SKETCH OF MICHAEL SERVE TITS. 91 



SKETCH OF MICHAEL SERVETUS.' 



By M. MAUEIS. 



THE publication of an elaborate life of Servetus in English at the 

 present time will be welcome to many readers, who at present 

 know little more of the man than that he was burned at the stake at 

 Geneva, at the instigation of John Calvin, three hundred and twenty- 

 five years ago. The progress of the world from polytheism to mono- 

 theism has had many tragic passages, but perhaps the most unique 

 was this roasting alive of the Unitarian Servetus with green wood by 

 a leader of the Protestant Reformation. 



Dr. Willis, the author of the work, had edited an edition of the 

 writings of William Harvey, accompanied by a biography of the 

 great demonstrator of the circulation of the blood. His researches 

 into this interesting subject led him to investigate the claims of Ser- 

 vetus to a share in this grand discovery, when it was established that 

 he was " the first who proclaimed the true way in. which the blood 

 from the right reaches the left chambers of the heart by passing 

 through the lungs, and even hinted at its further course by the ar- 

 teries to the body at large." His study of the subject deepened 

 the interest of Dr. Willis in the character of Servetus, not only as a 

 physiologist, but as a philosopher and scholar ; as a practical physi- 

 cian, freed from the fetters of mediaeval routine ; an eminent geogra- 

 pher and astronomer, and a liberal Biblical critic in days when criti- 

 cism, as we understand the term, was unimagined. 



Servetus was a Spaniard, born at Villanueva, in Aragon, in 150f, 

 of an old family in independent circumstances. He entered the Uni- 

 versity of Saragossa when about fourteen years old, and there per- 

 fected himself in the study of the classics, in the Greek and Hebrew 

 tongues, as well as in the ethics of Aristotle, scholastic philosophy, 

 mathematics, astronomy, and geography. From Saragossa he ap- 

 pears to have passed to the law-school of Toulouse, but theology had 

 more attractions for him than law. A rational exposition of God's 

 revelation of himself in Nature seems to have been a craving in the 

 ardent and religious temperament of the thoughtful young Spaniard. 

 While at Toulouse he read the Bible, the writings of Luther, the ra- 

 tional theology of Rymund de Sabunde, and the works of Erasmus. 

 The effect of these studies was that, at eighteen years of age, he had 

 already framed a theological system of his own, far in advance of the 

 ideas of his time. Leaving Toulouse, Servetus entered the service of 

 Juan Quintana, a Franciscan friar, and confessor of the Emperor 

 Charles V., whose coronation he attended in Aix-la-Chapelle, and also 



1 " Servetus and Calvin : A Study of an Important Epoch in the Early History of the 

 Reformation." By R. Willis, M. D. 541 pages. London : Henry S. King & Co. 



