The letter of Œcolampadius, as we have it, is without date, but must
have been written from Basle at the close of 1530, or the beginning of
1531, and so before the book on Trinitarian Error had been published,
as we find no mention made of the work. By this time, however, Servetus
must have had the treatise ready for press, for it was now that he
put it into the hands of Conrad Kœnig or Rous, a publisher, having
establishments both at Basle and Strasburg. Kœnig was not a printer
himself; but accepting the work for publication he sent it to Jo.
Secerius, of Hagenau, in Alsace, a well-known typographer of the day,
to be put into type. To Hagenau accordingly went the MS., followed
by the author to superintend the printing; intending from thence to
proceed to Strasburg, where he was anxious to have interviews with the
leading Reformers of that city, Martin Bucer and W. F. Capito, and
propound to them, as he had done to the Switzers, the new views of
Christian doctrine at which he had arrived.
From what we know already we might conclude that he found little more
encouragement from the ministers of Strasburg than he had had from
those of Basle. Servetus himself, however, appears to have thought
otherwise, and left them with the impression that neither of the
Strasburgers was so wholly opposed to his views as Œcolampadius in
particular had shown himself at Basle. We find him, by and by, in fact,
speaking as if he even believed that in the first instance they were
alike disposed to abet rather than condemn his conclusions. And this,
from what came out subsequently, seems really to have been the case, in
so far, at least, as Capito stands concerned. Capito was, in fact, the
most advanced and truly tolerant of all the early Reformers, and if we
may rely on the report we have of his opinions from the author of the
‘Antitrinitarian Library,’[16] he was really not behind Servetus in his
rejection of the orthodox tripartite Deity. A kindly sympathy with a
young enthusiast, full of fancies on topics really beyond the reach of
demonstration, may have induced Bucer as well as his colleague, Capito,
to feel a certain interest in the subject of our study, and so led
them both to treat him otherwise than as the irreverent dreamer he had
appeared to Œcolampadius; to see him, in a word, as he was in truth--a
well-read and piously disposed, albeit in their opinion a more or less
mistaken, scholar.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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