766 THE KEFOEMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
motive more to remove, if it was possible, the new element of dissolution which the free sojourn of Servetus would have created. ... To tolerate Servetus with impunity at Geneva would have been for Calvin to exile himself. . . . He had no alternative. The man whom a Calvinist accusation had caused to be arrested, tried, and condemned to the flames in France, could not find an asylum in the city from which that accusation had issued." ^
§ 150. State of Political Parties at G-eneva in 1553.
Calvin's position in Geneva at that time was very critical. For in the year 1553 he was in the fever-heat of the struggle for church discipline with the Patriots and Libertines, who had gained a temporary ascendency in the government. Amy Perrin, the leader of the patriotic party, was then captain-general and chief syndic, and several of his kinsmen and friends were members of the Little Council of Twentyfive.2 During the trial of Servetus the Council sustained Philibert Berthelier against the act of excommunication by the Consistory, and took church discipline into its own hands. The foreign refugees were made harmless by being deprived of their arms. Violence was threatened to the Reformer. He was everywhere saluted as " a heretic," and insulted on the streets. Beza says : " In the year 1553, the wickedness of the seditions, hastening to a close, was so turbulent that both Church and State were brought into extreme danger. . . . Everything seemed to be in a state of preparation for accomplishing the plans of the seditious, since all was subject to their power." And Calvin, at the close of that year, wrote to a friend : " For four years the factions have done all to lead by degrees to the overthrow of this Church, already very weak. . . . Behold two years
1 Translated by Tweedie, p. 87.
2 Pernet de Fosses, Gaspard Favre, Claude Vandel, Pierre Vandel, and Baptiste Sept. See Opera, VIII. 737, note 6.
§ 150. STATE OF POLITICAI. PARTIES AT GENEVA. 767
of our life have passed as if we lived among the avowed enemies of the gospel."
The hostility of the Council to Calvin and his discipline continued even after the execution of Servetus for nearly two more years. He asked the assistance of Bullinger and the Church of Ziirich to come to his aid again in this struggle.^ He wrote to Ambrose Blaurer, Feb. 6, 1554: " These last few years evil disposed persons have not ceased on every occasion to create for us new subjects of vexation. At length in their endeavors to render null our excommunication, there is no excess of folly they have left unattempted. Everywhere the contest was long maintained with much violence, because in the senate and among the people the passions of the contending parties had been so much inflamed that there was some risk of a tumult." ^
We do not know whether Servetus was aware of this state of things. But he could not have come at a time more favorable to him and more unfavorable to Calvin. Among the Libertines and Patriots, who hated the yoke of Calvin even more than the yoke of the pope, Servetus found natural supporters who, in turn, would gladly use him for political purposes. This fact emboldened him to take such a defiant attitude in the trial and to overwhelm Calvin with abuse.
The final responsibility of the condemnation, therefore, rests with the Council of Geneva, which would probably have acted otherwise, if it had not been strongly influenced by the judgment of the Swiss Churches and the government of Bern. Calvin conducted the theological part of the examination of the trial, but had no direct influence upon the result. His theory was that the Church may convict and denounce the heretic theologically, but that his condemnation and punishment is the exclusive function of the State,
1 Letters of Nov. 26 and Dec. 30, 1553, in Bonnet-Constable, II. 422-4.30.
2 Ihid. III. 17. Comp. also his letter of Oct. 15, 1554, quoted in § 108,, p. 496, and his letter to John Wolf of Zurich, Dec. 26, 1554.