Servius

“ Sending immediately for Servius,--who had married her daughter,--after she had showed him her husband almost expiring, holding his right hand, she entreats him not to suffer the death of his father-in-law to pass unavenged, or his mother-in-law to be an object of insult to their enemies. 'Servius, she said, 'if you are a man, the kingdom is yours, not theirs, who, by the hands of others, have perpetrated the worst of crimes. Exert yourself, and follow the guidance of the gods. ”

“ He is installed in his rule without election; [Pg 157] yet he is then acknowledged by the Curies. Now Servius appears important from three different points of view:—as the enlarger of the city, inasmuch as he gave to Rome its legal circuit, even as it remained down to the time of the Emperors, although suburbs were added;—as the author of a constitution, since he constitutes the plebes as the second half of the nation;—and as the founder of the connexion with the Latins, who before that had only been either at war with the Romans, or else in a state of forced dependance upon them. ”

“ Ancient History; for the Servian Wall see Rome: Archaeology) . His supposed Latin descent is contradicted by the Etruscan tradition alluded to above (on which see V. Gardthausen, Mastarna oder Servius Tullius, 1882) , and his insertion among the kings of Rome is due to the need of providing an initiator of subsequent republican institutions. ”

“ He was one of the most favourable examples of the Roman “grammatici” and the most learned man of his time. He is chiefly known for his commentary on Virgil, which has come down to us in two distinct forms. The first is a comparatively short commentary, definitely attributed to Servius in the superscription in the MSS. and by other evidence. A second class of MSS. (all going back to the 10th or 11th century) presents a much expanded commentary, in which the first is embedded ”

“ A Christian thou? Then fear my wrath no more, Thy sect I cherish; this their awful cult Severus will protect, but ne'er insult. Keep thou thy power from Roman sword secure, So long as loyalty with faith endure; I swear it: ay, the Emperor shall learn The guiltless from the traitor to discern; His persecution baseless as his fear. FELIX. Severus—thou who hast the hearing ear,— Freeman of Rome—God's Spirit grant thee grace To be Christ's Freeman, and behold His face: To these—Christ's martyrs—earth's last rites be given, Earth, guard their ashes as a trust for Heaven! Earth hides their dust. ”

“ But in the Supper we, nourished by immortal food, for a terrestrial have a new celestial life imparted to us, and how should he perish who has once partaken of Christ? May God give you to receive all these things with a true understanding, led by the spirit of truth, by Jesus Christ and the Father. Amen.’ Scouting the Roman Catholic dogma of transubstantiation, as he did, we here find Servetus speaking as if he believed that it was the body of Christ indeed that was partaken of in the Supper! ”

“ The title Son of God, again, Servetus maintains is nowhere to be found in the Scriptures otherwise applied than to a man—to the man Jesus in particular; and the word Person he insists is always to be understood in the sense of the Greek προσῶπον and the Latin persona, a mask, an appearance, and not any real or individual thing. With this style of exposition the Reformers could of course by no means agree. They had adopted all the symbols of their predecessors of the Church of Rome ”

“ Woe to you, ye baptizers of infancy, for ye close the kingdom of heaven against mankind—the kingdom of heaven into which ye neither enter yourselves, nor suffer others to enter—woe! woe!’ He who is baptized in his infancy, consequently, who believes that he is properly baptized and so neglects the regenerative rite in years of discretion, according to Servetus, loses his chance of instant entrance into Christ’s kingdom on his death. ”

“ Servetus as a youth unquestionably received the education that would have fitted him for the Priesthood; and we think complacently of the solace and relaxation from the monotony of monastic life, which the worthy brother we evoke as his principal teacher found in imparting all he knew, and pointing out the onward way to one both apt and eager to learn. Before leaving the convent, or the convent school, where he doubtless remained for several years, Servetus must have been not only a tolerable Latin scholar, but, it may have been, also grounded in Greek and the rudiments of Hebrew. ”

“ I was astonished to find precisely the same modes of expression and feeling in the Servian popular poetry; with the Servian woman, too, the most endearing name for her husband is brother, and the most sacred oath among the Servians is when a man swears by his brother. Among unsophisticated nations, the natural religion of the heart is preserved in their most ordinary sentiments and relations—for these have their ground in that which alone is lasting in the circumstances of [179] human life; the feeling of a people cleaves to what is simple and enduring. ”

“ Society consisted of ecclesiastics, nobles, knights, gentlemen, and peasants. A citizen class seldom or never figures [225] on the scene. Its merchants were foreigners, Byzantines, Venetians, or Ragusans, and history speaks of no Bruges or Augsburg in Servia, Bosnia, or Albania.
The religion of the state was that of the oriental church; the secular head of which was not the patriarch of Constantinople; but, as is now the case in Russia, the emperor himself, assisted by a synod, at the head of which was the patriarch of Servia and its dependencies. ”

“ Servetus, in his steadfast protestation even unto death, became a true Reformer. His fate has for ever impressed the Protestant (Henry has the Evangelical) Church with hate of the besetting sin of the Church of Rome, the crime of dealing with religious error by inflicting death. It has even familiarised the world with the thought that there is a still higher development of the religious principle in man than has yet found expression in either the Roman or Reformed Churches, awaiting a coming time.’
This surely is noble writing. ”

“ I am bringing forward recent example of a most distinguished man. For Servilius, as a general of the Roman people, took Olympus after you, as lieutenant of the quaestor in the same district, had taken care to harass and plunder all the cities of our friends and allies even when they were at peace. 57The things which you carried off from the holiest temples with wickedness, and like a robber, we cannot see, except in your own houses, or in those of your friends. ”

“ The pastors of the Church of Basle [with Sulzer as reporter] , the last consulted, are rejoiced to see Servetus in the hands of the magistrates of Geneva; feeling persuaded that they will not be wanting either in saintly zeal or Christian prudence, in finding a remedy for an evil that has already led to the ruin of vast numbers of souls. ”

“ While your conversation shall be without blame, the Board advise you in your ministry to dwell much on the doctrine [Pg 428] of the cross, a doctrine which has been found in every age of the church of Christ, the power of God.
Have as little to do as possible with what may be called the politics of the country. Be content with the silence so divinely exemplified in the Lord Jesus and his apostles to render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's. Cultivate a tender regard for each other. If difference of opinion on any measures occur, never suffer it to produce alienation of affection. ”

“ Having done this, he said to the King, "Dost thou appoint me to do the pleasure of the people of Rome, me and my implements and my attendants with me?" And the King answered, "So that it be without damage to the people of Rome." Then the herald appointed one Spurius to be minister that he should take the oath, and touched his hair with the sacred herbs. And when Spurius had taken the oath, and the conditions of the treaty had been read aloud, he spake, saying, "Hear thou, Jupiter, and thou also, minister of the people of Alba, and ye men of Alba ”

“ But this is not all we have on the last moments of Servetus. Writing to his friend, Ambrose Blaurer, soon after the fatal October 27, Farel says, ‘You ask me about Servetus, so justly punished by a pious magistracy. I was at Geneva when the sentence was delivered, and with him when he died. The wretched man could not be brought to say that Christ was the Eternal Son of God. When I urged him on the subject, he desired me to point to a single place in the Scriptures in which Christ is spoken of as the Son of God before his birth. ”

“ But he can do so only on the same ground as Cyrus in the Bible, Augustus Cæesar, and other rulers, are called Dii or Divi—gods. The Son of God, to Servetus, in conformity with the pantheistic idea, can only be an aspect or Mode of the One God. If this be not his meaning, I know not what it is.
We have said above that Servetus is not opposed to the idea of a Trinity of dispositions, powers, or properties 64 in the Deity, but only denies such a trinity of persons or entities as is embodied in the symbols of orthodox Christianity. ”

“ The precocious ability and pious temperament with which we must credit Servetus may have been a further motive for the line of life chalked out for him by his parents. The Church was then, as it still continues to be, the close through which an easy and a pious life can be best secured where there is neither talent nor aspiration; as it is also the highway to worldly wealth and power, where there is ambition and ability to back what passes for piety. ”

“ The angel Michael led the embattled hosts of heaven to war against the Dragon; and he, Michael Servetus, had been chosen to lead the angels on earth against Antichrist! The Roman interpretation of Christianity, with its Pope and hierarchy, its assumed sovereignty, its pompous ceremonial and ritualistic apparatus, had failed to make the world either wiser or better; the entire system was rotten to the core; hence the revolt of such scholarly monks as Erasmus and Luther, and of such learned priests as Zwingli, Calvin, Melanchthon, Bullinger, Bucer, and the 183 rest. ”

“ The Clergy were dominated by Calvin, the Councils by the Clergy; and there appears to have been collusion and concert among the reporters both of the Churches and Senates. 460
Yesterday (September 26) , (writes Haller of Berne, to Bullinger of Zürich) we received the documents in the case of Servetus, and have since been studying them in view of our reply. But we should like to know what your answer is before we send ours. We therefore entreat you immediately to inform us of its tenor. Yet wherefore so much ado! the man is a heretic, and the Church must get rid of him. ”

“ We are all worshipers and ministers of the one true Gud, having been born and baptised in the faith and duly ordained in its ministry. But of late certain heresies have arisen among us, and we are gathered here to ferret out the heretic and bring him to the bar of ecclesiastical justice. Sad to confess, I find that I alone have remained staunch in our faith, which is founded on the rock of unchanging truth. ”

“ Among the Jesuit prints of the seventeenth century, I remember one which represents the Virgin and Child in the centre, and around are the most famous heretics of all ages, lying prostrate, or hanging by the neck. Julian the Apostate; Leo the Isaurian; his son, Constantine Capronymus; Arius; Nestorius; Manicheus; Luther; Calvin:—very characteristic of the age of controversy which had succeeded to the age of faith, when, instead of solemn saints and grateful votaries, we have dead or dying heretics surrounding the Mother of Mercy! ”

“ In ancient times, the state, as well as all its subdivisions, had their own peculiar forms of worship, whence at Rome we find sacra of the whole Roman people, of the curies, gentes, families, and even of private individuals. All these sacra, however, were divided into two great classes, the public and private sacra (sacra publica et privata) , that is, they were performed either on behalf of the whole nation, and at the expense of the state, or on behalf of individuals, families, or gentes, which had also to defray their expenses. This division is ascribed to Numa. ”

“ And if you think that our side of the argument, O Romans, should be confirmed by authorities, you have the authority of Publius Servilius, a man of the greatest skill in all wars, and in affairs of the greatest importance, who has performed such mighty achievements by land and sea, that, when you are deliberating about war, no one's authority ought to have more weight with you. ”

“ From reading the Bible at Toulouse and contrasting the humble life and simple theistic morality of the Prophet of Nazareth with the metaphysical subtleties and dogmatic deductions of the schoolmen, the pomp, the power, the tyranny and the greed of the priests so conspicuously displayed at Bologna, we can readily imagine the impression made on the independent spirit of Servetus—an impression that found more seemly utterance anon than that we have already quoted, and in words like these: ‘For my own part I neither agree nor disagree in every particular with either Catholic or Reformer. ”

“ Rulers so different as Nero and Domitian, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Antoninus, Severus, Decius, and Diocletian, and their ministers, felt that the sternest measures of repression of the new Faith were absolutely necessary if they would stem the fast advancing and apparently resistless tide of Christianity in the Empire. ”