This appeal is heard this 1st day of September 1553, at the City Hall of Geneva, Switzerland, in the chamber of Deux Cents.
This is an appeal by Michael Servetus from a death sentence issued by the Petit Conseil. The court reviews this matter to determine whether there has been a miscarriage of justice, or any other procedural irregularities that constitute prejudicial error.
Facts
On Sunday, August 13, 1553, the accused — a forty-four year old medical doctor and author, a Spaniard by birth, Michael Servetus arrived in Geneva. After checking in at the hotel Auberge de la Rose on Lake Geneva, and enjoying a meal, Servetus went to the church service. John Calvin was preaching.
During the service, Calvin caused the issuance of an arrest warrant for Servetus. The charges were allegedly that Servetus in books published elsewhere denied the efficacy of infant baptism to make one a member of the New Testament church, as the accuser Calvin contends is the case. Servetus was also accused of denying that Jesus as Son of God was the eternal Son of God. Servetus contends instead that Jesus became the Son of God in the first century. Finally, the only remaining serious charge is that Servetus wrote a letter in 1547 where he supposedly blasphemed the One True God by saying He was a Cerberus.
Jurisdiction of the State Over Religious Disputes
We must resolve whether the court below had jurisdiction over the question of infant baptism and whether Jesus as Son of God was eternal or became such in the 1st century.
To answer that question, we need to look no further than the paramount legal expert of Geneva — an attorney who was trained at Paris, revised the Civil Code of Geneva in the 1540s — John Calvin.
In 1537, Calvin wrote in the Institutes that the Christian conscience is free from the magistrate’s or church’s tyrannical imposition. (Institutes 4.10.1-6.) Calvin even said the popes had become “murderers” by insisting with “oppressive” force that the conscience accept doctrines as true which are not found expressly in Scripture.
Servetus wrote three books which principally disputed the doctrine of the trinity. In them, Servetus disputed the efficacy of infant baptism and whether Jesus was the “eternal” Son of God as distinct from being simply the Son of God.
These three books were: 1531, Errors on the Trinity and 1532, a revised edition, and in 1553, a book entitled Restoration of Christianity. Servetus said the word trinity nowhere appears in Scripture. He taught there was a way to accept Jesus was divine without using the word trinity. Jesus as the eternal Word, spoken of in John 1:1, allows Jesus to be one with the Father without being a separate and distinct eternal Son of God.
Servetus also denied that infant baptism is ever mentioned in Scripture.
In our review of Scripture, we find Servetus was correct that the word trinity is nowhere spoken of expressly in Scripture. Nor is the term “eternal Son of God” found in Scripture. Nor is there any example of infant baptism in the pages of Scripture.
Thus, under the interpretation of the one who drafted our Civil Code—John Calvin, we find there can be no prosecution for heresy for denying Jesus is the eternal Son of God when Scripture does not speak expressly about an eternal nature of Jesus’s status as Son of God (as distinct from the Word). Nor can we find heresy is criminal when for denying the efficacy of infant baptism which is not expressly affirmed in Scripture. Thus, the Court of Geneva below had no right to find criminal heresy under the standards of our foremost legal expert—John Calvin.
The Court notes incidentally that in fact in our Civil Code there is not even a crime of heresy. Regardless, for purposes of this appeal, we accept the understanding of the accusing witness—John Calvin—who wrote our codes—to be that heresy can be prosecuted only in limited circumstances. We have simply relied upon his stated interpretations of Genevan law to find the limitation herein noted.
The Blasphemy Charge
The only remaining charge is whether Servetus committed blasphemy. Servetus wrote a letter to Pastor Peppin in 1547 in Latin in which he said the pastor had “exchanged the One true God for a Cerberus" (i.e., a three-headed dog that was a pagan deity guarding the gates of hell.)
We are judicially noticing the meaning of the Latin for purposes of this appeal.
There was never any testimony about what these words in Latin had meant in our own vernacular tongue. Instead, the Latin was paraphrased in the original accusation by Calvin. It was also paraphrased in a question from Calvin to Servetus which asked if Servetus had ever compared “the Trinity to a Cerberus.” From this, the final verdict said Servetus called “the Trinity a Servetus.”
We find no substantial evidence to support that finding.
First, no witness under oath ever translated the key language from Latin to our vernacular tongue of Switzerland.
Second, our own interpretation of the remark is that Servetus implied the One True God is NOT a Cerberus, and should not be described nor portrayed as one.
Thus, there was no comparison by the defendant Servetus of the Trinity (in the ordinary usage meaning God) to a Cerberus. Instead, there was a comparison at most between the image of God engendered by the Trinity doctrine of three heads on top of a single torso and God. Such an image is reflected in the many wood-cuts sitting in churches and in hymnals that portray God very similarly to the god Cerberus—three heads on top of a single torso.
This Court thus finds there was a lack of evidence to convict Servetus of blasphemy.
The Defendant Servetus is hereby discharged from the Syndic’s custody, and may he enjoy all the hospitality that Geneva hereafter may grant him.
Council of Deux Cents
September 1, 1553