736 THE EEFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
(671-734). Calvin and Melanchthon are the two surviving Reformers whom he confronts as the representatives of orthodox Protestantism.^
§ 147. The Theological System of Servetus.
Calvin, in his Refutatio Errorum Mich. Served, Opera, vol. VIII. 501-644, presents the doctrines of Servetus from his writings, in thirty-eight articles, the response of Servetus, the refutation of the response, and then a full examination of his whole system. — H. Tollin : Das Lehrsystem Michael Servefs genetisch dargestellt. Giitersloh, 1878, 3 vols. 8°. The most complete exposition of the theological opinions of Servetus. Calvin and Tollin represent two opposite extremes in the doctrinal and personal estimate of Servetus : Calvin is wholly polemical, and sees in the Restitutio a volume of ravings (" volumen delirioruni ") and a chaos of blasphemies (^" prodigiosuni blasphemiarum chaos") ; Tollin is wholly apologetical and eulogistic, and admires it as an anticipation of reverent, Christocentric theology ; neither of them is strictly historical.
Trechsel's account (I. 119-144) is short, but impartial. — Baur, in his " History of the Doctrine of the Trinity and the Incarnation" (Tubingen, 1843, 3 vols.) devotes, with his usual critical grasp and speculative insight, fifty pages to Servet's views on God and Christ (1.54-103). — DoRNER, in his great " History of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ" (Berlin, 1853), discusses his Christology profoundly, but rather briefly (II. 649-656). Both recognize the force of his arguments against the dyophysitism of the Chalcedonian Christology, and compare his Christology with that of Apollinaris.
Before we proceed to the heresy trial, we must give a connected statement of the opinions of Servetus as expressed in his last and most elaborate work.
To his contemporaries the Restitutio appeared to be a confused compound of Sabellian, Samosatenic, Arian, ApoUinarian, and Pelagian heresies, mixed with Anabaptist errors and Neo-platonic, pantheistic speculations. The best judges — Calvin, Saisset, Trechsel, Baur, Dorner, Harnack — find the root of his system in pantheism. Tollin denies his pantheism, although he admits the pantheistic coloring of some of his expressions ; he distinguishes no less than five phases
' Zwingli, CEcolampadius, Capito, Luther, and Bucer had died (in this order) before 1552.
§ 147. THE THEOLOGICAL SYSTE.M OF SERVETUS. 737
in his theology before it came to its full maturity, and characterizes it as an "intensive, extensive, and protensive Panchristism, or 'Christocentricism.' " ^
Servetus was a mystic theosophist and Christopantheist. Far from being a sceptic or ra.tionalist, he had very strong, positive convictions of the absolute truth of the Christian religion. He regarded the Bible as an infallible source of truth, and accepted the traditional canon without dispute. So far he agreed with evangelical Protestantism; but he differed from it, as well as from Romanism, in principle and aim. He claimed to stand above both parties as the restorer of primitive Christianity, which excludes the errors and combines the truths of the Catholic and Protestant creeds.
The evangelical Reformation, inspired by the teaching of St. Paul and Augustin, was primarily a practical movement, and proceeded from a deep sense of sin and grace in opposition to prevailing Pelagianism, and pointed the people directly to Christ as the sole and sufficient fountain of pardon and peace to the troubled conscience ; but it retained all the articles of the Apostles' Creed, and especially the doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation. It should be noticed, however, that Melanchthon, in the first edition of his Loci (1521), omitted these mysteries as objects of adoration rather than of speculation,^ and that Calvin, in the controversy with Caroli, spoke lightly of the Nicene and Athanasian terminology, which was derived from Greek philosophy rather than from the Bible.
1 He calls it " Christocentrik," III. Preface, xiii. " Was den Servet zum Servet machte," he says, "ist seine Lehre von Chrislo." Comp. II. 151-159. He assumes that Servetus composed the seven books on the " Errors of the Trinity " at different times : books I. and II. at Toulouse in 1528, while yet a student of seventeen (!) ; books III. and IV. at Basel in 1531; the last three books at Strassburg; and that the two Dialogues on the Trinity represent the fourth, and the " Restitution " the fifth, phase of his theology.
2 In the editions after 1543 he discussed the doctrine of the Trinity and of the person of Christ and opposed Servetus. See Baur, III. 19 sqq., and Dorner, II. 613 sqq.