I think it is grave tokill men, under the pretext that they aremistaken on the interpretation of some point, for we know that even thechosen ones are not exempt from sometimes beingwrong.
A sentence from his first edition ofPtolemy's Geography (1535)
Inherent of human condition is thesickness of believing the rest are impostors andheathen, and not ourselves, because nobody recognizes his ownmistakes … If one must condemn everyone that misses in a particular point then every mortal would have to be burnt a thousand times. Theapostles andLuther himself have been mistaken … If I have taken the word, by any reason, it has been becauseI think it is grave to kill men, under the pretext that they are mistaken on the interpretation of some point, for we know that even the chosen ones are not exempt from sometimes being wrong.
Letter to Oecolampadius, an hebraist of Basel, as quoted by Francisco Javier González Echeverría, and translated by Otis Towns & Miguel González Ancín in theEnglish "Introduction" atMichael Servetus Rresearch
Michael Servetus—A Solitary Quest for the Truth (2006)
I have seen with my own eyes how the pope was carried on the shoulders of the princes, with all the pomp, being adored in the streets by the surrounding people.
Such considerations were reinforced when he attended the coronation ofCharles V, Holy Roman Emperor byPope Clement VII, and witnessed the Pope, seated on his portable throne, receive the king, who kissed his feet.
At the age of 20, he publishedOn the Errors of the Trinity, a work that made him a principal target of the Inquisition.
I do not agree or disagree in everything with either one party or the other. Because all seem to me to have sometruth and someerror, but everyone recognizes the other’s error and nobody discerns his own.
Statement with respect to both Catholics and Protestants written after his workOn the Errors of the Trinity
Michael Servetus, alone, but trusting inChrist’s most sure protection.
While in prison, Servetus signed his last letter with these words.
Servetus died in order thatfreedom ofconscience could become a civil right of theindividual in modernsociety. ~ M. Hillar and Claire S. Allen
Sorted alphabetically by author or source
Tokill a man is not to protect a doctrine, but it is to kill a man.
Sebastian Castellio, referring to Servetus's death, as quoted in "Michael Servetus — A Solitary Quest for the Truth" inAwake! magazine (May 2006)
The Spaniard, Servetus, contends in his tract that there is but one person inGod. TheRoman church holds that there are three persons in oneessence. I agree rather with the Spaniard.
Sebastian Franck, as quoted inHunted Heretic : The Life and Death of Michael Servetus (1960) by Roland Herbert Bainton
Servetus’sdeath was the turning point in theideology and mentality dominating since the fourth century.
M. Hillar and Claire S. Allen, inMichael Servetus—Intellectual Giant, Humanist, and Martyr (2002)
From a historical perspective, Servetus died in order thatfreedom ofconscience could become a civil right of theindividual in modernsociety.
M. Hillar and Claire S. Allen, inMichael Servetus—Intellectual Giant, Humanist, and Martyr (2002)
Michel Servet[us], . . . geographer, physician, physiologist, contributed to the welfare ofhumanity by hisscientific discoveries, his devotion to the sick and the poor, and the indomitable independence of hisintelligence and hisconscience … His convictions were invincible.He made a sacrifice of his life for the cause of thetruth.
Inscription on a monument to Servetus in the French city of Annemasse, some three miles [5 km] from the spot where he died (1908)
By sanctifyingcruelty,early Christianity set a precedent for more than a millennium of systematictorture inChristianEurope. If you understand the expressionsto burn at the stake,to hold his feet to the fire,to break a butterfly on the wheel,to be racked with pain,to be drawn and quartered,to disembowel,to flay,to press,the thumbscrew,the garrote,a slow burn, andthe iron maiden (a hollow hinged statue lined with nails, later taken as the name of aheavy-metalrock band), you are familiar with a fraction of the ways thatheretics were brutalized during theMiddle Ages andearly modern period. During theSpanish Inquisition, church officials concluded that theconversions of thousands of formerJews didn’t take. To compel theconversos to confess their hiddenapostasy, the inquisitors tied their arms behind their backs, hoisted them by their wrists, and dropped them in a series of violent jerks, rupturing their tendons and pulling their arms out of their sockets. Many others were burned alive, a fate that also befell Michael Servetus for questioning thetrinity,Giordano Bruno for believing (among other things) that theearth went around the sun, andWilliam Tyndale for translatingthe Bible intoEnglish.Galileo, perhaps the most famous victim of the Inquisition, got off easy: he was only shown the instruments oftorture (in particular, the rack) and was given the opportunity to recant for “having held and believed that thesun is the center of the world and immovable, and that theearth is not the center and moves.”
Steven Pinker,The Better Angels of Our Nature (2012)
_in_Annemasse.jpg)
