§ 101. THE CIVIL GOVERNjNIENT. 463
and queens nursing-mothers " to the Church. He refers to the examples of Moses, Joshua and the Judges, David, Josiah, and Hezekiah.
Here is the critical point where religious persecution by the State comes in as an inevitable consequence. Offences against the Church are offences against the State, and vice versa, and deserve punishment by fines, imprisonment, exile, and, if necessary, by death. On this ground the execution of Servetus and other heretics was justified by all who held the same theory; fortunately, it has no support whatever in the New Testament, but is directly contrary to the spirit of the gospel. .
Geneva, after the emancipation from the power of the bishop and the duke of Savo}-, was a self-governing Republic under the protection of Bern and the Swiss Confederacy. The civil government assumed the episcopal power, and exercised it fii'st in favor, then against, and at last permanently for the Reformation.
The Republic was composed of all citizens of age, who met annually in general assembly {cojiseil general), usually in St. Peter's, under the sounding of bells and trumpets, for the ratification of laws and the election of officers. The administrative power was lodged in four Syndics ; the legislative power in two councils, the Council of Sixty, and the Council of Two Hundred. The former existed since 1457 ; the latter was instituted in 1526, after the alliance with Freiburg and Bern, in imitation of the Constitution of these and other Swiss cities. The Sixty were by right members of the Council of Two Hundred. In 1530 the Two Hundred assumed the right to elect the ordinary or little Council of Twenty-Five, who were a part of the two other councils and had previously been elected by the Syndics. The real power lay in the hands of the Syndics and the little Council of Twenty-five, which formed an oligarchy with legislative, executive, and judicial functions.
464 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
Calvin did not change these fundamental institutions of the Republic, but he infused into them a Christian and disciplinary spirit, and improved the legislation. He was appointed, together with the Syndics Roset, Porral, and Balard, to draw up a new code of laws, as early as Nov. 1, 1541.1 He devoted much time to this work, and paid attention even to the minutest details concerning the administration of justice, the city police, the military, the firemen, the watchmen on the towers, and the like.^
The city showed her gratitude by presenting him with "a cask of old wine " for these extra services.'^
Many of his regulations continued in> legal force down to the eighteenth century.
Calvin was consulted in all important affairs of the State, and his advice was usually followed ; but he never occupied a political or civil office. He was not even a citizen of Geneva till 1559 (eighteen years after his second arrival), and never appeared before the councils except when some ecclesiastical question was debated, or when his advice was asked. It is a mistake, therefore, to call him the head of the Republic, except in a purely intellectual and moral sense.
The code of laws was revised with the aid of Calvin by his friend, Germain Colladon (1510-1594), an eminent jurisconsult and member of a distinguished family of French
1 Reg. du Conseil, in Annal. vol. XXI. 287. Comp. vol. X. Pars I. 125.
2 In the Grand Ducal Library of Gotha are preserved several drafts of Calvin, in his own handwriting, on the various departments of civil government, especially the reform of judicial proceedings. They are published in Opera, X. Pars I. 125-146. " Nicht ohne Bewunderung," says Kampschulte (I. 416), "sehen wir in ihnen den gelehrten Verfasser der Institution selbst den untergeordneten Fragen der stadtischen Verwaltunq und Polizei seine Aufmerksamkeit zuwenden. Da Jinden wir ausfuhrliche Instructioven Jilr den Bauau/seker, Anordnungen fur den Fall einer Feuersbrunst, Anweisungen fur den Aufseher des stadtischen Geschiitzwesens, Verhaltungsregeln sogar fur den Nachtivdchter, fur die Ketten-, Thor-, und Thiirmhiiter."
3 " Besoluz quil lug soyt donne ung bossot de vin vieulx de celluy de I'hospital." Registre du Conseil, Nov. 17, 1542, quoted in Annal. vol. XXI. 305, and in Opera, X. P. I. 125.