THE HISTORY OF HERESIES,

ARTICLE II.

THE ANTITRINITARIANS AND SOCINIANS.

SEC. I.-MICHAEL SERVETUS.

33. He goes to

32. Character of Servetus; his Studies, Travels, and false Doctrine.
Geneva; disputes with Calvin, who has him burned to Death.

32. MICHAEL SERVETUS, the chief of the Antitrinitarians, was a Spaniard, a native of Saragossa, in Catalonia. He was a man of genius (1), but light-headed, and held such a presumptuous opinion of himself, that, even before he was twenty-five years old, he thought himself the most learned man in the world. He went to Paris to study medicine, and there met some German Lutheran professors, employed by Francis I. to teach in that University, as he wished to have, at all risks, the best professors in Europe. He learned from these doctors, not only Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, but at the same time imbibed their errors. and, as he commenced disseminating the errors he had learned (2), He went to Dauphiny, he was accused of Lutheranism, but cleared himself, and denounced all Lutheran doctrine. He next went to Lyons, then to Germany, and from that to Africa to learn the Alcoran of Mahomet. next went to Poland, and fixed himself there; and, puffed up with He an extraordinary idea of his own learning, he disdained attaching himself to any sect, and formed a religion of his own, composed of the errors of all sects, and then, as Varillas tells us, he changed his name to Revez. With Luther, he condemned all which that Reformer condemned in the Catholic Church; he rejected the baptism of infants, with the Anabaptists; with the Sacramentarians, he said that the Eucharist was only a figure of the body and blood of Jesus Christ. But his most awful errors were those against the Most Holy Trinity, and especially against the Divinity of Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost. With Sabellius, he denied the distinction of the three Divine Persons; with Arius, that the Word was God; with Macedonius, that the Holy Ghost was God, for he said that in God there was but one nature and one person, that the Son and the Holy Ghost were only two emanations from and the Divine essence, and had a beginning only from the creation of the world. Thus, as Jovet (3) says, Arianism, which was extinct for eight hundred years, was resuscitated by Servetus in 1530. Europe, and the northern nations of it especially, being then all in confusion, overrun by so many heresies, he soon found followers. Besides the errors enumerated, the books of Servetus were filled

(1) Jovet, Hist. delle Relig. t. 2, p. 287; Varil. t. 1, l. 8, p. 370; Nat. Alex. s. 19; Gotti, Ver. Rel. l. 2, c. 115; Van Ranst, s. 16, p. 325. (2) Varil. loc. cit. (3) Jovet,

p. 288.

with the errors of Apollinares, of Nestorius, and of Eutyches, as the reader can see, by consulting Noel Alexander and Gotti. Another of his opinions was, that man did not commit mortal sin till he passed the age of twenty; that by sin the soul became mortal like the body; that polygamy might be permitted; and to these he added many other blasphemies.

33. Servetus left Germany and Poland, and was coming to Italy to disseminate his doctrine. He arrived in Geneva, where Calvin resided at the time. Calvin was at one time accused of Arianism, and to prove the contrary, wrote some treatises against Servetus. Having him now in his power, he thought it a good opportunity to give a cruel proof of his sincere abhorrence of this heresy, so he had him denounced by one of his servants to the magistrates, and imprisoned (Chap. xi., art. iii., sec. i., n. 67). They then had a long disputation. Servetus asserted that the Scriptures alone were sufficient to decide Articles of Faith, without reference either to Fathers or Councils, and, in fact, that was Calvin's own doctrine also, especially in his disputes with the Catholics. He was, therefore, very hard pressed by Servetus, who explained the texts adduced to prove the Trinity and the Divinity of Jesus Christ, after his own fashion, especially as he himself-rejecting Fathers and Councils in the explanation of that text of St. John (x. 30), "The Father and I am one"-said that all were wrong in proving by this the unity of essence between the Father and Son, as it only proved the perfect uniformity of the will of Christ with that of his Father. When he found, therefore, that Servetus obstinately held his Antitrinitarian doctrines, he laid another plan to destroy him. He sent his propositions to the University of the Zuinglian cantons, and, on their condemnation, he caused him to be burned alive on the 27th of October, 1553, as we have already narrated (Chap. xi., art. iii., sec. i., n. 67) (4). This cursed sect, however, did not expire with Servetus, for his writings and disciples carried it into Russia, Wallachia, Moravia, and Silesia; it was afterwards split into thirty-two divisions, and in these provinces the Antitrinitarians are more numerous than the Lutherans or Calvinists.

SEC. II.-VALENTINE GENTILIS, GEORGE BLANDRATA, AND BERNARD OCHINO.

34. Valentine Gentilis; his impious Doctrine. 35. He is punished in Geneva, and retracts. 36. Relapses, and is beheaded. 37. George Blandrata perverts the Prince of Transylvania; disputes with the Reformers; is murdered. 38. Bernard Ochino; his Life while a Friar; his Perversion, and Flight to Geneva. 38. He goes to Strasburg, and afterwards to England, with Bucer; his unfortunate Death in Poland.

34. VALENTINE GENTILIS was a native of Cosenza, in Calabria, and a disciple of Servetus. He was astonished, he said (1), that the Reformers would trouble themselves so much in disputing with the

(4) Nat. Alex. t. 19, art. 14; Van Ranst, p. 326. (1) Van Ranst, p. 326.

Catholics about sacraments, purgatory, fasting, &c., matters of such little importance, and still agree with them in the principal mystery of their Faith, the Trinity. Although he agreed in doctrine with Servetus, he explained it differently (2). Three things, he said, concur in the Trinity-the essence, which was the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The Father is the one only true God, the Essenciator; the Son and the Holy Ghost are the Essenciati. He did not call the Father a Person, because, according to his opinion, the essence was in itself true God, and therefore he said, if we admit the Father to be a Person, we have no longer a Trinity, but a Quaternity. He thus denied that there were three Persons in the same essence, as we believe. He recognized in God three external Spirits (3); but of these, two were inferior to the Father, for he had given them a Divinity indeed, but inferior to his own. In the book which he presented to Sigismund Augustus, King of Poland (4), he complains that many monstrous terms have been introduced into the Church, as Persons, Essence, and Trinity, which are, he says, a perversion of the Divine Mysteries. He admitted that there were three holy and eternal essences, as the Athanasian Creed teaches, but in all the rest he says it is "a satanical symbol."

35. Valentine, and some Antitrinitarian friends of his, being in Geneva (5), in 1558, and the magistracy, having a suspicion of his opinions, obliged them to sign a profession of Faith in the Trinity. Valentine subscribed it, and swore to it, but not sincerely, for he immediately after began to teach his errors, so he was taken up and imprisoned for perjury. He presented another Confession of Faith while in prison, but as his heresy appeared through it, Calvin strenuously opposed his release. Fear then drove him to a more ample retractation, and from his prison he presented the following one to the magistrates: "Confiteor Patrem, Filium et Spiritum Sanctum esse unum Deum, id est tres Personas distinctas in una Essentia, Pater non est Filius, nec Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus, sed unaquæque illarum Personarum est integra illa Essentia. Item Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus quantum ad Divinam Naturam sunt unus Deus cum Patre, cui sunt coæquales et coæterni. Hoc sentio, et corde ac ore profiteor. Hæreses autem contrarias damno, et nominatim blasphemias quas descripsi," &c. It would have been well for him had he never changed again this profession; he would not then have made the miserable end he did.

36. Notwithstanding his retractation, the Senate of Geneva, in 1558, condemned him to be brought forth, stripped to his shirt, to kneel with a candle in his hand, and pray to God and the state for pardon for his blasphemies, and then to cast his writings into the fire with his own hands. He was led through the principal streets

(2) Gotti, c. 115; Nat. Alex. t. 19, ar. 14; Jovet, t. 1, p. 296. 4) Van Ranst, loc. cit. (5) Gotti, s. 2, 3; Nat. Alex. cit.

(3) Joret, loc. cit.

of the city, and the sentence executed (6). He was prohibited, likewise, from leaving the city; indeed, at first he was kept in prison, but afterwards was allowed out, promising on oath that he would not make his escape. He fled, however, at the first opportunity, and took refuge in the house of a lawyer of Padua, who lived in Savoy, and held the same opinions as himself, and began writing again in opposition to the Trinity. He was again put into prison, and escaped to Lyons, where he published a Treatise against the Athanasian Creed. From Lyons he went to Poland, and when Sigismund banished him from that kingdom, he took up his residence in Bearn. He was here accused by Musculus, in the year 1556, and imprisoned. He refused to retract, and was sentenced to death. Just before laying his head on the block, he said: "Others died martyrs for the Son; I die a martyr for the Father." Unfortunate man! dying an enemy of the Son, he died an enemy of the Father likewise (7).

37. George Blandrata was another of the disciples of Servetus. He was born in Piedmont, and was a physician, and the writings of Servetus having fallen in his way, he embraced his errors. The Inquisition was very strict at that period in Piedmont, so he consulted his safety by flying, first, into Poland, and, afterwards, in 1553, into Transylvania (8). He here succeeded in getting himself appointed physician to the Sovereign, John Sigismund, and to his Prime Minister, Petrowitz, a Lutheran, and by that means endeavoured to make them Arians. There were a great many Lutherans and Calvinists in the country, and they all joined in opposing Blandrata's doctrine, so the Sovereign, to put an end to the dispute, commanded that a public conference (9) should be held in his presence, and acted himself the part of judge. The conference took place in his presence, in Waradin, between the Reformers and Blandrata, and several other Arian friends of his. They began by quoting the various passages of the Scripture used by Arius to impugn the Divinity of Christ. The Reformers answered by quoting the interpretation of these texts by the Council of Nice, and by the Holy Fathers, who explained them in their proper sense. This doctrine, they said, we should hold, otherwise every one might explain away the Scriptures just as he pleased. One of the Arians then stepped forward and cried out: "How is this? When you argue with the Papists, and quote your texts of Scripture to defend your doctrine, and they say that the true meaning of these texts is only to be found in the Decrees of Councils, and the works of the Fathers, you at once say that the Holy Fathers and the Bishops composing the Councils were

(6) Gotti, loc. cit. (7) Spondan. ad Ann. 1561, n. 34; Van Ranst, sec. 16, p. 327; Gotti, c. 115. (8) Jovet, His. Rel. p. 291; Gotti, s. 2, n. 6; Nat. Alex. t. 19, art. 14. (9) Jovet, p. 294.

men subject to be deceived, like any one else that the Word of God alone is sufficient for understanding the Articles of Faiththat it is clear enough in itself, and requires no explanation; and now you want to make use of the same arms against us which you blame the Catholics for having recourse to." This answer was applauded by the Prince and the majority of the meeting, and the preachers were confounded, and knew not what reply to make. Arianism then became the most numerous sect in Transylvania, and the impious doctrine of Arius was resuscitated after a lapse of nine hundred years. It is worthy of remark, as Jovet (10) tells us, that the first who embraced it were all Lutherans or Calvinists, and that all their chiefs came to an unhappy end. Paul Alciatus, their companion, at last became a Mahometan, as Gotti informs us. Francis David, as Noel Alexander tells us, was killed by a house falling on him; another of them, called Lismaninus, drowned himself in a well, and Blandrata (11) was killed by a relative of his, to rob him.

38. Bernard Ochino was also an Antitrinitarian. He was a Capuchin friar, and the heretics even make him founder of that Institute; but the Capuchin Chronicle, and the majority of writers, deny this and say he was only General of the Capuchins for a while (12). Their real founder was Matthew de Basso, in 1525, and Ochino did not enter the order until 1534, nine years after, when the order already had three hundred professed members. He lived as a Religious for eight years, and threw off the habit in 1542. At first, while a Religious, he led a most exemplary life (13), wore a very poor habit, went always barefooted, had a long beard, and appeared to suffer from sickness and the mortified life he led. Whenever he had occasion, in his journeys, to stop in the houses of the great, he eat most sparingly, and only of one dish, and that the plainest scarcely drank any wine-and never went to bed, but extending his mantle on the ground, took a short repose. With all this, he was puffed up with vanity, especially as he was a most eloquent preacher, though his discourses were more remarked for ornament of diction than soundness of doctrine, and the churches were always crowded when he preached. The Sacramentarian Valdez, who perverted Peter Martyr (Chap. xi. art. ii. sec. iii. n. 57), was also the cause of his fall. He perceived his weakness, he saw he was vain of his preaching, and (14) he used frequently go to hear him, and visit him afterwards, and under the praises he administered to him for his eloquence, conveyed the poison of his sentiments. Ochino had a great opinion of his own merits, and hoped, when he was made General of his Order, that the Pope would raise him to some higher dignity, but when he saw that neither a cardinal's hat,

(10) Jovet, cit. p. 300.

(11) Nat. Alex. s. 3; Gotti, s. 2, n. 6; Jovet, cit. (13) Varill. p. 111. (14) Varill. cit.

(12) Varill. Hist. t. 2, p. 109; Gotti, 115. p. 100.