CALVIN
197
CALVIN
exiled Farel, Calvin, and the l>lin«l evangelist, Cou-
raud. The Reformer went to Strasburg, became tlie
guest of Capito and Bucer, and in 1539 was explain-
ing the New Testament to French refugees at fifty-
two florins a year. Cardinal Sadolet had addressed
an open letter to the Genevans, which their exile now
answered. Sadolet urged that schism was a crime;
Calvin replied that the Roman Church was corrupt.
He gained applause by his keen debating powers at
Hagenau. Worms, and Ratisbon. But he complains
of his poverty and ill-health, which did not prevent
him from marrying at this time Idelette de Bure, the
widow of an Anabaptist whom he had converted.
Nothing more is known of this lady, except that she
brought him a son who died almost at birth in 1542,
and that her own death took place in 1549.
After some negotiation Ami Perrin, commissioner forGeneva, persuaded Calvin to return. Hedidso,not very willingly, on 13 September, 154 1 . His entry was modest enough. The church constitution now rec- ognized "pastors, doctors, elders, deacons" but su- preme power was given to the magistrate. Minis- ters had the spiritual weapon of God's word; the consistory never, as such, wielded the secular arm. Preachers, led by Calvin, and the councils, instigated by his opponents, came frequently into collision. Yet the ordinances of 1541 were maintained; the clergy, assisted by lay elders, governed despotically and in detail the actions of every citizen. A presbyterian Sparta might be seen at Geneva; it set an example to later Puritans, who did all in their power to imitate its discipline. The pattern held up was that of the Old Testament, although Christians were supposed to enjoy Gospel liberty. In November, 1552, the Council declared that Calvin's "Institutes" were a " holy doctrine which no man might speak against." Thus the State issued dogmatic decrees, the force of which had been anticipated earlier, as when Jacques Gouet was imprisoned on charges of impiety in June, 1547, and after severe torture was beheaded in July. Some of the accusations brought against the unhappy young man were frivolous, others doubtful. What share, if any, Calvin took in this judgment is not easy to ascertain. The execution of Servetus, however, must be laid at his door; it has given greater offence by far than the banishment of Castellio or the penal- ties inflicted on BoLsec — moderate men opposed to extreme views in discipline and doctrine, who fell under suspicion as reactionary. The Reformer did not shrink from his self-appointed task. Within five years fifty-eight sentences of death and seventy-six of exile, besides numerous committals of the most emi- nent citizens to prison, took place in Geneva. The iron yoke could not be shaken off. In 1555, under Ami Perrin. a sort of revolt was attempted. No blood was shed, but Perrin lost the day, and Calvin's theoc- racy triumphed.
"I am more deeply scandalized", wrote Gibbon, "at the single execution of Servetus than at the heca- tombs which have blazed in I lie autos-da-fe of Spain and Portugal". He ascribes the enmity of Calvin to personal malice and perhaps envy. The facts of the case are pretty well ascertained. Born in 1511, per- haps at Tudela, Michael Served y Reves studied at Toulouse and was present in Bologna at the corona- tion of Charles V. He travelled in Germany and brought out in 1531 at Hagenau his treatise " DeTrin- itatis Erroribus". a strong Unitarian work which made much commotion among the more orthodox Reformers. He met Calvin and disputed with him at Paris in 1534, became corrector of the press at Lyons, gave attention to medicine, discovered the lesser cir- culation of the blood, and entered into a fatal corres- pondence with the dictator of Geneva touching a new volume, Christian: -mi Restitutio", which he intended to publish. In 1546 the exchange of letters ceased. The Reformer called Servetus arrogant (he had dared
to criticize the " Institutes" in marginal glosses), and
uttered the significant menace, "If he comes hither
and I have any authority, I will never let him quit
the place alive." The "Restitutio" appeared in
1553. Calvin at once had its author delated to the
.Dominican inquisitor Ory at Lyons, sending on to
him the man's letters of 1545-46 and these glosses.
Hereupon the Spaniard was imprisoned at Vienne,
but he escaped by friendly connivance, and was burnt
there only in effigy. Some extraordinary fascination
drew him to Geneva, from which he intended to pass
the Alps. He arrived on 13 Aug., 1553. Next day
Calvin, who had remarked him at the sermon, got his
critic arrested, the preacher's own secretary coming
forward to accuse him. Calvin drew up forty articles
of charge under three heads, concerning the nature of
God, infant baptism, and the attack which Servetus
had ventured on his own teaching. The council
hesitated before taking a deadly decision, but the
dictator, reinforced by Farel, drove them on. In
prison the culprit suffered much and loudly com-
plained. The Bernese and other Swiss voted for
some indefinite penalty. But to Calvin his power in
Geneva seemed lost, while the stigma of heresy, as he
insisted, would cling to all Protestants if this innova-
tor were not put to death. "Let the world see",
Bullinger counselled him, "that Geneva wills the
glory of Christ. "
Accordingly, sentence was pronounced 26 Oct., 1553, of burning at the stake. " To-morrow he dies", wrote Calvin to Farel. When the deed was done, the Reformer alleged that he had been anxious to mitigate the punishment, but of this fact no record appears in the documents. He disputed with Servetus on the day of execution and saw the end. A defence and apology next year received the adhesion of the Gene- van ministers. Melanchthon, who had taken deep umbrage at the blasphemies of the Spanish Unitarian, strongly approved in well-known words. But a group that included Castellio published at- Basle in 1554 a pamphlet with the title. " Ought heretics to be persecuted?" It is reckoned the first plea for tolera- tion in modern times. Beza replied by an argument for the affirmative, couched in violent terms; and Cal- vin, whose favorite disciple he was, translated it into French in 1559. The dialogue, "Yaticanus", written against the " Pope of Geneva " by Castellio, did nut gel into print until 1612. Freedom of opinion, as ( iibbon remarks, " was the consequence rather than the design of the Reformation." (For a bibliography of Servetus see Erichsohn in "Opera Calvini", LIX, 533, 534.)
Another victim to his fiery zeal was Gentile, one of an Italian sect in Geneva, which also numbered among its adherents Alciati and Gribaldo. As more or less Unitarian in their views, they were required to sign a confession drawn up by Calvin in 1558. Gen- tile subscribed it reluctantly, but in the upshot he was condemned and imprisoned as a perjurer. He escaped onlytobe twice incarcerated at Menu, where, in 1566, he was beheaded. Calvin's impassioned polemic against these Italians betrays fear of the Socinianisni which was to lay waste his vineyard. Politically he leaned on the French refugees, now abounding in the city, and more than equal m energy, if not in numbers, to the elder native factions. Op- position died out. His continual preaching, repre- sented by 2300 sermons extant in the MSS. and a vast correspondence, gave to the Reformer an influ- ence without example in his closing years. He wrote to Edward VI, helped in revising the Hook of Com- mon Prayer, and intervened between the rival English parties abroad (hiring the Marian period. In the Huguenot troubles he sided with the more modern ti His censure of the conspiracy of Amboise in 1560 docs him honour. One great literary institution
founded by him. the College, afterwards the Univer- sity, of Geneva, flourished exceedingly. The student..
