Out of the Flames:
The Remarkable Story of a Fearless Scholar, a Fatal Heresy, and One of the Rarest Books in the World

A sermon Offered by Rev. Tim Kutzmark
Sunday, May 21, 2006 • Unitarian Universalist Church of Reading

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I doubt not that you have heard of Michael Servetus, the Spaniard who more than twenty years ago infected Germany with a villainous book, full of sacrilegious error of every kind.  You will assuredly find in every page matters that will horrify you.  The author is now in prison . . . and I hope he will soon be condemned and punished.  But you are to aid us against the further spread of this pestiferous poison.  I venture to think you will take steps to have the world purged of such noxious corruption.
—John Calvin

 THE MORNING READING
The story of Michael Servetus is an important one for anyone who considers themselves a Unitarian Universalist.  It tells of courage in the face of religious superstition and bigotry.  It tells of commitment to freedom in the face of denied civil liberties.  And it proclaims the worth and dignity of all people.  Michael Servetus was Unitarian Universalism’s first martyr, first great theologian, and first great scientist.

Our reading is adapted from the book “Out of the Flames” by Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone:

Shortly after noon on a cold and rainy late October day in 1553, a procession began at the town hall of Geneva, in western Switzerland.  At its head were the local dignitaries-magistrates in their robes and hats, members of the town council, clergymen in their gowns and the lieutenant-criminel, the chief of police. Immediately behind them rode a wave of officers on horseback and a guard of mounted archers. Next came the citizens of the city, first the well-to-do burghers, then the tradespeople and artisans, and, finally, a mob of the city’s lower classes. Their destination was a hillside about a mile outside the city walls.

In the midst of these fair skinned Swiss, one man stood out, a prisoner.  He was in his forties, dark, almost Moorish, dirty and weak, with a long unkempt beard and ragged clothing. He was surrounded by a crowd of pastors exhorting him to confess his sins. An aging churchman walked next to him, whispering in his ear. The prisoner prayed silently in reply.

The prisoner’s shabby appearance belied his status as one of Europe’s leading physicians and preeminent thinkers. His name was Michael Servetus, and his crime was publishing a book that redefined Christianity in a more tolerant and inclusive way.  [A book that said Jesus was not God, but rather, a human being whose way of living and loving awakened within him a Divinity that was possible in all humanity.]  Although this book [also] contained, almost as an afterthought, a great scientific discovery-- one which a century later would propel medicine into the modern age- -on that October afternoon in 1553, no one in Geneva knew or cared.

Shortly after its publication, he had been arrested.  Before his supporters could rally to his defense, Michael Servetus was thrown into a dark, airless, vermin-infested cell, where he was kept for seventy–five days, [denied legal representation], denied a change of clothes, bedding, and often food and water. His access to the outside world was limited to forced participation in a gaudy show trial, where he was to go head to head with his accuser.  He defended himself brilliantly, but the quality of his arguments never mattered.  He was found guilty of the charges brought by a council and prosecutor hand picked by his archrival and sworn enemy, Jean Chauvin, an obscure failed humanist who had reinvented himself as the reformer John Calvin and risen to be virtual dictator of the great city.  On October 26,1553, Michael Servetus was condemned “to be burned . . . alive on the next day together with his books.”

When Servetus was led to the hill at Champel, the stake and pyre were made of fresh wood, green wood, newly cut branches with the leaves still attached. They sat him on a log and chained him to a post. His neck was bound with thick rope. On his head they put a crown of straw, doused in sulphur. Chained to his side was what was thought to be the last available copy of his book, the rest having all been zealously hunted down and destroyed. The ideas were to be burnt along with him. There was no escape.

THE SERMON

Out of the Flames: The Remarkable Story of a Fearless Scholar, a Fatal Heresy, and One of the Rarest Books in the World.

What would you be willing to die for?  What would you be willing to give your life for? 

I’ve thought of this question often this week, as I reflected on the story of Michael Servetus, and the reasons for his death.

What would we be willing to die for?  What truly matters to us?

I think many of us have some people in our lives we would be willing to die for.  I know that some of us here have put their lives at risk for this country while serving in the armed forces. 

But how many of us would be willing to die for an idea?  How many of us would be willing to die for a religious belief?  How many of us would die for the right to worship here this morning?

Poet Mary Oliver writes:

You can
die for it--
an idea….

 People
 have done so,
brilliantly,
letting
their small bodies be bound

to the stake,
creating
an unforgettable
fury of light.

Michael Servetus was one such person. 

Michael Servetus was born on September 29, 1511 in the Spanish town of Villanueva de Sijena, “in the northeast corner of Spain . . . about fifty miles south of the border with France.” (Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone, Out of the Flames, p. 1)  Servetus was born into a world on fire with ideas.  He was born into an amazing new information age, not unlike the computer information age that is revolutionizing our own world today.  You have to understand the excitement of the times, the intellectual fervor that was exploding all around a young Michael Servetus.  Just some sixty years before his birth, the invention of the printing press meant that for the first time, books could be produced in mass quantities rather than copied laboriously by hand.

But those first printed books, important as they were, were expensive, huge in size, and not at all portable.  But then, just ten years prior to Servetus’ birth, a new way to print smaller size books was invented.  Now, for the first time books could be carried easily under an arm, fit in saddlebags, and be widely circulated and shared. This transportation of ideas was as revolutionary in that time as the world wide web has been in ours.  Now, ideas from anyone’s mind could be shared and discussed widely.  Classics could be read and digested.  For the first time, the Bible was being translated from Latin into the languages of the people.  Ideas, creative thinking, radical reasoning could now throw off the covers of the Dark Ages and emerge to blink in the light of intellectual freedom.  As historians Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone write: “Ordinary citizens were now linked across Europe.  They read what they wanted, which meant that they could think what they wanted.  Most of all, they had the power that came from the knowledge that there were others who thought like them.” (p. 29)

At the same time, this intellectual renaissance, this book driven resurrection of ideas, was extremely threatening to the Roman Catholic Church, which controlled most European government.  If everyone had access to the Bible, if everyone could get their hands on the truth of God, then couldn’t anyone have access to the power of God?  If ideas other than religious ones were circulating widely, then couldn’t other views of the world come into conflict with the ancient and protected one?  If Religious Truth was open for discussion, who knows how Religious Truth might be found lacking?  And, if everyone could share criticisms of the church through written arguments and attacks, then couldn’t a fifteen hundred year monopoly on power and control be lost?  And if power and control was lost, there was great money to be lost.  There was great property to be lost.  There was a great way of life to be lost.  This was not so much about saving souls, as it was about saving position and authority. 

Needless to say, these were great times to be intelligent and alive!

From an early age, it was clear that little Michael Servetus was intelligent and alive with ideas, filled with a hunger for knowledge.  He was clearly destined for greatness.  While the little boys around him were engaged in the things little boys usually do, Michael was studying.  By age 16 he had learned Greek so he could read the original version of the Christian Scriptures to see for himself what they said.  And, although it was forbidden, he found a Jewish man to teach him Hebrew, so he could read the Jewish scriptures in their original form.  He also learned Arabic, so he could read the Koran, the Holy Scripture of Islam.

And what he found stunned him.  Nothing he read supported a key teaching of the Christian Church.  Servetus found nothing in Scripture that supported the idea of the Trinity.  Now, the Trinity is one of those complex religious concepts.  It claimed that Jesus, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit, while separate were really one, and that all three had always been and would always be God, one God in three parts.  What Servetus found in the Bible, though, was different.  When mistranslations were corrected, when later insertions were removed, it was clear: Jesus was “a human prophet adopted by God” who was lifted up to a divine status.  He was man, later made Holy by the presence of God within him.  And, even more compelling, Servetus believed, this presence of God in Jesus was also present in all people and all things in creation.  Everything was part of God rather than God being some distinct, remote power-force.  If you couldn’t see God in all, you couldn’t see God at all.

Now, this idea wasn’t new.  It has been around since the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, for this is what Jesus actually taught.  But the organized church had moved things off balance since Jesus’ death.  In the year 325, things had really gotten out of whack.  That year, a long-winded Church Council met to discuss whether Jesus had been fully human.   But this idea was threatening to the powerful priestly class within the church.  Historians Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone write: “If Jesus was concluded to be less than divine, he might have been simply a man made divine through faith and acts.  And if that were true, might not that same potential be available to all [women and] men?  And if that were so, how could the Church hold itself to be the irreplaceable intermediary between man and God, a position from which . . . it derived its enormous political power?  Obviously, given these stakes, [this Unitarian] teaching . . . would not do.”  (p. 66)

And so, Jesus the human became: “Lord Jesus Christ . . . God of God; light of light, true God of true God, begotten not made . . . who for us men and our salvation descended . . . and was made man.”

Wanting to correct this grievous error that diminished our human potential, Michael Servetus did what any self-respecting young intellectual would do in this new information age—he wrote a book.  He called it On the Errors of the Trinity.  And he used the printing press to make copies.  He was still a teenager. And he had just sealed his fate.

“The entire first printing, probably around one thousand copies, sold out almost immediately, and soon both book and author were being discussed everywhere . . . But much as Salman Rushdie was to discover four and a half centuries later, underestimating the zeal of one’s religious opponents can be dangerous.  Not only was Sevetus’ book instantly banned, but he himself was sentenced to death . . . by the Inquisition in Spain.” (p. 73)

Spies were sent out to locate him.  Family and friends were interrogated.  His mail was intercepted.  (p. 74)  But Michael had disappeared.

For the next twenty years, he remained hidden.  First, he fled to the teeming metropolis of Paris and became Michel de Villenueve.  He enrolled in a theology program at the University of Paris, where his star ascended as a student of note.  He also fell into a secret network of young men who were religious reformers at the school.  Cautiously, he revealed to them his identity as the author of the hottest book on the continent.  Another young man was enrolled at the University at the same time.  His name was John Calvin.  John Calvin had just written his own book, which bombed miserably.  He was bitter, and resented the star status of Michel de Villenueve, alias Michael Servetus.  John Calvin, although wanting to change much about the Catholic Church, fully supported the Trinity and was horrified at Servetus’ Unitarian beliefs.  He came to hate his rival.  When the church authorities cracked down on the student reformers, the teenagers had to flee for their lives.

 John Calvin traveled around Europe, eventually wrote a huge masterpiece that was heralded by religious reformers, but he never lost his distaste for Michael Servetus.

Meanwhile, our hero Michael—now known as Michel de Villenueve—returned to Paris and enrolled as a medical student at the University of Paris.  After completing most of his studies, he took up practice in the French countryside.  And then, he made one of science’s greatest discoveries.  For the thousand years prior to our hero’s enrollment in medical school, all medical theory had been taught based on the concepts of a Roman named Galen. Amongst other things that were taught in medical school was “that the liver, not the heart, was the [body’s] main organ and that blood moved from the liver to the outer portions of the body to create flesh.”  To teach otherwise was declared heresy by the Catholic Church.  Leave it to good ole Michael Servetus.  At some point in his studies, he discovered “the heart’s role in circulating blood through the body and . . . also the functions and importance of the circulatory and respiratory systems . . . without these [discoveries] there could be no real advancements of medical knowledge.”  He published his findings in a later edition of his infamous book.

Meanwhile, Sevetus’ rival John Calvin, after many curious adventures, ended up becoming the court appointed ruler the city of Geneva, Switzerland.  And John Calvin ruled Geneva with an intolerant iron fist.  He forced a set of new laws that gave him sweeping new authority.  He used fear to stigmatize certain groups of people.  He severely curtailed civil liberties.  He began to use the Bible as a source for civil law. But “the most significant element of Calvin’s new regime was . . . to establish an official network of spies, a religious secret police” (147) to eves-drop on the conversations going on throughout the land.  Needless to say, the people of Geneva were less than thrilled.

While John Calvin was redefining the meaning of homeland insecurity, our hero, Michael Servetus was becoming dissatisfied with the quiet life of a French country doctor.   He pretended to be a devout Catholic, he pretended to accept the standard religious beliefs of his friends and neighbors, but he wanted his alternative Christian voice to be heard.  And so, he secretly rewrote and republished his book.  Strangely, at this same time, he also began corresponding with John Calvin, dictator of Geneva, arguing finer points of theology.  Attacking Calvin’s belief that humanity was inherently depraved, he argued for the inherent worth and dignity of human beings.  Although Servetus tried to remain incognito in the letters, Calvin recognized the arguments as those of his old school rival from Paris.  Calvin saw an opportunity to finally get back at his rival, and he alerted the French Church authorities.  Michel de Villenueve was arrested for being “Michael Servetus, Heretic Extraordinare.”  His arrest guarenteed his long delayed death.  But luck was with him once again.  He told his jailor he needed to go to the bathroom.  Let out of his cell to do his business, he jumped from the third story terrace onto the roof of a shed, and disappeared into the night.

And then Michael Servetus did something that no one can explain.  Servetus was brilliant, but not very bright.  He went to Geneva—John Calvin’s Geneva.   Sunday morning, he went to John Calvin’s church, the very church where Calvin preached.  He was recognized while praying and instantly arrested.  And suddenly, Calvin had his old school mate right where he wanted him.  And Calvin decided to use Servetus to keep himself in power.

See, the people of Geneva had grown tired of John Calvin’s irresponsible and despotic leadership.  The initial euphoria of a strong leader had given way to widespread disenchantment with his policies.  Rival factions were getting louder, and several opponents were publicly challenging his authority.  In other words, his numbers in the polls were dropping.  Calvin knew he would be removed from office if he didn’t do something to assert his power.  He needed a victim. He needed a cause. And then, “Michael Servetus came to town.”  (177)

Calvin took Servetus’ belief in the worth and dignity of all people, Calvin took Servetus’ belief in the spark of the divine alive in Jesus, Calvin took Servetus’ liberal Christian values and launched an all out attack against them.  Picking up a copy of Servetus’ book, Calvin cried: “There is not a page of this book that is not befouled with vomit.” (184)  Calvin painted Servetus as “a menace to society” and an enemy of religion and all things decent.  Standing before the people of Geneva, and holding tight to the Bible, Calvin proclaimed that Sevetus’ ideas threatened the very cornerstone of civilized society. (185)

And—as they often and still do—the public bought the carefully orchestrated campaign of fear and manipulation.  And Servetus was condemned to death, and all copies of his book were burned—all copies except three. 

But because he dared to speak for progress rather than prejudice; because he dared to speak for people rather than the powerful; because he dared to see divinity in all things; because Truth is bigger than any one person; because faith is stronger than any one person; Servetus’ ideas lived on beyond him!

Those three remaining copies of his book were circulated.  And his ideas were talked about.  His liberal religious perspective touched people’s souls.  And Unitarian communities began to spring up all across Europe: in Italy, Poland, Transylvania, and Great Britain.  And Unitarian thought reached across the Atlantic Ocean, and spread into the new world.  It found rich soil in the thirteen English colonies; it took root in the individual freedoms guaranteed by the United States Constitution.  See, Servetus’ ideas influenced generations of great thinkers: Voltaire, John Locke, Isaac Newton, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Ben Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Susan B. Anthony.  And now, 450 years later, Servetus’ ideas influence the faith we practice here at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Reading, MA.  For we, too, proclaim “that each one of us contains a spark of divinity [of preciousness, of worth and dignity].  We proclaim that it is our calling to breathe on that spark, bringing forth a mighty flame.” (Rev. Kim Crawford Harvey, ASC Newsletter, March-May 2004, Vol. 3, No. 3)  And it is our calling to carry that flame out into our world.

Would we die for that spark?  Would we die for that flame? Would we die for an idea?  Would we die for a religious belief?  Would we die for the right to worship here this morning?

I end with the words of poet Stephen Spender:

I think continually of those who were truly great.
Who, from the womb, remembered the soul’s history . . .
Whose lovely ambition
Was that their lips, touched with fire
Should tell of the spirit clothed from head to foot in song.

Those who in their lives fought for life…
And left the vivid air signed with their honor.

Blessed Be.  Amen.

Copyright 2006 Rev. Tim Kutzmark

NOTE: For an engaging introduction to the life of Michael Servetus and the time in which he lived and died, please read “Out of the Flames” by Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone.