§ 12'J. iiEuxAUDi>;o ocHiNO. 1487-1565. 643
Peter had conquered Simon Magus, the patriarch of all heretics; in Rome, the successor of Peter must conquer all successors of the arch-heretic. The Roman Inquisition was established by the bull Licet ah initio^ July 21, 1542, under the diiection of six cardinals, with plenary power to arrest and imprison persons suspected of heresy, and to confiscate their property. The famous General of the Capuchins was to be the first victim of the "• Holy Office."
Ochino departed for Rome in August. Passing through Bologna, he called on the noble Cardinal Contarini, who in the previous year had met Melanchthon and Calvin at the Colloquy of Ratisbon, and was suspected of having a leaning to the Lutheran doctrine of justification, and to a moderate reformation. The cardinal was sick, and died soon after (August 24). The interview was brief, but left upon Ochino the impression that there was no chance for him in Rome. He continued his journey to Florence, met Peter Martyr in a similar condition, and was warned of the danger awaiting both. He felt that he must choose between Rome or Christ, between silence or death, and that flight was the onl}- escape from this alternative. He resolved to save his life for future usefulness, though he was already fifty-six years old, grayhaired, and enfeebled by his ascetic life. If I remain in Italy, he said, my mouth is sealed ; if I leave, I may by my writings continue to labor for the truth with some prospect of success.
He proved by his conduct the sincerity of his conversion to Protestantism. He risked every thing by secession from the papacy. An orator has no chance in a foreign land with a foreign tongue.^
1 Caraffa, the restorer of the Inquisition, ascribed his conversion to impure motives, but without evidence. On these calumnies see Benrath, pp. 170 sq. Audin (ch. XLV.), drawing on his imagination, says that Ochino, tempted by the demon of doubt and pride, fled to Geneva with a young girl whom he had seduced !
644 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
OcHiNO IN Switzerland.
In August, 1542, he left Florence ; Peter Martyr followed two days later. He was provided with a servant and a horse by Ascanio Colonna, a brother of Vittoria, his friend.^ At Ferrara, the Duchess Renata furnished him with clothing and other necessaries, and probably also with a letter to her friend Calvin. According to Boverius, the annalist of the Capuchins, who deplores his apostasy as a great calamity for the order, he was accompanied by three lay brethren from Florence.
He proceeded through the Grisons to Ziirich, and stopped there two days. He was kindly received by BuUinger, who speaks of him in a letter to Vadian (Dec. 19, 1542) as a venerable man, famous for sanctity of life and eloquence.
He arrived at Geneva about September, 1542, and remained there three years. He preached to the small Italian congregation, but devoted himself chiefly to literary work by which he hoped to reach a larger public in his native land. He was deeply impressed with the moral and religious prosperity of Geneva, the like of which he had never seen before, and gave a favorable description of it in one of his Italian sermons.2
" In Geneva, where I am now residing," he wrote in October, 1542, " excellent Christians are daily preaching the pure word of God. The Holy Scriptures are constantly read and openly discussed, and every one is at liberty to propound what the Holy Spirit suggests to him, just as, according to the testimony of Paul, was the case in the primitive Church. Every day there is a public service of devotion. Every Sunday there is catechetical instruction of the young, the simple, and the ignorant. Cursing and swearing, unchastity, sacrilege, adultery, and impure living, such as prevail in many places
1 Colonna sent him afterwards through a messenger some means of support to Switzerland, as we learn from a letter of Bullinger.
^ Quoted in Italian by Trechsel, II. 203, in German by Benrath, p. 169.