Detail on the Trial and Execution of Servetus at Geneva
The arrest at Geneva
Although escaped from his imprisonment at Vienne, Servetus
found the world by no means a place in which he might feel
free to go or be wherever he would. He dared not stay in France
for fear of recapture. It was hardly more safe for him to
return to the Rhine country whence he had fled years before,
and where he might still be recognized. Still less could he
think of returning to his native land in fanatical Spain.
He therefore determined to go to Naples in order to practice
his profession among his countrymen, of whom many had fled
thither for the sake of enjoying greater religious liberty.
He thought at first of crossing the Pyrenees and going through
Spain, but danger of arrest on the border deterred him, and
after wandering like a hunted thing for four months he at
length turned to the route throu gh Switzerland into northern
Italy as the safest one for him. Fortunately for him, he was
well provided with money.
Thus it was that Servetus at length arrived at an inn in
Geneva one evening about the middle of August, intending as
soon as possible to get a boat up the lake on his way to Zürich
and Italy. He had meant to keep out of sight as much as possible,
hoping thus to escape discovery; but unhappily for him the
next day was Sunday, when the laws required every one to attend
church, and he may indeed even have been curious to hear Calvin
preach. Here he was recognized before ever the sermon began.
Calvin felt that Servetus had long deserved death as a blasphemer
and heretic, and he may have suspected that he had come in
order to spread his heresies in Geneva itself, and thus to
endanger the success of the Reformation there. He was the
more keenly alive to this danger since he had but lately had
a letter telling him how rapidly and widely the diabolical
teachings of Servetus had spread in the cities of northern
Italy. He therefore felt bound to do all in his power to rid
the world of Servetus, now that the Inquisition at Vienne
had failed of doing so, and he at once caused him to be arrested
and thrown into prison. The law required that the accuser
in such a case should be imprisoned with the accused until
the charges were established, and since this would be inconvenient
for himself Calvin got a student named Nicolas de la Fontaine,
who was living in his household as his secretary, to enter
the prison in his stead as the accuser.
The charges are set
On the day after his arrest Servetus was brought for preliminary
examination before the proper authority, to whom de la Fontaine,
his formal accuser, presented a complaint against Servetus,
drawn up by Calvin under . These were based mainly on the
Restitutio, and after charging that some twenty-four years
ago Servetus had begun to trouble the churches with his heresies,
and had since then continued his mischief by his notes on
the Bible and on Ptolemy, and by a recent book full of infinite
blasphemies, and that he was an escaped prisoner from Vienne;
they went on to charge him with destroying the very foundations
of Christianity by various heresies as to the Trinity, the
person of Christ, the immortality of the soul, and infant
baptism; and finally led up to the climax by charging that
he had defamed Calvin by heaping all possible blasphemies
upon him, and had concealed his scandalous views from the
printer at Vienne. Some of these charges Servetus at once
admitted as true, some he denied as false, and some he explained
away; adding, however, that if in anything he had fallen into
error he was willing to stand corrected. But on the whole
the charges were held to be well taken, and it was ordered
that he be held for trial.
The trial begins
On the following day trial was begun before the Little Council
of Geneva, and conducted by the Prosecuting Attorney. Servetus
being duly sworn was re-examined on the charges made the previous
day. He now made his admissions and denials rather more distinct
than before, but took a fling at Calvin by saying that it
was no fault of his that he had not been burned alive at Vienne,
and that he was ready before a full congregation to give Calvin
the reasons and scripture proofs for his teachings. A little
later one of Calvin’s most prominent supporters entered
the case as counsel for the prosecution, while on the other
hand one of his most active political opponents took a hand
in defense of Servetus. This threatened to turn the case into
a phase of the political struggle to overthrow Calvin, so
that he now resolved to take no chances, but threw off the
mask and came into court himself as openly the accuser, and
assisted in the prosecution of the case. In the further examination
of Servetus little new evidence was brought out, save that
Servetus had applied to those that believed in the orthodox
doctrine of the Trinity the term Trinitarians, at which Calvin
took the greatest offense. The prosecution now maintained
that the charges against Servetus had been sufficiently proved
to show him a criminal, and asked that de la Fontaine be discharged
from his imprisonment as accuser, and this was granted. The
Attorney General therefore took charge of the prosecution
in the name of the State, and opened a new stage of the trial
by bringing in an entirely new indictment; while Calvin soon
retired again into the background, though from the pulpit
he appealed to public feeling by making bitter attacks against
Servetus. Meanwhile it had been voted to request the authorities
at Vienne to send a copy of the evidence they had against
Servetus, and then to lay the case before the other churches
of Switzerland for their information.
Now that the regular state trial was about to commence, Servetus
came before the court with a motion that he be discharged.
His grounds were that it was not the custom of the Apostles
nor of the first Christian Emperors to treat heretics as guilty
of capital crime, but only to excommunicate or at the most
banish them; that he had committed no crime either in their
territory or elsewhere; that the questions he had treated
were only for scholars, and he had never spoken of them to
others; that as for the Anabaptists, with whom they had sought
to identify him as a person dangerous to public order, he
had always disapproved of them; and finally, since he was
a stranger and ignorant of the customs of the land and of
the forms of legal procedure, he asked for legal counsel to
conduct his case for him.
The items in the new indictment touched but lightly on the
doctrinal matters which had been so prominent in the original
charges, but instead were designed to show that Servetus had
long been spreading doctrines opposed to Christianity as commonly
received, and had led a criminal and immoral life; that his
very teaching led to immorality and favored other religions;
that his doctrines were those of heretics long ago condemned;
and that he had come to Geneva in order to disturb that city
with them. When he was examined, Servetus’s answers
to these questions were so frank and clear that he must have
created a very favorable impression upon his judges. The Attorney
General, however, apparently coached by Calvin, at once sought
to counteract this impression by taking up Servetus’s
petition of a few days before and arguing that all the reasons
urged for his discharge were unsupported by fact; that it
was therefore evident that Servetus was one of the most audacious,
rash, and dangerous heretics that had ever lived, since he
wished to have the very laws annulled under which heretics
might be punished; that his Anabaptist teachings were the
least of his errors; that in his testimony he had lied and
contradicted himself; that it had never been heard of that
such criminals should be represented by counsel; and moreover
that he was so clearly guilty that he needed no attorney.
His request was therefore denied, and the trial went on to
further examination of the prisoner.
In due time a reply was received from the authorities at
Vienne, sending a copy of the sentence there passed against
Servetus, but claiming jurisdiction over him as an escaped
prisoner for crimes committed in their territory, and therefore
asking that he be returned to them for punishment. They also
begged to be excused from forwarding evidence for anyone else
to try him on. Upon being asked whether he chose to be tried
here or to be sent back to Vienne, Servetus threw himself
upon the ground and begged them with tears not to send him
back, but to try him here and do with him as they would. This
fell in well with the ideas of Calvin and his friends, for
if the heretic were to be burned at all they wished the credit
of it, in order to prove that Protestants were not less zealous
than Catholics to preserve the purity of the Christian faith.
They therefore politely declined to grant the request from
Vienne, though they promised that justice should be done.
Calvin vs. Servetus on theological matters
When the heretical teachings of Servetus next came up for
discussion, it was felt that the discussion might take up
too much time if carried on in court, and besides the subject
was one too intricate for the judges to pass upon. It was
therefore agreed that the necessary books should be furnished
Servetus in prison, and that he and Calvin should discuss
in writing the points at issue between them. The papers thus
written, together with the rest of the documents in the case,
were then to be submitted to the Swiss churches for their
advice as to what to do; though this reference of the case
can have been little to Calvin’s liking, and may even
have been proposed by his enemies in order to foil him; for
two years before, when Bolsec was on trial for opposing Calvin’s
teaching on predestination, and Calvin wished that he, too,
might be condemned to death, a similar appeal had resulted
in Bolsec’s favor.
Now it happened that on the very morning of the day that
the Council ordered the written discussion between Calvin
and Servetus, Calvin’s enemies had scored a notable
point against him in the Council. This seems to have elated
Servetus with the belief that he should certainly win his
case, and to have bred in him a false sense of security. The
written discussion lasted four days. In the name of the Geneva
ministers Calvin first drew up a collection of thirty-eight
extracts from the books of Servetus, which he offered as “partly
impious blasphemies, partly profane and insane errors, and
all wholly foreign to the Word of God and the orthodox faith.”
These were submitted on their face and without comment. Servetus
replied explaining and justifying his positions. Calvin wrote
in refutation, and Servetus ended by merely penciling brief
notes between the lines or on the margin of Calvin’s
manuscript. The discussion began on a fairly dignified plane,
but Servetus, regarding Calvin as already defeated, soon lost
his head, and at length abandoning argument fell into violent
abuse and invective, much to the prejudice of his case. Calvin
on the contrary kept his poise, and correspondingly strengthened
his case. The papers were then submitted to the Council, and
were duly forwarded to the churches and Councils of Zürich,
Bern, Basel, and Schaffhausen, while Calvin had anticipated
this step by writing to the several pastors in order to prepossess
them against Servetus.
Servetus appeals to the court
It was four weeks before the answers were received, and all
this time Servetus was languishing in prison.. Calvin, he
said, was at the end of his rope, and was keeping him there
for spite. Vermin were eating him alive, his clothes were
in rags, and he had no change of garments. He again demanded
counsel, and appealed his case to the Council of Two Hundred.
The leader of the opposition to Calvin supported his appeal,
but nothing came of it. A week later Servetus, still sure
of his cause, demanded that Calvin himself be imprisoned as
a false accuser, on pain of death if found guilty, and he
brought six charges against him. This request was ignored
like the rest. Finally, after waiting more than three weeks,
he again made a pitiful appeal for the clothes he needed,
being now ill and suffering from the cold; and this request
was at last granted. [letters
from prison]
The condemnation and execution
The replies from the churches at length arrived. The Councils
had with one accord referred the matter to their pastors,
and the latter, though expressing themselves in differing
terms and in guarded language, urged that Servetus was plainly
guilty, and that all due means ought to be used to rid the
churches of him, especially lest they get a bad reputation
for harboring heretics. In the face of such unanimous advice
there was but one action to be taken, and after a few days’
delay it was voted that Servetus be condemned to be taken
to the suburb of Champel and there be burned alive the following
day, together with his books. Burning had for centuries been
the penalty for heresy under the law of the Empire, and when
Calvin revised the laws at Geneva he had let this law stand
unchanged. In the present case he tried to get beheading substituted
for burning, but the matter had passed beyond his control.
When the sentence was announced to Servetus he broke down
completely, for he had expected acquittal, or at the worst
only banishment; but he soon regained composure, sent for
Calvin, and begged his forgiveness. Farel, minister at Neuchatel,
had that morning arrived at Calvin’s desire. He tried
to get Servetus to renounce his errors and thus save his life.
But Servetus remained true to his convictions, only begging
for another form of death, lest the suffering at the stake
cause him at last weakly to recant. Farel accompanied him
to the place of execution, where a large crowd had gathered,
and there he died with a prayer upon his lips (October 27,
1553).
Reactions to the Servetus case
Even during the trial of Servetus a few voices had been raised
in his behalf, one of them that of an Italian jurist, Gribaldo,
who was in Geneva at the time; while David Joris wrote from
Basel to the governments of the Protestant cities of Switzerland
urging them to avert his fate. But only the Anabaptists as
yet disapproved the repression of heresy by force; and anything
that Erasmus, Martin
Luther, Zwingli, or Calvin might earlier have said in
favor of the milder treatment of heretics, or that had this
very year been urged by Calvin in behalf of five young Protestants
from Lausanne on trial for their life before the Inquisition
at Lyon, was assiduously forgotten.
The leading reformers without exception strongly approved
the execution of Servetus, and Melanchthon called it “a
pious example, which deserved to be remembered to all posterity.”
Calvin himself never expressed the slightest regret for it;
but Catholics did not forget, and for generations afterwards
whenever Protestants complained of Catholic treatment of Protestant
heretics, they retorted by pointing to Calvin’s treatment
of Servetus.
Servetus’s ashes were not cold before there began a
general revulsion of public feeling over the affair, and a
bitter indignation against Calvin for his part in it. The
Council at once dismissed the charges pending against the
printer of the Restitutio, who had fallen into their hands.
Calvin was naturally the object of the bitterest attacks,
even in Geneva: “the dogs are now barking at me on all
sides,” he wrote; and in Protestant Basel he was said
to be detested almost more than in Catholic Paris. Within
two months from Servetus’s death, Calvin was driven
almost to the point of leaving Geneva. Forced to defend himself,
he published early the next year a Defense of the Orthodox
Faith on the Holy Trinity, against the Prodigious Errors of
Michael Servetus, in which after defending the capital punishment
of heretics on general grounds he undertook to set forth Servetus
in the most odious light. This did nothing to raise Calvin
in general esteem, and it was soon far more than offset by
an anonymous work on the punishment of heretics, a noble plea
for tolerance generally attributed to Chatillon
(Castellio), who some years before had had friction with Calvin
at Geneva and was now at Basel; while this in turn was followed
by an answer from Calvin’s admiring friend Beza. In
fact, by these and other writings, the whole question of the
punishment or the toleration of hereties was now opened for
discussion, and with the most salutary result. For while heretics
were for a long time still occasionally put to death in Protestant
countries, from this time forth opposition to the practice
steadily increased. Thus it may be said that if the writings
of Servetus had a great and lasting influence toward undermining
belief in the Athanasian doctrine of the Trinity, his death
had a yet more important influence in opening the way for
religious liberty of thought and speech.
|
