And away we go!
"....That Jesus, surnamed Christ, was not a Hypostasis but a human being is taught both by the early Fathers and in Scriptures, taken in their literal sense, and is indicated by the miracles he wrought. He, and not the Word, is also the miraculously born Son of God in fleshly form, as the Scriptures teach - not a hypostasis, but an actual Son. The Holy Spirit as a third person of the Godhead is unknown in Scripture. It is not a separate being, but an activity of God himself. The doctrine of the Trinity can be neither established by logic nor proved from Scriptures, and is in fact inconceivable."
-- Quotation from Michael Servetus, in the thread On the Errors of the Trinity
"....For many, Servetus is the ultimate example of the intolerance and cruelty of Calvin. I have no desire to try to justify the persecution or execution of heretics, but in fairness to Calvin the Servetus episode must be seen in historical context. Servetus denied the doctrine of the Trinity, and that was a capital crime almost everywhere in Europe. When Servetus came to Geneva, he had already been sentenced to death in France. Calvin had warned Servetus by letter not to come to Geneva because of his views. After Servetus was arrested, Calvin and other ministers tried to convince him that his views of the Trinity were unbiblical. Servetus was put on trial before a civil court in Geneva. Calvin was the prosecutor in the trial, but was not one of the judges. Calvin agreed that Servetus should be executed, but unsuccessfully asked that he be beheaded instead of burned alive.
Almost all Europeans in Calvin's day believed that heresy was as dangerous as the plague and that civil governments had the obligation to eradicate it. Calvin was a man of his time on this matter. He is not to be excused for this reason, but he must be seen as holding views that most others of his time held. The case of Servetus provides no evidence that Calvin was unusually cruel or intolerant. Rather he like most others believed the civil government had a responsibility to protect the public from false religion, even by using its coercive powers."
-- from the thread Man of His Time for All Times: W. Robert Godfrey paints portrait of Calvin as pilgrim and pastor
The execution of anti-Trinitarian agitator Michael Servetus by Genevan officials is often cited as proof of the religious intolerance of John Calvin. This analysis does not hold water. Servetus had a death sentence on his head in multiple European cities. Along with Geneva's magistrates, dozens of important civil leaders outside this Swiss city called for the execution of Servetus. Calvin was not one of them. Calvin neither sat on the council which passed judgment on Servetus, nor was he even a citizen of Geneva at the time.
"He who will not honor the memory and respect the influence of Calvin knows but little of the origin of American liberty."
-- from the thread John Calvin, Founding Father
On Apr. 4, 1533, Servetus was arrested at Vienne and examined on the two days following, when he denied that he was Servetus, claimed to have adopted the name of that scholar that he might measure himself with Calvin in dialectics, and offered to make complete retractation. On Apr. 7 he was permitted to escape, either to guard the archbishop and other noted friends of Servetus against further embarrassment, or to save the Inquisition from being made a catspaw for Calvin. The trial, however, continued, and on June 17 Servetus was condemned to the stake, his books and his effigy being burned in his stead.
-- from the pro-Servetus website tlogical
"...If one contends that Calvin was in error in agreeing with the execution of heretics then why is there not equal indignation against all the other leaders who supported and carried out and supported these measures elsewhere. None less than the honored Thomas Aquinas explicitly supported the burning of heretics saying, "If the heretic still remains pertinacious the church, despairing of his conversion, provides for the salvation of others by separating him from the church by the sentence of excommunication and then leaves him to the secular judge to be exterminated from the world by death." (Summa Theologiae, IIaIIae q. 11 a. 3)
Shortly after the publication of the "Restitution," the fact was made known to the Roman Catholic authorities at Lyons through Guillaume Trie, a native of Lyons and a convert from Romanism, residing at that time in Geneva. He corresponded with a cousin at Lyons, by the name of Arneys, a zealous Romanist, who tried to reconvert him to his religion, and reproached the Church of Geneva with the want of discipline. On the 26th of February, 1553, he wrote to Arneys that in Geneva vice and blasphemy were punished, while in France a dangerous heretic was tolerated, who deserved to be burned by Roman Catholics as well as Protestants, who blasphemed the holy Trinity, called Jesus Christ an idol, and the baptism of infants a diabolic invention. He gave his name as Michael Servetus, who called himself at present Villeneuve, a practising physician at Vienne. In confirmation he sent the first leaf of the "Restitution," and named the printer Balthasar Arnoullet at Vienne....
....The cardinal of Lyons and the archbishop of Vienne, after consultation with Inquisitor Ory and other ecclesiastics, now gave orders on the 4th of April for the arrest of Villeneuve [Servetus] and Arnoullet. They were confined in separate rooms in the Palais Delphinal. Villeneuve was allowed to keep a servant, and to see his friends. Ory was sent forth, hastened to Vienne, and arrived there the next morning....
....Servetus now resolved to escape, perhaps with the aid of some friends, after he had secured through his servant a debt of three hundred crowns from the Grand Prior of the monastery of St. Pierre. On the 7th of April, at four o’clock in the morning, he dressed himself, threw a night-gown over his clothes, and put a velvet cap upon his head, and, pretending a call of nature, he secured from the unsuspecting jailer the key to the garden. He leaped from the roof of the outhouse and made his escape through the court and over the bridge across the Rhone. He carried with him his golden chain around his neck, valued at twenty crowns, six gold rings on his fingers, and plenty of money in his pockets.
Two hours elapsed before his escape became known. An alarm was given, the gates were closed, and the neighboring houses searched; but all in vain.
Nevertheless the prosecution went on. Sufficient evidence was found that the "Restitution" had been printed in Vienne; extracts were made from it to prove the heresies contained therein. The civil court, without waiting for the judgment of the spiritual tribunal (which was not given until six months afterwards), sentenced Servetus on the 17th of June, for heretical doctrines, for violation of the royal ordinances, and for escape from the royal prison, to pay a fine of one thousand livres tournois to the Dauphin, to be carried in a cart, together with his books, on a market-day through the principal streets to the place of execution, and to be burnt alive by a slow fire.
On the same day he was burnt in effigy, together with the five bales of his book, which had been consigned to Merrin at Lyons and brought back to Vienne.
from Phillip Schaff's History of the Christian Church,
CHAPTER XVI: SERVETUS: HIS LIFE. OPINIONS, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION,
section 148: The Trial and Condemnation of Servetus at Vienne.