Calvin and Servetus

My interest in Servetus dates back to when I started to research the Pagnini Latin Bible of 1528. It was the first full translation from the Hebrew into Latin since Jerome's translation, and benefited from rabbinical commentary from the Middle Ages.

From the Cambridge History of the Bible, page 70,

Pagnini was criticized by Luther and others for having leaned too much on Jewish scholarhsip, and for having followed the targums in his rendering of the Hebrew text. Perhaps this and its literalism made it the only Christian Latin version which the Jews seem to have respected. His interpretion of Job xix.25 at any rate is nearer to that of modern scholarship than to that of either the Vulgate or the English Authorized Version.

Servetus revised Pagnini's version for the printer Hughes de la Porte of Lyons, 1542; it is possible that the emendations derive from those which Pagnini had made by hand in a copy of the edition of 1528. Because of the matter in some of the marginal notes which Servetus had added, this Bible was put on the Index and suppressed - Servetus had entered deeper into his covenant with death.

On October 27, 1553 John Calvin, had Michael Servetus, burned at the stake just outside of Geneva for his doctrinal heresies.

Here is an explanation of the interaction of Calvin and Servetus,

Servetus remained outwardly a conforming Catholic while pursuing his private theological studies. He soon published at Lyon his most important work, Biblia sacra ex Santis Pagnini tra[ns]latione (1542), notable for its theory of prophecy.

Servetus forwarded the manuscript of an enlarged revision of his ideas, the Christianismi Restitutio, to Calvin in 1546 and expressed a desire to meet him. After their first few letters, Calvin would have nothing more to do with him and kept the manuscript. He declared to his eloquent French preacher colleague Guillaume Farel that if Servetus ever came to Geneva he would not allow him to leave alive.

A rewritten version of Servetus’ manuscript was secretly printed in 1,000 copies at Vienne in 1553. In discussing the relationship between the Spirit and regeneration in that book, Servetus almost incidentally made known his discovery of the pulmonary circulation of blood. In the book, Servetus argued that both God the Father and Christ his Son had been dishonoured by the Constantinian promulgation of the Nicene Creed, thus obscuring the redemptive role of Christ and bringing about the fall of the church; Servetus felt he could restore the church by separating it from the state and by using only those theological formulations that could be proved from Scripture and the pre-Constantinian fathers.

When some of Servetus’ letters to Calvin fell into the hands of Guillaume de Trie, a former citizen of Lyon, he exposed Servetus to the inquisitor general at Lyon. Servetus and his printers were seized. During the trial, however, Servetus escaped, and the Catholic authorities had to be content with burning him in effigy. He quixotically appeared in Geneva and was recognized, arrested, and tried for heresy from Aug. 14 to Oct. 25, 1553. Calvin played a prominent part in the trial and pressed for execution, although by beheading rather than by fire.


Despite his intense biblicism and his wholly Christocentric view of the universe, Servetus was found guilty of heresy, mainly on his views of the Trinity and Baptism. He was burned alive at Champel on October 27. His execution produced a Protestant controversy on imposing the death penalty for heresy, drew severe criticism upon John Calvin, and influenced Laelius Socinus, a founder of modern unitarian views.