CALVIN’S DEFENCE IS ATTACKED.

Even whilst the trial was proceeding, we have seen that Calvin was not without opposition in his pursuit of Servetus. Amied Perrin, his great political rival, had striven for mercy or a minor punishment to the last; and he was not without followers in the Council. But they were outnumbered and out-voted there, so that the light of the ‘blessed quality that is not strained’ was quenched. Outside the circle of the governing body also, more than one voice was raised against the manifest aim of Calvin to have his theological opponent capitally convicted. But it was by persons of inferior note. David Bruck, among others, a man of talent and quondam minister of a congregation of Anabaptists in the North, now living privately and respected under the name of David Joris at Berne, went so far as to speak of Servetus as a pious man, and to declare that if all who differed from others in their religious views were to be put to death, the world would be turned into one sea of blood.115

But the writer who received most notice from Calvin and his friends was he who appeared under the assumed name of Martin Bellius. Taking as his text the 29th verse of the 4th chapter of Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians: ‘As then he that was born of the flesh persecuted him that was born of the Spirit, even so is it now,’ Bell proceeded to show that persecution to death on religious grounds, though it might be Judaism was not Christianity, and that many learned men and eminent doctors of the Church, both of older and more modern times, had been emphatic in condemnation of all intolerance in the sphere of religion. Bell’s book, small in bulk but weighty in argument, was felt as a home-thrust by the Reformer of Geneva, his own words in favour of toleration among others being quoted against him. It is often spoken of at the time as the Farrago—Calvin himself so designates it when sending a copy of it to his friend Bullinger. But neither Calvin nor his friends liked the book; and it is in depreciation of its real significance that it is spoken of as a medley.116

Premising an Introduction, addressed to Frederick, the reigning Duke of WÜrtemberg, in which the writer sets forth his own views, he asks the Duke whether he should think a subject of his deserving of death who, avowing belief in God and his earnest desire to live in conformity with the precepts of Scripture, should say that he did not think baptism was properly performed on an infant eight days old; but was of opinion that the rite should be deferred until years of discretion had been attained and the recipient could give a reason for the faith that was in him? Did the subject think further that if he were required by law to baptize infants he was running counter to Christ’s ordinance, and felt that he was doing violence to his conscience, Bell asks the Duke again, ‘Did he think, if Christ were present as Judge, that He would order the man who so delivered himself to be put to death?’ Replying to his question himself, he says: ‘I venture to believe that He would not.’

Our author then proceeds to quote from the works of many writers, who maintain that the punishment of heretics is no part of the civil magistrate’s duty; from Erasmus, who declares that God, the Great Father of the human family, will not have heretics, even hÆresiarchs, put to death, but tolerated in view of their possible amendment. ‘When I think how reprehensible are heresy and schism,’ says the great scholar, ‘I am scarce disposed to condemn the laws against them; but when I call to mind the gentleness wherewith Christ led his disciples, I shrink from the instances I see of men sent to prison and the stake on the ground of their disagreement with scholastic dogmas.’ From Aug. Eleutherius, who opines that ‘they are not always truly heretics whom the vulgar so designate.’ From Lactantius, who says ‘Force and violence are out of place in matters of faith; for religion cannot be forced on mankind; words not stripes are here the proper instruments of persuasion.’ From Augustin, who goes so far as to say that ‘for the sake of peace even dogs are to be tolerated in the Church. The Catholic servants of God are not to stain themselves with the blood of their enemies, but to be examples of patience and forbearance. It is no business of theirs to gather the tares for burning before the harvest is ready; they who err are men, and it is man’s part to bear with the erring; the tares do no real harm to the wheat; and if the erring be not cured here, they do not escape punishment hereafter.’

There is much besides from others, which we spare the reader; but we have to show that clemency for theological divergence was no novelty in the age of Calvin; and no one will imagine for a moment that he had forgotten what he had written himself, or was ignorant of a word that had ever been said on the subject by others.

Martin Bell’s tractate was so eagerly seized upon by the public, and proved so influential in turning the tide of self-gratulation on which Calvin had been floating somewhat at his ease since the appearance of his ‘Declaration’ and ‘Defence,’ that it was thought necessary to find an antidote to the bane of reason and mercy, so modestly but so convincingly presented in its pages. Calvin would probably have felt himself constrained to take the field again, and, ‘confronting Bell with self-comparisons,’ to answer him ‘point against point’ in person, had he not had his friend De Beza at hand to take his place. Engaged at the moment with his Commentary on Genesis, Calvin felt little disposed to interrupt his work by entering anew on an old theme, though ever ready to gird himself for the fight on one with novelty to recommend it. The task of meeting Martin Bell he therefore delegated to De Beza, who appeared anon in a volume three or four times the size of the Farrago in answer to its plea for latitude in the interpretation of the Scriptures, and against the infliction of death for the religious divergence called heresy in any or all of the multifarious forms in which it shows itself.

With the terrible text of the Jewish Bible, ‘If thy brother, thy son, the wife of thy bosom, or the friend that is as thine own soul, entice thee, saying, Let us go and serve other Gods; thou shalt not consent to him, neither shall thine eye have pity on him, neither shalt thou spare him, but thou shalt surely kill him, thy hand shall be first upon him to put him to death,’ &c. (Deut. xiii. 6 and seq.), and much besides, akin to this, assumed as the command of God, Beza had no very difficult task before him in persuading himself and his party that they had abidden by the Law in all that had been done; satisfied as they were besides that those who gainsaid them were the enemies of God and man when they presumed to defend doctrines dishonouring, it was said, to the Supreme and destructive of the peace of the world.—God, in a word, was with them; the Devil and corrupt humanity on the side of their opponents, and there an end.

We do not observe, however, that Beza’s reply, though very ably conceived, and written with the skill of the practised controversialist, had any great influence. It was not reprinted in a separate form, and although translated into Dutch, seems to have been little read beyond the circle of Calvin’s friends and followers. Short as was the time that had elapsed since Servetus perished, the apologists of the man who sent him to his death were already in the rear of public opinion on the subject. The jurisdiction of the magistrate had come to be seen ever more and more clearly to lie within the sphere of Act, and to have nothing to do with Opinion.

A conclusion so wholesome as this was greatly strengthened by the appearance of another book in immediate reply to Calvin’s ‘Declaration’ and ‘Defence,’ entitled: ‘Contra Libellum Calvini, &c. against Calvin’s book, in which he strives to show that heretics are to be dealt with capitally.’117 This is the little work that is often referred to as ‘a Dialogue between Calvin and Vaticanus,’ ‘Dialogus inter Calvinum et Vaticanum.’ In the Preface to the copy I have used, the work is ascribed to Sebastian Castellio, and several short papers from this distinguished scholar are appended to the text; but he most certainly was not its author. An old and determined opponent of Calvin, whose doctrine of Predestination and Election he had had the hardihood, in a special pamphlet, to criticise and controvert, Castellio had aroused the ire of Calvin; and it was on this ground probably that he had the credit given him of having written the ‘Dialogus.’ Calvin’s displeasure, we know, never meant anything less than personal hate and persecution, so that, in his answer to what he styles the ‘calumnies’ of Castellio, after the preliminary abuse in which he calls him ‘faithless and unmannered,’ he says, ‘They who do not know thee to be shameless and a deceiver, do not know thee aright. I should like to be informed how thou wilt prove that I am cruel? By throwing the death of thy master Servetus in my face, perhaps; and saying, that with my pen I mangle the body of the man who came to his death through me; but did I not entreat for him? His judges will bear me out in this; two of whom, at least, were his particular patrons.’118

In the passage just quoted, Calvin seems to reply to what Vaticanus has said in his introduction to the book that engages us, viz., that Servetus was the first who had been put to death at Geneva on grounds of religion, and that it was done at the instance and on the authority of Calvin—‘impulsore et authore Calvino.’ Vaticanus continues: ‘Calvin will perhaps say, as is his wont, that I am a disciple of Servetus. But let not this frighten anyone. I am no defender of the doctrines of Servetus, but I shall so expose the false doctrines of Calvin, that every one shall see as plain as noonday that he thirsted for blood. I shall not deal with him, however, as he dealt with Servetus, whom he proceeded to tear in pieces with his pen, after having burned him and his books. I do not, therefore, discuss the Trinity, Baptism, &c., seeing that I have not the books of Servetus, whence I might learn what he says on these subjects, Calvin having taken such pains to have them burned—quippe combustos diligentia Calvini. I shall not burn the books of Calvin; their author is alive, and his books may be had both in French and Latin, so that every one may see whether I falsify aught he writes. But Servetus was a blasphemer of God, says Calvin. The man himself, however, believed that he honoured God, and persuaded himself that he glorified God in his death. But the persuasion is false, says Calvin. Be it so; yet Servetus himself was not false; had he been so, he would assuredly have saved his life; he therefore died for his opinions.’

Without defending the views of Servetus we thus see Vaticanus asserting the courage and consistency of the victim which had been unjustly called in question by Calvin.

Coming to the burden of the book we find as many as 150 passages from Calvin’s ‘Defensio orthodoxÆ fidei’ commented and controverted, and in addition, four from the reply of ZÜrich to the Council of Geneva.

By much the most complete and able of the works against Calvin and those who would have heretics punished by being put to death, is that of Minus Celsus of Sienna.119 A fugitive from his native country to escape arrest and punishment for having forsaken Popery, Minus Celsus found safety at length after passing through many perils in Switzerland. ‘Escaped from the hands of Antichrist, as he says, and safe amid the Rhetian Alps,’ he was not a little scandalised to find nothing of the unity of doctrine among the Reformed Churches he had been led to expect before leaving his native country. ‘They held together as one, indeed, in hate of the Pope, calling him Antichrist and looking on the Mass as idolatry, but they differed on innumerable other points among themselves, and not only persecuted but went the length of putting each other to death, and this in no such primitive way as by stoning, in old Hebrew fashion, but by roasting the living man with a slow fire, vivum lento igne torrendo—punishment more horrible than Scythian or Cannibal ever contrived.’

Celsus had heard of the execution of Servetus at Geneva, and been assured by some who were present, persons worthy of all trust, that the constancy of the sufferer was such that many of the spectators, finding it impossible to imagine anything of the kind endured without the immediate support of God, instead of feeling horror for a blasphemer rightfully put to death, were led to look on him as a martyr to the cause of truth, and so made shipwreck of the faith in which they had hitherto lived.

This led Celsus to think of the treatise he had formerly written in his native language on the proper way of dealing with heresy, and turning it into Latin he resolved to have it printed. He did not live, however, to carry out his purpose; his book was only published some years after his death by a friend who gives no more than the initials of his name, J. F. D., but adds M.D., whereby we learn that he was a physician.

‘No man,’ says Mosheim,120 ‘can write more amiably or controvert more gently than this Minus Celsus. He never uses a word that is either bitter or insulting. His principal opponents are Calvin and Beza, of course, but he does not name them specially when he controverts their conclusions, although he proclaims his horror of all violence in matters of faith. He does, indeed, speak of Calvin once by name, but it is with mingled commendation and sorrow that ‘one who had deserved so well of the Church on many counts, and who thought in earlier years that religion was not to be furthered by severity or violence, should have finally fallen away from his better persuasion. Why he changed, I know not: God knows.’ Calvin did not live to see this excellent work of the Siennese Celsus. Although written in his lifetime, the great Reformer died twenty years before it saw the light. How it would have affected him we can only say with our pious Celsus, God knows!