Servetus and Calvin. Robert Willis
of this apology has an extremely suspicious appearance, couched as it is in these words: ‘On the following night Mars is eclipsed by the moon, near the star called the King, in the constellation of Leo; whence I predict that in the course of this year the hearts of the Lions, i.e. the princes, will be greatly moved; that with Mars in the ascendant war will prevail, and much havoc be done by fire and sword; that the Church will suffer tribulation, several princes die, and pestilence and other evils abound. To languish, to mourn, to die—all of good or ill that comes to man proceeds from heaven.’
The petition of the pursuers on the above showing therefore is, that the defendant, Villanovanus, be interdicted for the future from professing and practising judicial astrology, whether in public or private; that he be forbidden further to circulate his pamphlet against the Faculty, and commanded to call in all unsold copies; that for what has passed he own himself to blame, and be enjoined for the future to bear himself respectfully towards the Faculty of Physic, to which he belongs.
In his address to the court on behalf of his client, Villanovanus’s counsel opined that the Faculty of Physic had descended somewhat from the dignity that became so great a body in taking steps against one, a stranger, who had been attracted to Paris by the science that distinguished it, of which he had heard so much. The cause of the hostility of the Faculty against his client, he said, was owing to his having insisted on the necessity of a knowledge of astronomy to the Physician. This had been turned into a knowledge of judicial astrology by his enemies; but there were many of his hearers who were ready to testify that he had never even mentioned judicial astrology. As to the paragraph about the Lions, he had only given it as illustrating the rules of astrological science, and the knowledge he has of the possible influence of the stars; but he would by no means insist that events of the kind named must happen as matter of necessity. In all this, however, he is ready to submit himself to the judgment of the court, and on his words being pronounced objectionable, he is willing to be set right. With regard to what he says in his apology about physicians being the plagues of society, he of course only aims at the ignorant and unskilful among them; the saying, indeed, is none of his, but Galen’s, who speaks of the ignorant practitioners of medicine of his day in precisely the same words.
The judgment of the court is nearly in the terms of the counsel’s address for the prosecution. His statements appear to have been taken as trustworthy without further evidence adduced. Villanovanus is ordered to call in his pamphlet and deposit the copies with the proper officer of the court; to pay all honour and respect to the Faculty of Physic in its collective and individual capacity, saying and writing nothing unbecoming of it, but conducting himself at all times peacefully and reverently towards its members; the doctors, on their part, being enjoined to treat Villanovanus gently and amiably, as parents treat their children. Villanovanus is then expressly inhibited and forbidden to appear in public, or in any other way, as a professor or practitioner of judicial astrology, otherwise called divination; he is to confine himself in his discussions of astrological subjects to the influence of the heavenly bodies on the course of the seasons and other natural phenomena, and not to meddle with questions or judgments of stellar influences on individuals or events, under pain of being deprived of the privileges he enjoys as a graduate of the University of Paris.
Done this 18th of March, 1538.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHARLIEU—ATTAINMENT OF HIS THIRTIETH YEAR—HIS VIEWS OF BAPTISM.
This decree and interdict of the Parliament of Paris could not have been satisfactory to Servetus. We need not question his belief in the reality of judicial astrology, nor doubt of the application of its presumed principles having been found profitable by him; for a longing to pry into futurity is among the infirmities of human nature, and a belief in the influence of the stars on the fortunes of men was all but universal in the age of Servetus. Nor is it even now entirely extinct in the world; for the ‘Vox Stellarum’ is still regularly printed in England, and finds a sale by thousands every year among the superstitious and the ill-educated of our population. Hardly, moreover, does a child come into the world among us now without a great fuss being made as to the precise moment of the birth; though the particulars obtained may never be thought of afterwards, nor the end for which they were sought be even surmised. But when we look on the cornelian and clay cylinders dug up in such numbers from the ruins of Babylon and Nineveh, engraved with the accredited figures of the Sun, Moon, and Stars, and the emblematical representations of the constellations, such as Cassiopæia, Hercules Ingeniculus, Ursa Major, Leo, Auriga, Cepheus, and others, still depicted on our celestial globes, we learn how old was the belief that every man and woman who came into the world was influenced in after life by the star under which he or she was born.48
Villeneuve might possibly have continued lecturing on astrology, composing horoscopes, and casting nativities, as others did in his day, had he but had the prudence to control his tongue, and not hold up his brethren of the Faculty of Physic to contempt by proclaiming their ignorance of a science in which he himself excelled and held necessary to treat disease in the most effectual manner; but he had been indiscreet, and they had won the day. He could no longer go on making forecasts for a credulous public from the aspect of the heavens at the moment of their birth, and he must show himself forward to call in the unsold copies of his pamphlet which had been found so offensive, perhaps because so well directed and so true. It would have interested us in the present day to have known precisely wherein the sting of this apology lay; but like others among the host of ephemeral publications, hurriedly produced to serve a purpose of the hour, it has perished. There were few collectors of ballads, broadsides, and tracts, three hundred and fifty years ago; and all the searches for a copy of the philippic against the Parisian Faculty have proved in vain.49
From the estimate we are led to form of the self-sufficing and defiant character of Michael Servetus, as displayed in his after life, we are disposed to wonder that he did not continue to dispute the field of Paris with his opponents. He had published his clever and scholarly treatise on Syrups, and through it achieved a title to consideration as a learned practitioner of medicine in the regular way. Such a man as he would soon have lived down the stigma his fellows had fastened upon him as a fortune-teller from the stars, and he must by and by have taken his place in the front rank of his profession. But the physician comes slowly into practice when public confidence is courted through the gate of science. Horoscope-making was probably the main source of Villeneuve’s income; and this forbidden, and the golden stream it fed, arrested, the cold shoulder shown him by his professional brethren, and the averted looks of the public at the man condemned by the Parliament of Paris—all was against him; his malignant star had culminated, and he seems to have thought it best to yield to fate, and give way.
It must have been immediately after the conclusion of the suit against him that Servetus left Paris; for we have news of him in the course of the same year (1538) as a practitioner of medicine in the town of Charlieu, distant about twelve French miles from the city of Lyons. He may have been led to this retreat through knowledge gained in the course of his former residence in Lyons; but he did not continue long there—certainly for not more than a year and a half, or so. Could we trust the report of one who speaks of him as ‘a most arrogant and insolent person,’ he must have embroiled himself with some of the more influential people of Charlieu, who, as said, made his position so uncomfortable that he was forced to quit and go farther afield.50 But Villeneuve had earned for himself an ill name by his dispute with the University and Medical Faculty of Paris; and coming from the quarter it does, we give no credit to the tale, led as we are by what we know to find a much better reason for the remove than any fresh personal dispute, though there does seem to have been something of the kind complicating matters, as well as certain ‘love passages,’ which, as they came to nothing, may have rendered longer residence in the place unpleasant.
The residence of Villeneuve in Charlieu, however, is not without interest, as giving us a further insight into the character and predominant pious nature of the man. In the course of the year 1539, which he passed at Charlieu, Michael Servetus attained the thirtieth year of his age, the year according to his religious tenets in which only baptism could be rightly