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.