The printer was more prudent; so great was the suspicion which the doctrines of Servetus had already inspired, that he did not put his own name on the book, nor that of the place at which it was published. The work was a violent attack upon the doctrine of the Trinity, written with vigour and a certain glitter of imagination and subtlety of thought, but its rash speculations were vague and superficial. It was received with prompt and severe disapproval both by Catholics and Protestants. Father Quintana spoke of Servetus with contempt, as a young man who had certainly belonged to his suite, and whom he knew by sight, but whom he had never suspected of holding such impious opinions. Even the most gentle of the German and Swiss reformers openly expressed their indignation. Melancthon urged Œcolampadius to take heed lest such doctrines should be imputed to the Swiss reformers. Bucer denounced the work from the pulpit, and went so far as to say that the author of it deserved to be torn limb from limb. The Government of Basle caused the book to be seized, and even, so it is said, imprisoned the author. But the imprisonment, if it took place, must have been short, for Servetus almost immediately published a second work [Footnote 106] on the same subject, still in his own name, in which he explained, apologized for, and retracted almost the whole of the first; not, however, on the ground that his notions were false, but that they were crude and imperfect.
[Footnote 106: Dialogorum de Trinitate. Lib. ii. de Justitia regni Christi, cap. iv. In 8vo. 1532.]
Indeed, in addition to the attacks on the Trinity, this book disclosed a much more wild and impious pantheism than the first had done. The second work received little attention, either favourable or unfavourable, but the impression produced by the first was permanent. Servetus saw that he had very little chance of success either in Germany or Switzerland, and he went elsewhere to try and realize his dreams of success and power.
He hoped to do so in France, at Paris. He was there in 1534, and was, at the same time, a student and a professor. He both gave and received lessons in medicine, mathematics, and astronomy, and was soon noted for his rapid insight, brilliant imagination, marvellous powers of acquisition, and wealth of novel theories, often rash, but sometimes ingenious and happy. He conjectured, and almost described, the circulation of the blood, took part with the Greek against the Arabian physicians, speaking of all those who did not agree with him as 'fools and public pests.' He gave courses of lectures on mathematics and astronomy which were a mixture of science and chimerical conjecture, and he translated Ptolemy's Geography. The extent and versatility of his intellectual powers attracted large audiences; but at the same time his exacting and arrogant character, his overbearing and pretentious manners, his restless and quarrelsome temper soon embroiled him not only with the physicians who were his rivals, but with the whole University of Paris, which distrusted his views and detested his person. He lacked both personal influence and modesty; he was not only violent and abusive to his adversaries, like the majority of even the most eminent learned men in his time, but in every dispute he showed that presumptuous and arrogant self-complacence which inflicts far deeper wounds than open and even brutal anger. His theological heresies and astrological dreams furnished numerous pretexts against him. He was denounced to the 'Parlement' of Paris, and they condemned him to suppress an abusive treatise which he had published, and forbade him to teach astrology, or to prophesy and predict from the stars. Annoyed at this, and lacking stability of purpose, he left Paris and went to Lyons, where he obtained employment as corrector of the press to the celebrated printers Melchior and Caspar Trechsel; he returned to Paris, and left again; went first to Avignon, then to Charlieu, a small town near Lyons, changing his name and residence incessantly; sometimes eager for retirement and sometimes for display; desiring fame, and yet often in great need of concealment. At length, in 1540, he settled at Vienne, in Dauphiné, where the archbishop, Mgr. Palmier, who had attended some of his lectures in Paris took him under his protection.
He lived at Vienne twelve years, concealing his real name Servetus, and adopting that of Villanueva, his native city. He was in high repute as a physician, and conformed outwardly to the Roman Catholic religion; but he was more than ever absorbed in his projected religious reformation, and the great part that he was to play in it. He published numerous works; among others he brought out a translation of the Bible by a learned monk named Xantès Pagninus, then dead. But the Book of Revelations was the special subject of his study. In it he saw the signs of the times, and the approaching fall of Antichrist. 'The Dragon which tries to devour the woman and her child is the Pope; the woman is the Church; her child whom God takes away and saves is the Christian faith. [Footnote 107]
[Footnote 107: Revelation, chap. xii.]
For 1560 days, that is years, the Church has been under the yoke of Antichrist, but now the struggle with the Dragon is about to commence. Michael and his angels will triumph; we shall discover the divine Revelation from the very earliest ages—the great mystery of faith which is beyond all dispute; we shall see the face of God which has never yet been seen. We shall see the glory of his image in ourselves.' [Footnote 108]
[Footnote 108: Henry, iii. 125-128.]
Servetus did not assert that he himself was the archangel Michael, but he believed himself to be his ally, and one of our Lord's new apostles. In order to make known all these seething fancies, he prepared a new work entitled Restoration of Christianity.