| 145. Correspondence of Servetus with Calvin and Poupin. | ||||
While engaged in the preparation of his last work at Vienne, Servetus opened a correspondence with Calvin through Jean Frellon, a learned publisher at Lyons and a personal friend of both. He sent him a copy of his book as far as then finished, and told him that he would find in it stupendous things never heard of before. He also proposed to him three questions: 1) Is the man Jesus Christ the Son of God, and how? 2) Is the kingdom of God in man, when does man enter into it, and when is he born again? 3) Must Christian baptism presuppose faith, like the Lord's Supper, and to what end are both sacraments instituted in the New Testament?1 | ||||
Calvin seems to have had no time to read the whole manuscript, but courteously answered the questions to the effect, 1) that Christ is the Son of God both according to his divine nature eternally begotten, and according to his human nature as the Wisdom of God made flesh; 2) that the kingdom of God begins in man when he is born again, but that the process of regeneration is not completed in a moment, but goes on till death;3) that faith is necessary for baptism, but not in the same personal way as in the Lord's Supper; for according to the type of circumcision the promise was given also to the children of the faithful. Baptism and the Lord's Supper are related to each other as circumcision and the passover. He referred to his books for details, but was ready to give further explanation if desired. | ||||
Servetus was by no means satisfied with the answer, and wrote back that Calvin made two or three Sons of God; that the Wisdom of God spoken of by Solomon was allegorical and impersonal; that regeneration took place in the moment of baptism by water and the spirit, but never in infant baptism. He denied that circumcision corresponded to baptism. He put five new theological questions to Calvin, and asked him to read the fourth chapter on baptism in the manuscript of the Restitutio which he had sent him. | ||||
To these objections Calvin sent another and more lengyour response. He again offered further explanation, though he had no time to write whole books for him, and had discussed all these topics in his Institutes. | ||||
So far there is nothing to indicate any disposition in Calvin to injure Servetus. On the contrary we must admire his patience and moderation in giving so much of his precious time to the questions of a troublesome stranger and pronounced opponent. Servetus continued to press Calvin with letters, and returned the copy of the Institutes with copious critical objections. There is hardly a page, says Calvin, that is not defiled by his vomit. | ||||
Calvin sent a final answer to the questions of Servetus, which is lost, together with a French letter to Frellon, which is preserved. This letter is dated Feb. 13, 1546, under his well-known pseudonym of Charles Despeville, and is as follows: - | ||||
Seigneur Jehan, As your last letter was brought to me on my departure, I had no leisure to reply to the enclosure it contained. After my return I use the first moment of my leisure to comply with your desire; not indeed that I have any great hope of proving serviceable to such a man, seeing him disposed as I do. But I will try once more, if there be any means left of bringing him to reason, and this will happen when God shall have so wrought in him that he has become altogether another man. Since he has written to me in so proud a spirit, I have been led to write to him more sharply than is my wont, being minded to take him down a little in his presumption. But I could not do otherwise. For I assure you there is no lesson he needs so much to learn as humility. This must come to him through the grace of God, not otherwise. But we, too, ought to lend a helping hand. If God give such grace to him and to us that the present answer will turn to his profit, I shall have cause to rejoice. If he persists, however, in the style he has hitherto seen fit to use, you will only lose your time in soliciting me further in his behalf; for I have other affairs that concern me more nearly, and I shall make it a matter of conscience not to busy myself further, not doubting that he is a Satan who would divert me from more profitable studies. Let me beg of you, therefore, to be content with what I have already done, unless you see occasion for acting differently. | ||||
Frellon sent this letter to Villeneuve by a special messenger, together with a note in which be addresses him as his dear brother and friend. | ||||
On the same day Calvin wrote the famous letter to Farel already quoted. He had arrived at the settled conviction that Servetus was an incorrigible and dangerous heretic, who deserved to die. But he did nothing to induce him to come to Geneva, as he wished, and left him severely alone.. In 1548 he wrote to Viret that he would have nothing more to do with this desperately obstinate heretic, who shall force no more letters from him. | ||||
Servetus continued to trouble Calvin, and published in his Restitutio no less than thirty letters to him, but without dates and without replies from Calvin. They are conceived in a haughty and self-sufficient spirit. He writes to the greatest divine of the age, not as a learner, or even an equal, but as a superior. In the first of these printed letters he charges Calvin with holding absurd, confused, and contradictory opinions on the sonship of Christ, on the Logos, and on the Trinity. In the second letter he tells him: You make three Sons of God: the human nature is a son to you, the divine nature is a son, and the whole Christ is a son .. All such tritheistic notions are a three-headed illusion of the Dragon, which easily crept in among the sophists in the present reign of Antichrist. Or have you not read of the spirit of the dragon, the spirit of the beast, the spirit of the false prophets, three spirits? Those who acknowledge the trinity of the beast are possessed by three spirits of demons. These three spirits incite war against the immaculate Lamb, Jesus Christ (Apoc. 16). False are all the invisible gods of the Trinitarians, as false as the gods of the Babylonians. Farewell. He begins the third letter with the oft-repeated warning (saepius te monui) not to admit that impossible monster of three things in God. In another letter he calls him a reprobate and blasphemer (improbus et blasphemus) for calumniating good works. He charges him with ignorance of the true nature of faith, justification, regeneration, baptism, and the kingdom of heaven. | ||||
These are fair specimens of the arrogant, irritating, and even insulting tone of his letters. At last Servetus himself broke off his correspondence with Calvin, who, it seems, had long ceased to answer them, but he now addressed his colleagues. He wrote three letters to Abel Poupin, who was minister at Geneva from 1543 to 1556, when he died. The last is preserved, and was used in evidence at the trial. It is not dated, but must have been written in 1548 or later. Servetus charges the Reformed Christians of Geneva that they had a gospel without a God, without true faith, without good works; and that instead of the true God they worshipped a three-headed Cerberus. Your faith in Christ, he continues, is a mere pretence and without effect; your man is an inert trunk, and your God a fabulous monster of the enslaved will. You reject baptismal regeneration and shut the kingdom of heaven against men. Woe to you, woe, woe! | ||||
He concludes this remarkable letter with the prediction that he would die for this cause and become like to his Master. | ||||