Nicholas de la Fontaine
Encyclopedia
Nicholas de la Fontaine was a Protestant refugee
Refugee
A refugee is a person who outside her country of origin or habitual residence because she has suffered persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or because she is a member of a persecuted 'social group'. Such a person may be referred to as an 'asylum seeker' until...

 in Geneva and entered the service of John Calvin
John Calvin
John Calvin was an influential French theologian and pastor during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism. Originally trained as a humanist lawyer, he broke from the Roman Catholic Church around 1530...

, by whom he was employed a secretary. De la Fontaine brought Michael Servetus
Michael Servetus
Michael Servetus was a Spanish theologian, physician, cartographer, and humanist. He was the first European to correctly describe the function of pulmonary circulation...

 to trial on August 14, 1553 on the charges of heresy
Heresy
Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...

 against Calvinism
Calvinism
Calvinism is a Protestant theological system and an approach to the Christian life...

, as Calvin himself at this point was too incapacitated with various health problems to personally appear at the trial.

The Complaint of Nicholas de la Fontaine Against Servetus

In 1553, de la Fontaine published a list of "complaints" against Servetus regarding his supposedly heretical activities. There were originally forty articles in this text, but before the trial, this number was reduced to thirty-eight. Notable excerpts from the list include:

VIII: To wit, whether he has not written and falsely taught and published that to believe in a single essence of God there are three distinct persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, is to create four phantoms, which cannot and ought not to be imagined.

XXXII: Item, that little children are sinless, and moreover are incapable of redemption until they come of age.

XXXIV: Item, that the baptism of little children is an invention of the Devil, an infernal falsehood tending to the destruction of all Christianity.

XXXIX: Item, that in the person of M. Calvin, minister of the word of God in the Church of Geneva, he has defamed with printed book the doctrine which he preached, uttering all the injurious and blasphemous things which it is possible to invent.

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