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What is really HISTORY?

Anto9us

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Because this thread was an off-shoot of a thread on Unconditional Election, in which by Mod decision it was decided that that thread could remain in UT because a main perpetrator of the thread was Mormon and "couldn't post anywhere else"

I feel that this thread too should remain here -- for an unusual bit of "history" was brought up in that thread on Unconditional Election.

The THEME does involve UNITARIANSIM - a UT topic, because it deals with the death of Michael Servetus - a Unitarian who once allegedly called the Trinitarian God a "three-headed Cerberus" or words to that effect.

Neither Michael Servetus nor John Calvin is a "theological hero" to me - far from it.

But basically the normative view of history has been challenged - and a different view put forth that is wont to paint John Calvin as innocent of having the part in Servetus' death that the preponderance of historical evidence has heretofore ascribed to him.

I will repeat my posts from the thread that this thread is an offshoot of
 

Anto9us

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"1. That Servetus was guilty of blasphemy, of a kind and degree which is still punishable here in England by imprisonment."

uh

who is this Wiiliam Wileman and when did he write this?

is it being said that Blasphemy is punishable by IMPRISONMENT in England to this day?

This article, which I will certainly not swallow without further research, certainly has horrible tones about Catholics - uh - they - he says

"I shall narrow the inquiry at the outset by saying that all Roman Catholics are "out of court." They burn heretics on principle, avowedly. This is openly taught by them; it is in the margin of their Bible; and it is even their boast that they do so. And, moreover, they condemned Servetus to be burned."

Boasting of burning heretics in the margins of their Bibles?

Really?

(This was originally posted in the Unconditional Election thread)

http://www.christianforums.com/t7761734-7/
 
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Anto9us

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The Murder of Michael Servetus

A couple of quotes from John Calvin himself:
7 years before the incident:
"If he [Servetus] comes [to Geneva], I shall never let him go out alive if my authority has weight."
Written by John Calvin in a letter to Farel Feb. 13, 1546

During the incident
Again Calvin writes Farel in a letter dated Aug 20th 1553 where he has Servetus arrested.
"We have now new business in hand with Servetus. He intended perhaps passing through this city; for it is not yet known with what design he came. But after he had been recognized, I thought that he should be detained. My friend Nicolas summoned him on a capital charge. ... I hope that sentence of death will at least be passed upon him"

After the incident:
"Many people have accused me of such ferocious cruelty that (they allege) I would like to kill again the man I have destroyed. Not only am I indifferent to their comments, but I rejoice in the fact that they spit in my face."

"Whoever shall now contend that it is unjust to put heretics and blasphemers to death will knowingly and willingly incur their very guilt.

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]The strongest recorded statement from Calvin on the Servetus affair is a 1561 letter from Calvin to the Marquis Paet, high chamberlain to the King of Navarre, in which he says intolerantly:[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]"Honour, glory, and riches shall be the reward of your pains; but above all, do not fail to rid the country of those scoundrels, who stir up the people to revolt against us. Such monsters should be exterminated, as I have exterminated Michael Servetus the Spaniard."[/FONT]
Servetus' final words while being burned alive tied to a stake:
  • "Jesu, thou Son of the eternal God, have compassion upon me!"
Yet a heartless modern day Calvinist comments on this saying

"This phrase epitomizes the essence of his Trinitarian error"

for he said "Son of the eternal God" rather than "eternal Son of God"


Some Official Reasons for being burned alive:

  • Accused of teaching against infant baptism
  • Accused of defaming John Calvin
  • Accused of refraining from marriage for a "long time"
  • Accused of denying the Trinity
 
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Anto9us

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I mean, there are CALVINIST sites out there discussing the Servetus case - sure, Lorraine Bettner is going to try to whitewash Calvin's culpability in this - but really, I mean saying he should be "killed with the sword" rather than being burned alive is the "sweetest" thing that can be said

And what did "the sword" mean - beheading?
 
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Anto9us

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http://www.miguelservet.org/servetus/life.htm
 
Servetus v. Calvin
"Years before it was printed, Servetus sent a copy of the manuscript of his Christianismi Restitutio to Calvin. Through a figurehead, Calvin reported Servetus to the authorities in Vienne (France). Tried and imprisoned, Servetus managed to escape from the prison on 7th April 1553."

 
There is the FIRST thing that Calvin did to Servetus -- upon Servetus merely SENDING HIM A BOOK THAT HE WROTE - Calvin SQUEALED ON SERVETUS - causing Servetus to be thrown in jail; though Servetus later escaped.
 
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Anto9us

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For more than four months Servetus disappeared without trace until, in the middle of August, he reappeared in Geneva, the stronghold of the theocracy established by John Calvin. Following the instructions of Calvin, Servetus was detained in Geneva and once again imprisoned in Geneva. Without any type of legal assistance, Servetus is accused of heresy and tried in Geneva both by the civil and religious authorities.

 
 
On 26th October 1553, the Council of Geneva, at the behest of Calvin, sentenced Servetus to death. According to the wording of the verdict, Miguel Servetus was sentenced to death on the stake the next day for having denied the dogma of the Trinity, questioned the eternity of Jesus Christ, and rejected the baptism of infants. Having been sentenced, the theologians in Calvin’s circle tried to convince Servetus to withdraw his doctrines, but Servetus did not give in and remained strong until the end. It was precisely these last days of his life that raise this great intellectual to the status of hero and martyr for defending his ideas.

the red font was from the same site quoted above

 
FROM A REVIEW OF ROLAND BAINTON'S BOOK "HUNTED hERETIC"
In Calvin studies, Servetus is discussed heavily. Usually falling into two camps: those who use Servetus to rail against John Calvin, or those who try to get Calvin off the hook for his involvement in the Servetus affair. Bainton's brilliance in *Hunted Heretic* is his ability to show the reader the reason he is attracted to Servetus (religious freedom), while never giving the reader reason to doubt his historical analysis, which in the end is serious, nuanced, and honest.
 
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Anto9us

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Wow - here's one CALVINIST SITE that is trying to come from the angle that

"Yeah - But Luther and Zwingli were WORSE!"

I have seen everything now.

http://www.calvin.edu/meeter/educational-resources/servetus-controversy.htm


It is true that Calvin and his fellow pastors in Geneva were involved in the death of Servetus. However, it would be difficult to find any


church leader in the 16 th century who advocated a more gentle approach.

Luther called for attacks on German peasants and wrote an angry tract against the Jews, called ‘On the Jews and their Lies'.

Zwingli, the Reformer of Zurich, supported the execution by drowning of the Anabaptist leader, Felix Manz.

Sir Thomas More, England 's Catholic Lord Chancellor, presided over the execution of those he viewed as "heretics" in England during the reign of Henry the VIII.

Each country of Europe in the sixteenth century felt that defending its religious views involved taking strong measures against those who disagreed. Toleration and acceptance of doctrinal differences were simply not sixteenth-century concepts

Whoah!
 
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Anto9us

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It is sometimes said that Servetus "came to Geneva to stir up trouble" - iow, like saying "He brought this upon himself.

That is like saying a woman was "asking for it" when she got raped.

Consider again Calvin's OWN WORDS about Servetus coming to Geneva:

He intended perhaps passing through this city; for it is not yet known with what design he came. But after he had been recognized, I thought that he should be detained. My friend Nicolas summoned him on a capital charge. ... I hope that sentence of death will at least be passed upon him"

Notice that - "it is not yet known with what design he came."

So Calvin didn't even know why Servetus was there - as far as Calvin knew, Srvetus was just 'passin thru'

"He intended perhaps passing through this city"

But heck - he's here - I don't know why - BUT LET'S KILL HIM WHILE HE'S HERE!

There is no mention of Servetus coming to "stir up trouble"
 
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drstevej

"The crowd always chooses Barabbas."
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And others were put to death...

The Errors of John Hus
[SIZE=+1]as proclaimed by THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE 1414-1418[/SIZE][SIZE=+1]

[/SIZE][Condemned in Council and by the Bulls "Inter Cunctas" and "In eminentis" Feb. 22, 1418.]
1. One and only is the holy universal Church which is the aggregate of the predestined.
2. Paul never was a member of the devil, although he did certain acts similar to the acts of those who malign the Church.
3. The foreknown are not parts of the Church, since no part of it finally will fall away from it, because the charity of predestination which binds it will not fall away.
4. Two natures, divinity and humanity, are one Christ.
5. The foreknown, although at one time he is in grace according to the present justice, yet is never a part of the holy Church; and the predestined always remains a member of the Church, although at times he may fall away from additional grace, but not from the grace of predestination.
6. Assuming the Church as the convocation of the predestinated, whether they were in grace or not according to the present justice, in that way the Church is an article of faith.
7. Peter is not nor ever was the head of the Holy Catholic Church.
8. Priests living criminally in any manner whatsoever, defile the power of the priesthood, and as unfaithful sons they think unfaithfully regarding the seven sacraments of the Church, the keys, the duties, the censures, customs, ceremonies, and sacred affairs of the Church, its veneration of relics, indulgences, and orders.
9. The papal dignity has sprung up from Caesar, and the perfection and institution of the pope have emanated from the power of Caesar.
10. No one without revelation would have asserted reasonably regarding himself or anyone else that he was the head of a particular church, nor is the Roman Pontiff the head of a particular Roman Church.
11. It is not necessary to believe that the one whosoever is the Roman Pontiff, is the head of any particular holy church, unless God has predestined him.
12. No one takes the place of Christ or of Peter unless he follows him in character, since no other succession is more important, and not otherwise does he receive from God the procuratorial power, because for that office of vicar are required both conformity in character and the authority of Him who institutes it.
13. The pope is not the true and manifest successor of Peter, the first of the apostles, if he lives in a manner contrary to Peter; and if he be avaricious, then he is the vicar of Judas Iscariot. And with like evidence the cardinals are not the true and manifest successors of the college of the other apostles of Christ, unless they live in the manner of the apostles, keeping the commandments and counsels of our Lord Jesus Christ.
14. Doctors holding that anyone to be emended by ecclesiastical censure, if he is unwilling to be corrected, must be handed over to secular judgment, certainly are following in this the priests, scribes, and pharisees, who saying that "it is not permissible for us to kill anyone" (John 18:31), handed over to secular judgment Christ Himself, who did not wish to be obedient to them in all things, and such are homicides worse than Pilate.
15. Ecclesiastical obedience is obedience according to the invention of the priest of the Church, without the expressed authority of scripture.
16. The immediate division of human works is: that they are either virtuous or vicious, because, if a man is vicious and does anything, then he acts viciously; and if he is virtuous and does anything, then he acts virtuously; because as vice, which is called a crime or mortal sin, renders the acts of man universally vicious, so virtue vivifies all the acts of the virtuous man.
17. Priests of Christ, living according to His law and having a knowledge of Scripture and a desire to instruct the people, ought to preach without the impediment of a pretended excommunication. But if the pope or some other prelate orders a priest so disposed not to preach, the subject is not obliged to obey.
18. Anyone who approaches the priesthood receives the duty of a preacher by command, and that command he must execute, without the impediment of a pretended excommunication.
19. By ecclesiastical censures of excommunication, suspension, and interdict, the clergy for its own exaltation supplies for itself the lay populace, it multiplies avarice, protects wickedness, and prepares the way for the Antichrist. Moreover, the sign is evident that from the Antichrist such censures proceed, which in their processes they call fulminations, by which the clergy principally proceed against those who uncover the wickedness of the Antichrist, who will make use of the clergy especially for himself.
20. If the Pope is wicked and especially if he is foreknown, then as Judas, the Apostle, he is of the devil, a thief, and a son of perdition, and he is not the head of the holy militant Church, since he is not a member of it.
21. The grace of predestination is a chain by which the body of the Church and any member of it are joined insolubly to Christ the Head.
22. The pope or prelate, wicked and foreknown, is equivocally pastor and truly a thief and robber.
23. The pope should not be called "most holy" even according to his office, because otherwise the king ought also to be called "most holy" according to his office, and torturers and heralds should be called holy, indeed even the devil ought to be called holy, since he is an official of God.
24. If the pope lives in a manner contrary to Christ, even if he should ascend through legal and legitimate election according to the common human constitution, yet he would ascend from another place than through Christ, even though it be granted that he entered by an election made principally by God; for Judas Iscariot rightly and legitimately was elected by God, Jesus Christ, to the episcopacy, and yet he ascended from another place to the sheepfold of the sheep.
25. The condemnation of the forty-five articles of John Wycliffe made by the doctors is irrational and wicked and badly made; the cause alleged by them has been feigned, namely, for the reason that "no one of them is a Catholic but anyone of them is either heretical, erroneous, or scandalous."
26. Not for this reason, that the electors, or a greater par of them, agreed by acclamation according to the observance of men upon some person, is that person legitimately elected; nor for this reason is he the true and manifest successor or vicar of the Apostle Peter, or in the ecclesiastical office of another apostle. Therefore, whether electors have chosen well or badly, we ought to believe in the works of the one elected; for, by the very reason that anyone who operates for the advancement of the Church in a manner more fully meritorious, has from God more fully the faculty for this.
27. For there is not a spark of evidence that there should be one head ruling the Church in spiritual affairs, which head always lives and is preserved with the Church militant herself.
28. Christ through His true disciples scattered through the world would rule His Church better without such monstrous heads.
29. The apostles and faithful priests of the Lord strenuously in necessities ruled the Church unto salvation, before the office of the pope was introduced; thus they would be doing even to the day of judgment, were the pope utterly lacking.
30. No one is a civil master, no one is a prelate, no one is a bishop while he is in mortal sin.


and another...

The 'Crimes' of William Tyndale

First: He maintains that faith alone justifies.

Second:He maintains that to believe in the forgiveness of sins and to embrace
the mercy offered in the Gospel, is enough for salvation.

Third: He avers that human traditions cannot bind the conscience, except
where their neglect might occasion scandal.

Fourth: He denies the freedom of the will.

Fifth: He denies that there is any purgatory.

Sixth: He affirms that neither the Virgin nor the Saints pray for us in their
own person.

Seventh: He asserts that neither the Virgin nor the Saints should be invoked by us.
 
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Phantasman

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What's the difference between what the Catholics have done and what the Muslims have done? Catholics kill people, and justify that it was for God. So do the Muslims. You won't find me following an idiot and kissing his ring thinking he is God on earth. Get sane.
 
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drstevej

"The crowd always chooses Barabbas."
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I am not aware of Catholics killing people in this century. And if your next to last sentence is a reference to Catholics it misrepresents their view of the pope and is a rules violation. Just saying.
 
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Phantasman

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I am not aware of Catholics killing people in this century. And if your next to last sentence is a reference to Catholics it misrepresents their view of the pope and is a rules violation. Just saying.

Really? Ever been to Belfast, Ireland? I didn't say Joseph Smith now, did I?
 
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Anto9us

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This was from a debate between Luther and Eckius on the nature of the papacy -

Duke George and Melancthon were in attendance and Luther wound up shocking everyone...

from Edith Simon's LUTHER ALIVE pp 193-194

---------------------

"When Eckius adduced the text of a letter by a first-century bishop of Rome, which stood incorporated in the canon law, Luther by means of reasoned historical criticism impugned its authenticity; and nothing could move him.

(The amateur was right; although the professional research scholars did not prove it till a few decades hence, the text in question belonged to a corpus of spurious insertions, known ever since as the False Decreetals. Yet he had not so far even heard about the work of Valla on the false Donation of Constantine.)

Luther's most powerful argumentation rested on the Greek Church, which did not recognize the Bishop of Rome as its head and never had; would Eckius, then, condemn the entire Eastern half of Christendom for heresy? Over-rash in his turn, Eckius said yes; and on this basis Luther had a fine time with him.

What? damn the whole Greek Church with all its adherents over fifteen centuries, the Church which had produced the best of the Fathers and many thousands of great saints, none of whom had had so much as a suspicion of the Roman primacy?

"Do you and the Pope and his sycophants mean to throw them out of heaven?"

It was for Eckius to display some fast footwork and retreat into the circumscribed sphere of the Latin Church, where he did know his way about. And now it was his turn, to have a fine time with Luther.

He fired his bombshell.

"I see that you are following the pestiferous errors of John Wyclif, who said,

'It is not necessary for salvation to believe that the Roman Church is above all other churches,'

and likewise the damned and pestilent errors of Johann Hus,

who said that Peter neither was nor is the head of the Holy Catholic Church."

You could call Luther a boil, a bastard, a monster, a drunken, mangy, lice-ridden mendicant; but you must not call him Hussite.

He roared in furious protest -- but in the lunchtime intermission, he repaired to the university library to look up the acts of the Council of Constance, which had tried and condemned Hus.

Eckius' memory had practised no deceit this time; it was as he had said.

But there was more to it than that.

Among the relevant articles of Hus which the council had ruled heretical there was one which was a direct paraphrase of St. Augustine.

At two o'clock when the session was resumed Luther stood up and said,

"Among the articles of Johann Hus I find many which are plainly Christian and evangelical, and which therefore the Universal Church cannot condemn."

Sensation.

Duke George uttered an oath.

Luther's friends reeled with the shock which for himself he had neutralized by embracing it at once.

For himself, he might be ignorant of vanity -- to name no other deterrent emotion: but one must remember that the wounds of the Hussite invasions of Saxony were yet scarecly healed, and that the word Hus was the worst term of opprobrium in the vocabulary.

Eckius pressed his advantage, and Luther helped him staunchly by getting himself into ever deeper water -- or so it appeared to his opponents.

In Luther's own eyes he was getting on to ever firmer ground.

Soon he would say,

"We are all Hussites.

Augustine and Paul were Hussites."

-------------------

Hoo-wah!

Hus had been burned about a century before this debate.

The die was cast.
 
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timewerx

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All major religions in this world has one common person, directly or indirectly - King Solomon.

Freemasonry has this figured out although they did not made it very obvious. When Freemasonry claimed all major religions although had gods with different names are essentially the same god, they are probably right because the symbols and beliefs they use connect these religions together with King Solomon and Freemasonry.

I'm not saying that it's good to be a Freemason. Although they may tell the truth about the singular nature of major religions around the world, I judge that religion is evil. Most of the 7 billion population of our planet is religious and yet it is full of evil and adopted a mindset that is easily manipulable/deceived.

See the connection??

I've only found bits and pieces of Truth in the teachings of Jesus, but there seems to be gaps. As a teacher that Jesus is, he must have given a detailed explanation for the logic behind His commands. As one disciple commented if all the works of Jesus would be written, it would be a huge collection of books!

I believe the Gospel we have in the Bible is not the "uncut" version. It is heavily reduced to nothing but useful topics for bloody debates.
 
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