# CALVIN: A BIOGRAPHY, by Bernard Cottret



## JM (Mar 6, 2008)

Anyone read this book? I found a link on the net that quoted this book to show Calvin's methods of punishment:



> 1. (page 128) 1536 - CALVIN PROPOSES "a confession of faith" for the Genevans
> 
> 2. (page 128) November 10, 1536 - Confession of faith presented, entitled "Confession of Faith, which all bourgeois and inhabitants of Geneva and subjects in its territories should swear to keep to and hold." - This document granted the right of the government to excommunicate offenders and protect the innocent by chastising the guilty.
> 
> ...



http://www.biblestudying.net/johncalvin.html

Is it historically accurate?

Thanks,

jason


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## DMcFadden (Mar 6, 2008)

I have not read it but am dubious. Reviewers have complained about the shockingly clumsy handling of Calvin's theological thought. Anyone who says that Calvin was never exegetically sure of the Trinity, that '"election," "faith," "vocation," and "conversion" are practically equivalent' in Calvin's theology (p. 322), or that Calvin's view of predestination should be understood in terms of Karl Barth's electing God and elected man (cf. the introduction to II/2 for the problem with that) can hardly be trusted. If you want a view of Calvin as an unwilling accomplice in the Protestant Reformation, this might be your book.


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## JM (Mar 6, 2008)

Did you see anything in the reviews about the methods of punishment listed above? 

Thanks.


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## DMcFadden (Mar 6, 2008)

I did not read widely enough to see that. Most people just carped on how wrong he got the theology. I don't know that any of theones I saw were equipped to evaluate his historical arguments.


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## BertMulder (Mar 6, 2008)

Perhaps this article will answer some of your queries:

Reformed Answers: Calvin and Servetus

Otherwise, I would suggest James A. Wylie in his "History of Protestantism"


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## BertMulder (Mar 6, 2008)

Some excerpts from Wylie, sorry for its length:



> We shall briefly consider this ecclesiastical order and government, — the inner organisation of the Reformation; — the instrument for the regeneration, first of Geneva, next of Christendom. Calvin and the Council are seen working together in the framing of it. The Reformer holds that the State, guiding itself by the light of revelation, can and ought to make arrangements and laws conducive to the maintenance of the Church of God on the earth. He at the same time made what provision the circumstances permitted for the separate and independent working of the Church and the State, each within its own sphere. His plan of Church order was borrowed avowedly from the New Testament. He instituted four orders of men for the instruction and government of the Church — the Pastor, the Doctor, the Presbyter or Elder, and the Deacon. We have here strictly viewed but two orders — the Presbyter and the Deacon though we have four names. The Presbyter embraces those who both preach and govern, as also others who govern but do not preach. By the Deacon is meant the officer who administered the Church's financial affairs.
> 
> The city clergy, the professors of theology, and the rural pastors formed the body known as the Venerable Company. The election of pastors was conducted in the following manner: — When a pulpit fell vacant, the Company united in a deputation to the Council. In presence of the magistrates the ministerial candidates were subjected to a severe examination, especially as regarded their ability to expound Holy Scripture. The magistrates then retired, and the Company, by a majority of votes, elected one as pastor. The newly-elected, if approved by the Council, was announced to the congregation from the pulpit next Sunday, and the people were invited to send in their objections, if they had any, to the magistrates. The silence of the people confirmed the election, and eight days afterwards the new minister was ordained as pastor, the moderator of the Company presiding at the ceremony. The triple action of the government, the people, and the clergy in the election was a sufficient guarantee against intrigue and favor.[4]
> 
> ...


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## BertMulder (Mar 6, 2008)

SERVETUS COMES TO GENEVA AND IS ARRESTED.

Toleration—Servetus's Birth—Genius—Studies—Commission to Reform all Religions—Malignant Attacks on Christianity—Publishes his Restitution of Christianity—Sends the Book to Calvin—Its Doctrine Pantheism—Servetus Condemned to Death at Vienne—Escapes—Comes to Geneva—Is Imprisoned—His Indictment drawn by Calvin— Haughtiness of his Defence—Servetus and Calvin face to face— Indecencies and Blasphemies against Christianity—The Question at Geneva, Shall it be a Pantheistic Republic ruled by Servetus, or a Theocracy ruled by Calvin?

WE now come within the shadow of a great tragedy. But the horror which the act we are about to narrate awakens is, in truth, a homage to Protestantism. If a deed which not only called forth no condemnation from the age in which it was done, a few personal enemies of Calvin excepted, but which, on the contrary, was pronounced by the best and most enlightened men then living to be just and necessary, awakens our abhorrence—that abhorrence is, in fact, the measure of our advance in toleration since the sixteenth century. But it is Protestantism that we have to thank for that advance.

It is the melancholy and tragic story of Servetus which we are now to record. Michael Servetus [1] was a Spaniard, born in the same year as Calvin, 1509. Nature had endowed him with a lively but fantastic genius, an active but illogical mind, an inordinate ambition, and a defective judgment.[2] He studied with characteristic versatility law, divinity, physic, and some have said astrology. After a short but distinguished career as a lecturer on the physical sciences in Paris,[3] he ultimately established himself at Vienne, in Dauphine, as a medical practitioner.[4] In this profession he discovered superior skill, and in his first work, On the Errors of the Trinity (1531), he anticipated the great discovery of our own Harvey of the circulation of the blood.[5] His mind, speculative, daring, lawless, of the scholastic rather than the Reformation type, followed its bent, which was ethical, not physical.

He spent fully twenty years of his life in wandering up and down in Christendom, visiting Germany, Italy, Switzerland, venting his fancies and reveries, unsettling the minds of men, and offending every one he came in contact with by his pride, self-sufficiency, and dissimulation.[6] He believed that he possessed the power, and had received a commission, to remodel all knowledge, and establish the world on a new basis. The more fundamental doctrines of Christianity became the object of his settled dislike, and his most virulent attack. But it was against the doctrine of the Trinity mainly that his shafts were levelled. Romanism he had renounced in his youth, but neither did the Reformation satisfy his grand ideal.

Christianity, he held, had been lost at an early age, if indeed it ever had been fully promulgated to the world. Servetus undertook to restore and re-institute it.[7] About the year 1546 he wrote to Calvin from Vienne,?to the effect that the Reformer had stopped too soon, that he had preached as yet only a half-Reformation; and modestly offered to initiate him into his new system, and assign him the post of leader in that great movement by which mankind were to be led into a grander domain of truth. He accompanied his letter with a volume in MS., in which Calvin should see, he said, "stupendous and unheard-of things."[8] The unhappy man had virtually arrived at pantheism, the final goal of all who in these high matters forsake the path of Divine revelation.

Calvin saw in the "stupendous things" of Servetus only stupendous follies. Writing to Farel, 13th February, 1546, the Reformer said: "Servetus lately wrote to me, and coupled with his letter a long volume of his delirious fancies, with the thrasonic boast that I should see something astonishing and unheard-of. He takes it upon him to come hither, if it is agreeable to me. But I am unwilling to pledge my word for his safety, for if he shall come, I will never permit him to depart alive, provided my authority be of any avail."[9]

The eye of Calvin saw that the creed of Servetus was essential pantheism. He knew too that such a creed struck at the whole settlement of Church and State in Geneva, and would sweep away the basis on which had been placed the republic. Further, the Reformer foresaw that if Servetus should come to Geneva, and attempt propagating his doctrine, he would be placed under the painful necessity of choosing between a pantheistic and a theocratic republic, between Servetus and the Reformation. Sharing in the universal opinion of his age, that heresy is to be punished with the sword of the magistrate, and deeming this heresy to be, as indeed it was, subversive not only of the religious belief, but also the civil order of Geneva, Calvin did not hesitate to avow his preference for the Protestant over the pantheistic republic, and declared that should Servetus come to Geneva, he would use his influence that he should "not depart alive."

These words from any pen would fill us with horror, but conting, as they do, from the pen of Calvin, they inspire us with a double horror. And yet the truth is that we know of no Reformer of that age, not even Melancthon himself, who would not, in Calvin's position, most probably have written them:[10] Again we must repeat, they caused no horror to the age in which they were written; nay, they were the verdict of that age on the case of Servetus; and if it is impossible that ours could utter such a verdict, or the Protestant world of our day repeat the crime of the Protestant world of the sixteenth century, we see in this one of the proudest of the triumphs of that Protestantism which was then struggling into existence against the mighty opposing forces of Romanism on the one hand and of pantheism on the other.

In 1552, Servetus published clandestinely at Vienne the MS. volume which he had sent to Calvin in 1546. It bore the title of Restitutio Christianismi, or "Christianity Restored." This led to his apprehension by the authorities of Vienne, where he was tried by the Inquisition. He managed to give his judges the slip, however, and was condemned in absence to be "burned alive, at a slow fire, till his body be reduced to a cinder." The award of the court was carried out by the substitution of the effigy of Servetus for Servetus himself.[11] Escaping from Vienne he came, of all places, to Geneva! "If ever poor fanatic thrust himself into the flames," says Coleridge, "it was Servetus."

"I know not what to say of him," exclaimed Calvin in astonishment, "except that he must have been seized with a fatal madness to precipitate himself upon destruction." He arrived in the middle of July, and took up his abode at the "Auberge de la Rose," near the lake.

Calvin had not induced Servetus to come to Geneva; he had in fact, by refusing him a safe-conduct, warned him off the territory of the republic; nevertheless, now that he was come, he did what the constitutional laws of Geneva required of him;—he reported his presence in the city to the Council, and demanded his apprehension.[12] Servetus was committed to prison on the 13th of August. The law required the accuser to go to prison with the accused till the charge should be so far substantiated as to warrant its being taken up by the public prosecutor. Nicholas de la Fontaine, a young student, and secretary to the Reformer, entered himself as accuser.[13] The articles of accusation, extracted from the writings of Servetus, were drawn up by Calvin, and presented next day to the tribunal.

Fontaine was unequal to the task of confronting so subtle and eloquent an opponent as Servetus. The Council saw this, and at its second meeting all the ministers were requested to appear. Calvin now at length stood face to face with his adversary. The Reformer's severe logic soon unmasked the real opinions of the man, and forced him to admit the frightful conclusions to which they led; but if he put forth all his power in arguing with Servetus, it was not to procure a conviction, but a recantation, and save the unhappy man from the flames. "No great danger hung over him," he declared, "if he could possibly have been brought to his senses."[14] "Would," he sorrowfully exclaimed at a later period—"Would that we could have obtained a recantation from Servetus, as we did from Gentilis!"[15]

It must be acknowledged that Servetus on his trial, both at Vienne and Geneva, showed neither courage nor truthfulness. At the former place he behaved badly indeed. He disowned his books, denied his handwriting, uttered repeatedly falsehoods on oath, and professed himself a son of his "holy mother the Church." Swollen with insolence and venting defiance while at liberty, he proved a very craven before the Inquisition. How different from the noble sincerity and courage of the martyrs of Protestantism, who at that very time were expiring amid the flames at Lyons! His behavior before the Council at Geneva was characterised by alternate insolence and cowardice. When confronted only with Nicholas de la Fontaine, he professed that he had not intended to blaspheme, and that he was ready to recant.[16] When Calvin was introduced, he broke into a tempest of rage, denounced the Reformer as his personal enemy, again and again called him a liar, and styled him a corrupter of the Word of God, a foe to Christ, a sorcerer, "Simon Magus." This coming after twenty years' vituperation and abuse, to which Calvin's reply had been a dignified silence, was more than the Reformer could bear, and he became heated in his turn and, as he himself said to Farel, "answered him as he deserved."

The scene revealed the man to his judges. The blasphemies which he avowed, and not less the haughtiness with which he defended himself, shocked and revolted them. The Trinity he styled "a three-headed Cerberus,"[17] a hell-hound." Some of the suppositions he made to discredit the Incarnation were simply indecent, and we pass them by. "If the angels," he said, "were to take the body of asses, you must allow they would be asses, and would die in their asses' skins. So too you must allow that, on your supposition being right, God himself might become an ass, and the Holy Spirit a mule. Can we be surprised if the Turks think us more ridiculous than mules and asses?" Calvin truly divined the deeper error beneath these—the denial of a personal God—that is, of God. "His frenzy was such," says the Reformer, writing to Farel,[18] "that he did not hesitate to say that the Divinity dwells even in devils. The Godhead is essentially communicated to them as it is to wood and to stones." "What, unhappy man," replied Calvin, "if any one treading upon this floor should say to you that he was treading your God under his feet, would you not be scandalised at such an assertion?" He answered, "I, on the contrary, do not doubt but that this footstool, or anything else which you may point out, is the substance of God." When it was again objected to him, "Then will the devil actually be God," he answered with a peal of laughter, "And can you doubt it?"

We have narrated in former chapters the war now waging between Calvin and the Council of Geneva. The First Syndic, Perrin, was the Reformer's mortal enemy. Other members of the Council, less influential, were equally the determined opponents of the Reformer, and were laboring for his overthrow. It was, in a word, the crisis of Calvin's power in Geneva—that is, of all the Reformed laws and institutions of the republic. M. Rilliet of Geneva, in his Life and Trial of Servetus,[19] has conjectured that what tempted Servetus to enter Geneva at that time was his knowledge of the state of Parties there, and the hope of replacing Calvin, then in daily danger of banishment from the city. Be this as it may, the fact is undoubted that the Libertines perceived the advantage they might derive by playing Servetus off against the Reformer; and Servetus, on the other hand, was aware of the advantage that might accrue to him from strengthening the Libertines against Calvin. As the battle went with Calvin, as the Libertines seemed now to prevail against him, and now to fall before him, Servetus was contemptuous and defiant, or timid and craven. But the tacit union of the two helped to bring on the ruin of both.

The patronage of the pantheist by the Libertines wrought ill for Servetus in the end, by opening the eyes of the Council to the real iussues at stake in the trial. The acquittal of Servetus, they saw, meant the expulsion of Calvin, and the triumph of the Libertines. This put the personal interference of the Reformer in the matter out of court, even if his influence had not at that moment been at zero. The magistrates felt that it was a question of life and death for the republic, and that they must decide it irrespective altogether of the wishes of Calvin, and on the high grounds of the interests of the State.[20]


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## BertMulder (Mar 6, 2008)

LEAVING Servetus in prison, let us repair to another arena of combat. It is another, and yet the same, for the affair of Servetus has entered the sphere of Genevan politics, and awakened into fresh intensity the slumbering conflict between the two parties that divide the republic. Perrin was laboring to undermine, step by step, the power of Calvin. The pastors had been expelled front the Council-General—the assembly of the whole people. There followed a more direct attack upon the ecelesiatstical authority. It was proposed to transfer the power of excommunication from the Consistory to the Senate. This was to strike a fatal blow at the principle on which Calvin had based the Reformation of the State. Should this principle be overturned, his work in Geneva would be at an end; and he might leave it the next hour, so far as any good purpose was to be served by remaining in it. The Consistory stripped of all independent jurisdictive power, moral order would fall, and those halcyon days would return when men could go to the tavern at all hours of the day and night, drink as deep as they had a mind, and disport themselves in dances like those in which the pagans of old honored the god Bacchus.

About a year and a half before this, Philip Bertheliot had been debarred the Communion-table by the Consistory. Philip was the son of that Berthelier who, in 1521, had spilt his blood for the liberty of the Fatherland. As the father had ennobled the State by his virtues, the son thought he had a right to disgrace it with his vices. "He was," says Bayle, "a bad liver." He submitted quietly to the excommunication of the Consistory for a year and a half; but now, deeming the moment opportune, inasmuch as the tide was running against the Reformer and his policy, he appeared before the Council and demanded that it should annul the sentence of the Spiritual Court, and so restore him to communion with the Church. The Reformer hastened to the Council, and warned it of the fatal consequences of complying with Berthelier's request, he urged strongly that the edicts of the republic gave the Council no power concerning excommunication, and that to bind and loose ecclesiastically was to effect a revolution. The Reformer's remonstrance was disregarded. The Council released Berthelier from the spiritual sentence, and opened his way to the Communion-table. The axe was laid at the root of the ecclesiastical discipline, and the days of the Genevan Republic were, to all appearance, numbered.

From the council-chamber, where the fatal measure in which the Libertines saw the approaching downfall of the spiritual authority had been passed, Calvin hurried to the prison, where he and his colleagues were to be confronted with Servetus. This day (lst September, 1553) it was resolved by the Council that the oral debates between the prisoner and the pastors should be dropped, and that the discussion should henceforward be carried on in writing. This change was supported by Perrin and Berthelier, who were there, flushed with the victory of the morning. The proposal made in the interests of Servetus,[1] who was supposed to be more eloquent with his pen than with his voice, was adopted, and it brought with it a marked change in his demeanor, which Rilliet thus describes: "What demonstrates with the clearest evidence the hope which the prisoner placed in the power of his protectors, is the language which from that time he adopted, and the open, furious, mortal war which he waged against the Reformer, now become the object of his direct attacks. Servetus threw himself, with all the ardor of a man well-nigh sure of victory, into a path where, by his own confession, he wished to pursue his opponent, 'even till the cause be terminated by the death of him or me.'"

At the same meeting of Council,[2] Calvin was ordered to draw up anew articles of indictment from the works of Servetus, in the form of plain statements, without any reasoning for or against. The crisis which had arisen in the matter of the ecclesiastical discipline might well, one should think, have engrossed all the Reformer's thoughts, but he gave himself with his might to this new labor. He reproduced from the works of the prisoner thirty-eight propositions, and appending neither note nor comment, and giving simply references to the text, he handed them to the Council. This done, he turned his thoughts to the graver matter that weighed upon him. The resolution of the Council touching excommunication was simply a breaking into pieces of the lever with which he hoped to elevate the republic. The Reformer must fight two battles at the same time.

Time pressed. The day after the morrow was the first Sunday of September, when, according to a custom universal in the French Reformed churches, the Communion was to be celebrated [3] and, unless the edict were revoked, Berthelier would then present himself at the sacred table with the warrant of the Council in his hand. The Reformer, without a moment's delay, assembled all the pastors, alike of town and country, and putting himself at their head, proceeded to the Great Council. He showed, with characteristic energy, the brink to which the decision of the Little Council had brought the republic; that that decision was a manifest violation of both the laws of the State and the rules of Scripture; and that if persisted in it would sweep away all that had been done during the past ten years for the reformation of manners, and render hopeless all efforts in the future. In short, it was a revolution. The whole people, he said, had with uplifted hands adopted the edict establishing the spiritual power in the spiritual court, and "he would die rather than tolerate, contrary to his conscience, an excomnmnicated man at the sacred table."[4] In this protest the pastors to a man joined, all declaing that rather than suffer the contemplated profanation they would "lay down their offices and leave their churches."[5] The Council answered that it "changed nothing in its decree."[6] In taking into its own hands the spritual authority, the Council, it might be unwittingly, assumed the right of trying and adjudging Servetus. It said to the Consistory, Stand aside; you are dissolved as a court having jurisdiction; we assume the function and responsibility of giving judgment on all persons and causes, civil and spiritual.

To Perrin and the Libertines victory was following on victory. The coming day, they hoped, would crown this series of successes. Whichever way Calvin might turn he would, they were sure, encounter defeat. If he should obey the edict of the Council, he would be disgraced before the people; if he should disobey it, he would rebel against the magistrate: either way his power was at an end. They had not yet taken the true measure of the Reformer; or rather, they had not yet learned how much better is a little wisdom than great cunning. By the simple strategy of going right forward, the Reformer broke all the toils the Libertines had woven round him, and swept away alike the victories they had already won and those which they made themselves sure of winning in the future.

Sunday morning, the 3rd of September, dawned. No more eventful day had for centuries risen over Geneva, or indeed over Christendom. This day it was to be seen whether Protestantism, which had retreated within its last stronghold, would recruit: its powers and reorganize its forces, and from hence go forth to reconquer Christendom, or whether it would relinquish the battle as beyond its strength. Twice already the great Protestant movement, after giving promise of emancipating the world, had failed. First the Albigensian revival, next the Bohemian uprising, overborne by violence, had disappointed the hopes they had inspired. Was this third movement, which had come nearer the goal than either of the two preceding ones, after all to fall short of it, and leave the world still under the dominion of the darkness? The moment was the most critical that had occurred since Luther's appearance at the Diet of Worms. In Germany, the Reformed phalanx was demoralized, thanks to the sword and yet more to the Interim of Charles. France, under Henry II., was blazing with martyr-piles. With Mary, in England, had come a fiercer tempest of persecution than that country had ever before known. Where now, alas! we hear Calvin pathetically exclaim, where now are Cranmer, and Ridley, and John a Lasco, and the hundreds of others in England which the Reformation numbered aforetime amongst its children? Some of them, leaving their bodies to the flames, had mounted on high, and were now living with God. Others, crossing seas and mountains, had found a home in foreign lands. On every side, up to the limits of the Genevan territory, the Reformation was pursued by the tyrant and the inquisitor. And even here, if the sword was still restrained, new and hideous foes had risen to assail the Gospel. The abyss of Atheistic Pantheism had suddenly opened, and a monstrous birth had come up out of it, which sought to strangle the infant Reformation, where the Hydra sought to strangle the infant Hercules—in its cradle. Such were the portents that deformed the time.

The customary hour of public worship was now come. The great bell Clemence had tolled out its summons. The throng of worshippers on their way to the cathedral had rolled past, and now the streets, which had resounded with their tread, were empty and silent. Over city, plain, and lake there brooded a deep stillness. It was around the pulpit of St. Peter's, and the man with pale face, commanding eye, and kingly brow who occupied it, that the heart of Geneva palpitated. The church was filled with an uneasy crowd. On the benches of the Consistory sat, unmoved, the pastors and elders, resolved to bear the greatest violence rather than not do their duty. A confused noise was heard within the temple. The congregation opened with difficulty, and a numerous band of men, of all ranks, their hands upon their sword-hilts, forced their way in presence of the holy table. The elite of the Libertines had decided to communicate. Berthelier did not appear as yet. He reserved himself till the last moment.[7]

Calvin, calm as ever, rose to begin the service. He could not but see the group of Libertines in the vast congregation before him, but he seemed as if he saw them not. He preached on the state of mind with which the Lord's Supper ought to be received. At the close, raising his voice, he said.[8] "As for me, so long as God shall leave me here, since he hath given me fortitude, and I have received it from him, I will employ it, whatever betide; and I will guide myself by my Master's rule, which is to me clear and well known. As we are now about to receive the Holy Supper of our Lord Jesus Christ, if any one who has been debarred by the Consistory shall approach this table, though it should cost my life, I will show myself such as I ought to be."[9]

When the liturgies were concluded, Calvin came down from the pulpit and took his stand before the table. Lifting up the white napkin he displayed the symbols of Christ's body and blood, the food destined for believing souls. Having blessed the bread and wine, he was about to distribute them to the congregation. At that moment there was seen a movement among the Libertines as if they would seize the bread and the cup. The Reformer, covering the sacred symbols with his hands, exclaimed in a voice that rang through the edifice, "These hands you may crush; these arms you may lop off; my life you may take; my blood is yours, you may shed it; but you shall never force me to give holy things to the profane, and dishonor the table of my God."[10] These words broke like a thunder-peal over the Libertines. As if an invisible power had flung back the ungodly host, they slunk away abashed, the congregation opening a passage for their retreat.[11] A deep calm succeeded; and "the sacred ordinance," says Beza, "was celebrated with a profound silence, and under a solemn awe in all present, as if the Deity himself had been visible among them."[12]

Than the transaction we have just narrated, we know nothing more truly sublime in the whole history of the Reformation, that epoch of heroic men and of grand events. The only thing we can compare with it is Luther's appearance at the Diet of Worms. If we abstract the dramatic accompaniments of the latter scene—the gorgeous hall; the majesty of the emperor; the blaze of princely and knightly rank gathered round him; the glitter of stars and decorations; the men-at-arms; the lackeys and other attendants—and look only at the principle at stake, and the wide and lasting good achieved by the prompt vindication of that principle, the act of Calvin in the Cathedral of St. Peter's, in 1553, stands side by side, its equal in spiritual sublimity and heroism, with the act of Luther in the Hall of Worms, in 1521. "I cannot," said Luther. "I will not," said Calvin. The one repelled the tyrant, the other flung back the mob; the one stemmed the haughtiness of power, the other bridled the raging fury of ungodliness; in both the danger was equal, in both the faith and fortitude were equal, and each saved the Reformation at a great crisis.

These two acts, Luther's at Worms and Calvin's in St. Peter's, were in fact two beacon-lights kindled by providence for the instruction of Europe. They were hung out at the opening of a new epoch, to enable Christendom to pilot itself past two tremendous dangers that lay right in its course. The one of these dangers was only beginning to be visible. The conflict waged in St. Peter's on Sunday, the 3rd of September, 1553, showed how that danger was to be avoided. A Protestant Church, scripturally constituted, and faithfully governed, was the only possible breakwater against that lawless pantheism which was even then lifting up its head and threatening society with ruin. Such was the lesson taught by the heroic act in St. Peter's. Calvin was the first man against whom the foul and furious tide of communism dashed itself; it broke against the pulpit of St. Peter's before it precipitated itself upon the throne of France.

It has since with swelling and triumphant crest overwhelmed parliaments and dynasties, laid prostrate thrones and devastated kingdoms; but in contemplating these dismal tragedies it becomes us to call to mind that the Reformer of Geneva confronted this communism 300 years ago, that he confronted it single-handed, and conquered it. Had the principles of Protestantism been rooted and grounded in every parish of France, yielding the same spiritual fruits as they did at Geneva, how different would have been the history of a people to whom nature has given a genius so manifold that it would have shone equally in the beauty of their arts and in the grace and brilliancy of their literature; in the valor of their arms, and the equity of their jurisprudence; in the purity of their homes, and in the freedom and stability of their public institutions. But continuing under the malign power of a corrupted and a corrupting faith, this race, so richly endowed, has had its great qualities transformed into headlong passions which have entailed upon country and throne three centuries of calamities and woes.


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## BertMulder (Mar 6, 2008)

APPREHENSION AND TRIAL OF SERVETUS.

"Here I stand," etc.—Calvin expects to be Banished—Takes Farewell of his Flock—Servetus—Resume—Servetus asks to Dispute with Calvin— The Magistrates Refuse—Nicholas de la Fontaine—Enters himself as Prosecutor for Calvin—Examination of Servetus—Defended by Berthelier—Calvin comes forward—The Council take the Prosecution into their own hands—Indictment of the Attorney-General—Sedition the Main Charge against Servetus—Servetus pleads for Free Inquiry—His Cause Mixed up with the Libertines'—Boldness of Servetus—Calvin's Struggle with the Council—Shall the Reformer Quit Geneva?—His Influence with the Magistrates at Zero.

IT seemed, indeed, a small matter whether Calvin should give the Sacrament to Berthelier or withhold it. But the question in another form, as Calvin clearly saw, was whether he should maintain the Reformation or abandon it. The moment he should put the consecrated elements into the hands of the Libertine, that moment he would lay the spiritual prerogative at the feet of the civil power, and Geneva would fall as the bulwark of Protestantism. To Berthelier, therefore, with the edict of the Council in his hand, and his Libertine hordes at his back, Calvin said, "No". It was the "Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise. So help me, God," repeated over again, at a moment equally critical, and in the face of a danger equally great.

The Reformer had escaped the greater danger, even death, which the Libertines hinted would be the penalty of refusal, but exile still hung over him. In the evening of the same Sunday he ascended the pulpit, to take farewell of the flock from which he expected the coming day would see him parted probably for ever. He chose as the subject of his discourse Paul's farewell address to the elders of the Church of Ephesus, and the scene witnessed that night on the banks of the Leman was almost as touching as that enacted fifteen centuries before on the shores of the AEgean.[1] Closing his sermon and spreading out his hands over his loving flock, for the last time as he believed, he said, "I commend you to God and to the word of his grace." The words were mingled with the sobs and tears of those to whom they were spoken.

But no order of banishment came on the morrow, though he waited hour after hour for it. The Reformer perceived that so far the victory remained with him. Left undisturbed, he turned his thoughts to the other matter which was then engrossing him, for he was grappling with two foes at once. We shall now turn with him to this, in every view of it, sad affair.

In order to an accurate idea of the trial, and of the various interests that combined to guide it to its deplorable issue, we must briefly review the steps already taken. On the 13th of August, Calvin, having learned that Servetus was in Geneva, demanded his arrest. But Genevese law required the accuser to go to prison along with the accused till he had shown reasonable grounds for his accusation. Nicholas de la Fontaine, the secretary of Calvin, gave himself up in the stead of the Reformer. Next day a complaint in thirty-eight articles, drawn up, as we have said, by Calvin, was presented against Servetus. On the morrow the Council assembled in the Criminal Audience Chamber in the prison, and Servetus, having been interrogated on the articles, demanded a public disputation, promising to confute Calvin from Scripture and the Fathers. The prisoner further urged that it did not become a civil court to adjudicate on such matters. Here was a door opened for the Council to escape responsibility, had it chosen.

"But," says Rilliet, "the magistrates refused to entertain the proposal, though Calvin for his part agreed, and protested that, as far as regarded him, 'there was nothing that he more desired than to plead such a cause in the temple before all the people.'" Why, we ask, this refusal on the part of the magistrates? Rilliet answers, "The Council feared, no doubt, that it would thus dispossess itself of the cognisance of an affair which stood connected with the prerogatives of which it had recently appeared so jealous;"[2] that is, the Council was then struggling to shut out the Consistory, and to secure to itself the spiritual as well as the civil government of Geneva.

The preliminary examination of Servetus ended, the Council, having regard to "his replies, "found that the charges were true, and accordingly Nicholas de la Fontaine was discharged from prison, under obligation to appear as often as he might be called, and to prosecute his case. The Council, in coming to the conclusion that Servetus was guilty, appear to have been influenced less by his opinions on the Trinity than by his views on baptism. The frightful excesses of the Anabaptists in Germany and Switzerland, which were fresh in their memory, made the Council, doubtless, view this as the most dangerous part of his creed.

Tomorrow (16th August) when the Council assembled to prosecute the affair, two new parties appeared on the arena. These were Philibert Berthelier, the Libertine opponent of Calvin, and M. Germain Colladon, a Protestant refugee, and a man learned in the law. Colladon was associated with Fontaine in the defense and prosecution. These two—Berthelier and Colladon, were representatives of the two parties into which Geneva was divided, and their appearance indicated that the affair was tending to wider issues than any personal to Servetus; in short, it was becoming the battle-ground on which the question was to be determined whether Libertine Pantheism or the Protestant faith should hold possession of Geneva. Such is the inference of Rilliet, who says: "Each of the antagonists saw behind the proceedings carried on in the bishop's palace, the interest of the parties who disputed for Geneva."[3]

It appears from the minutes that, at this meeting of Council, Berthelier undertook the defense of Servetus, and strongly argued in favor of his peculiar doctrines as well as of himself; Colladon attacked with equal ardor both the errors and their author; the violence of the debate extended itself to the Council, and the sitting, which was a stormy one, was abruptly terminated.[4]

This scene brought forward a more powerful man than any who had hitherto appeared in the prosecution. Berthelier was at that moment under excommunication by the Consistory, and he had a petition lying on the table of the Council to have the sentence of the spiritual court cancelled. It was thus tolerably plain that his championship of Servetus was inspired not so much by the wish to defend the prisoner, as by his desire to overthrow the Consistory. "Calvin felt," says Rilliet, "that the moment had arrived for him to appear, and boldly to resist the hostilities against himself, of which Servetus was about to become the occasion,"[5] if he would not see his whole work in Geneva swept away; accordingly the very next day he declared that he would appear as accuser. "The Reformer was now invited by the Council to assist, 'in order that his errors might be better demonstrated,' and to have 'whomsoever he chose with him' at the examinations of the prisoner.'"[6] At the first meeting after this, at which Calvin was present, a sharp debate took place between him and Servetus.

The issue was that the Council found that the charges contained in the indictment were proven from the books given in, in evidence, and the prisoner's own confessions.[7] Fontaine had previously been discharged from prison; now he was released from his obligation to prosecute, and the affair was taken entirely into the hands of the Attorney-General.[8]

The second act of the trial opened on the 21st of August. Their Exeellencies in Council assembled resolved as follows:—"Inasmuch as the case of heresy of M. Servetus vitally affects the welfare of Christendom, it is resolved to proceed with his trial."[9] At this sitting, Calvin and the ministers, his colleagues, were introduced by the Attorney-General. They were wanted to give their evidence as to the meaning of the word person, as used in certain passages of the Fathers. Servetus taught that the person of the Son of God had no existence prior to the Incarnation. He held that Christ existed from all eternity only as an idea, not as a person, in the essence or bosom of God, and that the term Son of God is applied in Scripture to Christ Jesus as a man.[10] He cited passages from Tertullian, Irenaeus, and Clement, favorable as he thought to this opinion; and it was to give judgment on Servetus' interpretatin of these passages that the pastors were now summoned. The service asked of them they rendered.

At the meeting on the 23rd, the Attorney-General produced a new indictment against Servetus. It differed considerably from that which Fontaine had given in when the prisoner was first arrested, and which had been drawn up by Calvin. This new indictment dropped the theological errors of Servetus out of view altogether, well-nigh, and gave marked prominence to his offenses against society. Its title ran thus:—"These are the interrogations and articles upon which the Attorney-General of this city desires to question Michael Servetus, a prisoner, guilty of blasphemies, of heresies, and of disturbing Christendom." "If Servetus had had, in the eyes of Genevese justice," says Rilliet, "no other fault than that of which De la Fontaine had declared him guilty in regard to Calvin, his acquittal had been sure." "If Calvin alone," he continues, "had been concerned in the affair of Servetus, all his efforts would have been unavailing to secure the condemnation of his adversary." "Servetus was tried," says he again, "and, as we shall mention below, condemned by the majority of his judges, not at all as the opponent of Calvin—scarcely as a heretic—but essentially as seditious. Politics acted a much more important part than theology, towards the close of this trial—they came on the stage with the Attorney-General."[11] Servetus saw the new position in which he stood, and strove to defend himself against the charges of the Attorney-General, not by denying that his opinions were theologically false, but by trying to show that they were not socially dangerous. This defense he followed up with a petition to the magistrates, in which he labored to convince them that his opinions at the worst were only speculative errors, and not practical seditions; and, adds Rilliet, had he been able to make it appear that they were "divested of all practical results, the issue of his trial would not have been fatal." [12]

There came, at this stage of the business, a series of discussions on points which we cannot help thinking were irrelevant. Servetus was interrogated respecting his persistency in publishing his opinions, seeing he knew they were condemned by ancient Councils and imperial decrees, and the evil he had done or wished to do society by maintaining them. He replied, with ability and apparent frankness, that believing it to be the truth which he held, he would have offended God if he had not published it; that the ecclesiastical edicts and imperial decrees, which menaced him with death for these opinions, dated from a period when the Church had become more or less corrupt, and that the Church in apostolic times knew no such edicts, nor approved the doctrine of repelling opinion by force. These were truths, and the only mistake about them—to Servetus a very serious one—was that they came three centuries too soon, and were addressed to judges who were incapable of feeling their force. But when the prisoner affirmed that he had hardly ever spoken to any one on his peculiar opinions, he stated what it was impossible to reconcile with the known fact of his twenty years' active diffusion of his sentiments in Germany and France.

This was the very week in which the struggle between Calvin and the Libertines came to a crisis.[13] The authority, and it might be the life of the Reformer, hung upon the issue of that contest. Servetus from his prison watched the ebb and flow of the battle, and was humble and bold by turns, as victory appeared to incline now to Calvin and now to the Libertines. The approaching Sunday was that of the September Communion, and Berthelier, as we have seen, held an order from the Council, authorising him to appear at the holy table.

This seemed the death-warrant of Calvin's power. We can trace the influence of this turn of affairs upon Servetus. The Council had ordered Calvin to extract from his works, and to present without note or comment, those propositions in them which he deemed false. In obedience to the order, the Reformer drew up thirty-eight articles,[14] which were given to the prisoner to be answered by him. But Servetus' reply bore the character of a bitter attack upon the Reformer, rather than that of a defense of himself. "Wretch," said he, apostrophising Calvin, "do you think to stun the ears of the judges by your barking? You have a confused intellect, so that you cannot understand the truth. Perverted by Simon Magus, you are ignorant of the first principles of things—you make men only blocks and stones, by establishing the slavery of the will."[15] To write thus within the walls of a prison, was to be very sure of victory!

Nay, Servetus, looking upon Calvin as already fallen, no longer has recourse to subterfuges; he no longer seeks to show that his doctrines are innocuous. Throwing aside the veil, he openly avows that he held the opinions imputed to him in his indictment. He had drawn up his self-accusation with his own hand.

Calvin instantly wrote an answer to the paper of Servetus, as the Council had required. His strong hand thrust back the unhappy man into his former position. "Injurious words against Servetus," says Rilliet, "are not spared, but these were a coin so current in those days that, instead of being deemed excessive, they fell from the pen without observation." The Reformer's answer was given in to the judges, signed by all the ministers of the Church of Geneva, fourteen in number. No sooner has Calvin laid down the pen than, seeing his own position and work are at that moment trembling in the balance, he turns to the other and graver conflict. On Saturday, the 2nd of September, he appeared before the Little Council to demand the cancelling of the warrant given to Berthelier to receive the Lord's Supper. The Council declined to comply. It retained in its own hands the power to admit or to exclude whomsoever it would from the Communion-table. It stripped Calvin and the Consistory of all ecclesiastical authority and power, and, of course, of all responsibility for censures and punishments of an ecclesiastical kind. This power the Council took solely upon itself. The use it made of it will afterwards appear.

The scene that took place in the Cathedral of St. Peter's the very next day we have already narrated. But the Reformer did not account it enough that he refused to obey in a matter which the laws of the State gave no right to the Council to command; he resolved, although at the risk of life, to maintain the battle, and reconquer the lost prerogative, without which he would not remain in Geneva.

On the 7th September, Calvin and his colleagues went to the Little Council, with the text of the Ecclesiastical Ordinances, and appealing to the letter of the law he showed the Council that the Ordinances gave it no power concerning excommunication, and that what it had done was a subversion of the Constitution of Geneva. He further craved the Council to make known its final determination upon the point, that he and his colleagues might be able to regulate their conduct as regarded resigning or retaining their functions in Geneva. The Council took three days to consider the matter, and, adds the Register, it "commanded that meanwhile M. Calvin must preach and do his duty." On the 18th September, the Council passed a resolution declaring that "it would adhere to the edicts as it had hitherto done."[16] This reply, in point of ambiguity, was almost Delphic. Interpreted by recent edicts, it meant that the Council saw nothing inconsistent with the edicts in what they had done, and would still retain in their own hands the ecclesiastical government. Still the Reformer did not view it as justifying him in abandoning his work in Geneva, and Farel and other friends wrote at this crisis earnestly beseeching him not to quit his post.

Meanwhile Servetus was busy in his prison with his annotations on Calvin's reply. The unhappy man, believing that his friends, the Libertines, who communicated with him through the jailer, were on the eve of triumphing, and that the Reformer was as good as fallen, was no longer at pains to conceal his intense hatred of the latter. Writing between the lines and on the margin of Calvin's document, he expressed himself in the following melancholy terms— "You howl like a blind man in desert places, because the spirit of vengeance burns in your heart. You lie, you lie, you lie, you ignorant calumniator."[17] There followed a good deal more in the same vein. The Reformer was shown the writing, but leaving to Servetus the last word, he deigned no reply.

At this stage of the affair the magistrates of Geneva resolved (19th September) to consult the Helvetic Churches. Servetus himself had expressed a wish to that effect. A messenger of State, Jacquemoz Jernoz, was dispatched on the 21st to the Churches of Bern, Zurich, Schaffhausen, and Basle. He carried letters to the magistrates as well as to the pastors of the four cities, as also the requisite documents—namely, the articles of accusation, the papers exchanged between Servetus and Calvin, and a copy of the Christianismi Restitutio.

From this moment Calvin quits the scene. The course of the affair was precisely what it would have been although he had not been in Geneva at all. His influence with the Council was then at zero. We think we can see the end served thereby, though Calvin could not. To him it was only mortifying as betokening impending overthrow to the Reformation in Geneva. Writing to Bullinger at Zurich, on the 7th of September, he says: "Were I to declare that it is day at high-noon, they [the Council] would immediately begin to doubt it." That is all which he could put on paper, but, adds he, "our brother Walther [the son-in-law of Bullinger] will tell you more." This shows that the idea entertained by some that the Reformer was at that time all-powerful with the Council, and that he dictated the sentence it was to pronounce, is an entire misapprehension.


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## BertMulder (Mar 6, 2008)

CHAPTER 22 Back to Top

CONDEMNATION AND DEATH OF SERVETUS.

The Swiss Churches Consulted—Servetus Demands Calvin's Impeachment—Answer of the Swiss Churches—Their Verdict Unanimous—Council Condemns Servetus to be Burned—Calvin Intercedes that the Sword be Substituted for the Stake—Sentence Communicated to Servetus—Farel—Interview between Servetus and Calvin—Servetus Summoned to Execution—his Terror—The Procession—View from Champel—Farel's Last Conversation with Servetus—The Pile Kindled—Servetus Dies—Gibbon—Jurisprudence of the Age—No Romanist can Condemn Calvin.

IN the resolution to which the magistrates of Geneva had come, to lay the affair of Serveins before the Swiss Reformed Churches, we see the Churches of Helvetia formed into a jury. Pending the verdict, which it would seem Servetus did not for a moment doubt would be entirely in his favor, the accused took another step against Calvin. From his prison, on the 22nd of September, he sent to the Council a list of "articles on which M. Servetus wishes J. Calvin to be interrogated." He there accuses Calvin of having falsely imputed to him the opinion that the soul is mortal. "If I have said that—not merely said it, but publicly written it—to infect the world, I would condemn myself to death. Wherefore, my lords, I demand that my false accuser be punished, poena talionis, and that he be detained a prisoner like me, till the cause be decided for his death or mine, or other punishment."[1] Servetus had formerly declined the civil jurisdiction in matters theological; he now, in the hope of placing the Reformer in the same hazard as himself, accepts that jurisdiction in those very matters in which he had before declined it. And further, he makes it plain that he was not more liberal than his age, in holding that a conviction for heresy ought to draw after it the punishment of death.

Meanwhile the State messenger was making his circuit of the four cities, sojourning long enough in each to permit the magistrates and pastors to consider the documents, and make up their minds. At the end of nearly a month, the messenger returned. The answers of the cities and pastors were given in to the Council on the 18th of October: they were eight in all, there being a deliverance from the Government and a deliverance from the Church in each case. The verdict eight times pronounced, with awful unanimity, was death. Thus, outside the territory of Geneva, was the fate of Servetus decided.[2] About the same time that the suffrages of the Swiss Churches were given in, an officer arrived at Geneva from the tribunal of Vienne. This man carried an order from his masters empowering him to demand the surrender of the prisoner, and bring him to Vienne, that he might undergo the sentence that had been passed upon him. Their Lordships of Geneva replied that it was not their custom to give up one charged with a crime till he had been either acquitted or condemned.

However, confronting Servetus with the Viennese officer, they asked him whether he would remain with them or go back with the person who had come to fetch him. The unhappy man with tears in his eyes replied, "Messieurs of Geneva, judge me according to your good pleasure, but do not send me back with the hangman." This interference of the Roman Catholic authorities of Vienne hastened the fate of the prisoner.[3]

The Council of Geneva assembled on the 26th of October to give judgment. The discussion was a stormy one. Perrin, with the Libertines, fought hard to save the accused; but the preponderating majority felt that the case could have but one issue. Servetus had already been condemned by the Popish tribunal of Vienne; the tribunal of the Swiss Reform had unanimously condemned him; the codes of Theodosius and Justinian, which still formed the basis of the criminal jurisprudence of Geneva, condemned him; and the universal opinion of Christendom, Popish and Protestant, held him to be worthy of death. To these considerations was added the horror his sentiments had inspired in all minds. Not only did his opinions outrage the fundamental doctrines of the then common creed of Christendom; they assailed with atrocious blasphemy the persons of the Trinity; and they tore up, in their last consequences, the roots of society, by striking down conscience within man, and the power of law without him. What day the Council acquitted Servetus, it pronounced the dissolution of the State, political and religious, and opened the flood-gates on Christendom of those horrible impieties and massacring crusades which had already inflicted fearful havoc in many of the provinces of Germany.

Europe, they believed, would not hold them guiltless if they let loose this plague a second time. Therefore, without consulting Calvin, without even thinking of him, and viewing the question as a social rather than a theological one, and dealing with it as sedition rather than heresy for, says Rilliet, "the principles of order, as then understood, did not permit them longer to hesitate as to whether or not they should see in them [i.e., the opinions of Servetus] the crime of treason against society"[4] —the magistrates of Geneva closed their Diet of the 26th of October with a decree condemning Servetus to death. "Let him," so ran the decree of the Council, as described in the Register, "be condemned to be led to Champel, and there burned alive, and let him be executed tomorrow, and his books consumed."[5]

We record with horror the sentence, but it is the sentence not of the magistrates of Geneva only, nor of the magistrates and pastors of Reformed Switzerland only: it is the sentence of the Christendom of that age, for the Inquisition on one side, and Melancthon on the other, are heard expressing their concurrence in it. At this supreme hour one man alone comes forward to attempt a mitigation of the punishment of Servetus.

Who is that man? He is John Calvin. He earnestly interceded with the Council, not that the unfortunate victim might be spared, but that the sword might be substituted for the fire; but he interceded in vain. "It is to him, notwithstanding," says Rilliet, "that men have always imputed the guilt of that funeral pile, which he wished had never been reared."[6]

We must pursue this affair to its appalling and scandalous termination. Farel, who had been watching from Neuchatel the progress of the trial, came suddenly to Geneva at its close. He was present with the unhappy man when the message of death was brought him. Up till that moment Servetus had clung to the hope of acquittal. He was horror-struck when the dreadful reality disclosed itself to him. "He was at intervals," says Calvin, "like one mad—then he uttered groans, which resounded through his chamber—anon he began to howl like one out of his senses. In brief, he had all the appearance of a demoniac. At last his outcry was so great that he without intermission exclaimed in Spanish, striking his breast, 'Mercy! mercy!'" A terrible picture! and one cannot but wish that, with its graphic touches, there had mingled a little more of that pity which it needs must awaken for the sufferer in the heart of every one who reads it. When his first paroxysm had subsided, Farel, addressing Servetus, besought him "to repent of his sins, and confess the God who had thrice revealed himself."[7] This appeal but rekindled the polemical pride of the unhappy man.

Turning to the aged evangelist, he asked him to produce a single passage from Scripture where Christ was called the Son of God previous to his coming in the flesh. Farel quoted several such passages; but Servetus, though he had nothing to reply, remained unconvinced, and continued to mingle cries for mercy, and appeals to Christ as his Savior, with his disputation with Farel, in which he maintained that Christ was not eternal, nor otherwise the Son of God except as regards his humanity.[8]

After this he requested, or at least consented, to see Calvin. The Reformer was accompanied to the prison by two members of Council, for it was just possible that the condemned would make a retractation, and the terrible necessity of his death be avoided. Being asked by one of the councillors what he had to say to Calvin, Servetus answered that he desired to ask his pardon. "I protest," replied the Reformer, "that I have never pursued against you any private quarrel." Mildly, yet with the utmost fidelity, Calvin went on to remind Servetus of the pains he had been at to prevent him plunging into these destructive errors; and he counselled him, even now, to turn to God, and cast himself by repentance and faith on his Son for pardon.[9] But Calvin had no better success than Farel; and, finding that he could effect nothing, he withdrew.

Whose heart does not bleed for the unhappy man? We feel a compassion and sorrow for Servetus such as we feel for no martyr. The men who died for the Gospel were upheld by the greatness and justice of their cause. Instead of falling prostrate before their judges, they stood erect, their faces shining with the light of faith. They trod the path to the fire, not with serenity only, but with songs of holy triumph, knowing that "one like unto the Son of Man" would descend and stand beside them in the midst of the flames. But, alas! where shall Servetus look for consolation in his hour of agony? On whose arm shall he lean when he goes forth to die? and who will be his companion when he stands at the stake? The Trinity was to him "a Cerberus." From that Son to whom the Father said, "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever," and who is "able to save to the uttermost," and from that Holy Spirit "who is the Comforter," his creed shut him out. And now, when the storm comes down upon him in a violence so terrific, he is without a shelter. No rock can he find on which to stay his feet amid the surging billows. At the gates of the new dispensation on which Christendom is entering stands Servetus, a monument of salt, to show the world how little power there is in a creed emptied of all the great verities of revelation, to sustain the soul amid the grand and dread eventualities of existence.

As yet Servetus was ignorant, that he was to die by fire. Calvin had earnestly besought the Council that the miserable man might be spared this terrible surprise, but he had pleaded in vain. The magistrates would not permit him to influence their proceedings in the matter, even to the extent of substituting the sword for the stake. It was the morning of the 27th of October, the day named for execution; Farel and some country ministers were with Servetus as early as seven o'clock. The precious hours would seem to have passed in wretched polemical discussions on the part of the condemned, who seemed more intent on triumphing in the argument with the pastors, than prevailing in his suit at the gates of the Eternal Mercy. It was now eleven o'clock in the forenoon. The Lord Lieutenant, accompanied by the Secretary of Justice, entered the prison, and addressed Servetus in the customary words, "Come with me and hear the good pleasure of my lords."[10] He was led before the court. "The staff was broken over his head,"[11] as was the wont with criminals adjudged to death, and the sentence was then read by the presiding syndic. Scarcely had the last words, which doomed him "to be fastened to a stake, and burned alive, till his body be reduced to ashes," fallen on his ears, when he cast himself at the feet of his judges, entreating that he might be permitted to die by the sword,"[12] saying that if he had erred, he had erred through ignorance, and that his opinions were conformable to the Word of God. The syndics remained inexorable. Turning to the prisoner, Farel said that he must first disavow his errors, and then ask forgiveness. Again Servetus obtested his innocence, saying that he was being led to death as a sacrifice, and that he prayed God to forgive his accusers. Farel, with a sternness which is at least remarkable, threatened, should Servetus persist in these protestations of innocence, to leave him, and not go with him to the stake. The wretched man, feeling that in parting with Farel he was parting with the last poor remnant of human sympathy and comfort left him, held his peace.[13]

Doom has been spoken, and now the procession is marshalled and descends the steps of the town-hall. The Lord Lieutenant and the Herald, in the insignia of their office, head the way on horseback. Aghast, trembling, and pallid with terror, the white-haired Farel by his side, Servetus appears in the midst of the archers that form his escort. A crowd, smaller than usually assists at such sights, brings up the rear. The executioners had gone on before to prepare the funeral pile. The procession issued from the city by the gate of St. Anthony. They leave on the left the spot, now bare, where stood the celebrated Faubourg and Church of St. Victor, razed in 1534 for the defense of the city; on the right are the downs of Plain Palais, the Campus Martius of Geneva. The one recalled the sacrifices of the citizens for liberty, the other their gala-days of civic festival and military pomp. In the south, about a mile from the city gates, rose the little eminence of Champel, on the summit of which the stake had been fixed [14] Sobs and ejaculatory prayers burst from Servetus as he pursued his brief and bitter pilgrimage to the fire. "O God!" he cried, "deliver my soul. Jesus, Son of the Eternal Father, have mercy on me."

Farel has no word of solace to offer; he moves along by the side of Servetus, half in sorrow, half in anger; this to us looks heartless—nay, cruel; but Farel doubtless felt that consolation he could not offer without being insincere, and doing violence to his own convictions. It was his uprightness that made him look so stern, for the more earnest he was for the true welfare of the unhappy man he was accompanying to the stake, all the more did he strive to bring him to place his eternal hopes, not upon the man-God, but upon the God-man.[15]

The melancholy procession had now arrived at Champel. The stake that rose on its summit was the one dark object in a scene otherwise full of light and beauty. The vast plain, which lay outspread around the spot, wore a carpet of the richest foliage, now beginning to be chequered with the autumnal tints. The far-off mountains were tipped with the first silver of winter. In the center of the immense picture gleamed the blue Leman, a mirror of polished steel. On the south of it were seen, rushing along in their winding course, the snow-grey waters of the Arve. On the north was the mighty amphitheatre of the woody Jura, which, entering France and sweeping down towards Savoy, showed its massy rampart cleft in the southwest to give passage to the Rhone. In this assemblage of riches one object alone appeared in naked desolation. At some distance rose the steep, barren, rocky Saleve, its blackness typical of the tragedy transpiring on the summit of the little Champel, on which it looked down.

Farel asks him whether he has wife or child, and would wish to make his will? Servetus makes him no answer.[16] He asks again whether he has anything else to say, hoping till the last moment to hear him confess a Divine Redeemer. Sighing deeply, Servetus exclaims, "O God! O God!" Farel bids him ask the prayers of the people. He does so; Farel uniting his own exhortations to the same effect to the bystanders.[17] While these supplications are being offered in silence, Servetus mounts the pile and seats himself on the log of wood which had been placed there for that purpose. He was fastened to the stake by an iron chain put round his body, and a rope twisted round his neck. The executioner now kindled the torch, and, approaching the pile, set fire to the wood. At the first glare of the flames Servetus gave a shriek so terrible that it made the crowd fall back.[18] On his head was a wreath, woven of straw and leaves, sprinkled with brimstone, the sooner to suffocate him. His book, Restitutio Christianismi, was bound to his side, to be consumed with him.[19] The fire burned but slowly, and he lived for half-an-hour at the stake.[20] Some narrators say that a little before expiring he cried aloud, "Jesus, Thou Son of the Eternal God, have mercy upon me!" Farel says, on the other hand, that he protested "in the midst of the flames, and in defiance of the whole Christian world, against the doctrine of the Trinity."

A great historian exclaims that the stake of Servetus caused him greater horror than all the autos-da-fe of Rome. A signal inconsistency—as the burning of Servetus in a Protestant republic was—may no doubt strike one more than does a course of crime steadily and persistently pursued; but surely that mind is strangely constituted which is less moved to commiseration by thousands of victims than by one victim. The same century which witnessed the pile of Servetus saw some thirty or forty thousand fires kindled by the Church of Rome [21] for the burning of Protestants. But we by no means plead the latter fact as a vindication of the former. We deplore—we condemn—this one pile. It was a violation of the first principles of Protestantism. To say more on this head, writing as we do in the nineteenth century, would be simply to declaim.

But let us not commit the injustice of Gibbon and those who have followed him. Let us not select one of the actors, and make him the scapegoat of his age. We have striven to give an impartial statement of facts, that the reader may know the precise share which Calvin had in this transaction, and the exact amount of condemnation to mete out to him.

Calvin informed the Council of Servetus' arrival in Geneva; he drew up the articles of indictment from the writings of Servetus, the first time at his own instance, and the second time at the Council's order; and he maintained these when face to face with Servetus before the syndics. All this he could not decline to do without neglect of duty as president of the Consistory. All this he was bound to do by the law of the State. If we are to be discriminating in our censure, we must go farther back than the denunciation given in to the Council, and come to the order of things established at Geneva, which rendered this form of procedure in such cases imperative. It was a vicious jurisprudence; but it was the jurisprudence of former ages, and of that age, and the jurisprudence freely adopted by the citizens of Geneva. Those who condemn Calvin for conforming to it in a matter of public duty, are in reality condemning him for not being wiser in judicial matters than all previous ages, his own included, and for not doing what there is no proof he had power to do, namely, changing the law of the State, and the opinions of the age in which he lived. Beyond what we have stated Calvin had no influence, and tried to exert none.

We further grant that Calvin wished a conviction, and that he approved of the sentence as just—nay, expressed his satisfaction with it, having respect to the alternative of acquittal—namely, the expulsion of the Reformation from Geneva. We condemn him for these views; but that is to condemn him for living in the sixteenth and not in the nineteenth century, and we condemn not him alone, but his age, for all who lived with him shared these views, and believed it a duty to punish heresy with death; although even already Calvin, as appears from his book of the following year, had separated himself from the Romish idea that heresy is to be punished as heresy—is to be smitten by the sword, though it should exist only in the depth of one's bosom. He would have the heretic punished only when he promulgates his opinions to the disturbance of society. This is to come very near—nearer perhaps than any other man of his day came—to the modern doctrine of toleration.

But further, it is only Protestants who are entitled to find fault with Calvin. No Romanist can utter a word of condemnation. No Romanist of Calvin's's own age did condemn him,[22] and no more can any Romanist of ours. The law of the Romish world to this day awards death by burning to heresy; and the Romanist who condemns the affair of Servetus, condemns what his Church then accounted, and still accounts, a righteous and holy deed; and so condemns his Church, and himself not less, as a member of it. He virtually declares that he ought to be a Protestant.

To Calvin, above all men, we owe it that we are able to rise above the error that misled his age. And when we think, with profound regret, of this one stake planted by Protestant hands, surely we are bound to reflect, with a gratitude not less profound, on the thousands of stakes which the teaching of Calvin has prevented ever being set up.[23]


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## Contra_Mundum (Mar 6, 2008)

Robert Kingdon, and other sober scholars studying that age are better assessors of Calvin and his impact on his time, his city, the international scene, and later generations, than are people who come at _Calvinalia_ with an agenda--namely to prove what a bad (and even sometimes "good") guy he was.

We, who truly honor him as a man of Scripture and God, are able to admit him with his faults. Faults which are typically exaggerated while minimizing his qualities, as well as reading him anachronistically, as a man of a time other than his own. Furthermore, it was Calvin's own assessment of his life in Geneva (on his deathbed) that his many decades of service to the city had been opposed virtually without interruption by the civilian authorities.

How many people who whine about Calvin's "influence" in his city have ever written (or read with approval) some letter to the editor, or "open letter" to a civilian officer-holder, or public speech/sermon, that offers approval or disapproval of some secular policy, some treatment of criminals, or any public issue on which they think Christians should have a voice? If they think this is a right to be guarded and exercised in our time, why should they oppose Calvin's seeking to have *some small* influence on his social and public concerns? Pot, meet kettle.

That Calvin, who stood as a pivotal figure in the church (and consequently had the voice to speak to those in politics), and was even required by the civil authorities on occasion to offer "expert testimony" or even lead Servetus' prosecution _due to his stature in the church_, that he should irk some modern figure who resents the flow of history--this is of no moment or consequence. It shouldn't bother us either.

Calvin has his reward in heaven, a rather eminent place I guess--given his contribution and humility. And nothing some tendentious person says or does today has any impact on him or his labors in the larger scheme of things.


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## BertMulder (Mar 6, 2008)

it is funny - no it is a crying shame that we have to continually defend the reformation. Yes, through the actions of sinful men, under the guise of the reformed church, also some papists were put to death, unjustly. Some of these perpetrators were punished for it by the magistrate, others escaped earthly punishment.

But how this compares to the organized crime, not only by the Inquisition, but also the crusades against the Waldenses and other reformed, as well as the wholesale slaughter by the jesuits, I still do not grasp.

In the Netherlands alone, during Charles V, the history books mention numbers of 50,000 to 100,000. Never mind the bloody reign of Philip II and Alva. Never mind the bloody wedding of St. Bartholomew in France. Let us not bring up the martyrs in Britain, Scotland, Germany and Poland. And all of those, I recently read, pale in comparison to Hungary.

And now the whore that sits in Rome wants to dialogue with Islam, wants to be in bed with Mohammed, and tries to unify with the Eastern church, while exonorating Luther.

Can you all see the prophecy from Scripture? The signs of the times? The united false church persecuting the elect remnant?

And the methods of Islam are not that different from the methods of the papacy...


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## RamistThomist (Mar 6, 2008)

why apologize? or why start feeling sorry immediately when Servetus is mentioned? Why judge Calvin by today's pluralistic standards? He could very well be wrong, but still...


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## kvanlaan (Mar 7, 2008)

Brother, thank you for that last bit - I had no idea of those numbers in the _Netherlands alone_ and under one particular despot. Shocking. I wonder (in an off-topic kind of way) what the total number of Reformed (French Huguenots, Dutch Calvinists, etc.) martyrs would be.

What sticks in my mind from reading on the whole Servetus issue was that it was Calvin who asked clemency (beheading vs. burning) of the city council but it was rejected.


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## JM (Mar 7, 2008)

Was Calvin high handed when it came to punishment? What was up with Calvin's sister in law?


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## Contra_Mundum (Mar 7, 2008)

High-handed by whose standard? Our attitudes about the prerogatives of authority are conditioned by 300 years of attempted increase in "democratic" empowerment, and the concomitant reduction in single-person or party power. And which specific occasions might you be thinking of? And to what degree did Calvin actually have "supervision" in cases of said discipline?

Re. the sister-in-law thing, I don't know, JM. I don't know if anyone does. Why not check Mr. Cottret's sources? I'm suuuuure he footnoted his material. Is it primary source? Or did he rely on Dave Hunt for this bit of first-hand information? If the info refers to a actual 16th century source, could it be a biased source? How credible? And is the "incident" susceptible to multiple interpretations, i.e. one less painted-in-a-bad-light? How many others have so "read" the record of facts?


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## BertMulder (Mar 7, 2008)

Brother JM, I am doing a history study right now on the 'rebellion', the 80 years war in the Netherlands. As to if it was Scripturally justifiable. That is for this thread besides the point. But in doing it I have learned that you can just read history, or you can study history. As our brother "da wabbit" stated here above, are original sources considered? Unbiased sources? That woul require an unbiased study on someone's part.

If you love history (as I do), I would encourage you to take up that study. It is a lot of hard work, but it is worthwile. And you do not need letters behind your name to do a history study. And a lot of good source material is available online, although nothing goes above a good library. Still love leaving throught the pysical pages of a book.

Another important principle to remember is to consider the history against the manners and customs of the age that you are studying. What was the normative in the days of Calvin? How was adultery, for example, punished. By the way, and I have not checked this out, I noticed from the excerpts of your source that Ami Perrin is referred to as a female committing adultery. Wylie has Amy (alternate spelling) Perrin, a male person, prosecuted for that crime. As for Jacques Gruet, he had uttered death threats against Calvin, and, if I remember correctly, in public....

And all the time we have to keep in the backs of our mind here, if Wylie is correct in his assessment, that for most of his time in Geneva, Calvin had NO influence to speak of in City Councils, and even his ecclesiastical influence was so limited at times that the church was encroached on by the state in the exercise of church disciplien and excommunication.


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## RamistThomist (Mar 7, 2008)

BertMulder said:


> Another important principle to remember is to consider the history against the manners and customs of the age that you are studying. What was the normative in the days of Calvin? .



I would actually caution against using this form of argument. If we are going to make morality contingent upon culture, then by the same standards we really can't condemn the Inquisition.


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## JM (Mar 7, 2008)

From what I could see on Calvin: A Biography - Google Book Search, the list I provided in the op is exaggerated and only partial sources are listed when few times they are.


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## BertMulder (Mar 7, 2008)

Ivanhoe said:


> BertMulder said:
> 
> 
> > Another important principle to remember is to consider the history against the manners and customs of the age that you are studying. What was the normative in the days of Calvin? .
> ...





Sorry, I see that I did not express myself clearly. The manners and customs of the age never determine the right or wrong. But they do shed light on the circumstances of the people to determine motive, however.

This may be a weak example, but we know that part of the city ordinance was that only reformed confessors and their families were allowed to reside in Geneva. Thus we know that a secular benefit was connected with church membership. Thus we know, that anyone wanting to live in Geneva, who considered church discipline to strict, would ally themselves with the libertines running for the City Councils. And the motive of the libertines on city council would be to influence church discipline.

That was one of the factors of consideration in the Servetus case. The city council was in control of the Libertines. Calvin did his civil duty in notifying the magistrate of the presence of Servetus in the city. In the same time period, there was an important church discipline case, where city council was blocking excommunication. Calvin was almost banished from the city. One could easily have thought that the Libertine Council would have declared Servetus not guilty, and instead have found reason to punish Calvin, their archenemy....

But God's council stands. His finger writes the history.


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## RamistThomist (Mar 7, 2008)

I don't see the connection, with all due respect. You seem to still be implying that morals can be contingent upon historical seasons.


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## BertMulder (Mar 7, 2008)

Ok, another example then.

The churches in the Netherlands did not have a National Synod until finally the one in 1618-1619. The reason for this was not neglect on their part, but because the government at the time, in control of Arminians, did not allow a National Synod.

The churches were wrong in not holding a National Synod, no matter whether they received approval or not. Even if they did break the law, as we believe that the state may not lord it over the church.

However, the customs and morals of the times help us understand why they did not hold the synod earlier. Even though it does not justify it.


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## JM (Mar 12, 2008)

FIRST THINGS: A Journal of Religion, Culture, and Public Life


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## CalvinandHodges (Mar 13, 2008)

Hi:

The best biography I have ever read on Calvin is the one done by Williston Walker Wylie's book looks interesting though...

Williston Walker ISBN: 978-1845501044

Grace and Peace,

-CH


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## Contra_Mundum (Mar 13, 2008)

JM said:


> FIRST THINGS: A Journal of Religion, Culture, and Public Life



I thought this was a balanced and helpful review. On the whole, the book comes off rather well, enduring some criticisms for reinforcing the Cottret's own views of Calvin as something of a petty tyrant, and his passing over quite a bit of evidence to the contrary.

So, considering myself better informed, I now retract my [loaded] question of whether BC used "Dave Hunt" as a primary source.


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## VirginiaHuguenot (Mar 13, 2008)

See this previous thread concerning some helpful Calvin biographies:

http://www.puritanboard.com/f29/calvin-biography-5243/

Also, see:

Richard Stauffer, _The Humanness of John Calvin_
Dr. F. Nigel Lee, _The Godly Life of John Calvin_


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