Principles of western civilisation

ix ZLHE GREAT ANTINOMY: SECOND STAGE 313

munities. Yet, here again, the identification of the rule of the Church with the civil law of the community was accepted as a matter beyond question. Nay, it was soon made even more complete than in the German States. We see Calvin demanding from the civil authority in Switzerland the recognition of the Church’s order of discipline; and we watch the gradual development in the city of Geneva, towards the middle of the sixteenth century, of one of the most remarkable examples of a theocracy under the forms of ecclesiastical republicanism that has ever existed in the world,"

Under the rule of the civil authorities but one true faith was tolerated in Geneva. The strictest inquisition was maintained into the private life and morals of the citizens. Any falling away from the true faith was counted a crime against the State. Convicted heretics were punished by civil authority. Revolt, like that of Ami Perrin, was visited with the utmost severity. For theological heterodoxy like that of Servetus the punishment was death at the stake, with Calvin’s approval. Calvin, in short, to quote the words of an accepted authority, “ pressed for the severest penal laws possible, and the merciless execution of the same: pious authorities must be strict. Within five years fifty-eight death sentences and seventy-six banishments were carried out amongst the inhabitants of Geneva, who numbered about 20,000. . . . The Consistory performed the functions of a keen police board of morals, exercising a strict watch, and acting on Calvin’s principle, that it is better that many innocent persons should

1 Cf Moeller, Hist. of Chr. Church, vol. iii. div. ii. ch. ii.