A QUAINT OLD DECREE.

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had ever been informed, that in the previous month of Novem ber a decree had passed the Council of Geneva, declaring Calvin's Institutes to be a book "well and holily written, its doctrine to be the holy doctrine of God," and that "from this time forth no one shall dare to say aught against the said book or the said doctrine;" commanding all and several that they adhere to this.*

There was another document, which, had the poor fugitive seen it, would have warned him that of all places Geneva was the most dangerous for him to pass through. It was a letter, addressed by Calvin seven years before (to wit, in 1546), to his friend, William Farell (or Farellus), in which occurs this passage: "Servetus wrote to me lately, and to his letters added a large volume of his ravings, with braggart boastings that I should therein find things stupendous and hitherto unheard of. If it pleased me, he added, he would come hither; but I was

* I shall have occasion a few pages farther on to speak of the book here referred to and its doctrines. The decree from which I have quoted above is as well worth preserving, in its quaint old dress, as any Egyptian mummy in its cerements. Here it is, dated, it will be observed, Wednesday, November 9, 1552:

"Estans ouys in Conseil, et savans ministres de la parolle de Dieu, Maistre Guillaume Farel et Pierre Viret, et apres eux spectables maistre Johan Calvin et maistre Johan Trouillet, en leurs dires et reproches souvent debattues de l'Institution Chrestiene du dict monsieur Calvin, et le tout bien consideré, le conseil arresté et conclu que toutes choses bien oyes et entendu, a prononcé et declaré le dict livre de l'Institution du dict monsieur, estre bien et sainctement faict, sa doctrine estre saincte doctrine de Dieu; que l'on le tient pour bon et vrai ministre de ceste Cité, et que de l'ici a l'avenir personne ne soit ose parler contre le dict livre ou la dicte doctrine. Commandans aux pareilles et à tous se doive tenir a cela. Le Mequredi, que fut neufvieme de Novembre; l'an mille cincq cens cincquante et deux.”

The original, on the records of the Council, can doubtless still be seen at Geneva. Castalio, a neighbor and contemporary of Calvin (if, as is usually believed, he was the author of Contra libellum Calvini, 1554), publishes it entire in that work.

not willing to engage my word. For if he does come, so far as my authority may prevail, he shall never go hence alive.”*

Unknowing these things and hoping for better treatment from Protestants than Catholics, the unfortunate Servetus, after

*The authenticity of this extract has been sometimes called in question, probably because it has been confounded with another letter to Peter Viret, a minister of Geneva, which Bolsec (in his De vita et moribus Calvini, Book 3, p. 8) alleges that he saw and in regard to which the evidence is insufficient. The letter to Farell in Calvin's own, well-known hand, was found by the celebrated Grotius, in the year 1631, in a four-volume manuscript collection of letters from distinguished Protestants in Paris. (Geschichte des Michael Servetus, p. 130.) The Dutch historian Vytenbogaert, gives the extract in his Kerkelyken Historie (Book 2, p. 45), as follows: "Servetus nuper ad me scripsit, et litteris adjunxit magnum volumen suorum deliriorum, cum Thrasonica jactantia, me stupenda et hactenus inaudita visurum. Si mihi placeat, huc se venturum recipit : sed nolo fidem meam interponere. Nam si venerit, modo valeat mea auctoritas, vivum exire nunquam patiar. The italics are my own. Vytenbogaert gives this extract on the authority of "een seer geleert, ende in dese Landen wol bekennt Personagie, anno 1631," who had inspected the letter in Paris. (P. 48.) "One can hardly doubt" says Mosheim, "that Grotius is here designated; he was an intimate friend of Vytenbogaert, and he lived in Paris in 1630 and 1631." (Geschichte, p. 131.) But, to remove all doubt as to the existence of this letter, we have Grotius' own words which I have verified. Speaking, in his theological works, of those who have written in favor of punishing heretics by the sword, he says: "Horum Calvinus autem is est qui antequam Servetus (is autem ipsius judicium super scriptis suis expetiverat) veniret Genevam, scripsit (exstat ipsius Lutetiæ manus) ad Farellum, si quid sua valeret auctoritas, effecturum ne vivus abiret."-GROTIUS: Opera Theologica, fol. Amsterdam, 1679, vol. iii. (Append. de Antichristo) p. 503.

It will be observed that Grotius not only states the fact that the letter to Farellus, in Calvin's own hand, was extant in Lutetia (Paris) and contained the threat against Servetus' life, but also alludes to another circumstance, to be gathered from the extract as given by Vytenbogaert, namely, that Servetus had solicited Calvin's opinion touching his (Servetus') writings.

Other authors testify to the same effect; but the above suffices.

HE ACTS UPON IT.

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secreting himself for sometime in Dauphiné, ran into the lion'a mouth.

The precise period of his arrival in Geneva and the term of his residence there are uncertain: some alleging that he tarried in the city a single day only,* others that he lay hidden there, communicating with no one, for three or four weeks. Certain it is, that, on the eve of his departure, by vessel, up the lake, on his way to Zurich, he was, at the instance of Calvin,† arrested as a heretic and cast into prison. The property which the inquisitors of Vienne had respected was surrendered to the inquisitors of Geneva; it included a heavy neck-chain of gold, such as was usually worn in those days by men of his condition, several gold rings, and ninety-seven gold pieces. His place of confinement was a dungeon, assigned only to malefactors committed for capital offences. There he lay during two months and a half.

He was arraigned before the Syndics, judges of the Criminal Court. The charge against him was for heresy alone; his private character appearing to have been unblemished. In Geneva, as in Vienne, he admitted and justified his peculiar opinions, demanding permission to engage in public argument with Calvin, in open church, or before the larger council of the

* Principal Tulloch, who seems to have examined the authorities with care, thinks there is conclusive evidence that Servetus arrived at Geneva on a Sunday, wandered off, after dinner, into the church where his great adversary was preaching, was there recognized by some one who reported the fact of his presence to Calvin, and was arrested the same evening.-Leaders of the Reformation, London, 1859, p. 141.

† This will be admitted as beyond question by those who have looked carefully into the history of the case; seeing that Calvin himself asserts it. In a letter written to his friend Sulcerus, dated September 9, 1553, speaking of Servetus, he says: "At length, driven hither by his evil genius, one of the Syndics, at my instigation, arrested him.” The original reads: "Tandem huc malis auspiciis appulsum, unus ex Syndicis, me auctore, in carcerum duci jussit."-Epistola ad Sulcerum in Epistolis Calvini, No. 156, p. 294.

Servetus was arrested August 13, 1553.

64

TRIAL OF SERVETUS BEFORE

two hundred, on the question whether his doctrine was in ac cordance with Scripture. This was denied him; and as a verbal discussion before the Court touching the true sense of the words person and hypostasis, and similar theological subtleties, had led to intemperance of language on the part of both controversialists, it was ordered that Calvin should set forth his argument in writing, to which Servetus should reply in like

manner.

Two weeks had elapsed before Calvin had completed his paper. Therein he set himself to prove, and succeeded in proving, that many of Servetus' religious opinions were heretical; that is, were at variance with the teachings of his own Institutes, which Institutes, as we have seen, the Geneva Council had decreed to be "the holy doctrine of God." Then Servetus, having been furnished with writing materials, and with such books as he desired from Calvin's library and other sources, was called on for a reply. Some of Calvin's accusations he denied indignantly ;* but stoutly defended his own actual opinions. All this caused great delay, during which the prisoner complained piteously to his judges of his miserable condition; eaten up by vermin, racked with pains from disease and from the cold and damp; without the means of cleanliness or even a change of linen; suffering other miseries, he adds, "about which it shames me to write." †

.*

* For example, "that the human soul is mortal" and that "Jesus Christ derived but a fourth part of his body from the Virgin Mary :""things horrible and execrable," Servetus writes (September 22), “which if I had ever said in private or written in public, I should condemn my own self to death.”—Mosheim, p. 419.

+ Les poulx me mangent tout vif, mes chauses sont descirées, et nay de quoy changer, ni pourpoint, ni chamise, que une mechante." This was September 15. Under date October 10 he writes: Quant a ce que avies commandé, qu'on me fit quelque chose pour me tenir net, nen a rien esté faict et suys plus pietre que jamais. Et davantage le froyt me tormante grandament a cause de ma colique et rompure, la quelle mengeldre daultres pauretes, que ai honte vous escrire.”—Original letters, given in Geschichte des Michael Serveto, p. 421.

THE COUNCIL OF GENEVA.

65

The theological controversy could have but one issue; then the Public Prosecutor took up the case, and Servetus demanded the aid of an attorney, alleging that he was a foreigner, ignorant of the customs of their city. To this the prosecutor replied that the prisoner knew so well how to tell lies, he needed no counsel: and his demand was rejected accordingly."

Aimé Perret, one of the principal members of the City Council, backed by a few equally tolerant spirits, sought to avert Servetus' impending fate; but the great authority of Calvin, who had determined on the heretic's death,† prevailed. Proposals to commute the punishment to banishment, or to perpetual imprisonment, were defeated; and after some weeks' delay, to give time for replies from various Swiss Churches which had been consulted on the matter, † the weary suspense of the prisoner was at last, on the twenty-sixth of October, broken by the announcement that he had just been condemned and would be executed the next day. For five or six weeks previously his urgent endeavors to procure a further hearing had been fruitless; § yet he seemed to have been wholly unprepared for the terrible result. Weakened doubtless by his long

* DE LA ROCHE: Memoirs of Literature, vol. iv. p. 188. This author had access to the original papers in the trial.

+ Under date August 20 (a week after the arrest of Servetus), Calvin wrote to a friend: "I hope that he will be sentenced to death; but the atrocity of his mode of suffering I desire to have remitted." ("Spero capitale saltim fore judicium; pœnæ vero atrocitatem remitti cupio"). — Calv. Epist. No. 134, p. 290.

‡ Namely, the Churches of Zurich, Schaffhausen, Basel, and Berne. Though none of these Churches committed themselves on the subject of capital punishment for heresy, and though the Bernese expressed the hope that their brethren of Geneva, "would do nothing unworthy of a Christian magistracy," the gist of their replies was to encourage the prosecution.

Ş These three weeks," he wrote, October 10, “have I sought an audience-in vain. I implore you, by the love of Jesus Christ, not tc refuse me the justice you would grant to a Turk."-Mosheim, p. 420.