Chapter XVIII.

Servetus In Geneva. His Trial And Execution.

A month later--on the 17th of July Servetus entered a little inn on the banks of the lake at Geneva, called the _Auberge de la Rose_. He was alone and unknown: he said that he wanted a boat across the lake, so that he might go on to Zurich. He did not cross the lake, but stayed for twenty-seven days at Geneva, greatly exciting the curiosity of his host, who asked him one day if he was married: 'No,' he said, 'there are plenty of women in the world without marrying.' He seems to have walked out and seen several persons. It is even asserted that he went to church and heard Calvin preach. Calvin afterwards said, 'I do not know how to account for his conduct, unless he was seized by a fatal infatuation and rushed into danger.' [Footnote 122]

[Footnote 122: Henry, iii. 149-151; Rilliet, _Procès de Michel Servet_, p. 20; _Revue des deux Mondes_, 1848, i. 826.]

The result shows the infatuation of his prolonged visit to Geneva, but I think that this visit bears equally strong proof of premeditated design. Precisely at this period Calvin was engaged in the contest which I have recently described with the Libertines, on the subject of excommunication from the Lord's Supper. {313} When Servetus entered Geneva, the Libertines had some reason to expect that they might triumph; one of their leaders, Ami Perrin, was first syndic; they believed themselves sure of a majority in the Council of Two Hundred, and almost sure of one in the lesser Council which possessed the executive power. A man of their party, Gueroult, who had been banished from Geneva, had been corrector of the press to the printer Arnoullet at Vienne, at the time when the 'Restoration of Christianity' was published. Thanks to the influence of his patrons, the Libertines, Gueroult had returned to Geneva, and he would naturally be the medium between them and Servetus. I do not find any definite and positive proof of his intervention at this particular time; but taking a comprehensive view of the whole case and the antecedents of all those concerned in it, I am convinced that Servetus, defeated at Vienne, went to Geneva, relying on the support of the Libertines, whilst they on their side expected to obtain efficacious help from him against Calvin.

But neither the Libertines nor Servetus knew the resolute adversary with whom they had to deal. From the moment that Calvin heard Servetus was in Geneva, he did not hesitate for one instant, although he was already engaged in a fierce and perilous struggle. He added a second contest to the first, and resolved to obtain two victories instead of one--the victory of Christianity over a pantheistic visionary, and the victory of religion and morality over a licentious faction. He wrote to one of the syndics requesting him, 'in virtue of the power granted to his office by the criminal edicts of Geneva, to arrest Servetus.' On the 13th of August, 1553, Servetus was arrested. {314} 'I do not deny,' wrote Calvin on the following 9th of September, 'that he was imprisoned at my instance.' But, according to the laws of Geneva, in order that the imprisonment should not be merely temporary, it was necessary that there should be a formal accusation, and a prosecutor who consented to submit to imprisonment, and to hold himself criminally responsible for the truth of the charge. It was Calvin who also provided for this necessity. Nicolas de la Fontaine, a French refugee, his secretary and intimate friend, consented to undertake the painful office. 'I do not conceal the fact,' says Calvin, 'that by my wish, Servetus was apprehended in this city, that he might be compelled to give an account of his misdeeds. And since malevolent and evil-disposed persons gabble all kinds of things against me, I frankly confess that as, in accordance with the laws and customs of this city, no one can be imprisoned unless there is a prosecutor, or some previous knowledge of his crimes, therefore in order to bring such a man to reason, I arranged so as to procure a prosecutor.' The first examination of Servetus took place the day after his arrest, and on the 15th of August his trial commenced.

This theological tragedy lasted for two months and thirteen days. There was great variety in the scenes of which it was composed, corresponding to the different incidents in the political and social struggle with the Libertines which Calvin was carrying on. I do not intend to give a detailed account of this prolonged trial, but I am anxious that its essential character and principal phases should be clearly apprehended.

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At its commencement, and for the first fourteen or fifteen days, Servetus showed no lack either of moderation or skill, although both attack and defence were sharp and keen. He openly assailed Calvin as his personal and hateful enemy, but was careful not to fall into violent abuse of him. He maintained the truth of the doctrines asserted in his own works, but was most anxious to show that they were not contrary to the Christian religion, that he had never wished to separate himself from the Church, and that his aim was to restore Christianity, not to abolish it. The trial was soon transformed into a theological controversy, turning upon points of doctrine; and after the 17th of August Calvin himself took part in it, declaring that he had no intention of screening himself behind those who had commenced or were carrying it on, and that he was prepared to take the prosecution of the prisoner upon himself. He was authorized by the Council to be present at the examinations and take part in the debates, 'either for the purpose of trying to reclaim Servetus, or in order that he might point out his errors more clearly to him.' The scene became more exciting, and gave promise of wider development. Servetus offered 'to show Calvin his own errors and faults before the whole congregation, proving them by arguments drawn from the sacred Scriptures.' Calvin eagerly accepted this offer, declaring that 'there was nothing he desired so ardently as to conduct this trial in the church and before all the people.'

But the Council refused; they wished as a matter of prudence to keep the decision of such matters in their own hands; they were also probably influenced by the wishes of the friends of Servetus, who had every reason to expect that Calvin's words would have much more weight with the people than those of the Spaniard. {316} The discussion between the two adversaries was carried on sometimes by written and sometimes by spoken arguments. For a long time Calvin's keen insight had shown him that the works of Servetus were pantheistic, and that pantheism must destroy historical and dogmatic Christianity. He pressed Servetus closely upon this point, and the Spaniard imprudently acknowledged his doctrine: 'All created things,' he said, 'are of the substance of God.' 'How, wretch!' said Calvin; 'if any one was to strike this pavement with his foot and to tell you that he was treading on your God, should you not shrink with horror at having subjected the Majesty of God to such an indignity?' 'I do not doubt,' answered Servetus, 'that this bench and this table and everything that we see is essentially God.' Again, when it was objected that, according to his views, the devil must be a manifestation of God, he laughed, and answered boldly: 'Do you doubt it? As for me I hold it to be a fundamental maxim that all things are a part and portion of God, and that the collective universe is itself the Deity.'

The Council was both shocked and embarrassed. There were warm partisans of Calvin in its ranks, and eager protectors of Servetus--among others the principal Libertine leaders, Ami Perrin and Berthelier; but there were also some impartial members who were sorry to see Calvin take such a prominent place in the prosecution, and who had no desire to become judges in a trial for heresy. Still they recognised the danger to Christianity of the Spaniard's pantheism, and refused at any cost to appear to sanction it. {317} Moreover, they disliked and suspected Servetus. He was sincere enough in his adhesion to his own views, but on other points they found him frivolous, vain, arrogant, irresolute, and untruthful. He denied any connexion, even the most indirect, not only with the Libertines of Geneva, but with their agent Gueroult at Geneva, who had corrected the proofs of his book. The falsehood of these disavowals was so obvious, that even those magistrates who hesitated to condemn him, could no longer place any confidence in him. It seems strange that they should have been ignorant of the sentence passed upon him on the preceding 17th of June, after his escape from Vienne, by which he was condemned to be burnt alive; but either they were really ignorant of it, or they wished to appear to be so, for the Protestant Council of Geneva wrote to the Catholic judges of Vienne to ask for 'information as to the crimes which had caused the imprisonment of Servetus in their city, both believing and hearing,' says the letter, 'that it was not without cause, and that you have certain information and charges against him for which he deserves punishment.' It was no doubt by the advice of his supporters that Servetus demanded that the principal reformed churches in Switzerland--Berne, Zurich, Schaffhausen, and Basle--should be consulted on his case; since on similar occasions they had always shown themselves far more moderate than Calvin. The Council granted this request, and Calvin did not oppose it. There can be no doubt that the majority of the Genevese magistrates desired to a certain extent to modify the character of the trial, and make its personal animosity less apparent; they wished to appear the defenders of Christianity rather than the enemies of any special theological system. They adjourned the trial several times, and put off the final decision as if they dreaded to pronounce it.

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But there is a time for procrastination and a time for prompt action, a time for courage and a time for prudence. The crisis of the two struggles in which this small state was engaged had arrived, and the great issues involved in them had to be decided. Between Calvin and Servetus, between Calvin and the Libertines--that is to say, between Christianity and Pantheism, between tyrannical austerity and licentious anarchy--there was no longer any possibility of either reconciliation or truce. With the instinct of the man of action, Calvin felt this, and unhesitatingly adopted the most energetic measures in both cases. On the 27th of August, 1553, he uttered the severest censures from the pulpit upon the conduct of Servetus; and on the 3d of September following, as I have previously related, he solemnly refused to administer the communion to the leader of the Libertines, who--in spite of the decision of the Council of State--had been pronounced unworthy of it by the Church. In both cases he thus made a direct appeal to the general body of believers. The trial of Servetus, which was going on at the time of this double excitement, suddenly changed its whole character. All moderation, all prudence were cast aside by the prisoner; led away by the hope of overwhelming an enemy who was fiercely attacked and in danger elsewhere, Servetus became the vehement accuser of Calvin, even unto death. Small pamphlets sometimes took the place of judicial debates. {319} 'Miserable wretch,' said Servetus, 'you do not know what you are saying; you endeavour to condemn things which you do not understand! Do you think, O dog! that you can deafen the ears of the judges by your howls? Your mind is so confused that you cannot see the truth! ... You cry out like a blind man in the desert, because the spirit of vengeance consumes your heart. You have told lies, you have told lies, you have told lies, ignorant slanderer!' Servetus did not confine himself to abuse, but, on the 22d of September, demanded that his adversary should be committed for trial, giving a list of the subjects 'on which Michael Servetus demands that John Calvin shall be interrogated. I demand, gentlemen, that my false accuser shall be punished by the law of retaliation, that his property shall be handed over to me as a compensation for my own, which by his means I have lost, and that he shall be kept in prison as I am, until the trial shall be ended by the condemnation to death of one of us two, or by some other punishment.'

Calvin, in spite of his own violence, was at first overwhelmed by this outburst of passion. He says, 'I was timorous and dismayed before him, as if I had been the prisoner, and had been called upon to answer for my doctrine. In truth, I am afraid that good men will accuse me of too great meekness.'

Servetus soon discovered that his hopes had entirely deceived him, and that the position of his adversary was much stronger than he had imagined it to be. All that the Libertines were able to do for the promotion of their own cause, was, to prolong for sixteen months, the indecision of the civil power on the question of the right of excommunication; but at the end of that time, on the 24th of January, 1555, the civil authorities decided that the right belonged to the Consistory. {320} And as to the unfortunate Servetus, the Libertines who had urged him on, and compromised him in every way from the time of his arrival at Geneva, gave him but feeble support when they saw that the final crisis was at hand. His violent attack on Calvin was not even noticed. On the 19th of September the Council decided to apply officially to the pastors and magistrates of the four churches of Berne, Zurich, Schaffhausen, and Basle for their opinion of the trial. Calvin did not approve of this step, but he had not opposed it; he had, however, written to some of his friends in the cantons, among others to Bullinger at Zurich, and to Sulzer at Basle, in order to point out the very serious nature of the advice for which they had been asked; and it was well known throughout Geneva that his letters would not fail to influence the answers from the cantons. From that time the passionate excitement of Servetus gave place to dejection and anguish, He was in prison, sick and forsaken. On the 10th of October, 1553, he wrote to the Council: 'Most noble lords, for the last three weeks I have implored you to grant me an audience, but have not been able to obtain it. I beseech you, for the love of Christ, not to refuse that which you would not refuse to a Turk who demanded justice at your hands. I have very important things to tell you, which you ought to know. As to the orders which you issued that something should be done towards keeping me clean, nothing has been done, and I am in a more wretched condition than ever. {321} Moreover, the cold torments me greatly, on account of the colic and my other maladies, which give rise to infirmities of which I should be ashamed to write to you. It is a great cruelty that I am not permitted to speak, when I only want to ask that my wants may be supplied. For the love of God, gentlemen, grant this, either out of mercy or justice!' The Council sent two of its members to the prison 'with orders,' says M. Rilliet, 'to cause the necessary clothing to be given to the prisoner, so as to remove the hardships of which he complained. But there is no other trace of the result of this interview between the prisoner and the deputies of the Council. Probably it was occupied with topics which Servetus had previously discussed; and that his object was to obtain some influence over the minds of the magistrates rather than to give them any fresh information.' But the appeal which he had made for compassion was of no more use than his violence.

On the 18th of October, 1553, the messenger returned to Geneva, bearing the answers of the four cantons. They were all cautious and guarded, though in different degrees, and at the same time sorrowful in tone, but they were unanimous in the nature of their advice. 'We pray the Lord,' said the Bernese letter, 'that he will give you a spirit of wisdom, prudence, and courage, so that you may secure your own church as well as other churches from so great a danger; and that at the same time you may do nothing that will appear unseemly in Christian magistrates.' {322} 'We are persuaded,' wrote the church of Basle, 'that you will not fail either in Christian prudence or in holy zeal, but will find a remedy for the snare which has already led away many souls to destruction.' The language of the letter from Zurich was much more definite: 'You must not allow the wicked and false attempts of the said prisoner to prevail, for they are quite contrary to the Christian religion, and cause our churches to be in bad repute.' Schaffhausen gave the same advice as Zurich. There can be no doubt that the four churches recommended severity, although they added a few words so that they might not be charged with the entire responsibility of the decision.

The Council met again on the 23d of October, 1553, and after having read the answers from the Swiss churches, once more adjourned so as to avoid coming to a final decision. Several of the members who were favourable to Servetus had absented themselves, amongst others, the first syndic, Ami Perrin, no doubt in order to necessitate an adjournment. Another meeting was fixed for the 26th of October; and again, when the day arrived, several of the supporters of Servetus did not appear. But Ami Perrin was true to him; he formally demanded that the accused should be acquitted of the charge, and declared innocent; and ultimately moved that the case should be referred to the Council of Two Hundred. Both propositions were rejected. The majority of the Council passed a resolution which was entered in their register in words to the following effect:--'That,--considering the summary of the trial of the prisoner, Michael Servetus, the report of those who have been consulted, and his great errors and blasphemies,--it is decreed that he be led to Champel and there burnt alive, and he shall be executed to-morrow, and his books burnt with him.'

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At that period there was no hesitation on account of the atrocious torture of such a punishment, and no scruple as to the right of inflicting it. Heresy was a crime, and the stake was the penalty of heresy. In that very year 1553, at Lyons, not far from Geneva, several reformers had suffered martyrdom; among others, five young French students from the theological Institute at Lausanne. The Catholic judges at Vienne had condemned Servetus to the stake. Save for some scattered protests which saved the honour of the human conscience, in the sixteenth century the burning of heretics at the stake was looked upon as the common right of Christianity.

During the whole course of the trial Calvin had never concealed his feeling as to what the sentence ought to be. On the 20th of August, after it had commenced, he wrote to Farel: 'I hope that he will be condemned to death; but I trust that there may be some mitigation of the frightful torture of the penalty.' After the execution of the sentence, he wrote: 'When Servetus had been convicted of heresy, I did not say a word concerning his execution: not only will all good men bear witness to this, but I authorize the bad to speak if they have anything to say.' On the 26th of October, the very day on which sentence was passed, he wrote to Farel: 'The wretch has been condemned by the Council without a division. Tomorrow he will be led to the stake. We made every effort to change the manner of his death, but in vain.' Farel hurried to Geneva; he had taken the warmest interest in the case, and had urged great severity; but he was not incapable of sympathetic emotion, and was a man of very strong religious feeling. {324} When Servetus heard of his condemnation, he fell into the deepest despair; he wept, entreated, implored, and cried, 'Mercy! mercy! Farel hoped to bring him to repentance, and save his soul, whilst at the same time his recantation might lead to a mitigation of his sentence. He pressed him to see Calvin; Servetus was not disinclined; Calvin also consented, and obtained permission for the interview from the Council, who sent two of its own members to accompany him on his visit to the condemned prisoner. When asked what he had to say to Calvin, Servetus replied that he wished to solicit his forgiveness. Then Calvin said: 'I protest that I have never carried out any private animosity against you. You must remember that sixteen years ago, being at Paris, I did not spare myself in my efforts to win you for our Lord, and if you would have listened to reason, I would have done everything in my power to reconcile you with all the faithful servants of God. You ran away from the conference, and yet I did not cease to exhort you by letters; but all has been useless, and you have assailed me not so much with anger as with fury. And now I have done with all that concerns myself personally. Ask pardon, not of me, but of that God whom you have blasphemed by trying to disprove the existence of three Persons in one God; ask pardon of the Son of God, whom you have debased and denied as your Saviour.' These words were more likely to wound Servetus than to convince him; they probed his wounds but did not heal them; he remained silent. The repeated exhortations of Farel were of no avail, and Calvin withdrew, following, he says, the rule of St. Paul: 'A man that is an heretic after the first and second admonition reject; knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself.' [Footnote 123]

[Footnote 123: Epistle of Paul to Titus, iii. 10, 11.]

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Servetus was willing to ask pardon, but he would not disavow his opinions. Even in the depths of his despair he preserved all the pride of honest conviction; and although he entreated that his life might be spared, he would not consent to dishonour it by a false recantation. Farel, who accompanied him to the stake, in vain renewed his severe, but at the same time compassionate exhortations up to the very last moment. The dignity of the philosopher triumphed over the weakness of the man, and Servetus died heroically and calmly at that stake, the very thought of which had at first filled him with terror.

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