‘Humane’
A master of the art of organization, Calvin had been able to transform a whole city, a whole State, whose numerous burghers had hitherto been freemen, into a rigidly obedient machine; had been able to extirpate independence, and to lay an embargo on freedom of thought in favour of his own exclusive doctrine.
The powers of the State were under his supreme control; as wax in his hands were the various authorities, Town Council and Consistory, university and law-courts, finance and morality, priests and schools, catchpoles and prisons, the written and the spoken and even the secretly whispered word.
His doctrine had become law, and anyone who ventured to question it was soon taught-by arguments that burked discussion, by the arguments of every spiritual tyranny, by jail, exile, or burning at the stake-how in Geneva only one truth was valid, the truth of which Calvin was the prophet.
But the sinister power of this zealot extended far beyond the walls of Geneva. The Swiss federated cities regarded him as their chief political member; throughout the western world the Protestants had appointed this “violentissimus Christianus” their commander-in-chief; kings and princes vied with one another in wooing the favour of a militant ecclesiastic who had established in Europe a Church organization second in power only to that ruled by the Roman pontiff. Nothing could happen in the political world without his knowledge; very little could happen there in defiance of his will.
It had become as dangerous to offend the preacher of St.-Pierre as to offend emperor or pope.
Stefan Zweig
Execution by decapitation, the more ‘humane’ Islamic way, than by fire ? …
John Piper
#tulip