[55] Sandius, Bibliotheca Antitrinitariorum.
[56] Neue Nachrichten, etc. Helmst. 1750, 4to., S. 89-90.
[57] ‘Servetus nuper ad me scripsit, ac literas adjunxit longum volumen suorum deliriorum, cum thrasonica jactantia, dicens me stupenda et hactenus inaudita visurum. Si mihi placeat, huc se venturum recepit. Sed nolo fidem meam interponere. Nam si venerit, modo valeat mea authoritas, vivum exire nunquam patiar.’ Calvin to Farel, dated Ides of February, 1546. From the original letter in the Paris Library; a certified copy, published by Paul Henry in his Leben Johann Calvins, 3ter. Band; Beilagen, S. 65; from which the above paragraph is transcribed.
[58] Cont. Bolsec (Hieron. Hermes), Docteur Médecin à Lyon: Histoire de la Vie, Mœurs, Actes, Doctrine, Constance et Mort de Jean Calvin, Grand Ministre à Genève. Paris 1577, 12mo. Also in Latin, but of later date—Vita Calvini, &c.
[59] It is a capital mistake to suppose, as Mosheim and others have done, that the Christianismi Restitutio was ever exposed for sale, or readily to be had either at Geneva or elsewhere. It cannot be shown that more than four or five copies at most of the book ever left the bales in which the whole impression was packed. There was, first, the copy sent, as I venture to think, by Servetus through Frelon to Calvin, which led to the arrest and trial at Vienne. Second, the copy taken from the five bales seized at Lyons for the use of the Inquisitor Ory. Third, the copy transmitted for their inspection to the Swiss Churches and Councils. Fourth, the copy given to Colladon by way of Brief by Calvin, with the passages underscored, on which Servetus was finally arraigned and condemned. And Fifth, the copy which we find Calvin sending to Bullinger at his request. Of these copies one may even have served two ends: after making the round of the Churches and coming again into Calvin’s hands, it may very well have been that which he despatched to Bullinger. That the book was not to be had immediately after the execution of Servetus is proved conclusively by what Sebastian Castellio, the accredited author of the work entitled, Contra Libellum Calvini, says on the subject: He had not been able to obtain a sight of Servetus’s book, so as to inform himself of what he writes, Calvin having taken such pains to have it burned—‘cum Serveti libros, quippe combustos diligentia Calvini, non habeam, ut ex iis possem videre quid scriberet.’ The Christianismi Restitutio, in fact, remained completely unknown in the Republic of Letters until its existence was proclaimed by Wotton in his Reflections on Learning, Ancient and Modern, in the year 1694 (all but a century and a half after the death of its author), by the publication of the passage on the pulmonary circulation, extracted, we must conclude, from the copy that was then in England, and subsequently became, if it were not already, the property of Dr. Meade—the identical copy with the name on the title-page of Germain Colladon, the advocate who prosecuted Servetus at the instance of Calvin, now in the national library of Paris.
[60] The title of the original, in full, is as follows:—
Christianismi Restitutio. Totius Ecclesiæ Apostolicæ est ad sua limina vocatio, in Integrum Restituta Cognitione Dei, Fidei Christi, Justificationis nostræ, Regenerationis Baptismi, et Cœnæ Domini Manducationis Restitutio denique nobis Regno Cœlesti, Babylonis impia Captivitate soluta, et Antichristo cum suis penitus destructo.
בעת ההיא יעמוד מיכאר השׂר
καὶ ὲγένετο πόλεμος ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ.
MDLIII.
[61] ‘Whose soever sins ye remit,’ etc., John, xx. 23—writing added to the original text, beyond doubt, and dating from long after the time of Jesus, when the Church had acquired a status and was looking for power.
[62] It were beyond the scope of my work to pursue this subject further; but let me say that having compared the first edition of the ‘Loci’ (1521) with the one of 1536 and others, of which there are copies in the British Museum Library, I find it impossible to overlook the influence of Servetus on Melanchthon, as of Melanchthon on Servetus. For fuller information the reader is referred to Tollin’s exhaustive, Philip Melanchthon und Michael Servet, eine Quellenstudie. 8vo. 1876.