Tollin, Henri (1833-1902)

Lic. Theol., Dr. Med., and minister of the French Reformed Church at Magdeburg, Germany. Dr. Tollin is one of the greatest Servetus scholar and vindicator, who calls himself "a Calvinist by birth and a decided friend of toleration by nature." He was led to the study of Servetus by his interest in Calvin, and has written a Serveto-centric library of about forty books and tracts, bearing upon every aspect of Servetus: his Theology, Anthropology, Soteriology, Eschatology, Diabology, Antichristology, his relations to the Reformers (Luther, Bucer, Melanchthon), and to Thomas Aquinas, and also his medical and geographical writings. He has kindly furnished me with a complete list, and I will mention the most important below in their proper places.

Dr. Tollin assumes that Servetus was radically misunderstood by all his opponents—Catholic, Calvinistic, and Lutheran, and even by his Socinian and other Unitarian sympathizers. He thinks that even Calvin misunderstood him, though he understood him better than his other contemporaries. He makes Servetus a real hero, the peer of Calvin in genius, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood, the founder of comparative geography (the forerunner of Ritter), and the pioneer of modern Christology, which, instead of beginning with the pre-existent Logos, rises from the contemplation of the man Jesus to the recognition of Jesus Christ as the Messiah, then as the Son of God, and last as God. But he has overdone the subject, and put some of his own ideas into the brain of Servetus, who, like Calvin, must be studied and judged in the light of the sixteenth, and not of the nineteenth, century.

Next to Tollin, Professor Harnack, Neander’s successor in Berlin, has formed a most favorable idea of Servetus. Without entering into an analysis of his views, he thinks that in him "the best of all that came to maturity in the sixteenth century was united, if we except the evangelical Reformation," and thus characterizes him: "Servede ist gleich bedeutend als empirischer Forscher, als kritischer Denker, als speculativer Philosoph und als christlicher Reformer im besten Sinn des Worts. Es ist eine Paradoxie der Geschichte, dass Spanien—das Land, welches von den Ideen der neuen Zeit im 16 Jahrhundert am wenigsten berührt gewesen ist—diesen einzigen Mann hervorgebracht hat." (Dogmengeschichte, Bd. III. 661.)

Works on Servetus:

1880 Tollin, Henri, 1833-1902, Mich. Servet und Mart. Butzer : eine Quellen-Studie (Berlin: H. R. Mecklenburg, 1880, 272 p. ; 23 cm)

1880 Tollin, Henri, 1833-1902, Michaelis Villanovani (Serveti) in quendam medicum apologetica disceptatio pro astrologia : Nach dem einzig vorhandenen echten Pariser Exemplare, mit einer Einleitung und Anmerkungen , (Berlin: H. R. Mecklenburg, 1880, 45 p. ; 22 cm)

1879 Tollin, Henri (and Nathanael, Wilhelm), 1833-1902, Michel Servet; portrait-caractère (Paris, Sandoz et Fischbacher, G. Fischbacher successeur, 1879., vi, [7]-69 p., 1 l. 25 cm.)

1876 Tollin, Henri, 1833-1902, Ph. Melanchthon und M. Servet : Eine Quellen-Studie (Berlin : H. R. Mecklenburg, 1876., 198 p. ; 22 cm)

1975 Tollin, Henri, 1833-1902. Dr. M. Luther und Dr. M. Servet : Eine Quellen-Studie (Berlin : H. R. Mecklenburg, 1875, 61 p. ; 22 cm)