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Servetus

BIBLjoaRAP87: An early Vita is given in the volume of Kurth noted below, and with other material in Analecta Bollandiana, i (1882 ), 85-111; similar early material is edited in MGM, Script., vii (1848), 172 sqq. and aii (1858) ; ASB, May, iii. 215 sqq. (with commentary from pp. 209 sqq.); and B. Kruseh's ed. of Pasaionea vitaqve aevi Merovingici in MGH, Script. rer. Merov., iii (1896), 83 (on which cf. G. Kurth in Analecta Bollandiana, 1897, pp. 164-172). Consult further: G. Kurth, Dew biographies inMites de St. Servaie, Lidge, 1881; idem, NouroelleB recherches Bur S. ServaiB, ib. 1884; P. F. %. de Ram, No tice our S. Servais, premier l!vkue de Tongrea, 2d ed., Brussels, 1847; Corton, in De Katholiek, 1884; J. Braneken. St. ServatiuB-Legends, Maestricht, 1884; A. Prost, Saint ServaiB, Paris, 1891; F. Gdrres, in ZWT, 1898, pp. 7883; F. Wilhelm, Sanct Servatius odor wie das erde Reis in deutwher Zunpe peimpft wurde, Munich, 1910· Tillemont, MAvwireB, viii. 839 sqq.; Rettberg. HD, i. 204 -qq.; Friedrich, %D, i. 300 eqq.; Hauck, HD, i. 33-$4, 51-52; DCB, iv. 823.

SERVETUS, ser-vf'tus, 111CHAEL

(MIGUEL SERVETO).

Michael Servetus, famous as an antitrinitarian

and an opponent of Calvin, was b., probably at

Tudela (52 m. n.w. of Saragossa), Spain, Sept. 29,

1511, and was executed at Geneva Oct. 27, 1553.

Expected to become a jurist, he first studied at

Saragossa, and in 1525 was made amanuensis to the

royal chaplain, Juan de Quintana, whom he accom

panied to Toulouse in 1528. Here he continued his

legal studies, arid also became interested in the

Bible, holding private readings with some of his fel

low students and likewise plunging

r. Early into the writings of Melanchthon and

Life and Paul of Burgos. In Feb., 1530, he at

Wanderings.tended the coronation of Charles V. at

Bologna with Quintana, and then ac

companied his patron, who had meanwhile become

confessor to the king, to Germany. While there is

no real basis for the story that he met Luther per

sonally, it is not impossible that he went with But

zer to Basel in the autumn of 1530, although the

only demonstrable fact is that he met G;colampadius

in October of the same year. By this time the anti

trinitarianism of Servetus had been fully evolved,

and finally arousing the opposition even of the

kindly G;colampadius, he went to Strasburg, where

he was received by Capito and Butzer. When, in

1531, he printed at Hagenau his De Trinitatis errori

bus libri sePtem, G;colampadius sought to have the

writings of Servetus officially suppressed, while

Zwingli issued an earnest warning against the tenets

of the Spanish teacher. In his Dialogorum de

Trinitate libri duo, with its appendix, De iusticaa

regni Christi et de caritate capitula quatuor (Hagenau,

1532) he now sought to obviate the unfavorable

impression of his previous work by making certain

formal concessions, though maintaining that neither

the ancient Church nor the Reformers understood

the Bible, and declaring himself unable either to agree or to disagree entirely with either party.

Disappointed in his far-reaching. schemes, Servetus left Germany, and, dropping his theological pursuits for the nonce, devoted himself to the study of medicine at Paris, taking the name of Villanovanus from his father's native city of Villanueva in Aragon. In 1534 he left Paris and lived for some years at

Lyons, where he gained partial sups. Physician port by proof-reading, and then puband lished a new edition of Ptolemy (Lyons,

physician, writing his Syruporum universa ratio, ad Galeni cemuram dilVenter expolita. Cut post integram de concoctions discerptionem prmscripta est vera purgandi methodus, cum expositions aphordsmi: concocts medicari (Paris, 1537). His views on the juridical value of astrology, however, as expressed in his Apologetics disceptatio de astrologia (Paris, 1538), drew upon him such grave charges from the University of Paris that he was forced to leave the capital for Charlieu, where he practised medicine for the short time that he was permitted to remain. He then lived peacefully at Vienne for a number of years, and during this period issued an entirely revamped edition of Sanctes Pagninus' Latin translation of the Bible (see BIBLE VERSIONS, A, II., 3) . During these years, moreover, Servetus had been gradually formulating a work to prove that primitive Christianity had been corrupted by the early ecumenical councils. He then began correspondence with Calvin, apparently to gain the requisite approval for the publication of his conclusions; but the impudent tone assumed by Servetus finally angered the Genevan, who, on Feb. 13, 1546, wrote Farel: "If he [Servetus] comes [to Geneva], I shall never let him go out alive if my authority has weight" Servetus now entered upon negotiations with other Genevan preachers and with Viret, fully recognizing the personal peril in which he stood; and in 1553 he secretly printed at Vienne his Christianismi restitutio (reprint Nuremberg, 1791; Germ. transl., 3 vols., Wiesbaden, 1892-96), a book repeating with increased emphasis his old attacks on the doctrine of the Trinity, which he declared had arisen with the corruption of the Church.

The positive tenets of Servetus' Restitutio are equally difficult to deduce and to summarize. While rejecting the Trinity in essence, he maintained a Trinity of revelation in his theory of the twofold revelation of God, in the first of which the Word

was present as a divine primal light, 3. Theo- and in the second the Spirit as a divine logical primal power. After the creation the

theophanies, etc., until it became incarnate in Christ; and through the exalted Christ, now Jehovah himself, the Spirit, formerly existent only as the world-soul, the power of life, the natural apperception of the divine, and the Law, realizes its fulness as the principle of regeneration and immortality inherent in man. Such was the weight laid by Servetus on these problems that his system had room for faith only as the recognition of the divinity of Christ. Consciousness of sin was almost