Calvin, Servetus, and Health

Michael Servetus - Burned alive October 27, 1553
John Calvin - Painful death May 27, 1564 at the age of 54

In time, with the authority of the Geneva city council, John Calvin would become the religious dictator of Protestant Geneva beginning around 1537. Fifty-eight people were executed during the first five years of Calvin’s rule, and seventy-six exiled. Most notorious was the case of Michael Servetus, the scientist and theologian with whom Calvin had corresponded earlier but disagreed on religious dogma. On John Calvin toasting Michael Servetus....

"Neither God nor his Spirit have counselled such an action. Christ did not treat those who negated him that way." - Italian poet Camillo Renato on the Servetus execution
"To kill a man is not to protect a doctrine, but it is to kill a man." - French humanist Sébastien Chateillon on the Servetus execution
"I consider it a serious matter to kill men because they are in error on some question of scriptural interpretation, when we know that even the elect ones may be led astray into error." - Michael Servetus

In which John Calvin counters... "Whoever shall maintain that wrong is done to heretics and blasphemers in punishing them makes himself an accomplice in their crime and guilty as they are. There is no question here of man's authority; it is God who speaks, and clear it is what law he will have kept in the church, even to the end of the world. Wherefore does he demand of us a so extreme severity, if not to show us that due honor is not paid him, so long as we set not his service above every human consideration, so that we spare not kin, nor blood of any, and forget all humanity when the matter is to combat for His glory." - John Calvin

It seemed like Calvin himself would pay for such criminal deeds in this life (not to mention what awaits him in eternity) as his health receded in his fifties. John Calvin would develop kidney stones, hemorrhoids, infections, discharging purulent urine and suffered from painful renal colic. He also had painful gout, and sometimes had to preach sitting down. He was always constipated, took aloes “in an immoderate degree,” and required frequent enemas. His spleen was enlarged. He had periodic facial pain, possibly trigeminal neuralgia. He suffered from heartburn and indigestion, roundworm infestation (Ascaris), migraines, nervous dyspepsia, chronic insomnia, and recurrent hemoptyses.

Fatally ill, and with blood flowing from his mouth, the 54 year-old pastor-theologian was carried to Saint Pierre in a chair. At the age of 54 he died, probably from tuberculosis, although some authorities have considered subacute bacterial endocarditis. This same month he wrote of his tribulations to the doctors of Montpellier:

"But at that time [20 years ago] I was not attacked by gout, knew nothing of the stone or the gravel, was not tormented with the gripings of colic nor afflicted with piles nor threatened with haemorrhages. At present all these enemies charge me like troops. As soon as I recovered from a quartan fever, I was taken with severe and acute pains in my calves, which, after being partly relieved, returned a second and then third time. At last they turned into a disease of the joints, which spread from my feet to my knees. An ulcer in the haemorrhoid veins long tortured me ..." - John Calvin

In which I would wish a good riddance! We ought not develop complicated doctrine and have folks put to death for disagreeing with us. As the scripture says...

13 Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom.
14 But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth.
15 This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.
16 For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.
17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.
18 And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace. - James 3

 

Lets see quotes...

Italian poet Camillo Renato protested: "Neither God nor his spirit have counselled such an action. Christ did not treat those who negated him that way." And French humanist Sébastien Chateillon wrote: "To kill a man is not to protect a doctrine, but it is to kill a man." Servetus himself had said: "I consider it a serious matter to kill men because they are in error on some question of scriptural interpretation, when we know that even the elect ones may be led astray into error." - People of The Reformation

In time, with the authority of the Geneva city council, he became the religious dictator of Protestant Geneva, empowered to root out all manifestations of Catholicism and immorality. Fifty-eight people were executed during the first five years of Calvin’s rule, and seventy-six exiled. Most notorious was the case of Michael Servetus, the scientist and theologian with whom Calvin had corresponded earlier but disagreed on religious dogma. Specifically, Servetus denied the existence of the Trinity and maintained there was only one God. On his way to Italy he made the fatal error of passing through Geneva, was arrested, tried for heresy by the city council, and condemned to death. Calvin agreed with the sentence and wanted him beheaded. But the council decided to have him slowly roasted at the stake in a fire made expressly of green wood so that it would burn more slowly and prolong his agony. - John Calvin: his rule in Geneva and his many illnesses - Hektoen International

Calvins poor health... John Calvin

Servetus Execution - Everywhere including here... John Calvin justified killing his theological opponents with the Bible

 

A tale of three Johns…

1. John Bunyan - My favorite - Writings were included with jail time.
2. John Calvin - Writings were enforced with hate and violence.
3. John MacArthur - Writings included a righteous indignation against what he felt as wrong. In which he has the right to go.

Of the three I prefer John Bunyan…

1. Salvation - At the Cross
2. Sanctification - At the Interpreters House
3. Witness of the Spirit - At the Porters Hose