Écrire contre l’intolérance : l’Historia de Morte Serveti de Sébastien Castellion

Abstract

The lutheran Reformation causes a explosion of different sects in the 16th century. In view of the many heresies that arise, religious tolerance becomes an urgent issue. The French reformer Sébastien Castellion, living in exile in Basel, refers to scriptural knowledge in order to face the widespread excessive violence in the name of orthodoxy. He takes Jean Calvin’s case against Michael Servetus in 1553 in Geneva as an occasion to write his Historia de Morte Serveti, a short pamphlet, in which he criticizes emphatically the death sentence in one of the first reformed trials of reformed heterodoxy.

Keywords

• Reformation
• Heterodoxy
• Scriptural knowledge
• Calvinism
• Tolerance