MICHAEL SERVETUS, PHYSICIAN AND HERETIC* By GEORGE A. WILLIAMS, M.D. ATLANTA, GA. ICHAEL Servetus, through the tant member of the Emperor’s retinue that vagaries of fortune known also he witnessed what was to him the degrading as Michel Villeneuve, Michael spectacle of the most powerful monarch of Villanovanus, and as he once his time, at the head of twenty thousand styled himself, alias Reves, was bornveterans, at prostrating himself in the dust to MVillaneuva in the province of Aragon,kiss the foot of the Pope. No less disgusting Spain. The year of his birth is uncertain, to the youthful observer was the thriving being given by Servetus himself on occa- sale of indulgences by the clergy, an impor- sions as both 1509 and 1511, but suffice it to tant feature of every festival. Servetus was say that the tremendous force of the also present at the Diet of Augsburg where Renaissance had already begun to stir the he came into intimate contact with leaders thought of man, long stagnant in the of the Reformation, one author even mak- worship of ancient masters. At the trial ing him visit Luther in the neighboring city in Geneva he described his parents as being of Coburg. of an ancient race, living nobly, and that his It is not clear when and why Servetus father was a notary by profession. This left the service of Quintana, but he is next precludes the supposition, based largely found in Basle, corresponding on theologi- upon his spirit of tolerance, that he was of cal subjects with various Swiss Reformers. Jewish or Moorish parentage, or both. This led to the publication of his first book, The Church of that day appealed most “De Trinitatis Erroribus,” or “Concerning strongly to the ambitious as the direct path the Errors of the Trinity.” The title page to influence and affluence so it is quite also bore the legend, “By Michael Servetus, probable that the childhood training of alias Reves, of Aragon, Spain.” The printer Servetus at a neighboring convent was and publisher, probably discerning the directed toward the priesthood. At the age coming storm, did not grace the page with of fourteen he entered the University of their names. The volume was immediately Saragossa, the most famous in Spain, where scathingly denounced as heresy and blas- we are told he became proficient not only in phemy, and Bucer, Oecolampadius, Zwingli Latin but also in Greek and Hebrew. After and other leaders of the Reformation were four or five years, having definitely decided quick to disclaim all responsibility for it or against the clergy and probably with the its author. “De Trinitatis Erroribus” dealt hereditary vocation of his family in view, largely with the conception of the Holy he entered Toulouse, the most noted law Trinity, which among other doctrines the school of the day. He had not yet found Reformers had retained after their revolt himself but it is significant that here he from Rome. This consisted of the existence made his first acquaintance with the scrip- of an inseparable and indivisible Godhead of tures of the Old and New Testaments. three persons; God, the Father, Christ, the Leaving school after two years, Servetus Son of God, and the Holy Ghost. According next entered the service of Juan Quintana, to the accepted dogma, Christ was the a liberal Franciscan friar, confessor to the eternal Son of God, having existed since all Emperor Charles v. It was as an unimpor- time as the transcendental Word of God. * Read before the Emory Medical History Club, Servetus did not deny the Trinity and was Atlanta, September 17, 1927. not a martyr to the Unitarian confession as is thought by some. In “De Trinitatis recorded medical observation of this pioneer Erroribus” he states as his belief, “I con- physiologist, “I have myself often seen the cede one person of the Father, another King touching many suffering from the person of the Son, another person of the disease (scrofula) but I did not see that any Holy Ghost; three persons in one God, and were cured.” At Lyons, Villeneuve became this is the true Trinity.” This seems ortho- the friend and associate of Symphorien dox enough, but person, he contended, as Champier, a distinguished physician of his derived from the Greek irpocuirov, or the time. Both being students of astrology, Latin persona, means a mask, a symbol, an Villeneuve did not hesitate to defend his appearance, and never any real person or friend against Leonard Fuchs, professor of thing. To Servetus, Christ became the Son medicine at Heidelberg, in a controversy of God on his conception by the Virgin on the subject. Mary and had not preexisted as the Word of The bitterness of his quarrels with the God as recorded in St. John. His conception Reformers had perhaps discouraged him as a of the Holy Spirit is by no means so clear doctrinal critic, so Villeneuve is next seen but it seems that he regarded both the Son again in Paris, this time as a medical and the Holy Ghost as manifestations of student under the great Jacobus Sylvius God and not as equal persons of the God- and Johann Guinther, and a fellow prosec- head. “All Trinitarian errors,” he concludes, tor with Andreas Vesalius. As Servetus had “have arisen from not understanding the freed himself of the bonds of orthodox true nature of the Incarnation.” theology,- so Villeneuve and Vesalius threw The youthful critic was bitterly dis- off the shackles with which Galen had appointed at the hostile reception of his bound medical science for thirteen centuries, views, and, living in an age when conflict one instituting practical physiology, while with authority often led to the stake, he the other became the father of modern conveniently disappeared from Basle. His anatomy. It is striking that the bigotry of retreat was not, however, without a parting their time claimed both men as victims, shot at his adversaries, for from Hagenau a Vesalius perishing in a shipwreck off the few months later he published his “Dialogi Island of Crete whence he was returning de Trinitate,” a reaffirmation of his views from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in an en- and an attempt to clarify them. forced penance for his zeal in dissection. Leaving Protestant Switzerland for At the age of twenty-six or twenty-nine, Catholic France, Michael Servetus became Villeneuve published his only medical book, M. Michel Villeneuve; in Latin, Michael an unimportant treatise on syrups and their Villanovanus; not of Aragon in Spain but, uses. In this work, however, he mentions for obvious reasons, from the former French veins originating in the mesentery, a distinct province of Navarre. He studied mathe- advance over the Galenian doctrine that the matics and physics in Paris where, as a liver was the source of all these vessels. fellow student, he met Calvin, discussed What he considered a much more important theology with him, and first incurred the publication was his “ Apologetica pro Astrol- enmity which was so all important in his ogia,” a defense of his lectures on astrology destiny. After two years Villeneuve is found for which he was taken to task by the Paris in literary occupations successively at faculty of medicine. Soon after his repri- Orleans, Avignon, and finally at Lyons. mand by that august body Villeneuve Here he found employment as a proof began the practice of medicine at Charlieu, reader and editor. An important work a small town near Lyons. An abhorrer of embellished with his notes was a handsome infant baptism, he was baptized privately edition of “Ptolemy’s Geography.” Among here at the age of thirty, at which age one the notations thereon is found the first had reached the capacity to reason and could have faith. To Villeneuve this was a faith. Although Calvin did not condescend prerequisite to the sacrament and for a to comment upon such a blasphemous effort, precedent he pointed to Christ himself, who, he never returned the manuscript but at a though circumcised as an infant, was not later day furnished it to the Papal Inquisitor baptized until His thirtieth year. at Vienne for the prosecution of its author, Soon leaving Charlieu for Vienne, a his friend, for heresy. larger town in Dauphiny, Villeneuve began The immediate cause of the prosecution to practice there under the patronage of the at Vienne was the printing, in private, of Archbishop, Pierre Parmier, to whom he five hundred bales of “Christianismi Resti- had lectured in Paris. His time not yet being tutio” in that city. Villeneuve remembered fully occupied with his practice, he again the bitter experience of Servetus with “De engaged in editorial work, including another Trinitatis Erroribus” and the title page edition of “Ptolemy’s Geography” and one bore neither his name nor that of the of the famed “Pagnini’s Bible.” As an printer. It was signed with the initials expositor of the latter he again established “M. S. V.” and in the preface he unwit- contact with the theological strife of the tingly says that he had previously treated of day. Through John Frelon, a publisher of the subject to be discussed. Michael and Lyons, he began a correspondence with Peter, too, are the interlocutors in one of Calvin, in Geneva, on vital questions of the dialogues as indeed they were in his old Christian doctrine. The controversy grad- “Dialogi de Trinitate.” When the first ually assumed such a degree of bitterness copy of the printed book found its way into that the supply of invectives of both advo- the hands of Calvin at Geneva he imme- cates was severely taxed.