The laws of Geneva in the 16th Century, were pretty much the same as in most European cities, based on old Roman law which made heresy a executable offense. Nothing new or innovative in John Calvin’s approach to that...
The same kinds of old Roman Catholic medieval laws being relied up on to kill hundreds (and in 1572 TENS OF THOUSANDS) of Protestant “heretics” in France, and other parts of Europe—by Roman Catholic authorities—were used to execute one Micheal Servetus—who had been on the run for years from the Roman Catholic Inquisition—having just escaped captivity during an Roman Catholic trial in France.
There was no speculation—definite heretics (and Servetus strongly and arrogantly denied the Trinity—not some minor point of Calvinism, or any form of Christianity) were routinely burned at the stake in the 1500s—and Calvin was a man of his day—a day when NO ONE was religiously tolerant.
Upon the trial of Servetus—by the democratically elected City Council, by the way, NOT the non-Citizen John Calvin, letters were sent out to all the neighboring Protestant cities and centers about their opinion on executing a heretic—and ALL of THEM (including the Lutherans) favored it.
Was Calvin strict? Yes he was, and so were the old (medieval, Roman Catholic-written) laws which backed the City Council up—who directly ruled Geneva (Calvin did not—and was never even a full Citizen) who followed Calvin’s advice.
It is amazing to me that Roman Catholic apologists-for-the-Inquistion....would be so self-righteously hard on a man—of the first generation of Protestants—who followed their Church’s lead in lacking religious tolerance.
If you want the real story, and a picture into the world of 16th Century Reformation-era Europe, try renowned scholar Roland Bainton’s book, “Micheal Servetus” which is the source of my knowledge about him.
“ ...after he [Servetus] had been recognized, I thought he should be detained. My friend Nicolas summoned him on a capital charge, offering himself as a security according to the lex talionis. On the following day he adduced against him forty written charges. He at first sought to evade them. Accordingly we were summoned. He impudently reviled me, just as if he regarded me as obnoxious to him. I answered him as he deserved... of the man’s effrontery I will say nothing; but such was his madness that he did not hesitate to say that devils possessed divinity; yea, that many gods were in individual devils, inasmuch as a deity had been substantially communicated to those equally with wood and stone. I hope that sentence of death will at least be passed on him; but I desired that the severity of the punishment be mitigated.
Calvin to William Farel, August 20, 1553, Bonnet, Jules (1820–1892) Letters of John Calvin, Carlisle, Penn: Banner of Truth Trust, 1980, pp. 158–159. ISBN 0-85151-323-9.
“and Calvin was a man of his day—a day when NO ONE was religiously tolerant.”
Excuse me!
Did Calvin have the New Testament?
Which of the disciple’s lead did Calvin follow for torturing a fellow human being for his lack of belief???
Which of Christ’s teachings did he use to guide him when he set fire to another man???
What an utterly implausible argument!
You might as well call up the action of contemporaneous Buddhists or Muslims to justify his actions.