">376</span>
-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.<a id="FNanchor_89" href="#Footnote_89" class="fnanchor">89</a></p>
-
-<p>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.’</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_377">377</span>
-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.’</p>
-
-<p>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;
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_378">378</span>
-all others are to leave their carcasses in the wilderness.</p>
-
-<p>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’&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_379">379</span>
-prompters, the Libertines, as he had done when the
-printer of his book was in question.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p><i>August 31.</i>&mdash;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.’<a id="FNanchor_90" href="#Footnote_90" class="fnanchor">90</a></p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_380">380</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_381">381</span></p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;the fatal delay that cost him his life!</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_382">382</span>
-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?</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>Confronted with the gaoler of Vienne, who had
-brought the missives of his masters to Geneva, and
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_383">383</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p><i>September 1.</i>&mdash;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&mdash;Maugiron’s&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_384">384</span>
-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.’</p>
-
-<div class="poetry"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i0">‘Blow, blow, thou winter wind,<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">Thou art not so unkind<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">As man’s ingratitude!’<br /></span>
-</div></div></div>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_385">385</span>
-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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_386">386</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_II_CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
-
-<p class="center">SERVETUS IS VISITED IN PRISON BY CALVIN AND THE
-MINISTERS.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_387">387</span>
-sickness, and long confinement, he said, to enter on
-any defence of his views, and a prison was no fit place
-for theological discussion.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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 <i>Son</i> is met with in the Scriptures, it is the <i>man</i>
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_388">388</span>
-Jesus that is to be understood; and when <i>Christ</i> is
-spoken of as the Word and the Eternal Son, the language
-is to be taken in a <i>potential</i> 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&mdash;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.<a id="FNanchor_91" href="#Footnote_91" class="fnanchor">91</a></p>
-
-<p>The interview ended as we may imagine it could
-only end&mdash;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&mdash;he
-thinking that they stood much in need of enlightenment
-from him&mdash;were particular, before taking their
-leave, in insisting on the right of the temporal power
-in the state to repress and punish theological error.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_389">389</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_390">390</span>
-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?
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_391">391</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_II_CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.</h2>
-
-<p class="center">THE COURT DETERMINES TO CONSULT THE COUNCILS
-AND CHURCHES OF THE FOUR PROTESTANT CANTONS.</p>
-
-<p>It was at this time and on the suggestion of Servetus&mdash;as
-Calvin affirms, of the Council, according to its own
-minutes&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_392">392</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_393">393</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_II_CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.</h2>
-
-<p class="center">THE TRIAL IS INTERRUPTED THROUGH DIFFERENCES
-BETWEEN CALVIN AND THE COUNCIL.</p>
-
-<p>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.<a id="FNanchor_92" href="#Footnote_92" class="fnanchor">92</a> 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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_394">394</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;each of whom
-we must presume, in Calvin’s estimation, might have
-subscribed himself as</p>
-
-<div class="poetry"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i0">Parcus Deorum cultor et infrequens,<br /></span>
-</div></div></div>
-
-<p>uninformed of this, and expecting countenance from
-the presence of their leader, offered themselves among
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_395">395</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>... 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.</p>
-
-<p>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 (<i>nebulo</i>) 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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_396">396</span>
-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&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_397">397</span>
-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!</p>
-
-<p>Geneva, The day before the nones (4th) of September, 1553.</p></blockquote>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_398">398</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_II_CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI.</h2>
-
-<p class="center">THE TRIAL IS RESUMED ON THE NEW ARTICLES
-SUPPLIED BY CALVIN.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_399">399</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.’</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p><i>September 15.</i>&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_400">400</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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, Z&uuml;rich, 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;
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_401">401</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_402">402</span>
-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, Chald&aelig;ans, 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&mdash;if, indeed, it be possible for man
-to form any adequate idea of God!&mdash;so long as this
-earth&mdash;this mote in the ocean of Infinity&mdash;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!</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_403">403</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 <i>Articles</i>, to say, in brief, that the whole
-purpose of my book is to show, <i>first</i>, 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, <i>second</i>, that the Son or second
-Person in the Trinity is spoken of as a <i>person</i> 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 <i>rationale of the Person</i> 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.’</p>
-
-<p>Passages sixteen in number, from Tertullian,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_404">404</span>
-Iren&aelig;us, 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 <i>idea</i> in the Divine mind, not as an <i>entity</i>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_405">405</span>
-entities such as the <i>Tritheiti</i> imagine; it is no
-more than a <i>formal</i> 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 <i>dispositions</i>,
-<i>dispensations</i>, or <i>modes</i> 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.’</p>
-
-<p>From Iren&aelig;us 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&mdash;dost hear,
-Calvin?&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_406">406</span>
-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.’</p>
-
-<table class="articles">
-<caption><i>The Thirty-eight final Articles of Impeachment, and Servetus’s
-Replies.</i></caption>
- <tr>
- <th><span class="smcap">Articles.</span></th>
- <th><span class="smcap">Replies.</span></th>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td>I.-IV. Servetus, says Calvin,
- maintains that all who believe
- in a Trinity in the essence
- of God are Tritheists, or have
- three Gods instead of one
- God; or they are Atheists,
- and properly have no God at
- all, their God being tripartite
- or aggregative, not absolute.
- That the three Persons of the
- Trinity are Phantoms; and
- that there should be distinct
- entities in the one God is a
- thing impossible; so that a
- Trinity of Persons in an Unity
- of Being is a dream. Further:
- That the Jews, resting on
- numerous authorities, wonder
- at the Tripartite Deity we acknowledge;
- and, yet more,
- That it was the admission of
- <i>real</i> distinctions in the
- Incorporeal
- <span class="pagenum" id="Page_407">407</span>
- Deity which led Mahomet
- to deny Christ.
- </td>
- <td>
- I.-IV. From the authors
- quoted, it is evident that in the
- Essence and Oneness of God
- there is no <i>real</i> distinction
- into three invisible entities.
- That there is a figurative or
- personal distinction between
- the Invisible Father and the
- Visible Son, however, I admit;
- so that in this way I religiously
- believe in a Trinity,
- though denying it as usually
- understood. The truth of
- what I say about the Jews
- and Mahometans, I maintain
- to be amply borne out by history
- and what we see among
- the Turks of the present time.</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td>V. To colour his infamous
- opinions, he speaks of a personal
- distinction in the Godhead;
- but this is external
- only, not internal, or inherent
- in the Essence of God; the
- Word, according to him, having
- been Ideal Reason from the
- beginning&mdash;mere Reflection,
- Figure, or Semblance; Person
- only in the sense of appearance;
- and that this prefigured
- the future Man, Jesus Christ.</td>
- <td>V. I have always acknowledged
- the subsistence of the
- Son in God, both externally
- and internally. And you
- contradict yourself; for if the
- Reason was Ideal, then was it
- Internal. It plainly appears
- you know not what you say.</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td>VI. Confounding the Persons,
- the Wisdom of Scripture
- is said to have been formerly
- both Word and Spirit, no real
- distinction being acknowledged
- between them; the
- mystery of the Word and
- Spirit being defined to have
- been the effulgent glory of
- Christ.</td>
- <td>VI. Iren&aelig;us thus interprets
- the matter; Wisdom,
- he says, was the Holy Spirit.
- So does Tertullian. Solomon
- understands the wisdom that
- was given him as the Holy
- Spirit. And in my Eighth
- Letter, I show that the whole
- mystery of the Word and the
- Spirit was to the glory of
- Christ, because in him was
- the plenitude both of the
- Word and the Spirit. O
- wretched man, thus to go on
- condemning what you do not
- understand!</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td>VII. Denying any real
- distinction in the Persons of
- the Godhead Christ is said
- <span class="pagenum" id="Page_408">408</span>
- to have been invested with
- such glory as to be not only
- God of God, but very God
- from whom another God
- might proceed.</td>
- <td>VII. Did I say another
- God? I meant another mode
- of Deity. But if it offend you
- that I say another God, say
- another Person [i.e. as Servetus
- understands the word,
- another manifestation] of
- Deity. Why quote that
- against me which I have myself
- corrected? But you show
- your candour on all occasions!</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td>VIII. Christ is said to be
- the Son of God not only and
- in as much as he was engendered
- by God in the womb of
- the Virgin Mary; and this, not
- by the virtue of the Holy
- Ghost, but by God of his
- proper substance.</td>
- <td>VIII. Is not he rightly
- called the son of him by
- whom he is begotten? Therefore
- do I say that God from
- eternity and of his substance
- produced [<i>protulit</i>] this Son;
- and therefore is he said to
- be of God naturally.</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td>IX. The Word of God
- coming down from heaven, is
- said to have been the flesh of
- Christ; so that the flesh of
- Christ is from heaven, his
- body being the body of God,
- his soul the soul of God; both
- his soul and body having existed
- from Eternity in the
- proper substance of Deity.</td>
- <td>IX. The Word, I say, is
- now the flesh of Christ by hypostatical
- union. I say well,
- therefore, that the flesh of
- Christ is from heaven, and indeed
- is the heavenly Manna.
- What else I say, I admit in
- the sense in which I conceive
- it. You fasten on such things
- as these, and neglect the main
- truth!</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td>X. The essence of the
- soul and body of Christ is
- declared to be the Deity of
- the Word and the Spirit, and
- Christ to have existed from
- the beginning in respect of
- his body as well as his soul,
- <span class="pagenum" id="Page_409">409</span>
- the substance of the Deity
- being not only in the soul but
- in the body of Christ.</td>
- <td>X. Essence is spoken of
- as that by which anything is
- sustained. Art thou not
- ashamed to calumniate me, or
- dost thou think that with thy
- savage barking thou wilt dull
- the ears of the Judges?</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td>XI. As if to show that to
- him the divinity of Christ is
- mere mockery, he says that it
- means the wisdom, the power,
- and the splendour of God; as
- if it were only a certain
- wisdom and power that in
- him was excelling.</td>
- <td>XI. You do unjustly ever;
- you quote me falsely. I do
- not say what you charge me
- with saying.
- and the splendour of God; as
- if it were only a certain
- wisdom and power that in
- him was excelling.</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td>XII. The man Jesus is
- said to have been from the
- beginning in his proper person
- and substance, in or with God;
- and yet two persons are elsewhere
- ascribed to Christ.</td>
- <td>XII. What you say first
- is most true, and I wish you
- understood it. Christ in himself
- is one person; but in him
- verily is the Holy Spirit, who
- is also a person.</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td>XIII. Having said that
- the Word of God was made
- man, he says that this Word
- was the Seed of Christ; also
- that it was different from the
- Son; and that the Word by
- which the world was created,
- was produced by the grace of
- God; whence it would follow
- that Christ was not the Word
- in question. It is said, further,
- that the Word of God was
- the Dew, the natural engenderer
- of Christ in the womb
- of the Virgin, similar to the
- generative element of animals;
- and, yet further, that the Son
- <span class="pagenum" id="Page_410">410</span>
- of God was naturally begotten
- of the Holy Ghost by the
- Word.</td>
- <td>XIII. I speak here as do
- Tertullian, Iren&aelig;us, Philo, and
- others. In the passage you
- quote, the Word is taken for
- the voice from heaven saying,
- ‘This is the Son of God.’ Who
- does not see that the Word of
- God is something other than
- the man his Son? You have
- not read me aright, neither
- do you understand me. What
- else you say, I admit.</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td>XIV. The Word of God is
- said to be itself the seed
- generative of Christ; and as
- the generative element is in
- creatures, so is it in the Deity,
- in whom was the seed of the
- Word before the son was conceived
- of Mary; the paternal
- element in God acting in the
- engenderment of Christ in the
- same way as that of our
- fathers in us.</td>
- <td>XIV. All this I admit.
- God acted as generator in the
- way I explain in my first
- Dialogue. [The Celestial influence
- overshadowing the
- Virgin acted in her as the dew
- or the rain of heaven acts on
- the ground, and brings forth
- herb and flower.]</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td>XV. The Divine Word, it
- is said, mingling with created
- elements, was the agent in the
- generation of Christ. The
- divine and the human elements
- coalescing, there came forth
- the one hypostasis of the
- Spirit of Christ, which is the
- hypostasis of the Holy Ghost;
- though it had been asserted
- previously that the three elements
- in Christ were of the
- substance of the Father.</td>
- <td>XV. I grant everything
- here if you understand what
- you say as having reference
- to the paternal elements, so
- called because of their existence
- as ideal reason in God.</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td>XVI. To corrupt what the
- Apostle says&mdash;viz. that Christ
- did not take on himself the
- nature of the angels, but that
- of the seed of Abraham&mdash;it is
- said, by way of explanation,
- <span class="pagenum" id="Page_411">411</span>
- that he delivered us from
- death.</td>
- <td>XVI. I corrupt nothing,
- but accept both interpretations;
- you, however, quote
- everything falsely and teach
- falsely also.</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td>XVII. God, he says, is
- father of the Holy Ghost.
- But this is nothing less than
- to confound the persons&mdash;even
- such persons as he feigns.</td>
- <td>XVII. The confounding is
- in your own mind, so that you
- cannot comprehend the truth.</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td>XVIII. Playing with the
- word Person, he says there
- was one sole personal image
- or face, which was the person
- of Christ in God, and was also
- communicated to the angels.</td>
- <td>XVIII. I play fast and
- loose with nothing. I make
- use of the language of those
- I quote, which you treacherously
- pervert.</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td>XIX. As from either
- parent there are in us three
- elements, so are there three in
- Christ; but in him the material
- element is derived from
- the mother only. Whence it
- would follow that Christ had
- not a body like to ours, and
- this were to do away with our
- Redemption.</td>
- <td>XIX. The body of Christ,
- I say, is like to ours, sin excepted;
- excepted also this:
- that his body is participant of
- Deity.</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td>XX. The celestial Dew,
- overshadowing the Virgin and
- mingling with her blood, transformed
- her human matter into
- God.</td>
- <td>XX. The Transformation
- referred to here is Glorification.</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td>XXI. Confounding the
- two natures, he says that the
- created and uncreated light
- were in Christ one light; and
- that of the Divine Spirit and
- the human Soul there was constituted
- <span class="pagenum" id="Page_412">412</span>
- one substantial Soul
- in Christ; so that the substance
- of the flesh and the substance
- of the Word were one substance.</td>
- <td>XXI. He, I say, who is of
- and in God, is with Him one
- Spirit. Is there confusion
- when two unite in one? Are
- soul and body confounded
- when they constitute an individual
- man? Wretch that
- thou art, thou dost not
- understand the principles of
- things! [See the letter to
- which this remark gave occasion.]</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td>XXII. Partaking of the
- nature of God and man,
- Jesus Christ, it is said, cannot
- be spoken of as a creature,
- but as a partaker of the nature
- of creatures.</td>
- <td>XXII. And what then?</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td>XXIII. One and the same
- Divineness which is in the
- Father, it is said, was communicated
- immediately, bodily,
- to his Son, Jesus Christ; from
- whom, mediately, by the
- ministry of the Angelic Spirit,
- it was communicated to the
- Apostles. That in Christ only
- is Deity implanted bodily and
- spiritually; all of the Divine
- that others have, being given
- through him by a holy substantial
- halitus, or breath.</td>
- <td>XXIII. This, I say, is the
- Truth.</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td>XXIV. As the Word went
- into the flesh of Christ, so, it
- is said, did the Holy Ghost
- enter into the souls of the
- Apostles.</td>
- <td>XXIV. In some sort, in a
- certain way, as I show in the
- place you refer to.</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td>XXV. Confounding the
- Persons, he asserts that the
- λὀγος was naturally, voluntarily,
- <span class="pagenum" id="Page_413">413</span>
- ideal reason and procession,&mdash;the
- resplendence of
- Christ with God, the Spirit of
- Christ with God, and the light
- of Christ with God; whence it
- would follow that the λὀγος
- was nothing substantial, inasmuch
- as it was the figure only
- of a thing that was not yet in
- being, and yet did not differ
- from the Spirit.</td>
- <td>XXV. You confound yourself
- in what you say, and do
- not understand what you speak
- about&mdash;as if that which subsisted
- hypostatically in God
- was no real substance!</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td>XXVI. Before the advent
- of Christ, he says, there was
- no visible hypostasis of the
- Spirit. Whence it would follow
- that there was neither
- hypostasis nor real person,
- seeing that there can be
- no person that is not visible,
- as he declares in his book and
- asserts in his answers; speaking
- also, as he does in another
- place, of the Spirit of God, as
- The Shadow in the Creation
- of the world.</td>
- <td>XXVI. Person in the
- Word is called a visible hypostasis,
- and in the Spirit is
- spoken of as a perceptible hypostasis.</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td>XXVII. As all things are
- said by Servetus to be in God,
- so and in the same order were
- they in God before creation,
- Christ being first and foremost
- of all&mdash;such being the kind of
- Eternity he allows to the Son
- of God. Further, that God,
- by his Eternal Wisdom, decreeing
- <span class="pagenum" id="Page_414">414</span>
- to himself from Eternity
- a visible Son, gives effect
- to his decree by means of the
- Word.</td>
- <td>XXVII. All this is good,
- and you would see it so were
- you not perversely minded.</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td>XXVIII. Christ, he says,
- so long as he abode in the
- flesh, had not yet received the
- new Spirit which was to be
- his portion after the resurrection,
- and was verily afterwards
- imparted to him; so that he
- now possesses hypostatically
- the glory both of the Word
- and the Spirit, prefigured by
- the dove descending on him
- in Jordan.</td>
-
- <td>XXVIII. There is nothing
- here that is not true, would
- you but be willing to understand
- it.</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td>XXIX. In God, he maintains,
- there are no parts and
- partitions as in creatures, but
- Dispensations, and this in such
- wise that in the partition or
- imparting of the Spirit every
- portion is God. Beside this,
- he says that our spirits substantially
- are from Eternity,
- and so are consubstantial and
- coeternal; although he elsewhere
- declares that the spirit
- wherewith we are enlightened
- may be extinguished.</td>
-
- <td>XXIX. All you say here
- at first is true; but I do not
- say that the Spirit of God in
- itself is extinguished, because,
- when we die, the spirit departs
- from us.</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td>XXX. The Divine Spirit,
- it is said, was infused into us
- in the beginning by the breath
- of God.</td>
- <td>XXX. This is most true;
- and you, miserable man, deluded
- by Simon Magus, ignorest
- it. Making a slave of
- <span class="pagenum" id="Page_415">415</span>
- our will, you turn us into
- stocks and stones.</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td>XXXI. When we find it
- stated in the Law that the
- Spirit of God is in any one,
- this is not to be taken as
- meaning the Spirit of regeneration.</td>
-
- <td>XXXI. The words quoted,
- I say, are for the most part so
- to be understood.</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td>XXXII. Angels, he says,
- were worshipped by the Jews
- of old; so that he calls
- Angels their Gods; but, this
- being so, the true God could
- never have been worshipped
- by them&mdash;by Abraham in
- particular&mdash;but Angels, only,
- prefiguring Christ.</td>
-
- <td>XXXII. Almost everything,
- I say, presented itself to
- the Jews in the way of Figure.</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td>XXXIII. Admitting that
- Christ or the Word had no
- hypostatic [actual] existence
- from the beginning, he nevertheless
- declares that Angels
- and the Elect were verily in
- God from the first.</td>
-
- <td>XXXIII. What you mix
- up and make me say here, is
- false. Nothing created&mdash;no
- creature&mdash;existed before the
- moment of its creation.</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td>XXXIV. He maintains
- that the Deity is present substantially
- in all creatures.</td>
-
- <td>XXXIV. God, I say, is
- present in all creatures by his
- essence and power, and himself
- sustains all things.</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td>XXXV. Having mixed
- up many vain, perverse, and
- pernicious dreams about the
- substance of Souls, he concludes
- at length that the Soul
- is from God and of his substance;
- <span class="pagenum" id="Page_416">416</span>
- that a created inspiration
- was infused into it
- along with its divineness; and
- that in respect of substance it
- was united through the Holy
- Spirit by a new inspiration
- into one light with God.</td>
-
- <td>XXXV. Take away the
- words, <i>of his substance</i>, you
- will find the rest to be true;
- and that it is you yourself
- who dream with Simon
- Magus.</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td>XXXVI. Though the soul
- is not primarily God, yet does
- it become Divine or is made
- God by the Spirit, which, indeed,
- is very God, so that it is
- improper to doubt that our
- Souls and the Holy Spirit
- conjoined with Christ are of
- the same elementary substance
- as the Word conjoined
- with the flesh. Further, that
- created and uncreated things
- combine and unite in one substance
- of Soul and Spirit.</td>
-
- <td>XXXVI. This is so; many
- things thus unite in one&mdash;bones,
- flesh, nerves, soul,
- spirit, and form, for instance,
- to make the one substance of
- Man.</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td>XXXVII. He has written
- and published horrible blasphemies
- against the Baptism
- of Infants, and has said that
- mortal sin is not committed
- before the age of twenty
- years.</td>
-
- <td>XXXVII. I own to having
- written so; but when you
- have convinced me that I
- am in error in this, I will not
- only acknowledge my fault,
- but kiss the ground under
- your feet.</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td>XXXVIII. The Soul, he
- says, was made mortal by sin,
- even as the flesh is mortal&mdash;not
- meaning to say that the
- Soul is annihilated, but that
- deprived by pain of the vital
- <span class="pagenum" id="Page_417">417</span>
- actions of the body, it languishes,
- and is shut up in hell
- as if it were to live no more.
- Thence he concludes that the
- Regenerate have souls other
- than they had before, new
- substance, new divineness being
- added to them [by the
- Water of Baptism].</td>
- <td>XXXVIII. The passage
- you quote against me, shows
- that you act perfidiously. I
- there say that it is as if the
- Soul died, and, languishing, is
- detained in Hell. But if it
- languishes, it still lives. See
- what I have elsewhere said of
- the ‘Survival of the Soul,’
- pp. 76, 229, and 718 [of the
- Chr. Rest]. The souls of the
- regenerate, I say, are other
- than they were before; even
- as a thing is said to be new or
- altered by the accession of
- new properties.<a id="FNanchor_93" href="#Footnote_93" class="fnanchor">93</a></td>
- </tr>
-</table>
-
-<p>But enough of this&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_418">418</span>
-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&mdash;ἐνέργεια, actuating force in nature.
-Such, as we understand him, was the kind of Trinity
-formulated by Servetus.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_419">419</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>Signed by as many as thirteen ministers beside
-himself&mdash;for Calvin would not forego the backing of his
-colleagues in such a cause&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>The understanding of the Court when giving
-Calvin his instructions, was that his Extracts were not
-to be accompanied by either note or comment&mdash;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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_420">420</span>
-begins in this way: ‘That he may corrupt the saying
-of the apostle,’ &amp;c.; XVII.: ‘To say that God is
-Father of the Holy Ghost, is to confound the persons,’
-&amp;c.; XVIII.: ‘To show that he plays with the
-word person,’ &amp;c.; XXXV.: ‘After jumbling together
-many insane and pernicious notions on the
-substance of the soul,’ &amp;c.; XXXVIII.: ‘That he
-has written and published horrible blasphemies against
-the baptism of infants,’ &amp;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.</p>
-
-<p>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 <i>any one among the various formulated
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_421">421</span>
-systems of religious doctrine he sees around him is
-the</i> <span class="smcap">Absolute Truth</span>, <i>and alone essential to constitute
-Religiousness</i>, 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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_422">422</span>
-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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_423">423</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_II_CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII.</h2>
-
-<p class="center">THE TRIAL IS CONTINUED, AND SERVETUS ADDRESSES
-LETTERS TO CALVIN AND HIS JUDGES.</p>
-
-<p>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:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>To John Calvin, health!&mdash;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: <i>All
-action takes place by contact</i>. 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&mdash;that is in contact with us, that actuates us.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_424">424</span>
-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.<a id="FNanchor_94" href="#Footnote_94" class="fnanchor">94</a></p></blockquote>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>In the present disposition towards the prisoner&mdash;the
-purely metaphysical and undemonstrable nature of
-the matters in debate, taken into account&mdash;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&mdash;and indeed, and in so far as
-they could be understood, as they must have been seen
-by themselves.</p>
-
-<p>But Servetus, unhappily for himself, did not improve
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_425">425</span>
-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&mdash;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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_426">426</span>
-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&mdash;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 &aelig;ra.</p>
-
-<p>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:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>My Lords,&mdash;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 <i>pros</i> and <i>cons</i>
-in juxtaposition, Messieurs the Judges will be able more
-readily to decide on the questions in debate. Calvin must
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_427">427</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p class="author">
-Your poor prisoner,<br />
-<span class="smcap">Michael Servetus</span>.<br />
-</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_428">428</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_II_CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
-
-<p class="center">CALVIN ANTICIPATES THE JUDGES IN THEIR APPEAL TO
-THE SWISS CHURCHES.</p>
-
-<p>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:&mdash;</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>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].</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_429">429</span>
-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 Z&uuml;rich at least, by sending a messenger&mdash;Brother
-Walter&mdash;specially commissioned to give Bullinger,
-its head pastor, information of a kind he would
-not trust to writing.</p>
-
-<p>Bullinger, in reply to the written and verbal communication,
-informs Calvin that&mdash;</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>‘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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_430">430</span>
-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.’<a id="FNanchor_95" href="#Footnote_95" class="fnanchor">95</a></p></blockquote>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_431">431</span>
-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 Z&uuml;rich pastor:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>‘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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_432">432</span>
-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.’</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_433">433</span>
-been thrown into prison at Nemours, and in several other
-French towns many more have met with a like fate. Farewell!</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>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&mdash;by what
-means I know not&mdash;he wandered about in Italy for some
-four months; but driven hither at length by his evil destiny&mdash;<i>tandem
-hic malis auspiciis appulsum</i>&mdash;one of the syndics, at
-my instigation, had him arrested.</p>
-
-<p>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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_434">434</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;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!...</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;<i>ut saltem exitum
-quem optamus non fugiat</i>.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_435">435</span>
-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!</p>
-
-<p>Geneva; v. of the Ides (19) of Septr. 1553.</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>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 <i>evil destiny</i>
-of Servetus, too, that has led him into the toils of the
-Reformer; and to be of a <i>right mind</i> 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!</p>
-
-<p>It was of Z&uuml;rich, 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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_436">436</span>
-its people to violence or extremes; and
-‘Thorough’ was always the word on Calvin’s banner.</p>
-
-<p>If he had doubts of Z&uuml;rich 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:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>It is even as you say, my dear Farel,&mdash;we are indeed
-variously and sorely tried and tossed about by storms! We
-have now a <i>new</i> business with Servetus&mdash;<i>jam novum habemus
-cum Serveto negotium</i>. 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.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;<i>Diabolus inesse
-Divinitatem</i>&mdash;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>I hope the
-sentence will be capital at the least&mdash;Spero capitale saltem fore
-judicium</i>; but I would have the cruel manner of carrying it
-out remitted. Farewell!</p></blockquote>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_437">437</span></p>
-
-<p>Calvin’s charge was therefore, as we see, to no
-halting or half-way conclusion. He proceeded from the
-first for a capital conviction&mdash;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: ‘<i>Iam
-novum habemus cum Serveto negotium</i>&mdash;we have now
-on hand a <i>new business</i> with Servetus.’ But there was
-no <i>older business</i> 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: <i>Nunc vobis est
-alia cum Serveto disputatio</i>&mdash;and now you have <i>another</i>
-contention with Servetus;<a id="FNanchor_96" href="#Footnote_96" class="fnanchor">96</a> 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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_438">438</span>
-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, ‘Zebed&aelig;us
-has been perfidiously showing confidential letters
-of mine, which I wrote to him fifteen years ago from
-Strasburg!’<a id="FNanchor_97" href="#Footnote_97" class="fnanchor">97</a></p>
-
-<p>Farel’s reply to the last epistle of Calvin, dated
-from Neufchatel on September 8, is as follows:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>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&mdash;he dying one death who has caused the
-death of so many others!</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_439">439</span>
-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.</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>Farel is neither an elegant nor an agreeable, still
-less a logical, writer; but he is zealous in behalf of the
-true doctrine&mdash;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 <i>their</i> ‘True
-Doctrine.’</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_440">440</span>
-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&mdash;Œcolampadius,
-Bucer, Melanchthon&mdash;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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_441">441</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_II_CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
-
-<p class="center">SERVETUS SENDS A LETTER AND A SECOND REMONSTRANCE
-AND PETITION TO HIS JUDGES.</p>
-
-<p>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:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p class="author">
-<span class="smcap">Michael Servetus</span>,<br />
-who signs alone, but has Christ for his sure protector!</p></blockquote>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_442">442</span></p>
-
-<p>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:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p class="center"><i>To the Syndics and Council of Geneva.</i></p>
-
-<p>My most honoured Lords!&mdash;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&mdash;no doublet, and
-but a single shirt in tatters.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_443">443</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>From your prison of Geneva, this 15th of Septr. 1553.</p>
-
-<p class="author">
-<span class="smcap">Michael Servetus</span>,<br />
-in his own cause.</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>The Council appear to have been nowise moved
-by this very reasonable petition. The request for
-counsel, here reiterated, was not noticed&mdash;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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_444">444</span></p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_445">445</span>
-him something like fifty times; and the epithet <i>nebulo</i>&mdash;knave&mdash;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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_446">446</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_II_CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV.</h2>
-
-<p class="center">THE SWISS COUNCILS AND CHURCHES ARE ADDRESSED
-BY THE COUNCIL OF GENEVA.</p>
-
-<p>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, Z&uuml;rich, 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 Iren&aelig;us; 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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_447">447</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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 Z&uuml;rich. And first
-the one addressed to the Ministers:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p class="author">Geneva, September 21, 1553.</p>
-
-<p>Honourable Sirs!&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_448">448</span>
-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&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>In writing thus and asking your advice we desire to say
-that we do so without any mistrust of our own ministers.</p>
-
-<p class="center"><i>To the Burgomaster and Council of Z&uuml;rich.</i></p>
-
-<p class="author">
-Geneva, September 22, 1553.</p>
-
-<p>High and mighty Lords!&mdash;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.</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_449">449</span>
-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, <i>rival</i>, 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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_450">450</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_II_CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
-
-<p class="center">SERVETUS AGAIN ADDRESSES THE SYNDICS AND
-COUNCIL OF GENEVA, AND ACCUSES CALVIN.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;guiltless of blasphemy as in
-his soul he knew himself to be, and bolstered by the
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_451">451</span>
-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:&mdash;</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p class="center"><i>To the Syndics and Council of Geneva.</i></p>
-
-<p>My most honoured Lords,&mdash;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&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>1st. That the soul of man is mortal, and</p>
-
-<p>2nd. That Jesus Christ had only taken the fourth part of
-his body from the Virgin Mary.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;said it not
-in words only, but written and published it, I should myself
-think me worthy of death.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_452">452</span>
-not borne out in everything I shall bring against him. My
-Lords, I demand of you, justice, justice, justice!</p>
-
-<p>From your prison of Geneva, this 22nd of September,
-1553.</p>
-
-<p class="author">
-<span class="smcap">Michael Servetus</span>,<br />
-pleading his own cause.</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>The letter was followed by a series of articles in form
-like those lately brought against himself, headed&mdash;</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p class="center"><i>Articles on which Michael Servetus demands that John Calvin<br />
-be interrogated.</i></p>
-
-<p>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?</p>
-
-<p>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?</p>
-
-<p>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?</p>
-
-<p>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?</p>
-
-<p>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?</p>
-
-<p>My Lords, there are four great and notable reasons why
-Calvin ought to be condemned:</p>
-
-<p><i>First</i>: Because doctrinal matters are no subjects for
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_453">453</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p><i>Second</i>: Because he is a false accuser, as the above
-articles declare, and as is easily proved by reading my book.</p>
-
-<p><i>Third</i>: 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.</p>
-
-<p><i>Fourth</i>: 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.</p>
-
-<p class="author">
-<span class="smcap">Michael Servetus</span>,<br />
-in his own cause.</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_454">454</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>Most noble Lords,&mdash;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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_455">455</span></p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p class="author">
-From your prison of Geneva,<br />
-<span class="smcap">Michael Servetus</span>.</p>
-
-<p>October 10, 1553.</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p><i>October 19 and 23.</i> 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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_456">456</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>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.</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>The Church of Z&uuml;rich [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.</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>We trust (say the pastors of Z&uuml;rich), 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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_457">457</span>
-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.</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>Schaffhausen was content to subscribe to all that
-had been said by Z&uuml;rich (whose conclusion, consequently,
-had been communicated to it); but could not
-resist insinuating how it thought the Spaniard should
-be dealt with.</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>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.</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_458">458</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>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.</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>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&mdash;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!
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_459">459</span></p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;and they do not question their
-inclination in this&mdash;that such sectaries and disseminators
-of error as their prisoner shall no longer be suffered
-to sow in the Church of Christ.’</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_460">460</span></p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>Yesterday (September 26), (writes Haller of Berne, to
-Bullinger of Z&uuml;rich) 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.</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>The Z&uuml;rich 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
-Z&uuml;rich, 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 Z&uuml;rich, 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.’
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_461">461</span></p>
-
-<p>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:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>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, <i>as
-ordered by them</i>, 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.</p>
-
-<p class="author">
-Yours most truly,<br />
-<span class="smcap">J. Haller</span>.</p>
-
-<p>Berne: October 19, 1553.</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_462">462</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_463">463</span>
-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 <i>degree</i> 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.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>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&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_464">464</span>
-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
-<i>feigned</i> 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 <i>C&aelig;sar comicus</i>. 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.</p>
-
-<p>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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_465">465</span></p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;heretics themselves
-in the eyes of the dominant European Church&mdash;to
-have recourse to measures that appeared in such an
-odious light when brought into requisition by Roman
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_466">466</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;he refrained from
-preaching against the prisoner and holding him up as
-a blasphemer against God and religion, as had been
-his wont.</p>
-
-<p><i>October 26.</i>&mdash;The Council, in its capacity of High
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_467">467</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>The Governing Body of the Republic of Geneva
-consisted, as we have seen, of two extreme and mutually
-opposed parties&mdash;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&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_468">468</span>
-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?</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>Weary on every side of wranglings upon subjects
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_469">469</span>
-they did not understand, the clerical party in the
-Senate would not be thought less than zealous for the
-true Faith&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_470">470</span></p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;by whom we
-are not informed&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_471">471</span>
-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:</p>
-
-<p>‘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.’<a id="FNanchor_98" href="#Footnote_98" class="fnanchor">98</a></p>
-
-<p>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;
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_472">472</span>
-hence Calvin’s first letter of October 14, in anticipation
-of the final sentence, and to the following effect:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;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.</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>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:
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_473">473</span></p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>Our comical C&aelig;sar having feigned illness for three days,
-mounted the tribune at length with a view to aid the wicked
-scoundrel&mdash;<i>istum sceleratum</i>&mdash;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.</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_474">474</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_II_CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII.</h2>
-
-<p class="center">THE ATTITUDE OF CALVIN&mdash;THE HOPES OF SERVETUS.</p>
-
-<p>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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_475">475</span>
-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!</p>
-
-<p>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 Jud&aelig;a; and the proclaimed purpose of his latest
-work, as he said himself to his Judges, was the <i>Restoration</i>,
-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&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_476">476</span>
-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&mdash;there
-seemed hardly room for doubt: he would not be
-found guilty of having blasphemed, but would be acquitted
-and set at liberty.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_477">477</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;<i>cum belluina stupiditate</i>,’ he proceeds: ‘I
-asked him what he wanted with me&mdash;<i>quidnam vellet?</i>
-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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_478">478</span>
-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&mdash;self-condemned.<a id="FNanchor_99" href="#Footnote_99" class="fnanchor">99</a></p>
-
-<p>But there is a deep-lying truth in the French
-adage: ‘Qui s’excuse s’accuse&mdash;<i>he who excuses accuses
-himself</i>.’ 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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_479">479</span>
-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&mdash;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&mdash;despot of Geneva&mdash;had
-he not felt something of self-gratulation and
-even of triumph, when pardon was asked of him by
-his humbled foe.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_480">480</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_II_CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>
-
-<p class="center">THE SENTENCE AND EXECUTION.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p><i>First</i>: 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. <i>Item.</i> 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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_481">481</span>
-of the Christian religion. <i>Item.</i> With having in the
-said book called all who believe in a Trinity, Tritheists, and
-even Atheists, and the Trinity itself a d&aelig;mon or monster
-having three heads. <i>Item.</i> 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. <i>Item.</i> With declaring the Baptism
-of Infants to be sorcery and a diabolical invention. <i>Item.</i> 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. <i>Item.</i>
-With having, full of malice, entitled the said book, though
-crammed with heresies against the holy evangelical doctrine,
-‘Christianismi Restitutio&mdash;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. <i>Item.</i> 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. <i>Item.</i> 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. <i>Item.</i> 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. <i>Item.</i> And in addition to all of which,
-being confined in the gaol of this city, he has not ceased
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_482">482</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;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
-(<i>tes heresies et puante poyson hereticale</i>)&mdash;case and crime of
-heresy grievous and detestable, deserving of severe corporal
-punishment.</p>
-
-<p>These and other just causes moving us, desiring to purge
-the Church of God of such infection, and to cut off from it so
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_483">483</span>
-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.</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>The staff, according to custom, was then broken
-over the prisoner, and there was silence for a moment.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_484">484</span>
-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!’</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_485">485</span>
-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!’</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_486">486</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>‘It were long did I repeat&mdash;I do not think, indeed,
-I can remember&mdash;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.’</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_487">487</span>
-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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_488">488</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_II_CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX.</h2>
-
-<p class="center">AFTER THE BATTLE&mdash;V&AElig; VICTORIBUS!</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;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.’</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_489">489</span>
-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&mdash;their spiritual
-Dictator himself not excepted&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_490">490</span>
-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&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;he had not, in all probability, even heard
-the name of Servetus until he had it from the mouth
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_491">491</span>
-of his master! De la Fontaine, moreover, was no
-citizen of Geneva any more than Calvin himself<a id="FNanchor_100" href="#Footnote_100" class="fnanchor">100</a>&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_492">492</span>
-Person is to be found;<a id="FNanchor_101" href="#Footnote_101" class="fnanchor">101</a> 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:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>‘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]&mdash;<i>docebimus alios</i>, that they
-should not superstitiously avoid them. Did anyone, however,
-from religious scruples, feel indisposed to make use of the
-words&mdash;although we avow that such superstition is not
-approved by us, and we shall continue striving to correct it&mdash;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_493">493</span>
-evilly of the Pastors of the Church of Berne, if they refuse to
-admit anyone to the ministry who declines to use the words.’<a id="FNanchor_102" href="#Footnote_102" class="fnanchor">102</a></p></blockquote>
-
-<p>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&mdash;<i>quid aliud restat</i>&mdash;but to
-own three Persons in the Godhead? These, however,’
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_494">494</span>
-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&mdash;<i>ubi
-autem quaternitas reperitur si unus Deus tres in se
-proprietates contineat</i>?’<a id="FNanchor_104" href="#Footnote_104" class="fnanchor">104</a> Where, indeed! But the
-question is of <i>persons</i> not of properties; as in the
-affair with Caroli it was of an Eternal Son not of an
-Eternal Word.</p>
-
-<p>In another place we find him using such language
-as this: ‘The words of the Council of Nic&aelig;a are
-these: God of God&mdash;a hard expression I admit, for
-the removal of the ambiguity of which no better interpreter
-can be found than Athanasius, who indited it&mdash;<i>Deum
-a Deo&mdash;dura loquutio fateor, sed ad cujus tollendam
-ambiguitatem nemo potest esse magis idoneus
-interpres quam Athanasius qui eam dictavit</i>.’</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;<i>cujus symbolum nulla unquam legitima
-ecclesia approb&acirc;sset</i>.’<a id="FNanchor_105" href="#Footnote_105" class="fnanchor">105</a> 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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_495">495</span>
-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 <i>dispositions</i> instead of <i>properties</i>. 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 <i>persons</i> are
-<i>dispositions</i> to the one, <i>properties</i> to the other!</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_496">496</span>
-becoming in him as a coat of mail to a hog&mdash;‘<i>qu’une
-jaserame un Truie</i>’(!)</p>
-
-<p>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 ‘<i>Monsieur</i>,’
-not as ‘<i>Ma&icirc;tre</i>,’ 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.’</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_497">497</span>
-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?
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_498">498</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_II_CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX.</h2>
-
-<p class="center">CALVIN DEFENDS HIMSELF.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_499">499</span>
-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!</p>
-
-<p>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.’<a id="FNanchor_106" href="#Footnote_106" class="fnanchor">106</a>
-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&mdash;<i>ut omnes abhorreant a bestia</i>!’
-To which Calvin replies: ‘If I have but a little leisure
-I shall show what a monster he was.’<a id="FNanchor_107" href="#Footnote_107" class="fnanchor">107</a></p>
-
-<p>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 ‘<i>D&eacute;claration pour maintenir la vraye Foy</i>;’
-that of the Latin, ‘<i>Defensio Orthodox&aelig; Fidei de sacra
-Trinitate contra errores Michaelis Serveti, &amp;c.</i>’<a id="FNanchor_108" href="#Footnote_108" class="fnanchor">108</a>
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_500">500</span></p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_501">501</span>
-man from scratching who has the itch!&mdash;<i>pas plus que
-celui qui a la ratelle qui d&eacute;mange</i>.’</p>
-
-<p>‘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.’</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_502">502</span>
-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
-<i>would be capital at the least</i>&mdash;<i>spero capitale saltem
-judicium fore</i>. 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.</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_503">503</span>
-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.’</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>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.&mdash;All that Calvin says now
-seems but to demonstrate the truth of what we have
-from Bolsec, and may possibly have been the ground
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_504">504</span>
-of the warning against the over free expression of his
-opinions which Servetus is said to have received long
-before the <i>denouement</i> that followed the printing of the
-‘Christianismi Restitutio.’ Calvin continues:</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>‘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.’</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_505">505</span>
-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&mdash;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.<a id="FNanchor_109" href="#Footnote_109" class="fnanchor">109</a></p>
-
-<p>But it is not with Servetus’s doctrines alone that
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_506">506</span>
-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,<a id="FNanchor_110" href="#Footnote_110" class="fnanchor">110</a> ‘never
-inspired words more atrociously cruel and unjust than
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_507">507</span>
-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,</p>
-
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i0">With thoughts that wandered through Eternity,<br /></span>
-</div></div></div>
-
-<p>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 <i>doing</i>
-in the knowable, <i>speculating</i> 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&mdash;a
-truly noble life!</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;those garments of
-the soul&mdash;cannot be put off and on at pleasure, like the
-garments of the body!
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_508">508</span></p>
-
-<p>It were needless to say that Calvin’s refutation, or
-shall we say <i>condemnation</i> 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 ‘<i>D&eacute;claration pour
-Maintenir la Vraye Foy</i>’ having been extensively read
-by those who were not masters of the Latin; the
-‘<i>Fidelis expositio Errorum</i>’ 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.</p>
-
-<blockquote>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_509">509</span>
-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....</p>
-
-<p class="author">
-<span class="smcap">Jo. Calvin.</span></p>
-
-<p>Geneva, November 3, 1554.</p></blockquote>
-
-<p>This interesting letter<a id="FNanchor_111" href="#Footnote_111" class="fnanchor">111</a> seems to show that Calvin
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_510">510</span>
-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</p>
-
-<div class="poetry"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i16">This even-handed justice<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">Commends the ingredients of our poison’d chalice<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">To our own lips; (and tells us) we but teach<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">To plague the inventor.<br /></span>
-</div></div></div>
-
-<p>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 Z&uuml;rich pastor of September 14,
-as well as to the one in which the reply of the Church
-of Z&uuml;rich to the Council of Geneva is couched&mdash;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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_511">511</span></p>
-
-<p>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.’<a id="FNanchor_112" href="#Footnote_112" class="fnanchor">112</a></p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_512">512</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>Addressing another among the monarchs of the
-earth in a later work,<a id="FNanchor_113" href="#Footnote_113" class="fnanchor">113</a> 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.’<a id="FNanchor_114" href="#Footnote_114" class="fnanchor">114</a>
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_513">513</span></p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>Of Calvin, more truly perhaps than of any man that
-ever lived, may the dictum of the poet, where he says:</p>
-
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i0">The evil that men do lives after them,<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">The good is oft interred with their bones,<br /></span>
-</div></div></div>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_514">514</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>There can be little question, in fact, that Calvinism,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_515">515</span>
-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&mdash;impersonation
-of relentless rigour&mdash;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&mdash;Conscience
-and Loyalty to Truth.</p>
-
-<p>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: <i>Nous ne sommes plus Calvinistes selon Calvin</i>.
-Nor has the defection of the Swiss been singular; they
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_516">516</span>
-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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_517">517</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_II_CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI.</h2>
-
-<p class="center">CALVIN’S DEFENCE IS ATTACKED.</p>
-
-<p>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.<a id="FNanchor_115" href="#Footnote_115" class="fnanchor">115</a></p>
-
-<p>But the writer who received most notice from
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_518">518</span>
-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&mdash;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.<a id="FNanchor_116" href="#Footnote_116" class="fnanchor">116</a></p>
-
-<p>Premising an Introduction, addressed to Frederick,
-the reigning Duke of W&uuml;rtemberg, in which the writer
-sets forth his own views, he asks the Duke whether
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_519">519</span>
-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.’</p>
-
-<p>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 h&aelig;resiarchs,
-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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_520">520</span>
-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.’</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_521">521</span>
-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.</p>
-
-<p>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,’ &amp;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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_522">522</span>
-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.&mdash;God, in a word, was with them; the
-Devil and corrupt humanity on the side of their opponents,
-and there an end.</p>
-
-<p>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 <span class="smcap">Act</span>, and to have
-nothing to do with <span class="smcap">Opinion</span>.</p>
-
-<p>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, &amp;c. against Calvin’s
-book, in which he strives to show that heretics are
-to be dealt with capitally.’<a id="FNanchor_117" href="#Footnote_117" class="fnanchor">117</a> This is the little work
-that is often referred to as ‘a Dialogue between Calvin
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_523">523</span>
-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.’<a id="FNanchor_118" href="#Footnote_118" class="fnanchor">118</a></p>
-
-<p>In the passage just quoted, Calvin seems to reply
-to what Vaticanus has said in his introduction to the
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_524">524</span>
-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&mdash;‘<i>impulsore et authore Calvino</i>.’
-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, &amp;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&mdash;<i>quippe combustos diligentia Calvini</i>.
-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.’</p>
-
-<p>Without defending the views of Servetus we thus
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_525">525</span>
-see Vaticanus asserting the courage and consistency of
-the victim which had been unjustly called in question
-by Calvin.</p>
-
-<p>Coming to the burden of the book we find as many
-as 150 passages from Calvin’s ‘Defensio orthodox&aelig;
-fidei’ commented and controverted, and in addition, four
-from the reply of Z&uuml;rich to the Council of Geneva.</p>
-
-<p>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.<a id="FNanchor_119" href="#Footnote_119" class="fnanchor">119</a> 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, <i>vivum lento igne torrendo</i>&mdash;punishment more
-horrible than Scythian or Cannibal ever contrived.’
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_526">526</span></p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>‘No man,’ says Mosheim,<a id="FNanchor_120" href="#Footnote_120" class="fnanchor">120</a> ‘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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_527">527</span>
-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!
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_528">528</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOK_II_CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII.</h2>
-
-<p class="center">CALVIN’S BIOGRAPHERS AND APOLOGISTS.</p>
-
-<p>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, <i>der Gerichtete</i>, 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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_529">529</span>
-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.’</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>Henry, to his honour, goes yet farther; he does not
-approve of Calvin’s attempt to detract from the horror
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_530">530</span>
-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 <i>Chien et meschant Garnement</i>,&mdash;dog and
-wicked scoundrel!</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_531">531</span>
-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.’</p>
-
-<p>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.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_532">532</span>
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_533">533</span></p>
-
-<h2>APPENDIX</h2>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_534">534</span>
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_535">535</span></p>
-
-<h2 id="APPENDIX">APPENDIX.</h2>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_536">536</span>
-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.’</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;as
-much as 3,810 livres&mdash;to the Duc de la Vailli&egrave;re, the
-greatest book collector of the age. On the death of De la
-Vailli&egrave;re, 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 Biblioth&egrave;que du Roi,
-and it now remains one of the treasures of the great National
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_537">537</span>
-Library of France. Much of the above information we gather
-from the letter of M. l’Abb&eacute; Rive, Librarian to the Duc de la
-Vailli&egrave;re, which is appended to the London edition of Dutens’
-‘Recherches sur l’origine des D&eacute;couvertes attribu&eacute;es aux
-Modernes,’ of the year 1766.</p>
-
-<p>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’&mdash;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 D&eacute;couverte
-de la Circulation du Sang’ (Paris, 1854), 2nd Ed.
-Ib. 1857, p. 154.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_538">538</span>
-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&mdash;‘<i>pr&aelig;stat nitiore</i>,’ 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).</p>
-
-<p>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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;thus, <span class="x-small">1791</span>, at the
-bottom of the last page. This, too, is a scarce book, so we
-presume the edition was small.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_539">539</span></p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
-
-<p>The next writer who refers to Servetus and his new views
-of the pulmonic circulation is Dr. James Douglas, in his
-‘Bibliographi&aelig; Anatomic&aelig; 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.</p>
-
-<p>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
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_540">540</span>
-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&mdash;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.</p>
-
-<p>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 C&aelig;salpino 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,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_541">541</span>
-in 1598. That the pulmonic or lesser circulation&mdash;more properly
-the passage or mode of transference of the blood from
-the right to the left side of the heart&mdash;was known to Servetus
-and to both Columbus and C&aelig;salpinus 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.</p>
-
-<p>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.</p>
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-<span class="small table">By H. R. FOX-BOURNE.<br />
-Two vols. demy 8vo. cloth, price 28s.</span></h2>
-
-<h2>JOHN KNOX AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.<br />
-<span class="small table">HIS WORK IN THE PULPIT, AND HIS INFLUENCE UPON THE
-LITURGY, ARTICLES, AND PARTIES.<br />
-By PETER LORIMER, D.D.<br />
-Demy 8vo. cloth, price 12s.</span></h2>
-
-<h2>AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A. B. GRANVILLE, F.R.S. ETC.<br />
-<span class="small table">Edited, with a Brief Account of the Concluding Years of his Life, by his
-youngest Daughter, PAULINA B. GRANVILLE.<br />
-Two vols. with a Portrait. Second Edition. Demy 8vo. cloth, price 32s.</span></h2>
-
-<p class="copy"><i>HENRY S. KING &amp; CO., London.</i>
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_1a">1</span></p>
-
-<p class="ph1">
-<span class="medium"><i>A LIST OF</i></span><br />
-<i>C. KEGAN PAUL &amp; CO.’S<br />
-PUBLICATIONS.</i><br />
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2a">2</span></p>
-
-<p class="author small">
-<i>1 Paternoster Square,<br />
-London.</i></p>
-
-<h2>
-<span class="medium">A LIST OF</span><br />
-C. KEGAN PAUL &amp; CO.’S<br />
-PUBLICATIONS.<br /></h2>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>ADAMS (F. O.) F.R.G.S.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The History of Japan</span>. From the Earliest
-Period to the Present Time. New Edition, revised. 2 volumes. With Maps
-and Plans. Demy 8vo. price 21<i>s.</i> each.</p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>ADAMSON (H. T.) B.D.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Truth as it is in Jesus</span>. Crown 8vo.
-cloth, price 8<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">The Three Sevens.</span> Crown 8vo. cloth, price 5<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>A. K. H. B.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">From a Quiet Place</span>. A New Volume of Sermons.
-Crown 8vo. cloth, price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>ALBERT (Mary)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Holland and her Heroes to the year 1585</span>.
-An Adaptation from ‘Motley’s Rise of the Dutch Republic.’ Small crown
-8vo. price 4<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>ALLEN (Rev. R.) M.A.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Abraham; his Life, Times, and Travels</span>,
-3,800 years ago. With Map. Second Edition. Post 8vo. price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>ALLEN (Grant) B.A.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Physiological &AElig;sthetics</span>. Large post 8vo. 9<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>ALLIES (T. W.) M.A.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Per Crucem ad Lucem</span>. The Result of a
-Life. 2 vols. Demy 8vo. cloth, price 25<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">A Life’s Decision.</span> Crown 8vo. cloth, price 7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>ANDERSON (R. C.) C.E.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Tables for Facilitating the Calculation
-of Every Detail in connection with Earthen and Masonry
-Dams</span>. Royal 8vo. price &pound;2. 2<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>ARCHER (Thomas)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">About my Father’s Business</span>. Work amidst the
-Sick, the Sad, and the Sorrowing. Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo. price 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>ARMSTRONG (Richard A.) B.A.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Latter-Day Teachers</span>. Six
-Lectures. Small crown 8vo. cloth, price 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>ARNOLD (Arthur)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Social Politics</span>. Demy 8vo. cloth, price 14<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Free Land.</span> Crown 8vo. cloth, price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>BADGER (George Percy) D.C.L.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">An English-Arabic Lexicon</span>. In
-which the equivalent for English Words and Idiomatic Sentences are rendered
-into literary and colloquial Arabic. Royal 4to. cloth, price &pound;9. 9<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>BAGEHOT (Walter)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The English Constitution</span>. A New Edition,
-Revised and Corrected, with an Introductory Dissertation on Recent Changes
-and Events. Crown 8vo. price 7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Lombard Street.</span> A Description of the Money Market. Seventh
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-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Some Articles on the Depreciation of Silver, and Topics
-connected with it.</span> Demy 8vo. price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>BAGOT (Alan)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Accidents in Mines</span>: Their Causes and Prevention.
-Crown 8vo. price 6<i>s.</i>
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3a">3</span></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>BAKER (Sir Sherston, Bart.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Halleck’s International Law</span>; or,
-Rules Regulating the Intercourse of States in Peace and War. A New Edition,
-revised, with Notes and Cases. 2 vols. Demy 8vo. price 38<i>s.</i></p>
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-
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-India.</span> 4to. With numerous Illustrations. Second Edition. Price 21<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>BARNES (William)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">An Outline of English Speechcraft</span>. Crown
-8vo. price 4<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Outlines of Redecraft (Logic).</span> With English Wording. Crown
-8vo. cloth, price 3<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>BARTLEY (G. C. T.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Domestic Economy</span>: Thrift in Every-Day Life.
-Taught in Dialogues suitable for children of all ages. Small cr. 8vo. price 2<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>BAUR (Ferdinand) Dr. Ph., Professor in Maulbronn.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">A Philological
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-adapted from the German. By <span class="smcap">C. Kegan Paul</span>, M.A. Oxon., and the
-Rev. <span class="smcap">E. D. Stone</span>, M.A., late Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, and
-Assistant Master at Eton. Crown 8vo. price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>BAYNES (Rev. Canon R. H.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">At the Communion Time</span>. A Manual
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-Derry and Raphoe. Cloth, price 1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>BELLINGHAM (Henry) M.P., Barrister-at-Law</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Social Aspects of
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-Translated and adapted from the French of M. le Baron de Haulleville. With
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-Crown 8vo. price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>BENT (J. Theodore)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Genoa</span>: How the Republic Rose and Fell. With
-18 Illustrations. Demy 8vo. cloth, price 18<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>BONWICK (J.) F.R.G.S.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Pyramid Facts and Fancies</span>. Crown 8vo.
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-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Egyptian Belief and Modern Thought.</span> Large post 8vo. cloth,
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-
-<p class="hang"><i>BOWEN (H. C.) M.A., Head Master of the Grocers’ Company’s Middle
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-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Studies in English</span>, for the use of Modern Schools. Small crown
-8vo. price 1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">English Grammar for Beginners.</span> Fcp. 8vo. cloth, price 1<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>BOWRING (Sir John)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Autobiographical Recollections of Sir
-John Bowring</span>. With Memoir by <span class="smcap">Lewin B. Bowring</span>. Demy 8vo. price 14<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>BRIDGETT (Rev. T. E.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">History of the Holy Eucharist in
-Great Britain</span>. 2 vols. Demy 8vo. cloth, price 18<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>BRODRICK (the Hon. G. C.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Political Studies</span>. Demy 8vo. cloth,
-price 14<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>BROOKE (Rev. S. A.) M.A., Chaplain in Ordinary to Her Majesty the
-Queen, and Minister of Bedford Chapel, Bloomsbury.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Life and Letters of the Late Rev. F. W. Robertson</span>, M.A.,
-Edited by.</p>
-
-<table>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr">I.</td>
- <td>Uniform with the Sermons. 2 vols. With Steel Portrait. Price 7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr">II.</td>
- <td>Library Edition. 8vo. With Portrait. Price 12<i>s.</i></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class="tdr">III.</td>
- <td>A Popular Edition. In 1 vol. 8vo. price 6<i>s.</i></td>
- </tr>
-</table>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_4a">4</span></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">The Spirit of the Christian Life.</span> A New Volume of Sermons.
-Crown 8vo. cloth, price 7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">The Fight of Faith.</span> Sermons preached on various occasions.
-Fifth Edition. Crown 8vo. price 7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Theology in the English Poets.</span>&mdash;Cowper, Coleridge, Wordsworth,
-and Burns. Fourth and Cheaper Edition. Post 8vo. price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Christ in Modern Life.</span> Fifteenth and Cheaper Edition. Crown
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-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Sermons.</span> First Series. Eleventh Edition. Crown 8vo. price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Sermons.</span> Second Series. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. price 7<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>BROOKE (W. G.) M.A.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Public Worship Regulation Act</span>.
-With a Classified Statement of its Provisions, Notes, and Index. Third
-Edition, revised and corrected. Crown 8vo. price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Six Privy Council Judgments&mdash;1850-72.</span> Annotated by. Third
-Edition. Crown 8vo. price 9<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>BROUN (J. A.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Magnetic Observations at Trevandrum and
-Augustia Malley</span>. Vol. 1. 4to. price 63<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p>The Report from above, separately, sewed, price 21<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>BROWN (Rev. J. Baldwin) B.A.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Higher Life</span>. Its Reality,
-Experience, and Destiny. Fifth Edition. Crown 8vo. price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Doctrine of Annihilation in the Light of the Gospel of
-Love.</span> Five Discourses. Third Edition. Crown 8vo. price 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">The Christian Policy of Life.</span> A Book for Young Men of
-Business. New and Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo. cloth, price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>BROWN (J. Croumbie) LL.D.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Reboisement in France</span>; or, Records
-of the Replanting of the Alps, the Cevennes, and the Pyrenees with Trees,
-Herbage, and Bush. Demy 8vo. price 12<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">The Hydrology of Southern Africa.</span> Demy 8vo. price 10<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>BROWNE (W. R.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Inspiration of the New Testament</span>. With
-a Preface by the Rev. J. P. Norris, D.D. Fcp. 8vo. cloth, price 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>BURCKHARDT (Jacob)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Civilization of the Period of the
-Renaissance in Italy</span>. Authorised translation, by S. G. C. Middlemore.
-2 vols. Demy 8vo. price 24<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>BURTON (Mrs. Richard)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Inner Life of Syria, Palestine, and
-the Holy Land</span>. With Maps, Photographs, and Coloured Plates. 2 vols.
-Second Edition. Demy 8vo. price 24<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">⁂ Also a Cheaper Edition in one volume. Large post 8vo. cloth, price 10<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>BURTON (Capt. Richard F.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Gold Mines of Midian and the
-Ruined Midianite Cities</span>. A Fortnight’s Tour in North Western Arabia.
-With numerous Illustrations. Second Edition. Demy 8vo. price 18<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">The Land of Midian Revisited.</span> With numerous Illustrations on
-Wood and by Chromolithography. 2 vols. Demy 8vo. cloth, price 32<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>BUSBECQ (Ogier Ghiselin de)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">His Life and Letters</span>. By <span class="smcap">Charles
-Thornton Forster</span>, M.A., and <span class="smcap">F. H. Blackburne Daniell</span>, M.A.
-2 vols. With Frontispieces. Demy 8vo. cloth, price 24<i>s.</i></p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_5a">5</span></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>CANDLER (H.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Groundwork of Belief</span>. Crown 8vo. cloth,
-price 7<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>CARPENTER (Dr. Philip P.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">His Life and Work</span>. Edited by his
-brother, Russell Lant Carpenter. With Portrait and Vignettes. Second
-Edition. Crown 8vo. cloth, price 7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>CARPENTER (W. B.) LL.D., M.D., F.R.S., &amp;c.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Principles
-of Mental Physiology</span>. With their Applications to the Training and
-Discipline of the Mind, and the Study of its Morbid Conditions. Illustrated.
-Fifth Edition. 8vo. price 12<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>CERVANTES</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Ingenious Knight Don Quixote de la Mancha</span>.
-A New Translation from the Originals of 1605 and 1608. By <span class="smcap">A. J. Duffield</span>.
-With Notes. 3 vols. Demy 8vo. price 42<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>CHEYNE (Rev. T. K.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Prophecies of Isaiah</span>. Translated with
-Critical Notes and Dissertations. 2 vols. Demy 8vo. cloth, price 25<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>CLAIRAUT</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Elements of Geometry</span>. Translated by Dr. <span class="smcap">Kaines</span>.
-With 145 Figures. Crown 8vo. cloth, price 4<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>CLAYDEN (P. W.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">England under Lord Beaconsfield</span>. The
-Political History of the Last Six Years, from the end of 1873 to the beginning
-of 1880. Second Edition, with Index and continuation to March 1880. Demy
-8vo. cloth, price 16<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>CLODD (Edward) F.R.A.S.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Childhood of the World</span>: a
-Simple Account of Man in Early Times. Sixth Edition. Crown 8vo. price 3<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p>A Special Edition for Schools. Price 1<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">The Childhood of Religions.</span> Including a Simple Account of the
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-
-<p>A Special Edition for Schools. Price 1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
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-Time of His Birth. Small crown 8vo. cloth, price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>COGHLAN (J. Cole) D.D.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Modern Pharisee and other
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-Chapel Royal, Dublin. New and Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo. cloth, 7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>COLERIDGE (Sara)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Phantasmion</span>. A Fairy Tale. With an Introductory
-Preface by the Right Hon. Lord Coleridge, of Ottery St. Mary. A
-New Edition. Illustrated. Crown 8vo. price 7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Memoir and Letters of Sara Coleridge.</span> Edited by her Daughter.
-With Index. Cheap Edition. With one Portrait. Price 7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>COLLINS (Mortimer)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Secret of Long Life</span>. Small crown 8vo.
-cloth, price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>CONNELL (A. K.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Discontent and Danger in India</span>. Small crown
-8vo. cloth, price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>COOKE (Prof. J. P.) of the Harvard University.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Scientific Culture.</span>
-Crown 8vo. price 1<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>COOPER (H. J.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Art of Furnishing on Rational and
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-
-<p class="hang"><i>CORFIELD (Professor) M.D.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Health</span>. Crown 8vo. cloth, price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>CORY (William)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">A Guide to Modern English History</span>. Part I.&mdash;MDCCCXV.-MDCCCXXX.
-Demy 8vo. cloth, price 9<i>s.</i></p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_6a">6</span></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>COURTNEY (W. L.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Metaphysics of John Stuart Mill</span>.
-Crown 8vo. cloth, price 5<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>COX (Rev. Sir George W.) M.A., Bart.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">A History of Greece from the
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-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.</span> New Edition. 2 vols.
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-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">A General History of Greece from the Earliest Period to the
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-
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-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">The Great Persian War from the History of Herodotus.</span>
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-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">A Manual of Mythology in the form of Question and Answer.</span>
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-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">An Introduction to the Science of Comparative Mythology
-and Folk-Lore.</span> Crown 8vo. cloth, price 9<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>COX (Rev. Sir G. W.) M.A., Bart., and JONES (Eustace Hinton)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Popular
-Romances of the Middle Ages</span>. Second Edition, in 1 vol.
-Crown 8vo. cloth, price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>COX (Rev. Samuel)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Salvator Mundi</span>; or, Is Christ the Saviour of all
-Men? Sixth Edition. Crown 8vo. price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">The Genesis of Evil, and other Sermons</span>, mainly expository.
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-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">A Commentary on the Book of Job.</span> With a Translation. Demy
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-<p class="hang"><i>CRAVEN (Mrs.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">A Year’s Meditations</span>. Crown 8vo. cloth, price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>CRAWFURD (Oswald)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Portugal, Old and New</span>. With Illustrations
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-
-<p class="hang"><i>CROZIER (John Beattie) M.B.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Religion of the Future</span>.
-Crown 8vo. cloth, price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>DALTON (John Neale) M.A., R.N.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Sermons to Naval Cadets</span>.
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-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_9a">9</span></p>
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-Study of the Fourth Evangelist. Demy 8vo. cloth, price 14<i>s.</i></p>
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-<p class="hang"><i>GRIMLEY (Rev. H. N.) M.A.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Tremadoc Sermons, chiefly on the
-Spiritual Body, the Unseen World, and the Divine Humanity</span>.
-Second Edition. Crown 8vo. price 6<i>s.</i></p>
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-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_10a">10</span></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>HAECKEL (Prof. Ernst)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The History of Creation</span>. Translation
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-
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-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_11a">11</span></p>
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-<p class="hang"><i>HELLWALD (Baron F. Von)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Russians in Central Asia</span>.
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-<p class="hang"><i>HINTON (J.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Place of the Physician</span>. To which is added
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-
-<p class="hang"><i>HUTTON (Arthur) M.A.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Anglican Ministry</span>: its Nature and
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-<p class="hang"><i>JENKINS (E.) and RAYMOND (J.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Architect’s Legal
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-
-<p class="hang"><i>JENKINS (Rev. R. C.) M.A.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Privilege of Peter</span> and the Claims
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-Testimony of the Popes themselves. Fcp. 8vo. price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_12a">12</span></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>JENNINGS (Mrs. Vaughan)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Rahel: Her Life and Letters</span>. With
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-
-<p class="hang"><i>JOEL (L.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">A Consul’s Manual and Shipowner’s and Shipmaster’s
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-
-<p class="hang"><i>JOHNSTONE (C. F.) M.A.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Historical Abstracts</span>: being Outlines
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-<p class="hang"><i>JONES (Lucy)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Puddings and Sweets</span>; being Three Hundred and
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-
-<p class="hang"><i>JOYCE (P. W.) LL.D. &amp;c.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Old Celtic Romances</span>. Translated from
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-
-<p class="hang"><i>KAUFMANN (Rev. M.) B.A.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Socialism</span>: Its Nature, its Dangers, and
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-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Utopias</span>; or, Schemes of Social Improvement, from Sir Thomas More
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-
-<p class="hang"><i>KAY (Joseph) M.A., Q.C.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Free Trade in Land</span>. Edited by his
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-Edition. Crown 8vo. cloth, price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>KENT (C.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Corona Catholica ad Petri successoris Pedes
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-In Quinquaginta Linguis. Fcp. 4to. cloth, price 15<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>KERNER (Dr. A.) Professor of Botany in the University of Innsbruck.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Flowers
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-M.A., M.D. With Illustrations. Square 8vo. cloth, price 9<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>KIDD (Joseph) M.D.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Laws of Therapeutics</span>; or, the Science
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-
-<p class="hang"><i>KINAHAN (G. Henry) M.R.I.A., of H.M.‘s Geological Survey.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The
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-
-<p class="hang"><i>KINGSLEY (Charles) M.A.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Letters and Memories of his Life</span>.
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-
-<p>⁂ Also the Ninth Cabinet Edition, in 2 vols. Crown 8vo. cloth, price 12<i>s.</i></p>
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-
-<p class="hang"><i>KNIGHT (Professor W.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Studies in Philosophy and Literature</span>.
-Large post 8vo. cloth, price 7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>KNOX (Alexander A.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The New Playground</span>; or, Wanderings in
-Algeria. Large crown 8vo. cloth, price 10<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_13a">13</span></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>LACORDAIRE (Rev. P&egrave;re)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Life</span>: Conferences delivered at Toulouse.
-A New and Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo. price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>LEE (Rev. F. G.) D.C.L.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Other World</span>; or, Glimpses of the
-Supernatural. 2 vols. A New Edition. Crown 8vo. price 15<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>LEWIS (Edward Dillon)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">A Draft Code of Criminal Law and
-Procedure</span>. Demy 8vo. cloth, price 21<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Life in the Mofussil</span>; or, Civilian Life in Lower Bengal. By an Ex-Civilian.
-Large post 8vo. price 14<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>LINDSAY (W. Lauder) M.D., F.R.S.E., &amp;c.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Mind in the Lower
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-
-<p class="hang2">Vol. I.&mdash;Mind in Health. Vol. II.&mdash;Mind in Disease.</p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>LLOYD (Francis), and TEBBITT (Charles)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Extension of Empire,
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-
-<p class="hang"><i>LONSDALE (Margaret)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Sister Dora</span>: a Biography. With Portrait.
-Twenty-fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. cloth, price 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>LORIMER (Peter) D.D.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">John Knox and the Church of England</span>.
-His Work in her Pulpit, and his Influence upon her Liturgy, Articles, and
-Parties. Demy 8vo. price 12<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">John Wiclif and his English Precursors.</span> By <span class="smcap">Gerhard Victor
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-Demy 8vo. price 21<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>MACLACHLAN (Mrs.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Notes and Extracts on Everlasting
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-
-<p class="hang"><i>MACNAUGHT (Rev. John)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Cœna Domini</span>: An Essay on the Lord’s
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-Demy 8vo. price 14<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>MAGNUS (Mrs.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">About the Jews since Bible Times</span>. From the
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-
-<p class="hang"><i>MAIR (R. S.) M.D., F.R.C.S.E.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Medical Guide for Anglo-Indians</span>.
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-price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>MANNING (His Eminence Cardinal)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The True Story of the Vatican
-Council</span>. Crown 8vo. price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>MARKHAM (Capt. Albert Hastings) R.N.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Great Frozen Sea</span>:
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-Woodcuts. Fourth and Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo. cloth, price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">A Polar Reconnaissance</span>: being the Voyage of the ‘Isbj&ouml;rn’ to
-Novaya Zemlya in 1879. With 10 Illustrations. Demy 8vo. cloth, price 16<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>MARTINEAU (Gertrude)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Outline Lessons on Morals</span>. Small
-crown 8vo. cloth, price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>McGRATH (Terence)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Pictures from Ireland</span>. New and Cheaper
-Edition. Crown 8vo. cloth, price 2<i>s.</i></p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_14a">14</span></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>MERRITT (Henry)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Art-Criticism and Romance</span>. With Recollections
-and Twenty-three Illustrations in <i>eau-forte</i>, by Anna Lea Merritt. 2 vols.
-Large post 8vo. cloth, price 25<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>MILLER (Edward)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The History and Doctrines of Irvingism</span>;
-or, the so-called Catholic and Apostolic Church. 2 vols. Large post 8vo.
-price 25<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">The Church in Relation to the State.</span> Large crown 8vo.
-cloth, price 7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>MILNE (James)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Tables of Exchange</span> for the Conversion of Sterling
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-Rupee. Second Edition. Demy 8vo. cloth, price &pound;<i>2.</i> 2<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>MINCHIN (J. G.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Bulgaria since the War</span>: Notes of a Tour in the
-Autumn of 1879. Small crown 8vo. cloth, price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>MOCKLER (E.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">A Grammar of the Baloochee Language</span>, as it is
-spoken in Makran (Ancient Gedrosia), in the Persia-Arabic and Roman
-characters. Fcp. 8vo. price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>MOFFAT (R. S.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Economy of Consumption</span>: a Study in Political
-Economy. Demy 8vo. price 18<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">The Principles of a Time Policy</span>: being an Exposition of a
-Method of Settling Disputes between Employers and Employed in regard to
-Time and Wages, by a simple Process of Mercantile Barter, without recourse
-to Strikes or Locks-out. Reprinted from ‘The Economy of Consumption,’
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-book, and a Re-criticism of the Theories of Ricardo and J. S. Mill on Rent,
-Value, and Cost of Production. Demy 8vo. price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>MORELL (J. R.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Euclid Simplified in Method and Language</span>.
-Being a Manual of Geometry. Compiled from the most important French
-Works, approved by the University of Paris and the Minister of Public
-Instruction. Fcp. 8vo. price 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>MORSE (E. S.) Ph.D.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">First Book of Zoology</span>. With numerous
-Illustrations. New and Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo. price 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>MUNRO (Major-Gen. Sir Thomas) Bart. K.C.B., Governor of Madras.</i>
-<span class="smcap">Selections from his Minutes and other Official Writings.</span> Edited,
-with an Introductory Memoir, by Sir <span class="smcap">Alexander Arbuthnot, K.C.S.I.,
-C.I.E.</span> 2 vols. Demy 8vo. cloth, price 30<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>NELSON (J. H.) M.A.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">A Prospectus of the Scientific Study of
-the Hind&ucirc; Law</span>. Demy 8vo. cloth, price 9<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>NEWMAN (J. H.) D.D.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Characteristics from the Writings of</span>.
-Being Selections from his various Works. Arranged with the Author’s
-personal Approval. Third Edition. With Portrait. Crown 8vo. price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">⁂ A Portrait of the Rev. Dr. J. H. Newman, mounted for framing, can be had,
-price 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">New Werther.</span> By <span class="smcap">Loki</span>. Small crown 8vo. cloth, price 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>NICHOLAS (T.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Pedigree of the English People</span>. Fifth
-Edition. Demy 8vo. price 16<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>NICHOLSON (Edward Byron)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Gospel according to the
-Hebrews</span>. Its Fragments Translated and Annotated with a Critical Analysis of
-the External and Internal Evidence relating to it. Demy 8vo. cloth, price 9<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">A New Commentary on the Gospel according to Matthew.</span>
-Demy 8vo. cloth, price 12<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">The Rights of an Animal.</span> Crown 8vo. cloth, price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_15a">15</span></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>NICOLS (Arthur) F.G.S., F.R.G.S.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Chapters from the Physical
-History of the Earth</span>: an Introduction to Geology and Pal&aelig;ontology.
-With numerous Illustrations. Crown 8vo. cloth, price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Norman People (The)</span>, and their Existing Descendants in the British
-Dominions and the United States of America. Demy 8vo. price 21<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Nuces: Exercises on the Syntax of the Public School Latin Primer.</span>
-New Edition in Three Parts. Crown 8vo. each 1<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p>⁂ The Three Parts can also be had bound together in cloth, price 3<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>OATES (Frank) F.R.G.S.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Matabele Land and the Victoria Falls</span>.
-A Naturalist’s Wanderings in the Interior of South Africa. Edited by <span class="smcap">C. G.
-Oates</span>, B.A. With numerous Illustrations and 4 Maps. Demy 8vo. cloth.</p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Of the Imitation of Christ.</span> Four Books. Demy 32mo. cloth limp, 1<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p>
-⁂ Also in various bindings.<br />
-</p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>O’MEARA (Kathleen)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Frederic Ozanam</span>, Professor of the Sorbonne:
-His Life and Work. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. cloth, price 7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Henri Perreyve and his Counsels to the Sick.</span> Small crown
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-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Our Public Schools&mdash;Eton, Harrow, Winchester, Rugby, Westminster,
-Marlborough, The Charterhouse.</span> Crown 8vo. cloth, price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>OWEN (F. M.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">John Keats</span>: a Study. Crown 8vo. cloth, price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>OWEN (Rev. Robert) B.D.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Sanctorale Catholicum</span>; or, Book of
-Saints. With Notes, Critical, Exegetical, and Historical. Demy 8vo. cloth,
-price 18<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">An Essay on the Communion of Saints.</span> Including an Examination
-of the Cultus Sanctorum. Price 2<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Parchment Library.</span> Choicely printed on hand-made paper, limp parchment
-antique, 6<i>s.</i> each; vellum, 7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> each.</p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Shakspere’s Sonnets.</span> Edited by <span class="smcap">Edward Dowden</span>, Author of
-‘Shakspere: his Mind and Art,’ &amp;c. With a Frontispiece etched by Leopold
-Lowenstam, after the Death Mask.</p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">English Odes.</span> Selected by <span class="smcap">Edmund W. Gosse</span>, Author of
-‘Studies in the Literature of Northern Europe.’ With frontispiece on India
-paper by Hamo Thornycroft, A.R.A.</p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Of the Imitation of Christ.</span> By <span class="smcap">Thomas &agrave; Kempis</span>. A revised
-Translation. With Frontispiece on India paper, from a Design by W. B.
-Richmond.</p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Tennyson’s The Princess</span>: a Medley. With a Miniature Frontispiece
-by H. M. Paget, and a Tailpiece in Outline by Gordon Browne.</p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Poems</span>: Selected from <span class="smcap">Percy Bysshe Shelley</span>. Dedicated to Lady
-Shelley. With Preface by <span class="smcap">Richard Garnet</span> and a Miniature Frontispiece.</p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Tennyson’s ‘In Memoriam.’</span> With a Miniature Portrait in <i>eau-forte</i>
-by Le Rat, after a Photograph by the late Mrs. Cameron.</p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>PARKER (Joseph) D.D.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Paraclete</span>: An Essay on the Personality
-and Ministry of the Holy Ghost, with some reference to current discussions.
-Second Edition. Demy 8vo. price 12<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>PARR (Capt. H. Hallam, C.M.G.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">A Sketch of the Kafir and
-Zulu Wars</span>: Guadana to Isandhlwana. With Maps. Small crown 8vo.
-cloth, price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_16a">16</span></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>Parsloe (Joseph)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Our Railways</span>. Sketches, Historical and
-Descriptive. With Practical Information as to Fares and Rates, &amp;c., and a
-Chapter on Railway Reform. Crown 8vo. price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>PATTISON (Mrs. Mark)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Renaissance of Art in France</span>. With
-Nineteen Steel Engravings. 2 vols. Demy 8vo. cloth, price 32<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>PAUL (C. Kegan)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">William Godwin: His Friends and Contemporaries</span>.
-With Portraits and Facsimiles of the Handwriting of Godwin
-and his Wife. 2 vols. Square post 8vo. price 28<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">The Genius of Christianity Unveiled.</span> Being Essays by William
-Godwin never before published. Edited, with a Preface, by C. Kegan Paul.
-Crown 8vo. price 7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Mary Wollstonecraft.</span> Letters to Imlay. New Edition with
-Prefatory Memoir by. Two Portraits in <i>eau-forte</i> by <span class="smcap">Anna Lea Merritt</span>.
-Crown 8vo. cloth, price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>PAYNE (Prof. J. F.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Fr&ouml;bel and the Kindergarten System</span>.
-Second Edition.</p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">A Visit to German Schools: Elementary Schools in Germany.</span>
-Notes of a Professional Tour to inspect some of the Kindergartens, Primary
-Schools, Public Girls’ Schools, and Schools for Technical Instruction in
-Hamburgh, Berlin, Dresden, Weimar, Gotha, Eisenach, in the autumn of
-1874. With Critical Discussions of the General Principles and Practice of
-Kindergartens and other Schemes of Elementary Education. Crown 8vo.
-price 4<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>PENRICE (Maj. J.) B.A.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">A Dictionary and Glossary of the
-Koran</span>. With Copious Grammatical References and Explanations of the
-Text. 4to. price 21<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>PESCHEL (Dr. Oscar)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Races of Man and their Geographical
-Distribution</span>. Large crown 8vo. price 9<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>PETERS (F. A.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle</span>. Translated
-by. Crown 8vo. cloth, price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>PINCHES (Thomas) M.A.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Samuel Wilberforce: Faith&mdash;Service&mdash;Recompense</span>.
-Three Sermons. With a Portrait of Bishop Wilberforce
-(after a Portrait by Charles Watkins). Crown 8vo. cloth, price 4<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>PLAYFAIR (Lieut.-Col.) Her Britannic Majesty’s Consul-General in
-Algiers</i>.</p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Travels in the Footsteps of Bruce in Algeria and Tunis.</span>
-Illustrated by facsimiles of Bruce’s original Drawings, Photographs, Maps, &amp;c.
-Royal 4to. cloth, bevelled boards, gilt leaves, price &pound;3. 3<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>POLLOCK (Frederick)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Spinoza, his Life and Philosophy</span>. Demy
-8vo. cloth, price 16<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>POLLOCK (W. H.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Lectures on French Poets</span>. Delivered at the
-Royal Institution. Small crown 8vo. cloth, price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>POOR (Laura E.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Sanskrit and its Kindred Literatures</span>. Studies
-in Comparative Mythology. Small crown 8vo. cloth, price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>POUSHKIN (A. S.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Russian Romance</span>. Translated from the Tales
-of Belkin, &amp;c. By Mrs. J. Buchan Telfer (<i>n&eacute;e</i> Mouravieff). New and
-Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo. price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_17a">17</span></p>
-
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-<p class="hang"><i>YOUMANS (Eliza A.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">An Essay on the Culture of the Observing
-Powers of Children</span>, especially in connection with the Study of Botany.
-Edited, with Notes and a Supplement, by Joseph Payne, F.C.P., Author of
-‘Lectures on the Science and Art of Education,’ &amp;c. Crown 8vo. price 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">First Book of Botany.</span> Designed to Cultivate the Observing
-Powers of Children. With 300 Engravings. New and Cheaper Edition.
-Crown 8vo. price 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>YOUMANS (Edward L.) M.D.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">A Class Book of Chemistry</span>, on the
-Basis of the New System. With 200 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<h2 id="THE_INTERNATIONAL_SCIENTIFIC">THE INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC
-SERIES.</h2>
-
-<p class="hang2">I. <span class="smcap">Forms of Water</span>: a Familiar Exposition
-of the Origin and Phenomena of
-Glaciers. By J. Tyndall, LL.D.,
-F.R.S. With 25 Illustrations.
-Seventh Edition. Crown 8vo.
-price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">II. <span class="smcap">Physics and Politics</span>; or, Thoughts
-on the Application of the Principles
-of ‘Natural Selection’ and ‘Inheritance’
-to Political Society. By Walter
-Bagehot. Fifth Edition. Crown
-8vo. price 4<i>s.</i></p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_22a">22</span></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">III. <span class="smcap">Foods.</span> By Edward Smith, M.D.,
-LL.B., F.R.S. With numerous Illustrations.
-Seventh Edition. Crown 8vo.
-price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">IV. <span class="smcap">Mind and Body</span>: the Theories of
-their Relation. By Alexander Bain,
-LL.D. With Four Illustrations.
-Tenth Edition. Crown 8vo. price 4<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">V. <span class="smcap">The Study of Sociology.</span> By Herbert
-Spencer. Tenth Edition. Crown
-8vo. price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">VI. <span class="smcap">On the Conservation of Energy.</span>,
-By Balfour Stewart, M.A., LL.D.,
-F.R.S. With 14 Illustrations. Fifth
-Edition. Crown 8vo. price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">VII. <span class="smcap">Animal Locomotion</span>; or, Walking,
-Swimming, and Flying. By J. B.
-Pettigrew, M.D., F.R.S., &amp;c. With
-130 Illustrations. Second Edition.
-Crown 8vo. price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">VIII. <span class="smcap">Responsibility in Mental
-Disease.</span> By Henry Maudsley, M.D.
-Third Edition. Crown 8vo. price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">IX. <span class="smcap">The New Chemistry.</span> By Professor
-J. P. Cooke, of the Harvard University.
-With 31 Illustrations. Fifth
-Edition. Crown 8vo. price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">X. <span class="smcap">The Science of Law.</span> By Professor
-Sheldon Amos. Fourth Edition.
-Crown 8vo. price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">XI. <span class="smcap">Animal Mechanism</span>: a Treatise on
-Terrestrial and Aerial Locomotion.
-By Professor E. J. Marey. With 117
-Illustrations. Second Edition. Crown
-8vo. price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">XII. <span class="smcap">The Doctrine of Descent and
-Darwinism.</span> By Professor Oscar
-Schmidt (Strasburg University). With
-26 Illustrations. Fourth Edit. Crown
-8vo. price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">XIII. <span class="smcap">The History of the Conflict
-between Religion and Science.</span>
-By J. W. Draper, M.D., LL.D.
-Fifteenth Edition. Crown 8vo.
-price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">XIV. <span class="smcap">Fungi</span>: their Nature, Influences,
-Uses, &amp;c. By M. C. Cooke, M.D.,
-LL.D. Edited by the Rev. M. J.
-Berkeley, M.A., F.L.S. With numerous
-Illustrations. Second Edition.
-Crown 8vo. price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">XV. <span class="smcap">The Chemical Effects of Light
-and Photography.</span> By Dr. Hermann
-Vogel (Polytechnic Academy of
-Berlin). Translation thoroughly revised.
-With 100 Illustrations. Third
-Edition. Crown 8vo. price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">XVI. <span class="smcap">The Life and Growth of Language.</span>
-By William Dwight Whitney,
-Professor of Sanscrit and Comparative
-Philology in Yale College, Newhaven.
-Third Edition. Crown 8vo. price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">XVII. <span class="smcap">Money and the Mechanism of
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-M.A., F.R.S. Fourth Edition.
-Crown 8vo. price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">XVIII. <span class="smcap">The Nature of Light.</span> With
-a General Account of Physical Optics.
-By Dr. Eugene Lommel, Professor of
-Physics in the University of Erlangen,
-With 188 Illustrations and a Table
-of Spectra in Chromo-lithography.
-Third Edition. Crown 8vo. price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">XIX. <span class="smcap">Animal Parasites and Messmates.</span>
-By Monsieur Van Beneden,
-Professor of the University of Louvain,
-Correspondent of the Institute of
-France. With 83 Illustrations. Second
-Edition. Crown 8vo. price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">XX. <span class="smcap">Fermentation.</span> By Professor
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-With 28 Illustrations. Third Edition.
-Crown 8vo. price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">XXI. <span class="smcap">The Five Senses of Man.</span> By
-Professor Bernstein, of the University
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-Second Edition. Crown 8vo. price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">XXII. <span class="smcap">The Theory of Sound in its
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-Second Edition. Crown 8vo.
-price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">XXIII. <span class="smcap">Studies in Spectrum Analysis.</span>
-By J. Norman Lockyer, F.R.S.
-With six photographic Illustrations of
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-Wood. Crown 8vo. Second Edition.
-Price 6<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">XXIV. <span class="smcap">A History of the Growth of
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-R. H. Thurston. With numerous
-Illustrations. Second Edition. Crown
-8vo. cloth, price 6<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">XXV. <span class="smcap">Education as a Science.</span> By
-Alexander Bain, LL.D. Third
-Edition. Crown 8vo. cloth, price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">XXVI. <span class="smcap">The Human Species.</span> By Prof.
-A. de Quatrefages. Third Edition.
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-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_23a">23</span></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">XXVII. <span class="smcap">Modern Chromatics.</span> With
-Applications to Art and Industry. By
-Ogden N. Rood. With 130 original
-Illustrations. Second Edition. Crown
-8vo. cloth, price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">XXVIII. <span class="smcap">The Crayfish</span>: an Introduction
-to the Study of Zoology, By
-Professor T. H. Huxley. With 82
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-8vo. cloth, price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">XXIX. <span class="smcap">The Brain as an Organ of
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-M.D. With numerous Illustrations.
-Second Edition. Crown 8vo. cloth,
-price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">XXX. <span class="smcap">The Atomic Theory.</span> By Prof.
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-F.C.S. Second Edition. Crown
-8vo. cloth, price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">XXXI. <span class="smcap">The Natural Conditions of
-Existence as they affect Animal
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-and 106 Woodcuts. Second Edition.
-Crown 8vo. cloth, price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">XXXII. <span class="smcap">General Physiology of
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-
-<p class="hang2">XXXIII. <span class="smcap">Sight</span>: an Exposition of the
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-With 132 Illustrations. Crown 8vo.
-cloth, price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">XXXIV. <span class="smcap">Illusions</span>: a Psychological
-Study. By James Sully. Crown
-8vo. cloth, price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">XXXV. <span class="smcap">Volcanoes: what they are
-and what they teach.</span> By
-Professor J. W. Judd, F.R.S. With
-92 Illustrations on Wood. Crown
-8vo. cloth, price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<h2 id="MILITARY_WORKS">MILITARY WORKS.</h2>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>ANDERSON (Col. R. P.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Victories
-and Defeats</span>: an Attempt to explain
-the Causes which have led to
-them. An Officer’s Manual. Demy
-8vo. price 14<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Army of the North German Confederation</span>:
-a Brief Description
-of its Organisation, of the Different
-Branches of the Service and their <i>r&ocirc;le</i>
-in War, of its Mode of Fighting, &amp;c.
-Translated from the Corrected Edition,
-by permission of the Author, by
-Colonel Edward Newdigate. Demy
-8vo. price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>BLUME (Maj. W.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Operations
-of the German Armies in France</span>,
-from Sedan to the end of the War of
-1870-71. With Map. From the
-Journals of the Head-quarters Staff.
-Translated by the late E. M. Jones,
-Maj. 20th Foot, Prof. of Mil. Hist.,
-Sandhurst. Demy 8vo. price 9<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>BOGUSLAWSKI (Capt. A. von)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Tactical
-Deductions from the War
-of 1870-1</span>. Translated by Colonel
-Sir Lumley Graham, Bart., late 18th
-(Royal Irish) Regiment. Third Edition,
-Revised and Corrected. Demy
-8vo. price 7<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>BRACKENBURY (Lieut.-Col.) C.B.,
-R.A., A.A.G.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Military Handbooks
-for Regimental Officers</span>.
-I. Military Sketching and Reconnaissance,
-by Lieut.-Col. F. J. Hutchison,
-and Capt. H. G. MacGregor.
-Second Edition. With 15 Plates.
-Small 8vo. cloth, price 6<i>s.</i> II. The
-Elements of Modern Tactics Practically
-applied to English Formations, by
-Major Wilkinson Shaw. Second and
-Cheaper Edition. With 25 Plates and
-Maps. Small cr. 8vo. cloth, price 9<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>BRIALMONT (Col. A.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Hasty Intrenchments</span>.
-Translated by Lieut.
-Charles A. Empson, R.A. With
-Nine Plates. Demy 8vo. price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>CLERY (C.) Lieut.-Col.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Minor Tactics</span>.
-With 26 Maps and Plans.
-Fifth and revised Edition. Demy
-8vo. cloth, price 16<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>DU VERNOIS (Col. von Verdy)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Studies
-in Leading Troops</span>. An
-authorised and accurate Translation by
-Lieutenant H. J. T. Hildyard, 71st
-Foot. Parts I. and II. Demy 8vo.
-price 7<i>s.</i></p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_24a">24</span></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>GOETZE (Capt. A. von)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Operations
-of the German Engineers during
-the War of 1870-1</span>. Published
-by Authority, and in accordance with
-Official Documents. Translated from
-the German by Colonel G. Graham,
-V.C., C.B., R.E. With 6 large
-Maps. Demy 8vo. price 21<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>HARRISON (Lieut.-Col. R.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The
-Officer’s Memorandum Book for
-Peace and War</span>. Third Edition.
-Oblong 32mo. roan, with pencil, price
-3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>HELVIG (Capt. H.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Operations
-of the Bavarian Army Corps</span>.
-Translated by Captain G. S. Schwabe.
-With Five large Maps. In 2 vols.
-Demy 8vo. price 24<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Tactical Examples</span>: Vol. I. The
-Battalion, price 15<i>s.</i> Vol. II. The
-Regiment and Brigade, price 10<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>
-Translated from the German by Col.
-Sir Lumley Graham. With nearly
-300 Diagrams. Demy 8vo. cloth,.</p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>HOFFBAUER (Capt.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The German
-Artillery in the Battles near
-Metz</span>. Based on the Official Reports of
-the German Artillery. Translated by
-Captain E. O. Hollist. With Map
-and Plans. Demy 8vo. price 21<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>LAYMANN (Capt.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Frontal
-Attack of Infantry</span>. Translated
-by Colonel Edward Newdigate. Crown
-8vo. price 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Notes on Cavalry Tactics, Organisation,
-&amp;c.</span> By a Cavalry Officer.
-With Diagrams. Demy 8vo. cloth,
-price 12<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>PARR (Capt H. Hallam) C.M.G.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The
-Dress, Horses, and Equipment of
-Infantry and Staff Officers</span>.
-Crown 8vo. cloth, price 1<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>SCHELL (Maj. von)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Operations
-of the First Army under Gen.
-von Goeben</span>. Translated by Col.
-C. H. von Wright. Four Maps.
-Demy 8vo. price 9<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">The Operations of the First Army
-under Gen. von Steinmetz.</span>
-Translated by Captain E. O. Hollist.
-Demy 8vo. price 10<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>SCHELLENDORF (Major-Gen. B. von)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The
-Duties of the General
-Staff</span>. Translated from the German
-by Lieutenant Hare. Vol. I. Demy
-8vo. cloth, price 10<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>SCHERFF (Maj. W. von)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Studies in
-the New Infantry Tactics</span>.
-Parts I. and II. Translated from the
-German by Colonel Lumley Graham.
-Demy 8vo. price 7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>SHADWELL (Maj.-Gen.) C.B.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Mountain
-Warfare</span>. Illustrated by the
-Campaign of 1799 in Switzerland.
-Being a Translation of the Swiss
-Narrative compiled from the Works of
-the Archduke Charles, Jomini, and
-others. Also of Notes by General
-H. Dufour on the Campaign of the
-Valtelline in 1635. With Appendix,
-Maps, and Introductory Remarks.
-Demy 8vo. price 16<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>SHERMAN (Gen. W. T.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Memoirs of
-General W. T. Sherman</span>, Commander
-of the Federal Forces in the
-American Civil War. By Himself.
-2 vols. With Map. Demy 8vo. price
-24<i>s. Copyright English Edition.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>STUBBS (Lieut.-Col. F. W.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The
-Regiment of Bengal Artillery</span>.
-The History of its Organisation, Equipment,
-and War Services. Compiled
-from Published Works, Official Records,
-and various Private Sources.
-With numerous Maps and Illustrations.
-2 vols. Demy 8vo. price 32<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>STUMM (Lieut. Hugo), German Military
-Attach&eacute; to the Khivan Expedition.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Russia’s
-Advance Eastward.</span>
-Based on the Official Reports of.
-Translated by Capt. <span class="smcap">C. E. H. Vincent</span>,
-With Map. Crown 8vo. price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>VINCENT (Capt. C. E. H.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Elementary
-Military Geography, Reconnoitring,
-and Sketching</span>.
-Compiled for Non-commissioned Officers
-and Soldiers of all Arms. Square
-crown 8vo. price 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Volunteer, the Militiaman, and
-the Regular Soldier</span>, by a
-Public Schoolboy. Crown 8vo. cloth,
-price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_25a">25</span></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>WARTRNSLEBEN (Count H. von.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The
-Operations of the South
-Army in January and February,
-1871</span>. Compiled from the Official
-War Documents of the Head-quarters
-of the Southern Army. Translated
-by Colonel C. H. von Wright.
-With Maps. Demy 8vo. price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">The Operations of the First Army
-under Gen. von Manteuffel.</span>
-Translated by Colonel C. H. von
-Wright. Uniform with the above.
-Demy 8vo. price 9<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>WICKHAM (Capt. E. H., R.A.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Influence
-of Firearms upon
-Tactics</span>: Historical and Critical
-Investigations. By an <span class="smcap">Officer of
-Superior Rank</span> (in the German
-Army). Translated by Captain E. H.
-Wickham, R.A. Demy 8vo. price
-7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>WOINOVITS (Capt. I.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Austrian
-Cavalry Exercise</span>. Translated by
-Captain W. S. Cooke. Crown 8vo.
-price 7<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<h2 id="POETRY">POETRY.</h2>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>ADAMS (W. D.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Lyrics of Love</span>,
-from Shakespeare to Tennyson. Selected
-and arranged by. Fcp. 8vo.
-cloth extra, gilt edges, price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Antiope</span>: a Tragedy. Large crown 8vo.
-cloth, price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>AUBERTIN (J. J.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Camoens’ Lusiads</span>.
-Portuguese Text, with Translation by.
-Map and Portraits. 2 vols. Demy
-8vo. price 30<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Seventy Sonnets of Camoens.</span> Portuguese
-Text and Translation, with
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-Capt. Richard F. Burton. Printed on
-hand made paper, cloth, bevelled
-boards, gilt top, price 7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>AVIA</i>&mdash;<i>The Odyssey of Homer</i>. Done
-into English Verse by. Fcp. 4to.
-cloth, price 15<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>BANKS (Mrs. G. L.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Ripples and
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-cloth, price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>BARNES (William)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Poems of Rural
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-New Edition, complete in one vol.
-Crown 8vo. cloth, price 8<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>BENNETT (Dr. W. C.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Narrative
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-sewed, in Coloured Wrapper, price 1<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Songs for Sailors.</span> Dedicated by
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-3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p>An Edition in Illustrated Paper
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-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Songs of a Song Writer.</span> Crown
-8vo. price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
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-Small crown 8vo. cloth, price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>BOWEN (H. C.) M.A.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Simple English
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-I. II. and III. price 6<i>d.</i> each,
-and Part IV. price 1<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>BRYANT (W. C.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Poems</span>. Red-line
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-
-<p>A Cheap Edition, with Frontispiece.
-Small crown 8vo. price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>BUTLER (Alfred J.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Amaranth and
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-Anthology. Small crown 8vo. cloth,
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-
-<p class="hang"><i>BYRNNE (E. Fairfax)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Milicent</span>: a
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-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Calderon’s Dramas</span>: the Wonder-Working
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-Post 8vo. price 10<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>CLARKE (Mary Cowden)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Honey from
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-
-<p class="hang"><i>COLOMB (Colonel)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Cardinal
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-In 29 Cancions. Small crown 8vo.
-cloth, price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>CONWAY (Hugh)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">A Life’s Idylls</span>.
-Small crown 8vo. cloth, price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>COPP&Eacute;E (Francois)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">L’Exil&eacute;e</span>. Done
-into English Verse, with the sanction
-of the Author, by I. O. L. Crown
-8vo. vellum, price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_26a">26</span></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>COWAN (Rev. William)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Poems</span>: chiefly
-Sacred, including Translations from
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-
-<p class="hang"><i>CRESSWELL (Mrs. G.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The King’s
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-Illustrations. 4to. price 10<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>DAVIES (T. Hart)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Catullus</span>. Translated
-into English Verse. Crown 8vo.
-cloth, price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>DE VERE (Aubrey)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Alexander the
-Great</span>: a Dramatic Poem. Small
-crown 8vo. price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">The Infant Bridal</span>, and other Poems.
-A New and Enlarged Edition. Fcp.
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-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Legends of the Saxon Saints.</span>
-Small crown 8vo. cloth, price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">The Legends of St. Patrick</span>, and
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-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">St. Thomas of Canterbury</span>: a Dramatic
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-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Antar and Zara</span>: an Eastern Romance.
-<span class="smcap">Inisfail</span>, and other Poems, Meditative
-and Lyrical. Fcp. 8vo. price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">The Fall of Rora</span>, <span class="smcap">The Search
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-Meditative and Lyrical. Fcp. 8vo. 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>DOBELL (Mrs. Horace)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Ethelstone</span>,
-<span class="smcap">Eveline</span>, and other Poems. Crown
-8vo. cloth, 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>DOBSON (Austin)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Vignettes in
-Rhyme</span>, and Vers de Soci&eacute;t&eacute;. Third
-Edition. Fcp. 8vo. price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Proverbs in Porcelain.</span> By the
-Author of ‘Vignettes in Rhyme.’
-Second Edition. Crown 8vo. price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Dorothy</span>: a Country Story in Elegiac
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-cloth, price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>DOWDEN (Edward) LL.D.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Poems</span>.
-Second Edition. Fcp. 8vo. price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>DOWNTON (Rev. H.) M.A.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Hymns
-and Verses</span>. Original and Translated.
-Small crown 8vo. cloth, price
-3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>DUTT (Toru)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">A Sheaf Gleaned in
-French Fields</span>. New Edition, with
-Portrait. Demy 8vo. cloth, 10<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>EDWARDS (Rev. Basil)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Minor
-Chords</span>; or, Songs for the Suffering:
-a Volume of Verse. Fcp. 8vo. cloth,
-price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>; paper, price 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>ELLIOT (Lady Charlotte)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Medusa</span> and
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-6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>ELLIOTT (Ebenezer), The Corn Law
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-the Rev. Edwin Elliott, of St. John’s,
-Antigua. 2 vols. crown 8vo. price 18<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">English Odes.</span> Selected, with a Critical
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-8vo. limp parchment antique, price
-6<i>s.</i>; vellum, 7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Epic of Hades (The).</span> By the Author
-of ‘Songs of Two Worlds.’ Twelfth
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-
-<p class="hang2">⁂ Also an Illustrated Edition, with
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-and a Large Paper Edition with Portrait,
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-
-<p class="hang"><i>EVANS (Anne)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Poems and Music</span>.
-With Memorial Preface by <span class="smcap">Ann
-Thackeray Ritchie</span>. Large crown
-8vo. cloth, price 7<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>GOSSE (Edmund W.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">New Poems</span>.
-Crown 8vo. cloth, price 7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>GREENOUGH (Mrs. Richard)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Mary
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-
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-
-<p class="hang"><i>HAWKER (Robt. Stephen)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Poetical
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-
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-Small crown 8vo. cloth, price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
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-Second Series. Fcp. 8vo. price 5<i>s.</i>
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-
-<p class="hang"><i>INCHBOLD (J. W.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Annus Amoris</span>:
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-
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-
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-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_27a">27</span></p>
-
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-Small crown 8vo. cloth, price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
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-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Aspromonte</span>, and other Poems. Second
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-
-<p class="hang"><i>LAIRD-CLOWES (W.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Love’s Rebellion</span>:
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-3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>LANG (A.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">XXXII Ballades in Blue
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-
-<p class="hang"><i>LEIGH (Arran and Isla)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Belleroph&ocirc;n</span>.
-Small crown 8vo. cloth,
-price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>LEIGHTON (Robert)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Records and
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-
-<p class="hang"><i>LOCKER (F.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">London Lyrics</span>. A
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-and a Portrait of the Author.
-Crown 8vo. cloth elegant, price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Love Sonnets of Proteus.</span> With
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-
-<p class="hang"><i>LOWNDES (Henry)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Poems and
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-price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>LUMSDEN (Lieut.-Col. H. W.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Beowulf</span>:
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-Translated into Modern Rhymes.
-Small crown 8vo. cloth, price 5<i>s.</i></p>
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-Small crown 8vo. cloth, 2<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>MAGNUSSON (Eirikr) M.A., and
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-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Marie Antionette</span>: a Drama. Small
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-
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-
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-
-<p class="hang"><i>MOORE (Mrs. Bloomfield)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Gondaline’s
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-
-<p class="hang"><i>MORICE (Rev. F. D.) M.A.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The
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-
-<p class="hang"><i>MORSHEAD (E. D. A.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The House
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-
-<p class="hang"><i>MORTERRA (Felix)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Legend of
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-
-<p class="hang"><i>NADEN (Constance W.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Songs and
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-crown 8vo. cloth, price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>NICHOLSON (Edward B.) Librarian of
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-8vo. cloth, price 4<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>NOAKE (Major R. Compton)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The
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-Fcp. 8vo. price 5<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
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-
-<p class="hang"><i>NORRIS (Rev. Alfred)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Inner
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-cloth, price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
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-
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-
-<p class="hang"><i>PALMER (Charles Walter)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Weed</span>:
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-
-<p class="hang"><i>PAUL (C. Kegan)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Goethe’s Faust</span>. A
-New Translation in Rhyme. Crown
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-
-<p class="hang"><i>PAYNE (John)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Songs of Life and
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-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_28a">28</span></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>PENNELL (H. Cholmondeley)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Pegasus
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-
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-Second Edition. Crown 8vo. price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
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-
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-
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-
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-16mo. handsomely printed and bound
-in cloth, gilt edges, price 4<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>PIKE (Warburton)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Inferno of
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-cloth, price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>RHOADES (James)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Georgics of
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-Verse. Small crown 8vo. cloth,
-price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>ROBINSON (A. Mary F.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">A Handful
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-price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
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-
-<p class="hang"><i>SHELLEY (Percy Bysshe)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Poems
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-8vo. limp parchment antique, price 6<i>s.</i>;
-vellum, price 7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>SKINNER (James)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Cœlestia</span>. The
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-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Songs of Two Worlds.</span> By the Author
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-with Portrait. Fcp. 8vo. cloth,
-price 7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Songs for Music.</span> By Four Friends.
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-Chester, and Juliana Ewing. Square
-crown 8vo. price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>STEDMAN (Edmund Clarence)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Lyrics
-and Idylls</span>, with other Poems.
-Crown 8vo. cloth, price 7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>STEVENS (William)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Truce of
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-8vo. cloth, price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Sweet Silvery Sayings of Shakespeare.</span>
-Crown 8vo. cloth gilt, price
-7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>TAYLOR (Sir H.)</i>&mdash;Works Complete in
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-price 30<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>TENNYSON (Alfred)</i>&mdash;Works Complete:&mdash;</p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">The Imperial Library Edition.</span>
-Complete in 7 vols. Demy 8vo. price
-10<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> each; in Roxburgh binding,
-12<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Author’s Edition.</span> In Six Volumes.
-Post 8vo. cloth gilt; or half-morocco.
-Roxburgh style.</p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Cabinet Edition.</span> 12 Volumes. Each
-with Frontispiece. Fcp. 8vo. price
-2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> each.</p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Cabinet Edition.</span> 12 vols. Complete
-in handsome Ornamental Case.</p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">The Royal Edition.</span> In 1 vol. With
-25 Illustrations and Portrait. Cloth
-extra, bevelled boards, gilt leaves,
-price 21<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">The Guinea Edition.</span> Complete in
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-in box. Cloth, price 21<i>s.</i>; French
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-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Shilling Edition.</span> In 12 vols, pocket
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-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">The Crown Edition.</span> Complete in
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-price 8<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">⁂ Can also be had in a variety of other
-bindings.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29a">29</span></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Tennyson’s Songs Set to Music</span> by
-various Composers. Edited by W. J.
-Cusins. Dedicated, by express permission,
-to Her Majesty the Queen.
-Royal 4to. cloth extra, gilt leaves, price
-21<i>s.</i>; or in half-morocco, price 25<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">Original Editions:&mdash;</p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Ballads</span>, and other Poems. Fcp. 8vo.
-cloth, price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Poems.</span> Small 8vo. price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
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-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">The Princess.</span> Small 8vo. price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Idylls of the King.</span> Small 8vo.
-price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Idylls of the King.</span> Complete.
-Small 8vo. price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">The Holy Grail</span>, and other Poems.
-Small 8vo. price 4<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Gareth and Lynette.</span> Small 8vo.
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-
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-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">In Memoriam.</span> Small 8vo. price 4<i>s.</i></p>
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-Super royal 16mo. price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>; cloth
-gilt extra, price 4<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Songs from the above Works.</span>
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-3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Idylls of the King</span>, and other Poems.
-Illustrated by Julia Margaret Cameron.
-2 vols, folio, half-bound morocco, cloth
-sides, price &pound;6. 6<i>s.</i> each.</p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Tennyson for the Young and for
-Recitation.</span> Specially arranged.
-Fcp. 8vo. 1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">The Tennyson Birthday Book.</span> Edited
-by Emily Shakespear. 32mo. cloth
-limp, 2<i>s.</i>; cloth extra, 3<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">⁂ A superior Edition, printed in red
-and black, on antique paper, specially
-prepared. Small crown 8vo. cloth,
-extra gilt leaves, price 5<i>s.</i>; and in
-various calf and morocco bindings.</p>
-
-<p class="hang2">An Index to <span class="smcap">In Memoriam</span>. Price 2<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>THOMPSON (Alice C.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Preludes</span>: a
-Volume of Poems. Illustrated by
-Elizabeth Thompson (Painter of ‘The
-Roll Call’). 8vo. price 7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>THRING (Rev. Godfrey), B.As.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Hymns
-and Sacred Lyrics</span>. Fcp. 8vo.
-price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>TODHUNTER (Dr. J.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Laurella</span>,
-and other Poems. Crown 8vo. 6<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Alcestis</span>: a Dramatic Poem. Extra
-fcp. 8vo. cloth, price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">A Study of Shelley.</span> Crown 8vo.
-cloth, price 7<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>TOLINGSBY (Frere)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Elnora</span>: an
-Indian Mythological Poem. Fcp. 8vo.
-cloth, price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Translations from Dante, Petrarch,
-Michael Angelo, and Vittoria
-Colonna.</span> Fcp. 8vo. cloth, price
-7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>TURNER (Rev. C. Tennyson)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Sonnets,
-Lyrics, and Translations</span>. Crown
-8vo. cloth, price 4<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Collected Sonnets</span>, Old and New.
-With Prefatory Poem by <span class="smcap">Alfred
-Tennyson</span>; also some Marginal
-Notes by <span class="smcap">S. T. Coleridge</span>, and a
-Critical Essay by <span class="smcap">James Spedding</span>.
-Fcp. 8vo cloth, price 7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>WALTERS (Sophia Lydia)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Brook</span>:
-a Poem. Small crown 8vo. cloth,
-price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">A Dreamer’s Sketch Book.</span> With
-21 Illustrations by Percival Skelton,
-R. P. Leitch, <span class="smcap">W. H. J. Boot</span>, and
-<span class="smcap">T. R. Pritchett</span>. Engraved by
-J. D. Cooper. Fcp. 4to. cloth, price
-12<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>WATERFIELD (W.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Hymns for
-Holy Days and Seasons</span>. 32mo.
-cloth, price 1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>WATSON (William)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Prince’s
-Quest</span>, and other Poems. Crown
-8vo. cloth, price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>WAY (A.) M.A.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Odes of Horace
-Literally Translated in Metre</span>.
-Fcp. 8vo. price 2<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>WEBSTER (Augusta)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Disguises</span>: a
-Drama. Small crown 8vo. cloth,
-price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p><span class="smcap">Wet Days.</span> By a Farmer. Small crown
-8vo. cloth, price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_30a">30</span></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>WILKINS (William)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Songs of Study</span>.
-Crown 8vo. cloth, price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>WILLOUGHBY (The Hon. Mrs.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">On
-the North Wind&mdash;Thistledown</span>:
-a Volume of Poems. Elegantly bound,
-small crown 8vo. price 7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>WOODS (James Chapman)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">A Child of
-the People</span>, and other Poems. Small
-crown 8vo. cloth, price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>YOUNG (Wm.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Gottlob, etcetera</span>.
-Small crown 8vo. cloth, price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<h2 id="WORKS_OF_FICTION_IN_ONE_VOLUME">WORKS OF FICTION IN ONE VOLUME.</h2>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>BANKS (Mrs. G. L.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">God’s Providence
-House</span>. New Edition. Crown
-8vo. cloth, price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>BETHAM-EDWARDS (Miss M.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Kitty</span>.
-With a Frontispiece. Crown
-8vo. price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Blue Roses</span>; or, Helen Malinofska’s
-Marriage. By the Author of ‘V&eacute;ra.’
-New and Cheaper Edition. With
-Frontispiece. Crown 8vo. cloth,
-price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>FRISWELL (J. Hain)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">One of Two</span>;
-or, The Left-Handed Bride. Crown
-8vo. cloth, price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>GARRETT (E.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">By Still Waters</span>: a
-Story for Quiet Hours. With Seven
-Illustrations. Crown 8vo. price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>HARDY (Thomas)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">A Pair of Blue
-Eyes</span>. Author of ‘Far from the Madding
-Crowd.’ New Edition. Crown
-8vo. price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">The Return of the Native.</span> New
-Edition. With Frontispiece. Crown
-8vo. cloth, price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>HOOPER (Mrs. G.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The House of
-Raby</span>. Crown 8vo. cloth, price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>INGELOW (Jean)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Off the Skelligs</span>:
-a Novel. With Frontispiece. Second
-Edition. Crown 8vo. cloth, price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>MACDONALD (G.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Malcolm</span>. With
-Portrait of the Author engraved on
-Steel. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo.
-price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">The Marquis of Lossie.</span> Second
-Edition. With Frontispiece. Crown
-8vo. cloth, price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">St. George and St. Michael.</span> Second
-Edition. With Frontispiece. Crown
-8vo. cloth, 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>MASTERMAN (J.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Half-a-Dozen
-Daughters</span>. Crown 8vo. cloth, price
-3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>MEREDITH (George)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Ordeal of
-Richard Feverel</span>. New Edition.
-Crown 8vo. cloth, price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">The Egoist</span>: A Comedy in Narrative.
-New and Cheaper Edition, with
-Frontispiece. Crown 8vo. cloth,
-price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>PALGRAVE (W. Gifford)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Hermann
-Agha</span>: an Eastern Narrative. Third
-Edition. Crown 8vo. cloth, price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Pandurang Hari</span>; or, Memoirs of a
-Hindoo. With an Introductory Preface
-by Sir H. Bartle E. Frere,
-G.C.S.I., C.B. Crown 8vo. price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>PAUL (Margaret Agnes)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Gentle and
-Simple</span>: A Story. New and Cheaper
-Edition, with Frontispiece. Crown
-8vo. price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>SAUNDERS (John)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Israel Mort,
-Overman</span>: a Story of the Mine.
-Crown 8vo. price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Abel Drake’s Wife.</span> Crown 8vo.
-cloth, price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Hirell.</span> Crown 8vo. cloth, price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>SHAW (Flora L.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Castle Blair</span>; a
-Story of Youthful Lives. New and
-Cheaper Edition, with Frontispiece.
-Crown 8vo. price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>STRETTON (Hesba)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Through a
-Needle’s Eye</span>: a Story. New and
-Cheaper Edition, with Frontispiece.
-Crown 8vo. cloth, price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>TAYLOR (Col. Meadows) C.S.I., M.R.I.A.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Seeta</span>: a Novel. New and Cheaper
-Edition. With Frontispiece. Crown
-8vo. cloth, price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Tippoo Sultaun</span>: a Tale of the Mysore
-War. New Edition, with Frontispiece.
-Crown 8vo. cloth, price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Ralph Darnell.</span> New and Cheaper
-Edition. With Frontispiece. Crown
-8vo. cloth, price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">A Noble Queen.</span> New and Cheaper
-Edition. With Frontispiece. Crown
-8vo. cloth, price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_31a">31</span></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">The Confessions of a Thug.</span>
-Crown 8vo. price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Tara</span>: a Mahratta Tale. Crown 8vo.
-price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>THOMAS (Moy)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">A Fight for Life</span>.
-Crown 8vo. cloth, price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Within Sound of the Sea.</span> New
-and Cheaper Edition, with Frontispiece.
-Crown 8vo. cloth, price 6<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<h2 id="BOOKS_FOR_THE_YOUNG">BOOKS FOR THE YOUNG.</h2>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Aunt Mary’s Bran Pie.</span> By the Author
-of ‘St. Olave’s.’ Illustrated. Price
-3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>BARLEE (Ellen)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Locked Out</span>: a Tale
-of the Strike. With a Frontispiece.
-Royal 16mo. price 1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>BONWICK (J.) F.R.G.S.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Tasmanian
-Lily</span>. With Frontispiece.
-Crown 8vo. price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Mike Howe</span>, the Bushranger of Van
-Diemen’s Land. New and Cheaper
-Edition. With Frontispiece. Crown
-8vo. price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Brave Men’s Footsteps.</span> By the Editor
-of ‘Men who have Risen.’ A Book
-of Example and Anecdote for Young
-People. With Four Illustrations by
-C. Doyle. Sixth Edition. Crown
-8vo. price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Children’s Toys</span>, and some Elementary
-Lessons in General Knowledge which
-they teach. Illustrated. Crown 8vo.
-cloth, price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>COLERIDGE (Sara)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Pretty Lessons
-in Verse for Good Children</span>,
-with some Lessons in Latin, in Easy
-Rhyme. A New Edition. Illustrated.
-Fcp. 8vo. cloth, price
-3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>D’ANVERS (N. R.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Little Minnie’s
-Troubles</span>: an Every-day Chronicle.
-With 4 Illustrations by W. H. Hughes.
-Fcp. cloth, price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Parted</span>: a Tale of Clouds and Sunshine.
-With 4 Illustrations. Extra fcp. 8vo.
-cloth, price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Pixie’s Adventures</span>; or, the Tale of
-a Terrier. With 21 Illustrations.
-16mo. cloth, price 4<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Nanny’s Adventures</span>: or, the Tale of
-a Goat. With 12 Illustrations. 16mo.
-cloth, price 4<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>DAVIES (G. Christopher)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Rambles
-and Adventures of our School
-Field Club</span>. With Four Illustrations.
-Crown 8vo. price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>DRUMMOND (Miss)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Tripp’s Buildings</span>.
-A Study from Life, with
-Frontispiece. Small crown 8vo. price
-3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>EDMONDS (Herbert)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Well Spent
-Lives</span>: a Series of Modern Biographies.
-Crown 8vo. price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>EVANS (Mark)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Story of our
-Father’s Love</span>, told to Children;
-Fourth and Cheaper Edition of
-Theology for Children. With Four
-Illustrations. Fcp. 8vo. price 1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>FARQUHARSON (M.)</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">I. <span class="smcap">Elsie Dinsmore.</span> Crown 8vo.
-price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">II. <span class="smcap">Elsie’s Girlhood.</span> Crown 8vo.
-price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2">III. <span class="smcap">Elsie’s Holidays at Roselands.</span>
-Crown 8vo. price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>HERFORD (Brooke)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Story of
-Religion in England</span>: a Book for
-Young Folk. Cr. 8vo. cloth, price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>INGELOW (Jean)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Little
-Wonder-horn</span>. With Fifteen Illustrations.
-Small 8vo. price 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>JOHNSON (Virginia W.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Catskill
-Fairies</span>. Illustrated by <span class="smcap">Alfred
-Fredericks</span>. Cloth, price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>KER (David)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Boy Slave in
-Bokhara</span>: a Tale of Central Asia.
-With Illustrations. New and Cheaper
-Edition. Crown 8vo. price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">The Wild Horseman of the Pampas.</span>
-Illustrated. New and Cheaper Edition.
-Crown 8vo. price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>LAMONT (Martha MacDonald)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The
-Gladiator</span>: a Life under the Roman
-Empire in the beginning of the Third
-Century. With 4 Illustrations by
-H. M. Paget. Extra fcp. 8vo. cloth,
-price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_32a">32</span></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>LEANDER (Richard)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Fantastic
-Stories</span>. Translated from the German
-by Paulina B. Granville. With Eight
-Full-page Illustrations by M. E.
-Fraser-Tytler. Crown 8vo. price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>LEE (Holme)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Her Title of Honour</span>.
-A Book for Girls. New Edition.
-With a Frontispiece. Crown 8vo.
-price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>LEWIS (Mary A.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">A Rat with Three
-Tales</span>. New and Cheaper Edition.
-With Four Illustrations by Catherine
-F. Frere. Price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>M^c CLINTOCK (L.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Sir Spangle
-and the Dingy Hen</span>. Illustrated.
-Square crown 8vo. price 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>MAC KENNA (S. J.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Plucky Fellows</span>.
-A Book for Boys. With Six
-Illustrations. Fourth Edition. Crown
-8vo. price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">At School with an Old Dragoon.</span>
-With Six Illustrations. Third
-Edition. Crown 8vo. price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>MALDEN (H. E.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Princes and Princesses</span>:
-Two Fairy Tales. Illustrated.
-Small crown 8vo. price 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Master Bobby.</span> By the Author of
-‘Christina North.’ With Six Illustrations.
-Fcp. 8vo. cloth, price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>NAAKE (J. T.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Slavonic Fairy
-Tales</span>. From Russian, Servian,
-Polish, and Bohemian Sources. With
-Four Illustrations. Crown 8vo. price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>PELLETAN (E.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Desert Pastor.
-Jean Jarousseau</span>. Translated from
-the French. By Colonel E. P. De
-L’Hoste. With a Frontispiece. New
-Edition. Fcp. 8vo. price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>REANEY (Mrs. G. S.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Waking and
-Working</span>; or, From Girlhood to
-Womanhood. New and Cheaper
-Edition. With a Frontispiece. Cr.
-8vo. price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Blessing and Blessed</span>: a Sketch of
-Girl Life. New and Cheaper Edition.
-Crown 8vo. cloth, price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Rose Gurney’s Discovery.</span> A Book
-for Girls. Dedicated to their Mothers.
-Crown 8vo. cloth, price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">English Girls</span>: Their Place and Power.
-With Preface by the Rev. R. W. Dale.
-Third Edition. Fcp. 8vo. cloth,
-price 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Just Anyone</span>, and other Stories. Three
-Illustrations. Royal 16mo. cloth, price
-1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Sunbeam Willie</span>, and other Stories.
-Three Illustrations. Royal 16mo.
-price 1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Sunshine Jenny</span> and other Stories.
-3 Illustrations. Royal 16mo. cloth,
-price 1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>ROSS (Mrs. E.)</i>, (‘Nelsie Brook’)&mdash;<span class="smcap">Daddy’s
-Pet</span>. A Sketch from
-Humble Life. With Six Illustrations.
-Royal 16mo. price 1<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>SADLER (S. W.) R.N.</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">The African
-Cruiser</span>: a Midshipman’s Adventures
-on the West Coast. With Three
-Illustrations. New and Cheaper Edition.
-Crown 8vo. price 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Seeking his Fortune</span>, and other Stories.
-With Four Illustrations. New and
-Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo. 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Seven Autumn Leaves from Fairy
-Land.</span> Illustrated with Nine Etchings.
-Square crown 8vo. price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>STOCKTON (Frank R.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">A Jolly Fellowship</span>.
-With 20 Illustrations.
-Crown 8vo. cloth, price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>STORR (Francis) and TURNER (Hawes).</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Canterbury
-Chimes</span>; or, Chaucer
-Tales retold to Children. With Six
-Illustrations from the Ellesmere MS.
-Fcp. 8vo. cloth, price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>STRETTON (Hesba)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">David Lloyd’s
-Last Will</span>. With Four Illustrations.
-Royal 16 mo. price 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">The Wonderful Life.</span> Thirteenth
-Thousand. Fcp. 8vo. cloth, price
-2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Sunnyland Stories.</span> By the Author of
-‘Aunt Mary’s Bran Pie.’ Illustrated.
-Small 8vo. price 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang2"><span class="smcap">Tales from Ariosto Re-told for
-Children.</span> By a Lady. With 3 Illustrations.
-Crown 8vo. cloth, price
-4<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>WHITAKER (Florence)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Christy’s Inheritance</span>.
-A London Story. Illustrated.
-Royal 16mo. price 1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p>
-
-<p class="hang"><i>ZIMMERN (H.)</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Stories in Precious
-Stones</span>. With Six Illustrations,
-Third Edition. Crown 8vo. price 5<i>s.</i></p>
-
-<p class="copy"><i>Spottiswoode &amp; Co Printers, New-street Square, London.</i></p>
-
-<div class="footnotes">
-
-<h2>FOOTNOTES:</h2>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">1</a>
-The Reverend Henry Tollin, Pastor of the French Protestant Church,
-of Magdeburg, who has made the life and works of Servetus the particular
-subject of his studies for many years, inclines to Tudela as the place, and
-1511 as the year, of Servetus’s birth. See his ‘Servet’s Kindheit und Jugend’
-in Kahnis’ <i>Zeitschrift f&uuml;r die Historische Theologie</i>. Jahrg. 1875, S. 545.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">2</a>
-<i>Vide</i> Tollin: ‘Servet’s Kindheit und Jugend,’ in Kahnis’ <i>Zeitschrift
-f&uuml;r die Historische Theologie</i>, 1875, S. 557. We have, however,
-searched in vain for any evidence of Angleria’s presence in Saragossa at
-any time, even as a casual resident. In his comprehensive and highly
-entertaining work, the ‘Opus Epistolarum,’ we find letters of his from
-Valladolid, Burgos, Vittoria, Madrid, and elsewhere, but not one from
-Saragossa during the years covered by Servetus’s stay at the university,
-according to Tollin.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">3</a>
-Tollin (Toulouser Studenten-Leben im Anfang des 16ten Jahrhunderts),
-in Riehl’s <i>Historisches Taschenbuch von 1874</i>, S. 76, speaks as
-if he had been present with Servetus at Toulouse; accompanied him over
-the St. Michael’s bridge that spanned the Garonne; beheld the iron cage
-suspended from its balk above the river for ducking heretics until they died;
-looked on at the religious processions that filed incessantly through the
-streets, etc.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">4</a>
-McCrie’s <i>Hist. of the Reformation in Spain</i>.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">5</a>
-The last edition of Sabunde we have seen is neat and available,
-‘curante Joachim Sighart,’ Solisbach. 1852, 8vo. It is unfortunately
-without the Prologue.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="label">6</a>
-There is a copy of what we believe to be the second edition of
-Sabunde, fol. Argentorat. 1495, in the British Museum, over which we spent
-some hours with much delight. Also a copy of Montaigne’s translation,
-beautifully printed, and in fine preservation.&mdash;8vo. Paris, 1569.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_7" href="#FNanchor_7" class="label">7</a>
-Tollin: ‘Die Beichtv&auml;ter Kaiser Karls V.;’ in <i>Magazin f&uuml;r die
-Literatur des Auslandes, April, Mai, 1874</i>. A series of three short
-papers, but of surpassing interest, to which we are happy to refer.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_8" href="#FNanchor_8" class="label">8</a>
-Robertson, <i>History of Charles V.</i>, vol. ii. book v. p. 40.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_9" href="#FNanchor_9" class="label">9</a>
-‘Christianismi Restitutio,’ p. 462.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_10" href="#FNanchor_10" class="label">10</a>
-Dialogi de Trinitate II., ad calcem (1532). ‘Ce n’est point par des
-r&eacute;ticences hypocrites qu’on fait durer un jour de plus une croyance qui a
-fait son temps. Toute opinion librement con&ccedil;ue est bonne et morale
-pour celui qui l’a con&ccedil;ue. De toutes parts on arrive &agrave; r&eacute;sumer la l&eacute;gislation
-ext&eacute;rieure de la Religion en un seul mot: <span class="smcap">Libert&eacute;</span>.’ Renan,
-‘Fragments philosophiques,’ 1876.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_11" href="#FNanchor_11" class="label">11</a>
-By Tollin, who makes him visit Luther at Coburg, in company with
-Bucer. See his <i>Luther und Servet, eine Quellenstudie</i>. 8vo. Berlin,
-1875.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_12" href="#FNanchor_12" class="label">12</a>
-Cochl&aelig;us, <i>De Actis et Scriptis Martini Luther</i>, p. 233, fol. Mogunt.
-1549.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_13" href="#FNanchor_13" class="label">13</a>
-Tollin, <i>Die Beichtv&auml;ter Karls V.</i>, S. 261.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_14" href="#FNanchor_14" class="label">14</a>
-<i>Jo. Œcolampadii et Huldrici Zwinglii Epist.</i> Lib. iv. Basil, 1536,
-fol.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_15" href="#FNanchor_15" class="label">15</a>
-Op. cit. ut supra.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_16" href="#FNanchor_16" class="label">16</a>
-Sandius, <i>Bibliotheca Antitrinitariorum</i>, 12mo. Freistadt. 1684.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_17" href="#FNanchor_17" class="label">17</a>
-Tollin in <i>Magazin f&uuml;r ausl&auml;ndische Literatur</i>, Juni 10, 1876.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_18" href="#FNanchor_18" class="label">18</a>
-<i>Epist. Zwinglii et Œcolampadii.</i> Basil. 1535, fol.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_19" href="#FNanchor_19" class="label">19</a>
-<i>Vom Ampt der Oberkait in Sachen der Religion. Ain Bericht auss
-g&ouml;tlicher Schr&uuml;ft des hailigen alten Lerers und Bischoffs Augustini, &amp;c.</i>
-4to. Augsb. 1535.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_20" href="#FNanchor_20" class="label">20</a>
-Luther’s Werke by Walch, vol. xxii.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_21" href="#FNanchor_21" class="label">21</a>
-<i>Epist. Melanchthonis apud Bretschneider: Corpus Reformatorum.</i></p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_22" href="#FNanchor_22" class="label">22</a>
-<i>Epist. Melanchthonis apud Bretschneider: Corpus Reformatorum.</i>
-Ep. ad Camerarium.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_23" href="#FNanchor_23" class="label">23</a>
-Conf. H. Tollin, <i>Melanchthon und Servet, eine Quellenstudie</i>. 8vo.
-Berlin, 1876, pp. 9-31.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_24" href="#FNanchor_24" class="label">24</a>
-Ep. ad Camerar. apud Bretschneider, ut sup.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_25" href="#FNanchor_25" class="label">25</a>
-It is upon this passage, which we translate and interpret somewhat
-differently from Tollin, that he grounds his statement of Servetus having
-come into contact with Luther; a presumed meeting of which we fail to
-find a trace in any contemporary document. See Tollin’s <i>Dr. M.
-Luther und Dr. M. Servetus&mdash;Eine Quellenstudie</i>. 8vo. Berlin, 1875.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_26" href="#FNanchor_26" class="label">26</a>
-<i>Epistol&aelig; ab Ecclesi&aelig; Helvetic&aelig; Reformatoribus, a Jo. Fueselino
-edit&aelig;.</i> 8vo. Tigur., 1742.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_27" href="#FNanchor_27" class="label">27</a>
-‘E noi non cercano la Divinit&agrave; fuor del Infinito Mondo e le Infinite
-Cose, ma dentro questo et in quelle’ (1585). <i>Opere di Giordano Bruno,
-da Dottore Adolpho Wagner</i>, i. 275. Lips. 1830.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_28" href="#FNanchor_28" class="label">28</a>
-</p>
-
-<div class="poetry"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i0">‘Natur hat weder Kern noch Schale:<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">Sie ist das All mit einem Male.’<br /></span>
-</div><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i0">Nor core nor husk in nature see:<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">The All and All in One is she.<br /></span>
-</div><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i0">Im Innern ist ein Universum auch;<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">Daher der V&ouml;lker l&ouml;blicher Gebrauch,<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">Ein jeglicher das Beste das er kennet<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">Er Gott&mdash;ja seinen Gott&mdash;benennet.&mdash;<i>Goethe.</i><br /></span>
-</div></div></div>
-
-<p>Which may be rendered somewhat literally thus:&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i0">Within there is an Universum too;<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">Whence the folks’ custom, good and true,<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">That each the Best he knows of all,<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">He God&mdash;his God, indeed&mdash;doth call.<br /></span>
-</div></div></div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_29" href="#FNanchor_29" class="label">29</a>
-‘Der alte und der neue Glaube.’ All Theists agree in this: that
-God is One, Changeless, and Eternal. But God without the Universe
-would not be the same as God with the Universe; whence the conclusion
-that God and the Universe can only be conceived of as correlatives. Seeing
-the impossibility of dissevering Property from the Object in which it inheres,
-the modern philosopher discards hypothetical agencies, under the name
-of Spirits, of every kind; from the all-pervading force that keeps suns and
-planets in their spheres, to such special agencies as those of brain and
-nerve. Servetus, we have seen, had himself got the length of saying that
-out of man there was no Holy Spirit.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_30" href="#FNanchor_30" class="label">30</a>
-To Calvin God was no other than the Immanent Pantheistic principle
-of Modern Philosophy: ‘Ubique diffusus, omnia sustinet, vegetat et
-vivificat in cœlo et in terra&mdash;everywhere diffused, he gives life and growth
-and continuance to all things in heaven and earth.’ These are his words.
-He then goes on to say: ‘Fateor quidem pie hoc posse dici, modo a pio
-animo proficiscatur, <i>Naturam esse Deum</i>&mdash;I own, indeed, that provided
-we speak reverently it may be said that <i>Nature is God</i>.’ As this would
-be a ‘hard and inappropriate expression,’ however, and as in using it
-‘God is confounded with his works,’ he thinks it is objectionable.
-<i>Institut. Religionis Christian&aelig;</i>, I. iv. 14, and I. v. 5 of an early edition.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_31" href="#FNanchor_31" class="label">31</a>
-Newspaper report of a Sermon preached by Dean Stanley on
-Christmas day, 1875.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_32" href="#FNanchor_32" class="label">32</a>
-At the end of the copy of the ‘De Trin. Error.,’ which Alw&ouml;rden
-describes in his <i>Historia Michaelis Serveti</i>, now in the National Library
-at Paris, there is a MS. <i>Refutation</i> of the views of the writer, which
-Tollin ascribes with great show of probability to Bucer, who, as we know,
-was personally acquainted with Servetus. Of this Refutation (Confutatio)
-Tollin has given an extended analysis in <i>Riehm und K&ouml;stlin’s Theologische
-Studien und Kritiken f&uuml;r 1875</i>, S. 711.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_33" href="#FNanchor_33" class="label">33</a>
-Conf. <i>Epist. Zwinglii et Œcolampadii</i>. Basil, 1592.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_34" href="#FNanchor_34" class="label">34</a>
-<i>Dialogi de Trinitate</i>, 12mo. (1532), in the same form and type as
-the <i>De Erroribus</i>, and still without the name of the publisher or place of
-publication.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_35" href="#FNanchor_35" class="label">35</a>
-Servetus’s <i>De Trinitatis Erroribus</i> is generally believed to be one
-of the rare books, yet it is commonly enough met with in England. So
-long ago as the year 1725, however, a copy bound with the <i>Dialogi</i> sold
-for the large sum of between four and five hundred French livres. There
-is a counterfeit edition published in Holland, and only to be distinguished
-from the original by the paper being somewhat better and the type a
-shade larger. The Book was never, in so far as we know, publicly condemned
-and burned. It was translated into Dutch (4to. 1620) with the
-epigraph: Prœft alle Dingen ende behout het gœde, 1 John iv.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_36" href="#FNanchor_36" class="label">36</a>
-‘Claudii Ptolem&aelig;i Alexandrini Geographic&aelig; Enarrationis Libri
-Octo; ex Bilibaldi Pirckhemeri Tralatione, sed ad Gr&aelig;ca et prisca exemplaria
-a Michaele Villanovano jam primum recogniti. Adjecta insuper
-ab eodem Scholia,’ etc. Lugduni, ex Officina Melch. et Gasp. Trechsel,
-1535. Fol.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_37" href="#FNanchor_37" class="label">37</a>
-</p>
-
-<div class="poetry"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i0">Accipe non noti pr&aelig;clara volumina mundi,<br /></span>
-<span class="i2">Oceani et magnas noscito lector opes.<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">Plurima debetur typhis tibi gratia, gentes<br /></span>
-<span class="i2">Ignotas, et aves quas vehis orbe novo;<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">Magna quoque autori referenda et gratia nostro<br /></span>
-<span class="i2">Qui facit h&aelig;c cunctis regna videnda locis.<br /></span>
-</div></div></div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_38" href="#FNanchor_38" class="label">38</a>
-Tollin has collected a great deal of very interesting information
-on Servetus’s geographical studies, in his paper entitled ‘Michel Servet
-als Geograph,’ in the <i>Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft f&uuml;r Erdkunde</i>, 1875, S. 182
-et seq.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_39" href="#FNanchor_39" class="label">39</a>
-Quoted by Tollin in his Essays: ‘Wie Servet ein Mediciner
-wurde,’ in Goschen’s <i>Deutsche Klinik</i>, No. 8, 1875; and ‘Servet und
-Symphorien Champier,’ in Virchow’s <i>Archiv f&uuml;r pathologische Anatomie</i>,
-Bd. 61. Berlin, 1875.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_40" href="#FNanchor_40" class="label">40</a>
-<i>Paradoxorum Medicin&aelig;</i>, Libri iii., fol. Basil. 1535.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_41" href="#FNanchor_41" class="label">41</a>
-In <i>Leonhardum Fuchsium Defensio Apologetica</i>, pro Symphoriano
-Campeggio.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_42" href="#FNanchor_42" class="label">42</a>
-<i>Disceptatio Apologetica pro Astrologia.</i> I have searched the
-libraries of London in vain for either of these Treatises of Servetus.
-That the one addressed to Fuchs once existed among us, however, is
-certain; for its title is to be seen in the catalogue of Dr. Williams’s
-Library (Grafton Street, University College); but unfortunately the
-work is not now to be found&mdash;it had disappeared before the present
-Librarian, Dr. Hunter, came into office. Mosheim went so far as to
-maintain that the Defence of Champier was a myth (Versuch, &amp;c., einer
-Ketzergeschichte, S. 72), and Dr. de Murr, though he did not question
-its existence, never saw it. (<i>In Bibliothecas Hallerianas additamenta</i>,
-4to. Helmst.) The Rev. Henri Tollin of Magdeburg has been more
-fortunate; for he has not only seen but actually possesses copies of both
-the Apologetic defences, as well as a copy of the pamphlet against the
-Parisian Doctors, if I understand him aright. In a letter with which I
-was lately favoured, he informs me that he intends to publish the more
-interesting passages from the Defence of Champier, and the entire Tract
-on Judicial Astrology.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_43" href="#FNanchor_43" class="label">43</a>
-‘Qua in re auxiliarios habui, primum Andreum Vesalium, juvenem
-Mehercule! in Anatome diligentissimum; post hunc, Michael Villanovanus
-familiariter mihi in consectionibus adhibitus est, vir omni genere
-literarum ornatissimus, in Galeni doctrina vix ulli secundus. Horum
-duorum pr&aelig;sidio atque opera, tum artuum, tum aliarum partium exteriorum,
-musculos omnes, venas, arterias et nervos in ipsis corporibus
-examinavi studiosisque ostendi.’ <i>Io. Guinteri Institutionum Anatomicarum</i>,
-Lib. iv., 4to. Basil, 1539.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_44" href="#FNanchor_44" class="label">44</a>
-The reader who is curious on this matter will find what I believe to
-be the first representation of the anatomist engaged in dissecting the
-human body in the <i>Fasciculus Medicin&aelig; of Io. &agrave; Ketham</i>, fol. Venet.
-1495, of which there is a copy in fine preservation in the library of the
-Royal College of Surgeons.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_45" href="#FNanchor_45" class="label">45</a>
-Syruporum universa Ratio ad Galeni censuram diligenter exposita;
-cui, post integram de Concoctione disceptationem, pr&aelig;scripta est vera
-purgandi methodus, cum expositione Aphorismi: Concocta medicari.</p>
-
-<p class="center">Michaele Villanovano Authore.</p>
-
-<div class="poetry"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i0">Πρὸς τὸν φιλιατρον. εύροα ποιήσον τατεσώματα<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">τατεπεπανων Ωμὰ Χυμων, ταυτης δογματα ἴσθι βιθλιου.<br /></span>
-</div></div></div>
-
-<p class="center">Parisiis<br />
-ex officino Simonis Colin&aelig;i. [1537].</p>
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_46" href="#FNanchor_46" class="label">46</a>
-<i>Syr. Universa Ratio</i>, fol. 9.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_47" href="#FNanchor_47" class="label">47</a>
-Doubtless the <i>Disceptatio Apologetica pro Astrologia</i>.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_48" href="#FNanchor_48" class="label">48</a>
-See Landseer’s <i>Sab&aelig;an Researches</i>, 4to. London.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_49" href="#FNanchor_49" class="label">49</a>
-<i>Vide</i> De Murr, <i>Annotamenta ad Bibliothecas Hallerianas</i>, 4to.
-Helmstadt, 1805. Since this was written I have an interesting letter
-from Pastor Tollin, in which he informs me that he actually possesses a
-copy of the pamphlet!</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_50" href="#FNanchor_50" class="label">50</a>
-Bolsec, <i>Vie de Calvin</i>, 12mo. Paris, 1557.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_51" href="#FNanchor_51" class="label">51</a>
-The title is the same as before. In addition to the old address to
-his reader, however, Villeneuve now appends these lines:&mdash;</p>
-
-<p>Ad Eundem.</p>
-
-<div class="poetry"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i0">Si terras et regna hominum, si ingentia qu&aelig;que<br /></span>
-<span class="i2">Flumina, cœruleum si mare n&ocirc;sse juvat,<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">Si montes, si urbes, populos opibusque superbos,<br /></span>
-<span class="i2">Huc ades, h&aelig;c oculis prospice cuncta tuis.<br /></span>
-</div></div></div>
-
-<p>Which may be paraphrased thus:&mdash;</p>
-
-<div class="poetry"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i0">This world and all its kingdoms wouldst thou know,<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">What mighty rivers to blue oceans flow,<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">What mountains rise, what cities grace the lands,<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">Thick-peopled, rich through toil of busy hands,&mdash;<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">&mdash;If for such lore thou hast a mind to call,<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">Open this book, and there survey it all.<br /></span>
-</div></div></div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_52" href="#FNanchor_52" class="label">52</a>
-<i>Vie de Calvin</i>, &amp;c.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_53" href="#FNanchor_53" class="label">53</a>
-This, the second edition of Villanovanus’s Ptolemy, is one of the
-very rare books. All of the impression that could be discovered when
-Servetus was burned in effigy at Vienne, along with his <i>Christianismi
-Restitutio</i>, appears to have been seized and committed to the flames.
-I find both editions in the library of the British Museum.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_54" href="#FNanchor_54" class="label">54</a>
-<i>Habes in hoc Libro, prudens Lector, utriusque Instrumenti novam
-Tralationem editam a Reverendo sacr&aelig; theologi&aelig; Doctore Sancte Pagnini.</i>
-Lugdun. 1527-28, fol. Such is the title of this, which we presume to be
-the first edition of Pagnini’s Bible. Between it and the one of Cologne
-of 1541, edited by Melchior Novesianus, we find no other until we come
-to that of Villanovanus. Pagnini is said in the letter of J. F. Pico de
-Mirandola, which precedes the text, to have been twenty-five years
-engaged on the work. It is accompanied by no fewer than two commendatory
-epistles from Popes Adrian VI. and Clement VII., and is said to
-be the first edition of the Bible that is found divided into chapters.
-Richard Simon (<i>Hist. du vieux Testament</i>, liv. ii.) speaks slightingly of
-its merits; but it has been highly prized by others, as good judges as
-he. To us it appears a very admirable version, our own English Bible
-being generally so like it, that we fancy it must have been used by our
-Translators.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_55" href="#FNanchor_55" class="label">55</a>
-Sandius, <i>Bibliotheca Antitrinitariorum</i>.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_56" href="#FNanchor_56" class="label">56</a>
-<i>Neue Nachrichten</i>, etc. Helmst. 1750, 4to., S. 89-90.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_57" href="#FNanchor_57" class="label">57</a>
-‘Servetus nuper ad me scripsit, ac literas adjunxit longum volumen
-suorum deliriorum, cum thrasonica jactantia, dicens me stupenda et
-hactenus inaudita visurum. Si mihi placeat, huc se venturum recepit.
-Sed nolo fidem meam interponere. Nam si venerit, modo valeat mea
-authoritas, vivum exire nunquam patiar.’ Calvin to Farel, dated Ides
-of February, 1546. From the original letter in the Paris Library; a
-certified copy, published by Paul Henry in his <i>Leben Johann Calvins</i>,
-3ter. Band; Beilagen, S. 65; from which the above paragraph is transcribed.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_58" href="#FNanchor_58" class="label">58</a>
-Cont. Bolsec (Hieron. Hermes), Docteur M&eacute;decin &agrave; Lyon: <i>Histoire
-de la Vie, Mœurs, Actes, Doctrine, Constance et Mort de Jean Calvin,
-Grand Ministre &agrave; Gen&egrave;ve</i>. Paris 1577, 12mo. Also in Latin, but of later
-date&mdash;<i>Vita Calvini, &amp;c.</i></p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_59" href="#FNanchor_59" class="label">59</a>
-It is a capital mistake to suppose, as Mosheim and others have done,
-that the <i>Christianismi Restitutio</i> was ever exposed for sale, or readily to be
-had either at Geneva or elsewhere. It cannot be shown that more than four
-or five copies at most of the book ever left the bales in which the whole impression
-was packed. There was, <i>first</i>, the copy sent, as I venture to think,
-by Servetus through Frelon to Calvin, which led to the arrest and trial
-at Vienne. <i>Second</i>, the copy taken from the five bales seized at Lyons
-for the use of the Inquisitor Ory. <i>Third</i>, the copy transmitted for their
-inspection to the Swiss Churches and Councils. <i>Fourth</i>, the copy given
-to Colladon by way of Brief by Calvin, with the passages underscored,
-on which Servetus was finally arraigned and condemned. And <i>Fifth</i>,
-the copy which we find Calvin sending to Bullinger at his request. Of
-these copies one may even have served two ends: after making the
-round of the Churches and coming again into Calvin’s hands, it may very
-well have been that which he despatched to Bullinger. That the book
-was not to be had immediately after the execution of Servetus is proved
-conclusively by what Sebastian Castellio, the accredited author of the
-work entitled, <i>Contra Libellum Calvini</i>, says on the subject: <i>He had not
-been able to obtain a sight of Servetus’s book, so as to inform himself of
-what he writes, Calvin having taken such pains to have it burned&mdash;‘cum
-Serveti libros, quippe combustos diligentia Calvini, non habeam, ut ex iis
-possem videre quid scriberet.’</i> The <i>Christianismi Restitutio</i>, in fact, remained
-completely unknown in the Republic of Letters until its existence
-was proclaimed by Wotton in his <i>Reflections on Learning, Ancient and
-Modern</i>, in the year 1694 (all but a century and a half after the death of
-its author), by the publication of the passage on the pulmonary circulation,
-extracted, we must conclude, from the copy that was then in England,
-and subsequently became, if it were not already, the property of Dr.
-Meade&mdash;the identical copy with the name on the title-page of Germain
-Colladon, the advocate who prosecuted Servetus at the instance of Calvin,
-now in the national library of Paris.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_60" href="#FNanchor_60" class="label">60</a>
-The title of the original, in full, is as follows:&mdash;</p>
-
-<p><i>Christianismi Restitutio.</i> Totius Ecclesi&aelig; Apostolic&aelig; est ad sua limina
-vocatio, in Integrum Restituta Cognitione Dei, Fidei Christi, Justificationis
-nostr&aelig;, Regenerationis Baptismi, et Cœn&aelig; Domini Manducationis
-Restitutio denique nobis Regno Cœlesti, Babylonis impia Captivitate
-soluta, et Antichristo cum suis penitus destructo.</p>
-
-<p class="center"><span class="rtl">בעת ההיא יעמוד מיכאר השׂר</span><br />
-καὶ ὲγένετο πόλεμος ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ.<br />
-MDLIII.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_61" href="#FNanchor_61" class="label">61</a>
-‘Whose soever sins ye remit,’ etc., John, xx. 23&mdash;writing added to
-the original text, beyond doubt, and dating from long after the time of
-Jesus, when the Church had acquired a status and was looking for
-power.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_62" href="#FNanchor_62" class="label">62</a>
-It were beyond the scope of my work to pursue this subject further;
-but let me say that having compared the first edition of the ‘Loci’ (1521)
-with the one of 1536 and others, of which there are copies in the British
-Museum Library, I find it impossible to overlook the influence of
-Servetus on Melanchthon, as of Melanchthon on Servetus. For fuller information
-the reader is referred to Tollin’s exhaustive, <i>Philip Melanchthon
-und Michael Servet, eine Quellenstudie</i>. 8vo. 1876.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_63" href="#FNanchor_63" class="label">63</a>
-For some account of the existing copies of the <i>Christianismi
-Restitutio</i>, see the Appendix to this book.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_64" href="#FNanchor_64" class="label">64</a>
-It may be well to remark on the confusion in the notice of the
-<i>volume</i> or book which in Trie’s second letter, as we read it, is said to have
-been sent among other documents, twenty-four in number; whilst in his
-third epistle he regrets that <i>the volume</i> cannot be forwarded at the moment,
-because of its having been lent two years ago to a friend of Calvin,
-resident in Lausanne. The ‘great book’ first sent may have been the
-copy of Calvin’s ‘Institutes,’ annotated on the margins by Servetus; a
-conclusion that is borne out by the reference, by and by made in the impending
-trial, towards the end of the first day’s proceedings, to pages
-421-424, where Baptism is the subject treated. The volume that cannot
-be forwarded at the time, because it had been lent to some one in
-Lausanne, is certainly the MS. copy of the ‘Restitutio Christianismi,’ sent
-by Servetus to Calvin some years before for his strictures, which he could
-never get returned, Calvin having lent it to Viret of Lausanne, and grown
-careless to take so much notice of the writer as would have been implied
-in recovering and returning him his work.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_65" href="#FNanchor_65" class="label">65</a>
-They were leaves from the <i>Institutions</i> of Calvin, with annotations
-by Servetus.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_66" href="#FNanchor_66" class="label">66</a>
-Chorier, <i>Etat politique de Dauphin&eacute;</i>, tome i., p. 335, quoted by
-D’Artigny.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_67" href="#FNanchor_67" class="label">67</a>
-<i>Calvin to Farel</i>, Book I., p. 169.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_68" href="#FNanchor_68" class="label">68</a>
-</p>
-
-<div class="poetry"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i0">Who loves not woman, wine, and song,<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">A fool is he his life-time long.<br /></span>
-</div></div></div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_69" href="#FNanchor_69" class="label">69</a>
-<i>Lucii Ann&aelig;i Senec&aelig; De Clementia Libri Tres</i>, Paris, 1532. The
-work was published by Calvin at his own expense, as a warning, unquestionably
-against persecution on religious grounds. It is of great rarity in
-its original shape, but is reprinted in the Geneva Edition of his <i>Opera
-Minora</i> of the year 1597.</p>
-
-<p><i>Seneca on Clemency</i> is also to be found translated into English:
-‘Lucius Ann&aelig;us Seneca, his first Book of Clemency, written to Nero
-C&aelig;sar,’ Lond. 1553. The sentence quoted above and commented by the
-French editor is rendered by the English translator briefly but not unhappily
-thus:</p>
-
-<div class="poetry"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i0">For it doth rather cowardice appear<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">Than clemency an injury in mind to bear:<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">’Tis he in whose command revenge doth lie<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">That’s merciful if he do pass it by.<br /></span>
-</div></div></div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_70" href="#FNanchor_70" class="label">70</a>
-<i>Thesaur. Epist. Calvini a C&uuml;nitz et Reuss</i>, v. 450.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_71" href="#FNanchor_71" class="label">71</a>
-<i>Thes. Ep. Calvini a C&uuml;nitz et Reuss</i>, v. 577.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_72" href="#FNanchor_72" class="label">72</a>
-Conf. Mosheim, op. cit. Beylagen. S. 255.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_73" href="#FNanchor_73" class="label">73</a>
-<i>Thes. Epist. Calvini a C&uuml;nitz et Reuss</i>, v. 591.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_74" href="#FNanchor_74" class="label">74</a>
-<i>D&eacute;claration pour maintenir la vraie foy</i>, p. 357, in ed. of collected
-minor works in French.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_75" href="#FNanchor_75" class="label">75</a>
-<i>M&eacute;m. de la Soci&eacute;t&eacute; d’histoire et d’Arch&eacute;ologie de Gen&egrave;ve</i>, tom iii., 1844.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_76" href="#FNanchor_76" class="label">76</a>
-<i>D&eacute;claration pour maintenir la vraie foy</i>; original ed., p. 354. Let
-us reiterate that Servetus spoke truly when he said that the comment on
-Palestine was none of his. We have already said that it is copied without
-change of a word from the Ptolemy of Pirckheimer. We add further
-that the scholium of the German editor was not challenged by Erasmus,
-Melanchthon, or Œcolampadius, who seem all to have corresponded with
-Pirckheimer on his edition. (<i>Vide</i> Tollin, in <i>Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft
-f&uuml;r Erdkunde zu Berlin</i>. Bd. f&uuml;r 1875.) It was only, therefore, when
-the comment came to be looked at through the distorting medium of
-personal enmity that it was seen as libelling Moses and outraging the
-Holy Ghost.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_77" href="#FNanchor_77" class="label">77</a>
-<i>D&eacute;claration pour maintenir la vraie foy.</i></p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_78" href="#FNanchor_78" class="label">78</a>
-See a letter of Jo. Haller to H. Bullinger, quoted farther on.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_79" href="#FNanchor_79" class="label">79</a>
-Compare Galiffe in <i>M&eacute;m. de l’Institut National Genevois</i>, 1862,
-p. 75.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_80" href="#FNanchor_80" class="label">80</a>
-The documents connected with the case of Bolsec must, we apprehend,
-have been communicated to Servetus. He often uses the same
-words as his predecessor in Calvin’s displeasure; and imitates him also
-in the desire he expresses to have Calvin interrogated and put on his
-trial for certain matters especially interesting to himself.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_81" href="#FNanchor_81" class="label">81</a>
-There is in fact a minute in the <i>Records of Geneva</i> of a formal requisition
-made by Farel on October 30, and so three days after the
-execution of Servetus, to have Wm. Geroult summoned to appear and
-give an account of himself to the Council. The Lieutenant-Criminel,
-Tissot, had even, as it seems, been charged with the business of making
-the necessary inquiries preliminary to the institution of a criminal suit.
-But we find no mention of any further step being taken in the matter.
-The civil authorities, with three days for reflection, probably thought
-that enough, more than enough perhaps, had already been done by the
-burning of the principal offender.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_82" href="#FNanchor_82" class="label">82</a>
-By the writer of the <i>Dialogus inter Vaticanum et Calvinum</i>.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_83" href="#FNanchor_83" class="label">83</a>
-<i>Fidelis Refutatio</i>, and <i>D&eacute;claration pour maintenir</i>, &amp;c.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_84" href="#FNanchor_84" class="label">84</a>
-From the <i>Criminal Records</i>, first published by Mosheim, op. cit.
-Beylagen, S. 414.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_85" href="#FNanchor_85" class="label">85</a>
-In the summary of the trial given by Trechsel<a id="FNanchor_86" href="#Footnote_86" class="fnanchor">86</a> from the archives of
-Berne, the articles now brought forward by Rigot, and the questions
-founded on them, are in the handwriting of the amanuensis usually employed
-by Calvin to make copies of his letters and papers; and beyond
-question were all dictated by Calvin himself. He perceived that he could
-trust Rigot no further without risk of failure, and so resumed the position
-he had taken with Trie, his servant Fontaine, and even in person, as we
-have seen.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_86" href="#FNanchor_86" class="label">86</a>
-<i>Die Antitrinitarier: Michel Servet und seine Vorg&auml;nger</i>, S. 307.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_87" href="#FNanchor_87" class="label">87</a>
-Conf. <i>Chr. Rest.</i> pp. 433 and 655, and Ep. 29 to Calvin.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_88" href="#FNanchor_88" class="label">88</a>
-<i>Vide</i> pp. 34, 48, Book I.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_89" href="#FNanchor_89" class="label">89</a>
-Herniosus ab utero Servetus dicit se uno latere <i>resectum</i> fuisse, ad
-l&aelig;vandam infirmitatem. Uno oculo amisso, attamen, non ideo c&aelig;cus
-homo; neque teste uno ablato impollens.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_90" href="#FNanchor_90" class="label">90</a>
-The letter of the Council of Geneva and the reply of the authorities
-of Vienne are published in the new ed. of Calvin by C&uuml;nitz and Reuss,
-vol. xiv.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_91" href="#FNanchor_91" class="label">91</a>
-Conf. <i>De Trin. Error.</i> fol. 93.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_92" href="#FNanchor_92" class="label">92</a>
-First under Calvin with Nicolas de la Fontaine as his agent; then
-under Colladon engaged by Calvin; next under Rigot as public prosecutor
-and now under Calvin and the Swiss Churches.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_93" href="#FNanchor_93" class="label">93</a>
-Here is what Servetus says on this subject, in connection with the
-Sabellian or Patripassian heresy, in his earlier work: As the proper
-passion of the flesh is to be born, so is it the proper passion of the flesh
-to suffer, to be scourged, to be crucified, to die. But all this does not
-touch the spirit, for it is not the soul that suffers or that dies, but the
-body. Who so profane as to imagine that the angel in me dies although
-I die? (<i>De Trinitatis Erroribus</i>, f. 76, b.)</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_94" href="#FNanchor_94" class="label">94</a>
-From Mosheim’s <i>Neue Nachrichten, Beilagen</i>, S. 102, copied from
-the archives of the Church of Z&uuml;rich.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_95" href="#FNanchor_95" class="label">95</a>
-Bullinger’s letter bears date from Z&uuml;rich, Sep. 14, 1553, and is printed
-in Calvin’s correspondence by C&uuml;nitz and Reuss.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_96" href="#FNanchor_96" class="label">96</a>
-The letter is given at length in the <i>Thes. Epist. Calvini a C&uuml;nitz et
-Reuss</i>, v. 591.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_97" href="#FNanchor_97" class="label">97</a>
-Calvin to Bullinger, April 21, 1555, in <i>Epist. Calvini</i>, 8vo. Hanov.
-1597.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_98" href="#FNanchor_98" class="label">98</a>
-Vue le sommaire du proc&eacute;s de Michel Servet, prisonnier, le rapport
-de ceux, esquel on a consultez, et consid&eacute;r&eacute; les grands erreurs et
-blasf&eacute;mes&mdash;Est este arret&eacute;: Il soyt condamn&eacute; &agrave; estre men&eacute; a Champel,
-et la brulez tout vivfz, et soyt exequet&eacute; a demain, et ses livres brusl&eacute;s.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_99" href="#FNanchor_99" class="label">99</a>
-Defensio Orthodox&aelig; Fidei, &amp;c.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_100" href="#FNanchor_100" class="label">100</a>
-Calvin only took letters of naturalisation as a citizen of Geneva
-four years before his death in 1564, eleven years after the death of
-Servetus.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_101" href="#FNanchor_101" class="label">101</a>
-See the Confession in full, in C&uuml;nitz and Reuss’s edit. of the <i>Opera
-Calvini</i>, viii. 704.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_102" href="#FNanchor_102" class="label">102</a>
-<i>De Voce Trinitate et Voce Persona.</i><a id="FNanchor_103" href="#Footnote_103" class="fnanchor">103</a></p>
-
-<p>Quoniam voces istas Trinitatis et Personarum plurimum Ecclesi&aelig;
-Christi commodare intelligimus, ut et vera Patris, Filii et Spiritus
-Sancti distinctio clarius exprimatur, et contentiosis controversiis melius
-occurratur, ab his usque adeo non abhorremus, ut libenter amplexemur,
-sive ex aliis audiend&aelig; sive a nobis usurpand&aelig; sint. Itaque quod antea a
-nobis factum est, in posterum quoque operam daturos, quoad licebit
-recipimus, ne earum usus in Ecclesiis nostris aboleatur. Nam neque ab iis
-inter scribendum, vel in Scriptur&aelig; ennarrationibus in concionibus ad populum,
-abstinebimus ipsi, et alios docebimus ne superstitiose refugiant. Si
-quis autem, pr&aelig;postera religione, teneatur quominus eas usurpare libenter
-ausit, quanquam ejusmodi superstitionem nobis non probari testamur,
-cui corrigend&aelig; non sit defuturum nostrum studium; quia tamen non
-videtur nobis h&aelig;c satis firma causa cur vir alioqui pius et in eandem
-religionem nobis sensu consentiens repudietur, ejus imperitiam hac in
-parte eatenus feremus ne abjiciamus ipsum ab Ecclesia, aut tanquam male
-sentientem de fide notemus. Neque, interim maligne interpretabimur si
-Bernensis Ecclesi&aelig; Pastores eos ad verbi ministerium admittere non
-sustineant quos comperint voces istas aspernari.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_103" href="#FNanchor_103" class="label">103</a>
-Op. sup. cit. viii. p. 707.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_104" href="#FNanchor_104" class="label">104</a>
-<i>Fidelis expositio Errorum Michaelis Serveti</i>, &amp;c.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_105" href="#FNanchor_105" class="label">105</a>
-These words I have, however, since found quoted by Henry: <i>Leben
-Calvins</i>, i. 181, and by Kampschulte, <i>Johann Calvin</i>, i. 297.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_106" href="#FNanchor_106" class="label">106</a>
-<i>Fuessli, Epistol&aelig; ab Ecclesia Helvet. Reformatoribus.</i> 8vo. Tigur.
-1748.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_107" href="#FNanchor_107" class="label">107</a>
-<i>Calvini Epist. et Respons.</i></p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_108" href="#FNanchor_108" class="label">108</a>
-The full titles are these: D&eacute;claration pour maintenir la vraye Foy
-que tiennent tous Chr&eacute;tiens de la Trinit&eacute; des Personnes en un seul Dieu.
-Par Jean Calvin. Contre les Erreurs de Michel Servet, Espaignol; o&ugrave; il
-est aussi monstr&eacute; qu’il est licite de punir les heretiques; et qu’a bon droit
-ce meschant &agrave; est&eacute; execut&eacute; par justice en la Ville de Gen&egrave;ve. Chez Jean
-Crespin. A Gen&egrave;ve, 1554, p. 356. 8vo.</p>
-
-<p>Defensio orthodox&aelig; fidei de sacra Trinitate contra prodigiosos errores
-Michaelis Serveti, Hispani; ubi ostenditur h&aelig;reticos jure gladii coercendos,
-et nominatim de homine hoc, tam impio, just&egrave; et merito sumptum Genev&aelig;
-fuisse supplicium, per Johannem Calvinum. Apud Olivum Roberti
-Stephani, 1554, p. 262. 8vo. Both of the versions are subscribed by all
-the Genevese clergy, and though they differ somewhat in minute particulars,
-they agree in everything essential. We have fine copies of both
-originals in our national Library.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_109" href="#FNanchor_109" class="label">109</a>
-For a more particular account of Calvin’s severities, the reader is
-referred to a paper by M. Galiffe in the <i>M&eacute;moires de l’Institut National
-de Gen&egrave;ve</i> for 1862, p. 79. But torture was an old institution in Geneva,
-and Servetus is said only to have escaped the rack on the remonstrance
-of Vandel, one of the senators of the libertine party. In older days we
-read of one Postel, who, failing to answer so satisfactorily as was desired
-when cited before the Roman Catholic bishop and his court, for some
-offence, was ‘suspended by the rope’&mdash;by the wrists we believe. A first
-suspension, however, not proving effectual, a second was ordered; but it
-being now dinner time, the culprit was suspended a second time whilst
-his lordship the bishop dined! In more recent times, and under Calvin’s
-rule, a certain Billiard, having been guilty of jeering at the thunder and
-lightning during a terrible storm, whilst the inhabitants of Geneva generally
-were on their knees praying to God for mercy, was adjudged to be lashed
-by the common hangman at the tail of a cart through the streets of the
-city! Germain Colladon declared that he deserved death; but as he had
-a wife and family they might be content with the scourging!</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_110" href="#FNanchor_110" class="label">110</a>
-<i>Em. Saisset: Michel Servet comme philosophe. In M&eacute;langes de
-Critique et d’ Histoire.</i> 12mo., Paris, 1865.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_111" href="#FNanchor_111" class="label">111</a>
-First printed by Mosheim from the autograph, in his <i>Neue Nachrichten
-von dem ber&uuml;hmten Spanischen Aertzte Michael Serveto, Beilagen</i>,
-S. 106. 8vo., Helmst. 1750.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_112" href="#FNanchor_112" class="label">112</a>
-<i>Corpus Reform. Ep. Melanch. ad An.</i>, 1554.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_113" href="#FNanchor_113" class="label">113</a>
-Comment. in <i>Acta Apostol. ad Regem Dani&aelig;</i>.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_114" href="#FNanchor_114" class="label">114</a>
-<i>Institutiones Religionis Christ.</i> Lib. i. Cap. 2, of the earlier editions.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_115" href="#FNanchor_115" class="label">115</a>
-Joris’s able letter in low German is given by Mosheim, op. cit., p. 421.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_116" href="#FNanchor_116" class="label">116</a>
-The proper title of this rare book, of which we have a copy in the
-library of the British Museum is: <i>De H&aelig;reticis an sint persequendi et
-omnino quomodo sit cum eis agendum, doctorum virorum, tum veterum
-tum recentiorum, sententi&aelig;</i>, &amp;c. The opinions of the learned, both of
-ancient and modern times, concerning heretics: Are they to be persecuted;
-or how otherwise are they to be dealt with? A book most necessary
-and useful in these distracted times to sovereign princes and magistrates
-in dealing with a matter of such difficulty and danger. 12mo., Magdeburgh,
-1554.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_117" href="#FNanchor_117" class="label">117</a>
-<i>Contra libellum Calvini quo ostendere conetur h&aelig;reticos jure gladii
-coercendos esse.</i> S. L. [1554]. Of this rare book I have not met with an
-original copy; but there is the reprint (after 1602) in the Brit. Mus.
-Library.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_118" href="#FNanchor_118" class="label">118</a>
-Conf. <i>Fuessli: Sebastian Castellio, eine Lebensgeschichte zur Erl&auml;uterung
-der Reformation</i>. 8vo. Z&uuml;rich und Leipz. 1767.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_119" href="#FNanchor_119" class="label">119</a>
-<i>Mini Celsi Senensis de H&aelig;reticis capitali supplicio afficientibus;
-adjuncta sunt Theod. Bez&aelig; ejusdem argumenti et And. Duditii Epistol&aelig;
-du&aelig; contrari&aelig;.</i> 8vo. s. L. 1584.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_120" href="#FNanchor_120" class="label">120</a>
-<i>Ketzergeschichte</i>, S. 301.</p></div></div>
-
-<div class="transnote">
-
-<h3>Transcriber’s Note:</h3>
-
-<p>Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.</p>
-
-</div>
-
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