96 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



his theological correspondence with John Calvin. It seems to have 

 been entered upon at the suggestion of John Frelon, one of the Lyons 

 publishers. 



Servetus has been accused of having provoked the Genevese Re- 

 former by addressing him in a style calculated to wound, if not to 

 insult, him ; and the character of the man gives likelihood to the 

 charge. But, had Calvin's letters been preserved, we doubt whether 

 the accusation would hold good ; we know for a certainty that the 

 great Reformer applied very freely the lowest epithets to his oppo- 

 nents " rascal, dog, ass, and swine, being found of constant occur- 

 rence among them had there been any stronger than scoundrel and 

 blasphemer, they would have been hurled at Servetus." Calvin's own 

 letter to Frelon, their go-between, throws a great light on the subject. 

 Among other things, he writes : " I have been led to write to him 

 more sharply than is my wont, being minded to take him down a lit- 

 tle in his presumption ; and, I assure you, there is no lesson he needs 

 so much to learn as humility." At any rate, Villeneuve approached 

 the Reformer, at first, as one seeking aid and information from another 

 presumed most capable of giving both. Calvin replied in a concise, 

 dogmatic way which, indeed, could not satisfy a mind as thoroughly 

 made up as that of Servetus. Moreover, the Reformer soon grew 

 weary of the correspondence, so that Frelon had to interpose in be- 

 half of the Spaniard in order to make the former answer his letters. 

 Nor is this all : thinking he might escape further molestation, Calvin 

 referred Servetus to his book, " Institutions of the Christian Religion," 

 as though he had been a schoolboy who had entered upon a discussion 

 with the Reformer, with no knowledge of his doctrines. Villeneuve 

 now became his critic. The copy of the " Institutions " was sent back, 

 copiously annotated in the margin. There was hardly a proposition 

 in the text that was not taken to pieces by him and found untenable 

 on the ground of Scriptures and patristic authority, and this he did 

 with the freedom of expression in which Villeneuve indulged. Calvin, 

 in writing to a friend, indignantly says, "There is hardly a page that 

 is not defiled by his vomit." " The liberties taken with the ' Institu- 

 tions,' "Dr. Willis says, "were looked on as a crowning personal 

 insult by Calvin ; and reading, as we do, the nature of the man, it is 

 not difficult to conclude that it was this offense, superadded to the 

 letters, which put such rancor into his soul as made him think of the 

 life of his critic as no more than a fair forfeit for the offense done." 

 As a matter of course, the correspondence was soon dropped by Calvin, 

 but not so by Servetus, who seemingly could not bear his opponent's 

 neglect; over thirty letters of his, embracing a period of more than 

 two years, are still extant. 



Servetus meanwhile had prepared another book, " Christianismi 

 Restitutio" (The Restoration of Christianity) ' with which he intended 



1 The " Christianismi Restitutio " of Servetus is or.e of the rarest books in the world. 



