Chapter 6 Chapter 4 The Servetus Affair

Chapter 4 The Servetus Affair Sometimes history seems to pick out one eminent figure out of millions to represent some particular philosophical point of view.Such a person need not be a first-rate genius.Fate is often content to bring a name into the public eye by chance.And from then on, this name will be ingrained in the memory of our nation.Miguel Servetus was not a man of superhuman intellect, but his personality will forever be remembered for his terrible fate.He had many gifts, talents of many varieties, but they were all jumbled together.He has a powerful, alert, inquisitive and stubborn mind, but easily drifts from one problem to another.His urge to bring the truth to light is often tempered by a lack of clear creativity.Although he read everything, his Faustian intellect prevented him from thoroughly understanding any of the sciences.He hovered between philosophy, medicine, and theology, often dazzled readers with his bold statements, but soon lost his pretensions.On one occasion, in his prophetic revelation, he made a pioneering observation announcing a medical discovery of pulmonary circulation.He never bothered to exploit his discovery, or trace its relation to the scientific achievements of the world.His pompous insights were fleeting glimmers of light on the dark exterior of his century.His intellect was full of vitality, yet he could not follow his own light.For it is only through persistent effort in the pursuit of a goal that a capable person can be transformed into a creative genius.

Every Spaniard has a Don Quixote character, this sentence can be said to be a cliché.This comment, of course, applies perfectly also to Miguel Servetes, a native of Aragon.His body is thin, his face is pale, and he has a beard trimmed to the point of a pen.So externally he resembles the tall, thin hero of La Mancha (referring to Don Quixote); inwardly, he is completely immersed in Don Quixote's brilliant and grotesque desire: Fighting, sprinting blindly to the windmill of reality.He is completely devoid of self-criticism and often engages in or believes in new inventions of his own.This theological ranger, armed with a lance, rides vertically at every possible obstacle.Only adventure, only the absurd, the perverse, and the dangerous excites him.He aggressively confronts those who disagree with him to determine right from wrong.He never belonged to a party or belonged to a clique.His eternal solitude, his yearning for good, his imagination for evil, are always unique and strange.

Such a pompous, swaggering figure, always ready to fight!Wherever he went, he was bound to make enemies everywhere.His student days, first in Zaragoza, Spain, and then in Toulouse, France, were relatively peaceful.In Toulouse he made the acquaintance of Charles V's confessor, who appointed him private secretary and brought him to Italy and later to the Diet of Augsburg.There, the young humanist, like most people at the time, was overcome with overwhelming enthusiasm when it came to the great religious debate.The struggle between old and new dogmas fermented in him.All is belligerent over there, and this contentious fellow must be as belligerent as the rest; there are so many over there, eager to reform the church, that he must have a hand in it.Eager and eager, he considered that every previous departure from the teaching and interpretation of the ancient Church was timid, ambiguous, and inconclusive.In his view, even able reformers such as Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin were not revolutionary enough to cleanse the Gospels, because they did not break the dogma of the Trinity.Servetus, with the uncompromising spirit of his youth, declared at the age of twenty that the decision of the Municipal Council of Nica was wrong, and that the dogma of the three eternal personalities of Christ was incompatible with the unity of the divine nature. of.

In a time when the tide of religious turmoil is running high, such a radical view is not surprising.At that time, all values ​​were being revalued; all laws were being redefined.People demand the right to break with tradition.The right to think independently.The disaster was that he had inherited from quarrelsome theologians not only their quarrelsomeness but their worst quality—blind, dogmatic quarrelling.He was anxious to show the leaders of the Reformation that their reformation of Christian doctrine was wholly inappropriate.And only he, Miguel Servetus, knew the truth.He immediately went to call on the greatest scholars of our time: Martin Busse and Capitu at Slalasburg, Oykolombatus at Basel.Referring to the Christian church, he urges them to quickly address the "false" doctrine of the Trinity.When a Spanish novice, energetic but with a hysterical temperament, broke into the houses of these distinguished and experienced missionaries and professors, insisting that they immediately revise their views and adopt his revolutionary ideas without hesitation. Arguments, the reader can imagine their anger and disgust.They felt as if the devil himself had sent one of his slaves, and they crossed themselves to drive out this fanatical heresy.Oykolumbatus chased him away like a mad dog, calling him a "Jew, Turk, atheist, and a demon"; Busey denounced him from his pulpit. Vitus was a child of the devil; Zwingli openly warned his followers against the "sinister Spaniard, whose hypocritical and wicked dogma, if left unchecked, will overthrow all our Christianity."

However, just as insult and violence cannot cure the delusion of the knight of La Mancha, so the quixotic theologian is unwilling to listen to other people's arguments, and he does not want to be reprimanded by others.If the leaders cannot understand him, if the wise and the prudent will not listen to him in their studies, he must wage his campaign in public.All of Christendom will read his treatise.He wants to print a book.At the age of twenty-two, Servetus spent all his savings and paid for a book reflecting his views to be printed in Hagenner (The Error of the Trinity, Book Register No. 7, 1531).Then came the storm.Without hesitation, Busey said the rogue deserved to be punished "with his guts pulled out of him alive."Since then, the entire Christian world has regarded Servetus as an out-and-out messenger of the devil.

It goes without saying that when a man adopts such a defiant attitude that he calls both Catholic and Protestant teachings hypocritical, he no longer finds a foothold, a refuge among Christians. .From the day Servetus committed the crime of believing in "the heresy of not believing in Jesus as God", he was hunted down ruthlessly like a wild beast.There was nothing to save him except disappearing from the stage and adopting an alias, because his reputation was already discredited.So he returned to France, under the pseudonym Michel de Villeneuve, and under this pseudonym he got a position as a proofreader at the printing company of Lyontris Hussel Brothers.In this new circle of life, his layman's yet imaginative insights immediately made him find new stimuli and possibilities for debate with others.While proofreading the proofs of Putulemais's Geography, Servetus worked day and night to establish himself as a professional geographer, writing a detailed preface to it.As before, when he checked the proofs of the medical book, his quick mind became that of a doctor again.Before long, he turned his attention to medical studies.For this purpose, he moved to Paris.Anatomical specimens were made near Vansarus, and academic reports on anatomy were made.But this impatient man, as he had done in theology before, after completing his studies and obtaining a medical degree, began teaching students and trying to outdo his competitors.He then announced that he would be teaching mathematics, meteorology, astronomy, and astrology at the medical school in Paris.But university doctors, irritated by this hodge-podge of astrology and medicine, dismissed his boasting.The local authorities also snubbed Servetus-Villeneuves.He was accused before the Paris Assembly of making trouble with "judicial astrology," a discipline that was attacked by both church and secular law.He had to flee again until "Michel de Villeneuve" was identified, the wanted heretic Miguel Servetes.Villeneuves, the teacher, left Paris as inconspicuously as the theologian Servetus had left Germany.There has been no news from him for a long time.When he popped up again, he had a new identity.Who would doubt that the permanent physician employed by Pierre Paulmeier, Archbishop of Vienna, had fled his country as a heretic;In any case, Michel de Villeneuve was cautious.He avoided publishing heretical arguments in Vienna.He becomes taciturn after being aggrieved: he tries to be as inconspicuous as possible.He came to cure many patients and made a lot of money.When he went out for a walk and met well-to-do Viennese citizens, they saluted, in Spanish manner, Dr. Michel de Villeneuve, permanent physician to the eminent archbishop, "what a distinguished, pious, learned and humble man. people!"

To tell the truth, the extreme heresy of the ardent and impatient Spaniard did not come to an end.The inquisitive and indefatigable temperament of Miguel Servetus in the old days still inspired him.When a person always has a certain idea, he is like having a high fever.His mind is full of infinite energy, it seeks development and freedom.Every thinker, when the time is right, inevitably seeks an outlet for his main thought, like a prick seeking to flow from a festered finger: the baby seeks birth from the mother's womb; the swollen fruit seeks to escape And coming out is just as unstoppable.A man as ardent and overconfident as Servetus was, after all, would not tolerate the suppression of his exclusive guiding ideas.He has an irrepressible desire to push the world to think with him.For him, it was constant torture to see Protestant leaders continue to spread dogmas he believed to be false, such as infant baptism and the Trinity.How can Christians continue to be poisoned by the mistakes of the "antichrist"?Was it not his duty to declare his mission frankly for the sake of true faith?One cannot help but think that Servetus seemed to have suffered mentally during those years of forced silence.Unspoken words rolled in his heart.As an outlaw, as a man for whom safety is everything, he had to be invisible, he was compelled to remain silent.Servetus finally decided to correspond with a sympathizer in order to engage in an intellectual dialogue.Since in his present residence he could not risk discussing his theological convictions with anyone face to face, he could only do so in private and in writing.

The disaster for Servetus was that he blindly chose Calvin as his trusted theologian, in the hope that this brave and revolutionary innovator would agree to a bolder interpretation of Scripture.In befriending Calvin, Servetus may simply be catching up with an old friend, reviving a conversation that should have begun long ago.They must have met in Paris during their university days.But it was not until Calvin became lord of Geneva, and Michel de Villeneuve became physician-in-residence to the Archbishop of Vienna, that they began to correspond through the intermediary of John Fleirand, scholar and printer at Lyon.Servetus wrote first, and he urgently and babbled to Calvin in the hope that his anti-Trinity arguments would win the support of the most eminent Reformation theologian.At first, Calvin's replies sounded like correcting false creeds.Convinced that it was his duty to lead the straying into the right path and the straying sheep into the fold, Calvin did his best to make Servetus mistaken.But in the end, he was irritated by the arrogant and presumptuous tone Servetus used.Servetus confidently wrote to Calvin, the opinionated dictator who was prone to anger at the slightest resistance: "I have explained to you time and again that you have gone down the road by ignoring the great difference in three sacred substantive issues. went astray," and that touches a dangerous devil where it hurts.At last Servetus had the audacity to give the famous author a copy of the "Principles of Christianity," and the Spaniard marked in the margins what he thought to be errors, as a schoolteacher does with a pupil's composition.It is not difficult to understand how the dictator of Geneva would have been angry at the arrogance of an amateur theologian. "Servetus has seized mine, and defiled it with abusive remarks, much as a dog has gnawed away at a stone,"—so Calvin wrote to his friend Farel with contempt.Why was he wasting his time arguing with such a hopeless idiot?He kicked Servetus' argument away and got rid of it. "That guy's words sounded like a donkey's bray, and I turned a deaf ear to it."

The unlucky Don Quixote, before it was too late, did not perceive that he was confronting the complacent armorers, and resumed his attack.He charged with a spear.Calvin wanted nothing to do with him, but it was this man, and no one else, that Servetus trusted.In Calvin's words, Servetus appears to have been "enchanted."Servetus, instead of avoiding Calvin as his most loathsome and likely adversary, sent Calvin the proofs of his own unpublished work, a book of theology.It was the very title of the book that was enough to irritate Calvin.Because the name of Servetus' book is "The Restoration of Christianity", in order to show the whole world, he must use "The Restoration" to protest Calvin's "Principia".Calvin, the morbid and contentious man, was eager to convert Servetus.The Spaniard's entanglement is too much now.Calvin wrote to the intermediary who introduced their correspondence, and the bookseller Fleurand said that his (Calvin's) time was precious and he had no time to read the letter of such a self-important idiot.At the same time he wrote what turned out to be of great importance.He wrote to Farrier: "Servettes wrote to me recently and, among other things, he hurled insults at me. His letters continued with unbelievable presumptuousness, saying that I was going to discover something marvelous, and so far Unheard of thing. He said he was going to come here if I allowed it. But I couldn't give him such a guarantee, and if he did come, he couldn't leave alive as long as I was in power in this city. "

We do not know whether Servetus learned of the threat, or whether Calvin (in a lost letter) may have given him a veiled warning.It seems that the Spaniard must have realized at last that he had inspired Calvin's murderous spirit of hatred.For the first time he was disturbed by the manuscript he had given Calvin "stamped top secret".This document has fallen into the hands of an openly hated man and could prove disastrous.In a panic, Servetus wrote to Calvin, saying: "Since you have already expressed your opinion that I am Satan, I will not say anything more. Please return the manuscript to me, maybe everything will be more suitable for you .But if you really believe that the Pope is the Antichrist, you must also believe that the Trinity and infant baptism are part of Roman Catholic doctrine and therefore equally devilish dogma."

Calvin made no reply.He had no intention of sending Servetus' manuscript back to him.Calvin put the heretical manuscript carefully into a drawer and put it away.When he needs it, he can show his cards.Both rivals knew that after their last bitter words were spoken, a bitter fight was inevitable.Servetus's thoughts were filled with pessimistic forebodings.At this time he wrote a letter to a theologian: "Now I know very well that I am doomed to die in this case. But such thoughts cannot shake my courage. As a follower of Jesus, I will follow the instructions of my Lord." Step forward." It is necessary for Castellio and Servetus and many others to understand that it is extremely dangerous to confront such fanatical dogmatists as Calvin, even to challenge such a man in the petty aspects of dogma.In these respects Calvin is typical, rigid and methodical.He was not, like Luther, violent, and thus not subject to outbursts of enthusiasm; nor was Farrier, a character so difficult to deal with.His hatred was as sharp, sharp, and sharp as a sword, but not derived from blood, temperament, enthusiasm, or resentment like Luther's.Calvin's tenacious and ruthless vengeance grew out of his head, and his hatred gave him a terribly good memory which he never forgot.The Reverend de la Marche wrote of him, "He never held a grudge against it," but in fact, once a name is imprinted on the note of his memory, it can never be erased unless the person is never again. He will be automatically removed from the book of life and death.Many years passed, Calvin heard no more from Servetus, and so the matter was closed.But Calvin continued to keep Servetus in mind.The reconciliation document was quietly placed in the drawer and kept safely.The arrow is in the barrel, and hatred is smoldering in his ruthless soul. For several years Servetus did not move.He gave up trying to convince the unrepentant man, and devoted himself to his work with zeal.With the most touching devotion, the permanent physician of the archbishop devoted himself secretly to the daily laborious work of writing the Restoration of Christianity.He hoped that this book would go far beyond the reformation of Calvin, Luther, and Zwingli.Where their Reformation was not right, his was right.Servetus' reform was to save the world by spreading true Christianity.For Servetus was never the "Cyclops despising truth," as the public later mocked Calvin, not to mention the courageous freethinker and atheist whom those confident followers of him praise all the time today. up.Servetus was always formal in matters of religion.He sincerely saw himself as a devout Christian who must be prepared to give his life to the divine faith.This sincerity is fully expressed in the appeal in the preface of his book: "O Jesus Christ, Son of God. You are sent from heaven, and you will reveal yourself to your servants. Such a great revelation will make us No doubt. With a divine impulse from within, I will undertake to defend your cause. A few years ago, I made my first attempt. Now, because the time is right, I must start all over again. You instructed us not to Too humble, and may I suffer if I do not openly extol the truth!" The precautions Servetus took in printing the book show that the author was well aware of the dangerous demons his work was conjuring.What a perilous task for an archbishop's resident physician to issue a heretical book of more than seven hundred pages in a provincial city full of gossip.Not only authors, but also publishers and sellers, have staked their lives on this reckless venture.But Servetus was willing to give all the reserves of his practice to excite the enthusiasm of hesitant collaborators.It must have been costly to move the printing office from its original place to a house far away, which the author had hired for the purpose.There, in spite of the objections of the Inquisition, the heretical treatise was typeset and printed by trustworthy men.They were all sworn to secrecy.The final volume of the book bears no indication of where it was printed and distributed.However, Servetus disastrously left his initials M.S.V. (Miguel Servetus Villeneuves) above the date printed on the last page of the book, so Give the dogs of the Inquisition irrefutable proof of the original author. It was this non-professional work that exposed Servetus himself.For his ruthless adversary, who seemed to be asleep, was actually driven by hatred and kept awake.The espionage organization Calvin had painstakingly erected in Geneva—an increasingly fine-meshed web—extended its reach into neighboring countries.It was even more influential in France than the Holy Inquisition.Before the actual publication of Servetus' book—even when thousands of volumes were still stacked in Lyons warehouses or shipped to the Frankfurt book market, and so few were sold that only three volumes have survived—Calvin had already Got a copy.The dictator of Geneva immediately devoted himself to the extermination of this heresy and his writings. Few people know that Calvin's campaign against Servetus was an attempt to secretly "destroy" an adversary, which was even more repugnant than the later success of the Chappelle.For, after a careful reading of what he rightly regarded as extreme heresy, if Calvin wanted the Catholic Inquisition to kill his opponents, he would have chosen an open and honest course.He could well have warned Christians against this book from the pulpit.Even if he hid in the bishop's palace, the Pope's servants in the Catholic Inquisition would have found the author of the bad book.But the great Reformer spared the papacy the trouble of finding Servetus, and he did it in the most treacherous way.Calvin's apologists tried in vain to defend him even on this point, and yet their attempts helped to understand the insidiousness of his character.In personal conduct, Calvin was an honest zealot and a man deeply motivated by religious purpose, whenever his teachings were doubted, or, it seemed to him, his "cause" was at stake. At that time, he became impudent.For the sake of his doctrine, for the sake of his denomination, he was ready to endorse any method that proved effective, and in February 1553, almost at the same time that Calvin received Servetus' book, an acquaintance of Calvin, a A French émigré named Girami Terry was writing from Geneva to his cousin Antoine Arnie, a fervent Catholic as he himself was a fervent Protestant.In this letter, Terry begins with a general account of how Protestant Geneva was effective in suppressing some of the projects of heresy, which he pointed out were allowed to flourish in Catholic France. (He will be valued and respected by others everywhere.) Then, the content changed from joking among friends to becoming serious.He said that in France, for example, when the authorities laid hands on a heretic, he was burned. Can we forget this passage from Calvin: "If he does come, I will make sure that he does not leave alive as long as I remain in power in the city"?But Terry, Calvin's confidant, wrote more clearly, denouncing the heretical name: "I am speaking of a Spanish Aragonese whose real name was Miguel Servetus, but who called himself Michele de Villeneuve, a practicing physician," he went on to give the title and table of contents of the book, enclosing a transcript of the first to fourth pages.His letter ends with mourning for the sins of the world. This Geneva dynamite was deftly placed in the right place to explode.Everything is going according to the whistleblower's plan.Arnie, a devout Catholic, was filled with righteous indignation and immediately handed over the letter to the religious authorities in Lyon.With the same speed the Cardinal of Lyons immediately went to Pierre Aure, the papal inquisitor.Thus the stone, propelled by Calvin, rolled from the top of the mountain to the foot of the mountain with terrible momentum.The informant was sent from Geneva on February 26, and on March 16 Michel de Villeneuve was formally charged in Vienna. But their gunpowder did not go off after all, which must have been a great disappointment to the fanatical Geneva informers.Someone must be helping to cut that fuse.It is likely that the Archbishop of Vienna gave a timely hint to his permanent physician.When the inquisitors of the Catholic Inquisition appeared in Vienna, the printing house mysteriously disappeared, and the hired printers made it clear that they had never lined or printed such books.While the respected physician Villeneus indignantly denied that he was Miguel Servetus, it is strange that the Catholic Inquisition was content only to provoke a protest, and the extraordinary restraint of this terrible institution strengthens our of this idea.Some powerful people must have stretched out a protective hand to the prisoner.The Catholic Inquisition, which usually starts its work with fingertips and limbs, got away with Villeneuves.The Inquisitor returned to Lyon with nothing.And Ani was notified.His accusation was found to be unsubstantiated.The Genevan, through the hands of the Catholic Inquisition, failed in his attempt to get rid of Servetus.The whole thing might well have gone down had it not been for Arnie's request to Geneva to beg his cousin Terry for further and more incriminating material on the circumstances of the above-mentioned heresy. So far, if we wished to take a lenient view, we might conjecture that it was Terry who launched a charge against his Catholic cousins ​​against an author whom he did not know at all, and neither Terry nor Calvin would have Dreamed that their informants would leak to the Holy See authorities.But now that the judiciary machine is in motion, the horde of fanatics in Geneva must know that it was not out of idle curiosity that Ani wrote to them asking for further information, but was facilitated by the Catholic Inquisition. .They cannot but doubt the nature of the motives of these men.A clergyman would certainly not have acted as an informer to the dreaded Catholic authorities who were simmering so many Protestants.Servetus had good reason to roar at Calvin: "Don't you know that it is evil for a servant of the Gospel to make himself an official accuser, and to use his position to set traps?" Let me say it again, when Calvin's teachings were at stake, he was a shameless man.Servetus had to be "destroyed" because Calvin was a vengeful man who didn't mind the means.Terry's second letter to Arnie, undoubtedly dictated by Calvin, is a masterpiece of hypocrisy.Terry said he was taken aback by his cousin's handing over the letter to the Catholic Inquisition. "It was only for your viewing," he said, "that I have no other purpose than to show you how utterly devoid of faith are those who call themselves the pillars of the Church." Stacked up, he did not lose the idea of ​​further activities towards the Catholic Inquisition.The vile informer went on to sweet-talk, for the blunder had been done, and there was no doubt that "it was the will of God to deliver the Christians from this sordid and deadly calamity." Can't believe it.After dragging God's name under the water to cover up the inhumanity of human hatred, Terry sent his cousin the most confidential material he could find - Servetus's personal letter and a partial manuscript of the book.Now, those who take drastic measures against heresy can act very quickly. Several personal letters from Servetus are also enclosed.Terry never communicated with Servetus, so how could Terry get hold of them?There was nothing to hide.We must bring Calvin, who was hiding behind the scenes, into broad daylight.The letters of Servetus and the manuscript pages of the book were sent by Servetus to Calvin, who knew very well the purpose of taking them out of the drawer.He knew that these documents should go to those "Roman Catholics" whom he yelled every day from the pulpit as "the claws of Satan" and who were accustomed to torture and burn his own followers.He only knew that those documents were enough to send Servetus to the stake. Therefore, he later tried in vain to cover up the traces he had left.He wrote, not without sophistry: "It is rumored that I took steps to bring about the arrest of Servetus by the servants of the Pope of the Catholic Inquisition, and some even say that I dishonorably handed him over to the sworn enemies of our faith, and threw him into the wolves. Claws. I will ask my accusers, how did I suddenly come into contact with those servants of the Pope? It is unbelievable: I would have had any such contact with them, and they would conspire with me. To You know, those people are to me what the devil is to Christ." But such an excuse would be too blatant.For just when Calvin naively asked, "How did I suddenly come into contact with those servants of the Pope," the document provided a definitive answer.The affair was left to his friend Terry, who, in a letter to Arney, frankly admitted Calvin's involvement. "I must confess that I have taken great pains to obtain from Mr. Calvin the papers which I have attached. I do not mean to imply that he does not think that steps must be taken against such odious atheists, and he considers his It is the duty to persuade heretics with sound doctrine, not to attack them with the sword of justice." Hence the vain attempt of this clumsy letter to absolve true criminals (apparently instigated by Calvin) because The letter said: "I have taken so much trouble to tell you that if Mr. Calvin had not helped me; if he had not given me the definitive material which I sent, I would have been accused of proposing a improper accusation." Actions make a stronger impression than words.Whether intentionally or not, Calvin forwarded Servetus's personal letters to "the servants of the Pope," making it possible for them to use them to discredit their author.Calvin, and only Calvin, was responsible for Terry's letter to Arney (actually written directly to the Catholic Inquisition); only Calvin could have Terry send that indictment, and in The letter to Arni concluded with the following words: "I think I am sending you some irrefutable evidence, so that you will have no difficulty in arresting Servetus." It is recorded that the Cardinal of Touron and the Presbyterian Auré burst out laughing when they saw that irrefutable evidence of the crimes of Servetus brought to their attention was presented by their sworn enemy, the heretic Calvin.In fact, it is easy to understand why the cardinals of these churches are so happy.To say that Terry's motives, under the pretense of piety, were nothing more than kindness, kindness, and fidelity to his friends may lie to us, but it does not conceal the absurd fact that Protestant leaders were so accommodating that they went to Help the Inquisitors of the Roman Catholic Inquisition burn a heretic.Such reciprocity of courtesies is not common among dignitaries of very different beliefs.They, all over the globe, are accustomed to destroy each other with fire and sword, gallows and chariot.In any case, after this pleasant episode, the judges of the Catholic Inquisition still did what they should do.Servetus was arrested and severely interrogated, and the letters and partial manuscripts provided by Calvin provided such overwhelming evidence that the accused could no longer deny his authorship of the book, that of Michel de Vitus. Lennu and Miguel Servetus are one and the same.His career failed.The firewood was piled up in Vienna, and the fire was about to be lit. At any rate, Calvin's wish to call upon his other sworn enemies to help him get rid of one seems to have been miscarried again.This may have been because Servetus, beloved as a physician, had powerful friends; perhaps (that is more likely) the Catholic authorities were willing to relax with a man whom Calvin was so eager to burn at the stake. Take care of it.Anyway, the guard was very sloppy.Wouldn't it be better to let an unimportant heretic escape than to please the chief heretic in Geneva?The measures that guarded Servetus were not strict.In the past, heretics were treated by locking them in small dungeons and chaining them to the walls.Servetus enjoyed special treatment.Allow him to take a walk in the garden once a day to get some fresh air.On April 7th, during a walk, the prisoner disappeared, leaving the warden with a bathrobe and the ladder with which the fugitive had climbed over the garden wall.But the firewood was not wasted. His imitation portrait and five large boxes of "Restoration" were burned in public in the Vienna market to replace the living Servetus.The trick of the Genevans to keep his hands from getting dirty by removing an enemy at the hands of foreign fanatics ended in disastrous failure.从此以后，加尔文成了全体人道主义者蔑视的众矢之的。他继续发起反塞维特斯的运动，他由于憎恨一个人的信仰，就图谋置那人于死地，现在他得对这些负全部责任了。