Out of the Flames Read online

  This approach was ham-fisted and not a little silly, and Servetus had little difficulty with either the prosecutor or his questions. He easily demonstrated that he had lived a moral and pious life, and that his only encounters with the authorities had been on speculative grounds. To the last charge, Servetus revealed that he had been operated on for a rupture at age five and been impotent ever since, an assertion that may or may not have been true.

  On August 28, Rigot abandoned his thirty charges and substituted a new list of thirty-seven. These charges were similar to the original thirty-eight, except that they were much more finely drawn and demanded a high degree of theological knowledge. They were made to appear as if Rigot had drawn them up himself—Calvin was referred to only in the third person—but as Willis noted:

  The articles now brought forward by Rigot and the questions founded on them are in the handwriting of the amanuensis usually employed by Calvin to make copies of his letters and papers; and beyond question were all dictated by Calvin himself. He perceived he could trust Rigot no further without risk of failure, and so resumed the position he had taken with Trie, his servant Fontaine, and even in person.

  Rigot was on unfamiliar ground and Servetus once again fended off the attack, but captivity was beginning to have its effect. He had now been shut up for over two weeks in a cell usually reserved for murderers and common thieves. There was no ventilation, no sanitary facilities, and little light. It was infested with vermin and lice. He had not been allowed a change of clothing, and the food was inadequate and vile. On orders of the prosecutor, he was held in seclusion, not allowed to see anyone save the jailer on days when court was not in session.

  Also, either by coincidence or design, the pace of the trial had slowed markedly. There was another adjournment until August 31. Then the courier from Vienne arrived, accompanied by the jailer and a captain. The jailer had come specifically to ask that Servetus absolve him of any complicity in the April escape. Servetus readily did so. The attitude of his friends had changed. The courier presented a letter from Maugiron, the man whose family Servetus had tended in sickness, who said that he “rejoiced to know that Villeneuve is now in the hands of Messieurs de Genève, and I thank God for the assurance I feel that you will take better care of him than did the Ministers of Justice at Vienne, and award him such punishment as will leave him no opportunity for dogmatizing, or writing and publishing heretical doctrines in time to come.” The letter also said that Henri II had awarded Servetus's property, valued at over four thousand crowns, to Maugiron's son, the baron de Igé.

  The captain told the court that Vienne could assure Geneva that if the prisoner were returned, he would be punished there, and no further proceedings in the latter city were necessary. When asked if he wished to return, Servetus fell on the floor in tears and begged that he might be judged in Geneva.

  THAT “WAS IT FOR RIGOT. At the next session of the court, the attorney general was replaced by Calvin himself. But there was to be no face-to-face confrontation. Servetus was given paper and the list of charges and was then returned to his cell to prepare written responses in Latin. Latin was chosen because the Council had now decided to officially include the opinions of other reformers in their decision. The responses were to be sent to Bern, Basel, Zurich, and Schaffhausen. If Servetus knew of the Bolsec case, and he well might have, this latest development would have rekindled his hopes.

  If so, then Servetus, like the Libertines, underestimated Calvin's resolve. Calvin remembered the Bolsec case too. Although he said publicly that he welcomed the action, privately Calvin was anything but pleased, and he counterattacked. In a letter to Henri Bullinger in Zurich, he wrote that he resented the Council questioning his theological authority. “Our magistrates,” he added, “cause you this trouble against our will. They have reached such a point of madness that they question everything we say. So if I assert that it is light at noon they begin to have their doubts about it.” He also wrote private letters to the reformers in each of the other cities, stressing the enormity of Servetus's heresy and how vital it was that nothing interfere with swift and certain punishment. If Servetus escaped with his life, who knew where he would next choose to spread his filth?

  On September 3, Servetus submitted his responses to the Council. His ability to write with clarity and logic and cite Scriptural support for his arguments was, under the circumstances, astonishing. To Calvin's assertion that his view of man becoming deified on earth degraded God, Servetus responded that Calvin's doctrine of predestination, “by making a slave of our will, turns us into logs and stones.” But regardless of scholarship, it was mutual vitriol that most marked these exchanges. Calvin said that Servetus was “a dog wiping his snout,” and Servetus likened Calvin to Simon Magus, a first-century magician known as the father of heresy. When Calvin submitted a twenty-three-page rebuttal to Servetus the following day, Servetus returned the pages with comments like “im-poster,” “hypocrite,” and “miserable wretch” scribbled in the margins. To Calvin's assertion that Tertullian, a second-century Carthaginian biblical theorist whose works obviously predated Nicaea, recognized a real distinction in the persons of the Trinity, Servetus wrote, “You lie. Nothing of the sort was ever heard of in Tertullian, but only a disposition.”

  Servetus's stunted public relations instincts were not improving with incarceration. He seemed unaware that this sort of language, instigated by Calvin or not, would work against him with the other reformers. Calvin, on the other hand, had learned from experience how to play to his audience. He had his ministers submit a memorandum to the Council. “Servetus thinks the judges will not know how eloquent he is and what an unabashed reviler unless at the outset he calls Calvin a homicide and afterward vomits many insults upon him.”

  But there had been a more ominous development for Servetus, one of which he was completely unaware. On Saturday, September%with its singularly bad sense of timing, the Council had finally decided to rescind Calvin's excommunication of Berthelier. Six weeks earlier, they might well have made it stick. Now, however, a rejuvenated Calvin appeared before the Council and told them that he would die a hundred times before he allowed Christ to be subjected to such abuse. The Council ignored him.

  The next day, the tension in the congregation was palpable as everyone crowded in, waiting to see what would happen in the head-to-head duel when Berthelier appeared for communion. This was religion as theater. Calvin, who could plainly see a number of prominent Libertines in the audience and assumed Berthelier was there too, stood at the pulpit and exclaimed, “If anyone comes to this table who has been excluded by the Consistory, I will do my duty with my life.” He then went to the communion table to await the confrontation. No one moved. The crowd looked about, but still Berthelier did not make his presence known. Finally it became clear why. Berthelier had stayed home.

  With that moment of surrender, Servetus was doomed. He was not going to be the vehicle by which the Libertines embarrassed Calvin—he had become an embarrassment himself. Now on the run, the last thing the Libertines wanted was to be branded as supporters of heresy. Except for one or two diehards like Ami Perrin, the Libertines wanted nothing more of Servetus than to be rid of him. The only chance to avoid complete disaster was to show that they could be every bit as pious and ruthless about defending the name of God as was Calvin.

  There was another halt in the public sessions. Servetus was now shut up in his cell, incommunicado, twenty-four hours a day. When the proceedings seemed to drag to a halt entirely, he began to grow desperate.

  Still unaware of the change in the political landscape, on September 15 he addressed another petition to the Council:

  I humbly beg that you cut short these long delays and deliver me from prosecution. You see that Calvin is at the end of his rope, not knowing what to say and for his pleasure wishes to make me rot here in prison. The lice eat me alive. My clothes are torn and I have nothing for a change, neither jacket nor shirt, but a bad one… It is a great shame, the more
so that I have been caged here for five weeks and [Calvin] has not urged against me a single passage [from the Scriptures].

  My Lords, I have also asked you to give me an advocate as you did to my opponent, who was not in the same straits as I. You permitted it to him, but not to me and you have liberated him from prison. I petition you that my case be referred to the Council of Two Hundred with my requests, and if I may appeal there I do so ready to assume all the cost, loss and interest of the law of an eye for an eye, both against the first accuser and against Calvin, who has taken up the case himself. Done in your prisons of Geneva. September 15, 1553.

  MICHAEL SERVETUS IN HIS OWN CAUSE

  In reply to the petition, the Council, demonstrating their piety and ruthlessness in defending the name of God, made only the empty gesture of allowing Servetus, whose money had been confiscated, a change of clothes at his own expense.

  Servetus, still unaware that nothing he said or did would matter any longer, continued to send notes to the Council. On September 1% he challenged Calvin directly:

  Messieurs, there are four great and infallible reasons why Calvin should be condemned:

  This first is that a matter of doctrine should not be subject to criminal prosecution as I can amply show from the ancient doctors of the Church.

  The second is that he is a false accuser.

  The third is that by his frivolous and calumnious reasons he opposes the truth of Jesus Christ.

  The fourth is that in large measure he follows the doctrine of Simon Magus. Therefore as a sorcerer he should not only be condemned but exterminated and driven from the city and his goods should be adjudged to me in recompense of mine.

  To this, Servetus included a list of six questions that the Council should ask Calvin, all detailing his role in betraying him to the Inquisition in Vienne and his use of Trie as his agent.

  When this petition was ignored without a reply, Servetus seemed finally to grasp that friends, justice, and hope had abandoned him. On October 10, this last, sad request came from the prisoner:

  Honored sirs, It is now three weeks that I have sought an audience and have been unable to secure one. I beg you for the love of Jesus Christ not to refuse me what you would not refuse a Turk who sought justice at your hands. I have some important and necessary matters to communicate to you.

  As for what you commanded that something be done to keep me clean, nothing has been done and I am in a worse state than before. The cold distresses me because of my colic and rupture, causing other complaints that I should be ashamed to describe. It is great cruelty that I have not permission to speak if only to remedy my necessities. For the love of God, honored sirs, give your order whether for pity or duty. Done in your prisons of Geneva, October 10, 1553.

  MICHAEL SERVETUS

  By October 23, after a month's delay, replies from the other cities were in hand and translated from Latin into French. All the ministers agreed. Michael Servetus was spouting heresy of the vilest sort and must not be allowed to continue. Although just how he should be suppressed was unspecified and no one directly recommended execution, there was also no one saying that an excessively harsh sentence should be avoided. Calvin, “that most sincere servant of God,” was praised highly by each of the four.

  Servetus was put under a special guard—two new warders to watch him twenty-four hours a day. If anything happened to the prisoner, these guards would pay with their lives.

  On October 26, the Little Council met. Perrin, the last of the Libertines willing to speak out, moved that the trial be transferred to the Council of Two Hundred. When this was voted down, Servetus was condemned without dissent: “We condemn you, Michael Servetus, to be bound and taken to Champel and there attached to a stake and burned with your book to ashes.” Calvin wrote, “We tried to change the mode of his death, but in vain.”

  According to Calvin, Servetus received the news of his sentence with disbelief and frantic self-pity, moaning and crying out “Misericor-dia!” [Mercy!] He then begged for an audience with the Reformer, which Calvin granted.

  During this meeting, Calvin held out the possibility that if Servetus were to publicly renounce his views, he might die more quickly and mercifully. Servetus was himself worried that in a moment of extreme pain, he would recant and lose his soul. He begged Calvin to be allowed to die by the sword. Calvin refused.

  When [Servetus] was asked what he had to say to me he replied that he desired to beg my pardon. Then I protested simply, and it is the truth, that I had never entertained any personal rancor against him. I reminded him gently how I had risked my life more than sixteen years ago to gain him for our Savior. If he would return to reason I would faithfully do my best to reconcile him to all good servants of God… I told him that I would pass over everything which concerned me personally. He should rather ask the pardon of God whom he has so basely blasphemed in his attempt to efface the three persons in the one essence… But when I saw that all this did no good I… withdrew from the heretic who was self-condemned.

  The Council wasted no time. The next day, October 27, 1553, Michael Servetus was led to the stake. Even now, his enemies would not leave him alone. Every step of the way, Farel walked next to him, whispering in his ear, urging him to confess his errors and be spared the flames. Servetus prayed silently in reply.

  Finally, they arrived at the hill at Champel, with its stake and pile of green wood. Servetus was seated; an iron chain was wrapped around his body and a thick rope wound several times around his neck. The crown of straw and leaves and sulphur was placed on his head, and his book was lashed to his arm.

  The fire was lit. Servetus shrieked. At the end of the half hour that it took him to die, he was heard to moan, “Oh Jesus, Son of the Eternal God, have pity on me!”

  He had remained true to his beliefs. Otherwise, he would have said, “Oh Jesus, Eternal Son of God.”

  Every important political, religious, and military figure in Geneva had walked in the procession, then stood for thirty minutes and watched the horror of Michael Servetus's death. All except one.

  John Calvin stayed home.

  THROUGHOUT BOTH TRIALS and all the minute examinations of Christianismi Restitutio, one passage on page 171 in Book V was overlooked. There was no reason that anyone in Vienne or Geneva should have noticed it, since its theological significance was minimal.

  Almost as a throwaway, when discussing the nature of the divine spirit, Servetus had drawn on some observations he had made while a medical student in Paris.

  The substantial generation of the vital spirit is composed of a very subtle blood nourished by inspired air… It is generated in the lungs from a mixture of inspired air with elaborated, subtle blood which the right ventricle of the heart communicates with the left. However, this communication is not made through the middle wall of the heart as is commonly believed, but by a very ingenious arrangement, the subtle blood is urged forward by a long course through the lungs; it is elaborated by the lungs, becomes reddish yellow and is poured'from the pulmonary artery into the pulmonary vein. Then in the pulmonary vein it is mixed with inspired air and through expiration it is cleansed ofo its sooty vapors. Thus finally the whole mixture, suitably prepared for the production of the vital spirit, is drawn onward from the left ventricle of the heart by diastole.

  This was a description of pulmonary circulation, perhaps the single most important statement about the workings of the human body in fifteen hundred years. No one had ever described the true function of the heart before. It was the great intuitive leap that Vesalius had failed to make.

  Between pages 169 and 173 of Christianismi Restitutio, Servetus told of how he had unraveled this mystery by deducing that the pulmonary artery “was not made of such sort and such size, nor does it emit so great a force of pure blood from the heart itself into the lungs merely for their nourishment.” He recognized that blood changes color in the lungs due to the absorption of something in the air. “Not merely air,” he wrote, “but air mixed with blood is sen
t from the lungs to the heart through the pulmonary vein; therefore the mixture occurs in the lungs.”

  Servetus theorized that once blood mixes with air, it “is then transfused from the left ventricle of the heart into the arteries of the whole body.” This is greater circulation, a process not even guessed at in the sixteenth century. He went farther still and anticipated the discovery of capillaries, which would not be confirmed until the development of the microscope almost two centuries later. The blood in the brain was “elaborated and completed in the very slender vessels or hair-like (capilaribus) arteries… These vessels in a very remarkable way are woven together very finely and even if they are called arteries are nevertheless the termination of arteries… It is a new kind of vessel.”

  If these paragraphs had gotten out into the world, they would have changed the face of science, and Michael Servetus would have been hailed as one of the great medical minds in history. When William Harvey finally received credit for this same breakthrough some seventy-five years later, it launched the modern age of medicine and vaulted Harvey into the ranks of the immortals of science.

  AFTER THE EXECUTION, Calvin instructed the printer Robert Esti-enne to hunt down any remaining copies of Christianismi Restitutio and see that they were burned. It was Calvin's intention to eradicate Servetus's ideas along with the man. He almost succeeded.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THE EXECUTION OF Michael Servetus, while rescuing Calvin from his immediate political difficulties, created an unexpected challenge to his moral authority. The reaction to the barbarity of the execution was far more intense and widespread than he had anticipated. Servetus might have been a Quixotic figure with views repugnant to many, but his extraordinary bravery and refusal to recant even at the moment of greatest agony spurred a wave of admiration among theologians across Europe. Although the sentence (if not the method) had been approved by other churches in Switzerland, Calvin now found himself fending off charges of excess and intolerance. He had not been prepared for the large number of highly placed, respected intellectuals, both in and out of the Church, who did not believe that even a heretic should be executed merely for the expression of conscience, particularly in such a horrific manner.