738 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
Servetus, with the Bible as his guide, aimed at a more radical revolution than the Reformers. He started with a new doctrine of God and of Christ, and undermined the very foundations of the Catholic creed. The three most prominent negative features of his system are three denials : the denial of the orthodox dogma of the Trinity, as set forth in the Nicene Creed ; the denial of the orthodox Christology, as determined by the Oecumenical Council of Chalcedon ; and the denial of infant baptism, as practised everywhere except by the Anabaptists. From these three sources he derived all the evils and corruptions of the Church. The first two denials were the basis of the theoretical revolution, the third was the basis of the practical revolution which he felt himself providentially called to effect by his anonymous book.
Those three negations in connection with what appeared to be shocking blasphemy, though not intended as such, made him an object of horror to all orthodox Christians of his age, Protestants as well as Roman Catholic, and led to his double condemnation, first at Vienne, and then at Geneva. So far he was perfectly understood by his contemporaries, especially by Calvin and Melanchthon. But the positive features, which he substituted for the Nicene and Chalcedonian orthodoxy, were not appreciated in their originality, and seemed to be simply a repetition of old and longcondemned heresies.
There were Antitrinitarians before Servetus, not only in the ante-Nicene age, but also in the sixteenth century, especially among the Anabaptists — such as Hetzer, Denck, Campanus, Melchior Hoffmann, Reed, Martini, David Joris.^ But he gathered their sporadic ideas into a coherent original system, and gave them a speculative foundation.^
1 For an account of their opinions see Trechsel, I. 13-55, and the great works of Baur and Dorner, above quoted.
2 Baur (I.e., III. 54) says: "Die in den genannten Irdehrern oder Schwarm- (jeistern, wie Luther sie treffend nannte, gleich Feuerfunken nusgestreuten und bald
§ 147. THE THEOLOGICAL SYSTEM OF SERVETUS. 739
1. Christology.
Servetus begins the " Restitution," as well as his first book against the Trinity, with the doctrine of Christ. He rises from the humanity of the historical Jesus of Nazareth to his Messiahship and Divine Soulship, and from this to his divinity.^ This is, we may say, the view of the Synoptical Gospels, as distinct from the usual orthodox method which, with the Prologue of the fourth Gospel, descends from his divinity to his humanity through the act of the incarnation of the second person of the Trinity. In this respect he anticipates the modern humanitarian Christology. Jesus is, according to Servetus, begotten, not of the first person of God, but of the essence of the one undivided and indivisible God. He is born, according to the flesh, of the Virgin Mary by the overshadowing cloud of the Spirit (Matt. 1:18, 20, 23 ; Luke 1 : 32, 35). The whole aim of the gospel is to lead men to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God (comp. John 20 : 31).^ But the term " Son of God " is in the Scriptures always used of the man Jesus, and never of the Logos.^ He is the one true and natural son of God, born of the substance of God ; we are sons by adoption, by an act of grace. We are made sons of God by faith (John 1:12;
da bald dort an einen entzundbaren Stoff sich ansezenden Ideen erhiellen erst in dem Spanier Michael Servet, welchen der Zug seines Geistes demselben Kreise zufiihrte, eine festere Consistenz und Haltung. Diess ist es, was Servet seine historische Bedeutung gibt. Er wurde der Mittelpunct, in welchem jene vereinzelten, noch formlosen Elemente sich zur Einheit zusammenschlossen und durch die Energie seines Geistes sich zu eitier in sich zusammenhangenden Theorie ausbildeten."
1 " Ipse homo lesus esj. ostium et via, a quo et merito exordium sumam. . . . Pronomine ad sensum demonstrante ipsum hominem, verberibus ccesum et flagellatum, concedam hccc tria simpliciter vera esse. Prima, hie est lesus Christus. Secundo, hie estfitius Dei. Tertio, hie est Deus." Rest. p. 5.
2 "Semper dixi, et dico, et dicam, esse omnia scripta, ut credamus, hunc lesum essejilium Dei." Rest. 293.
3 « Ne unus quidem dari potest in scripturis locus, in quo ponatur vox Jilins quae non accipiatur pro homine filio." Rest. 689.