Calvin's Life: The Servetus Affair

As most folks who read SI know, I normally provide my sources. I am away from my library right now so I shall try to correct the deficiency asap.

Tyler,

Always loved quotes, so I notice them and use them often.

Sorry for the delay, we’ve been working with flood recovery along the San Bernard River. Overwhelming, but it is amazing to see the great things God is doing, how He is providing.

Ron,

Toleration is a good thing when it comes to national religious liberty and free speech. It is a bad thing when you tolerate false doctrine in your church, denomination, seminary, mission board. May we always stand for the fundamental doctrines of Christianity.

David R. Brumbelow

I apologize for being a little cynical in my comment. I’m recovering from a background where the use of words like balance and tolerance were considered signs of leaning in a neo-evangelical direction. Looking back, one of the amusing things was that some of them were Baptists who were intolerant of anything not Baptist. I think they would have separated from Roger Williams. One of them even said that Williams wasn’t a “real Baptist” because he was reformed. SIGH

“Honour, glory, and riches shall be the reward of your pains; but above all, do not fail to rid the country of those scoundrels, who stir up the people to revolt against us. Such monsters should be exterminated, as I have exterminated Michael Servetus the Spaniard.”

-John Calvin, September 30, AD 1561 letter to Marquis Paet, high chamberlain to the King of Navarre.

Notice Calvin himself says, “as I have exterminated Michael Servetus the Spaniard.”

Ron, Your cynicism is noted :-).

David R. Brumbelow

[David R. Brumbelow]

“Honour, glory, and riches shall be the reward of your pains; but above all, do not fail to rid the country of those scoundrels, who stir up the people to revolt against us. Such monsters should be exterminated, as I have exterminated Michael Servetus the Spaniard.”

-John Calvin, September 30, AD 1561 letter to Marquis Paet, high chamberlain to the King of Navarre.

Notice Calvin himself says, “as I have exterminated Michael Servetus the Spaniard.”

David R. Brumbelow

Not sure what your point of bringing Servetus up constantly is, but can you provide a link for this quote?

My point is not that you can’t be a Calvinist once it is established that John Calvin was very much in favor of killing Servetus. My point is simply that whether an individual is a Calvinist or not, don’t deny or minimize Calvin’s complicity in this. And, whatever else someone believes about Calvin, this is certainly a black mark on his life.

Yes, Calvin was a man of his times, but he was also dead wrong on killing Servetus.

David R. Brumbelow

[JohnBrian]

“Honour, glory, and riches shall be the reward of your pains; but above all, do not fail to rid the country of those scoundrels, who stir up the people to revolt against us. Such monsters should be exterminated, as I have exterminated Michael Servetus the Spaniard.”

-John Calvin, September 30, AD 1561 letter to Marquis Paet, high chamberlain to the King of Navarre.

Notice Calvin himself says, “as I have exterminated Michael Servetus the Spaniard.”

Not sure what your point of bringing Servetus up constantly is, but can you provide a link for this quote?

I’m not all that familiar with the Servetus incident. Is the following a fair summary (per TGC)?

In the 1500s, denying the Trinity was a blasphemy that was considered worthy of death throughout Europe. Because he had written books denying the Trinity and denouncing paedobaptism, Servetus was condemned to death by the French Catholic Inquisition. Servetus escaped from prison in Vienne and fled to Italy, but stopped on the way in Geneva. After he attended a sermon by Calvin, Servetus was arrested by the city authorities. French Inquisitors asked that he be extradited to them for execution, but the officials in Geneva refused and brought him before their own heresy trial. Although Calvin believed Servetus deserving of death on account of what he termed as his “execrable blasphemies”, he wanted the Spaniard to be executed by decapitation as a traitor rather than by fire as a heretic. The Geneva council refused his request and burned Servetus at the stake with what was believed to be the last copy of his book chained to his leg.

[David R. Brumbelow]

My point is not that you can’t be a Calvinist once it is established that John Calvin was very much in favor of killing Servetus. My point is simply that whether an individual is a Calvinist or not, don’t deny or minimize Calvin’s complicity in this. And, whatever else someone believes about Calvin, this is certainly a black mark on his life.

Yes, Calvin was a man of his times, but he was also dead wrong on killing Servetus.

David R. Brumbelow

Oops; didn’t see the “not” there. That noted, shall we bring up the very real crimes of the Southern Baptists (described in short below) whenever David quotes a Southern Baptist divine? Wanna play that game, David?

This establishes very clearly what David’s motivation is; he thinks that because Calvin provided the evidence that resulted in the execution of Servetus, that therefore no one can be a Calvinist. If we want to go with this kind of logic, may I remind the forum about why the Southern Baptists split from their northern brothers? If killing a single heretic damns Calvinism, than what do we say about the enslavement of four million men, women, and children, accompanied by murders of those who tried to escape, systematic rapes of attractive women among their number, and splitting family units in direct contradiction to Jesus’ command “let no man put asunder”? What do we say about voicing support to laws that preserved the subjugation of our black brothers and sisters for a century, and even harboring, knowingly, KKK leaders and members in their churches, thus granting them respectability and aiding and abetting the murders of 3400 blacks by lynching?

If you want to play the genetic fallacy game, David, you’re welcome to try, but I for one will keep on reminding you that the crimes of your church make the most damning descriptions of Calvin look positively benign in comparison. Whether the doctrines of grace and other articles of Calvin’s theology are true or false depends solely on their congruence with Scripture, not Calvin’s conduct.

Besides, Calvin’s own words are that Servetus sought to “stir up the people to revolt against us”. Back in the 1500s, that did not generally refer to pushing an adverse resolution in the congregational meeting, but to very real rebellions like those of the Hussites, the Peasants’ Revolt, and the like. Calvin’s own move to execute him as a traitor by beheading rather than as a heretic by burning speaks to this possibility.

Since I don’t have access to my library and I wish to move on, I shall provide a quote from Schaff with the link and leave it there.

“Calvin never changed his views or regretted his conduct towards Servetus. Nine years after his execution he justified it in self-defence against the reproaches of Baudouin (1562), saying: “Servetus suffered the penalty due to his heresies, but was it by my will? Certainly his arrogance destroyed him not less than his impiety. And what crime was it of mine if our Council, at my exhortation, indeed, but in conformity with the opinion of several Churches, took vengeance on his execrable blasphemies? Let Baudouin abuse me as long as he will, provided that, by the judgment of Melanchthon, posterity owes me a debt of gratitude for having purged the Church of so pernicious a monster.”

I said there was a letter from Calvin to Melancthon, but it may have been the other way round. Memory fails.

“I am wholly of your opinion, and declare also that your magistrates acted quite justly in condemning the blasphemer to death.”

-Melanchthon, in a letter to John Calvin concerning Servetus. Quoted in “Calvin in His Letters by Henry F. Henderson; 1909, 1996.

John Piper affirms this Melanchthon quote and says,

“Yet, in this execution his [Calvin’s] hands were as stained with Servetus’ blood as David’s were with Uriah’s.”

-John Piper in “The Legacy of Sovereign Joy.”

David R. Brumbelow

Some of this reminds me of the preacher I knew in Florida who despised the Reformers and would list their sins as a way of discrediting reformed theology. They stayed in the Roman Catholic Church instead of separating, they drank beer and danced, their services “looked like the mass”, Luther’s antisemitism, they didn’t believe in separation of church and state, they didn’t believe in religious liberty (of course he didn’t either), they were crude in their language…………

He admired J. Frank Norris, though.

“Honour, glory, and riches shall be the reward of your pains; but above all, do not fail to rid the country of those scoundrels, who stir up the people to revolt against us. Such monsters should be exterminated, as I have exterminated Michael Servetus the Spaniard.”

-John Calvin, September 30, AD 1561 letter to Marquis Paet, high chamberlain to the King of Navarre.

Notice Calvin himself says, “as I have exterminated Michael Servetus the Spaniard.”

James Swan from the Beggars All blog presents evidence that this letter may be a forgery. He writes:

The alleged letter gives someone a title he did not hold until twenty years later… that is indeed a problem, and it’s enough then to pull the letter from historical evidence until further notice.

In a later post Swan writes about a book titled, Did Calvin Murder Servetus? written by Standford Rives.

He notes that Rives does not quote primary sources, and that his name may in fact be a pseudonym:

More troubling though is the documentation. Rives quotes Benedict, who is quoting Robinson, who is allegedly quoting Calvin! First, it’s in vol. 1 of Benedict (his footnote left that out). Second, when one goes to look at Robinson, one discovers that author is citing Voltaire who is citing Calvin. So Standford Rives never actually quoted Calvin directly. He quoted someone quoting someone who quoted someone quoting Calvin!

A reviewer on Amazon also mentions “Standford Rives” is a pseudonym…

All that to say that the quote should not be used as evidence against Calvin, since it cannot be shown that it actually came from Calvin.

Banner of Truth has an article by William Wileman titled Calvin and Servetus.

It was posted twice - October 14, 2003 and August 11, 2009

From the article:

It is very common to hear the remark, “What about Servetus?” or, “Who burned Servetus?” There are three kinds of persons who thus flippantly ask a question of this nature. First, the Roman Catholics, who may judge it to be an unanswerable taunt to a Protestant. Second, those who are not in accord with the great doctrines of grace, as taught by Paul and Calvin, and embraced and loved by thousands still. Then there is a third kind of persons who can only be described as ill-informed. It is always desirable, and often useful, to really know something of what one professes to know.

and

The simplest method of arranging my material will be to ask and to answer three questions. First, why was Servetus burned? Second, who burned him? Third, what part in the matter was taken by John Calvin?

and

All these circumstances prove that his trial was lengthy, deliberate, and careful; and quite in harmony with the requirements of the age. All the Reformers who were consulted approved of the sentence that was pronounced.

and

And now one man alone stands forth to plead for a mitigation of the sentence, namely, that another form of death be substituted for the stake. That one man was John Calvin. He interceded most earnestly with the judges for this, but in vain. Both Farel, who came to Geneva for the purpose, and Calvin, prayed with the unhappy man, and expressed themselves tenderly towards him. Both of them pleaded with the Council for the substitution of a milder mode of death; but the syndics were inflexible.

In a footnote on p.52 of The Reformers and their Stepchildren, Verduin writes:

In the sacral pattern heresy is automatically sedition. The Codes of Justinian decreed that “Heresy shall be construed to be an offence against the civil order” (XVI, 5:40). It has been said that Calvin sought, late in the trial, to have sentence commuted to the effect that some mode of execution other than by fire would be Servetus’ lot. The reason for this suggestion was that Calvin wanted Servetus eliminated as an offender against the civil order. Death by fire was for offenders in the area of religion. Hence Calvin’s concern in the matter. It was the same sensitivity that made Margaret of Parma, in 1567, specify death by hanging for Guido de Brès. It would look better to have de Brès destroyed as a seditionist than as a heretic; hence death by the noose rather than by the flame. So also in the case of Servetus.