Too JUDICIO PRORSUS ASSENTIOR. AfFIRMO ETIAM VESTROS MAGISTRATUS JUSTE FECISSE, QUOD HOMINEM BLASPHEMUM, RE ORDINE JUDICATA, INTER- FECERUNT."
(The rest of this letter is an answer to Calvin's request that he should define his views on the predestinarian and eucharistic controversies. Melanchthon declined to do this for prudential reasons, but intimated his dissent from the carnal theory of the real presence by calling it aproKarpia, and expresses the hope of conversing with him once more, " antequam ex hoc mortali carcere mens discedat.")
2 Corpus Reform. VIII. 523. After thanking Bullinger for a number of books, he adds: " Legi etiam quae de Serveti blaspliemiis respondistis, et pietatem ac judicia x^estra probo. Judico etiam Senatum Genevensem recte fecisse quod hominem pertinacem et nan omissurum blasphemias sustulit. Ac miratus sum, esse [aliquosl, qui sever itatem illam improbent. Mitto de ea qumstione breves pagellas, sed tamen sententice nostra testes." This refers to his consilium on the rightfu! ness of the punishment of heretics by the civil magistrate (1555).
708 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
execution of Servetus, and called it "a pious and memorable example to all posterity." ^ It is an example, indeed, but certainly not for imitation.
This unqualified approval of the death penalty for heresy and the connivance at the bigamy of Philip of Hesse are the two dark spots on the fair name of this great and good man. But they were errors of judgment. Calvin took great comfort from the indorsement of the theological head of the Lutheran Church.^
Martin Bucer.
Bucer, who stands third in rank among the Reformers of Germany, was of a gentle and conciliatory disposition, and abstained from persecuting the Anabaptists in Strassburg. He knew Servetus personally, and treated him at first with kindness, but after the publication of his work on the Trinity, he refuted it in his lectures as a " most pestilential book." ^ He even declared in the pulpit or in the lecture-room that Servetus deserved to be disembowelled and torn to pieces.* From this we may infer how fully he would nave approved his execution, had he lived till 1553.
1 Commonefactio de Thammero, vol. IX. 133: " Dedit vero et Genevensis Meipublian Magistrntas ante annos quatuor punitte insa7iahilis blaspheniioe adversus Filium Dei, sublato Serveto Arragone pium et memorahile ad omnem posteritatem exemplum ."
'^ He wrote to Melanchthon, March 5, 1555 : " Your letter, most reverend sir, was grateful to me, not only because whatever comes from you is dear to me, and because it has assured me that the affection, which you entertained for me in the commencement of our intercourse, still remains unaltered ; but above all because in it I find a magnificent eulogy, in which you commend my zeal in crushing the impiety of Servetus. Wlience also I conjecture that you have not been offended with the honest freedom of my admonitions." He referred to Melanchthon again in his reply to the Reproaches of Baudouin, 1562. See above, § 137.
^ So he wrote to Ambrosius Blaurer, Dec. 29, 1531: " Pestilentissimum ilium de Trinitate librum novi, proh dolor, et hie in publicis prcelectionibus nostris confutavi."
* Dignum esse, qui avidsls visceribus discerperetur ." So reports Calvin Sept. 8, 1553. This is confirmed by a letter of Professor Frecht of Tubingen to Capito, dated Nov. 25, 1538. See Toliin, Michael Servet und Martin Butzer,
§ 139. PROTESTANT INTOLERANCE. 709
The Swiss Churches.
The Swiss Reformers ought to have been in advance of those of Germany on this subject, but they were not. They advised or approved the exclusion of Roman Catholics from the Reformed Cantons, and violent measures against Anabaptists and Antitrinitarians. Six Anabaptists were, by a cruel irony, drowned in the river Limmat at ZUrich by order of the government (between 1527 and 1532).i Other Cantons took the same severe measures against the Anabaptists. Zwingli, the most liberal among the Reformers, did not object to their punishment, and counselled the forcible introduction of Protestantism into the neutral territories and the Forest Cantons. Ochino was expelled from Ziirich and Basel (1563).
As regards the case of Servetus, the churches and magistrates of Ziirich, Schaffhausen, Basel, and Bern, on being consulted during his trial, unanimously condemned his errors, and advised his punishment, but without committing themselves to the mode of punishment.^
BuUinger wrote to Calvin that God had given the Council of Geneva a most favorable opportunity to vindicate the truth against the pollution of heresy, and the honor of God against blasphemy. In his Second Helvetic Confession (ch. XXX.) he teaches that it is the duty of the magistrate to use the sword against blasphemers. Schaffhausen fully agreed with Ziirich. Even the authorities of Basel, which was the headquarters of the sceptical Italians and enemies
in the "Magazin fiir die Lit. des Auslandes," Berlin, 1876, and Servet und die oherldndischen Reformatoren, Bd. I. {Michael Servet und Martin Butzer), Berlin, 1880, pp. 232 sqq. ToUin thinks that Bucer meant the book, not the person of Servetus ; but books have no viscera,
1 See above, § 26, pp. 87 sqq.
2 The judgments of the magistrates and ministers of Zurich, Schaffhausen, Basel, and Bern are printed in Calvin's Opera, VIII. 808-823 (in German and Latin). The judgment of the pastors of Ziirich, dated Oct. 2, 1553, is also inserted in Calvin's Defensio, ibid, fol. 555-558.