Calvin's Theological Controversies.
Servetus.
It has been often said, that from this time forward Calvin was
supreme in Geneva, and governed absolutely. His government has
been sometimes called an ecclesiastical theocracy established in
the midst of a Christian republic. The assertion is vague and
inaccurate. There can be no doubt that the final defeat of the
Libertines was a great victory for Calvin, and that it increased
his general influence in Geneva enormously. On all subsequent
occasions his opinion was relied upon. The civil magistrates
often asked his advice. When any important question or grave
difficulty arose with regard to the foreign policy of the little
state, Calvin was frequently applied to, requested to take part
in the negotiations, and to exercise in behalf of Geneva the
influence which he had obtained in those parts of Europe where
the Reformation had been adopted. But, although Calvin's
influence in the republic was very powerful, it is a mistake to
say that the government ever assumed an ecclesiastical character.
The distinction between the civil and religious powers was
strictly preserved, and their domains carefully separated.
{291}
The civil magistrates recognised the rights of the Venerable
Company, and of the Consistory, in all questions of faith and
religious and moral discipline; but they resisted any extension
of their power beyond its due limits, controlled it within these
limits, and exercised due authority over the pastors themselves.
The Venerable Company had transferred one of their pastors to a
country parish without asking the Council to authorize this step;
they were desired not to act in such a manner in future. The
registers of the Council contain the following entry: 'Nicolas
Vandert, preacher at Jussy, does not do his duty in his calling,
and does not visit the sick; resolved that he shall be dismissed,
and another put in his place.' A little later another pastor was
dismissed 'for incontinence.' The Council is informed that Pastor
Bernard preaches 'with closed doors,' and thereupon desires him
to preach 'with open doors.' Another pastor is warned 'that he is
not to speak evil of the magistrates in his sermons.' Even Calvin
himself was not beyond the reach of similar admonitions; 'On the
21st of May, 1548, the Council was informed that, in his sermon
yesterday, Calvin asserted, with much anger, that the magistrates
tolerated many offences. Wherefore it is ordained that he shall
be summoned before the Council, and asked what was his intention
in preaching to that effect; and if there is any such offence in
the city, then the officers of justice shall have orders to see
the law carried out.' The mutual recriminations still continued;
on the 9th of July, Calvin was denounced because 'yesterday he
was very violent in his sermon, speaking against baptism and
certain crosses worn upon the clothes.'
{292}
The Council decides to summon all the ministers before them and
remonstrate, telling them that 'they ought not to protest in
public, but first of all to bring their grievances before the
Council, and afterwards to address the public, if they find that
the Council takes no notice of their complaints.' There can be no
doubt that the power of the pastors was very great; but that of
the civil magistrates was equally great, and they had no
hesitation in using it. [Footnote 103]
[Footnote 103: M. Amédée Roget, in a little pamphlet on the
Church and State of Geneva during the lifetime of Calvin,
published at Geneva in 1867, has fully established the truth
of these facts, which he quotes from the registers of the
Council.]
Calvin remained the victor in his struggle with the political
Libertines; but he was engaged in another contest--a series of
theological controversies with the heretical Libertines. He was
laying the foundations of the religious system and independence
of the reformed Christian Church, but he was also labouring to
uphold the Christian evangelical faith within that Church. The
three principal and most formidable characteristics of the
sixteenth century were its political disturbances, its public
immorality, and its ardent outburst of intellectual life, and
Calvin was simultaneously resisting all of them. I will not
attempt to follow him into the arena where he successfully
opposed the numerous speculative theologians who hovered around
the great reformers of the century,--Caroli, Bolsec, Castellio,
Westphal, Gribaldo, Valentinus Gentilis, Biandrata, Osiander, and
many others.
{293}
But I will select two of the most daring thinkers with whom he
was brought into contact, Michael Servetus and Lælius Socinus;
both of them celebrated, one for his tragical end, and the other
as the forerunner of his nephew, Faustus Socinus, the founder of
the well-known sect of Socinians. Two very different sides of the
character of Calvin are displayed in his connexion with these two
men; his harsh severity towards those opponents whom he despised,
and his moderation and almost gentle tolerance towards those whom
he esteemed, and believed to be sincere and humble.
In the year 1509, the very same year in which Calvin was born at
Noyon, Michael Servetus was born at Villanueva, a city of
Arragon, where his father, a burgess of some eminence, was a
notary. He received his early education in a Dominican convent,
and his father afterwards sent him to study law at Toulouse, just
as Calvin's father had wished him to pursue the same study at
Orleans and Bourges. In like manner as Calvin in his youth had
received assistance and protection from an ecclesiastic, so also
the first patron of Servetus was a priest,--Quintana,
father-confessor of the Emperor Charles V., whom Servetus
accompanied to Italy, an obscure member of the imperial suite. In
spite, however, of this patronage and of his youth, he was
strongly imbued with the novel opinions of the time; for when he
afterwards recalled the recollections of his visit to Rome, he
says: 'I saw there with my own eyes the Pope carried on the heads
of the princes of the land, and worshipped in the public squares
by a whole people on their knees; so much so that those who could
kiss his feet, or even his shoes, thought themselves blessed
above all others. O beast, the most murderous of all beasts! O
harlot, the most shameless of all harlots! Surely this was the
beautiful harlot described in the Book of Isaiah.' [Footnote 104]
[Footnote 104: Isaiah, chap, xlvii. Henry, iii. 107.]
{294}
A little later, in 1530, Servetus was at Basle, holding communion
with the already celebrated reformers who had taken up their
abode there, with Œcolampadius, Capito and Bucer. Zwingli, the
great reformer of German Switzerland, who was to be struck by
death the following year on the battle-field of Cappel, was also
at Basle, holding converse with his friends regarding the
interests of their common cause. Œcolampadius said: 'I have got a
rash, hot-headed Spaniard here, Michael Servetus, who is always
raising the most difficult questions, and bothering me horribly.
He is an Arian.' 'Brother Œcolampadius,' said Zwingli, 'look
after him and be careful; the views of that Spaniard will be the
ruin of the whole Christian religion. Unless Christ was truly God
and the eternal God, he was not and could not have been our
Saviour, and all that the holy prophets and apostles have taught
must be false. Try by good and weighty arguments to bring the
young man back to the way of truth.' 'I have tried,' answered
Œcolampadius, 'but he is so vain, so presumptuous, and so
argumentative that I can do nothing with him.' In 1534, four
years later, Calvin also visited Basle, and made an impression
upon these same reformers, the very reverse of that which
Servetus had produced. They foresaw great danger to the reformed
religion in one of these young men, and great strength and hope
in the other. Their presentiments were not false.
{295}
Throughout 1531 and 1532 Servetus was wandering from Basle into
Germany, and from Germany back to Basle; sometimes in the suite
of the confessor of Charles V.; at others alone, and ardently
engrossed by the notions which were seething in his brain, and
from the realization of which he promised himself a brilliant
future. There were no limits to his ambition and presumption; he
proposed to inaugurate a very different kind of reformation from
that which was going on around him: 'I am neither Catholic nor
Protestant,' he said, and he already looked upon himself as the
most important, as well as the newest reformer. He returned to
Basle in 1531, and brought out his first work on the 'Errors of
the Trinity.' It was printed at Hagenau, and he did not hesitate
to put his real name on the title-page: 'by M. Servetus,
otherwise Reves, a Spaniard from Arragon.' [Footnote 105]
[Footnote 105: _De Trinitatis Erroribus_, lib. vii. per
M. Servetus, _alias_ Reves, ab Aragonia Hispanum. In
8vo.]
The printer was more prudent; so great was the suspicion which
the doctrines of Servetus had already inspired, that he did not
put his own name on the book, nor that of the place at which it
was published. The work was a violent attack upon the doctrine of
the Trinity, written with vigour and a certain glitter of
imagination and subtlety of thought, but its rash speculations
were vague and superficial. It was received with prompt and
severe disapproval both by Catholics and Protestants. Father
Quintana spoke of Servetus with contempt, as a young man who had
certainly belonged to his suite, and whom he knew by sight, but
whom he had never suspected of holding such impious opinions.
Even the most gentle of the German and Swiss reformers openly
expressed their indignation. Melancthon urged Œcolampadius to
take heed lest such doctrines should be imputed to the Swiss
reformers.
{296}
Bucer denounced the work from the pulpit, and went so far as to
say that the author of it deserved to be torn limb from limb. The
Government of Basle caused the book to be seized, and even, so it
is said, imprisoned the author. But the imprisonment, if it took
place, must have been short, for Servetus almost immediately
published a second work [Footnote 106] on the same subject, still
in his own name, in which he explained, apologized for, and
retracted almost the whole of the first; not, however, on the
ground that his notions were false, but that they were crude and
imperfect.
[Footnote 106: _Dialogorum de Trinitate_. Lib. ii. _de
Justitia regni Christi_, cap. iv. In 8vo. 1532.]
Indeed, in addition to the attacks on the Trinity, this book
disclosed a much more wild and impious pantheism than the first
had done. The second work received little attention, either
favourable or unfavourable, but the impression produced by the
first was permanent. Servetus saw that he had very little chance
of success either in Germany or Switzerland, and he went
elsewhere to try and realize his dreams of success and power.
He hoped to do so in France, at Paris. He was there in 1534, and
was, at the same time, a student and a professor. He both gave
and received lessons in medicine, mathematics, and astronomy, and
was soon noted for his rapid insight, brilliant imagination,
marvellous powers of acquisition, and wealth of novel theories,
often rash, but sometimes ingenious and happy. He conjectured,
and almost described, the circulation of the blood, took part
with the Greek against the Arabian physicians, speaking of all
those who did not agree with him as 'fools and public pests.'
{297}
He gave courses of lectures on mathematics and astronomy which
were a mixture of science and chimerical conjecture, and he
translated Ptolemy's Geography. The extent and versatility of his
intellectual powers attracted large audiences; but at the same
time his exacting and arrogant character, his overbearing and
pretentious manners, his restless and quarrelsome temper soon
embroiled him not only with the physicians who were his rivals,
but with the whole University of Paris, which distrusted his
views and detested his person. He lacked both personal influence
and modesty; he was not only violent and abusive to his
adversaries, like the majority of even the most eminent learned
men in his time, but in every dispute he showed that presumptuous
and arrogant self-complacence which inflicts far deeper wounds
than open and even brutal anger. His theological heresies and
astrological dreams furnished numerous pretexts against him. He
was denounced to the 'Parlement' of Paris, and they condemned him
to suppress an abusive treatise which he had published, and
forbade him to teach astrology, or to prophesy and predict from
the stars. Annoyed at this, and lacking stability of purpose, he
left Paris and went to Lyons, where he obtained employment as
corrector of the press to the celebrated printers Melchior and
Caspar Trechsel; he returned to Paris, and left again; went first
to Avignon, then to Charlieu, a small town near Lyons, changing
his name and residence incessantly; sometimes eager for
retirement and sometimes for display; desiring fame, and yet
often in great need of concealment.
{298}
At length, in 1540, he settled at Vienne, in Dauphiné, where the
archbishop, Mgr. Palmier, who had attended some of his lectures
in Paris took him under his protection.
He lived at Vienne twelve years, concealing his real name
Servetus, and adopting that of Villanueva, his native city. He
was in high repute as a physician, and conformed outwardly to the
Roman Catholic religion; but he was more than ever absorbed in
his projected religious reformation, and the great part that he
was to play in it. He published numerous works; among others he
brought out a translation of the Bible by a learned monk named
Xantès Pagninus, then dead. But the Book of Revelations was the
special subject of his study. In it he saw the signs of the
times, and the approaching fall of Antichrist. 'The Dragon which
tries to devour the woman and her child is the Pope; the woman is
the Church; her child whom God takes away and saves is the
Christian faith. [Footnote 107]
[Footnote 107: Revelation, chap. xii.]
For 1560 days, that is years, the Church has been under the yoke
of Antichrist, but now the struggle with the Dragon is about to
commence. Michael and his angels will triumph; we shall discover
the divine Revelation from the very earliest ages--the great
mystery of faith which is beyond all dispute; we shall see the
face of God which has never yet been seen. We shall see the glory
of his image in ourselves.' [Footnote 108]
[Footnote 108: Henry, iii. 125-128.]
Servetus did not assert that he himself was the archangel
Michael, but he believed himself to be his ally, and one of our
Lord's new apostles. In order to make known all these seething
fancies, he prepared a new work entitled _Restoration of
Christianity_.
{299}
The latest of Calvin's biographers, Stähelin, gives the following
account of the doctrines contained in the work of Servetus, 'or
rather of so much of them,' he says, 'as it is possible to make
out from his involved and mystical language, and the attempted
sublimity of his style. The fundamental principle of the whole
book is the assertion of the one absolute and indivisible God. It
would be impossible to imagine any direct action of God upon the
world; he is separated from it by an immeasurable abyss. The
instruments which he uses, the links which unite the finite and
the infinite, are found in the world of thought. Every thought or
idea must be contemplated as a personal reality, having its
origin in the being of God, and itself an image of his eternal
essence. Perfectly distinct, and yet not separate from God, these
ideas animate matter, and thus unite it to God. There are
therefore three worlds, each of which has its own separate
existence, although they are all closely united one to the
other,--God, ideas, and things or beings. All beings are
contained in ideas, all ideas in God; God is all things, and all
things are God.' [Footnote 109]
[Footnote 109: Stähelin, i. 432.]
In 1848, two years before the publication of Stähelin's work, M.
Emile Saisset, a very distinguished philosopher of the
contemporary French school, published in the _Revue des deux
Mondes_ [Footnote 110] an account of the doctrine of Servetus,
which, although more fully developed, is in perfect agreement
with that of M. Stähelin, the theologian of Basle.
[Footnote 110: _Revue des deux Mondes_, 1848, i.
605-611.]
That doctrine is, in fact, pantheism, with all its pretensions to
explain everything in a rational way, and with the chaos of
logic, mysticism, and mere words, which pantheism offers as
rational explanation.
{300}
When Servetus was living at Vienne, he was in frequent
communication with friends at Lyons, and was within a very short
distance, almost within reach, of the religious influence of
Geneva, that is of Calvin. I have already said that the two men
met in Paris in 1534, commenced a controversy, and appointed a
meeting so as to carry it on in public; that Calvin kept this
appointment, and Servetus broke it. Whatever may have been the
motive of Servetus in so doing, there can be no doubt that some
contempt for an adversary who had thus escaped from a contest
lingered in Calvin's mind. That which he afterwards heard
respecting Servetus from the German and Swiss reformers had
certainly confirmed the suspicion and disapprobation with which
he was inclined to regard him. But, on the other hand, Servetus
could not live so near Calvin without being struck by the
importance which he had acquired, the greatness of his work, and
the fame of his name. He wished to renew his acquaintance with
Calvin, wrote to him, sent him questions, asked his advice, even
sent him a copy of the book which he was preparing on the
'Restoration of Christianity;' no doubt for the purpose of
finding out beforehand the objections of his formidable
adversary. His letters bear the impress sometimes of
philosophical inquiry, sometimes of undisciplined temper: 'I am
always at work,' he wrote to Calvin, 'trying to revive the life
of the Church, and you are angry with me because I associate
myself with the angel Michael in such a contest, and because I am
anxious that all pious men should do as I do.'
[Footnote 111 (no reference): Page 171.]
{301}
'Examine this passage in the Book of Revelations thoroughly, and
you will see that the combat is waged by men, and that they lay
down their lives to testify of the Christ. It is usual to call
them angels in Scripture, because the regeneration from above
makes us equal to the angels.'
To these letters, which were very numerous between 1540 and 1546,
Calvin replied coldly but without acrimony. He evaded the
questions of Servetus when they appeared insidious, and gave him
wise and earnest advice; but he was evidently careful not to
enter into regular correspondence with him, and anxious to avoid
all appearance of intimacy, even as an opponent, with a man whom
he did not esteem, and whose views and ideas outraged all his
own. 'I was anxious to carry out your wishes,' he wrote to their
common friend Frellon at Lyons; [Footnote 112] 'not that, from
what I see of his present frame of mind, I have any great hope of
doing much good to such a man, but in order to try once again if
there are any means of subduing him;--which will be when God has
so dealt with him that he is quite different to what he is now.'
[Footnote 112: February 13th, 1546.]
{302}
'As he wrote to me in a very haughty tone, I wished, if possible,
to humble him by speaking more harshly than I am wont to do. I
could do no otherwise, for I assure you that there is no lesson
he is in such want of as one in humility; but it must come to him
from God and no otherwise. Nevertheless we must put our hands to
the work also. If by God's grace, shown both to him and to us,
the answer you have asked me to send should prove profitable to
him, I shall have reason to rejoice. But if he continues in his
present mind, you will lose time if you entreat me to labour any
further on his behalf, for I have other duties which are much
more imperative. ... I pray you to rest satisfied with what I
have already done, unless you find him differently disposed.'
Servetus, however, continued to write to Calvin; no doubt hoping
either to convince or to perplex him by his persistent
correspondence and controversy. At length Calvin grew weary of
it, and wrote: 'Neither now nor at any future time will I mix
myself up in any way with your wild dreams. Forgive me for
speaking thus, but truth compels me to do so. I neither hate you
nor despise you; I do not wish to treat you harshly; but I must
be made of iron if I could hear you rail against the doctrine of
salvation and not be moved by it. Moreover, I have no time to
concern myself any further with your plans and systems; all that
I can say to you on this subject, is contained in my "Christian
Institutes," to which I must now refer you.' [Footnote 113]
[Footnote 113: Henry, iii. 125-133. Stähelin, i. 429-431.]
Servetus was deeply wounded by this haughty language: he had made
advances which Calvin had resisted, and laid snares from which he
had escaped. The prudent reformer with his clear and resolute
intellect could not show indifference to the self-confident
visionary, who was capable both of lofty sincerity and low
cunning, nor was it possible that he could be deceived by him.
Even if there had not been any special and profound disagreement
between these two men, they were antipathetic by nature, and
anything that drew them together and brought them into contact,
instead of uniting them, would only cause them to recoil more
widely.
{303}
From this time forward there was an end of all direct
correspondence on the part of Calvin. He had previously written
to Farel: [Footnote 114] 'Not long ago Servetus wrote to me, and
sent with his letter a volume of his extravagant folly, which he
put forward with great ostentation, and I was compelled to read
the most unheard-of and bewildering things. He says that, if I
like, he will come here; but I will not give him any assurance of
my protection, for if he does come and if my authority prevails,
I will never suffer him to depart from this city alive.' In
September 1548, he wrote to Viret: 'I think you have seen my
answer to Servetus. I have declined any further correspondence
with such an obstinate and conceited heretic. It is certainly a
case in which we ought to follow the precept of the apostle Paul.
[Footnote 115] He is now attacking you, and it is for you to
consider how far it is worth your while to refute his dreams.
From henceforth he will get nothing more from me.'
[Footnote 114: February 13th, 1546.]
[Footnote 115: II Timothy ii. 23.]
Servetus was more annoyed by silence than he could possibly have
been by controversy, and he sent back Calvin's copy of the
'Christian Institutes' full of marginal notes, in which he
attacked the doctrines it contained. He determined at the same
time to put forth his manifesto, his great work on the
'Restoration of Christianity;' which would, so he thought, effect
a much greater social and religious revolution in Europe than the
Reformation had done. But with a strange mixture of audacity and
timidity, although he published it, he did not venture to
proclaim himself as its author.
{304}
He tried first of all to get it printed at Basle; not succeeding
there he found a printer at Vienne, in the very diocese where he
was living under the protection of the Archbishop, who consented
to print it under the seal of secrecy. The production was
completed in three months, between September 1552 and January
1553, under the superintendence of Servetus himself. Some say
that one thousand and others that eight hundred copies were
struck off, and bales were forwarded at once to Lyons, Châtillon,
Frankfort, and Geneva. The book bore no name, either of author or
printer, but, with an infatuation which would be incomprehensible
if it were not for the paternal love of an author for his work,
the three initial letters of the name and country of Servetus
were placed at the end of it; M. S. V.--Michael Servetus,
Villanueva.
The public indignation was great; especially in Lyons and Geneva,
the former the centre of Catholicism, and the latter of
Protestantism. The people of Geneva marvelled that in a city like
Lyons, where Cardinal de Tournon and the Roman Inquisitor
Matthias Ory resided, no steps were taken to stop the circulation
of such a book and to discover and punish the author. There was a
French refugee at Geneva, Guillaume de Trie, a zealous Protestant
and follower of Calvin, who was in correspondence with a relative
at Lyons, Antoine Arneys, who was an ardent Catholic; and, in
order to bring De Trie back to the bosom of the Church, Arneys
accused the reformers of being without discipline or rules of
faith, and of sanctioning the most unbridled licence. De Trie, in
his turn, accused the Catholic Church of indifference and
inability to repress licence in her own domains; and the name of
Servetus, his previous works, his new book, recently printed at
Vienne under the very eyes of the Archbishop, and the doctrines
taught in the book, were all brought forward in De Trie's letter
to the Catholic of Lyons, in proof of the justice of his
reproaches.
{305}
He added: 'In order that you may not think I speak from mere
conjecture, I send you the first sheet of the work.' And he did,
in fact, send the title-page, index, and first four pages of the
'Restoration of Christianity.'
The Inquisitor, the Cardinal, and the Vicar-General of the
Archbishop of Vienne, immediately took the matter in hand. At
their request Servetus was summoned to appear before Monsieur de
Montgiron, the _Lieutenant-Général du Roi_, [Footnote 116]
in Dauphiné, whose physician he was, under the name of
Villanueva. At the expiration of two hours, which even those who
uphold Servetus say that he no doubt spent in destroying papers
which might have compromised him, he appeared and answered all
the questions put to him by a general denial. He said that 'for a
long time he had lived at Vienne, and that he had often visited
the preachers and other professors of theology. But they would
not find that he had ever held heretical opinions or been
suspected of heresy. He was willing that his apartments should be
searched so as to remove all cause for suspicion, not only that
of the court but of any other persons, for he had always desired
to live so that there should be no cause for the said suspicion.'
His dwelling and papers were searched.
[Footnote 116: The functions of the _Lieutenant-Général du
Roi_ were military, political, administrative, and, on
special occasions, judicial also. This confusion of offices
prevailed for a long time in the old French Monarchy.]
{306}
The printer Arnoullet and his workmen were examined; they were
asked if they had seen the manuscript of the book of which the
first few pages were shown to them--they answered that they had
not, and produced a list of all the books printed by them within
the last two years; there was not one of any kind in octavo. The
questions put either to Servetus or to those who had assisted
him, only led to absolute denial of all that was suggested, and
the court decided that there was not sufficient evidence for
taking any further proceedings, or for imprisoning the Spanish
physician, Monsieur Villanueva.
The falsehood was rash and useless. Too many persons had been
engaged in the production of the book, too many copies had been
sent away, the initials M. S. V. (Michael Servetus Villanueva)
too plainly indicated the author, and Servetus himself had too
often boasted of his work, to make it possible that a serious
inquiry could have any other result than a discovery of the whole
truth. Cardinal de Tournon and the Inquisitor Ory applied to the
source from whence they had received warning, for further help.
They directed the Catholic Arneys, at Lyons, to write to the
Protestant De Trie, [Footnote 117] at Geneva, and ask for the
information and proof which they wanted, and amongst other things
for the whole volume of which he had only sent a few pages: 'In
order,' so said the letter, 'that the Genevese might see that
there were people in France who laid to heart the honour of God
and of the Christian faith, and that they were not all as
lukewarm as those of Geneva imagined.'
[Footnote 117: According to Stähelin, i. 436, the Inquisitor,
Matthias Ory, wrote to De Trie with his own hand.]
{307}
The inquiry at Vienne had taken place about the middle of March;
De Trie's answer to Arneys arrived at Lyons on the 26th of the
same month. It was as follows: 'When I wrote the letter which you
communicated to those who were in it accused of indifference, I
did not think that the matter would have gone so far. My only
intention was to let you see the fine zeal and devotion of those
who call themselves the pillars of the Church, and yet allow such
evil to exist among them, whilst they harshly persecute poor
Christians who desire nothing more than to serve God in all
simplicity. As this was a striking example which had come under
my notice, I thought that my letters--as I was writing on this
subject--gave me a suitable occasion for mentioning it. But since
you have made known that which I had intended to write for your
own eyes only, may God so dispose all things for the best, that
it may be the means of purging Christianity from such a foul
pest. If those you speak of are really as much in earnest as you
say, there will not be much difficulty in the affair (even
although I am unable at present to furnish you with what you ask
for, namely the book), for I can place in your hands that which
is more convincing, namely about two dozen papers written by the
person in question, and containing some of his heresies. If the
printed book was placed before him, he might deny it, but he
cannot deny his own writing. ... But I must confess that I have
had great difficulty in obtaining from Monsieur Calvin that which
I send you; not that he is unwilling that such execrable
blasphemy should be punished, but that it seems to him that,
since he does not wield the sword of justice, it is his duty to
confute heresy by sound doctrine rather than to seek to extirpate
it by any other method.
{308}
But I have importuned him so greatly, representing that I should
be charged with making reckless assertions unless he came to my
aid, that at length he has consented to give up that which I send
you.' [Footnote 118]
[Footnote 118: _Revue des deux Mondes_, 1848, i. 822.]
The packet contained: I. Some pages of a copy of Calvin's
'Christian Institutes,' on the margin of which Servetus had
written with his own hand, occasionally using very violent
language, some of his theories which were utterly opposed to the
Christian dogmas recognised both by Protestants and Catholics.
II. Several autograph letters from Servetus to Calvin, in which
he brought forward and maintained the pantheistic notions upon
which his recent work, the 'Restoration of Christianity,' was
based.
Calvin has been strongly blamed for giving up these private
letters and marginal notes to the Catholic authorities, who had
already commenced proceedings against Servetus. It has been said
that he laid the whole plot, and caused Servetus to be denounced,
in order to destroy a religious adversary and personal enemy, by
the instrumentality of the Catholic Church. His hesitation as to
whether he ought to give up the papers and allow them to be sent
to Lyons, shows that he had some doubt as to the moral rectitude
of his conduct; but it shows an extraordinary misapprehension of
his character to imagine that this hesitation was an act of
hypocrisy, and that the surrender of the papers was a piece of
premeditated perfidy. There are no errors, or rather no vices,
with which it is so impossible to charge Calvin as with untruth
and hypocrisy.
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During the whole course of his life he openly avowed his thoughts
and acknowledged his actions; he left his native country for
ever, and the country of his adoption for a long period, just
because he was resolved to assert his opinions, and to act
according to his opinions. In his transactions with Servetus, he
was brought into contact with a man who, whilst he aimed at
becoming the most radical of reformers, lived for twelve years at
Vienne as a strict Catholic, and secretly printed and distributed
a profoundly anti-Christian book; then, seeing that he was in
danger, denied his work and his acts, and protested 'that he had
never desired to teach or maintain any doctrine opposed to the
Church or the Christian religion.' Calvin felt the greatest
contempt for so much untruth and cowardice; he openly condemned
the book and the conduct of Servetus from the very first; he
considered it both a right and a duty to prove the truth of that
which he had affirmed, and to show at Lyons as well as at Geneva
that the opinions of Servetus were the same as those put forward
in the condemned volume, and that Servetus was really the author
of it. 'It is reported,' said he, 'that I have contrived to have
Servetus taken prisoner in the Papal dominions, that is at
Vienne; and thereupon many say that I have not acted honourably
in exposing him to the deadly enemies of the faith. There is no
need to insist on my vigorously denying such a frivolous calumny,
which will fall flat when I have said in one word that there is
no truth in it. ... If there were any truth in the charge, I
should not deny it, and I do not think that it would be at all
discreditable to me.' [Footnote 119]
[Footnote 119: Bungener, p. 362.]
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The effect produced by this information was what might have been
expected. The proceedings at Vienne were at once resumed.
Servetus was called upon to explain the marginal notes in the
'Christian Institutes,' and the letters he had written to Calvin.
He was greatly troubled, and fell into all kinds of strange and
contradictory statements and denials: 'He says that, at first
sight, it is impossible for him to say if the letter is his or
not, because it has been written so long; however, having looked
at it more closely, he certainly thinks that he must have written
it; and says that whatever is found in it contrary to the faith,
he submits to the decision of our holy Mother Church, from which
he has never wished, nor would ever consent to be separated. And
if he has written any such things, he says that he wrote them
heedlessly, by way of argument and without serious thought.' And
then he is said to have burst into tears and uttered the most
unexpected lie, denying that he was Servetus: 'I will tell you
the whole truth. Twenty-five years ago, when I was in Germany, a
book by a certain Servetus, a Spaniard, was published at Aganon
(Hagenau); I do not know where he was then living. When I entered
into correspondence with Calvin, he charged me with being
Servetus, on account of the similarity of our views, and after
that I assumed the character of Servetus.' [Footnote 120]
[Footnote 120: Henry, iii. 146.]
This incoherent mass of untruth and confession caused the
proceedings to be carried on in a more serious manner. Servetus
was arrested and imprisoned. The gaoler received orders to watch
him carefully. Nevertheless he was treated with an indulgence by
no means common at that time. He was allowed to have his own
servant, to keep possession of a gold chain and some rings which
he wore, and to send a demand for the payment of 300 crowns which
were due to him.
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He had undoubtedly many staunch friends; probably the vice-Bailli
of Vienne, whose sick daughter he had cured, was one, and
possibly Monsieur de Montgiron, the _Lieutenant-Général_ in
whose service he had been, was another. It was afterwards proved
that a servant of the gaoler had said to the servant of Servetus,
'Go and tell your master to escape by the garden.' On the 7th of
April, 1553, two days after his imprisonment, Servetus did, in
fact, escape in the early morning by a garden which led into the
courtyard of the _Palais de Justice_. He hurried across the
bridge over the Rhone, and thus passed from Dauphiné into
Lyonnais; at least this was the account given by a peasant, who
had met him but was not interrogated until three days after his
escape. [Footnote 121]
[Footnote 121: Henry, iii. 147; Gaberel, ii. 248; _Revue
des deux Mondes_, 1848, i. 824.]
No traces of him can be discovered between April and July 1553.
He was wandering either in French or Swiss territory; and when,
at a later period, he was asked where he had intended to go after
his escape from Vienne, he varied in his answers, sometimes
naming Spain and at others Italy as his proposed place of refuge.
I am inclined to believe that from the very first he intended to
make his way to a much nearer spot. Be that as it may, whilst he
was wandering from place to place, either undecided as to his
future course, or waiting for a fitting opportunity of carrying
out his plan, sentence was pronounced upon him by the Catholic
judges at Vienne; and on the 17th of June he was condemned 'to be
burnt alive over a slow fire, at the place of public execution,
so that his body should be reduced to cinders as well as his
book.'
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