| “It
is necessary to begin by outlining the situation and the attitude
of Servetus towards the Church, if we really want to understand
his writings. The first thing that surprises us when we look into
his work "The Restoration of Christianity",
is the full-range of insults with which he attacks the Church,
for which he does not save any type of hostile adjective. It surprises
and it hurts this aspect of his work. Perhaps today we are in
optimal conditions to be able to understand it better than ever
(...). Michael Servetus, laic and outstanding doctor, expert on
different arts, was also a true believer, a committed Christian
who felt the necessity to do something to save the Church of Christ.
He will confess in the foreword to the "The Restoration
of Christianity" that he felt impelled by a superior
force to step in the defense of the cause of Christ, which is
the common cause of all Christians. At that time, in the days
of Servetus, the Church still dragged the consequences of the
Exile of Avignon and the Schism of the West. The decay of ecclesiastical
sciences, eroded by the nominalism, coincided with the degradation
of the clergymen, the hardening of intransigence of inquisitorial
forces, the depravation of the customs and the religious absenteeism.
Piety
gave in territory to superstition and the eccentricities undermined
devotion and even cult was subject to shady businesses. To make
matters worse, the pomp, the magnificence, the luxury and the
sumptuousness discredited the pontifical curia in front of the
eyes of many believers. One of thos who was unfavourably surprised
had been Erasmus. The other, Michael Servetus, when he stated
that the Vicar of Christ (who did not have any place to rest his
head) was treated like a feudal gentleman to whom people render
allegiance and courtesy. In this situation, it is not surprising
that from all parts there began to come up voices demanding for
reform. Many religious orders were already doing them in their
own monasteries, sometimes with such difficulties that the same
religious split in two (the primitive and the reformed one). Luther,
Calvin, Zwingli, Oecolampadius, Melanchthon, etc., tried to carry
out separately their own reforms. The Council of Trent came to
give the answer to this need, though too late, when whole towns
have separated from the Pope’s obedience.
In
this context, Servetus, being more audacious than any of the reformers,
requested for a restoration of Christianity and he did not conform
with just a reform. As the Anabaptists, his attitude became more
radical to express the desire of a true religious revolution,
i.e. a return to the pass, a return to the primitive Church, to
the community of the gospel. Furthermore, Servetus demanded the
restitution of the Christianity, that is the title of his master
work, since he considered that Christianity had been stolen by
the Church. Agreeing with a rather spread opinion, Servetus thinks
that the Church has been turned aside of the way of Jesus since
the IV century IV, as a result of the favors granted by Constatinus
and civil power to the Church. Without any doubt, this animosity
against the usurping Church of the Christianity made him set aside
the testimony of the last ecclesiastical writers of that century.
What is certain is that Servetus will resort, besides the Holy
Scripture, to the testimony of the ecclesiastical writers of the
first centuries: Apostolic fathers, Apologists and Polemicists.
However he will not only take into account the Holy Fathers (let
alone the Scholastics) to which accuses of attacking them, and
less still to the scholastics, to whom he accuses to have betrayed
the Saint language and to have incorporated barbaric and sofistic
ideologies.”
(Excerpts
from the booklet by Luis Betes Palomo “Anotaciones al
pensamiento teológico de Miguel Servet”, Michael
Sevetus Institute, 1975, pp. 9-11).
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