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Originally published 1553 | 4/5 Goodreads | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The burning of servetus ii christianismi restitutio
Christianismi Restitutio (English: The Restoration of Christianity) was a book published in 1553 by Michael Servetus. It rejected the Christian doctrine of the Trinity and the concept of predestination, which had both been considered fundamental to Christianity since the time of St. Augustine and emphasized by John Calvin in his magnum opus, Institutio Christianae Religionis. Servetus argued that God condemns no one who does not condemn himself through thought, word or deed. It also contained, incidentally and by way of illustration, groundbreaking views on pulmonary circulation that challenged the incorrect teachings of Galen.
Contents
Reception
After sending an early draft of Christianismi Restitutio to the theologian John Calvin, Servetus was arrested by the Inquisition in Vienne, but he managed to escape from imprisonment. However, he was later captured in Geneva and found guilty of spreading heresies. On October 27, 1553, he was burned at the stake in Geneva.
Almost all copies of his book were burned shortly after its publication, although three copies survived and are currently kept in Bibliothèque nationale de France, Edinburgh University Library and the Austrian National Library.
Non-theological significance
Servetus' discussion of the pulmonary circulation in Christianismi Restitutio in the middle of the 16th century is recognized by physiologists as the most accurate and complete description at that time. Since the discovery was suppressed with the theological work in which it was embedded, the function of the pulmonary circulation was forgotten until published by Sir William Harvey seventy-five years later in his work De Motu Cordis.