THE SENTENCE AND EXECUTION.

An hour before noon of October 27, 1553, the ‘Lieutenant Criminel,’ Tissot, accompanied by other officials and a guard, entered the gaol, and ordered the prisoner to come with them, and learn the pleasure of My Lords the Councillors and Justices of Geneva.

The tribunal, in conformity with custom, now assembled before the porch of the Hotel de Ville, received the prisoner, all standing. The proper officer then proceeded to recapitulate the heads of the process against him, Michael Servetus, of Villanova, in the Kingdom of Aragon, in Spain, in which he is charged—

First: with having, between twenty-three and twenty-four years ago, caused to be printed at Hagenau, in Germany, a book against the Holy Trinity, full of blasphemies, to the great scandal of the Churches of Germany, the book having been condemned by all their doctors, and he, the writer, forced to fly that country. Item. With having, in spite of this, not only persisted in his errors and infected many with them, but with having lately had another book clandestinely printed at Vienne in Dauphiny, filled with the like heresies and execrable blasphemies against the Holy Trinity, the Son of God, the Baptism of Infants, and other sacred doctrines, the foundations of the Christian religion. Item. With having in the said book called all who believe in a Trinity, Tritheists, and even Atheists, and the Trinity itself a dÆmon or monster having three heads. Item. With having blasphemed horribly, and said that Jesus Christ was not the Son of God from all Eternity, but only became so from his Incarnation; that he is not the Son of David according to the flesh, but was created of the substance of God, having received three of his constituent elements from God, and one only from the Virgin Mary, whereby he wickedly proposed to abolish the true and entire humanity of Jesus Christ. Item. With declaring the Baptism of Infants to be sorcery and a diabolical invention. Item. With having uttered other blasphemies, with which the book in question is full, all alike against the Majesty of God, the Son of God, and the Holy Ghost, to the ruin of many poor souls, betrayed and desolated by such detestable doctrines. Item. With having, full of malice, entitled the said book, though crammed with heresies against the holy evangelical doctrine, ‘Christianismi Restitutio—the Restoration of Christianity,’ the better to deceive and seduce poor ignorant folks, poisoning them all the while they fancied they were sitting in the shadow of sound doctrine. Item. With attacking our faith by letters as well as by his book, and saying to one of the ministers of this city that our holy evangelical doctrine is a religion without faith, and indeed without God, we having a Cerberus with three heads, for our God. Item. For having perfidiously broken and escaped from the prison of Vienne, where he had been confined because of the wicked and abominable opinions confessed in his book. Item. For continuing obstinate in his opinions, not only against the true Christian religion, but, as an arrogant innovator and inventor of heresies against Popery, which led to his being burned in effigy at Vienne, along with five bales of his book. Item. And in addition to all of which, being confined in the gaol of this city, he has not ceased maliciously to persist in the aforesaid wicked and detestable errors, attempting to maintain them, with calumnious abuse of all true Christians, faithful followers of the immaculate Christian religion, calling them Tritheists, Atheists, and Sorcerers, in spite of the remonstrances made to him in Germany, as said, and in contempt of the reprehensions and corrections he has received, and the imprisonment he has undergone as well here as elsewhere.

Now, we the Syndics and Judges in criminal cases within this city, having reviewed the process carried on before us, at the instance of our Lieutenant having charge of such cases, against thee, Michael Servetus of Villanova, in the Kingdom of Aragon, in Spain, whereby guided, and by thy voluntary confessions made before us, many times repeated, as well as by thy books produced before us, we decree and determine that thou, Michael Servetus, hast, for a long time, promulgated false and heretical doctrine, and, rejecting all remonstrance and correction, hast, maliciously, perversely, and obstinately, continued disseminating and divulging, even by the printing of books, blasphemies against God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, in a word, against the whole foundations of the Christian religion, thereby seeking to create schism and trouble in the Church of God, many souls, members of which may have been ruined and lost—horrible and dreadful thing, scandalous and contaminating in thee, thou, having no shame nor horror in setting thyself up in all against the Divine Majesty and the Holy Trinity, and having further taken pains to infect, and given thyself up obstinately to continue infecting the world with thy heresies and stinking heretical poison (tes heresies et puante poyson hereticale)—case and crime of heresy grievous and detestable, deserving of severe corporal punishment.

These and other just causes moving us, desiring to purge the Church of God of such infection, and to cut off from it so rotten a member, we, sitting as a Judicial Tribunal in the seat of our ancestors, with the entire assent of the General Council of the State, and our fellow-citizens, calling on the name of God to deliver true judgment, having the Holy Scriptures before us, and saying: In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, we now pronounce our final sentence and condemn thee, Michael Servetus, to be bound and taken to Champel, and there being fastened to a stake, to be burned alive, along with thy books, printed as well as written by thy hand, until thy body be reduced to ashes. So shall thy days end, and thou be made an example to others who would do as thou hast done. And we command you, our Lieutenant, to see this our sentence carried forthwith into execution.

The staff, according to custom, was then broken over the prisoner, and there was silence for a moment.

The terrible sentence pronounced, the pause that followed was first broken by Servetus; not to sue for mercy against the final award, from which he knew there was no appeal, but to entreat that the manner of carrying it out might be commuted for one less dreadful. ‘He feared,’ he said, ‘that through excess of suffering he might prove faithless to himself, and belie the convictions of his life. If he had erred, it was in ignorance; he was so constituted mentally and morally as to desire the glory of God, and had always striven to abide by the teachings of the Scriptures.’ The appeal to the humanity of the Judges, however, met with no response. Farel, indeed, who was present, interposed, telling him that to obtain any favour he should begin by acknowledging and showing contrition for his errors. But he gave no heed to this, and went on to say that ‘he had done nothing to deserve death; he prayed God, nevertheless, to forgive his enemies and persecutors.’ Rising from the suppliant attitude he had assumed, he exclaimed, ‘O God, save my soul; O Jesu, Son of the eternal God, have compassion upon me!’

From the porch of the Hotel de Ville, where the sentence was delivered, a solemn procession was now formed for Champel, the place of execution, passing by the Rue St. Antoine, and leaving the city by the corresponding gate: the ‘Lieutenant Criminel,’ and other officers on horseback, a guard of archers surrounding the prisoner and Farel, who accompanied him on his death walk, and did not cease from efforts to wring from him an avowal of his errors. But in vain; he had no answer other than broken ejaculations and invocations on the name of God. ‘Is there no word in your mouth but the name of God?’ said Farel. ‘On whom can I now call but on God?’ said the unhappy Servetus. ‘Have you no last words for anyone—for wife or child, perhaps, if you have either?’ said the well-meaning pastor; but he met with no reply; though when admonished to do so, the doomed man made no difficulty about asking the people to join him in his prayers. This gave Farel an opportunity to say to the crowd, ‘You see what power Satan has when he has taken possession of the soul. This is a learned man, who perhaps even meant to do well; but he fell into the power of the devil, and the same thing might happen to any one of you. Though he has said that you have no God, he yet asks you to join him in his prayers!’

But this is not all we have on the last moments of Servetus. Writing to his friend, Ambrose Blaurer, soon after the fatal October 27, Farel says, ‘You ask me about Servetus, so justly punished by a pious magistracy. I was at Geneva when the sentence was delivered, and with him when he died. The wretched man could not be brought to say that Christ was the Eternal Son of God. When I urged him on the subject, he desired me to point to a single place in the Scriptures in which Christ is spoken of as the Son of God before his birth. All that could be done had no effect in turning him from this error; he said nothing against what was urged, but went on his way; we could by no means obtain what we desired, viz., that he should own his error and acknowledge the truth. We exhorted, we entreated, but made no impression. He beat his breast, asked pardon for his faults, invoked God, confessed his Saviour, and much besides, but would not acknowledge the Son of God, save in the man Jesus. Nor was I alone in my exhortations; some of the brethren also interposed, and admonished him ingenuously to admit and say that he hated his errors; but he only replied that he was unjustly condemned to death. On this I said: “Do you, who have so greatly sinned, presume to justify yourself? If you go on thus I shall leave you to the judgment of God, and accompany you no farther. I meant to exhort the people to pray for you, hoping you would edify them; and thought not to leave you till you had rendered your last breath.” After this he said nothing more of himself, although when I spoke of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, whom we preach in our churches, and in whom the faithful believe, he said that it was right and good to do so; but when I went on to say that he did not really think thus, and had written otherwise, he would not admit it. He told me by the way that he had had some things from a man who enjoyed no small reputation among some of us. But though I do not doubt of Erasmus having been infected in no trifling degree by the writings of the Rabbins, I know that in his later works at least he expresses himself otherwise than in those of earlier date. But the unhappy Servetus could not readily be made to imbibe the truth and put it to increase; neither could he be cured of his errors by the sound teaching of others.

‘It were long did I repeat—I do not think, indeed, I can remember—all that was said between seven in the morning and mid-day. In sum, however, although he made no particular confession of his faith, God hindered his name and doctrine from being impugned by any open contumelious expression.’

When he came in sight of the fatal pile, the wretched Servetus prostrated himself on the ground, and for a while was absorbed in prayer. Rising and advancing a few steps, he found himself in the hands of the executioner, by whom he was made to sit on a block, his feet just reaching the ground. His body was then bound to the stake behind him by several turns of an iron chain, whilst his neck was secured in like manner by the coils of a hempen rope. His two books—the one in manuscript sent to Calvin in confidence six or eight years before for his strictures, and a copy of the one lately printed at Vienne—were then fastened to his waist, and his head was encircled in mockery with a chaplet of straw and green twigs bestrewed with brimstone. The deadly torch was then applied to the faggots and flashed in his face; and the brimstone catching, and the flames rising, wrung from the victim such a cry of anguish as struck terror into the surrounding crowd. After this he was bravely silent; but the wood being purposely green, although the people aided the executioner in heaping the faggots upon him, a long half-hour elapsed before he ceased to show signs of life and of suffering. Immediately before giving up the ghost, with a last expiring effort he cried aloud: ‘Jesu, Thou Son of the eternal God, have compassion upon me!’ All was then hushed save the hissing and crackling of the green wood; and by-and-by there remained no more of what had been Michael Servetus but a charred and blackened trunk and a handful of ashes. So died, in advance of his age, one of the gifted sons of God, the victim of religious fanaticism and personal hate.