706 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
baptist movement in the sixteenth century has to be rewritten and disentangled from the odium theologieum.
As regards Servetus, Luther knew only his first work against the Trinity, and pronounced it, in his Table Talk (1532), an "awfully bad book." ^ Fortunately for his fame, he did not live to pronounce a judgment in favor of his execution, and we must give him the benefit of silence.
His opinions on the treatment of the Jews changed for the worse. In 1523 he had vigorously protested against the cruel persecution of the Jews, but in 1543 he counselled their expulsion from Christian lands, and the burning of their books, synagogues, and private houses in which they blaspheme our Saviour and the Holy Virgin. He repeated this advice in his last sermon, preached at Eisleben a few days before his death.^
Melanchthon.
Melanchthon's record on this painful subject is unfortunately worse than Luther's. This is all the more significant because he was the mildest and gentlest among the Reformers. But we should remember that his utterances on the subject are of a later date, several years after Luther's death. He thought that the Mosaic law against idolatry and blasphemy was as binding upon Christian states as the Decalogue, and was applicable to heresies as well.^ He therefore
^ " Ein graulich bos Buck." When Melanchthon informed him that the opinions of Servetus found much applause in Italy, he remarked that "Italywas full of pestilential opinions, and that if such errors as those of Servetus should get there, horrible abominations would arise" (Jiorribiles abominationes ibi orituras). Bindseil, Martini Lutheri CoUoquia, Tom. I. 376. Comp. ToUin, M. Luther und M. Servet, Berlin, 1875, and AI. Servet und Martin Butzer (or Servet und die oberlandischen Beformatoren, Berlin, 1880, vol. I. 105 sq.). ToUin tries to prove in both these books, on the strength of an obscure passage in a letter of Servetus to fficolampadius, that Servetus accompanied Butzer as amanuensis in September, 1530, from Augsburg to Coburg to see Luther. But neither Bucer nor Luther say a word about it.
2 Erlangen ed., vol. XXII. 558 sq.
3 Corpus Re/ormatorum, vol. VIII. 520. He mentions among the heresies worthy of death the deliramenta Samosateni and Manichcei.
§ 139. PROTESTANT INTOLERANCE. 7U7
fully and repeatedly justified the course of Calvin and the Council of Geneva, and even held them up as models for imitation ! In a letter to Calvin, dated Oct. 14, 1554, nearly one year after the burning of Servetus, he wrote : —
"Reverend and dear Brother: I have read your book, in which you have clearly refuted the horrid bhisplieinies of Servetus; and I give thanks to the Son of God, who was the BpxSeurris [_tke awarder of your crown of victory] in this your combat. To you also the Church owes gratitude at the present moment, and will owe it to the latest posterity. I perfectly assent to your opinion. I affirm also that your magistrates did right in punishing, after a regular trial, this blasphemous man."i
A year later, Melanchthon wrote to BuUinger, Aug. 20, 1555 : —
" Reverend and dear Brother : I have read your answer to the blaspliemies of Servetus, and I approve of your piety and opinions. I judge also that tlie Genevese senate did perfectly right, to put an end to this obstinate man, who could never cease blaspheming. And I wonder at those who disapprove of this severity." 2
Three years later, April 10, 1557, Melanchthon incidentally (in the admonition in the case of Theobald Thamer, who had returned to the Roman Church) adverted again to the
1 Corpus Reformat, vol. VIII. 302 (also in Calvin's Opera, XV. 268 sq.) : " Reverende vir et car issime /rater: Lerji scriptum tuum, in quo refutasti hcculenter horrendas Serveti blasphemias : ac Filio Dei g rati as ago, qui fuit BpaBevrvs huius tut agonis. Tibi quoque ecclesia et nunc et ad posteros gratitudinem debet et dehebit.