718 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
All that God before did through the Word, Christ does in the flesh. To him God has given the kingdom and the power to atone and to gather all things in him.
The third book is an exposition of the relation of Christ to the divine Logos.
The fourth book discusses the divine dispositions or manifestations. God appeared in the Son and in the Spirit. Two divine manifestations are substituted for the orthodox tripersonality. The position of the Father is not clear ; he is now represented as the divinity itself, now as a disposition and person. The orthodox christology of two natures in one person is entirely rejected. God has no nature (from nasci)^ and a person is not a compound of two natures or things, but a unit.
The fifth book is a worthless speculative exposition of the Hebrew names of God. The Lutheran doctrine of justification is incidentally attacked as calculated to make man lazy and indifferent to good works.
The sixth book shows that Christ is the only fountain of all true knowledge of God, who is incomprehensible in himself, but revealed himself in the person of his Son. He who sees the Son sees the Father.
The seventh and last book is an answer to objections, and contains a new attack on the doctrine of the Trinity, which was introduced at the same time with the secular power of the pope. Servetus probably believed in the fable of the donation of Constantine.
It is not surprising that this book gave great offence to Catholics and Protestants alike, and appeared to them blasphemous. Servetus calls the Trinitarians tritheists and atheists.^ He frivolously asked such questions as whether God had a spiritual wife or was without sex.^ He calls the
• " TritheiUn . . . Athei, hoc est sine Deo." 21b.
^ " Debuissent dicere quod habebat [Dews] uxorem quandam spiritualem, vel quod solus ipse masculo-foemineus aut Hermaphroditus, simul erat pater et mater."
§ 141. THE BOOK AGAINST THE HOLY TRIXITV. 719
three gods of the Trinitarians a deception of the devil, yea (in his later writings), a three-headed monster.^
Zwingli and GEcolampadius died a few months after the publication of the book, but condemned its contents beforehand. Luther's and Bucer's views on it have already been noticed. Melanchthon felt the difficulties of the trinitarian and christological problems and foresaw future controversies. He gave his judgment in a letter to his learned friend Camerarius (dated 5 Id. Febr. 1533) : —
" You ask me what I think of Servetus "? I see him indeed sufficiently sharp and subtle in disputation, but I do not give him credit for much depth. He is possessed, as it seems to me, of confused imaginations, and his thoughts are not well matured on the subjects he discusses. He manifestly talks foolishness when he speaks of justification. Trepl rrjs rpidSos [on the subject of the Trinity] you know, I have always feared that serious diflSculties would one day arise. Good God ! to what tragedies will not these questions give occasion in times to come : e!f eVriv virSa-Tacris 6 \6yos [is the Logos an hypostasis] ? ej icrrtv vw6(TTa.<Tis fh irvevjxa [is the Holy Spirit an hypostasis] 1 For my own part I refer to those passages of Scripture that bid us call on Christ, which is to ascribe divine honors to him, and find them full of consolation." ^
396. This reminds one of the reasoning of the Mohammedans that God has no wife, therefore he can have no son. He approves of the objection of the Turks : " Nee mirum, si Turci nos asinarios vacant, postquam iios Deum vocare asinum non eruhescimus." 12a.
1 The last expression I could not find in the work De Trinitatis Erroribus, but it occurs in his letters to Calvin, and in a lettter to Poupin, where he says: "Pro uno Deo habetis tricipitem cerbenim." Calvin's Opera, VIIL 750. It was made the chief ground of the charge of blasphemy at the trial in Geneva. " Un Dieu party en trois . . . est un diable a trois testes comme le Cerberus que les Poetes anciens ant appelle' le chien d'enfer, un monstre." Ibid. 728, Art. IX. Tollin, in his article Der Verfasser de Trinitatis Erroribus (" Jahrbucher fiir protest. Theologie," 1891, p. 414), derives these offensive phrases from the papal controversialist Cochlaeus, who in his Lutherus septiceps, 1529, says: "Quid ad hcec Janus Bifrons? Quid Geryon Triceps? Quid Cerberus trifaux ? fabuloi sunt poetarum et jocosa figmenta." Cochlaeus compared these fables with the seven-capped Luther, who surpassed them all in monstrosity.
2 He adds in Greek that it is not profitable to inquire curiously into the ideas and differences of the divine persons. Opera, ed. Bretschneider, II. 630, and his letter to Brenz, July, 1533, II. 660. Also Tollin, Ph. Melanchthon und M. Servet, Berlin, 1876.