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.