The Christology of the Second Century CE as Reconstructed by Michael Servetus

Michael Servetus (ca. 1511–1553) was a biblical scholar, humanist, and representative of the Radical Reformation. In 1553 he was put to death in Geneva on charges of rejecting infant baptism and denying the Trinity. He is often depicted as a primitivist who rejected ecclesiastical tradition and sought to restore Christianity to its pure form based on Scripture alone. In reality, however, Servetus engaged extensively with patristic sources as part of his argument that the Church of the second and third centuries did not adhere to Trinitarian orthodoxy, which in his view developed only in the fourth century. This essay describes Servetus’ account of the teaching of the earliest Christian writers (e.g., Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Ignatius) and how their views fit into his theology of God. Key ideas about God and Christ, the theology of the Logos, key terms such as persona , and metaphors such as the Word and Spirit as the two hands of God were adopted by Servetus from early Christian sources and deployed in his own system. The conclusion addresses both his shortcomings and strengths as a student of the early Church

Argument (complex analysis) · Baptism · Christianity · Christology · Church History · Key (lock) · Patristics · Historical Philosophy and Science · Medieval Philosophy and Theology · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity