786 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
The conscience and piety of that age approved of the execution, and left little room for the emotions of compassion. But two hundred years afterwards a distinguished scholar and minister of Geneva echoed the sentiments of his fellow-citizens when he said : " Would to God that we could extinguish this funeral pile with our tears." ^ Dr. Henrj'^, the admiring biographer of Calvin, imagines an impartial Christian jury of the nineteenth century assembled on Champel, which would pronounce the judgment on Calvin, " Not guilty " ; on Serve tus, " Guilty, with extenuating circumstances." ^
The flames of Champel have consumed the intolerance of Calvin as well as the heresy of Servetus.
§ 156. The Character of Servetus.
Servetus — theologian, philosopher, geographer, physician, scientist, and astrologer — was one of the most remarkable men in the history of heresy. He Avas of medium size, thin and pale, like Calvin, his eyes beaming with intelligence, and an expression of melancholy and fanaticism. Owing to a physical rupture he was never married. He seems never to have had any particular friends, and stood isolated and alone.
His mental endowments and acquirements were of a high order, and placed him far above the heretics of his age and almost on an equality with the Reformers.^ His discoveries
1 Jean Senebier (b. at Geneva, 1742; d. 1809), Hist, litter, de Geneve (Gen. 1786, 3 vols.), I. 215: "// seroit a souhaiter que 7ios larmes eussent pu eteindre le bucher de cet infortune'." Quoted by Henry, III. 207.
2 Leben Joh. Calvin's, III. 209 sq.
3 Mosheim compares him with Calvin in genius, yet calls his method "a model of confusion." Stiihelin (I. 428) likewise thinks that in intellectual endowment he was equal {ebenbiirtig) to the greatest men of his great century, even to Calvin, but that he lacked the chief qualification of a reformer — moral character. Tollin puts him on a par with Calvin and Luther. But such exaggeration is refuted by history. The fruits are the test of a man's true greatness.
§ 156. THE CHARACTER OF SERVETUS. 787
have immortalized his name in the history of science, lie knew Latin, Hebrew, and Greek (though Calvin depreciates his knowledge of Greek), as well as Spanish, French, and Italian, and was Avell read in the Bible, the early fathers, and the schoolmen. He had an original, speculative, and acute mind, a tenacious memory, ready wit, a tiery imagination, ardent love of learning, and untiring industry. He anticipated the leading doctrines of Socinianism and Unitarianism, but in connection with mystic and pantheistic speculations, which his contemporaries did not understand. He ha<l much uncommon sense, but little practical common sense. He lacked balance and soundness. There was a streak of fanaticism in his brain. His eccentric genius bordered closely on the line of insanity. For
" Great wits are sure to madness near allied, And thin partitions do their bounds divide."
His style is frequently obscure, inelegant, abrupt, diffuse, and repetitious. He accumulates arguments to an extent that destroys their effect. He gives eight arguments to prove that the saints in heaven pray for us ; ten arguments to show that Melanchthon and his friends were sorcerers, blinded by the devil ; twenty arguments against infant baptism ; twenty -five reasons for the necessity of faith before baptism ; and sixty signs of the apocalyptic beast and the reign of Antichrist.^
In thought and style he was the opposite of the clearheaded, well-balanced, methodical, logical, and thoroughly sound Calvin, who never leaves the reader in doubt as to his meaning.
The moral character of Servetus was free from immorality of which his enemies at first suspected him in the common opinion of the close connection of heresy with vice. But he was vain, proud, defiant, quarrelsome, revengeful, irreverent
1 Restit. pp. 564, 570, 586, 664, 700, 718.