I wandered about the old town and spent a long time in Calvin’s church. I stood looking at Calvin’s pulpit and imagined listening to his sermons. Indulged for the day and expecting to come back for another visit, I left, full of myself. How grand to be a Calvinist, and one with Huguenot blood! And then this happened: coming down the steps of the former cathedral Two French Canadiens approached me, asking where to find the monument to Servetus. Zapped by a kind and just God! I directed the Canadiens to the place and went back inside to use the church properly, for humble prayer.
It is ever thus for us about Servetus, the Spanish doctor who early described the circulation of the blood (years before Harvey) and was a forerunner of Unitarians. For his religious views he was arrested and condemned — twice. The Catholic Church would have executed him, but he escaped. It is unknown why he traveled through Geneva, as he was thinking of settling in North Africa or Sicily, as a physician under another name. In the Servetus — Calvin correspondence both declare each other enemies. So, it is a mystery why Servetus came to Geneva.
Calvin and others were distressed at having Servetus in their hands. His heresy, in denying the Trinity and infant baptism, was too heinous for the time and he was too well known. The Catholics in Vienne, France, asked to have him returned for execution. There is evidence that Calvin, or some of his party, had previously given evidence to the French authorities that occasioned Servetus’ original arrest and trial.
But there he was, in the hands of the Genevans. Returning him to France would be awkward: Geneva was a refuge for people fleeing persecution in France. The government could hardly be seen to be doing business — openly — with the enemy. Furthermore, Servetus’ presence was a test. How orthodox WAS the Reformed movement? Admittedly, it was “otherwise minded” about altars and sacraments and priests and the pope, but basic Christian doctrine about the Trinity? About infant baptism?
Genevan authorities solicited opinions from other Swiss cities. All recommended sentencing the man. Leniency, in the form of banishment, had been used in the past; but this was too public a case. After a trial in which he was given no defense assistance and during which he proved himself to be a difficult person, Servetus was condemned, for the second time, to be executed.
Calvin tried to have this committed to the swifter beheading, but failed. Of the Masters and Magistrates of Geneva, Calvin alone would not attend Servetus’ burning at the stake on October 27, 1553 on the Plateau de Champel outside the city.
Presbyterians are usually aware of Servetus, however abruptly his name might be mentioned, say, on the steps of Calvin’s church. The fact is not a “dirty, little secret.” In his Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin criticizes “the devilish imagination of Servetus.” Beyond asserting his own thought as orthodox and Biblical and Servetus’ as dangerously heretical, Calvin seems disturbed by the very existence of the man and says so in many passages in the Institutes. His appearance in Geneva led to his death, in a manner Calvin would have prevented, and to a mark against Calvin his supporters cannot defend and his detractors will ever assert against him.
More could be said about this: that it is Calvin’s only blemish, that others such as Thomas More did worse and were made saints, and that it was in the time of murder in epidemic proportions: 100,000 — women and children included — would be killed by the direction of the King of France on St. Bartholomew’s Day and afterwards in 1572. I have examined many histories of Christian religion to find that Servetus’ death is always included, not so the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, and seldom the conniving Thomas More did in the death of William Tyndale. It is as though some need the at-least one charge against Calvin.
But let it be noted that in 1553 a cranky and sometimes silly man with a touch of genius was condemned to death by good people because he seemed a threat to their thoughts and reputations. And let it be said that tolerance does not mean championing someone’s rights, nor does it mean being indifferent. It means overcoming one’s disapproval of others, sufficient to allow them to share the earth with you, and to stay alive. As an Italian contemporary of Calvin’s said: “To kill a man is not to preserve dogma, it is to kill a man.”
THOMAS WILSON is a Presbyterian pastor who lives in Elizabeth City, N.C. He is currently serving as part-time interim pastor at Powelton and Belle Haven Churches on Virginia’s Eastern Shore.
