756 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
on the place Maubert at Paris, Aug. 2, 1546, for this denial.^ But Servetus denied the charge. He taught that the soul was mortal, that it deserved to die on account of sin, but that Christ communicates to it new life by grace.^ Christ has brought immortality to light (2 Tim. 1 : 10 ; 1 Pet. 1 : 21- 25). This seems to be the doctrine of conditional immortality of believers. But he held that all the souls of the departed go to the gloomy abode of Sheol to undergo a certain purification before judgment. This is the baptism of blood and fire, as distinct from the baptism of water and spirit (1 Cor. 3:11-15). The good and the bad are separated in death. Those who die without being regenerated by Christ have no hope. The righteous progress in sanctification. They pray for us (for which he gives six reasons, and quotes Zach. 1 : 12, 13 ; Luke 15 : 10 ; 16 : 27, 28; 1 Cor. 13 : 18) ; but we ought not to pray for them, for they do not need our prayers, and there is no Scripture precept on the subject.^
The reign of the pope or Antichrist will be followed by the millennial reign of Christ on earth (Rev. 20 : 4-7). Then will take place the first resurrection.
Servetus was a chiliast, but not in the carnal Jewish sense. He blames Melanchthon for deriding, with the papal crowd, all those as chiliasts who believe in the glorious reign of Christ on earth, according to the book of Revelation and the teaching of the school of St. John.*
1 He had translated the words of Plato : 20 yhp ovk effi) : " Apres la mart tu ne seras plus rien du tout," instead of " Car tu ne seras phis," as the Sorbonne wanted. Tollin, III. 288, mentions this fact and refers to Reg. fac. theol. Paris. MM. 248 in the Paris state archives.
■^ " C/iristus reparator animas nostras reddidit immortales, et vitalem earum spiritum incorruptibilem." Best. 551. He distinguished between the soul and the spirit, according to the Platonic trichotomy. After the death of the body, the soul is a mere shadow.
3 Best. 718.
* " Quamquam tu cum vulgo papistico seniores illos omnes, et apostolicos viros, ut chiliastas rideas." Best. 719.
§ 148. THE TRIAL OF SERVETUS AT VIENNE. 757
The general resurrection and judgment follow after the millennium^ Men will be raised in the flower of manhood, the thirtieth year — the year of baptismal regeneration, the year in which Christ was baptized and entei-ed upon his public ministry.! " Then wilt thou," so he addresses Philip Melanchthon, who, next to Calvin, was his greatest enemy, " with all thy senses, see, feel, taste, and hear God himself. If thou dost not believe this, thou dost not believe in a resurrection of the flesh and a bodily transformation of thy organs." ^
After the general judgment, Christ will surrender his mediatorial reign with its glories to the Father, and God will be all in all (Acts 3 : 21 ; 1 Cor. 15 : 24-28).
§ 148. The Trial and Conde^niiation of Servetus at Vienne.
See D'Artigny in Nouveaux Memoires d'histoire, etc. ; Mosheim's Neue Nachrichten, etc. ; and Calvin's Opera, VIII. 833-856.
Shortly after the publication of the " Restitution," the fact was made known to the Roman Catholic authorities at Lyons through Guillaume Trie, a native of Lyons and a convert from Romanism, residing at that time in Geneva. He corresponded with a cousin at Lyons, by the name of Arneys, a zealous Romanist, who tried to reconvert him to his religion, and reproached the Church of Geneva with the want of discipline. On the 26th of February, 1553, he wrote to Arneys that in Geneva vice and blasphemy were punished, while in France a dangerous heretic was tolerated, who deserved to be burned by Roman Catholics as well as Protestants, who blasphemed the holy Trinity, called Jesus Christ an idol, and the baptism of infants a diabolic invention. He gave his name as Michael Servetus, who called
1 "Dies baptismi assimilatur diei resurrectionis." Best. 413.
2 " Deum ipsum tu beatus corporeis his omnibus tiiis sensibus videbis, tanges, gustabis, ol/acies et audies. Si hoc non credis, non credis carnis resurrectionem et corporeum tuorum organorum futuram glorijicationem." Best. 718.