796 THE REFOEMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
The body of this work consists of a collection of testimonies in favor of religious toleration, extracted from the writings of Luther (his book, Von iveltlicher Obrigkeit, 1523), Brenz (who maintain that heresy as long as it keeps in the intellectual sphere should be punished only by the Word of God), Erasmus, Sebastian Frank, several Chutch Fathers (Lactantius, Chrysostom, Jerome, and Augustin, in his anti- Manichaean writings). Otto Brunsfeld (d. at Bern, 1534), Urbanus Rhegius (Lutheran theologian, d. 1541), Conrad Pellican (Hebrew professor at Ziirich, d. 1556), Caspar Hedio, Christoph Hoffmann, Georg Kleinberg (a pseudonym) and even Calvin (in the first edition of his Institutes^. This collection was probably made by Curio.
The epilogue is written by Castellio, and is the most important part of the book. He examines the different biblical and patristic passages quoted for and against intolerance. He argues against his opponents from the multiplicity of sects which disagree on the interpretation of Scripture, and concludes that, on their principles, they should all be exterminated except one. He justly charges St. Augustin with inconsistency in his treatment of the Donatists, for which, he says, he was punished by the invasion of the Arian Vandals. The lions turned against those who had unchained them. Persecution breeds Christian hj^pocrites in place of open heretics. It provokes counter-persecution, as was just then seen in England after the accession of Queen Mary, which caused the flight of English Protestants to Switzerland. In conclusion he gives an allegorical picture of a journey through the centuries showing the results of the two conflicting principles of force and liberty, of intolerance and charity, and leaves the reader to decide which of the two armies is the army of Jesus Christ.
Castellio anticipated Bayle and Voltaire, or rather the Baptists and Quakers. He was the champion of religious liberty in the sixteenth century. He claimed it in the name
§ 158. A PLEA FOE RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 797
of the gospel and the Reformation. It was appropriate that this testimony should come from the Swiss city of Basel, the home of Erasmus. ^
But the leaders of the Swiss Reformation in Geneva and Ziirich could see in this advocacy of religious freedom only a most dangerous heresy, which would open the door to all kinds of errors and throw the Church of Christ into inextricable confusion.
Theodore Beza, the faithful aid of Calvin, took up his pen against the anonymous sceptics of Basel, and defended the right and duty of the Chi-istian magistrate to punish heresy. His work appeared in September, 1554 ; that is, five months after the book of Martinus Bellius. It was Beza's first published theological treatise (he was then thirty -five years of age).^
The book has a polemic and an apologetic part. In the former, Beza tries to refute the principle of toleration; in the latter, to defend the conduct of Geneva. He contends that the toleration of error is indifference to truth, and that it destroys all order and discipline in the Church. Even the enforced unity of the papacy is much better than anarchy. Heresy is much worse than murder, because it destroys the soul. The spiritual power has nothing to do with temporal punishments ; but it is the right and duty of the civil government, which is God's servant, to see to it that he receives his full honor in the community. Beza appeals to the laws of Moses and the acts of kings Asa and Josiah against blasphemers and false prophets. All Christian rulers have
^ Michelet (Renaissance) says : " Un pauvre prote d'imprimerie, S€bastien Chateillon, posa pour tout I'avenir la grande loi de la tole'rance." Buisson has chosen this sentence as the motto of his work. He calls Castellio (II. 268) " dans le protestantisme fran^ais, le premier des modernes."
2 It was entitled: De hcereticis a civili magistral a puniendis libellus, adversus Martini Bellii farraginem et novorum Academicorum sectam, Tiikodoro Beza Vezelio auctore. Oliva Robert! Stephani, MDLIIII (271 pp., 8vo). Reprinted in his Tractationes Theologica>, 2d ed., 1582, pp. 85-169. Nicolas Colladon published a French translation : Traitle' de ['authority du magistrat en la punition des he're'tiques, etc., 1560. Buisson, II. 19.