Trinity

TRINITY & OTHER DOCTRINES OF GOD:
PROF. M. M. NINAN
Attacking the orthodox teaching and attempting to form a view of his own, asserting
that:
the Word is eternal, a mode of God’s self-expression,
whereas the Spirit is God’s motion or power within the hearts of men.
The Son is the union of the eternal Word with the man Jesus.
By reason of this book Servetus was safe neither in Protestant nor in Catholic territory.
He took refuge under pseudonymity and lived as Michel de Villeneuve in France, where
for several years he supported himself as an editor. Everything he did gave offense. An
edition of the Bible had notes which said that the prophets of the Old Testament were
referring to events of their own times and were not predicting the future. An edition of
Ptolemy's geography contained a passage denying that Palestine was a land flowing with
milk and honey. Servetus then studied medicine in Paris and became the discoverer of
the pulmonary circulation of the blood. For twelve years he practiced as a physician at
Vienne near Lyons.
In 1553 he brought out clandestinely his great work, the Restitutio Christianismi, which
repeated the views of the De Trinitatis Erroribus with the addition of two new elements.
The first was Anabaptism which he had presumably imbibed during his previous stay at
Strasbourg. With vehemence he denied the rightfulness of infant baptism, and
recommended the postponement of baptism to the thirtieth year in imitation of Christ.
The very title of the book, the Restitution of Christianity, is reminiscent of several
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