A view of the Servetus affair 450 years later
 In
judging this whole affair one must take care not to be unjust
toward Calvin, by being as narrow and unsympathetic toward
him as he was toward Servetus. For he deserves to be judged
by the standards of his own age rather than of ours, even
though we condemn those in comparison with our own. Besides
being a man of extraordinary ability, he had many of the finest
traits of personal character. He has been called the father
of popular education and the inventor of free schools.
Protestantism owes him more than any other man after Luther,
and for more than three centuries he remained the leader of
its thought outside the Lutheran churches. But he took his
office very seriously, and so wholly identified himself with
his cause that he took attacks upon himself as equivalent
to attacks upon the Christian religion; and when one had seemed
to him to commit an offense against the honor of God, or to
endanger the salvation of immortal souls, he would never forgive
nor make allowances, but would pursue his opponent vindictively,
relentlessly, and without pity. This should help us to explain,
if not to excuse, his attitude toward Servetus, and even his
willingness so treacherously to betray him to the authorities
at Vienne.
Servetus, on the other hand, was in controversy self-conceited,
obstinate, fanatical, insulting, and exasperating to the last
degree, and by his own manner brought upon himself no small
part of what he suffered. Though a man of brilliant and versatile
talents, he held, along with the most advanced ideas, others
that bordered on the superstitious and made some think him
half mad. Yet at bottom he was a sincere and reverent Christian,
prizing the Bible far above all other books, devoutly attached
to Jesus, who to him was all in all, and willing for the sake
of what he held true to be faithful even unto death. Three
centuries and a half have squared accounts between him and
Calvin. Persecution has been condemned and toleration vindicated.
Servetus’s heresy has steadily gained upon Calvin’s
orthodoxy until at Geneva itself Calvin’s creed has
long since been laid aside, and an expiatory monument has
been erected by Calvin’s followers near the spot where
Servetus perished; while in four cities of Europe where in
1553 he would not have been permitted to live, statues of
him now stand to honor his memory.
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