Note 82 — Chapter XII · THE REFORMATION AND FREETHOUGHT

This ends the main Swiss era of theological murder; but a century was to pass before sectarian hatreds subsided, or the spirit of persecution was brought under control of civilization. In 1632, indeed, a Protestant minister, Nicholas Anthoine, was burned at Geneva on the charge of apostasy to Judaism. As he had been admittedly insane for a time, and had repeatedly shown much mental excitement,82 his execution tells of a spirit of cruelty worthy of the generation of Calvin. The Protestant Bibliolatry, in short, was as truly the practical negation of freethought and tolerance as was Catholicism itself; and it was only their general remoteness from each other that kept the different reformed communities from absolute war where they were not, as in Switzerland, held in check by the dangers around them.83 As it was, they had their full share in the responsibility for the furious civil wars which so long convulsed France, and for those which ultimately reduced Germany to the verge of destruction, arresting her civilization for over a hundred years.