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most celebrated masters. Here he took his degree of Doctor of Medicine, and obtained a Professorship. At Paris he first met with Calvin, who was also pursuing his studies at the University. The fondness of both for theological speculations soon produced a friendly intercourse, which led to many conversations upon controverted points of divinity, respecting which their views appeared greatly to differ. In order to discuss some controverted question, they appointed a time and place for a conference. But Servetus, it is said, broke his engagement. Beza alleges, with a sneer, that he absented himself from cowardice: if so, it was that kind of cowardice which drove Calvin himself from France to wander in other countries under assumed names-it was the apprehension of being brought under the notice of the ecclesiastical authorities.

Quitting Paris in 1535, Servetus went to Lyons, where he was employed by the eminent printers, the Trechselii, to edite an edition of Ptolemy's Geography, which appeared in that year, and was reprinted in 1542. He also prepared a new edition of Pagninus's Hebrew Bible, with an interlined Latin version and notes, which came out in 1542. From Lyons he removed his residence to Vienne, in Dauphiny, to pursue his profession as a physician, under the high patronage of the Archbishop Pierre Paumier, who had been his associate and friend at the University of Paris, and to whom he dedicated the second edition of his Ptolemy.

It is to be remarked that, after his removal to the South of France, he dropped the name of Servetus and adopted that of Villeneuve, or Villanovanus, from the place of his birth. In his new locality his partiality for theological speculations revived, and he devoted himself with great earnestness to the study of divinity. His zeal was animated by a conviction which he appears to have cherished, that he was divinely appointed to purge Christianity from the errors and corruptions by which it was debased, both under the Papacy and by the Protestant Reformation, and restore it to its primitive simplicity and purity. Whilst occupied with his theological pursuits, he became desirous of renewing his intercourse with Calvin, who then held a high place among the Reformers, being anxious to submit to his examination his opinions on some of the Christian doctrines.

There was living at this time at Lyons a respectable bookseller, named John Frellon, secretly attached to the Reformation, and personally known to Calvin and Servetus. Through the medium of this man, the wished-for correspondence was commenced. Servetus unbosomed himself without reserve to the Reformer, and from time to time disclosed to him the opinions he had embraced upon some of the more important doctrines of the Christian revelation; and in order to let Calvin fully into his views, transmitted to him the manuscript of a work he was preparing for the press. Calvin for some time replied to his correspondent's communications, freely animadverted upon his new doctrines, and warned him, in no very gentle terms, against their consequences. Servetus vindicated himself with equal warmth, and took occasion to retort upon his monitor by some severe censures upon his "Christian Institutions." This proved to be an unpardonable offence, and Calvin at once put an end to the annoyance by declining all further correspondence. This determination was communicated in a

letter to Frellon, dated 13th February, 1546, and signed Charles Despeville (one of Calvin's assumed names), which was immediately reported to Servetus. The termination of the epistolary intercourse did not, however, allay the mental irritation it had created. The angry feelings of both writers long survived; and to the offence given by his free animadversions on the Institutions, Servetus owed that inveterate hostility with which Calvin pursued him to the end of his life.

Servetus, nothing intimidated by the censures and warnings of Calvin, proceeded with his projected work, of which one thousand copies were printed at Vienne by Balthasar Arnollet. It bore the title of Christianismi Restitutio, with the date of 1553, but without any indication of the place or the printer. At the end, however, were the letters M. S. V., standing for Michael Servetus Villanovanus. In this volume were inserted thirty letters which had been addressed by Servetus to Calvin. It seems to have been the author's determination not to expose any copies for sale either at Vienne or Lyons, but to send the whole of the impression for circulation in Protestant countries. They were accordingly packed up in six bales. Of these, five were sent directed for " M. Michel Villeneuve," to the care of Peter Merrin, type-founder at Lyons;· the sixth was directed to the bookseller Frellon, already named, for the purpose of being sent for sale to Frankfort. It is stated that Frellon, who had, no doubt, been apprised by Servetus of the nature of the contents of the bale, privately abstracted some copies, and, without delay, forwarded one to Geneva to his friend Calvin.

The letter of Calvin to Frellon will have apprized the reader that the Reformer broke off in anger his correspondence with Servetus. It soon appeared that this anger had settled down into a deadly hatred, which was never afterwards mitigated in its virulence. The letter to Frellon was dated the thirteenth of February, 1546. Calvin, within a few days afterwards, wrote to his friend Viret, minister of Lausanne, to the following effect :-"Servetus is desirous of coming to Geneva, if I will ask him. But I will never so far pledge my word; for I am determined that if ever he come here, I will not suffer him to depart alive."t

At the same period, if not on the same day, he wrote another letter to his friend Farel, in which he employs the same threatening language. After adverting to the correspondence with Servetus, which he had abruptly concluded, he proceeds-"Servetus has lately written to me, and accompanied his letter with a thick volume of his reveries and arrogant boastings, saying that I shall find in them many admirable things before unheard of. He offers to come here, if it be agreeable

* Mosheim, Neue Nachrichten von dem beruhmten Spanischen Arzte Michael Serveto, 4to, 1750, Appendix i. and ii. pp. 89, 90.

† Bolsec, Vita Joannis Calvini-Coloniæ, 1563. Bolsec states that he had seen this letter. It was addressed, Eximio Domini nostri Jesu Christi servo, Pietro Vireto Lausannensis Ecclesiæ Pastori, Symmista Charissimo.-"Servetus cupit huc venire, sed à me accersitus; Ego autem nunquam committam ut fidem meam eatenus obstrictam habeat. Jam enim constitutum habeo si veniat nun

quam pati ut salvus exeat."-Page 8.

to me. But I will not engage my word; for if hither he come, and if my authority avail, I will not suffer him to quit the place alive."*

These letters, addressed to two of his confidential friends, furnish the proper clue to the subsequent conduct of Calvin, and satisfactorily account for the avidity and virulence with which he seized every occasion to accomplish the ruin of Servetus. What those occasions were, we shall now proceed to state; and we must premise-a fact of some importance to be borne in mind-that the hostile measures of Calvin commenced long before the date of those official registers which M. Rilliet and his Scottish editor contend are to exonerate the Reformer from the obloquy and reproach which have been cast upon his name. The first circumstance to which we shall direct attention is the prosecution of Servetus at Vienne, which constitutes the first act of this tragedy. The reader must be apprized, that Servetus distinctly charged Calvin with being the author of his arrest and the cause of his condemnation by the Roman Catholics in that city; and we intend to shew that this charge is satisfactorily proved by the clearest evidence. In the year 1553, at the time the Christianismi Restitutio issued from the press, there was residing at Geneva one William Trie, a native of Lyons, who had quitted France in consequence of embracing the Reformed religion, and joined Calvin's Church. At Lyons he had a friend and relation, a Roman Catholic, of the name of Arney, who was continually urging him to return to the bosom of the Church. In the month of February, 1553, Trie addressed a letter to his correspondent, assigning his reasons for continuing among the Reformed. But, after justifying himself, he proceeds to charge upon the Catholics in the vicinity of Lyons great carelessness and indifference in respect to the Christian faith, suffering it to be attacked with impunity by a man living among them, who, in a book just printed, reviled not only the Catholic doctrines, but all those tenets which were received by all churches as lying at the foundation of Christianity itself. He then mentions the author by name, the Spanish physician, Michael Villanovanus, gives the title of his book, and states from whose press it had emanated. He further tells his correspondent that Michael Villanovanus was no other than Michael Servetus, already notorious for heretical books published by him in Germany, and condemned by the judgment of the German divines.

Trie's first letter naturally awakened the curiosity of his Catholic friend, who, as was intended, communicated the contents to the ecclesiastical authorities of Vienne. But they could take no cognizance

Servetus nuper ad me scripsit ac literis adjunxit longum volumen suorum deliriorum cum Thrasonica jactantia me stupenda et hactenus inaudita visurum. Si mihi placeat huc se venturum recipit. Sed nolo fidem meam interponere: nam si venerit, modo valeat mea authoritas, vivum exire nunquam patiar. The authenticity and the very existence of this letter have been contested and peremptorily denied. It was first mentioned in 1687 by Varillas (Révolutions arrivées dans l'Europe en matière de Religion); and Grotius stated that he had seen it in a library at Paris. Still the letter itself was not produced. At last, however, the Catholic biographer of Calvin, M. Audin, has set the question at rest. During the course of his laborious researches in the preparation of his valuable work, he discovered the document in the King's Library at Paris (Salle des Manuscrits, n. 101, 102, de la Collection Dupuy), and he has given it entire in a note. Vie de Calvin, 8vo, Paris, 1843, Tome II. pp. 325, 326.

of the bare assertions of a man, himself an apostate from the Church. The denounced book was not known to them; its publication by Michael Villanovanus was not proved; the identity of their distinguished medical neighbour with Michael Servetus was not established. Trie undertook to remove all these objections, not, indeed, from materials in his own possession, but by documents furnished for the purpose by his friend Calvin. He accordingly transmitted from Geneva the first sheet and title-page of the Christianismi Restitutio, (of which not a copy had been sold,) pointing out the marks by which it was known to be the work of Villanovanus; also a packet of manuscript papers, containing various remarks and dissertations on theological subjects, inculcating the very same opinions as the MS. book which had been sent by Villanovanus to Calvin, together with several manuscript letters in the same hand, addressed to Calvin, and tending to prove that the author of the book and Villanovanus were the same person, and that person Michael Servetus.

Trie expressly states, that all these documents were put into his hands by Calvin, and indeed could have been furnished by no one else; and they answered the intended purpose. They were communicated to the Inquisitor of the province, were made the ground of a criminal process against Servetus, and procured his condemnation to be burned alive.

Fortunately, he was able on this occasion to defeat the machinations of his enemy. He escaped from prison, probably with the connivance of some persons in authority, and the Inquisitor was obliged to content himself with burning him in effigy. If the representations contained in this statement be substantially correct, there can be but one opinion as to the character of the transaction, and of the principles and spirit of the prime mover; and that the facts are correctly stated, there is ample and irrefutable evidence to demonstrate.

Of the genuineness and authenticity of the letters of William Trie, and of the published interrogatories, and other official documents, relating to the trial of Servetus in the Archbishop's Court at Vienne, there can be no question. They were first printed by the Abbe d'Artigny from the original papers in the archives of that court; and were there preserved, accessible to the public, and available for the correction of misrepresentations, had there been any, till the Revolution of 1793, when they are thought to have been destroyed in a popular tumult.t

There are in the letters of Trie very strong grounds of suspicion that they were written at the instigation and by the dictation of Calvin. Trie had no pretension to literary attainments, and held no post in the Church to require the qualifications of a religious instructor; and yet in his correspondence with his relation at Lyons he assumes the tone and language of a theologian and controversialist, watching over the doctrinal purity of the Church, and volunteering his assistance to detect and punish the disseminator of heresy. He shews himself more

* D'Artigny, Nouveaux Memoires d'histoire de Critique et de Literature. Paris, 1749. Trie's letters are printed at length by Mosheim in his Neue Nachrichten, &c., Appendix, iv. v. vi. pp. 90, &c.

+ Audin, Vie de Calvin, Tome II. p. 318, note.

especially familiar with the literary and critical labours of Servetus, his theological speculations, and his personal history and adventures, from his residence in Germany to the publication of his last and most obnoxious work. Connecting, then, these circumstances with the consideration of Trie's position at Geneva, is it possible that any impartial observer can bring his mind to believe that he was the actual author of the letters bearing his name?

But quitting the conjectural ground, we find ourselves relieved from all doubt and uncertainty with respect to the documents which the letters of Trie were employed to transmit to the Inquisitor of Vienne. We have the positive averments of these letters that the papers which accompanied them, including the manuscript treatises which Servetus had, in confidence, submitted to Calvin, and the letters which he had addressed to him under the seal of secrecy, "sub sigillo secreti," were placed in Trie's hands by Calvin expressly for the purpose of being communicated to the Inquisitor as evidence against Servetus. The writer says, indeed, that he had great difficulty in obtaining them from the Reformer— "not," he observes, "because he was not solicitous that such execrable blasphemies should be repressed, but because it appeared to him that, as he does not bear the sword of justice, it is his duty to correct heresy by his doctrine rather than by any other means.' Calvin had, then, some misgivings as to the course he was pursuing, in lending his assistance to obtain the punishment of alleged heresy by the civil magistrate; and yet, to be revenged of a theological adversary, he could silence these scruples of his conscience. But this formed only a part of the case. All the manuscript papers in Servetus's hand-writing which Calvin possessed were sent to him in strict confidence, and in full reliance upon his personal honour; because it was well known to both parties, that the disclosure of them in France would expose the author to certain death; and yet Calvin could descend to the baseness, for so it must be designated, of betraying the sacred trust.

Nor is it the least remarkable circumstance attending these strange transactions, that the prosecution before a Catholic tribunal was thus instigated, and the evidence by which alone it could be sustained, so as to issue in the condemnation of the accused, was furnished by one who was himself a dissenter from the Catholic Church, and an assailant of its doctrines and authority, an exile from the dread of its penalties, and equally exposed, if once in the power of its agents, to its gibbets and its fires. Well, indeed, might Cardinal Turnon, one of the judges at Vienne, when made acquainted with the name of the informer, laugh in his sleeve, and exclaim-"So! this heretic prefers a charge of heresy!" Calvin, it is true, denied the imputation of being the author of the prosecution. After adverting to the charge, he expresses his surprise that it should happen that all at once there should arise so great a familiarity and friendship between him and the guardians of Popery. "Will it be believed," he asks, "that a free interchange of letters should take place between persons who differ from one another as widely as Christ from Belial?" Nothing more," he adds, can be necessary to refute so idle a calumny than the simple denial." But Mosheim, Neue Nachrichten, ubi supra, p. 93.

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+ Defensio Orthodoxa Fidei de Sacra Trinitate, &c., per Johannem Calvinum, 1554, p. 34.

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