About Servetus execution
 Had
one visited the town of Geneva on the 27th of October 1553,
one would have been witness of that tragic scene which William
Osler describes so poignantly and dramatically:
“…Shortly after twelve o’clock, a procession
started from the town-hall of Geneva-the chief magistrates
of the city, the clergy in their robes, the Lieutenant Criminel
and other officers on horseback, a guard of mounted archers,
the citizens, with a motley crowd of followers, and in their
midst, with arms bound, in shabby, dirty clothes, walked a
man of middle age, whose intellectual face bore the marks
of long suffering. Passing along the rue St. Antoine through
the gate of the same name, the cortege took its way towards
the Golgotha of the city. Once outside the walls a superb
sight broke on their view: in the distance the blue waters
and enchanting shores of Lake Geneva, to the west and north
the immense amphitheater of the Jura, with its snow-capped
mountains, and to the south and west the lovely valley of
the Rhone; but we may well think that few eyes were turned
away from the central figure of that sad procession. By his
side, in earnest entreaty, walked the aged pastor, Farel,
who had devoted a long and useful life to the service of his
fellow citizens. Mounting the hill, the field of Champel was
reached, and here on sight eminence was the fateful stake,
with dangling chains and heaping bundles of faggots. At this
sight the poor victim prostrated himself on the ground in
prayer. In reply to the exhortation of the clergyman for a
specific confession of faith, there was the cry, ‘Misericordia,
misericordia! Jesu, thou Son of the eternal God, have compassion
upon me!’ Bound to the stake by the iron chains, with
a chaplet of straw and green twigs covered with sulphur on
his head, with long dark face, it is said that he looked like
the Christ in whose name he was bound. Around his waist were
tied a large bundle of manuscript and a thick octavo printed
book. The torch was applied, and as the flames spread to the
straw and sulphur and flashed in his eyes, there was a piercing
cry that struck terror into the hearts of the bystanders.
The faggots were green, the burning was slow, and it was long
before in a last agony he cried again, ‘Jesu, thou Son
of the eternal God, have mercy on me!’ Thus died in
his forty-fourth year, Michael Servetus Villanovanus, physician,
physiologist, and heretic. Strange, is it not, that could
he have cried, ‘Jesu, thou Eternal Son of God!’
even at this last moment, the chains would have been unwound,
the chaplet removed, and the faggots scattered; but he remained
faithful unto death to what he believed was the Truth as revealed
in the Bible.”
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