PROTESTANT THEOl{'Y OF PERSECUTION 175
more practical view of the question than was common in Germany. He thought it safer strictly to exclude reli- gious differences than to put them down with fire and sword; "for in this case," he says) " the victims com pare themselves to the early martyrs, and make their punish- ment a weapon of defence." 1 He did not, however, forbid capital punishment in cases of heresy. In the year I 535 he drew up an opinion on the treatment of religious error, which is written in a tone of great moderation. In this document he says "that all sects which introduce division into the Church must be put down, and not only such as, like the Anabaptists, threaten to subvert society, for the destruction of order and unity often begins in an apparently harmless or imperceptible way. The culprit should be examined with gentleness. If his disposition is good he will not refuse instruction; if not, still patience must be shown until there is no hope of converting him. Then he must be treated like other malefactors, and handed over to the torturer and the executioner." 2 After this time there were no executions for religion in ZUrich, and the number, even in the lifetime of Zwingli, was less considerable than in many other places. But it was still understood that confirmed heretics would be put to death. In I 546, in answer to the Pope's invitation to the Council of Trent, Bullinger indignantly repudiates the insinuation that the Protestant cantons were heretical, "for, by the grace of God, we have always punished the vices of heresy and sodomy with fire, and have looked upon them, and still look upon them, with horror." 8 This accusation of heresy inflamed the zeal of the reformers against heretics, in order to prove to the Catholics that they had no sympathy with them. On these grounds Bullinger recommended the execution of Servetus. "If the high Council inflicts on him the fate due to a worthless blasphemer, all the world will see that the people of Geneva hate blasphemers, and that they punish with the s\vord of justice heretics \\Tho are obstinate in their heresy. . . . Strict fidelity and vigilance are needed, because our 1 Pestalozzi, Heinrich Bullinger, p, 14 6 , 2 Ibid, p. 149. 3 Ibid. p. 270.
