Dialogs On The Trinity.1531

Context

At the request of Oecolampadius, Bucer wrote a refutation of Servetus’s book Trinitatis Erroribus (which, however, he never ventured to publish), and he warned him that though he would not himself do him the least harm, the magistrate would no longer suffer him to stay at Strassburg, nor would he himself intercede with the magistrate in Servetus’s behalf. Servetus therefore returned to Basel, where he had previously made at least a partial living by giving language lessons; and he brought with him a part of the edition of his book to dispose of there or to send on to the book fair at Lyon. Here too he found the feeling against him so intense that he scarcely knew what to expect next. Accordingly he wrote to Oecolampadius offering to leave town if it were thought best, but also saying that he was willing to publish a retraction of what he had written. Indulgence was given him, and the result was that the following spring he brought out another and smaller book, entitled Dialogues on the Trinity; for the dialogue was at that time a favorite form for discussing subjects of every sort.

This new work was hastily and carelessly done, but it was ostensibly meant to correct the errors and imperfections of the former book which, he said, were due partly to his own lack of skill, and partly to the carelessness of the printer. It was in fact intended only to strengthen his former arguments by meeting the objections which the reformers had raised against them; and he prided himself that they had not brought forward a single passage of Scripture to disprove what he had said. He omitted, to be sure, some of the objectionable things in the first book, and he restated his views in language somewhat nearer the teaching of the Church; but so far as his main purpose was concerned, it was the same thought as before, only expressed more briefly, and in another form. His opponents were in no wise appeased, and as he lacked both friends and money, while his ignorance of German hindered him in trying to earn his bread, he now left the German world, and for more than twenty years was as completely lost to sight as if the earth had opened and swallowed him up.

Some excerpts

“All that I have lately written, in seven Books, against the received view as to the Trinity, honest reader, I now retract; not because it is untrue, but because it is incomplete, and written as though by a child for children. Yet I pray you to keep such of it as might help you to an understanding of what is to be said here. Moreover, that such a barbarous, confused, and incorrect book appear as my former one was, must be ascribed to my own lack of experience, and to the printer's carelessness. Nor would I have any Christian offended thereby, since God is wont sometimes to make his own wisdom known through the foolish instruments of the world. I beg you, therefore, to pay attention to the matter itself; for if you give heed to this, my halting words will not stand in your way. Fare you well.”

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“Petrucius. I hear the man speaking whom I was looking for. Ho there! What are you saying to yourself here alone?
Michael. I am greatly tormented in mind when I see that the minds of Christians are so estranged from any knowledge of the Son of God.
Pet. I too have seen some carried away with their minds perfectly enraged against you because you are bent upon taking away from them a large part of their Gods.
Mich. With what reasons, or by what Scriptures, do they censure me?"

Translated by WILBUR, E.M. The two treatises of Servetus on the Trinity. London: Harvard University Press, 1932, p. 189.

Prints

Dialogorum de Trinitate libri duo. De Iustitia regni Christi, capitula quatuor. per Michaelem Serveto, alias Reves, ab Aragonia Hispanu Haguenau, 1532. Published by Johann Setzer. A second pamphlet on the Trinity of 19 pages, to which he added a treatise of 25 pages, De Iustitia regni Christi, capitula quatuor. Several copies preservd in various libraries. Reprinted in Regensburg, 1721.

Translations

English: in 1932 by Earl Morse Wilbur (1932). All three works were reprinted: Servetus, M., De Trinitatis erroribus libri septem, 1531. Dialogorum de Trinitate libri duo, 1532. De Iustitia regni Christi, capitula quatuor, 1532. Minerva G.m.b.H., Frankfurt a.M. 1965