UC-NRLF B 3 M7E IDl m. Si: :^iti^ m m KiyiB:.:;ii;.; CONVERTED A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION The "Christianismi Restitutio," 1553 (Edinburgh University Library) A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION BEING THE AUTHENTIC NARRATIVE OF THE HISTORY AND BURNING OF THE "GHRISTIANISMI RESTITUTIO," 1553 WITH A SUCCINCT ACCOUNT OF THE THEOLOGICAL CONTROVERSY BETWEEN MICHAEL SERVETUS. ITS AUTHOR. AND THE REFORMER. JOHN CALVIN DAVID GUTHBERTSON SUB-LIBRARIAN, EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY LIBRARY WITH EIGHT FACSIMILES OLIPHANT, ANDERSON & FERRIER EDINBURGH AND LONDON 1912 s 1 C', ¥ PRINTED BT TCltKBULL AND SPBAES, KDINBUKGH TO THE REV. ROBERT FORMAN HORTON M.A., I>.B. 247695 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Illustration of the Binding and Inscription OF THE "Christianismi RESTITUTIO" FroTitispiece FACING PAGE Title-page of the " De Trinitatis Erroribus " 16 Facsimile Letter of Calvin, 1557 . . .24 (From the Thomas Archiv, Strassburg) Page of Manuscript from the " Christianismi Restitutio," 16th Century . . .30 Portrait of Michael Reves, Arragon (Servetus) 52 Facsimile Page, from a Manuscript Copy of THE " Christianismi Restitutio " . ,54 Specimen printed Page from the " Christianismi Restitutio," 1553 {slightly reduced) . , 56 Facsimile of Preface to Pagnini's Bible, by Servetus, 1542 {greatly reduced) . . . 63 PREFACE The following work is an attempt to place on record for the first time the history of the three printed copies known to be extant of one of the rarest of theological books. Round this volume, the " Christianismi Restitutio,'* or Restoration of Christianity, pubhshed in 1553, and that of the two smaller works by the same author, and also commented on, arose an ecclesiastical con- flict of an almost unparalleled nature, one which brought the author to a martyred end. The attack by Servetus on the doctrine of the Trinity ranged against him the theological giants of the Reformation, such as Luther, Melanchthon, (Ecolampadius, Erasmus, and notably Calvin himself. Servetus and Calvin are, however, chiefly dealt with, as the title of this work indicates. While thanking the Library Committee of the Edinburgh University for granting permission to 9 10 A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION reproduce the facsimiles, I am also indebted to Mr A. W. K. Miller, of the British Museum, and Mr W. K. Dickson, Keeper of the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, for useful help. To Principal Gordon, Manchester, I am also indebted for kindly criticism of a former book, and some of his emendations and suggestions have been taken advantage of in the present work. A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION *' Few examples of persecution have made more noise than that of Servetus at Geneva in the year 1553. Had he not accidentally escaped from prison in Vienne, he would have suffered the same cruel death in a popish country, which was unhappily reserved for him when he fell into the hands of Protestant magis- trates. Had he been executed in Vienne, he would only have made one of an endless Hst of victims which have been made to the cruelty of Popery, but to be sent to the flames for heresy, by those who were but lately dehvered from the devouring jaws of an intolerant religion, against which they so keenly and so justly remonstrated, has drawn the atten- tion and given full scope to the censure of mankind upon it, which in the course of two ages has been thrown entirely upon Calvin. While the judges are forgot, or overlooked, the whole load of reproach has fallen upon that famous divine — how justly, or how unjustly, must be left to an impartial inquiry into, and a fair construction upon, the whole." 1 1 J. G. de Chauffpie, " The Life of Servetus." Translated by James Tain, 1771. Preface, pp. viii.-Lx. Igl; ; A TBAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION With this end in view, we will, first of all, seek the sources for his persecution. In the Edinburgh University Library there is to be found a small volume which claims, from its title-page, to be the first edition of a theo- logical work which, when pubUshed, created a con- siderable stir and commotion in the ecclesiastical arena. The work in question is entitled : " De Trini | tatis Erroribus | Libri Septem | Per Michael Serueto, alias I Reues ab Aragonia | Hispanum | Anno mdxxxi." Bound up with this volume is the companion treatise bearing the title : " Dialogo | rum de Trini- tate 1 hbri duo | De lusticia Regni Chri \ sti Capitulo Quatuor | Per Michaelem Serveto, ahas Reues, ab Aragona, Hispanum | Anno mdxxxii." Neither the name of the pubhsher, nor the place of pubHcation, is mentioned on either of the volumes thus bound together. It was only some twenty years later that the latter became known, when the author was tried and condemned at Geneva in 1553. The printer was John Setzer, of Hagenau in Alsace, who himself was a Protestant, and had produced several reprints of tractates by Melanchthon and other Reformers. Of course it was no unusual thing for the printer's name to be omitted. Gutenberg never put his name in any book of his printing, while Bertold Rippel never dated one. Eggerstein dated nothing till 1741, A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION 13 Richel nothing till 1474. Most of their books, too, were anonymous. ^ But, apart from these facts, the question of authenticity of original editions requires to be taken into serious consideration. Forgeries of books and manuscripts are common to nearly all centuries, and are not confined to one class of Hterature. It is known that two editions of the " De Trinitatis Erroribus " were printed in the eighteenth century, and that both of these bore the same date as the original. This was also the case with the companion volume. These volumes, being much sought after, commanded a good price, and they were, usually, sold together bound in a single volume. The original editions, bound in a corresponding fashion to that in the possession of the Edinburgh University Library, were sold, at least on two occa- sions, at a high figure. We know, for instance, that La Valhere (1708-1780), a celebrated French bibho- phile, owned an immense and valuable library. A catalogue of this collection was printed in three octavo volumes, and issued in 1783. This collection of books, sold a year later, reahsed the large sum of 464,677 Hvres, 8 sous. Among the books sold was the " De Trinitatis Erroribus " and its sequel. This brought the sum of 605 francs. The same sum was reaUsed at the Gaignat sale. This Louis- Jean Gaignat (1697-1768) was also a 1 A. W. Pollard, " Essay on Colophons," p. 11. 14 A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION French bibliophile. He owned two famous collec- tions : one of " tableaux," the other of books, the latter of which, when sold after his death, brought the sum of 227,597 francs. This large price was, doubtless, due in a measure to a clause which he had caused to be inserted in his will, forbidding his books to be disposed of in bulk. The catalogue of this bibUophile was pubhshed by Guillaume-Francois Debure at Paris in two volumes, 1769, under the title " Supplement a la bibliographic instructive." The forgeries of these two works of Servetus' were, naturally, of considerably less value in the eyes of the bibhophile. One striking pecuharity about these volumes must be noticed. It differs entirely from the books issued in this age. The characters are printed throughout in italic letters, including also the proper names. Both the originals and the forgeries are ahke in this respect. It is interesting to note that books were printed in italic type, some years earher than 1531, the date of the "De Trinitatis Erroribus." It had been made, and shown in type, by the celebrated Aldus Manutius, a notable printer and binder of Venice, and the founder of the famous Aldine press. He was the friend of Jean Grolier and the well- known Thomas Maiolus, princes (as has been well said) among book lovers, and artists by nature. The itahc type was first used in a printed " Virgil " in 1500. The type was then called Venetian, or A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION 15 Aldus, and, like many other good things, it was almost immediately counterfeited. In Germany and Holland it was termed cursive. Wynkin de Wordes, we find, used this type in 1524, while Aldus Manutius employed Francesco Francia of Bologna, goldsmith and painter, to cut punches for his celebrated letter. It was dedicated to Italy, hence the name Italic. It has been stated that the two volumes in the possession of the Edinburgh University Library, the "De Trinitatis Erroribus libri septem" and "The Dialogorum de Trinitate libri duo," are bound to- gether in one volume. The first, supposed to have been pubHshed in 1531, contains the pagination on each separate leaf (not page). These number 119, and it has an errata of two lines. The second volume, bearing the date of 1532, consists of forty-eight leaves, none of which are nimibered. It has twenty- seven fines to each full page, while the registers are from A to F in eights. Numerous bibfiophiles speak of the great rarity of these volumes. In 1756 two copies were known to be in Paris, one in the King's hbrary, and the other in possession of a M. Colbert ; one in the library of Prince Eugene of Savoy, and a copy in that of the Landgrave of Cassel. Altogether no more than one dozen copies could be traced.^ 1 Boysen, " Hist. M. Servet.," p. 56. 16 A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION This being the case spurious copies were printed, hardly to be distinguished from the original. Mr F. A. Ebert ^ states that the forged copy of the " De Trinitatis Erroribus " was prepared by the preacher Serpihus at Regensburg, about 1730-35, and says confirmation of this is found in Schelhorn's " Anleitung fiir BibHothekare " (vol. i. p. 359). Brunet in his " Manuel de libraire " ^ makes the following pertinent observation. He states : " On the frontispiece of the original edition the word ' Trinitas ' is separated from the next hne by two divisions placed thus, ' Trins:,' while in the reprint the double division is in this fashion, ' Trin = .' The difference is noticed also on the frontispiece of the second work, where the word " Dialogorum " is again divided." ^ Brunet, however, goes on to remark that he has taken these statements from De Bure's " BibHo- graphie." He then states : " But, if this is correct, there must be two different forgeries, for we have seen one at the sale of MacCarthy, where the word " Trinitas " is divided by one division only, in this manner, " Trin-." A further observation may here be made for the guidance of those interested, and it is this. In the first of the volumes entitled " De Trinitatis Erroribus," at page 83, verso, Hne 17, there is found a spurious 1 " Gen. Bibl. Dictionary," vol. iv., Oxford, 1837, p. 1716, 2 Tom. v., p. 314. ^ " Manuel de libraire," torn, v., p. 314. DE TRINI- TATIS ERRORIBVS LIBRI SEPTEM. Per MkhaeUm Serueto , alias Riues ab Aragonia hifpanum. ^rmo M. D. XXXI. Title-page of the " De Trinitatis E RllORIBUS A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION 17 imprint where the word Christus appears which is not met with in the original.^ There is also another difference, in that the char- acter of the italics are, if anything, shghtly larger than in the genuine first edition. The " capitals " in the original are always printed in Roman type. If we then compare the title-page of the copy to be found in the Edinburgh University Library with the facts here given, we can have no hesitation in arriving at the right conclusion. It is one of the two forgeries printed in the middle of the eighteenth century, but one of the less known, as we have ob- served that De Bure did not mention it. The facsimile shown opposite (page 16) reads : DE TRINI- TATIS ERRORIBUS LIBRI SEPTEM. The copy in the British Museum is the original edition, having the hyphens, or divisions, sloped thus, " Trin^." The work has also been translated into Dutch with the epigraph, " Proeft alle Dingen ende behoiit het goede," 1 Thess. v. 21. It will thus be noted that Servetus pubHshed two volumes against the Trinity in two years, to which he did not scruple to attach his name. In the first book he undertook to show in the first place that the words Jesus, and Christ, and Son of 1 Graesse, " Tresor de livres rares et precieux," p. 373. 18 A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION God denote only a man, which he endeavours to prove by certain passages of Scripture, and seeks to answer the objections of the orthodox. In the second book, pubhshed in 1532, he states : " Candid reader, I now retract all that I lately wrote concerning the received opinions upon the Trinity, not because it is false, but because it is imperfect, and written, as it were, by a child for the use of children " ; while he adds : " Quod autem ita barbarus, confusus, et incorrectus, prior liber prodierit, imperitise mese et t3rpographi incuriae ad- scribendum est." The printer thus gets a share of the blame for the faults of the book. After this there follows the titles of the four chapters of his treatise, " De justitia regni Christi": 1. " De justificatione " ; 2. "De regno Christi"; 3. "CoUatio legis et evangeh " ; 4. " De Charitate." When the " De Trinitatis Erroribus " was issued, and found its way into ecclesiastical circles, along with its companion volume, it aroused many strong protests from the Reformers. And assuredly their protests were needed, when Servetus calls the Three Persons — " a pure imagination, a chimera, meta- physical gods." (Ecolampadius, writing to Bauer, states : " We know not how that Beast came to creep in among us; he wrests all passages of Scripture to prove that the Son is not co-eternal and consubstantial with the Father, and that the Man Christ Jesus is A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION 19 the Son of God." This letter is dated 5th August 1531.1 Melanchthon, as well as Luther, was very outspoken, the latter styhng the book " ein greulich bos Buch." A number of copies of these works of Servetus were burnt at Franckfort and other places, which is given in a note in a " Life of Servetus," by J. G. de Chauffpie.2 Writing in 1541, we find in Calvin's " Institutes " his opinions of Scripture. He says : " Although the Holy Scriptures contain a perfect doctrine, to which nothing can be added, . . . still every person, not intimately acquainted with them, stands in need of some guidance and direction as to what he ought to look for in them. . . . This cannot be better done in writing than by treating in succession of the principal matters which are comprised in Christian Philosophy. For he who understands these will be prepared to make more progress in the school of God in one day, than any other person in three months. . . . With this view I have composed the present book." It was this form of rehgion, based on Calvin's " Institutes," which made the Scottish system of theology what it became, a system imbued with a rigid, Pauhne logic, which was tested and tried in the political and religious sphere, and made the Bible a source of inherent, superhuman strength. Pre- 1 (Ecolampadius and Zwingel, " Epist.," Lib. iv., p. 801. Basil, 1592. 2 p. 15. 20 A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION destination, election, effectual calling, justification by faith, and the doctrine of the Trinity shaped the spiritual Hfe, and gave to their beliefs a grit and tenacity which nothing else possibly could do. John Knox, who brought the German form of worship to Scotland, has left his opinion on record with regard to this. He said it was " the most perfect school of Christ that ever was on earth since the days of the Apostles." ^ And yet certain individuals in this " most perfect school of Christ " showed to the world the passions of their carnal nature, and, by an inhuman act, left a dark record of shameful intolerance in the heart of Geneva itself. In the minds of the Reformers there were certainly urgent and vital reasons why such a course of hbel for " heresy " should have been pursued, but the heresy might have been deviated from its course by humaner methods. The pubHshing of the " De Trinitatis Erroribus " was, in one sense, an epoch-making book. It was a remarkable book, too, in that it was the product of a young man — almost indeed a youth — not quite twenty years of age. As has been pointed out elsewhere,^ the work is a marvel of learned quotations from a wide and varied field. The author quotes some thirty authors — 1 " Works," ed. Laing, vol. iv., p. 240. * " The Personality of Michael Servetus," by Principal Gordon, p. 15. Manchester 1910. A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION 21 Greek, Latin, Hebrew and Arabic. He is at home in them all. And in the year 1532, that year in which appeared the work of Servetus, entitled, " Dia- logormn de Trinitate," a young man, John Calvin by name, also issued a volume. It was published at Paris. It bore the title, " L. Annei Senecae, Romani Senatoris, ac Philosophi Clarissimi, Libri duo de dementia, ad Neronem Caesarem : Joannis Calvini Noviodunsei Comment ariis illustrati." This Commentary on Seneca's " Treatise on Clem- ency " is a work of one hundred and fifty-six pages in quarto. If Servetus, in his httle volmnes, showed his learning, certainly Calvin is not one whit behind. True he was several years older. But the precocity shown is marvellous. He cites fifty- six Latin and twenty-two Greek classical writers, and seven Fathers of the Church.^ Even here, in this volume, gome of the opinions of Calvin's later Hfe had found a root, as where he expresses himself as regards conscience. He says that even to follow conscience is not sufficient, if such following leads a man to neglect the good name and welfare of his neighbour — a doctrine which he declares to be the teaching of " our rehgion," that is, of Christianity. It is noteworthy, in view of later events, that the Bible is only cited three times. A year later Calvin, practically, became a Protestant. 1 See Henry Lecoultre, " Revue de theol. et de philos.," Lausanne, 1891, pp. 57-77. Mosheim, however, styles the works " barbaro dicendi genere conscripti" (" Epist. la Croze," torn. ii. p. 159). 22 A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION We have said that Luther styled the work of Servetus " ein greuHch bos Buch." It is interesting in this connection to note what Carlyle says could have been done to the author of a bad book. For instance, concerning Rousseau he says : " His books, like himself, are what I call unhealthy ; not the good sort of books. . . . His semi-deHrious specula- tions on the miseries of civilised life, the preferabihty of the savage to the civilised, and such hke, helped well to produce a whole delivering in France gener- ally. True, you may well ask what could the world, the governors of the world, do with such a man ? Difficult to say what the governors of the world could do with him ! What he could do with them is, unhappily, clear enough — guillotine a great many of them." And so we will soon see what was done in the name of religion through Calvin and his coadjutors to protect the welfare of his neighbours, a pure French- man himself and a native of Picardy, who helped to make Geneva famous. Thus far we touch on the fringes of a controversy which grew with the years, and ended in the funereal pyre at Geneva. Leaving this topic meanwhile, we now come to our more immediate object — that of describing the history and adventures of the rarest of ecclesiastical books. The book in question bears rather a pretentious title : " Christianismi Restitutio, Totius Ecclesise A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION 23 Apostolicae est ad sua limina vocatio, in integrum restituta cognitione Dei, fidei Christi, Justificationis nostree, Regenerationis, baptismi, et coenae Domini manducationis. Restitutio denique nobis ^ regno coelesti, Babylonis impiae captivitate soluta, et antichristo cum suis penitus destructo, mdliii. That is " The Restitution of Christianity." A call to the Christian world, to the primitive principles of the ApostoHcal Church ; or a treatise wherein the know- ledge of God, of the Christian faith, of our justifica- tion, regeneration, baptism, of eating the Lord's Supper are perfectly restored, to the dehverance of the heavenly kingdom, from the slavery of impious Babylon, and the utter destruction of Antichrist, with his followers. A statement was made by Dr Willis in his book, that of the thousand copies known to have been printed, " only two are known to survive ; one of these being among the treasures of the National Library of Paris, the other among those of the Im- perial and Royal Library of Vienna." ^ This state- ment was pubHshed in the year 1877. But on 27th April 1878, there appeared a letter in the Aihenceum from the writer of the book in question, saying that he had received a letter from Professor (now Principal Sir William) Turner, stating that he had consulted the librarian of the Edinburgh Uni- versity Library, Mr John Small, " and he asked him whether he had any of the writings of Servetus upon 1 " Servetus and Calvin," Appendix, p. 535. U A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION his shelves, or not. Mr Small replied that he felt sure he had ; and, on turning to the catalogue and the reference it supplied, two volumes were produced — the one, a handsomely bound MS. transcript of the " Christianismi Restitutio," the other, " to my great gratification," as Professor Turner says, " a copy of the original work," presented to the Library nearly two centuries ago.^ This was a most interesting pronouncement. The copy of the " Christianismi Restitutio " in the University Library, Edinburgh, is imperfect. The title-page is awanting, as well as the index of contents, and the first sixteen pages of the book ; there is nothing to indicate its authorship, except what Principal Sir William Turner has indicated, where, at the end of the volume, there appears the letters : — MS. 1533. The book itself is a small quarto (7Jx5), bound in full brown calf. It originally consisted of seven hundred and thirty-four printed pages, and a leaf of errata of fifteen lines. On the back of the Edinburgh University Library copy the title reads, in the original lettering : " Michael Reves Serveti ab Aragonia, Hispania Opera. Viennse Allobrogum, 1553." ^Athenceum, 27tli April 1878, p. 541. See also H. Tollin- Micliel Servet : portrait caractere. Paris, 1879. Note at end of book. "^ ...-k-^X ,.^i A.:A^ ..S fi"/ /«./ -^. '■-^ /::: ' >2»,.7*M^t <-V«:0< .C? y f5:>^^--gi //) . ^/^^j r . y ^ ^ p^ Facsimile Lettkr of Calvin, 1557 (From the Thomas Archiv., Strassburn) A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION 25 On the fly-leaf we have a curiosity in the art of donating a rare book, in a seventeenth-century handwriting, this inscription — rather a strange and incomprehensible one, but easily capable of explan- ation. It reads, " Serveti Opera. Donata Biblio- thecse Edinburgense a Domino D. Georgio Douglassio, fiho illustriss. ducis de Queensberrie, a.d. 1695." Lower down there follows this further statement : " This volume presented to ye Library be Mr Alex. Cunninghame of Block, Preceptor to ye Lord George Douglas." The query would thus naturally arise, who was the real donor of this important and rare work ? Lord George Douglas, be it noted, died in July 1693. His father, William Douglas, was the third earl, and the first Duke of Queensberry. He held various important offices in Scotland. He was a Lord Justice-General in 1680, and extraordinary Lord of Session a year later. By letters patent, of 11th February 1682, he was created Marquis of Queens - berry, Earl of Drumlanrig and Sanquhar. He was afterwards appointed Treasurer of Scotland, the post of which was to be hereditary. In 1682 he was appointed governor of Edinburgh Castle. He had thus a varied career. He had three sons and one daughter. After the death of Lord George, his father pre- sented his son's books to the Library of the Faculty of Advocates at Edinburgh. Of this there can be no doubt. The resolution of faculty relating to Lord 26 A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION George Douglas's books appears in the minutes on 1st March 1695. It bears that "The Faculty of Advocates having been acquainted by their Dean, That His Grace the Duke of Queensberry did Intend to bestow upon the Faculty, the Library of the Late Lord Douglas his Sone, the Faculty being Sensible of the honour," . . . agree to accept the dona- tion. There is also a Manuscript Inventory of the books as delivered to the Library, which is headed, " Libri incomparabilis adolescentis D. Domini Georgii Douglas quos pater Guil. Dux de Queensberrie post ejus mortem Facultati Advocatorum donavit. Ann. Dom. 1695." There appears to be no other letter, or document, regarding the books. From the wording of the minute, and the title of the Inventory itself, it is at least implied that the whole of the books, belonging to Lord George Douglas, were presented to The Advocates' Library. This is borne out by the receipt for the collection of books, signed by " Jas. Stevenson." It reads as follows : " Received by me, Mr James Stevenson, Advocates Libreary, Keeper to the Faculty of Ad- vocates in to the said Faculty's Libreary, from Mr Alexander Cunynghame, late Governour to Lord George Douglas in name of his Grace the Duke of Queensberrie, the forsaid haill Books consisting of fiftie three pages. As witness these presents sub- scrybed with my hand day and date foresaid." The year 1695 is given, but there has been left a A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION 27 blank space for the date when the books were re- ceived. The Catalogue of Books, written in one hand throughout, and extending to fifty-three pages, as has been stated, is bound in red leather, is gilt edged, and bears the armorial bearings of the Douglas family on each side, with the motto " Fordward." Among the collection of books are works by Calvin, Melanchthon, and Beza. One thing is noticeable in the catalogue of books. There is no mention whatever of any work by Servetus, nor of the " Christianismi Restitutio " in particular. There is no letter in the University Library, Edin- burgh, concerning the donation. Lord George could not possibly have " donated " the book in 1695, as he died two years previous to this. There, therefore, remains the claim of Mr Alex- ander Cunningham to be considered, who was tutor to Lord George Douglas, and who, be it noted, 'person- ally handed over the hooks of his former pupil to the Keeper of the Advocates' Library. Mr Cunningham was the son of an Ayrshire minister, who had a parochial charge in the village of Cumnock, and was the proprietor of the small estate of Block. He was, apparently, educated in Holland and in Edinburgh. After he had been selected by the Duke of Queensberry to become his son's tutor, he found himself soon afterwards on the road to pro- motion. It is stated that, through the Duke's influence, he was appointed by the crown to be Professor of Civil 28 A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION Law in the University of Edinburgh.^ This is an error. He never was a Professor of Law in the University there. " It seems clear that the title of ' Professor of Civil Law in Scotland ' was invented merely with the object of serving as an item in the Treasury accounts. The salary of a National Professor would look less irregular than a yearly grant to an individual to aid him in writing a book." ^ It appears that Mr Cunningham had petitioned the Scots Parliament for an allowance of £200 sterling a year, for six years, for the purpose of enabling him to carry to completion a work in four foho volumes upon the Civil Law. The Chair of Civil Law in the University was not founded until 1710. When the Queensberry influence waned, Mr Cun- ningham lost his " yearly salary." He still, however, received a pension from his former patron. Mr Cunningham went abroad to the Hague, where he devoted a considerable portion of his time to the study of the classics, and also to that of civil law. He pubhshed a very able and scholarly edition of " Horace." The works of Virgil and Phaedrus, on which he had bestowed great care, were not pub- lished in his hfetime, but posthumously, in 1743, and 1757 respectively. In addition to these he also 1 " Diet, of National Biography," article, A. Cunningham. * " Hist, of Edinburgh University," by Sir Alex. Grant, vol. i, p. 362. A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION 29 wrote a number of Latin and Greek poems, which, as far as can be traced, were never published. The manuscript is in the possession of the University Library. The handwriting of these poems is similar if not exactly identical to that of the inscription on the " Christianismi Restitutio." ^ Mr Cunningham is spoken of by Baiunann, in his edition of " Ovid," as being " doctissimus et mihi longa amicitia conjunctivissmus Alexander Cunning- hamius." It is possible that Mr Cunningham knew somewhat of the rarity of the " Christianismi Restitutio," and, being desirous of perusing such a rare volume, kept it in his possession for two years, and then presented it, as has been stated, in 1695. Experts of handwriting, or palaeography, will find that in the manuscript itself there is this peculi- arity — and rather an imcommon one — of there being three forms of the letter e. We give here a facsimile of the first page of the manuscript, which is inserted in the " Christianismi Restitutio," in order to make up for the loss of the printed pages (see page 30). A transcription is also made of this handwriting, which reads as follows : — [De Trinitate Divina, quod in ea non sit in- visibiHum trium rerum illusio, sed vera substantia? Dei manifestatio in Verbo, et communicatio in Spiritu. Libri vii.] 1 " Laing Collection." 30 A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION Peocemium Qui nobis hie ponitur scopus ut est maj estate sub- limis, ita perspicuitate facilis et demonstratione certus ; res omnium maxima, Lector, Deum cognos- cere substantialiter manifestatum, ac divinam ipsam naturam vere communicatam. Manifestationem Dei ipsius per Verbum, et communicationem per Spiritum, utramque in solo Christo substantialem, in solo ipso plane discernemus, ut tota Verbi et spiritus Deitas in homine dignoscatur. Manifestationem divinam a seculis explicabimus, magnum citra controversiam pietatis mysterium, quod sit Deus olim in Verbo, nunc in carne manifestatus, spiritu communicatus, angelis et hominibus visus, visione olim velata, nunc revelata. Modos veros aperte referemus, quibus se nobis exhibuit Deus, externe visibilem Verbo, et interne perceptibilem Spiritu, mysterium utriuque magnum, ut Deum ipsum homo videat et possideat. Deum antea non visum, nos nunc revelata facie videbimus, et lucentum in nobis ipsis intuebimur, si ostium aperiamus et viam ingrediamur. Aperire jam oportet ostium hoc, et viam banc lucis, sine qua nihil potest videri, sine qua nemo potest sacras Scripturas legere, nee Deum intelligere, nee Christi- anus fieri. Haec veritatis est via certa, facilis et sincera divinam Christi in Verbo generationem, Spiritus Sancti veram perfectionem, et eandem utrius- que in Deo substantiam, integre sola patefaciens, Deumque ipsum nobis ob oculos ponens. Diges- :^h^**c^A'%.y toKtAj^/ tv^i^ti- j,^^/if- ^t9f^ f*\^^ Pack ok .Maxl-sckii-t iru.m the - Chri.sti.vmsmi Kestitutio ■ < Ibin Centukv A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION 31 simus autem in quinque libros viam hanc totam, adjectis postea Dialogis, ut quasi per gradus quosdam ad integram Christi cognitionem ascendamus. It may be noted here that the author of "An Impartial History of Michael Servetus, burnt alive at Geneva for Heresie," ^ says : "I must observe that this book is full of invectives against the Church of Rome, and that Servetus calls the pope Antichrist, and pretends to prove it by the Apocalj^pse." He then adds : "I have had a manuscript copy of that book for a long time." Of this work, it is said there were one thousand copies printed (Burnet states there were only eight hundred). The " Christianismi Restitutio " cost Servetus four years' labour. After it was finished he sent it in MSS. to a friend of his, named Marinus, a German, in order that it might be printed at Basil. Marinus found he was unable to comply with liis request, and stated that Servetus well knew the reason of this. He at length succeeded in inducing Balthazar ArnoUet, bookseller at VienneinDauphine, and William Gueroult, ArnoUet's brother-in-law and director of his printing press, to undertake the work. Each of them was promised a gratuity of one hundred crowns, and the work was completed on 3rd January 1553.^ In a lecture dehvered at Paris in 1879, by M. 1 p. 30. This work is anonymous, and was published in London, 1724. 2 See " The Life of Servetus," by Chauffpie, pp. 57-58. 32 A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION Achille Chereau, librarian of the Faculty of Medicine there, he speaks thus of the " Christianismi Resti- tutio " : " Far be it from me to attempt to analyse this book, a motley, confused, crude, and extraordinary collection of theological and scholastic lucubrations which were in vogue in the middle of the sixteenth century, and which is no longer credited to-day, which makes us shrug our shoulders, but under their shadow human creatures were burnt. What one can discover more clearly is that Servetus, belonging to the Arian, or Socinian sect, upholds there, with incomparable doggedness and unheard-of develop- ments, their anti-trinitarian idea, denying the sacred Trinity, which he treats as sheer imagination — a myth, a metaphysical deity, a dog of Hades with three heads, a fiendish phantom, a monstrous phantasy, an illusion of Satan, and not wilHng to acknowledge Three Persons in God. He declared himself strongly against the Romish Church, con- sidering the Mass as a Babylonian imitation and as a ceremony of Satan's. He boldly declared himself anti-papist, braving, at the same time, the anger of the Romish and the Calvinistic churches." ^ Another writer is equally severe on this work of Servetus. M. Jaques George de Chauffpie, pubhshed in his " Historical Dictionary," vol. iv., " A Life of Servetus " in 1756. Translated from the French, by Rev. James Yair,^ minister of the Scots Church in 1 " Histoixe d'un Livre." Michel Servet et la circulation pulmonaire, p. 11-12 (Paris 1879). 2 Loj^^j. 1771. A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION 33 Campvere, the former observes : " If we examine the whole system of Servetus, we shall be forced to own, that it is the most absurd and obscure that ever entered into the mind of man. . . . Some books have no other merit but their scarcity ; it is supposed they contain great mysteries, and there is infinite pains taken to find them out, but we are altogether surprised sometimes to find nothing in them but the most absurd imaginations." ^ Leaving aside, meanwhile, all opinions of the work of Servetus, one fact stands clearly out, and it is this : AU copies of the " Christianismi Restitutio " have perished, save the three copies now known ; one in Vienna, one in Paris, and last, but certainly the rarest from a bibliographical point of view, that in the Edinburgh University Library. All the three known copies might have been in Britain at the present day (as they originally were), but religious prejudices and fears had to do, in a measure, with the loss of these. The copy of the Vienna edition, now in the National Library of Paris, was formerly in the possession of the well-known Dr Richard Mead, who lived in Queen Anne's reign (1673-1754). He was a famous collector of books, medals, and coins. The copy, which he had in his possession, was originally in the Library of the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel. As to this statement there is a reference made in the Manuscript copy in the University Library, 1 P. 169. 34 A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION Edinburgh, and brought to pubhc notice by Professor Turner. On the marginal leaf we find written in pencil, and in Latin, the passage of which we here give a translation. " This is a copy in manuscript of a very rare book, the author of which was the famous Michael Servetus. It was printed at Vienne of the Allobroges, 1553, octavo, and, bound to the thigh of the author, was burned along with him. It is so rare that no one can boast he saw it in print, for the copy which once existed in the Hessian Library of Prince Cassel, from which a few manuscript copies were made, was totally destroyed." The above note was written in pencil by Gerardus Meerman of Rotterdam, from whose Library the manuscript was purchased, and gifted to the Edin- burgh University, sometime after the year 1856. There would appear, however, to be some dis- crepancy about the destruction of the Hessian Library copy. M. Achille Chereau states : "At the beginning of the eighteenth century at Cassel, the capital of the electorate of Hesse Cassel, one copy was known. But about the year 1720, it was no longer there, and it was all in vain, that at this period Fran9ois Eugene of Savoy-Carignan, accompanied by the landgrave, asked, in passing through Cassel, to see the famous book. It had disappeared ! " This writer then goes on to state that " the fact A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION 35 remains that, some twenty years later, it rested upon the shelves of Dr Richard Mead's magnificent hbrary. He draws attention to the fact that, in a letter from Des Maizeaux to Mead, the former speaks of ' the famous book of Servetus, the " Restitutio du Chris- tianisme," which is a special ornament of your library." Dr Mead presented the volume to his friend and correspondent, Claude Gros de Boze, who sold it in 1753. After passing through the hands of Louis- Jean Gaignat, it was purchased by the Due de LavaUiere who paid 3810 hvres. This duke dying in 1783 it was purchased by the French Government for the large sum of 4121 hvres — " a sum which would at the present day require to be multiphed five times to give its current value." ^ Before Dr Mead parted with liis precious volume he determined to have it reprinted. The work, however, was issued in a very imperfect condition. A considerable portion is awanting. The last page, which was printed, was the first of the chapter en- titled : De justitia regni Christi. M. AchiUe Chereau says this reprint ended at page 252, but a pencil note in the margin of the Edinburgh University Library copy gives the page as 293. This, however, can be easily verified by noting the contents of the completed book. When it was pubhshed in 1723, the prejudice against the author and his book had not died down. 1 See " Histoire d'une Livre," pp. 10-11. 36 A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION Bishop Gibson, of London, laid an injunction against it. The impression was accordingly seized and publicly burned. Several copies of this reprint escaped the holo- caust. A few are in the hands of private individuals. One is in Manchester, and another is in the Library of the London Medical Society. With regard to the note written in pencil on the Manuscript copy of the " Christianismi Restitutio " in the Edinburgh University Library, it is boldly asserted by M. Chereau that the copy in the Paris Library was the identical volume which was " bound to the thigh " of Servetus while at the stake — the very book " which had been hcked by the flames.'* Unprejudiced judges, however, take a different view. The Rev. Henry Tollin, who has written largely on Servetus, and others, including Principal Gordon of Manchester, refute such a statement. The latter has told the present writer that he saw the work himself ; that it bears no trace of scorching, but the brownish stains, in his opinion, have probably been caused by water, or exposure to the action of damp. As regards the copy of the " Christianismi Res- titutio " now in Vienna, a few words are needed to show how it came to its resting-place. We find that in the year 1665 it had been in the possession of a certain M. Marcus Szent-Ivani, an " alumnus of the Unitarian Church of Transylvania,'* an Austrian, who had come from America to London. A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION 37 It was finally presented in 1786 to the Emperor Joseph II. of Austria by Count Samuel Peleki de Szek, " who was recompensed for his generosity, with the gift of a splendid diamond." ^ This specimen is stated to be in better preservation than the one in the Paris Library. Coming back now to the consideration of the copy in the Edinburgh University Library, what do we find ? That it is the rarest of all the three copies known. It may claim, and with every appearance of truth, to have been the one originally in the possession of the Reformer, John Calvin himself, certain of the printed pages of which were used in the famous (or infamous) trial of the learned Servetus. The first sixteen pages of printed matter have been abstracted. In their stead there are substituted written pages, which correspond with the amount taken away, the last word on the MS. page being " docet,'" and the printed page of the first hne of the seventeenth reads : " Docet ibi Christus se Deum a Deo patre sanctificatum." The handwriting, as has been stated, is that of the sixteenth century. By comparing the facsimile of the first manuscript page, wliich we give (see page 30) with that of Calvin's handwriting, as shown on page 24, it is quite evident that neither Calvin nor Servetus was the writer. But, nevertheless, these pages possess a most 1 Communicated by M. Birk, prefet of the Imperial Library of Vienna, to M. Achille Cbereau. See " Histoire d'un Livre," p. 7. 38 A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION remarkable interest, more especially for the theo- logical student. Principal Gordon, of the Unitarian Home Mission- ary College, Manchester, and one of the foremost living authorities on Servetus, points out this most notable fact. He states that the manuscript pages inserted in the volume are not transcriptions at all of the missing printed pages, but are, in reaHty, those OF THE ORIGINAL DRAFT. This is it then which makes the Edinburgh University Library copy unique. As regards the statement we have made that we beheve this copy of the " Chris tianismi Restitutio " to have belonged to John Calvin, we herewith state our authorities and reasons. First of all we have the statement of Principal Gordon. He says : " The manuscript is no copy of the missing pages, but of the original draft. Of this draft Servetus sent a copy to Calvin in 1546, which the Reformer forgot to return. If the Edin- burgh original was (as i think probable) calvin's OWN, and if the missing portion was supphed in manu- script at Geneva, there it must have been made from this copy of the draft, which at one time had been, or was then, in Calvin's possession. Calvin certainly kept the mutilated original, for he used it in his self- defensive pubHcation against the cremated Servetus." ^ Further confirmation of this is to be found in the petition which Sevetus demanded that " Jehan Calvin soyt interroge." 1 Letter to author (1910). A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION 39 The first three questions were : I. " Whether in March last he got WiUiam Trie to write to Lyons, and said a great many things against jVIichael Villano- vanous, alias Servetus. What were the contents of that letter, and for what end it was written ? II. " Whether he sent, with the said letter, one half of the first quire of the said Servetus's book, containing the title, the index and the beginning of the said book, entitled, ' Christianismi Restitutio.' III. " Whether it be not true that the whole was sent to shew it to the officials at Lyons, that the said Servetus might be prosecuted as it appeared by the event." ^ Again we have M. de la Roche, in his " Bibhotheque Angloise," ^ writing on the subject as follows : " Though the ' Christianismi Restitutio ' was printed very privately, Calvin was informed that Servetus was the author of it, and had a copy sent to him ; where- upon he desired a man, named WiUiam Trie, to write a letter to Lyons in March 1553, wherein Servetus was represented as a very pernicious man. That letter was attended with the title-page, the index, and the first leaves of the book.^'' We find further that when Servetus was examined, on the 14th August 1553, his accuser. La Fontaine, produced against him a manuscript and a printed book. " The prisoner confessed that he was the author of both, and that he had pubHshed the printed 1 Actes du proces de Michel Servet, 1553, " CalvLai Opera.'* vol. viii., p. 806. 2 P. 101. 40 A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION book, hut he said the manuscript had not heen printed, and that he had only sent it to Calvin about six years before, ... to have his judgment about it ! '"' We find evidence of this manuscript having been sent to Calvin by Servetus, once again, in Calvin's " Theological Tracts," where it is stated {Fidcelis expositio errorum Michcelis Servetis, etc.) " Servetus sent a manuscript to Calvin, to have his judgment about it, six years before he was apprehended at Geneva. That piece was never printed."" And lastly, in a letter from Guillaume de Trie to his cousin, Antoine Arneys, of date 26th February ] 553, with the former of whom Calvin was acquainted, there occurs the following signficant and pregnant sentence : " Je vous envoy e le premiere feuille " — that is : " / send you the first sheet.'' This would, therefore, he eight leaves, or sixteen pages. Bearing these facts in mind, let it be noted that the copy of the " Christianismi Restitutio " in the possession of the Edinburgh University Library wants sixteen pages, or sheet A, consisting of eight leaves. And it has neither title-page nor index of contents. We have noted that with " William Trie's " letter were sent to Lyons, in March 1553, the title-page, the index, and the first leaves of the hooJc. Calvin then had in his possession in that year a copy of the " Christiansimi Restitutio." Is there not, then, the greatest probability, if not certainty, that in his zeal for the suppression of " heresy " he abstracted A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION 41 the pages from his own volume, and got these for- warded to Lyons ? Taking all these facts into consideration, the prima facie evidence goes to show that the copy of the *' Christianismi Restitutio," now in the Edinburgh University Library, was at one time in the possession of John Calvin, the Reformer. The above documents, we have mentioned, were used at the trial, with a copy of Calvin's " Institutes," full of marginal notes written in the handwriting of Servetus, with a number of letters (thirty in number) to Calvin. From what has been stated, it will be apparent that the copy of the " Christianismi Restitutio," in the possession of Calvin, was an imperfect copy. Now Rilliet, in his " Relation du Proces de Servet," writes as follows regarding the rigorous destruction of the book. He states : "A clerk of the celebrated printer, Robert Stephens, then resident in Geneva, was charged with this mission, which he accomphshed with so very great success, that there are only three copies of the original edition to be found at the present day. One in the Imperial Library of Paris, another in that of Vienna in Austria, and a third in a private collection.''' M. Rilhet does not state, with any definiteness, where the last mentioned copy was to be found, and we can only conjecture that this, " in a private collec- tion," refers to the one which at one time was in the possession of the Queensberry family, and is now in the custody of the Edinburgh University Library. 42 A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION Calvin's copy was imperfect ; the Edinburgh University Library copy is in a similar state, and yet it is unique. It would be vain and somewhat profit- less to enter into the fields of conjecture, as to the identity of the writer who had access to the original draft sent by Servetus to Calvin, and had it copied and bound up in the " Christianismi Restitutio." The fact remains, it is in a contemporary hand- writing of the sixteenth century, and must either have been allowed to be copied by Calvin himself, or by some friend of his who knew about the draft. This appears in no other edition of the hooJc. A slight digression is now here necessary in order to give continuity to the narrative, and to add a few more facts for the consideration of the reader. For some time Servetus had been residing in Vienne under the name of Villeneuve, where he had been practising as a physician. In his letter to " His Dearly Beloved, the Pastors of the Church of Frank- fort," Calvin refers to Servetus thus : " You have doubtless heard of the name of Servetus, a Spaniard, who twenty years ago corrupted your Germany with a virulent publication, filled with many pernicious errors. This worthless fellow, after being driven out of Germany, and having concealed himself in France under a fictitious name, lately patched up a larger volume, partly from his former book, and partly from new figments which he had invented. ... It would take long to relate with how many errors — yea, prodigious blasphemies against God — the book A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION 43 abounds. Figure to yourself a rhapsody patched up from the impious ravings of all ages. There is no sort of impiety which this monster has not raked up, as if from the infernal regions." ^ In a subsequent letter addressed to Farel, Calvin again speaks to Servetus as " a monster not to be borne." Servetus was arrested, taken before the Papal authorities, and there examined regarding his faith and liis writings. Whatever view we may be inclined to take of the character of Servetus, and he certainly was not wanting in courage and pertinacity, inclining even to rashness at times, he revealed himself at the Vienne trial as weak and wavering. Among other things, he told the tribunal that he had corre- sponded with Calvin. This, however, he states he had done in strict confidence, and that he had asked him to regard these communications as sub sigilla secreti — that is very confidential. And then follows this statement which he says he had asked Calvin to regard, and it was this, that if he could not wean 1 Calvin's " Lat. Corresp. Opera," torn, ix, p. 71. We find that Barnardino Ochino, who was forced to fly from Italy in order to escape from the Inquisition, was a strong antitrinitarian. After being in England for six years, he returned to the continent and arrived in Geneva at the time of the trial of Servetus, in 1553. He had formally had friendly relations with Calvin, but the death of Servetus placed him among his opponents, and he openly declared against this act. He wrote " Seven Dialogues " (1539), and " The XXX. Dialoge " appeared in 1563. See L. A. Wood, " The Form and Origin of Milton's Antitrinitarian Con-* ception," p. 32. Lond., Ont., 1911. 44 A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION him, or change his mind from the conclusions at which he had arrived in his writings, " I should not feel myself bound to accept his conclusions. On which I proposed certain weighty questions for discussion. He rephed — and this shows the acumen of Calvin — ' seeing that my questions were to the same effect as those discussed by Servetus, / must be Servetus myself.^ To this I answered that, though / was not Servetus, nevertheless, and that I might continue the discussion, / was content for the time to personate Servetus, and should reply, as I believed he would have done, not caring for what he might please to think of me, but only that we might debate our views and opinions with freedom. . . . For ten years or so I have neither heard from him, nor he from me. And here, gentlemen, I protest before God and before you all, that I had no desire to dogmatise, or to substitute aught of mine that might be found adverse to the Church or the Christian religion." Prior to this, Servetus had been questioned regard- ing a treatise on Free will, he answered, " Sir, these letters were written when I was in Germany, now some five and twenty years ago, when there was printed in that country a book, by a certain Servetus, a Spaniard ; hut from what part of Spain I hnow not, neither do I know in what part of Germany he dwelt, though I have heard say that it was at Agnon (Hagenau in Elsass), four leagues from Strasburg, that the book in question was printed. ... I thought that the writer said many things that were good. A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION 45 that were better treated by him, indeed, than by others." These facts, his own testimony, afford a curious insight into the mind of this much persecuted in- dividual. He certainly did not tell the truth, and he made it appear that Villeneuve and Servetus were two different individuals. All these things did not avail ; his defences were broken down. He was revealed, not only as the author of the " De Trinitatis Erroribus," and the " Dialogorum de Trinitate," but also of a third book, repeating and affirming his previous conclusions, the " Christianismi Restitutio." Search was accordingly made for the latter book. Through information supplied, the Papal authorities succeeded in surprising the publishers, and the whole consignment of the books were seized, five bales in all. Servetus was put in prison at Vienne (Isere) in June 1553. He escaped from his prison. But later liis sentence was pronounced by the Papal authorities. Servetus was condemned to pay a fine of 1000 Hvres tournois to the King of Dauphiny, and, further, as soon as he can be apprehended, "to be taken, together with his books, on a timbril, or dust-cart, to the place of pubhc execution, and there burnt alive hy a slow fire until his body is reduced to ashes." His five bales of books were accordingly burnt, as also his effigy. Thus far the secular authorities. It was followed by the ecclesiastical judges, who confirmed their sentence, finding " the said Villeneuve 46 A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION a most egregious heretic, and as such is hereby ad- judged, convicted and condemned, his body to be burnt, and his goods to be confiscated." ^ One copy at least of the " Christianismi Restitutio " was kept ; the one taken from one of the bales by the inquisitor Ory, to formulate the charges against Villeneuve, as he called himself. Events quickened after this. Calvin had warned Servetus that if he ever came to Geneva he would persecute him to the death for his opinions. He did not allure Servetus to Geneva. He warned him of the fate in store for him. Calvin did not act thus on personal grounds, but in order to maintain, as he believed, the integrity of the Scriptures.^ All the churches of Zurich, Bern, Basel, and Schafthausen held that Servetus should be made an example of. Persecution always makes converts, and Calvin and his co-reHgionists failed to see that no theologian, or church, has any right to come between the soul of man and his Maker. Religion lies between God and a man's own conscience. Calvin was practically claiming infallibility in his interpretation of the Scriptures, and thus erred himself, according to the New Testament doctrine, both of St Paul and of St Peter.3 Melanchthon in 1554 congratulated Calvin for all 1 Servetus was burnt at Vienne in effigy, but on 15th October 1911 a monument was raised there to commemorate bis memory. - Regarding Calvin's influence on history see Professor Kuyper's ■" Calvinism " (Priuceton Lectures, 1898), pp. 43, 44. 2 Romans, chap. xii. verses 19-21 ; 2 Peter, chap, i., verse 20. A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION 47 he had don<^ in. bringing so dangerous a heretic to justice. Diis vn as after Calvin had issued his "De- claration pour nmintenir la vraye Foy que tiennent tous Chr liens de la Trinite des Personnes en un seul Die ., par Jean Calvin. Contre les erreurs de Michel Servet, E.spaignol. Geneve, 1554." Melanch- thon says : " I have read your able refutation of the horrible blasphemies of the Spaniard, and for the conclusion attained give thanks to the Son of God who '/,:t^ ! mpire in your contest. The Church, too, both of the present and of the future, owes you thanks, and will surely prove itself grateful." ^ Melanchthon by this time must have read, in the " Christianismi Restitutio," the treatise addressed to himself and his colleagues by Servetus, entitled " De Mysterie Trinitatis," and have drawn his own conclusions as we have noted. Servetus was arrested in Geneva. He was arrested on the Sabbath day. Surely here, then, there is no excuse for Calvin, if it can be proved that it was by his orders that he was arrested. And this proof is forthcoming. In his " Declaration pour maintenir la vraye Foy," already referred to, where Calvin is on his defence, he says, " I will not deny that it was at my instance that he was arrested, that the prose- cutor was set on by me, or that it was by me that the articles of inculpation were drawn up. But all 1 " Corpus Keformatorum. " Ep. Melanchthon, ad. an. 1554, See also E. Dunant, " Les relations politiques de Geneve avec Berne et les suisses de 1536 a 1564," pp. 131-2. Geneve 1894. 48 A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION the world knows that since he was convicted of his heresies / never moved to have him 'punished hy death:' ^ This statement of Calvin's is most important. He did not wish the death penalty inflicted, neither did he wish him tortured to death by burning at the stake.^ Servetus was found guilty of heresy. For those who wish to read this trial they are referred to the "Actes du proces de Michel Servet," 1553. As at Vienne, so here at Geneva, he was "to be burned alive," along with his books, printed as well as written by hand, until his body was reduced to ashes. Thus ended the tragic ecclesiastical drama at Geneva. Voltaire, whose last message was : / die adoring God, loving my friends, not hating my enemies and detesting superstition, saw a grave side to rehgious enthusiasm. He " saw that all enthusiasts acted savagely in the repression of what they call heresy. It seemed to him that certain of the doctrinal points, about which such an amount of ink, blood and breath were expended, were of little or no importance to save men who wished to Hve a moral life. In Spain, the Inquisition had lighted fires to destroy those 1 It was the opinion that erroneous religious principles are punishable by the civil magistrates that did the mischief, whether at Geneva, in Transylvania, or in Britain ; and to this, rather than to Trinitarianism or Unitarianism, it ought to be imputed. (Andrew Fuller's " The Calvinistic and Socinian Systems ex- amined and compared," pp. 159-162. Lond. 1802.) 2 See John Eamsay, " Gleanings of the Gloaming," Kil- marnock, 1878, pp. 151-2. A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION 49 who held mistaken beHefs ; in Russia, people were imprisoned and tortured for making the sign of the cross with three fingers instead of two ; in Geneva, Calvin sent Servetus to the stake for bad views on metaphysics. Such acts made Voltaire's blood boil. What he advocated, and what he was right in ad- vocating, was toleration, such toleration as he had seen during his stay in England." ^ One thing is painfully evident throughout the trial — the prejudice and ecclesiastical bias against Servetus. His books, it was stated, had done mischief, according to the judgment of the Genevan tribunal, to the " holy evangehcal reHgion," as they were crammed with heresies.2 We are tempted to inquire how many readers had been injured, or led away from Bibhcal truth, by the reading of the heresies contained in the " Christian- ismi Restitutio " — for it was for the pubHcation of this book he was tried. ^ Calvin had read it ; the inquisitor Ory had possibly done so, and Polladon the advocate, and perhaps two others. How then were heresies spread abroad by the book " Chris tianismi Restitutio," when it lay packed in bales in a printers^ premises, until it was seized ? 1 " A Scot in France and Switzerland," by D. T. Holmes^ pp. 276-277. Paisley, 1910. 2 See for other opinions, a brief account of Calvin's " Burning Servetus for an Heretic," by George Benson, pp. 23-30, 2nd ed. London, 1743. ^ See T. M. Lindsay, " History of tlie Reformation," vol. ii., p. 425, Edin., 1907. D 50 A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION Servetus himself believed that by his book he was bringing Christianity back again to its pristine sim- plicity. " On the basis of an essentially pantheistic view of God, he taught that Christ was truly the Son of God, that all the Godhead was corporeally mani- fested in Him, but that His personality was not pre-existent, save in the mind of God, and really began with his earthly conception and being.^ But Servetus, to Calvin's thinking, destroyed the Christian hope. He believed, moreover, that the full divinity of Christ could only be maintained by the historic doctrine of the Trinity taught, he earnestly thought, throughout the Scriptures. Only on that Divinity was there full atonement for human sin and true worship for the redeemed. On the other hand it is stated : " The Bible made Servetus a theological student, compelling him, as it did, to investigate the grounds of his ancestral re- ligion, and especially convincing him that to-day, as at first, the Christian doctrine must start from a realising knowledge of the Man Christ Jesus." ^ Servetus " was very much a man by himself. His whole Hne of thought separated him from the rest of the anti-Trinitarian group associated with the names of Sozzini. He reached his position through a mystical Pantheism — a course of thought which one might have expected from a Spaniard. He 1 " John Calvin," by W. Walker, p. 328. New York, 1906. 2 " The Personality of Michael Servetus," by Principal Gordon, p. 13. A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION 51 made few or no disciples, and did not exert any permanent influence." ^ Another feature of interest in the Edinburgh University copy of the " Christianismi Restitutio " is the fact that it contains numerous marginal notes in a sixteenth-century handwriting. It is indeed a pity that the author of these notes cannot be traced, and we are left to conjecture whether it was a friend of the Reformer, John Calvin, and, if so, which one it would be. Another interesting feature — this time from a biblio- graphical point of view — is that on several pages we find a pecuhar style of deahng with printers' errors. We find, for instance, on page 73, at the tenth line the words : " caelis nati, et spiritu e caelis de- scendente nobis dato, in cae — " This fine is repeated twice, word for word. In order to make the correction, the lower fine has been simply scored through by some penman, for it is not corrected by means of type. Again, at page 541, we find the following words, part of the eleventh fine scored out. The portion so treated runs thus : " Pro mortuis habeamur, quod ad peccati extinctionem attinet." And the corrected portion reads, " Pro mortuis ita habeamur, ut nemo audeat dicere, se vivere, cum soH Christo omnes vivamus." 1 T. M. Lindsay, " A History of the Eeformation," vol. ii., p. 425. Edin. 1907. See also W. A. Curtis, "A History of Creeds and Confessions of Faith in Christendom and Beyond," Edin. 1911., p. 251. 52 A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION There are, besides these, a few notes on the margins elsewhere, in a more modern handwriting. M. Jaques George de Chauffpie, in a marginal note in " The Life of Servetus " ^ speaks of a copy- in the following terms : "I have in my hands the work of Servetus in MS. in a large volume in quarto, which was generously communicated to me by the famous Doctor Trouchin. At the head of the volume we find hkewise " Christianas Theologiee Dehneatio." . . . We find after this Servetus's " Christianismi Restitutio," written from a printed copy. ... At the end we find the initial letters of the author's name, M. S. V., and the date 1553. After the work we have a picture of Servetus in copperplate, done at Amsterdam in 1607, by Christopher van Suhim,^ engraver, with a kind of abridgement of Servetus's Hfe in Dutch." It is interesting to find this statement in M. Chauff- pie's book, regarding the " picture of Servetus in copper-plate," because the manuscript copy, bound in vellum, in the University Library, Edinburgh, contains a similar appendix; a remarkable account of the hfe and works of Servetus, consisting of thirty- four pages, written in a beautiful handwriting. It contains also, prefixed to it, a well- executed pen- and-ink sketch of Servetus (reproduced at page 52). 1 Transl. by James Yair, Lond., 1771, p. 61. ' This is possibly a misprint for " Sichem," a portrait of Servetus by that artist is to be found in the British Museum copy of Gronwelen der voornaemsten Hooft-Ketteren Leyden, 1607. See Principal Gordon's " Servetus." (Note to portrait). Portrait ok Mrhakl Reves, Arragon (Servetus) A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION 53 This appendix is written in a most violently partisan spirit, which robs it of any historical value. Tliis was written by a Mr A. B. Ingles in 1856, a fact which is testified by a footnote made in pencil. Indications point to the Manuscript copy of the " Christianismi Restitutio " having been copied from the printed copy at one time in the hbrary of Hesse Cassel, so there is thus a link between it and the copy now in Vienna. It is interesting to note that in " The Personality of Michael Servetus," by Principal Gordon, he draws attention to the feehngs of horror which Servetus underwent, when he was in Bologna and saw the Pope borne aloft on men's shoulders in his chair of state, as he was carried along the streets, the people kneeling on the ground, while others among the crowd pressed forwards to kiss his slippers. Thirty-three years after this event took place, the scene had not faded from the memory of Servetus. The degrading episode he thus writes about : " Those who could kiss his (the Pope's) shoes deemed them- selves the possessors of indulgence for their sins, and dreaded no more the pains of infernal fire ! O beast of all beasts most execrable ! Well hath Isaiah painted thee ! " ^ These were certainly strong opinions to set forth about the head of the Roman Catholic Church. Yet, paradoxical as it may seem, in view of the con- demnation of the " heresies " of Servetus, Roman 1 P. 12. 54 A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION Catholic Austria acted in a strongly liberal spirit. The Government gave permission to Dr Chr. Th. de Murr, in 1790, for an exact reprint of the banned " Christianismi Restitutio " of 1553 to be printed, which was accordingly done. We are informed by Mr W. C. Lane, Librarian, that there is a copy of this reprint in the Library of Harvard University, Cam- bridge, Mass. Although this reprint was to be an exact counter- part in every respect, and is, for amateurs, some- what difficult to detect from the original, as the letterpress, and even the paper are almost identical to the first edition, still there are differences. It is not line for Une, as has been stated by some writers.^ The original edition, for instance, has thirty-three lines to the page, that of Nuremberg has thirty- six, and the lines themselves are eighty- seven millimetres long in the original, and only seventy-seven in the reprint. The Errata also is not the same, the 1553 edition having more, while the typographical characters employed are different. At the bottom of the last page, to avoid possi- bihty of error with the original, there is the date in extremely small letters of 1791. What, it may be asked, are the contents of this banned book which created such a troubling in the theological waters, and caused the death of a brilliant ' See " Adnotationes Bibliothecas Hallerianas, cum variis ad scripta Michselis Serveti pertenentibus," 4°, Erlangen, 1905. tit/cue^ /icea^j t-^^r/^P<.f co^'^/l^ . U^ ^i^u^iT ^.^^ ;,,^ Facsimile Page of the " Christianismi Restitutio' (From a Manuscript cojiy, slightly reduced) •+1 A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION 55 and educated scholar and physician, who, too, had the courage of his convictions, although he had his wavering moments, as even Luther, of a different mind had ? The " Christianismi Restitutio " comprises, so to speak, a series of disquisitions on the specula- tive and practical principles of Christianity, made up into various tractates, or books, entitled thus : — De Trinitate. Libri V. (ends at page 198). De Trinitate Divina. Dialogi duo (pages 199-286). De Fide et lustitia Regni Christi, Legis lustitiam Superantis, and De Charitate. Libri tres (pages 287-354). De Regeneration Superna, et de Regno Antichristi. Libri quatuor (pages 355-576). Epistolse Triginta ad loannem Caluinum, Geben- nensium concionatorem (pages 577-664). Signa Sexaginta regni Antichristi, et reuelatio eius, iam nunc presens (pages 664-670). De Mysterio Trinitatis et veterum disciphna, ad Phihppum Melanchthonem et eius coUegas. Apologia (pages 671-734). It was not until the year 1694 that attention was again drawn to Servetus and his book, by an EngHsh w^riter, W. Wotton. It had been stater^ Jiat he had been the first to discover the pulmonary circulation of the blood, on which Wotton remarks : " The first that I could ever find who had a distinct idea of this matter was Michael Servetus, a Spanish physician, who was burnt for Arianism at Geneva more than one 56 A TRAGEDY OF THE REFORMATION hundred and forty years ago." The writer then proceeds thus : " Well had it been for the Church of Christ if he had wholly confined himself to his own profession. His sagacity in this particular, before so much in the dark, gives us great reason to beheve, that the world might then have had just cause to have blessed his memory." ^ Wotton had, however, never seen the passage for himself in the " Christianismi Restitutio," and he is in error in making the assertion. M. Flourens also falls into the same error when he observes ^ " Servet a decouvert la circulation pulmonaire. Le fait est patent. . . . Comment Servet, ailleurs si confus, a-t-il pu rencontrer cette lucidite admirable de quel- ques pages ? Et, d'un autre cote, comment une decouverte de physiologic, de pure et de profonde physiologic, se trouve-t-elle dans un livre qui a pour titre : La Restitution du Christianisme ? " II y a longtemps que je desirais m'eclaircir sur ce dernier point. L'obligeance de mon illustre en savant confrere a ITnstitut, M. Magnin m'en a fourni tons les moyens. J'ai vu, j'ai touche le livre de Servet. Un exemplaire de ce trop fameux livre est soigneuse- ment conserve dans notre bibhotheque ; et, pour comble, cet exemplaire, Funique peut-etre qui sub- siste encore aujourd'hui, etait I'exemplaire meme de CoUadon, I'un des accusateurs suscites par I'impitoy- 1 " Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning," p. 211. 2 " Histoire de la decouverte de la circulation du sang " (1857), p. 153. 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