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Michael Servetus (1511-1553)
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This page is devoted to the memory of one of the greatest renaissance man, forgotten by history due to his dissent with the stablishment.
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Servetus, Michael, in Spanish, Miguel Serveto (1511-1553), Spanish physician and theologian, who was executed for his beliefs by the Calvinist government of Geneva. He was born in Villanueva de Sijena, Huesca Province. He studied law at the University of Toulouse, medicine at the universities of Paris and Montpellier, and theology at Leuven. Beginning in 1540 he practiced medicine in Vienne, France, where he also served as the personal physician to the archbishop. About 1545 he began a correspondence with the French Protestant theologian John Calvin.
Although still a nominal Catholic, he described his heretical opposition to the concept of the Trinity and requested permission to visit the theocratic city of Geneva. He was arrested while attending church in Geneva, convicted of heresy and blasphemy against Christianity, and burned at the stake on October 27, 1553.
Servetus's religious opinions were strongly opposed by Catholics and Protestants of his time. In 1531 he repudiated, in his De Trinitatis Erroribus (On the Error of the Trinity), the tripartite personality of God as well as the ritual of baptism. In 1532 he wrote Dialogorum de Trinitate Libri Duo (Second Book of Dialogues on the Trinity). His scientific contributions were also notable; his Christianismi Restitutio (The Restoration of Christianity), published shortly before his death in 1553, included the first accurate description of the pulmonary circulatory system.
See biographies by R. H. Bainton (1953) and J. F. Fulton (1954).
Bibliography:
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De Trinitatis Erroribus Libri Septem
In investigating the holy mysteries of the divine Triad, I have thought that one ought to start from the man; for I see most men approaching their lofty speculation about the Word without having any fundamental understanding of CHRIST, and they attach little or no importance to the man, and give the true CHRIST quite over to oblivion. But I shall endeavor to recall to their memories who the CHRIST is. However, what and how much importance is to be attached to CHRIST, the Church shall decide.
Seeing that the pronoun indicates a man, whom they call the human nature, I shall admit these three things: first, this man is JESUS CHRIST; second, he is the Son of God; third, he is God.
Translated by WILBUR, E.M. The two treatises of Servetus on the Trinity. London: Harvard University Press, 1932, p. 6
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Dialogorum de Trinitate Libri Duo
Petrucius. I hear the man speaking whom I was looking for. Ho there! What are you saying to yourself here alone?
Michael. I am greatly tormented in mind when I see that the minds of Christians are so estranged from any knowledge of the Son of God.
Pet. I too have seen some carried away with their minds perfectly enraged against you because you are bent upon taking away from them a large part of their Gods.
Mich. With what reasons, or by what Scriptures, do they censure me?
Translated by WILBUR, E.M. The two treatises of Servetus on the Trinity. London: Harvard University Press, 1932, p. 189.
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 michael@servetus.com
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