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.