Treatise of Molina on Free will. 25. These disputes, after a few years, were revived and inflamed by the treatise of Molina, a Spanish Jesuit, in 1588, on free-will. In this he was charged with swerving as much from the right line on one side as Baius had been supposed to do on the other. His tenets, indeed, as usually represented, do not appear to differ from those maintained afterwards by the Arminians in Holland and England. But it has not been deemed orthodox in the Church of Rome to deviate ostensibly from the doctrine of Augustin in this controversy; and Thomas Aquinas, though not quite of equal authority in the church at large, was held almost infallible by the Dominicans, a powerful order, well stored with learning and logic, and already jealous of the rising influence of the Jesuits. Some of the latter did not adhere to the Semi-Pelagian theories of Molina; but the spirit of the order was roused, and they all exerted themselves successfully to screen his book from the condemnation which Clement VIII. was much inclined to pronounce upon it. They had before this time been accused of Pelagianism by the Thomists, and especially by the partisans of Baius, who procured from the universities of Louvain and Douay a censure of the tenets that some Jesuits had promulgated.[1001]
[1001] Du Chesne, Biogr. Univ., art. Molina. The controversy had begun before the publication of Molina’s treatise; and the faculty of Louvain censured thirty-one propositions of the Jesuits in 1587. Paris, however, refused to confirm the censure. Bellarmin, in 1588, drew up an abstract of the dispute by command of Sixtus V. In this he does not decide in favour of either side, but the Pope declared the Jesuit propositions to be sanæ doctrinæ articuli, p. 258. The appearance of Molina’s book, which was thought to go much farther towards Pelagianism, renewed the flame. Clement VIII. was very desirous to condemn Molina; but Henry IV., who now favoured the Jesuits, interfered for their honour. Cardinal Perron took the same side, and told the Pope that a Protestant might subscribe the Dominican doctrine. Ranke. ii. 295, et post. Paul V. was also rather inclined against the Jesuits; but it would have been hard to mortify such good friends, and in 1607 he issued a declaration postponing the decision sine die. The Jesuits deemed themselves victorious, as in fact they were. Id. p. 358.
Protestant tenets. 26. The Protestant theologians did not fail to entangle themselves in this intricate wilderness. Melanchthon drew a large portion of the Lutherans into what was afterwards called Arminianism; but the reformed churches, including the Helvetian, which, after the middle of the century, gave up many at least of those points of difference which had distinguished them from that of Geneva, held the doctrine of Augustin on absolute predestination, on total depravity, and arbitrary irresistible grace.
Trinitarian controversy. 27. A third source of intestine disunion lay deep in recesses beyond the soundings of human reason. The doctrine of the Trinity, which theologians agree to call inscrutable, but which they do not fail to define and analyse with the most confident dogmatism, had already, as we have seen in a former passage, been investigated by some bold spirits with little regard to the established faith. They had soon however a terrible proof of the danger that still was to wait on such momentous aberrations from the proscribed line. Servetus having, in 1553, published at Vienne in Dauphiné, a new treatise, called Christianismi Restitutio, and escaping from thence, as he vainly hoped, to the protestant city of Geneva, became a victim to the bigotry of the magistrates, instigated by Calvin, who had acquired an immense ascendancy over that republic.[1002] He did not leave, as far as we know, any peculiar disciples. Many, however, among the German Anabaptists held tenets not unlike those of the ancient Arians. Several persons, chiefly foreigners, were burned for such heresies in England, under Edward VI., Elizabeth, and James. These Anabaptists were not very learned or conspicuous advocates of their opinions; but some of the Italian confessors of Protestantism were of more importance. Several of these were reputed to be Arians. None however became so celebrated as Lælius Socinus, a young man of considerable ability, who is reckoned the proper founder of that sect which takes its name from his family. Prudently shunning the fate of Servetus, he neither published anything, nor permitted his tenets to be openly known. He was however in Poland not long after the commencement of this period; and there seems reason to believe that he left writings, which, coming into the hands of some persons in that country who had already adopted the Arian hypothesis, induced them to diverge still farther from the orthodox line. The Anti-Trinitarians became numerous among the Polish Protestants; and in 1565, having separated from the rest, they began to appear as a distinct society. Faustus, nephew of Lælius Socinus, joined them about 1578; and acquiring a great ascendancy by his talents, gave a name to the sect, though their creed was already conformable to his own. An university, or rather academy, for it never obtained a legal foundation, established at Racow, a small town belonging to a Polish nobleman of their persuasion, about 1570, sent forth men of considerable eminence and great zeal in the propagation of their tenets. These, indeed, chiefly belong to the ensuing century; but, before the termination of the present, they had begun to circulate books in Holland.[1003]
[1002] This book is among the scarcest in the world, ipsa raritate rarior, as it is called by Schelhorn. Il est reconnu, says De Bure, pour le plus rare de tous les livres. It was long supposed that no copy existed except that belonging to Dr. Mead, afterwards to the Duke de la Valiere, and now in the royal library at Paris. But a second is said to be in the Imperial library at Vienna; and Brunet observes, on connoit à peine trois exemplaires, which seems to hint that there may be a third. Allwoerden, in his Life of Servetus, published in 1727, did not know where any printed copy could be found, several libraries having been named by mistake. But there were at that time several manuscript copies, one of which he used himself. It had belonged to Samuel Crellius, and afterwards to La Croze, from whom he had borrowed it, and was transcribed from a printed copy, belonging to an Unitarian minister in Transylvania, who had obtained it in England between 1660 and 1670.
This celebrated book is a collection of several treatises, with the general title, Christianismi Restitutio. But that of the first and most remarkable part has been differently given. According to a letter from the Abbé Rive, librarian to the Duke de la Valiere, to Dutens, which the latter has published in the second edition of his Origines des Decouvertes attribuées aux Modernes, vol. ii. p. 359, all former writers on the subject have been incorrect. The difference, however, is but in one word. In Sandius, Niceron, Allwoerden, and, I suppose, others, the title runs: De Trinitate Divina, quod in ea non sit indivisibilium trium rerum illusio, sed vera substantiæ Dei manifestatio in verbo, et communicatio in spiritu, libri vii. The Abbè Rive gives the word invisibilium, and this I find also in the additions of Simler to the Bibliotheca Universalis of Gesner, to which M. Rive did not advert. In Allwoerden, however, a distinct heading is given to the 6th and 7th dialogues, wherein the same title is repeated, with the word invisibilium instead of indivisibilium. It is remarked in a note, by Rive or Dutens, that it was a gross error to put indivisiblium, as it makes Servetus say the contrary of what his system requires. I am not entirely of this opinion; and if I understand the system of Servetus at all, the word indivisibilium is very intelligible. De Bure, who seems to write from personal inspection of the same copy, which he supposed to be unique, gives the title with indivisibilium. The Christianismi Restitutio was reprinted at Nuremburg, about 1790, in the same form as the original edition, but I am not aware which word is used in the title-page; nor would the evidence of a modern reprint, possibly not taken immediately from a printed copy, be conclusive.
The life of Servetus by Allwoerden, Helmstadt, 1727, is partly founded on materials collected by Mosheim, who put them into the author’s hands. Barbier is much mistaken in placing it among pseudonymous works, as if Allwoerden had been a fictitious denomination of Mosheim. Dictionnaire des Anonymes (1824) iii. 555. The book contains, even in the title-page, all possible vouchers for its authenticity. Mosheim himself says in a letter to Allwoerden, non dubitavi negotium hoc tibi committere, atque Historiam Serveti concinnandam et apte construendem tradere. But it appears that Allwoerden added much from other sources, so that it cannot reasonably be called the work of any one else. The Biographie Universelle ascribes to Mosheim a Latin history of Servetus, Helmstadt, 1737; but, as I believe, by confusion with the former. They also mention a German work by Mosheim on the same subject in 1748. See Biogr. Univ., arts. Mosheim and Servetus.
The analysis of the Christianismi Restitutio given by Allwoerden is very meagre, but he promises a fuller account which never appeared. It is a far more extensive scheme of theology than was promulgated in his first treatises; the most interesting of Servetus’s opinions being, of course, those which brought him to the stake. Servetus distinctly held the divinity of Christ. Dialogus secundus modum generationes Christi docet, quod ipse non sit creatus nec finitæ potentiæ, sed vere adorandus, verusque Deus. Allwoerden, p. 214. He probably ascribed this divinity to the presence of the Logos, as a manifestation of God by that name, but denied its distinct personality in the sense of an intelligent being different from the Father. Many others may have said something of the same kind, but in more cautious language, and respecting more the conventional phraseology of theologians. Ille crucem, hic diadema. Servetus in fact was burned, not so much for his heresies, as for some personal offence he had several years before given to Calvin. The latter wrote to Bolsec in 1546, Servetus cupit huc venire, sed a me accersitus. Ego autem nunquam committam, ut fidem meam eatenus obstrictam habeat. Jam enim constitutum habeo, si veniat, nunquam pati ut salvus exeat. Allwoerden, p. 43. A similar letter to Farel differs in some phrases, and especially by the word vivus for salvus. The latter was published by Witenbogart, in an ecclesiastical history written in Dutch. Servetus had, in some printed letters, charged Calvin with many errors, which seems to have exasperated the great reformer’s temper, so as to make him resolve on what he afterwards executed.
The death of Servetus has perhaps as many circumstances of aggravation as any execution for heresy that ever took place. One of these, and among the most striking is, that he was not the subject of Geneva, nor domiciled in the city, nor had the Christianismi Restitutio been published there, but at Vienne. According to our laws, and those, I believe, of most civilised nations, he was not amenable to the tribunals of the republic.
The tenets of Servetus are not easily ascertained in all respects, nor very interesting to the reader. Some of them were considered infidel and even pantheistical; but there can be little ground for such imputations, when we consider the tenor of his writings, and the fate which he might have escaped by a retractation. It should be said in justice to Calvin, that he declares himself to have endeavoured to obtain a commutation of the sentence for a milder kind of death. Genus mortis conati sumus mutare, sed frustra. Allwoerden, p. 106. But he has never recovered, in the eyes of posterity, the blow this gave to his moral reputation, which the Arminians, as well as Socinians, were always anxious to depreciate. De Serveto, says Grotius, ideo certi aliquid pronuntiare ausus non sum, quia causam ejus non bene didici; neque Calvino ejus hosti capitali credere audeo, cum sciam quam inique et virulente idem ille Calvinus tractaverit viros multo se meliores, Cassandrum, Balduinum, Castellionem. Grot. Op. Theolog. iv. 639. Of Servetus and his opinions he says in another place very fairly, Est in illo negotio difficillimo facilis error, p. 655.