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?