Out of the Flames, Lawrence Goldstone

My latest greatest read was called Out of the Flames, subtitled "The Remarkable Story of a Fearless Scholar, a Fatal Heresy, and One of the Rarest Books in the World." This book is partly a biography of the fascinating life of the Spaniard Michael Servetus, partly a discussion of the 16th century religious mindset, and partly the journey of a solitary book.

One of my favorite quotes was, "History is an ocean that books help us to navigate." Out of the Flames navigates the 16th Century world of publishing, bestsellers, heresies, and the intellectual prison that was the life of thousands until men like Luther, Calvin, and Servetus broke away.

Servetus had an elite education and language proficiency galore. He read Hebrew, Greek, and vulgate Latin in addition to his native Spanish. This wasn’t just unusual, it was illegal. Those languages were strategic in allowing him to study the original Bible in its entirety, as well as the modern day translations. He found discrepancies between the two, and in his drive to broadcast his ideas, he made himself a heretic to both Catholics and Protestants. Servetus wrote and published his interpretation of the Godhead and other ideas in Christianismi Restitutio and several other books. His intent was to understand the original meaning of the Bible.

Even though it is written without religious intent, Out of the Flames brings up countless discussion points for the modern Christian. Servetus was the epitome of a radical thinker. He was a pioneering medical genius, and managed to outthink centuries of stagnant medical tradition. In the same way, Servetus’ spiritual ideas also contradicted the collective consensus of established religion. He was a heretic of heretics. Thankfully, modern Christians don't kill each other over theological disagreements. However, modern Christians can still be found defending tradition and consensus rather than study the very Word they claim to follow.

Doing basic internet reading, I've seen a lot of conflicting details about Servetus' death. Modern Calvinists minimize the awfulness of Calvin’s actions because killing heretics was the way of the “church” then. In this book Calvin's role in Servetus’ death is not glossed over, nor is it presented as controversial. It seems the documentation speaks for itself. Whatever your opinion, the brutal facts are provoking. No one denies he was burned at the stake with his book Christianismi Restitutio chained to him. It's recorded that he died slowly, screaming, in terrible agony for thirty minutes.

Of course a story like this arrests your attention. I couldn't help being thankful for how ridiculously easy it is to read an honest translation of the Bible in my native language. Goldstone doesn’t make a connection with modern non-Trinitarian Christians, though many would find a special interest in this story. He does explain Servetus’ lasting influence over Unitarian groups. He may not be famous by U.S. standards, but he is well-remembered in Europe.

The last third of Out of the Flames is the story of the unlikely survival of the first printing of the book Christianismi Restitutio. Like the one that was chained to Servetus, most other copies were burned as heresy. Only three original copies exist today, and those were preserved haphazardly for hundreds of years. Finally, they all rest safely at the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek in Vienna, the Bibliothèque National in Paris, and the library of the University of Edinburgh. And oh the joy. The U. of Edinburgh has images online now! Simply beautiful.  

You can buy an English translation of Christismi Restitutio for $229.00, or a used copy for $4,221.00.

And lastly, here is a first. I've made a YouTube video about Servetus for a school assignment, and I ended up using Out of the Flames as my main source.