Prophets Without Honour? Michael Servetus and the Limits of Tolerance

Michael Servetus was one of the most original thinkers of the sixteenth century. His short, turbulent and occasionally brilliant career came to a tragic end when he was burned alive in Geneva on October 27th, 1553, by order of the city magistrates. His execution sent a shock-wave through Protestant Europe: indeed, it can be said to have been one of the formative events of the Reformation century. For Servetus was no simple-minded heretic or anabaptist, a marginal figure of the kind put to death by Protestant and Catholic states alike in the name of good order. Rather he was a man of learning and culture: an original if wayward mind whose restless intelligence had ranged over a wide variety of fields. It was for his unorthodox religious views that Servetus went to the stake, but his achievements in the fields of geography, medicine, and as an editor of sacred and classical texts were scarcely less considerable. His death left many troubled and uneasy, and brought down upon Calvin, the Geneva reformer, a storm of controversy. More than any other event the destruction of Servetus may he said to have left an enduring stain on Calvin's historical reputation.