, a famous Anti-trinitarian, and the great martyr of the Socinian
, a famous Anti-trinitarian, and
the great martyr of the Socinian sect, was born in 1509, at
Villaneuva in Arragon, or at Tudela in Navarre, in 1511.
His father, who was a notary, sent him to the university of
Toulouse, to study the civil law: and there, or as some
say, when in Italy, he imbibed his peculiar notions
respecting the doctrine of the Trinity. After he had been
two or three years at Toulouse he resolved to remove into
Germany, and propagate his opinions. He went to Basil,
by way of Lyons and Geneva; and, having had some conferences at Basil with Oecolampadius, set out for Strasburg, to converse with Bucer and Capito, two celebrated reformers of that city., At his departure from Basil he left a
manuscript, entitled “De Trinitatis Erroribus,
” in the
bands of a bookseller, who sent it afterwards to Haguenau,
whither Servetus went, and had it printed in 1531. The
next year, he printed likewise at Haguenau another book,
with this title, “Dialogorum de Trinitate libri duo:
” in
an advertisement to which he retracts v/hat he had written
in his former book against the Trinity, not as it was false,
but because it was written imperfectly and confusedly^
He then resolved to return to France, because he was
poor, and did not understandthe German language; as he
alleged upon his trial to the judges, when they asked him
why he left Germany. He went accordingly to Basil,
thence to Lyons, where he lived two or three years, and
afterwards to Paris, where, having studied physic under
Sylvius, Fernelius., and other professors, he took his degree
of master of arts, and was admitted doctor of physic in the
university. He now settled as a practitioner for two or
three years in a town near Lyons, and then at Vienne in
Dauphiny, for the space of ten or twelve. In the mean
time, his writings against the Trinity had excited the indignation of the German divines, and spread his name throughout all Europe. In 1533, before he had left Lyons, Melancthon wrote a letter to Camerarius, in which he allowed
that Servetus was evidently an acute and crafty disputant,
but confused and indigested in his thoughts, and certainly
wanting in point of gravity. While Servetus was at Paris,
his books being dispersed in Italy, were very much approved by many who had thoughts of forsaking the church
of Rome: which, in 1539, excited Melancthon to write a
letter to the senate of Venice, importing, that “a book of
Servetus, who had revived the error of Paulus Samosatenus,
was handed about in their country, and beseeching them
to take care, that the impious error of that man may be
avoided, rejected, and abhorred.
” Servetus was at Lyons
in 1542, before he settled in Vienne; and corrected the
proofs of a Latin Bible that was printing there, to which
he added a preface and some marginal notes, under
the name of Villanovanus, from the town where he was
born.