The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

IV. Servetus Persecuted by Calvin, Also Interprets Prophecy

Calvin was a theocrat, persecuting those who differed from his doctrines. His first tract was against the “soul-sleepers” (those who believed in the unconscious sleep of the dead), mostly Anabaptists. In 1537 he had an open discussion with the Anabaptists, and defeated them so thoroughly that they did not dare any longer to show themselves in the city. Torture and the sentence of death were introduced, and several executions and banishments took place between 1542 and 1546. Calvin’s most tragic deed was his responsibility for the death of the Spanish physician, MICHAEL SERVETUS (1509-1553), who, although brilliant, had such a haughty and contentious spirit that at the age of twenty he would not take the advice of men like Bucer, Oecolampadius, and Capito, but set out as an independent radical to reform the Reformation. In 1531 he published his antitrinitarian views in his book Errors of the Trinity, which appeared blasphemous equally to Catholics and Protestants. The reaction to this book forced him to retire to France, where, under another name, he gained fame as a geographer and a physician, and was to all appearances a good Catholic, More than twenty years later he was detected, after publishing his Christianismi Restitution (Restitution of Christianity). This included a revision of his first work, with the addition of an elaborate system of theology, attacking not only the papal Antichrist, but Calvin and Melanchthon in particular. Escaping from imprisonment in Vienne, he went, oddly enough, to Geneva, where Calvin had him apprehended. The French Inquisitors who had tried him at Vienne demanded his extradition, but the Genevan Council preferred to burn its own heretics. So Servetus, with his books, was burned in 1553 ³¹ PFF2 439.2

1. ANTICHRIST PORTRAYED BY DANIEL, PAUL, AND JOHN

Not only was Servetus skilled in the sciences, but he was well versed in Scripture. In his Christianismi Restitutio, of 1553, we find many references to the prophetic Word. He viewed church history in the light of Revelation 12 - the woman being the true church of the first three centuries, pursued by the dragon, and the pope as the Antichrist predicted by Daniel, Paul, and John, reigning during the 1260 prophetic days or literal years in which the true church was in the wilderness, from 325 to 1585. He placed the beginning of the period with the Council of Nicaea, when the doctrine of the Trinity was triumphant; the union of church and state under Constantine, when the king became a monk; and the establishment of the Papacy under Sylvester, when the bishop became a king. He lists many signs or works of Antichrist from Matthew 24, Daniel 7 and 12, 2 Thessalonians 2 1 Timothy 4, and Revelation 13 to 18. ³² PFF2 440.1

2. MILLENNIUM INTRODUCED BY FIRST RESURRECTION

Servetus believed the first resurrection will take place at the beginning of the millennium, with the general resurrection and final judgment at its close. He called the Roman church the “most beastly of beasts and the most impudent of harlots,” but he thought the Protestant churches little better. In fact, he ex celled in firing at both Catholics and Protestants the invectives which they customarily hurled at each other. He opposed infant baptism and believed the soul but mortal, with immortality bestowed by the grace of Christ (the doctrine of conditional immortality). Servetus looked for Christ’s millennial reign, soon to supersede the papal reign, after which the general judgment would follow, when God would again be all in all—a sort of pantheistic philosophy. ³³ PFF2 440.2

3. CASTELLIO PUTS MILLENNIUM AFTER ANTICHRIST’S FALL

Calvin tried to justify the execution of Servetus in a booklet, ³⁴ but many disapproved of his arguments, including Castellio of Savoy (1515-1563), professor at Basel, who had been rector of the Genevan Latin School prior to his banishment. Castellion, a language genius, made both a Latin (1551) and a French (1555) translation of the Bible. In the preface to the Latin Bible he declared the thousand years would not begin until after the fall of Antichrist. ³⁵ PFF2 441.1