92 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the Diet of Augsburg, which closely followed it. Servetus was in 

 sympathy with the Reformers of the Lutheran Reformation, and, in 

 fact, came into conflict with them, because he did not think they 

 were sufficiently rational and thorough-going, and what he saw of the 

 pomp and tyranny of princes and bishops was not calculated to quiet 

 the spirit of protest that early took a powerful hold upon his mind. 

 At the age of twenty he writes: "For my own part. I neither agree 

 nor disagree in every particular w T ith either Catholics or Reformers. 

 It would be easy enough, indeed, to judge dispassionately of every- 

 thing, were we but suffered without molestation by the churches 

 freely to speak our minds ; the older exponents of doctrine, in obedi- 

 ence to the recommendation of St. Paul, giving place to younger 

 men, and these, in their turn, making way for teachers of the clay, 

 who had aught to impart that has been revealed to them. But our 

 doctors now contend for nothing but power. The Lord confound all 

 tyrants of the Church ! Amen." 



With such views, and a constitutional temperament that knew no 

 fear, and led him to the free expression of his opinions, he was, of 

 course, soon dismissed from the service of QuiDtana. He then threw 

 himself, body and soul, into the study of theology, and in 1530 Ave 

 find him at Basle, Switzerland, disputing with CEcolampadius and 

 other theologians on the consubstantiality and coeternity of the Son 

 with the Father, and other points in connection with the idea of the 

 Trinity then prevailing among Catholics as well as Reformers. Being 

 unable to make his views acceptable to the Reformer of Basle, he 

 proceeded to Strasburg to propound his docrines to Martin Bucer and 

 W. F. Capito, but with no better results. Meanwhile, he had not 

 been otherwise idle; he had written a book in which his new opinions 

 concerning Christianity were fully explained, and he resolved upon 

 having it printed, to make the world judge between him and the 

 other Reformers. He was in Germany, the land of free thought, as 

 he imagined, and among men who had thought freely: why should 

 he not avail himself of the same right ? The names of Luther, Calvin, 

 etc., appeared on the title-pages of their works: why should his name 

 be withheld from the world? Accordingly, the "Seven Books on 

 Mistaken Conceptions of the Trinity" appeared with the author's 

 full family name, and the name of the country that called him son. 



As he appears in this book, Servetus may be considered as the 

 founder of the doctrine of real monotheism, as it was possible to con- 

 ceive it in the sixteenth century. We are sorry to be unable to give 

 more than a passing notice of the chief points discussed in this work. 

 He believed in a kind of Trinity, but modal and formal, not real and 

 personal in the usual sense of the word. "God cannot be conceived 

 as divisible," he says; he acknowledges a Son of God and a Holy 

 Ghost, finding them in the Scriptures, no word of which he would 

 overlook, though putting his own interpretation on all they say. 



