THE TRIAL IN ITS SECOND PHASE—continued.

When the Court assembled, on August 23, a series of articles, embodying what may be characterised as a new Act of Impeachment, was presented to it by M. Rigot the Attorney-General, headed as follows: ‘These are the questions and articles on which the Attorney-General of Geneva proposes to interrogate Michael Servetus, prisoner, accused of heresy, blasphemy, and disturbance of the peace of Christendom.’

The questions and articles now presented differ materially from those proposed in the first instance by Calvin in the name of his man, Nicolas de la Fontaine. These, we have seen, refer almost exclusively to the speculative theological opinions of Servetus, his disrespectful treatment of Calvin, and his challenge of the doctrine preached in the Church of Geneva. The articles of the Attorney-General bear on matters more purely personal to the prisoner; on his antecedents; his relations with the theologians of Basle and Germany; the printing of his books, more particularly the last of them, and the fatal consequences that must follow from its publication; his coming to Geneva, and so on. Save his views on Infant Baptism, his other dogmatical opinions are not particularly specified or brought prominently forward; and his differences with Calvin and the Church of Geneva are not even hinted at. The theological element in the prosecution, in a word, is almost entirely abandoned for denunciations of the socially dangerous nature of the prisoner’s doctrines, and his persistence in their dissemination.

In the present mood of the Court, and aspect of the prosecution, it would almost seem that had Servetus been guilty of nothing more than offences in the region of speculative theology and the use of uncivil language towards Calvin and the Church of Geneva, his delinquencies would not have put him beyond the pale of escape from all but punishment of a secondary or insignificant kind. The Attorney-General’s articles appear in fact to have been framed under the mistaken idea that Servetus, through the whole course of his life, had been an immoral and so a dangerous and turbulent spirit, of the kind with which he was himself, perhaps, but too familiar in the City of Geneva. He did not, any more than Calvin and the other Reformers, think of Servetus as he was in truth—a speculative, yet perfectly pious scholar, intent on bringing the Reformation of Christian doctrine, begun by Luther, still nearer to the simplicity of Apostolic, or even of pre-Apostolic, times; for Michael Servetus had the mind to see and to say that there was a Christian Religion, based on love of God and man, with added faith in its Author, before there were any Gospels; so that these are truly but the varying and often discrepant reports of the Master’s teaching, with mythological accretions and interpolated Greek philosophoumena.

Rigot appears from his articles, which have no look of having been dictated by Calvin, to have regarded Servetus as one whose efforts from first to last had been directed to the confusion of society through the teaching of an immoral doctrine and the example of a dissolute life. To force an avowal of so much from the lips of the prisoner himself was therefore the main drift of the Attorney’s interrogatories. Must not the prisoner be aware, said he, that his teaching gives licence to youth to overflow in debauchery, adultery, and other social crimes, as he maintains that there is neither sin nor misdemeanour in such misdeeds, and no punishment due to them under the age of twenty years? Why had he not himself entered into the holy state of matrimony? Had he not studied the Koran and other profane books for arguments in favour of Jews, Turks, and the like, and to controvert the doctrines of all the Christian Churches? Had he not been imprisoned elsewhere than at Vienne through having been guilty of various crimes and misdemeanours? Had he not been a party to quarrels in which he had wounded another as well as been wounded himself? If he had not led a dissolute and immoral life, showing neither care nor zeal for all that became a Christian, what could have induced him to treat adversely so much that lies at the root of the Christian Religion? Had he not come, in fact, to Geneva with a view to spread his doctrines and to trouble the Church as there established? With whom had he had communication since he came? Had he not spoken with William Geroult, and was not Geroult aware of his intention to come to Geneva? and so on, in the same strain, the questions amounting to as many as thirty.

But this was ground on which Servetus felt himself secure; he could reply to all that was asked of him now with a clear conscience, and without reticence or prevarication. He had nothing to hide in his past life. No moral delinquency had been laid to his charge, and though he may have had a squabble with the Faculty of Paris, the doctors were notoriously a contentious crew, always quarrelling among themselves, though they never, like the theologians, went the length of burning one another. There was little, therefore, to be said on that head; for the rest, he had lived soberly, honourably, industriously; earning his bread in the sweat of his brain, and for the last twelve or fourteen years had been incessantly engaged in the practice of his profession, neither using the sword nor the spear, but salving the bruises and stanching the wounds that men in their madness inflict on one another, and nobly ministering to the yet longer list of ills in the shape of fevers, fluxes, consumptions, apoplexies, cancers, dropsies, &c., &c., that waylay us on our course and give us rest at length.

The task which the public Prosecutor had set himself of showing up Servetus as an ill-conditioned and quarrelsome person, as a debauchee and evil-liver, and in the imputed licentiousness and irregularities of his life to find a motive for his attack on the dogmas of the Christian faith, was, therefore, a complete failure.

The Attorney-General of Geneva did not imagine, as it seems, that the man who differed in his speculative theological opinions from the masses, who follow their leaders like sheep, could be other than an enemy to both God and man.

All the charges in the direction now taken, unsupported as they were by a shadow of evidence, fell to the ground. Servetus could say with truth that he was no disturber of the peace—had never in the whole course of his life provoked a personal quarrel, and if he had once drawn his sword, as hinted, it was not as aggressor, but in self-defence. By physical constitution he said he was indisposed to matrimony; his not having entered into that holy state being, as we have seen, one of the items laid to his charge! Far from having failed in chastity of life, he declared that he had been ever studious of Scripture precepts on the subject, and was even bold enough to think that he had always lived as a Christian. And truly and in so far as aught to the contrary was made to appear in the course of the protracted and searching trial to which he was subjected, Servetus must be held to come out stainless. The logical conclusion, however, that speculative theological opinions, whether in conformity with or adverse to accredited systems of belief, had no influence one way or another on man’s moral conduct, was lost upon Calvin and his age; and the vulgar world of to-day cannot yet be said to have bettered their opinion.

The prosecution, losing ground the longer it continued on this tack, reverted to what for it was the surer course—the assumed danger to the cause of society and the peace of Christendom from the publication of books having the character ascribed to those written by the prisoner. In spite of all the warnings he had had, said Mr. Attorney Rigot, the kind and repeated admonitions of learned theologians, sole authorities on such subjects, and the unanimous condemnation his first publication had encountered, he not only continued to adhere to his errors, but with a view to spread them farther had written and printed a second, which was in fact but a reproduction and enlarged edition of the first.

To this Servetus answered that he thought he should have offended God had he not done so; ‘he had acted,’ he said, ‘with as perfect sincerity as if his salvation had been in question.’ ‘Our Lord,’ he continued, and quoting the tenth chapter of Matthew, ‘commands us to speak in Light that we have been told in Darkness; and in the fifth chapter, the Evangelist says further that we are not to put the Light we have under a bushel, but to set it where it may be seen of all.’ Taking God and his conscience for guides, therefore, he thought he was but following the injunctions of the Scriptures and the ancient Doctors of the Church in all he had written, nor does he now think that he has done amiss, for his intentions were good; and, as the Evangelist already quoted (ch. v.) declares: ‘If the eye be single then is the whole body full of Light,’ he therefore believes that his intention having been good, the deed which followed must be accounted good also. As to the printing of the book entitled ‘The Restoration of Christianity,’ he had no regrets. He had written and had it printed because he hoped to bring back to its primitive meaning much that he thought was erroneous in current interpretations of Christian Doctrine; his title of itself showed that he intended the Restoration, not the Destruction, of Christianity, with which he had been charged. With all this, however, he did not presume to say that they who had written before him, and in a different sense, understood nothing of the Christian Religion; he only thought they had misconceived and misconstrued some things, they especially who had formulated their opinions subsequently to the date of the Council of NicÆa.

To the particular charge that he had spoken of the Doctrine taught in the Reformed Churches as being nowise Christian, and condemned all who did not think with himself, he replied that he never imagined that the Churches of Geneva and Germany were doomed to perdition because of their teaching; he only thought their ministers mistaken on some things.

At this point, a private letter addressed by the prisoner to Abel Poupin, one of the Ministers of Geneva, written many years before, was produced and read to the Court. Whence it came, or how it was obtained, is not said; but as highly characteristic of the writer, and foreshadowing the fate that was to befal him, it must have a place in our story.

Monsieur Abel!—Although it is most plainly shown, in my twelfth letter to Calvin, that the Law of the Decalogue had been abrogated, I shall add a few words that you may the better understand the innovation brought about by the advent of Christ. If you turn to Jeremiah xxxi., verse 31 et seq., you will find it stated distinctly that the law of the Decalogue was to be annulled. The prophet teaches that the Covenant entered into with the Fathers, when they left Egypt, was to be no longer in force. But this was the Covenant of the Decalogue. For in I Kings, chapter viii., it is said that the Covenant or Testimony—the Decalogue, to wit—was in the Ark with the Fathers at their exodus from Egypt, whence the Ark is called the Ark of the Covenant, that is of the Tables, or Ten Commandments of the Law. Now this was the form of the Covenant: God promised the Israelites that they should be his people, if they did according to the words of the Law, and they on their part engaged that they would obey them. Such was the Covenant. And it is of this Covenant that Jeremiah (chapter xviii.) speaks as being repealed, as does Ezekiel (chapter xvi.), and Paul likewise in his Epistle to the Hebrews. If God took us for his own under that Law, we should lie under the curse, and perish by its pressure. The Law therefore was repealed. God does not now receive us as his children but by faith in his beloved Son, Jesus Christ. See then what becomes of your Gospel when it is confounded with the Law. Your Gospel is without the One God, without true faith, without good works. For the One God you have a three-headed Cerberus; for faith a fatal dream, and good works you say are vain shows. Faith in Christ is to you mere sham, effecting nothing; Man a mere log, and your God a chimÆra of subject-will. You do not acknowledge celestial regeneration by the washing with water, but treat it as an idle tale, and close the kingdom of heaven against mankind as a thing of imagination. Woe to you, woe, woe!

This, my third Epistle, is addressed to you with the wish that you may be brought to better thoughts, and I mean not to admonish you any more. It offends you, perchance, that I meddle in those battles of the angel Michael, and seek to bring you into the strife. But study the part I refer to carefully, and you will see that there are men who do battle there, exposing their lives for Christ’s sake. That the Angels speak truth is proclaimed by the Scriptures. But see you not that the question is of the Church of Christ fled from Earth these many years? Is it not of division, of difference that John himself makes mention? And who is the Accuser challenging us with transgression of the Law and its precepts? Accusation and seduction of the world, he says, were to precede the battle; the battle therefore was to follow, and the time is at hand, as he also tells us. And who are they who shall gain the victory over the Beast? They who do not accept his mark. I know for sure that I shall die in this cause; but my courage does not fail me because of this; I shall show me a disciple worthy of my master.

I much regret that, through you, I am not allowed to amend some places in my writings now in Calvin’s hands. Farewell, and look for no more letters from me.

I stand to my post and meditate, and look out for what may further come to pass. For come it will, surely it will come and that without long delay.84

This remarkable letter, interesting in so many respects, is unfortunately without a date; it is the last of three he had written, however, and must have been produced either in 1546, or early in 1547. Highly characteristic of the self-confidence and assurance of the writer, we see him as ready to challenge the Reformers as they were eager to denounce him. He does not call them heretics and blasphemers, it is true, nor does he speak of having them punished for the mistaken views they entertain; and therein he shows himself their superior. Crying woe upon them for their errors, he never hints at the propriety of burning them alive, though he is not blind to the great probability of being subjected himself to a fate of the kind.

The letter to Abel Poupin, said Servetus to his Judges, contains scholastic disputations on difficult subjects, in the course of which controversialists make use of strong language with no purpose but to enforce their views or bring their opponents to the same way of thinking as themselves, and not because they believe them to be lost souls by reason of the dissimilar opinions they entertain. For himself, he continues, he had had more objectionable terms of reproach applied to him, than any he had used to others; and these not by word of mouth or in private letters like his own, but through printed books both in the French and Latin tongues. What he had written to M. Abel, now more than six years ago, was with no view to publicity, but simply to elicit the truth—certainly with no intention of slandering the Republic of Geneva and its Churches.

On the important question of baptism, he admitted being of opinion that they who were baptized in their infancy were not truly baptized; but added, that if it were shown him he was mistaken in this, he was ready to amend and ask forgiveness.

The prosecutor reverting to the book lately printed and asking the prisoner if he did not think it was calculated, through the doctrine it taught, to bring great troubles on Christendom? he replied that he did not think his book calculated to introduce dispute or difference among Christians; on the contrary, he thought it would be found profitable, and give occasion to the better spirits among men to speak better things; and the truth, once admitted and proclaimed by the few, would by and by spread to the many.

Challenged with having come to Geneva to disseminate his doctrines and sow dissension among the Churches, he gave sufficient reason for his presence among them when he said that he had only come on his way to Italy, having been turned from his first intention of trying to reach his native country, after his escape from the prison of Vienne, through fear of arrest by the police of France.

It is but fair to infer, as M. Albert Rilliet observes, that the present bearing of Servetus, and the moderation and pertinence of his replies to all the questions put to him, must have made a favourable impression on the Court. He was not now confronted with Calvin, in whose presence he seemed to lose all self-control, neither was he pressed upon questions of speculative theology, upon which he either dared not declare himself openly, or, if he did, was at once in opposition to all his Judges knew of religion. In Rigot as his questioner he had nothing more than an officer discharging a public duty, not the hostile partisan he had encountered in Colladon who, as agent of Calvin, may have thought it incumbent on him to give the most unfavourable turn to everything capable of being construed to the advantage of the prisoner. The good impression presumed could hardly fail to be strengthened by the petition of the prisoner addressed to the Court and read on the next day of the trial, August 24, to this effect:

To the most honourable my Lords, the Syndics and Councillors of Geneva.

The Petition of Michael Servetus, now lying under a criminal charge, humbly showeth—That it is a thing new and unknown to the Apostles, Disciples, and ancient Churches, to make the interpretation of the Scriptures, and questions thence arising, grounds of criminal accusation. This is clearly seen from Chapters xviii. and xix. of the Acts of the Apostles, where accusers are referred to the Churches, when the matters in question bear upon Religion only. So too in the time of Constantine, when the Arian heresy was broached, and accusations were brought on the part both of Athanasius and Arius, the great Emperor, by his Council and the Councils of the Churches, decided that, according to the old doctrine, suits of the kind could not be entertained by civil tribunals—not even in the case of such notorious heresy as that of Arius,—but were to be taken into consideration and decided by the Church. Further, that heretics were either to be brought to reason by argument, or were to be punished by banishment, when they proved refractory and refused to amend. Now that banishment was the award of the ancient Churches against heretics can be proved by a thousand histories and authorities. Wherefore, my Lords, in consonance with Apostolic teaching and the practice of the ancient Church, your petitioner prays that the Criminal Charge under which he lies may be discharged.

Secondly, my Lords, I entreat you to consider that I have committed no offence within your territory; neither, indeed, have I been guilty of any elsewhere: I have never been seditious, and am no disturber of the peace. The questions I discuss in my works are of an abstruse kind, and within the scope and ken of men of learning only. During all the time I passed in Germany, I never spoke on such subjects save with Œcolampadius, Bucer, and Capito; neither in France did I ever enter on them with anyone. I have always disavowed the opinions of the Anabaptists, seditious against the magistrate, and preaching community of goods. Wherefore, as I have been guilty of no sort of sedition, but have only brought up for discussion certain ancient doctrines of the Church, I think I ought not to be detained a prisoner and made the subject of a criminal prosecution.

In conclusion, my Lords, inasmuch as I am a stranger, ignorant of the customs of this country, not knowing either how to speak or comport myself in the circumstances under which I am placed, I humbly beseech you to assign me an Advocate to speak for me in my defence. Doing thus, you will assuredly do well, and our Lord will prosper your Republic.

In the City of Geneva, the 22nd day of August, 1553.

Michael Servetus,
In his own cause.

This well-worded, and in its demands most reasonable address, strange to say, received no notice beyond an order to the clerk of the Court to enter it on the minutes; the prisoner being at the same time curtly admonished to go on answering the questions addressed to him. But how hardly the poor man was being used by his self-constituted Judges we shall see by the tenor of the next petition he addressed to them. He had been thrown into one of the foul cells or dungeons appropriated to criminals of the vilest class, accused of crimes against person and property; and there, in addition to mental anguish, he had to suffer all the bodily miseries that filth, foul air, cold and vermin inflict.

The feeling evinced of late by the Court, in the prisoner’s favour, appears now to have extended to the town; the liberal party, the native Genevese, opposed to Calvin, making of his prosecution of the solitary stranger a handle against him; his friends on the contrary speaking of it as proclaiming him the undaunted defender of the cause of God and religion! The trial we therefore see had become the occasion of alarm to one political party in the state, of hope to another, and of peculiar significance to both. Under present circumstances, matters proceeding in nowise to his satisfaction, Calvin must come again to the front; and we have it on unquestionable authority that it was at this, the very crisis in the fate of Servetus, that the Reformer was guilty of the crying injustice of availing himself of his pulpit, and in the face of numerous congregations denouncing and vilifying his opponent in no measured terms, exposing his unorthodox opinions in their most glaring and repulsive aspects, proclaiming what he characterised as their impious, blasphemous, demoralising nature, and thundering reproaches on the mistaken sympathy that had lately begun to be entertained for the author of such infamies. By right or by wrong Calvin was resolved that his old theological enemy, now turned, as he believed, into their tool for his humiliation by his political opponents, should not escape him.