RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Serpent Servetus
art St. Servatius is represented as overshadowed by an eagle soaring above him, or as lying in a grave with three wooden shoes, the traditional instruments of his martyrdom. (0. ZocKLERf-)
Bibliography: An early Vita is given in the volume of Kurth noted below, and with other material in Analecta Bollandiana, i (1882), 85-111; similar early material is edited in MGH, Script, vii (1846), 172 sqq. and xii (1856); ASB, May, iii. 215 sqq. (with commentary from pp. 209 sqq.); and B. Krusch's ed. of Passiones vitceque cevi Merovingici in MGH, Script, rer. Merov., iii (1896), 83 (on which cf. G. Kurth in Analecta Bollandiana, 1897, pp. 164-172). Consult further: G. Kurth, Deux biographies inedites de St. Servais, Liege, 1881; idem, Nouvelles recherches sur S. Servais, ib. 1884; P. F. X. de Ram, Notice sur S. Servais, premier eveque de Tongres, 2d ed., Brussels, 1847; Corton, in De Katholiek, 1884; J. Brancken, St. Servatius-Legende, Maestricht, 1884; A. Prost, Saint Servais, Paris, 1891; F. Gorres, in ZWT, 1898, pp. 78-83; F. Wilhelm, Sanct Servatius oder wie das erste Reis in deutscher Zunge geimpft wurde, Munich, 1910; Tillemont, MSmoires, viii. 639 sqq.; Rettberg, KD, i. 204 sqq.; Friedrich, KD, i. 300 sqq.; Hauck, KD, i. 33-34, 51-52; DCB, iv. 623.
SERVETUS, ser-vi'tus, MICHAEL (MIGUEL SERVETO).
Early Life and Wanderings (§1).
Physician and Classical Scholar (§ 2).
Theological System (§3).
Tried by the Inquisition (§ 4).
Before the Court at Geneva (§5).
The Execution and Opinions Regarding it (§ 6).
Michael Servetus, famous as an antitrinitarian and an opponent of Calvin, was b., probably at Tudela (52 m. n.w. of Saragossa), Spain, Sept. 29, 1511, and was executed at Geneva Oct. 27, 1553. Expected to become a jurist, he first studied at Saragossa, and in 1525 was made amanuensis to the royal chaplain, Juan de Quintana, whom he accompanied to Toulouse in 1528. Here he continued his legal studies, and also became interested in the Bible, holding private readings with some of his fellow students and likewise plunging i. Early into the writings of Melanchthon and Life and Paul of Burgos. In Feb., 1530, he at- Wanderings.tended the coronation of Charles V. at Bologna with Quintana, and then accompanied his patron, who had meanwhile become confessor to the king, to Germany. While there is no real basis for the story that he met Luther personally, it is not impossible that he went with Butzer to Basel in the autumn of 1530, although the only demonstrable fact is that he met (Ecolampadius in October of the same year. By this time the antitrinitarianism of Servetus had been fully evolved, and finally arousing the opposition even of the kindly fficolampadius, he went to Strasburg, where he was received by Capito and Butzer. When, in 1531, he printed at Hagenau his De Trinitatis erroribus libri septem, (Ecolampadius sought to have the writings of Servetus officially suppressed, while Zwingli issued an earnest warning against the tenets of the Spanish teacher. In his Dialogorum de Trinitate libri duo, with its appendix, De justicia regni Christi et de caritate capitula quatuor (Hagenau, 1532) he now sought to obviate the unfavorable impression of his previous work by making certain formal concessions, though maintaining that neither the ancient Church nor the Reformers understood
the Bible, and declaring himself unable either to agree or to disagree entirely with either party.
Disappointed in his far-reaching schemes, Servetus left Germany, and, dropping his theological pursuits for the nonce, devoted himself to the study of medicine at Paris, taking the name of Villanovanus from his father's native city of Villanueva in Aragon. In 1534 he left Paris and lived for some years at Lyons, where he gained partial sup- 2. Physician port by proof-reading, and then puband lished a new edition of Ptolemy (Lyons,
Classical 1535); but in 1537 he returned to
Scholar. Paris and gained distinction as a physician, writing his Syruporum universa ratio, ad Galeni censuram diligenter expolita. Cui post integrant de concoctione discerptionem prcescripta est vera purgandi methodus, cum expositione aphorismi: concocta medicari (Paris, 1537). His views on the juridical value of astrology, however, as expressed in his Apologetica disceptatio de astrologia (Paris, 1538), drew upon him such grave charges from the University of Paris that he was forced to leave the capital for Charlieu, where he practised medicine for the short time that he was permitted to remain. He then lived peacefully at Vienne for a number of years, and during this period issued an entirely revamped edition of Sanctes Pagninus' Latin translation of the Bible (see Bible Versions, A, II., 3). During these years, moreover, Servetus had been gradually formulating a work to prove that primitive Christianity had been corrupted by the early ecumenical councils. He then began correspondence with Calvin, apparently to gain the requisite approval for the publication of his conclusions; but the impudent tone assumed by Servetus finally angered the Genevan, who, on Feb. 13, 1546, wrote Farel: "If he [Servetus] comes [to Geneva], I shall never let him go out alive if my authority has weight." Servetus now entered upon negotiations with other Genevan preachers and with Viret, fully recognizing the personal peril in which he stood; and in 1553 he secretly printed at Vienne his Christianismi restitutio (reprint Nuremberg, 1791; Germ, transl., 3 vols., Wiesbaden, 1892-96), a book repeating with increased emphasis his old attacks on the doctrine of the Trinity, which he declared had arisen with the corruption of the Church.
The positive tenets of Servetus' Restitutio are equally difficult to deduce and to summarize. While rejecting the Trinity in essence, he maintained a Trinity of revelation in his theory of the twofold revelation of God, in the first of which the Word was present as a divine primal light,
3. Theo- and in the second the Spirit as a divine logical primal power. After the creation the System. Word was prefigured in Adam, the theophanies, etc., until it became incarnate in Christ; and through the exalted Christ, now Jehovah himself, the Spirit, formerly existent only as the world-soul, the power of life, the natural apperception of the divine, and the Law, realizes its fulness as the principle of regeneration and immortality inherent in man. Such was the weight laid by Servetus on these problems that his system had room for faith only as the recognition of the divinity of Christ. Consciousness of sin was almost
Servetus Servia