Singularly enough, when we think of what he has to say in disparagement of the Roman Catholicpriesthood, we find him recognising inministersa power to absolve men from their sins and reconcile them to God—potestas ministris est remittendi peccata et reconciliandi homines Deo(p. 516). This, we can only conclude, is said because of what he found in the Sacred Text;61no word of which, as we know, would he gainsay. But that Michael Servetus, mystic though he was, believed in his soul that one man can absolve another of his sin, we do not think possible. He did not surmise that the fourth gospel was only written a hundred and fifty years after the death of Jesus, and by a Neo-platonic philosopher, presumably of Alexandria, fashioner, like Paul of Tarsus, of a Christology and Christianity of his own.
In illustration of the character of the man, the study of whose life engages us, the prayer with which he concludes the book on the ‘Restoration of Christianity’—for here the work does end in fact, all that follows being but by way of appendix—ought not to be overlooked. It is in immediate sequence to a renewed phillipic against the baptizers of infants, and to the following effect:—
‘Almighty Father! Father of all mercy, free us miserable men from this darkness of death, for the sake of thy Son Jesus Christ Our Lord. O Jesus Christ, thou Son of God, who died for us, help us, lest weperish! We, thy suppliants, pray to thee as thou hast taught us, saying, Hallowed be thy Name; thy kingdom come; and do thou, Lord, come! thy bride the Church, praying in the Apocalypse, says, Come! The spirits of thy children, praying here, say, Come! Let all who hear this pray and cry aloud, and with John exclaim, Come! Thou Who hast said, I come quickly (Apocalypse xxii.) wilt surely come, and with thy coming put an end to Antichrist. So be it. Amen!’
The first of the additions to the system of ‘Restored Christianity’ are the thirty letters to Calvin, which we have already analysed, in what seemed the appropriate place.
The book or chapter on the ‘Sixty signs of the reign of Antichrist, and of his presence among us,’ which follows, need not detain us. The signs are for the most part arbitrarily assumed by the writer, on the ground that his own views are the truth, those of the Papists and Reformers mistaken, false, or short of the truth. Having shown to his own satisfaction that every evil-doer, in the shape of an exalted personage who has ever appeared in the world, even from Satan, Nimrod, and Nebuchadnezzar, prefigured the Pope, and that the Pope is Antichrist, he then very logically concludes that all the dogmas and doctrines sanctioned by the Papacy are of the Devil. Under this category he places the doctrine of the Trinity in the foremost rank,then the Baptism of Infants, the Mass, Transubstantiation, all but everything, in short, characteristic of Roman Catholic Christianity. As in so many other places, he is here also ready with a prayer, which we quote as ever-recurring testimony to the sincerely, but misunderstood, pious nature of the man:—
‘O Christ Jesus, Son of God, most merciful Liberator, who hast so often freed thy people from their straits, free us too from this Babylonian Captivity of Antichrist, from his hypocrisy, his tyranny, his idolatry! Amen.’
The concluding part of the ‘Restoration of Christianity’ is an address to Melanchthon and his colleagues on the Mystery of the Trinity and the discipline of the ancient Church. We have seen that Melanchthon of all the Reformers was the one who seemed to be most taken by the theological speculations of the seven books on Trinitarian error. ‘I read Servetus a great deal,’ says he to his friend Camerarius; and if he found the work objectionable in many respects, as he says, it yet contained matter that would not be put aside, but that forced itself on his attention, and may be presumed to have influenced his final conclusions on some of the highest and most difficult doctrines of orthodox Christianity. Certain it is that the first and earlier editions of his highly popular work, the ‘Loci Theologici,’ differ notably from those that appeared subsequently to the publication of Servetus’s ‘De Erroribus Trinitatis.’ In the first and earlier editions there is nothing saidof God, whether as One or Triune, of Creation, the Incarnation, and other purely speculative matters. ‘These subjects,’ he says, ‘are wholly incomprehensible, and we more properly adore than attempt to investigate the mystery of Deity. What, I ask you,’ he continues, ‘has been the outcome of the scholastic and theological discussions that have gone on for all these ages?’ But the metaphysics of Christianity were not passed over in any such way by Servetus. His earliest work even meets us in some sort as a complementary criticism of the ‘Loci’ of Melanchthon, and that it was so held by the Reformer seems to be demonstrated by the many changes and additions to be noticed in the revised edition of the work of the year 1535, the first that was published after the appearance of the ‘De Erroribus Trinitatis’ and ‘Dialogi duo de Trinitate.’62
Finding himself very freely handled in the revised editions of the ‘Loci,’ hiserrors, as they are designated as matter of course, being assimilated to those of Paul of Samosata and others, and his references to Tertullian and the ante-Nicæan Fathers proclaimed irrelevant, Servetus retorts, and, throwing moderation to the winds, proceeds in the diatribe we have before us topour out the vials of his displeasure on the head of the great Wittemberg scholar and theologian. Our Restorer of Christianity does, it is true, see Melanchthon as somewhat nearer the mark than Luther, Calvin, and Œcolampadius; but the references made to Athanasius, Augustin, and the Fathers who came after the Council of Nicæa, are all put out of court—their conclusions are of non-avail; for they had all bowed the knee to the Beast, and bore his mark. The true Church of Christ had already forsaken the earth in their day, and their teaching on the Trinity, Baptism, the Supper, &c., was nought. Strange to say, as proceeding from a scholar, himself no indifferent master of the Latin tongue, he reproaches Melanchthon with the elegance of his Latinity. The Holy Ghost, says he, never spoke in fine phrases! (P. 674.)
It is difficult to conceive a man not utterly bereft of reason and common sense, living among Roman Catholics and in times of deadly persecution for heresy, writing in the style of Servetus on the Papacy and the most accredited tenets of Christianity. Yet is it impossible to imagine that he was blind to the danger he incurred in doing so; neither do we believe that he knowingly and advisedly staked his life against the cause he certainly had so much at heart. He may have said, indeed, that he believed he should die for his opinions; but we see him taking what he must have meant as sufficient precautions against such a contingency;and when first brought face to face with the prospect of accomplishing the destiny he foreshadowed, we find him showing anything but the recklessness of the true martyr. We presume that the security in which he had dwelt so long under his assumed name, the immunity from suspicion of heresy he had enjoyed since the publication of his first work, and the latitude allowed him by his clerical friends of Vienne in discussing the heresies of the Reformers—and it may be also some of a minor sort of their own—misled him. His seven books on erroneous conceptions of the Trinity appear to have been little, if at all, known to the ecclesiastics of France; and he probably imagined that in appealing to the press again and keeping his work from the booksellers’ shops of the country of his adoption, he would continue to be overlooked. Anything of a heretical nature he should publish now might possibly be challenged by the German and Swiss Reformers; but they were heretics in the eyes of the Viennese, and, provided he did not openly proclaim himself the author, their ill report, if perchance it ever reached France, would do the author of the ‘Restoration of Christianity’ no harm, if it did not even tend to exalt him among orthodox adherents of the Church of Rome.
Every reasonable precaution therefore taken that the new book on the Restoration of Christianity should not get abroad in France, Servetus seems to have thought himself safe against detection and pursuit. He was in fact altogether unknown, as we have said,in the place of his residence as Michael Serveto, alias Revés, of Aragon, in Spain. He was M. Michel Villeneuve, Physician of Vienne, and living under the patronage of its Archbishop. There was, however, so strong a family likeness between the ‘Seven Books and Two Dialogues on Trinitarian Error’ and the ‘Restoration of Christianity,’ or the views therein contained, that the most cursory comparison of the two works would have disclosed their common parentage, even if the writer of the ‘Restoration’ had not himself hinted plainly enough at the fact. He must have thought himself perfectly safe in his incognito at Vienne, and seems not to have dreamt of danger from abroad. There could be no reason, therefore, why Calvin, and through him the other Reformers of Switzerland, should not be made aware of what he had been about. He would in truth take his place beside or above them all as the real Restorer of Christianity, proclaimer, as he believed himself to be, of the true doctrine concerning Christ as the naturally begotten Son of God; of the Salvation to be secured by faith in him as such; of the Regeneration to be effected by baptism performed in years of discretion, and of the absurdity implied in imagining division in the essence of God, and instead of the One great Creator of heaven and earth, having a Three-headed chimæra for a Deity! In this view, as we conclude, he sent a copy of his book to Calvin; and with consequences which it will now be our business to follow to their disastrous conclusion;for all that remains of the life of Michael Servetus, cut short in the flower of his age, is entirely subordinated to influences brought to bear on it through the printing of this work and the interference of the Reformer of Geneva.63
CALVIN RECEIVES A COPY OF THE ‘CHRISTIANISMI RESTITUTIO.’
Frelon, the publisher of Lyons, whom we already know as the medium of communication between Villeneuve and Calvin in their correspondence, was probably by this time in the secret of the Spaniard. The friend of Calvin as well as intimate with Villeneuve, had he not already been confided in by the subject of our study, he must have been informed by Calvin who Michel Villeneuve really was. The correspondence had long ceased, but the intercourse between the Bookseller and the Reformer continued, and the ‘monthly parcel’ was still the vehicle for new books and literary gossip between Lyons and Geneva. By Frelon’s February dispatch of the year 1553, we therefore conclude that there went a copy of the ‘Christianismi Restitutio,’ hot from the press, specially addressed to Monsieur Jehann Calvin, Minister of Geneva. That it was accompanied by a letter from Frelon we may also presume, giving in all innocency and confidence—little recking what use would be madeof the information—those particulars connected with the printing of the work which Frelon must have had from Villeneuve, and which Calvin by and by imparted to the authorities of Lyons and Vienne.
Frelon may be supposed not yet to have read the ‘Christianismi Restitutio;’ but aware of Villeneuve’s appreciation of the Church of Rome, and trusting to the author’s own account of his work as especially hostile to the papacy, he may have thought that it would not be otherwise than well received by Calvin. It is only with Frelon as go-between that we can account for the book having reached Calvin at the early date it did, and for the particular information he possessed concerning Arnoullet as the printer, and the precautions that had been taken to keep the world ignorant of what had been done. That there was no intention of betraying trust on Frelon’s part, we need not doubt; and still less, as we believe, need we question the fact that it was not only with the author’s consent, but by his express desire, that the first copy of the ‘Christianismi Restitutio’ sent abroad went to the Reformer.
Servetus himself could at this time have had as little idea, as Frelon, of the deadly hate with which Calvin was animated towards him. They had corresponded and differed, had quarrelled and called each other opprobrious names; but controversialists did so habitually, when they got heated; and the epithets then so freely bandied about were scarcely seriously meant, and hardly ever seriously taken: they were but the seasoning tothe matter, nothing more. Servetus was in truth far too vain, and at the same time too much under the spell of Calvin, to leave him of all men else in ignorance of the important work of which he had just been happily delivered. With the earliest opportunity therefore that occurred, and before the book had been seen by another, as we believe, he sent a copy to Calvin, meaning it doubtless as a compliment—a return perhaps for the copy of the ‘Institutiones Religionis Christianæ’ we credit him with having received from its author.
It is not difficult to imagine the alarm that must at once have taken possession of Calvin’s mind when he saw the errors, the heresies, the blasphemies, as he regarded them, which in bygone years he had vainly sought to combat, now confided to the printed page and ready to be thrown broadcast on the world. And more than this: if his ire had been already roused by the strictly confidential correspondence to the extent of leading him to threaten the life of the writer, did occasion offer, what additional anger must now have entered into his heart, when, besides the offensive heretical matter of the book, he found himself taken to task, publicly schooled, declared to be in error, and his most cherished doctrines not only controverted, but proclaimed derogatory to God, and some of them even as barring the gates of heaven against all who adopted them! What, too, on second thoughts, may have been his exultation when, in perusing the book, he found his enemy committing himself so egregiously in abusingthe Papacy, and supplying evidence that would convict him at once of blasphemy against God and the Church, and, in sending him to the stake—as he foresaw it must in a Roman Catholic country—would rid the world at once of an agent of Satan, and a personal enemy!
CALVIN DENOUNCES SERVETUS THROUGH WILLIAM TRIE TO THE ECCLESIASTICAL AUTHORITIES OF LYONS.
Calvin’s mind must have been immediately made up after perusing the ‘Restoration of Christianity.’ He would denounce its author as a heretic and blasphemer to the ecclesiastical authorities of France, and—Deus ex machina—an instrument was at hand to further his purpose. There lived at this time in Geneva a certain William Trie, a native of Lyons, a convert from the Romish to the Reformed faith, and, as proselyte, well known to Calvin. Trie, it would appear, had not been left altogether at peace in his new profession of faith. He had a relation, Arneys by name, resident in Lyons, who did not cease from reproaching him by letter as a renegade, and exhorting him to think better of it, and return to the faith he had forsaken. Trie would seem to have been in the habit of showing his letters to Calvin, and of having aid and advice from him in answering them; Calvin, it was said, upon occasion even dictating the epistles in reply. But now he could use the neophyte in his own as well as the general behalf, and set about the business forthwithunder cover of a letter from the convertite Trie to his relation Arneys:—
Monsieur mon Cousin,—I have to thank you much for your fine remonstrances, and make no question of your friendly purpose in seeking to bring me back to the point from which I started. As I am not a man of letters like you, I do not enter on the points and articles you bring up against me. Not, indeed, but that with such knowledge as God has given me, I could find plenty to say in the way of reply; for, God be praised, I am not so ill-grounded as not to know that the true Church has Jesus Christ for its head, from whom it cannot be dissevered, and that there is neither life nor salvation apart from Holy Scripture. All you say to me of the Church, I therefore hold for phantasm, unless Christ, as having supreme authority, presides therein, and the Word of God is made the foundation of its teaching. Without this, all your formulas are nothing.... As to what you say about there being so much more of freedom, or latitude of opinion, with us here than with you, still we should never suffer the name of God to be blasphemed, nor evil doctrines and opinions to be spread abroad among us, without let or hinderance. And I can give you an instance which, I must say, I think tends to your confusion. It is this: that a certain heretic is countenanced among you, who ought to be burned alive, wherever he might be found. And when I say a heretic, I refer to a man who deserves to be as summarily condemned by the Papists, as he is by us. For though differing in many things, we agree in believing that in the sole essence of God there be three persons, and that his Son, who is his Eternal Wisdom, was engendered by the Father before all time, and has had [imparted to him] his Eternal virtue, which is the Holy Spirit. But when a man appears who calls the Trinity we all believe in, a Cerberus and Monster of Hell, who disgorgesall the villainies it is possible to imagine, against everything Scripture teaches of the Eternal generation of the Son of God, and mocks besides open-mouthed at all that the ancient doctors of the Church have said—I ask you in what regard you would have such a man?... I must speak freely: What shame is it not that they are put to death among you who say that one God only is to be invoked in the name of Christ; that there is no service acceptable to God other than that which He has approved by His word; and that all the pictures and images which men make are but so many idols which profane His majesty?... What shame, say I, is it not, that such persons are not only put to death in no easy and simple way, but are cruelly burned alive? Nevertheless, there is one living among you who calls Jesus Christ an idol; who would destroy the foundations of the faith; who condemns the baptism of little children, and calls the rite a diabolical invention. Where, I pray you, is the zeal to which you make pretence; where are your guardians and that fine hierarchy of which you boast so much? The man I refer to has been condemned in all the Churches you hold in such dislike, but is suffered to live unmolested among you, to the extent of even being permitted to print books full of such blasphemies as I must not speak of further. He is a Spanish-Portuguese, Michael Servetus by name, though he now calls himself Villeneuve, and practises as a physician. He lived for some time at Lyons, and now resides at Vienne, where the book I speak of was printed by one Balthasar Arnoullet. That you may not think I speak of mere hearsay I send you the first few leaves as a sample, for your assurance. You say that our books, which contain nothing but the purity and simplicity of Holy Scripture, infect the world; yet you brew poisons among you which go to destroy the Scriptures and all you hold as Christianity. I have been longer than I thought; but the enormity of the case causes me to exceedI need not, I imagine, go into particulars; I only pray you to put it somewhat seriously to your conscience, and conclude for yourself, to the end that when you appear before the Great Judge you may not be condemned. For, to say it in a word, we have here no subject of difference or debate, and ask but this: That God himself may be heard. Concluding for the present, I pray that He may give you ears to hear, and a heart to obey, having you at all times in His holy keeping.(Signed)Guillaume Trie.Geneva, this 26th of February [1553].
Monsieur mon Cousin,—I have to thank you much for your fine remonstrances, and make no question of your friendly purpose in seeking to bring me back to the point from which I started. As I am not a man of letters like you, I do not enter on the points and articles you bring up against me. Not, indeed, but that with such knowledge as God has given me, I could find plenty to say in the way of reply; for, God be praised, I am not so ill-grounded as not to know that the true Church has Jesus Christ for its head, from whom it cannot be dissevered, and that there is neither life nor salvation apart from Holy Scripture. All you say to me of the Church, I therefore hold for phantasm, unless Christ, as having supreme authority, presides therein, and the Word of God is made the foundation of its teaching. Without this, all your formulas are nothing.... As to what you say about there being so much more of freedom, or latitude of opinion, with us here than with you, still we should never suffer the name of God to be blasphemed, nor evil doctrines and opinions to be spread abroad among us, without let or hinderance. And I can give you an instance which, I must say, I think tends to your confusion. It is this: that a certain heretic is countenanced among you, who ought to be burned alive, wherever he might be found. And when I say a heretic, I refer to a man who deserves to be as summarily condemned by the Papists, as he is by us. For though differing in many things, we agree in believing that in the sole essence of God there be three persons, and that his Son, who is his Eternal Wisdom, was engendered by the Father before all time, and has had [imparted to him] his Eternal virtue, which is the Holy Spirit. But when a man appears who calls the Trinity we all believe in, a Cerberus and Monster of Hell, who disgorgesall the villainies it is possible to imagine, against everything Scripture teaches of the Eternal generation of the Son of God, and mocks besides open-mouthed at all that the ancient doctors of the Church have said—I ask you in what regard you would have such a man?... I must speak freely: What shame is it not that they are put to death among you who say that one God only is to be invoked in the name of Christ; that there is no service acceptable to God other than that which He has approved by His word; and that all the pictures and images which men make are but so many idols which profane His majesty?... What shame, say I, is it not, that such persons are not only put to death in no easy and simple way, but are cruelly burned alive? Nevertheless, there is one living among you who calls Jesus Christ an idol; who would destroy the foundations of the faith; who condemns the baptism of little children, and calls the rite a diabolical invention. Where, I pray you, is the zeal to which you make pretence; where are your guardians and that fine hierarchy of which you boast so much? The man I refer to has been condemned in all the Churches you hold in such dislike, but is suffered to live unmolested among you, to the extent of even being permitted to print books full of such blasphemies as I must not speak of further. He is a Spanish-Portuguese, Michael Servetus by name, though he now calls himself Villeneuve, and practises as a physician. He lived for some time at Lyons, and now resides at Vienne, where the book I speak of was printed by one Balthasar Arnoullet. That you may not think I speak of mere hearsay I send you the first few leaves as a sample, for your assurance. You say that our books, which contain nothing but the purity and simplicity of Holy Scripture, infect the world; yet you brew poisons among you which go to destroy the Scriptures and all you hold as Christianity. I have been longer than I thought; but the enormity of the case causes me to exceedI need not, I imagine, go into particulars; I only pray you to put it somewhat seriously to your conscience, and conclude for yourself, to the end that when you appear before the Great Judge you may not be condemned. For, to say it in a word, we have here no subject of difference or debate, and ask but this: That God himself may be heard. Concluding for the present, I pray that He may give you ears to hear, and a heart to obey, having you at all times in His holy keeping.
(Signed)Guillaume Trie.
Geneva, this 26th of February [1553].
This on the face of it is no letter from one young man to another. It is the artful production of the zealot and bigot in one, well informed of the antecedents of the man he is denouncing, and but poorly disguised by the name under which he is writing. The letter from first to last is Calvin’s, and was accompanied by the two first leaves of the newly printed book, the ‘Christianismi Restitutio,’ containing the title and table of contents, sufficient, as Calvin knew full well, to alarm the hierarchs of Papal Christianity, which in their estimation needed no restoration, and was indeed susceptible of none; whilst any discussion of such transcendental topics as the Trinity, Faith in Christ, Regeneration, Baptism, and the Reign of Antichrist, smacked at best of schism when undertaken by a layman even of orthodox views, but became flat blasphemy when treated by such a one in any adverse sense.
Cardinal Tournon, at this time Archbishop of Lyons, was the implacable enemy of all innovators, and in hiszeal for what he believed to be the truth well disposed to resort to the severest measures against the spread of heresy, which to him and his co-religionists, then as now, was most especially embodied in the principles of Luther and Calvin’s Reformation. Exposed as were the south and east of France from their contiguity with Switzerland to infection of the kind, Tournon had not relied exclusively on himself and his own subordinate clergy as watchers over the faith of the district under his charge. He had further summoned to his aid one of the regularly trained inquisitors from Rome, Matthew Ory by name, who designated himself:Pénitencier du Saint Siége Apostolique, et Inquisiteur général du Royaume de France et dans toutes les Gaules. This man, as we may imagine, had a real relish for his calling and was watchfulness itself in ferreting out heresy, as, with all of his kind, he was relentless in pursuing it to the death.
The notable letter of Trie to Arneys was immediately brought under the notice of the clergy of Lyons, as Calvin intended and foresaw that it would be; and by one of them, was communicated to Ory, the Inquisitor, and to Bautier, Vicar-General, and Canon of the Cathedral Church of Lyons. Here was work of more than common interest to the Inquisitor, who proceeded forthwith, under date of March 12, 1553, to write to Villars, Auditor of Cardinal Tournon, absent at the moment from Lyons, but no farther away than his Château of Roussillon, a few miles distant from Vienne.
The letter of Ory is highly characteristic of the jesuitical, stealthy, and underhand style of dealing with all that belongs to free thought and open speech. Premising a few sentences on indifferent and private matters, he comes anon to the real gist of his letter and says: ‘I would advise you in all secrecy of some books that are now being imprinted at Vienne, containing execrable blasphemies against the divinity of Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity, the author and printer of which are both living among you. The Vicar-General and I have seen one of the chapters of this publication, and are of like mind about the propriety of your taking an early opportunity of conferring with Monseigneur (the Cardinal) and making him more particularly acquainted with the business; so that on your return home the necessary orders may be given by Monseigneur to M. Maugiron, the Vibailly of Vienne, and the police. So much at this time M. the Vicar-General desires that you should know through me; but you are to proceed so secretly that your left hand shall not know what your right is about—mais si secrètement que vostre main senextre n’entend point ce que c’est. Only whisper in the ear of Monseigneur and inform us if he has any knowledge of a certain Villeneufve, a physician, and one Arnoullet, a bookseller, both of Vienne, for it is to them that I refer.’
On the following day the Vicar Bautier left Lyons for Roussillon and saw the Cardinal, who immediately sent a letter to Louis Arzelier, Grand Vicar of the Seeof Vienne, summoning him to Roussillon. After a long conference, Arzelier was ordered to return to Vienne and deliver an autograph letter from the Cardinal to M. de Maugiron, Lieutenant-General of Dauphiny, in which however there is nothing said of the affair he has at heart (for this he will only trust to be communicated by word of mouth by M. the Vicar to M. the Lieutenant); but appealing to the known zeal of his correspondent for the honour of God and his church, and adding, in anticipation of what he knew would follow, a request that he should immediately summon the Vibailly to his assistance, in order that he, on his part, might undertake what M. the Vicar might see necessary to be done. Two things only are especially to be required of the Vibailly: the one that he use extreme dispatch, the other that the business be kept as secret as possible. Roussillon, March 15, 1553.
Acting at once on the advice of the Cardinal, Maugiron sent to the Vibailly, bidding him hold himself ready to act in a certain unspecified contingency. Next day, March 16, the two Vicars in company with the Vibailly proceeded to the office of the Sieur Peyrolles, Lay official of the Primate, before whom Bautier, as the party immediately interested in virtue of his office, made a deposition to the effect that within the last few days letters had been received from Geneva addressed to a personage resident in Lyons, in which great surprise was expressed that a certain MichaelServetus, otherwise called Villanovanus, should be then living unmolested at Vienne; that four printed leaves of a book written by the said Villanovanus had also been forwarded from Geneva and examined by brother Ory, Inquisitor of the Faith, by whom they had been found heretical; and, to conclude, that the Cardinal Archbishop, having been made acquainted with the matter, had written to M. de Maugiron requesting him to take cognizance of the business with all secrecy and dispatch. Bautier, at the same time, put in the Geneva letter of Trie, and the four leaves of the printed book entitled ‘Christianismi Restitutio,’ in support of his allegations; the letter of the Inquisitor and that of the Cardinal to Maugiron being added as further documents on which the Procurator of the King and the Justiciary were to proceed.
The judicial authorities of Vienne lost no time in obeying their instructions. On the same day they met at the house of M. Maugiron, and having consulted with him, they sent to M. Michel de Villeneuve, desiring his presence and saying they had something to communicate to him. Being from home when the message arrived, and not appearing for a couple of hours, the authorities were fearful that he had been somehow warned of the danger which threatened him and so had fled; but their fears were unfounded: he came at length, and with a perfectly confident air, it is said. The authorities informed him that they had certain informations against him which would make it necessaryfor them to visit and search his lodgings for books or papers of a heretical tendency. Villeneuve replied that he had lived long at Vienne on good terms with the clergy and professors of theology, and had never until now been suspected of heresy; but he was quite ready to open his rooms to them or those they might delegate, to make what search they pleased.
The Grand Vicar and the Vibailly, accompanied by the Secretary of the Cardinal Governor of Dauphiny, then proceeded with Villeneuve to his apartments, which adjoined and were among the dependencies of the archiepiscopal palace, and made a particular examination of his papers; but they found nothing more compromising than a couple of copies of his apology or pamphlet against the Parisian Doctors, of which they took possession.
Next day, the 17th, the Judges made a perquisition in the house of Arnoullet, the publisher and printer, in his absence, he being away at the time on business at Toulouse; and there also they had Geroult, the superintendent of the printing establishment, brought before them. After a lengthened interrogatory of the foreman, in which nothing was elicited, they proceeded to search the house and printing office, examining Arnoullet’s papers minutely, but without finding a word to compromise him in any way. The workmen on the establishment were then severally examined. They were shown the printed leaves of the ‘Christianismi Restitutio’ and asked if they knew anything of thebook of which the leaves were a part; or if they recognised the type, or could give any information as to the books they had had a hand in composing or printing during the last eighteen months or so. But they all agreed in saying that the four leaves shown them had not been printed in the office; and among all the books that had issued from their presses during the last two years, a list of which was supplied, there was not one in the octavo form. The search and inquiry over, the officials had the entire staff of the printing establishment brought into their presence, and cautioned them against saying a word of all they had been asked about, on pain of being declared suspected or even convicted of heresy and punished accordingly.
On the 18th, Arnoullet, having but just returned from Toulouse, was visited and examined; but all the papers about him being found in order and his replies in complete conformity with those of his manager Geroult, he too was dismissed. The authorities found themselves at fault, but by no means satisfied that the information they had had from Geneva was groundless. An adjournment was therefore resolved on, an informal consultation being, however, held meantime at the archiepiscopal palace of Vienne. And it is not perhaps without significance that it is only now that we find the archbishop of Vienne, Pierre Paumier, named in connection with the proceedings, and his palace spoken of as the place of assembly. It was at this moment in fact that Paumier had the first intimationof what was going on. At the meeting it was decided that nothing had been discovered sufficiently positive to warrant the arrest of anyone.
The archbishop of Vienne, once made a party to the proceedings, appears to have taken up the case warmly. The known protector and frequent associate of Villeneuve the physician, he seems to have thought it incumbent on him to show the world that he had no sympathy with heresy, and nothing in common with a suspected heretic. He accordingly wrote immediately to Brother Ory, the Inquisitor, begging him to come to Vienne and have some conversation with him on matters touching the Faith. In the course of the interview which followed, Ory suggested that, in order to have further or more satisfactory information against Villeneuve, Arneys should be made to write again to his relation Trie at Geneva, and ask him to send the whole of the printed book from which the leaves already forwarded had been cut. Returning to Lyons, Ory himself, we must presume, dictated the letter which Arneys was required to write to his cousin Trie. This epistle unhappily has not reached us. It would have been both curious and interesting to have had the Inquisitor of three centuries and a half ago brought so immediately before us, as we should there have had him. But as Ory doubtless led the pen at Lyons, so did Calvin assuredly guide it again at Geneva in reply; and as his letter has been preserved, we come face to face with one who is still more interesting to us thanbrother Matthew Ory, Inquisitor of the kingdom of France and all the Gauls—with the great head of the Reformed Churches of France and Switzerland, at the zenith of his power, though not without misgivings as to its stability, zealous as brother Ory could have been in upholding the Faith as he apprehended it, and as ruthless as Cardinal Tournon in dealing with all who called it in question. The letter is to the following effect:—
Monsieur mon Cousin!—When I wrote the letter you have thought fit to impart to those who are taxed therein with indifference and neglect, I thought not that the matter would be taken up so seriously as it seems to be. My sole purpose was to show you the fine zeal and devotion of those who call themselves pillars of the Church, suffering as they do such disorder among themselves, yet persecuting so cruelly poor Christians who only desire to obey God in simplicity. As the instance was so notable, however, and I was advised of it, an opportunity presented itself, as I thought, of touching on it, the matter falling, as it seemed, fairly within the scope of my writing. But as you have shown to others the letter I meant for yourself alone, God grant that it tend to purge Christianity of such filth, of pestilence so mortal to man! If your people are really so anxious to look into the matter as you say, there will be no difficulty in furnishing you, besides the printed book you ask for, with documents enough to carry conviction to their minds. For I shall put into your hands some two dozen pieces written by him who is in question, in which some of his heresies are set prominently forth. Did you rely on the printed book by itself, he might deny it as his; but this he could not do if his own handwriting were brought against him. In this way, the parties you speak of, having the thing completely proven, will be without excuse ifthey hesitate further, or put off taking the steps required. All the pieces I send you now—the great volume as well as the letters in the handwriting of the author—were produced before the printed work; but I have to own to you that I had great difficulty in getting these documents from Mons. Calvin. Not that he would not have such execrable blasphemies put down; but that, as he does not wield the sword of justice himself, he thinks it his duty rather to repress heresy by sound teaching, than to pursue it by force. I importuned him, however, so much, showing him the reproaches I might incur did he not come to my aid, that he consented at length to entrust me with the contents of my parcel to you. For the rest, I hope, when the case shall have been somewhat farther advanced, to obtain from him something like a whole ream of paper, which the fine fellow—le Galand—has had printed. At the moment, I fancy you are furnished with evidence enough, and that there need be no more beating about the bush, before seizing on his person and putting him on his trial. For my own part, I pray God to open the eyes of those who speak of us so evilly, to the end that they may more truly judge of the motives by which we are actuated.As I learn by your letter that you will not trouble me further with the old proposals, I, on my side, will do nothing to displease you; hoping nevertheless, that God will lead you to see that I have not, without due consideration, taken the step you disapprove. Recommending myself to your favour, and praying God to give you his, &c., I remain,(Signed)Guillaume Trie.Geneva, this 26th of March.
Monsieur mon Cousin!—When I wrote the letter you have thought fit to impart to those who are taxed therein with indifference and neglect, I thought not that the matter would be taken up so seriously as it seems to be. My sole purpose was to show you the fine zeal and devotion of those who call themselves pillars of the Church, suffering as they do such disorder among themselves, yet persecuting so cruelly poor Christians who only desire to obey God in simplicity. As the instance was so notable, however, and I was advised of it, an opportunity presented itself, as I thought, of touching on it, the matter falling, as it seemed, fairly within the scope of my writing. But as you have shown to others the letter I meant for yourself alone, God grant that it tend to purge Christianity of such filth, of pestilence so mortal to man! If your people are really so anxious to look into the matter as you say, there will be no difficulty in furnishing you, besides the printed book you ask for, with documents enough to carry conviction to their minds. For I shall put into your hands some two dozen pieces written by him who is in question, in which some of his heresies are set prominently forth. Did you rely on the printed book by itself, he might deny it as his; but this he could not do if his own handwriting were brought against him. In this way, the parties you speak of, having the thing completely proven, will be without excuse ifthey hesitate further, or put off taking the steps required. All the pieces I send you now—the great volume as well as the letters in the handwriting of the author—were produced before the printed work; but I have to own to you that I had great difficulty in getting these documents from Mons. Calvin. Not that he would not have such execrable blasphemies put down; but that, as he does not wield the sword of justice himself, he thinks it his duty rather to repress heresy by sound teaching, than to pursue it by force. I importuned him, however, so much, showing him the reproaches I might incur did he not come to my aid, that he consented at length to entrust me with the contents of my parcel to you. For the rest, I hope, when the case shall have been somewhat farther advanced, to obtain from him something like a whole ream of paper, which the fine fellow—le Galand—has had printed. At the moment, I fancy you are furnished with evidence enough, and that there need be no more beating about the bush, before seizing on his person and putting him on his trial. For my own part, I pray God to open the eyes of those who speak of us so evilly, to the end that they may more truly judge of the motives by which we are actuated.
As I learn by your letter that you will not trouble me further with the old proposals, I, on my side, will do nothing to displease you; hoping nevertheless, that God will lead you to see that I have not, without due consideration, taken the step you disapprove. Recommending myself to your favour, and praying God to give you his, &c., I remain,
(Signed)Guillaume Trie.
Geneva, this 26th of March.
The art and purpose so plainly to be seen in the foregoing letter need not be dwelt on. Anxious toescape appearing in the odious light of informer, Calvin was still eager to furnish the zealots of the Church he had quitted himself, and by the heads of which he was looked on as standing in the foremost ranks of heresy, with evidence which he believed would assuredly bring the man he held in despite to a cruel death by fire. But Ory, whose special business was the prosecution of heretics, and who knew much better than Calvin what constituted evidence against them, was aware that the MS. book and the two dozen pieces, written as said by Michael Servetus, were not adequate to convict Michel Villeneuve of the charge against him. Handwriting, it seems, could be put out of court as evidence in cases of heresy, through simple denial on oath by the party accused. The point upon which evidence was particularly required, by Ory and his coadjutors, was in fact theprintingof the book entitled the ‘Restoration of Christianity;’ and none of the pieces furnished gave any assurance either that Michel Villeneuve was the writer, or Arnoullet and Geroult the printers of this. Arneys must therefore be desired to write to Cousin Trie once more, and ask him to do his best with M. Calvin to furnish evidence of the kind required. So anxious indeed were Ory and his friends for this, that they despatched this, the third letter of Arneys to Trie, by a special messenger, who was ordered to wait and bring back the answer with all speed.
The answer came in due course, hardly, however,so soon as we can fancy it was looked for, but to the following effect:—
Monsieur mon Cousin!—I had hoped I should satisfy your demands, in essentials at least, by sending you, as I did, the handwriting of the author of the book. With my last letter, indeed, you will find an acknowledgement by the man himself of his real name, which he had disguised, and the excuse he makes for calling himself Villeneuve, when his proper name is Servetus or Revés. For the rest, I promise you, God willing, to furnish you, if need be, not only with the entire book he has just had printed, but with another in his handwriting, in addition to the letters [already forwarded]. I should indeed have already sent the book [in MS.] which I refer to, had it been in this city; but it has been at Lausanne these two years past. Had M. Calvin kept it by him, I believe he would long ago, for all it is worth, have returned it to the writer; but having lent it for perusal to another, it was, as it seems, retained by him. I have formerly heard Monsieur [Calvin] say that, having given answers sufficient to satisfy any reasonable man, to no purpose, he had at length left off reading more of the babble and foolish reveries, of which he soon had had more than enough, there being nothing but reiteration of the same song over and over again. And that you may understand that it is not of yesterday that this unhappy person persists in troubling the Church, striving ever to lead the ignorant into the same confusion as himself, it is now more than twenty-four years since he was rejected and expelled by the chief Churches of Germany; had he remained in that country, indeed, he would never have left it alive. Among the letters of Œcolampadius, you will see that the first and second are addressed to him under his proper name and designation:Serveto Hispano neganti Christum esse Dei Filium, consubstantialem Patri—To Servetus the Spaniard,denying that Christ is the Son of God, consubstantial with the Father. Melanchthon also speaks of him in some passages of his writings. But methinks you have really warrant enough in what is already sent you to dive deeper into the matter, and to put him on his trial. As to the printers of the book, I did not send you the table of contents as any proof that Balthasar Arnoullet and William Geroult, his brother-in-law, were the parties; but of the fact that they were so we are well assured, nor indeed will it be possible for them to deny it. The printing was probably done at the author’s expense, and he may have taken the impression into his own keeping; he must have done so, indeed, if you find it has left the premises of the persons named. I rather think I omitted to say that when you have done with the epistles, I beg you will be good enough to return them to me. And now, commending myself to your good grace, and praying God so to guide you that you may do all that is agreeable in his sight,I am yours, &c.,Guillaume Trie.Geneva, this last day of March, 1553.
Monsieur mon Cousin!—I had hoped I should satisfy your demands, in essentials at least, by sending you, as I did, the handwriting of the author of the book. With my last letter, indeed, you will find an acknowledgement by the man himself of his real name, which he had disguised, and the excuse he makes for calling himself Villeneuve, when his proper name is Servetus or Revés. For the rest, I promise you, God willing, to furnish you, if need be, not only with the entire book he has just had printed, but with another in his handwriting, in addition to the letters [already forwarded]. I should indeed have already sent the book [in MS.] which I refer to, had it been in this city; but it has been at Lausanne these two years past. Had M. Calvin kept it by him, I believe he would long ago, for all it is worth, have returned it to the writer; but having lent it for perusal to another, it was, as it seems, retained by him. I have formerly heard Monsieur [Calvin] say that, having given answers sufficient to satisfy any reasonable man, to no purpose, he had at length left off reading more of the babble and foolish reveries, of which he soon had had more than enough, there being nothing but reiteration of the same song over and over again. And that you may understand that it is not of yesterday that this unhappy person persists in troubling the Church, striving ever to lead the ignorant into the same confusion as himself, it is now more than twenty-four years since he was rejected and expelled by the chief Churches of Germany; had he remained in that country, indeed, he would never have left it alive. Among the letters of Œcolampadius, you will see that the first and second are addressed to him under his proper name and designation:Serveto Hispano neganti Christum esse Dei Filium, consubstantialem Patri—To Servetus the Spaniard,denying that Christ is the Son of God, consubstantial with the Father. Melanchthon also speaks of him in some passages of his writings. But methinks you have really warrant enough in what is already sent you to dive deeper into the matter, and to put him on his trial. As to the printers of the book, I did not send you the table of contents as any proof that Balthasar Arnoullet and William Geroult, his brother-in-law, were the parties; but of the fact that they were so we are well assured, nor indeed will it be possible for them to deny it. The printing was probably done at the author’s expense, and he may have taken the impression into his own keeping; he must have done so, indeed, if you find it has left the premises of the persons named. I rather think I omitted to say that when you have done with the epistles, I beg you will be good enough to return them to me. And now, commending myself to your good grace, and praying God so to guide you that you may do all that is agreeable in his sight,
I am yours, &c.,Guillaume Trie.
Geneva, this last day of March, 1553.
It must still be needless to say that neither is this any letter of young Trie. What could he have known of the printed works of Michael Serveto, alias Revés, or of his being condemned by the Churches of Germany—which by the way he never was—or of his expulsion from that country—which is also against the fact? What intimation could he have had that Œcolampadius had written to Servetus, the Spaniard, combating his heresies and that Melanchthon had mentioned him in sundry passages of his work, the ‘Loci communes’? Calvin, on the other hand, was not only wellinformed of much that had happened to Michael Servetus from the date of their meeting in Paris in 1534, even to the hour in which he was now writing by the hand of William Trie, but was himself the author of some of the statements put into the mouth of that worthy.64
ARREST OF SERVETUS AND ARNOULLET, THE PUBLISHER.—THE TRIAL FOR HERESY AT VIENNE—SERVETUS IS SUFFERED TO ESCAPE FROM PRISON.
April 4. After the receipt of Trie’s third epistle, a solemn council was convened within the Archiepiscopal Château of Roussillon, at which were present the Cardinal Tournon, the Archbishop of Vienne, the two Grand Vicars, the Inquisitor Ory, and many Ecclesiastics and Doctors in Divinity. There and then the letters of Trie, the printed leaves of the ‘Christianismi Restitutio,’ and more than twenty epistles addressed to John Calvin, were examined with every care and attention, all being reported the work of Michael Servetus, alias Revés, living at Vienne under the assumed name of Michel Villeneuve. The documents being held of the most seriously compromising character, the Cardinal Archbishop of Lyons and the Archbishop of Vienne, with the concurrence of the whole assembly, now gave orders for the arrest of Michel Villeneuve, Physician, and Balthasar Arnoullet, bookseller, to answer for their faith on certain charges and informations to be laid against them.
The Archbishop of Vienne returned home in the afternoon in company with his Grand Vicar, Arzelier, and having summoned the Vibailly de la Cour to the Palace, informed him of the resolutions come to and the pleasure of the Cardinal. In order that nothing might transpire, and no understanding be come to between the parties incriminated, the Vicar and Vibailly agreed so to arrange matters that Villeneuve and Arnoullet should be arrested at the same moment, but imprisoned separately. The Vibailly accordingly proceeded to the house of Arnoullet, and having sent in a message desiring him to bring a copy of the New Testament but just printed, Arnoullet was arrested on the spot, and carried off to the Archiepiscopal prison. Proceeding next to the house of M. de Maugiron, the Lieutenant-Governor of Dauphiny, then indisposed, and on whom it was known that Doctor Villeneuve was in attendance, the Vibailly informed the Doctor that there were several prisoners sick and some wounded in the hospital of the royal prison who required his services, as was indeed the case. Doctor Villeneuve replied that independently of his profession making it imperative on him immediately to obey such a summons, he still took pleasure in being so usefully employed. He therefore went at once; and whilst engaged in his visit, the Vibailly sent requesting the presence of the Grand Vicar. On his arrival Villeneuve was informed that certain charges having been made and informations laid against him, he must consent tohold himself a prisoner until he had given satisfactory answers to the questions that would be put to him. The gaoler, Anton Bonin, was then summoned and enjoined to guard the prisoner strictly, but to treat him respectfully, according to his quality. He was to be allowed his personal attendant or valet, Benoît Perrin, a lad fifteen years of age, to wait on him; and his friends were to have free access to him.
April 5. Archbishop Paumier now hastened to inform Brother Ory, the inquisitor, that they had Villeneuve in custody, and begged him to come immediately to Vienne. Ory, like a vulture swooping on the carcass, is said to have made such haste—pressa tellement sa monture—that he arrived in an incredibly short space of time at Vienne. As it was then about the hour of the midday meal, however, the Archbishop and he, thinking it well to recruit the inward man before entering on the serious business they had on hand, sate themselves quietly down to table and dined. The cravings of nature satisfied, Arzelier the Vicar-General, and De la Cour the Vibailly of Vienne, were summoned to the Palace—the secular in aid of the spiritual arm—and the party proceeded to the prison.
Having had Michel Villeneuve, sworn physician, and now prisoner at their instance, brought before them in the Criminal Court of the Palace, they proceeded to question him on matters of which they at the moment knew more than he, though we may well believe his fears pointed in the true direction.Informing the prisoner, as a preliminary, that he was bound to answer truthfully to the interrogatories put to him, which he promised to do, he was then sworn on the Gospels and asked his name, his age, his place of birth, and his profession.
His name, he replied, was Michel Villeneuve, doctor in medicine, forty-four years of age, and a native of Tudela, in the kingdom of Navarre, residing for the present, as he had done during the last twelve years or thereabouts, at Vienne.
Asked where and in what places he had lived since he left his native country; he said that some seven or eight and twenty years ago, before the Emperor Charles V. left Spain for Italy, in view of his coronation, he had entered the service of brother John Quintana, the Confessor of the Emperor, being then no more than fifteen or sixteen years old; that he had gone to Italy in the suite of the Emperor, and been present at his coronation at Bologna. That he then accompanied Quintana to Germany, in which country he resided for about a year, when his patron died; since which time he had lived without a master, first at Paris, having had lodgings in the Collége de Calvi, and then in the Collége des Lombards, engaged in the study of Mathematics. From Paris he had gone to Lyons, and spent some time between that city and Avignon, but had finally settled at Charlieu, where, having lived practising his profession, for about three years, he had finally been induced by Messeigneurs the Archbishop ofVienne and the Archbishop of Maurice, to quit Charlieu and establish himself at Vienne, in which city, as said, he had lived since then to the present time.
Asked whether he had not had several books printed for him? he replied that at Paris he had a book printed, the title of which was:Syruporum universa ratio ad Galeni censuram disposita—a treatise on Syrups according to the principles of Galen; and a pamphlet entitled:In Leonartum Fussinum, Apologia pro Symphoriano Campeggio—an apologetic address to Leonard Fuchs for Symphorian Campeccius. He had further edited and annotated the ‘Geography of Ptolemy.’ Other than these, the works now named, he had written none, nor had he had any others printed for him; but he admitted that he had corrected the text of many more, without adding to them anything of his own, or taking from them anything of their writers.
Being now shown two sheets of paper, printed on both sides and having marginal annotations in writing, and admonished that the matter of the writing might bring him into trouble, he was informed, further, that he, if he were the writer, might be able to explain or to say in what sense he understood what was there set down. One of the propositions in the writing was particularly pointed out to this effect:Justificantur ergo Parvuli sine Christi fide, prodigium, monstrum dæmonum!—Infants therefore are justified without faith in Christ, a prodigy, a portent of devils! and he was informed that if he understood the words to say thatinfants had not by their regeneration [through baptism, understood] received the perfect grace of Christ and so were acquitted of Adam’s sin, this would be to contemn Christ. He was therefore required to declare how he understood the words. He replied that he firmly believed that the grace of Christ, imparted by baptism, overcame the sin of Adam, as St. Paul declares (Rom. v.): ‘Where sin abounds there doth grace more abound;’ and that infants are saved without faith acquired, but through faith then infused by the Holy Ghost.
Having shown him how necessary it was that he should alter several words in the written matter, he promised to do so, saying however that he was not prepared at a moment’s notice to say whether the writing was his or not. It was very long, indeed, since he had written anything. On examining the character particularly, however, he now thinks it must be his. In all that concerns the faith he yet begs to say that he submits himself entirely to his holy mother the Church, from whose teachings he has never wished to swerve. If there be some things in the papers before the Court open to objection, he believes he must have written them inconsiderately, or only advanced them as subjects for discussion. He then goes on to say that, having now looked closely at the writing on the two leaves, he acknowledges it as his, having the opportunity at the same time of explaining the sense in which he would have it understood. If there were anything else, heconcluded, that was found objectionable or that savoured of false doctrine, he was ready on having it pointed out to him to alter and amend it. The two leaves paged from 421 to 424, and treating of baptism,65were then ordered to be marked by the clerk of the Court, and with the other papers produced, to be taken under his charge; after which the sitting was suspended.
April 6. Sworn as before upon the Gospels to speak the truth (and from what we know and have just seen feeling assured how indifferently he had hitherto kept his word), Villeneuve was further interrogated as follows: 1st. How he understands a proposition in an epistle numbered xv., wherein the Living Faith and the Dead Faith are treated of in terms that seem perfectly Catholic, and wholly opposed to the errors of Geneva, the words being these,Mori autem sensim dicitur in nobis Fides quando tolluntur vestimenta—now faith dies perceptibly in us when its vestments are thrown off? To this he answered that he believed the vestments of faith to be works of charity and mercy. 2nd. Shown another epistle, numbered xvi., on Free will, in opposition to those who hold that the will is not free, he is asked how he understands what is there said? With tears in his eyes he replies, ‘Sirs, 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; but from what part of Spain I know 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. Having read it when I was very young—not more than fifteen or sixteen—I thought that the writer said many things that were good, that were better treated by him, indeed, than by others.’ Quitting Germany for France, without taking any books with him, Villeneuve went on to say, that he had gone to Paris with a view to study mathematics and medicine, and had lived there, as already said, for some years. Whilst residing there, having heard Monsieur Calvin spoken of as a learned man, he had, out of curiosity, and without knowing him personally, entered into correspondence with him, but begged him to hold his letters as private and confidential—sub sigillo secreti. ‘I, on my part,’ he proceeds, ‘seeking brotherly correction, as it were, but saying that if he could not wean me from my opinions or I wean him from his, I should not feel myself bound to accept his conclusions. On which I proposed certain weighty questions for discussion. He replied to me shortly after, and seeing that my questions were to the same effect as those discussed by Servetus, he said that I must myself be Servetus. To this I answered that, though I was not Servetus, nevertheless, and that I might continue the discussion, I 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. With this understanding we interchanged many letters, but finally fell out, got angry, and began to abuse each other. Matters having come to this pass, I ceased writing, and 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 will to dogmatise, or to substitute aught of mine that might be found adverse to the Church or the Christian Religion.’
The prisoner being shown a third epistle numbered xvii., on the Baptism of Infants, in which he says, ‘Parvuli carnis non sunt capaces doni Spiritus—Infants as mere carnal beings are incapable of receiving the gift of the Spirit,’—was desired to say in what sense he meant these words to be taken. He answered that he had formerly been of opinion that infants were incompetent in the matter, as stated; but that he had long given up such an opinion and now desired to range himself with the teaching of the Church. Shown a fourth epistle, numbered xviii., its heading or argument being, ‘Of the Trinity, and the Generation of the Son of God, according to Servetus,’ he acknowledged it as having been written by him in the course of his discussion with Calvin, when he was assuming the part of Servetus; but as he had said of the former letter, No. xvii., so he says of this, that he does not now believe what is there set down, everything in theletter having only been propounded to learn what Calvin might have to advance in opposition to the views set forth. A fifth letter, the burden of which is, ‘Of the glorified flesh of Christ absorbed in the Glory of the Deity more fully than it was at the Transfiguration,’ being handed to him, he said that when he addressed his correspondent on this subject, he felt at greater liberty than usual to say all he thought of it individually, and was now ready to answer any question put to him bearing upon it. None, however, were asked.
But the letters to Calvin were not yet done with. A whole bundle of them, fourteen in number, was exhibited, and the prisoner informed that the judges found much matter there for which very particular answers would be required. Having looked at the letters, the prisoner said he saw that they were all addressed to Calvin long ago, and with a view to learn from him what he thought of the questions raised, as already said. But he added that he was by no means now disposed to abide by all he had written of old, save and except in respect of such views as might be approved by the Church and his Judges. He was therefore ready to answer to each particular head on which he might be interrogated. This the Judges proposed to do at their next meeting, and meantime having ordered a schedule of the principal points upon which there appeared to be error against the faith to be drawn up from the writings, all the documents being dulylabelled and signed, the session was suspended until the morrow.
Immediately after the second interrogatory to which he was subjected, Servetus on his return to prison sent his servant Perrin to the Monastery of St. Pierre to ask the Grand Prior if he had received the 300 crowns owing to him—Villeneuve by M. St. André. The money having been received, was remitted by the hands of Perrin to his master. Had Servetus put off his message to the Prior but for an hour, he would have lost his money, the Inquisitor Ory having given fresh orders to the gaoler to guard M. Villeneuve very strictly, and to suffer him to see and have speech of no one without his—the Inquisitor’s express permission. Ory, we may presume, had not only no favour for Servetus, but, with so much against him as already appeared, could have had little doubt of bringing conviction home to him and so having him sent in smoke as an acceptable sacrifice to heaven. But Villeneuve had friends among his other judges who were every way disposed to aid him, if it were possible. Matters certainly looked very black indeed: Michel Villeneuve was plainly Michael Servetus of evil theological reputation; flagrant heresy was already manifest in the documents produced, and his answers to the interrogatories were so little satisfactory that acquittal from the charges laid against him, even at the outset of the process, seemed out of the question. The judges, however, were not all Brother Orys nor Cardinal Tournons,though most of them were churchmen, and, to their honour, both tolerant and merciful in circumstances where their creed prescribed intolerance and deadening of the heart to pity. Servetus had however to be sent back to his prison; but the door of the cage might be left open and the bird allowed to fly. And everything leads to the conclusion that this was exactly what was done.
Connected with the prison there was a garden having a raised terrace looking on to the court of the palace of justice; and, abutting on the garden wall, a shed, by the roof of which and a projecting buttress on the other side a descent into the court-yard of the palace could easily be made. The garden as a rule was kept shut, but prisoners above the common in station were permitted to use it for exercise and also for occasions of nature. Having enjoyed this privilege from the first, Servetus appears to have scrutinised everything in the afternoon of April 6, after the conclusion of his second examination. On the morning of the seventh he rose at four o’clock and asked the gaoler, whom he found afoot and going out to tend his vines, for the key of the garden. The man, seeing his prisoner in velvet cap and dressing-gown, not aware that he was completely dressed and had his hat under his robe de chambre, gave him the key and went out shortly afterwards to his work. Servetus, on his part, when he thought the coast must be clear, left his black velvet cap and furred dressing-gown at the foot of a tree, leaped fromthe terrace on to the roof of the outhouse and from that, without breaking any bones, gained the open court of the Palais de Justice Dauphinal. Thence he made for the gate of the Pont du Rhône, which was at no great distance from the prison and passed into the Lyonnais—these latter facts being by and by deposed to by a peasant woman who had met him. Two hours or more elapsed before his escape became known in the prison, the gaoler’s wife having been the first to discover it. She in her zeal and alarm committed a hundred extravagances; and in her vexation tore her hair, beat her children, her servants, and some of the prisoners who chanced to come in her way. Her rage that anyone should have had the audacity to break the dauphinal prison of Vienne, of which her husband was custodier, was such, that she even ran the risk of her life by clambering to the roof of a neighbouring house, in her eagerness to find traces of the fugitive.
The authorities, informed of what had happened, did all that became them, ordering the gates of the town to be shut and more carefully guarded than usual through the next few days and nights. Proclamation was made by sound of trumpet and beat of drum, and almost every house not only of the town, but of the neighbouring villages, was visited. The magistrates of Lyons and other towns, in which it was thought probable their late prisoner might have taken refuge, were written to by the Vienne authorities and inquiries made whether or not he had money in the bank, or had drawnout any he might have had there. His apartments were again visited, and all his papers, furniture and effects inventoried and put under the seal of justice.
In the town of Vienne it was generally thought that the Vibailly De la Cour had been the active party in favouring the evasion of Villeneuve. He was known to be intimate with the doctor, who had lately carried his daughter successfully through a long and dangerous illness, and had been loud in praise of the skill and devotion that had been shown with so happy a result. Chorier,66the historian of Dauphiny, hints guardedly at something of the kind when he speaks of the imprisonment of M. Villeneuve on religious grounds. ‘It fell out,’ says Chorier, ‘that by his own ingenuity and the assistance of his friends, M. Villeneuve escaped from confinement.’
In the record of proceedings after the flight the only thing mentioned is the fact of the gaoler having given the prisoner the key of the garden; on all else there is absolute silence; whence, as D’Artigny says, we may infer that there is mystery of some sort connected with the escape. We, for our part, should have no difficulty in finding a key to the mystery, had there been fewer grounds for the presumption of friendly connivance than there undoubtedly were in the business. John Calvin, arch-heretic in the eyes of the Gallic Church and its heads, could not, we mustpresume, have been held in the highest possible esteem by the Cardinal Archbishop of Lyons, to say nothing of brother Mathias Ory, Inquisitor of the king of France and all the Gauls. But the arrest of Villeneuve and the proceedings against him thus far, had depended entirely on information supplied by the Reformer of Geneva.
The managers of the process against Servetus were men much too astute, much too clear-sighted not to see that it was John Calvin who was writing under the mask of William Trie; and one among them at least may have known that the state of feeling between the Reformer of Geneva and the Physician of Vienne had long been such that he of Geneva might not be indisposed to make use of them to wreak his vengeance against a personal enemy under the guise of a common heretic. The Judges indeed must all have seen from the letters of Villeneuve to Calvin that the two men were at daggers-drawn, and that the provocation on either part was neither new nor slight, but of long standing, and, judging by his present attitude, on Calvin’s side deadly. We can fancy brother Mathias Ory chuckling over the sweet simplicity of the Viennese mediciner’s sorry subterfuge in pretending to enact the part of ‘Servetus the Spaniard, though he was no such personage, and knew nothing of the place in Spain where he was born!’
The authorities of Vienne, however, had no desire to have their friend Villeneuve burned alive for heresy ontestimony gratuitously supplied by the arch-heretic of Geneva, and thereby give him, whom they hated and feared far more than a thousand lay schismatics, a triumph not only over an enemy, but over themselves, for their lack of insight and zeal as guardians of the only saving faith. And then, and in addition to all this, there was Monseigneur Paumier to be considered—Paumier, under whose patronage Villeneuve had settled at Vienne and lived so long in the very shadow of the archiepiscopal palace, on terms of intimacy with its distinguished occupant. How should the great man escape suspicion of heresy himself if it were known that he had been living as a friend with one who held all the most holy mysteries of the Roman Religion as mere vanities or inventions of the Devil! The man had lived, it is true, long and peaceably among them, respected in his life and trusted in his calling; and if Calvin found heresy and to spare in his writings against the tenets which he as well as they held in common, they discovered outpourings enough there against Predestination and Election by the Grace of God, Effectual calling, Justification by Faith, and the rest, that formed the groundwork of the objectionable doctrines both of Luther and Calvin. If M. the Vibailly De la Cour connived at the escape of Villeneuve, and that he did there can hardly be a doubt, we may be well assured that he acted with the concurrence of his more immediate associates in the administration of justice—lay and clerical. The Vibailly remained unchallenged in his office; the gaoler was notdismissed, and Arnoullet the printer, for the present at least, was set at liberty. Nothing of all this could have happened had Justice not consented to be hoodwinked. The gaoler’s wife, in fact, seems to have been the only person in downright earnest in the business of the escape.