SERVETUS AGAIN ADDRESSES THE SYNDICS AND COUNCIL OF GENEVA, AND ACCUSES CALVIN.

If Calvin, then, as we apprehend, had every reason to anticipate an answer in his favour from the Churches, so do we find Servetus possessed by the assured hope that he would be acquitted, or, at most, be found guilty of nothing involving a heavier penalty than banishment from the Republic of Geneva. Of heresy he did not think for a moment he had been more guilty than every one of the Reformers whom he had been accustomed to hear spoken of in the polite circles of Vienne not only as schismatics, but as heretics of the deepest dye. If his ‘Restoration of Christianity’ had been burned by the hangman of Vienne, had not Calvin’s ‘Institutions of the Christian Religion’ been summarily condemned by the whole Catholic world, and put on the Index of prohibited books by the Roman Curia? So sure does Servetus appear to have felt of final acquittal at this time—guiltless of blasphemy as in his soul he knew himself to be, and bolstered by the false hopes of his false friends, that whilst the scales of justice were still trembling on the beam, he, from his filthy cell, in rags, and devoured by vermin, even he aspired to become the accuser of the man by whom he was himself accused, and subjected to all the indignities he endured! It could only have been under the excitement of some such persuasion that he now wrote the following extraordinary letter to the Council:—

To the Syndics and Council of Geneva.

My most honoured Lords,—I am detained on a criminal charge at the instance of John Calvin, who has accused me, falsely saying that in my writings I maintain—

1st. That the soul of man is mortal, and

2nd. That Jesus Christ had only taken the fourth part of his body from the Virgin Mary.

These are horrible, execrable charges. Of all heresies and crimes, I think of none greater than that which would make the soul of man to be mortal. In every other there is hope of salvation, but none in this. He who should say what I am charged with saying, neither believes in God nor justice, in the resurrection, in Christ Jesus, in the Scriptures, nor, indeed, in anything, but declares that all is death, and that man and beast are alike. Had I said anything of the kind—said it not in words only, but written and published it, I should myself think me worthy of death.

Wherefore, my Lords, I demand that my false accuser be declared subject to the law of retaliation, and like me be sent to prison until the cause between him and me, for death or other penalty, is decided. To this effect I here engage myself against him, submit myself to all that the Lex Talionis requires, and declare that I shall be content to die if I am not borne out in everything I shall bring against him. My Lords, I demand of you, justice, justice, justice!

From your prison of Geneva, this 22nd of September, 1553.

Michael Servetus,
pleading his own cause.

The letter was followed by a series of articles in form like those lately brought against himself, headed—

Articles on which Michael Servetus demands that John Calvin
be interrogated.

I. Whether in the month of March last he did not write, by the hand of William Trie, to Lyons, and say many things about Michael Villanovanus called Servetus. What were the contents of the letter, and with what motive was it sent?

II. Whether with the letter in question he sent half of the first sheet of the book of the said Michael Servetus, entitled ‘Christianismi Restitutio,’ on which were the Title, the Table of Contents, and the beginning of the work?

III. Whether this was not sent with a view to its being shown to the authorities of Lyons, in order to have Servetus arrested and impeached, as happened in fact?

IV. Whether he has not heard since then that in consequence of the charges thereby brought against him, he, the said Servetus, had been burned in effigy, and his property confiscated; he himself having only escaped burning in person by escaping from prison?

V. Whether he does not know that it is no business of a minister of the gospel to appear as a criminal accuser and pursuer of a man judicially on a capital charge?

My Lords, there are four great and notable reasons why Calvin ought to be condemned:

First: Because doctrinal matters are no subjects for criminal prosecutions, as I have shown in my petition, and will show more fully from the Doctors of the Church. Acting as he has done, he has therefore gone beyond the province of a minister of the Gospel, and gravely sinned against justice.

Second: Because he is a false accuser, as the above articles declare, and as is easily proved by reading my book.

Third: Because by frivolous reasons and calumnious assertions he would suppress the Truth as it is in Jesus Christ, as will be made obvious to you, by reference to my writings; what he has said of me, being full of lies and wickedness.

Fourth: Because he follows the doctrine of Simon Magus, in great part, against all the Doctors of the Church. Wherefore, magician as he is, he deserves not only to be condemned, but to be banished and cast out of your city, his goods being adjudged to me in recompense for mine which he has made me to lose. These, my Lords, are the demands I make.

Michael Servetus,
in his own cause.

Although we have only conjecture to aid us in understanding the temper that now shows itself in Servetus, and the hope he evidently entertains of triumphing over his prosecutor, we cannot be mistaken in ascribing it to the influence of Perrin and Berthelier. They must have imagined that the same result would ensue from the appeal to the Churches as had followed the reference made to them in the case of Jerome Bolsec, and believed that the worst that would befal their puppet would be banishment from the city and territory of Geneva. If they could but cross and spite the refugee Frenchman, their clerical tyrant, through the fugitive Spaniard, their end would be attained, although at the cost, perhaps, of a certain amount of inconvenience to their instrument. The conclusion of Servetus’s last address to the Council shows clearly the opinion he had been led to form of Calvin’s present position in Geneva. ‘As the magician he is,’ says Servetus, ‘he ought to be condemned, and cast out of your city, his property being adjudged to me in recompense for all I have lost through him!’ The Council appear to have taken no more notice of this last address and demand of their prisoner than they had of his preceding more reasonable petitions and remonstrances.

---

The pause in the proceedings that ensued, pending the receipt of replies from the Churches consulted; the silence of the Council upon his letter and inculpation of Calvin, combined with the effects of continued imprisonment, anxiety, and hope deferred, on a body not of the strongest, would seem before long to have induced a frame of mind different from that so unmistakably displayed of late by the prisoner. The petition forwarded three weeks later to the Council is pitched in a much lower key than the one last presented.

Most noble Lords,—It is now about three weeks since I petitioned for an audience, and still have no reply. I entreat you for the love of Jesus Christ not to refuse me that you would grant to a Turk, when I ask for justice at your hands. I have, indeed, things of importance to communicate to you, very necessary to be known.

As to what you may have commanded to be done for me in the way of cleanliness, I have to inform you that nothing has been done, and that I am in a more filthy plight than ever. In addition, I suffer terribly from the cold, and from colic, and my rupture, which cause me miseries of other kinds I should feel shame in writing about more particularly. It is very cruel that I am neither allowed to speak nor to have my most pressing wants supplied; for the love of God, Sirs, in pity or in duty, give orders in my behalf.

From your prison of Geneva,
Michael Servetus.

October 10, 1553.

This appeal to the duty as well as the compassion of the Council was the first of any he had addressed to it which met with an immediate response. One of the Syndics, attended by the Clerk of the Court, was commissioned to visit the prisoner, and inquire into his state, being requested, further, to see measures taken to have him furnished with the articles of clothing he required, so that the resolution formerly come to in this direction should no longer remain a dead letter.

October 19 and 23. A month had all but elapsed before the messenger to the Councils and Churches of the Protestant Swiss Cantons returned with the replies of the Magistrates and Pastors to the Documents submitted to them by the Council of Geneva. But he came at last. As the answers were in Latin, translations into French had to be made for the behoof of those among the councillors of Geneva who were indifferently versed in the Latin tongue. Some days more were required for this; so that though the messenger arrived on October 19, the papers in Latin and French were only ready on the 23rd, when they were laid before the Council, once more solemnly assembled in its judicial capacity, with the prisoner before them.

The Church of Berne which was the first referred to [and had its head pastor, Haller, as reporter of its conclusion?], blames Servetus not only for his heresies, but for his insolence and want of respect for Calvin.

He seems (says the report) to have thought himself at liberty to call in question all the most essential elements of our religion, to upset everything by new interpretations of Scripture, and to corrupt and throw all into confusion by reviving the poison of the ancient heresies.... We pray that the Lord will give you such a spirit of prudence, of counsel, and of strength, as will enable you to fence your Church and the other Churches from this pestilence, and that you will at the same time take no step that might be held unbecoming in a Christian magistracy.

The Church of ZÜrich [of which Bullinger must have been the reporter], replied at greater length than that of Berne, or, indeed, any of the other Churches, going minutely into the question of Servetus’s opinions, which are pronounced to be at once heretical and blasphemous. The Ministers of this Church are particular also in insisting on the propriety of upholding Calvin in his prosecution of the heretic.

We trust (say the pastors of ZÜrich), that the faith and zeal of Calvin, your pastor, and our brother, his noble devotion to the refugees and the pious, will not be suffered by you to be obscured by the unworthy accusations of this man, against whom, indeed, we think you ought to show the greater severity, inasmuch as our Churches have the evil reputation abroad of countenancing heretics, and even of favouring heresy. But the holy providence of God, they proceed, waxing in fervour, presents you at this moment with an opportunity of clearing yourselves as well as us, from such injurious imputations, if you but resolve to show yourselves vigilant, and well disposed to prevent the further spread of the poison. We do not doubt, indeed, that your Excellencies will act in this wise.

Schaffhausen was content to subscribe to all that had been said by ZÜrich (whose conclusion, consequently, had been communicated to it); but could not resist insinuating how it thought the Spaniard should be dealt with.

We do not doubt (say its Ministers) that you, with commendable prudence, will so repress this attempt of Servetus, that his blasphemies shall not be suffered to eat like a gangrene into the limbs of Christ. To use lengthy reasonings with a view to free him from his errors, would but be to rave with a madman.

The pastors of the Church of Basle [with Sulzer as reporter], the last consulted, are rejoiced to see Servetus in the hands of the magistrates of Geneva; feeling persuaded that they will not be wanting either in saintly zeal or Christian prudence, in finding a remedy for an evil that has already led to the ruin of vast numbers of souls. The theological culpability of the man is also much aggravated in their opinion by the obstinacy and insolence with which he persists in his errors, instead of yielding to the reflections which imprisonment and the instructions of the pastors of Geneva ought to have led him to make.

We exhort you, therefore (they conclude), to use, as it seems you are disposed to do, all the means at your command to cure him of his errors, and so to remedy the scandals he has occasioned; or, otherwise, does he show himself incurably anchored in his perverse opinions, to constrain him, as is your duty, by the powers you have from God, in such a way that henceforth he shall not continue to disquiet the Church of Christ, and so make the end worse than the beginning. The Lord will surely grant you his spirit of wisdom and of strength to this end.

We thus see that the Churches, whilst they all agree in condemning, refrain from declaring in precise terms the kind of punishment they would have awarded the prisoner—they do not in so many words say they would have him put to death; but finding him guilty of heresy and blasphemy, they knew that by the law of the land he must die. Condemning him unequivocally, therefore, for his theological views, they, in fact, pronounce his doom. To have done so directly, would have been trenching on the rights of the Council of Geneva, by whom, under the circumstances, a covert wish was sure to be better taken than an open recommendation. And let us not overlook the base and selfish motive that underlies the severity counselled: by putting the heretical Spaniard to death, the Swiss Churches will free themselves from the imputation of favouring heresy!

So much for the conclusions and implied wishes of the Ministers. The Magistrates of the cities consulted, differ but little, if at all, from their Clergy. The Council of Berne express a hope that their brothers of Geneva will not allow the wickedness and evil intentions of their prisoner to make further head, all he says being so manifestly opposed to the Christian religion, which they think it must be his purpose to vilipend and do what in him lies to exterminate. They, therefore, ‘entreat the Senate of Geneva so to comport themselves—and they do not question their inclination in this—that such sectaries and disseminators of error as their prisoner shall no longer be suffered to sow in the Church of Christ.’

The reply of Berne is said by Calvin to have had greater influence on the Judges of Servetus than that of any of the other Councils. Geneva had oftener than once in former years been indebted to Berne for assistance in her straits, and still continued, to a considerable extent, under the influence of the Canton that was looked up to as Chief in the Swiss Confederation. The Magistrates of Berne, moreover, were more outspoken, perhaps, than those of any of the other Cantons.

But we discover, after all, that neither the Churches nor Councils were acting independently and of knowledge self-acquired of the business. The Clergy were dominated by Calvin, the Councils by the Clergy; and there appears to have been collusion and concert among the reporters both of the Churches and Senates.

Yesterday (September 26), (writes Haller of Berne, to Bullinger of ZÜrich) we received the documents in the case of Servetus, and have since been studying them in view of our reply. But we should like to know what your answer is before we send ours. We therefore entreat you immediately to inform us of its tenor. Yet wherefore so much ado! the man is a heretic, and the Church must get rid of him. Let me, however, I beseech you, speedily know the conclusion you have come to.

The ZÜrich pastor would seem to have been the most active of all the ministers in collecting and imparting information of a kind that would lead to unanimity of conclusion among the Churches and Councils. His friend, Ambrose Blaurer, acknowledging receipt of a letter from him communicating the decision of ZÜrich, says that he ‘had thought the pestilent Servetus, whose book he had read twenty years ago, must long since have been dead and buried.’ But the self-righteous man must add further: ‘We are surely tried by heresies and satanic abortions of the sort, in order that they who are steadfast in the faith may be made known.’ Sulzer of Basle has also been primed by him of ZÜrich, for, in reply to the intimation he has received of what has been done, he says that he, Sulzer, ‘is rejoiced to have heard of the arrest of Servetus in a quarter where it seems he may be effectually kept from infecting the Church with his heretical dogmas in time to come; although I know there be some who are violently opposed to Calvin’s proceedings, and the subserviency of the Senate in the business.’

So much for the Churches and Councils of the Cantons consulted; and how little the latter were disposed to act, or, indeed, were capable of acting of themselves, and on their own appreciation of the questions submitted to them, is made manifest by the letter which Haller wrote to Bullinger at this time:

I have to give you my best thanks, dear Sir and Brother, for your diligence in communicating with the Genevese [and, of course, with the Bernese also] so speedily. Our Council have been of the same mind as yours in their reply. We, as ordered by them, have exposed the principal errors of Servetus, article by article. When our Councillors had been made aware of their nature, they were so horror-struck, that I have no doubt, had the writer been in prison here, he would have been burned alive. But as the matters in question were very little intelligible to them, they desired that I should reply in a letter as from myself to the Council of Geneva. They added, however, from themselves, that they exhorted the Genevese so to deal with the poison that it should not, by any negligence of theirs, be suffered to spread to neighbouring districts; and, indeed, it has often happened that commotions in Geneva have extended from its walls and got footing within ours. I think I need not send you a copy of our reply, as it agrees so entirely in every respect with your own.

Yours most truly,
J. Haller.

Berne: October 19, 1553.

The Churches and Councils consulted, then, were at one in their condemnation of Servetus. But it has been presumed that ecclesiastical conclusion and innuendo backed by civilian assent, might still have failed to bring matters to the issue aimed at by the prosecution, had not political considerations intervened to complicate and sway judicial action. We are ready enough to believe that there was so much common sense in the Senate of Geneva, and such a feeling of the impossibility of attaining to absolute certainty in questions of dogmatic theology, that they were even more indisposed than they plainly show themselves to have been to come to a final decision in the case of their prisoner. But to assume that political considerations had the lead in the condemnation of Servetus, would, we venture to think, be a great mistake. To remove the prosecution from the sphere of theology to that of policy, were to take from it its chief interest and significance. But the arrest was made, the trial was begun, and the sentence was delivered exclusively on theological grounds. The political element that got mixed up with the business, was no more than an accident, and cannot truly be said to have influenced the judgment finally given. The four Swiss cantonal Councils and Churches which condemned Servetus, condemned him on theological grounds alone; they knew little or nothing of the political strife that agitated Geneva, and were not swayed by it in their decision.

Servetus himself, ill-advised and misled by those who had access to him, fully persuaded of the truth of his opinions, and relying on their consonance with Scripture, as he read it, may be said to have left his Judges one way only out of the difficult and delicate position in which they found themselves; and this was by finding him guilty of the theological errors laid to his charge. He appeared to be opposed not only to every religious principle as known to them, and as understood alike by Catholics and Protestants, but he had used such objectionable language in speaking of subjects held so sacred as the Trinity and the Baptism of Infants, that even the most tolerant in the present day would find it inexcusable; how much less warrantable must it have appeared amid the universally prevalent intolerance of three centuries ago! Nevertheless, it may be that the mind of every member of the Council had not yet been made up as to the degree of the prisoner’s guiltiness, or even granting him guilty of everything imputed to him, that he, therefore, deserved to die; and die he must if they so declared him.

---

All the grounds for a definitive decree being before the Court on their meeting of the 23rd, we must presume that the sense of the members generally as to the guiltiness of the prisoner had been ascertained, and that the opinion of the majority to this effect was only not formulated and pronounced because of the absence of some of the leading Councillors—that of Amied Perrin, the first Syndic, being particularly remarked. An adjournment was therefore moved; but to afford no further excuse for delay in bringing the protracted business of the Servetus Trial to an end, summonses for a special session on the 26th were ordered to be issued. Doubtful of the decision, as it might seem, and anxious for delay in consequence of the tenor of the letters from the Churches, Perrin had absented himself from the meeting of the 23rd, through indisposition, as he said himself, through feigned indisposition, according to Calvin, as we learn from a letter of his to his friend Farel of the 26th, in which he speaks of his great political antagonist by the derisive title of CÆsar comicus. Meantime, the members of the Court present determined to proceed to the gaol, and inform the prisoner of their purpose to have him before them with the least possible delay, to hear their final award. Before taking their leave, and as if to intimate to the unhappy Servetus what was to follow, they placed him under the care of two special warders, who were to hold themselves responsible with their lives for his safe custody.

The unusual visit of his Judges, and the additional guard set over him must, we should imagine, have sent a chill to the heart of the unfortunate Servetus, and gone far to damp out the hope he had been led to entertain either of acquittal or a sentence short of that which he knew Calvin had made up his mind from the first to extort. Yet does he not appear even now to have thought it possible that his Judges would condemn him to death. Self-conscious rectitude alone, and a better belief than it deserved in the world’s will to do justly and mercifully, had blinded him to the fate that awaited him.

During the three days’ pause that now ensued, some faint show of sympathy for the prisoner was manifested outside the walls of the Council chamber; but it came from no one of weight or standing in the Republic. Zebedee, the pastor of Noyon, a known opponent of Calvin on some of his theological tenets, and Gribaldo, an Italian by birth, by profession a lawyer, now a refugee from his home for conscience’ sake, were bold enough to proffer something in his behalf; Gribaldo even going so far as to defend certain of his conclusions, and having a word to say in favour of toleration. But he was not backed by the congregation of his countrymen, domiciled in Geneva, so that the move he made had no result. The show of opposition on the part of the Italian to his sovereign will and pleasure was not, however, forgotten by Calvin. Denounced by him at a later period for irregularity of some sort, in contravention of consistorial law, Gribaldo found it advisable for safety’s sake to quit Geneva.

Still there were not wanting many, both laymen and clerics, natives of Geneva, as well as refugees, devoutly attached to Calvinistic doctrines, who showed a lively repugnance to pushing matters the length of capital punishment in cases of heresy; the instinctive feeling of all pointing to this as the conclusion aimed at by the prosecution. For Reformers—heretics themselves in the eyes of the dominant European Church—to have recourse to measures that appeared in such an odious light when brought into requisition by Roman Catholics, seemed illogical, unwarrantable, and dangerous. But the number who raised their voices in this direction was small. The prisoner was not an object of interest to the Libertine party in general; a stranger in Geneva, he was in some sort the particular puppet of Perrin and Berthelier, rather than the representative of a principle. Even to the leaders he was nothing more than a counter in the political game of the day. In a word, and in so far as anything was known about him to the public, the man entertained extraordinary, and what seemed blasphemous opinions on religion, as they had learned to understand the word, and so must be a wicked and worthless person, who might safely be left to be dealt with by the ministers and civil authorities in the way they judged best.

Calvin, at this momentous juncture, maintained an attitude of entire confidence as to the pending decision. He had been informed of the tenor of the letters received from the Swiss cities; and, aware of their uniform agreement in the theological culpability of Servetus, he could rely on the effect this must produce on the minds of the Judges. He seems even to have thought it unnecessary any longer to exert the special influence he could always bring to bear on any question in debate before the Council—he refrained from preaching against the prisoner and holding him up as a blasphemer against God and religion, as had been his wont.

October 26.—The Council, in its capacity of High Court of Criminal Justice, solemnly convoked for this day, was well attended, though not quite complete as to numbers; Amied Perrin, cured of his indisposition, presiding.

The Governing Body of the Republic of Geneva consisted, as we have seen, of two extreme and mutually opposed parties—the Libertines, or patriots, and the Clericals, or abettors of Calvin and theocratic rule. Each of these had representatives in the Council whose voices could be implicitly relied on. But—as in all general assemblies that ever came together, there are still found a certain number of neutrals or waverers, men of no strong convictions one way or another; too weak in some cases to rely on themselves and act independently; too strong in others to be led by any convictions but their own, whose votes could make the balance incline one way or another, so were they not wanting in the Council of Geneva at this time. Now, in the fateful meeting of October 26, it was observed that several of the most constant opponents of Calvin had absented themselves, whilst not one of his regular supporters failed to appear.

The resolution to be come to was delicate, on matters unfamiliar, and apt to excite the scruples of the conscientious and timid. It was the life of no brutal offender against person or property, no criminal, in fact, save by construction, that was in debate, but that of a scholar of varied accomplishments, against whom no social delinquency had been charged, or, if charged, which had not been rebutted, and fallen to the ground. Yet was this man accused of heresy and blasphemy against God and religion, not only by the distinguished head of the Church of Geneva and its other ministers, but was now found guilty of these theological crimes, involving, as they were said to do, disruption of the entire social fabric, by every one of the Confederate Churches and Councils consulted. What, forsooth, could be urged in behalf of him who had spoken of the Trinity as a three-headed monster, comparable to the hell-dog of the heathen poets, and declared the Baptism of Infants to be an invention of the devil?

And then, and yet more, it was not by the Reformed Churches only that the prisoner had been challenged for heresy, and found guilty; he had been tried and convicted on this ground by their neighbours the Roman Catholics of Vienne, been burned in effigy by them along with his books, and only escaped burning in person by breaking from his prison. The Genevese, moreover, had been frequently reproached as well by papists as by professors of other forms of Christianity akin to their own, with laxity in matters of doctrine, and even called abettors of heresy and shelterers of heretics; and they had, indeed, been invaded of late by a host of individuals fleeing for their lives, through entertaining all manner of new and hitherto unheard-of opinions on religion.

Weary on every side of wranglings upon subjects they did not understand, the clerical party in the Senate would not be thought less than zealous for the true Faith—the Faith which was their own; whilst the more timid of their adversaries sought excuse and escape from responsibility by absenting themselves at the moment the vote must be given on the guilt or innocence of the prisoner. But everything at the moment conspired to associate theological dissidence with social criminality, and to make of the independent critic of particular religious dogmas the enemy of all religion.

In the light, therefore, in which Servetus was regarded, his cause was not seen as one through which, in the event of a decision in his favour, the Liberal party in the Council of Geneva might hope to find greater freedom to lead their lives in the way they listed; neither, through a sentence adverse to him, was it one through which they foresaw that the iron hand of Calvin would be made either lighter or heavier than it was. There were, in fact, more reasons for letting Calvin have his way here than for opposing him—for suffering Servetus to burn, than for saving his life. The Council had been hard upon the Reformer of late, and were not disposed to quarrel with him in a matter that had but a remote connection with their domestic concerns. Backed as their great theologian was by the Swiss Churches, they believed that they might safely and with propriety now show themselves on his side, by condemning the heretic to death.

The meeting of the Court on the 26th, then, not so fully attended as we have said by the usual opponents of Calvin as by his supporters, had to face the painful duty of pronouncing sentence on their prisoner at last. A resolution finding him guilty of the charges alleged, and so deserving of death, must now have been moved by one of the members—by whom we are not informed—for we find it immediately met, on the part of Perrin, by a counter-resolution, declaring him not guilty. Perrin, we must presume, maintained that the charges were not of a nature that fell properly under their cognisance as a Court of Criminal Justice. Nothing had been brought home to the prisoner that showed him to be a disturber of the public peace, and so came within the sphere of what he held to be their proper jurisdiction. Perrin must, therefore, have argued that the Court could only pronounce him not guilty. But this would plainly have been to stultify the whole of their proceedings during the last two months and more. The Court, by the laws of the country, was competent in causes of every complexion, and the prosecution had proceeded from the first on the ground of theological criminality. The proposition of the First Syndic, consequently, could not be entertained, but was rejected as a matter of course. Perrin then moved that the cause should be remitted to the Council of the Two Hundred. But this proposal was also negatived: the General Council in its capacity of Criminal Court, could not waive its right of decision in a case in which its competence was recognised, and such ample pains had been taken to get at the merits of the case. Perrin must then, doubtless, have pleaded for some punishment short of the extreme penalty of death awarded to the heretic by the law of the land. This last effort failing like the others, and the Records of the Court giving no intimation of any further motion in favour of the prisoner, the following resolution was moved, and by a majority of votes adopted:

‘Having a summary of the process against the prisoner, Michael Servetus, and the reports of the parties consulted before us, it is hereby resolved, and, in consideration of his great errors and blasphemies, decreed, that he be taken to Champel, and there burned alive; that this sentence be carried into effect on the morrow, and that his books be burned with him.’98

The sentence once resolved on, appears to have been immediately communicated to Calvin, and he in the same hour proceeded to inform his most intimate friend Farel of the result. In anticipation of the event, he had, indeed, written to Farel some days before, begging him to come to Geneva. The clergy of the city having acted with Calvin to a man in the prosecution, it was thought more seemly that a stranger should attend the prisoner in his last moments, than one of themselves; hence Calvin’s first letter of October 14, in anticipation of the final sentence, and to the following effect:

I have no words, my dear Farel, adequately to express my thanks to you for your great solicitude in respect of ourself and our Church. I purposely abstained from writing to you for fear of inducing you to take horse so soon (Farel had been dangerously ill), and I would not be troublesome to you until time pressed. You say, indeed, that you do not thank me for sparing you; and I know how willing, nay, how eager you are at all times to labour for the Church of God, how ready ever to come to our aid.

As to the state of affairs with us, I imagine you are already well informed, through Viret, or rather through my letters to him, which, however, were really meant for you both in common. The enemy is now intent on the business that comes on for discussion before the General Council about the Ides of November, and I think it would be well were Viret to come to us then; but I would have you here somewhat sooner—about the time when the affair of Servetus will be drawing to a close; and this I hope will be before the end of the ensuing week.... I would not, however, incommode you, or have you stir, where no immediate necessity compels.

Farel had not arrived so soon as Calvin expected, so he writes again on the 26th, and informs his friend that answers had been received from the Churches unanimous in their condemnation of Servetus. Alluding to the proceedings during the last few days of the trial, when Perrin, the First Syndic, made vain attempts by delay and entreaty to save the prisoner’s life, Calvin speaks of the merciful man by the nickname under which he was wont to characterise his great Libertine opponent, and says:

Our comical CÆsar having feigned illness for three days, mounted the tribune at length with a view to aid the wicked scoundrel—istum sceleratum—to escape punishment. Nor did he blush to demand that the cause might be remitted to the Council of the Two Hundred. But in vain, all was refused, the prisoner was condemned, and to-morrow he will suffer death.

Self-centred, resolute as he was, we yet see in Calvin’s anxiety to have Farel beside him, that he felt the want of such support as an all-devoted friend alone can give in supreme moments of our lives. His last letter could not have reached Farel in such time as would have enabled him to be in Geneva on the day of the execution; but when it was despatched Farel was already on his way from Neuchatel, and reached Geneva in the evening of the 26th, so that he had the news of all that had taken place, and of the fate that awaited the unhappy Servetus on the morrow, from the mouth of Calvin himself.