But a proper lack of orthodox sentiment was not the only thing that could get a man into trouble with the so-called Consistorium. An afternoon spent at a bowling-alley in a nearby village, if properly reported (as such things invariably are), could be reason enough for a severe admonition. Jokes, both practical and otherwise, were considered the height of bad form. An attempt at wit during a wedding ceremony was sufficient cause for a jail sentence.
Gradually the New Zion was so encumbered with laws, edicts, regulations, rescripts and decrees that life became a highly complicated affair and lost a great deal of its old flavor.
Dancing was not allowed. Singing was not allowed. Card playing was not allowed. Gambling, of course, was not allowed. Birthday parties were not allowed. County fairs were not allowed. Silks and satins and all manifestations of external splendor were not allowed. What was allowed was going to church and going to school. For Calvin was a man of positive ideas.
The verboten sign could keep out sin, but it could not force a man to love virtue. That had to come through an inner persuasion. Hence the establishment of excellent schools and a first-rate university and the encouragement of all learning. And the establishment of a rather interesting form of communal life which absorbed a good deal of the surplus energy of the community and which made the average man forget the many hardships and restrictions to which he was submitted. If it had been entirely lacking in human qualities, the system of Calvin could never have survived and it certainly would not have played such a very decisive rôle in the history of the last three hundred years. All of which however belongs in a book devoted to the development of political ideas. This time we are interested in the question of what Geneva did for tolerance and we come to the conclusion that the Protestant Rome was not a whit better than its Catholic namesake.
The extenuating circumstances I have enumerated a few pages back. In a world which was forced to stand by and witness such bestial occurrences as the massacre of St. Bartholomew and the wholesale extermination of scores of Dutch cities, it was unreasonable to expect that one side (the weaker one at that) should practice a virtue which was equivalent to a self-imposed sentence of death.
This, however, does not absolve Calvin from the crime of having aided and abetted in the legal murder of Gruet and Servetus.
In the case of the former, Calvin might have put up the excuse that Jacques Gruet was seriously suspected of having incited his fellow citizens to riot and that he belonged to a political party which was trying to bring about the downfall of the Calvinists. But Servetus could hardly be called a menace to the safety of the community, as far as Geneva was concerned.
He was what the modern passport regulations call a “transient.” Another twenty-four hours and he would have been gone. But he missed his boat. And so he came to lose his life, and it is a pretty terrible story.
Miguel Serveto, better known as Michael Servetus, was a Spaniard. His father was a respectable notary-public (a semi-legal position in Europe and not just a young man with a stamping machine who charges you a quarter for witnessing your signature) and Miguel was also destined for the law. He was sent to the University of Toulouse, for in those happy days when all lecturing was done in Latin learning was international and the wisdom of the entire world was open to those who had mastered five declensions and a few dozen irregular verbs.
At the French university Servetus made the acquaintance of one Juan de Quintana who shortly afterwards became the confessor of the Emperor Charles V.