Great Christians of France: Saint Louis and Calvin

by François Guizot

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. '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. 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. 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.' '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.'

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. 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.]

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.