The Age of the Reformation Part 11

Next came the turn of the Anabaptists--those Bolsheviki of the sixteenth century. Their first leaders appeared at Zurich and were for a while bosom friends of Zwingli. But a parting of the ways was inevitable, for the humanist could have little sympathy with an uncultured and ignorant group--such they were, in spite of the fact that a few leaders were university graduates--and the statesman could not admit in his categories a purpose that was sectarian as against the state church, and democratic as against the existing aristocracy.

[Sidenote: 1523]

His first work against them shows how he was torn between his desire to make the Bible his only guide and the necessity of compromising with the prevailing polity. As he was unable to condemn his opponents on any consistent grounds he was obliged to prefer against them two charges that were false, though probably believed true by himself. As they were {155} ascetics in some particulars he branded them as monastic; for their social program he called them seditious.

The suppression of the Peasants' Revolt had the effect in Switzerland, as elsewhere, of causing the poor and oppressed to lose heart, and of alienating them from the cause of the official Protestant churches. A disputation with the Anabaptist leaders was held at Zurich; [Sidenote: November 6-8, 1525] they were declared refuted, and the council pa.s.sed an order for all unbaptized children to be christened within a week.

The leaders were arrested and tried; Zwingli bearing testimony that they advocated communism, which he considered wrong as the Bible's injunction not to steal implied the right of private property. The Anabaptists denied that they were communists, but the leaders were bound over to keep the peace, some were fined and others banished. As persecuting measures almost always increase in severity, it was not long before the death penalty was denounced against the sectaries, and actually applied. In a polemic against the new sect ent.i.tled _In Catabaptistarum Strophas Elenchus_, [Sidenote: July 1527] Zwingli's only argument is a criticism of some inconsistencies in the Anabaptists' biblicism; his final appeal is to force. His strife with them was harder than his battle with Rome. It seems that the reformer fears no one so much as him who carries the reformer's own principles to lengths that the originator disapproves. Zwingli saw in the fearless fanatics men prepared to act in political and social matters as he had done in ecclesiastical affairs; he dreaded anarchy or, at least, subversion of the polity he preferred, and, like all the other men of his age, he branded heresy as rebellion and punished it as crime.

[Sidenote: Theocracy]

By this time Zurich had become a theocracy of the same tyrannical type as that later made famous by {156} Geneva. Zwingli took the position of an Old Testament prophet, subordinating state to church. At first he had agreed with the Anabaptists in separating (theoretically) church and state. But he soon came to believe that, though true Christians might need no government, it was necessary to control the wicked, and for this purpose he favored an aristocratic polity. All matters of morals were strictly regulated, severe laws being pa.s.sed against taverns and gambling. The inhabitants were forced to attend church.

After the suppression of the Catholics and the radicals, there developed two parties just as later in Geneva, the Evangelical and the Indifferent, the policy of the latter being one of more freedom, or laxity, in discipline, and in general a preference of political to religious ends.

[Sidenote: Basle November, 1522]

The Reformation had now established itself in other cities of German Switzerland. Oecolampadius coming to Basle as the bearer of Evangelical ideas, won such success that soon the bishop was deprived of authority, [Sidenote: 1524] two disputations with the Catholics were held, [Sidenote: 1525] and the monasteries abolished. [Sidenote: 1527]

Oecolampadius, after taking counsel with Zwingli on the best means of suppressing Catholic worship, branded the ma.s.s as an act worse than theft, harlotry, adultery, treason, and murder, called a meeting of the town council, and requested them to decree the abolition of Catholic worship. [Sidenote: October 27, 1527] Though they replied that every man should be free to exercise what religion he liked, on Good Friday, 1528, the Protestants removed the images from Oecolampadius's church, and grumbled because their enemies were yet tolerated. Liberty of conscience was only a.s.sured by the fairly equal division of the membership of the town council. On December 23, 1528, two hundred citizens a.s.sembled and presented a pet.i.tion, drawn up by Oecolampadius, for the suppression of {157} the ma.s.s. On January 6, 1529, under pressure from the amba.s.sadors of Berne and Zurich, the town council of Basle decreed that all pastors should preach only the Word of G.o.d, and asked them to a.s.semble for instruction on this point. The compromise suited no one and on February 8 the long prepared revolution broke out.

Under pretence that the Catholics had disobeyed the last decree, a Protestant mob surrounded the town hall, planted cannon, and forced the council to expel the twelve Catholic members, meanwhile destroying church pictures and statues. "It was indeed a spectacle so sad to the superst.i.tious," Oecolampadius wrote to Capito, "that they had to weep blood. . . . We raged against the idols, and the ma.s.s died of sorrow."

A somewhat similar development took place in Berne, St. Gall, Schaffhausen, and Glarus. The favorite instrument for arousing popular interest and support was the disputation. Such an one was held at Baden in May and June, 1526. Zwingli declined to take part in this and the Catholics claimed the victory. This, however, did them rather harm than good, for the public felt that the cards had been stacked. A similar debate at Berne in 1528 turned that city completely to the Reformation. A synod of the Swiss Evangelical churches was formed in 1527. This made for uniformity. The publication of the Bible in a translation by Leo Jud and others, with prefaces by Zwingli, proved a help to the Evangelical cause. [Sidenote: 1530] This translation was the only one to compete at all successfully with Luther's.

The growing strength of the Protestant cantons encouraged them to carry the reform by force in all places in which a majority was in favor of it. Zwingli's far-reaching plans included an alliance with Hesse and with Francis I to whom he dedicated his {158} two most important theological works, _True and False Religion_ and _An Exposition of the Christian Faith_. [Sidenote: April, 1529] The Catholic cantons replied by making a league with Austria. War seemed imminent and Zwingli was so heartily in favor of it that he threatened resignation if Zurich did not declare war. This was accordingly done on June 8.

Thirty thousand Protestant soldiers marched against the Catholic cantons, which, without the expected aid from Austria, were able to put only nine thousand men into the field. Seeing themselves hopelessly outnumbered, the Catholics prudently negotiated a peace without risking a battle. [Sidenote: First Peace of Cappel] The terms of this first Peace of Cappel forced the Catholics to renounce the alliance with Austria, and to allow the majority of citizens in each canton to decide the religion they would follow. Toleration for Protestants was provided for in Catholic cantons, though toleration of the old religion was denied in the Evangelical cantons.

This peace marked the height of Zwingli's power. He continued to negotiate on equal terms with Luther, and he sent missionaries into Geneva to win it to his cause and to the Confederacy. The Catholic cantons, stung to the quick, again sought aid from Austria and raised another and better army. [Sidenote: Defeat of Zwingli] Zwingli heard of this and advocated a swift blow to prevent it--the "offensive defence." Berne refused to join Zurich in this aggression, but agreed to bring pressure to bear on the Catholics [Sidenote: May 1531] by proclaiming a blockade of their frontiers. An army was prepared by the Forest Cantons, but Berne, whose entirely selfish policy was more disastrous to the Evangelical cause than was the hostility of the league, still refused to engage in war. Zurich was therefore obliged to meet it alone. An army of only two thousand Zurichers marched out, accompanied by Zwingli as field chaplain. Eight thousand Catholic troops attacked, utterly defeated them, and {159} killed many on the field of battle. [Sidenote: October 11, 1531] Zwingli, who, though a non-combatant, was armed, was wounded and left on the field. Later he was recognized by enemies, killed, and his body burned as that of a heretic.

The defeat was a disaster to Protestant Switzerland not so much on account of the terms of peace, which were moderate, as because of the loss of prestige and above all of the great leader. His spirit however, continued to inspire his followers, and lived in the Reformed Church. Indeed it has been said, though with exaggeration, that Calvin only gave his name to the church founded by Zwingli, just as Americus gave his name to the continent discovered by Columbus. In many respects Zwingli was the most liberal of the Reformers. In his last work he expressed the belief that in heaven would be saved not only Christians and the worthies of the Old Testament but also "Hercules, Theseus, Socrates, Aristides, Antigonus, Numa, Camillus, the Catos and Scipios. . . . In a word no good man has ever existed, nor shall there exist a holy mind, a faithful soul, from the very foundation of the world to its consummation, whom you will not see there with G.o.d."

Nevertheless, Zwingli was a persecutor and was bound by many of the dogmatic prepossessions of his time. But his religion had in it less of miracle and more of reason than that of any other founder of a church in the sixteenth century. He was a statesman, and more willing to trust the people than were his contemporaries, but yet he was ready to sacrifice his country to his creed.

For a short time after the death of so many of its leading citizens in the battle of Cappel, Zurich was reduced to impotence and despair. Nor was she much comforted or a.s.sisted by her neighbors. Oecolampadius died but a few weeks after his friend; while {160} Luther and Erasmus sang paeans of triumph over the prostration of their rivals. Even Calvin considered it a judgment of G.o.d. Gradually by her own strength Zurich won her way back to peace and a certain influence. [Sidenote: Bullinger, 1504-75] Zwingli's follower, Henry Bullinger, the son of a priest, was a remarkable man. He not only built up his own city but his active correspondence with Protestants of all countries did a great deal to spread the cause of the Evangelical religion. In conjunction with Myconius, he drew up the first Swiss confession, [Sidenote: 1536]

accepted by Zurich, Berne, Basle, Schaffhausen, St. Gall, Mulhausen and Biel; [Sidenote: 1549] and later he made the agreement with Calvin known as the Consensus Tigurinus. In this the Zwinglian and Calvinistic doctrines of the eucharist were harmonized as far as possible. But while the former decreased the latter increased, and Geneva took the place of Zurich as the metropolis of the Reformed faith.

SECTION 2. CALVIN

On January 15, 1527, Thomas von Hofen wrote Zwingli from Geneva that he would do all he could to exalt the gospel in that city but that he knew it would be vain, for there were seven hundred priests working against him. This letter gives an insight into the methods by which new territory was evangelized, the quarters whence came the new influences, and the forces with which they had to contend.

Among the early missionaries of "the gospel" in French-speaking lands, one of the most energetic was William Farel. [Sidenote: Farel, 1489-1565] He had studied at Paris under Lefevre d'etaples, and was converted to Lutheranism as early as 1521. He went first to Basle, where he learned to know Erasmus. Far from showing respect to the older and more famous man, he scornfully told him to his face that Froben's wife knew more theology than {161} did he. Erasmus's resentment showed itself in the nickname Phallicus that he fastened on his antagonist. From Basle Farel went to Montbeliard and Aigle, preaching fearlessly but so fiercely that his friend Oecolampadius warned him to remember rather to teach than to curse. [Sidenote: 1528]

After attending the disputation at Berne he evangelized western Switzerland. His methods may be learned from his work at Valangin on August 15, 1530. He attended a ma.s.s, but in the midst of it went up to the priest, tore the host forcibly from his hands, and said to the people: "This is not the G.o.d whom you worship: he is above in heaven, even in the majesty of the Father." In 1532 he went to Geneva.

Notwithstanding the fact that here, as often elsewhere, he narrowly escaped lynching, he made a great impression. His red hair and hot temper evidently had their uses.

[Sidenote: Calvin, 1509-64]

_The_ Reformer of French Switzerland was not destined to be Farel, however, but John Calvin. Born at Noyon, Picardy, his mother died early and his father, who did not care for children, sent him to the house of an aristocratic friend to be reared. In this environment he acquired the distinguished manners and the hauteur for which he was noted. When John was six years old his father, Gerard, had him appointed to a benefice just as nowadays he might have got him a scholarship. At the age of twelve Gerard's influence procured for his son another of these ecclesiastical livings and two years later this was exchanged for a more lucrative one to enable the boy to go to Paris. Here for some years, at the College of Montaigu, Calvin studied scholastic philosophy and theology under Noel Beda, a medieval logic-chopper and schoolman by temperament. At the university Calvin won from his fellows the sobriquet of "the accusative case," on account of his censorious {162} and fault-finding disposition. At his father's wish John changed from theology to law. For a time he studied at the universities of Orleans and Bourges. At Orleans he came under the influence of two Protestants, Olivetan and the German Melchior Volmar.

On the death of his father, in 1531, he began to devote himself to the humanities. His first work, a commentary on Seneca's _De Clementia_, witnesses his wide reading, his excellent Latin style, and his ethical interests.

It was apparently through the humanists Erasmus and Lefevre that he was led to the study of the Bible and of Luther's writings. Probably in the fall of 1533 he experienced a "conversion" such as stands at the head of many a religious career. A sudden beam of light, he says, came to him at this time from G.o.d, putting him to the proof and showing him in how deep an abyss of error and of filth he had been living. He thereupon abandoned his former life with tears.

In the spring of 1534 Calvin gave up the sinecure benefices he had held, and towards the end of the year left France because of the growing persecution, for he had already rendered himself suspect.

After various wanderings he reached Basle, where he published the first edition of his _Inst.i.tutes of the Christian Religion_. [Sidenote: Inst.i.tutes of the Christian Religion, 1536] It was dedicated, like two of Zwingli's works, to Francis I, with a strong plea for the new faith.

It was, nevertheless, condemned and burnt publicly in France in 1542.

Originally written in Latin it was translated by the author into French in 1541, and reissued from time to time in continually larger editions, the final one, of 1559, being five times as bulky as the first impression. The thought, too, though not fundamentally changed, was rearranged and developed. Only in the redaction of 1541 was {163} predestination made perfectly clear. The first edition, like Luther's catechism, took up in order the Decalogue, the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Sacraments. To this was added a section on Christian liberty, the power of the church, and civil government. In the last edition the arrangement followed entirely the order of articles in the Apostles' Creed, all the other matter being digested in its relation to faith.

[Sidenote: A system of theology]

In the _Inst.i.tutes_ Calvin succeeded in summing up the whole of Protestant Christian doctrine and practice. It is a work of enormous labor and thought. Its rigid logic, comprehensiveness, and clarity have secured it the same place in the Protestant Churches that the _Summa_ of Aquinas has in the Roman theology. It is like the _Summa_, in other ways, primarily in that it is an attempt to derive an absolute, unchangeable standard of dogma from premises considered infallible. Those who have found great freshness in Calvin, a new life and a new realism, can do so only in comparison with the older schoolmen. Calvin simply went over their ground, introducing into their philosophy all the connotations that three centuries of progress had made necessary. This is not denying that his work was well written and that it filled a need urgently felt at the time. Calvin cultivated style, both French and Latin, with great care, for he saw its immense utility for propaganda. He studied especially brevity, and thought that he carried it to an extreme, though the French edition of the _Inst.i.tutes_ fills more than eight hundred large octavo pages.

However, all things are relative, and compared to many other theologians Calvin is really concise and readable.

There is not one original thought in any of Calvin's works. I do not mean "original" in any narrow sense, for to the searcher for sources it seems that {164} there is literally nothing new under the sun. But there is nothing in Calvin for which ample authority cannot be found in his predecessors. Recognizing the Bible as his only standard, he interpreted it according to the new Protestant doctors. First and foremost he was dependent on Luther, and to an extent that cannot be exaggerated. Especially from the _Catechisms_, _The Bondage of the Will_, and _The Babylonian Captivity of the Church_, Calvin drew all his princ.i.p.al doctrines even to details. He also borrowed something from Bucer, Erasmus and Schwenckfeld, as well as from three writers who were in a certain sense his models. Melanchthon's _Commonplaces of Theology_, Zwingli's _True and False Religion_, and Farel's _Brief Instruction in Christian Faith_ had all done tentatively what he now did finally.

[Sidenote: Theocentric character]

The center of Calvin's philosophy was G.o.d as the Almighty Will. His will was the source of all things, of all deeds, of all standards of right and wrong and of all happiness. The sole purpose of the universe, and the sole intent of its Creator, was the glorification of the Deity. Man's chief end was "to glorify G.o.d and enjoy him forever."

G.o.d accomplished this self-exaltation in all things, but chiefly through men, his n.o.blest work, and he did it in various ways, by the salvation of some and the d.a.m.nation of others. And his act was purely arbitrary; he foreknew and predestined the fate of every man from the beginning; he d.a.m.ned and saved irrespective of foreseen merit. "G.o.d's eternal decree" Calvin himself called "frightful." [1] The outward sign of election to grace he thought was moral behavior, and in this respect he demanded the uttermost from himself and from his followers.

The elect, he thought, were certain of salvation. The highest virtue was faith, a matter more {165} of the heart than of the reason. The divinity of Christ, he said, was apprehended by Christian experience, not by speculation. Reason was fallacious; left to itself the human spirit "could do nothing but lose itself in infinite error, embroil itself in difficulties and grope in opaque darkness." But G.o.d has given us his Word, infallible and inerrant, something that "has flowed from his very mouth." "We can only seek G.o.d in his Word," he said, "nor think of him otherwise than according to his Word."

Inevitably, Calvin sought to use the Bible as a rigid, moral law to be fulfilled to the letter. His ethics were an elaborate casuistry, a method of finding the proper rule to govern the particular act. He preached a new legalism; [Sidenote: Legalism] he took Scripture as the Pharisees took the Law, and Luther's sayings as they took the Prophets, and he turned them all into stiff, fixed laws. Thus he crushed the glorious autonomy of his predecessor's ethical principles. It was Kant, who denied all Luther's specific beliefs, but who developed his idea of the individual conscience, that was the true heir of his spirit, not Calvin who crushed the spirit in elaborating every jot and t.i.ttle of the letter. In precisely the same manner Calvin killed Luther's doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. To Calvin the church was a sacramental, aristocratic organization, with an authoritative ministry. The German rebelled against the idea of the church as such; the Frenchman simply asked what was the true church.

So he brought back some of the sacramental miracle of baptism and the eucharist. In the latter he remained as medieval as Luther, never getting beyond the question of the mode of the presence of the body and blood of Christ in the bread and wine. His endeavor to rationalize the doctrine of Augsburg, especially with reference to the Zwinglians, had disastrous results. Only two {166} positions were possible, that the body and blood were present, or that they were not. By endeavoring to find some middle ground Calvin upheld a contradiction in terms: the elements were signs and yet were realities; the body was really there when the bread was eaten by a believer, but really not there when the same bread was eaten by an infidel. The presence was actual, and yet partic.i.p.ation could only occur by faith. While rejecting some of Luther's explanations, Calvin was undoubtedly nearer his position than that of Zwingli, which he characterized as "profane."

As few instructed and thinking persons now accept the conclusions of the _Inst.i.tutes_, it is natural to underestimate the power that they exercised in their own day. This book was the most effective weapon of Protestantism. This was partly because of the style, but, still more because of the faultless logic. [Sidenote: His logic] The success of an argument usually depends far less on the truth of the premises than on the validity of the reasoning. And the premises selected by Calvin not only seemed natural to a large body of educated European opinion of his time, but were such that their truth or falsity was very difficult to demonstrate convincingly. Calvin's system has been overthrown not by direct attack, but by the flank, in science as in war the most effective way. To take but one example out of many that might be given: what has modern criticism made of Calvin's doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture? But this science was as yet all but unknown: biblical exegesis there was in plenty, but it was only to a minute extent literary and historical; it was almost exclusively philological and dogmatic.

Calvin's doctrine of the arbitrary dealing out of salvation and d.a.m.nation irrespective of merit has often excited a moral rather than an intellectual revulsion. To his true followers, indeed, like Jonathan {167} Edwards, it seems "a delightful doctrine, exceeding bright, pleasant and sweet." [Sidenote: Eternal d.a.m.nation] But many men agree with Gibbon that it makes G.o.d a cruel and capricious tyrant and with William James that it is sovereignly irrational and mean.

Even at that time those who said that a man's will had no more to do with his destiny than the stick in a man's hand could choose where to strike or than a saddled beast could choose its rider, aroused an intense opposition. Erasmus argued that d.a.m.nation given for inevitable crimes would make G.o.d unjust, and Thomas More blamed Luther for calling G.o.d the cause of evil and for saying "G.o.d doth d.a.m.n so huge a number of people to intolerable torments only for his own pleasure and for his own deeds wrought in them only by himself." An English heretic, Cole of Faversham, said that the doctrine of predestination was meeter for devils than for Christians. "The G.o.d of Calvin," exclaimed Jerome Bolsec, "is a hypocrite, a liar, perfidious, unjust, the abetter and patron of crimes, and worse than the devil himself."

But there was another side to the doctrine of election. There was a certain moral grandeur in the complete abandon to G.o.d and in the earnestness that was ready to sacrifice all to his will. And if we judge the tree by its fruits, at its best it brought forth a strong and good race. The n.o.blest examples are not the theologians, Calvin and Knox, not only drunk with G.o.d but drugged with him, much less politicians like Henry of Navarre and William of Orange, but the rank and file of the Huguenots of France, the Puritans of England, "the choice and sifted seed wherewith G.o.d sowed the wilderness" of America.

These men bore themselves with I know not what of lofty seriousness, and with a matchless disdain of all mortal peril and all earthly grandeur. Believing themselves chosen vessels and elect instruments of grace, they could neither {168} be seduced by carnal pleasure nor awed by human might. Taught that they were kings by the election of G.o.d and priests by the imposition of his hands, they despised the puny and vicious monarchs of this earth. They remained, in fact, what they always felt themselves to be, an elite, "the chosen few."

Having finished his great work, Calvin set out on his wanderings again.

For a time he was at the court of the sympathetic Renee de France, d.u.c.h.ess of Ferrara. When persecution broke out here, he again fled northward, and came, by chance, to Geneva. [Sidenote: Geneva] Here Farel was waging an unequal fight with the old church. Needing Calvin's help he went to him and begged his a.s.sistance, calling on G.o.d to curse him should he not stay. "Struck with terror," as Calvin himself confessed, he consented to do so.

Beautifully situated on the blue waters of Lake Leman in full view of Mont Blanc, Geneva was at this time a town of 16,000 inhabitants, a center of trade, pleasure, and piety. The citizens had certain liberties, but were under the rule of a bishop. As this personage was usually elected from the house of the Duke of Savoy, Geneva had become little better than a dependency of that state. The first years of the sixteenth century had been turbulent. The bishop, John, had at one time been forced to abdicate his authority, but later had tried to resume it. The Archbishop of Vienne, Geneva's metropolitan, had then excommunicated the city and invited Duke Charles III of Savoy to punish it. The citizens rose under Bonivard, renounced the authority of the pope, expelled the bishop and broke up the religious houses. To guard against the vengeance of the duke, a league was made with Berne and Freiburg.

On October 2, 1532, William Farel arrived from Berne. At Geneva as elsewhere tumult followed his {169} preaching, but it met with such success that by January, 1534, he held a disputation which decided the city to become evangelical. The council examined the shrines [Sidenote: 1535] and found machinery for the production of bogus miracles; provisionally abolished the ma.s.s; [Sidenote: May 21, 1536]

and soon after formally renounced the papal religion.

At this point Calvin arrived, and began preaching and organizing at once. He soon aroused opposition from the citizens, galled at his strictness and perhaps jealous of a foreigner. [Sidenote: Calvin expelled, February 1538] The elections to the council went against him, and the opposition came to a head shortly afterwards. The town council decided to adopt the method of celebrating the eucharist used at Rome. For some petty reason Calvin and Farel refused to obey, and when a riot broke out at the Lord's table, the council expelled them from the city.

Calvin went to Stra.s.sburg, where he learned to know Bucer and republished his _Inst.i.tutes_. Here he married Idelette de Bure, the widow of an Anabaptist, [Sidenote: August, 1540] who was never in strong health and died, probably of consumption, on March 29, 1549.

Calvin's married life lacked tenderness and joy. The story that he selected his wife because he thought that by reason of her want of beauty she would not distract his thoughts from G.o.d, is not well founded, but it does ill.u.s.trate his att.i.tude towards her. The one or more children born of the union died in infancy.

Calvin attended the Colloquy at Ratisbon, [Sidenote: 1541] in the result of which he was deeply disappointed. In the meantime he had not lost all interest in Geneva. When Cardinal Sadoleto wrote, in the most polished Latin, an appeal to the city to return to the Roman communion, Calvin answered it. [Sidenote: September 1, 1539] The party opposed to him discredited itself by giving up the city's rights to Berne, and, was therefore overthrown. The perplexities presenting themselves to the council were {170} beyond their powers to solve, and they felt obliged to recall Calvin, [Sidenote: Calvin returns, 1541] who returned to remain for the rest of his life.

[Sidenote: Theocracy]

His position was so strong that he was able to make of Geneva a city after his own heart. The form of government he caused to prevail was a strict theocracy. The clergy of the city met in a body known as the Congregation, a "venerable company" that discussed and prepared legislation for the consideration of the Consistory. In this larger body, besides the clergy, the laity were represented by twelve elders chosen by the council, not by the people at large. The state and church were thus completely identified in a highly aristocratic polity.

"The office of the Consistory is to keep watch on the life of every one." Thus briefly was expressed the delegation of as complete powers over the private lives of citizens as ever have been granted to a committee. The object of the Ecclesiastical Ordinances was to create a society of saints. The Bible was adopted as the norm; all its provisions being enforced except such Jewish ceremonies as were considered abrogated by the New Testament. The city was divided into quarters, and some of the elders visited every house at least once a year and pa.s.sed in review the whole life, actions, speech, and opinions of the inmates. The houses of the citizens were made of gla.s.s; and the vigilant eye of the Consistory, served by a mult.i.tude of spies, was on them all the time. In a way this espionage but took the place of the Catholic confessional. A joke, a gesture was enough to bring a man under suspicion. The Elders sat as a regular court, hearing complaints and examining witnesses. It is true that they could inflict only spiritual punishments, such as public censure, penance, excommunication, or forcing the culprit to demand pardon in church on his knees. But when {171} the Consistory thought necessary, it could invoke the aid of the civil courts and the judgment was seldom doubtful. Among the capital crimes were adultery, blasphemy, witchcraft, and heresy. Punishments for all offences were astonishingly and increasingly heavy. During the years 1542-6 there were, in this little town of 16,000 people, no less than fifty-eight executions and seventy-six banishments.