The synod, having heard both parties and maturely considered the matter, acknowledged the confession of the Genevese ministers to be good and orthodox; and they condemned Caroli, and declared him henceforth unworthy to fulfil the functions of the ministry. ‘We have, by our refutation,’ said Calvin, ‘exhausted all that bag of Caroli’s;[522] with regard to ourselves there now remains not the slightest suspicion.’ Caroli appealed from the sentence of the synod to the lords of Berne. Who was right? Who was wrong? Calvin or Caroli? Judgments have differed on the point. Some have said, ‘The denunciation by Caroli was not altogether unfounded; it is no wonder that he declared himself dissatisfied and maintained his charge.’ Others have added that Calvin fell on his adversary with a violence which made the assembly tremble, and which afforded the first instance of that fearful anger with which so often afterwards he struck down those who were against him.[523] This is not our opinion. As to his expressions, Calvin’s defence is not so terrible, so passionate, if we call to mind the sort of man with whom he had to deal; and as for the hardest words of the reformer, they are, as we have seen, two which he adopted from the Saviour himself. As to the substance of the defence, he would not bring forward, as Roman Catholics do, human authorities; he preferred to hold fast to the Word of God. That is his chief glory, and therein does he show himself a genuine reformer, as Luther did. His adversary was an immoral character, and the Reformation would make no covenant with immorality. Who would blame him for that? Calvin could not consent that a dissolute man, whose hand was stained with the blood of the saints, should pass for an Athanasius, one of the noblest of the ancient doctors of the Church. He was, above all, profoundly afflicted by the thought that the blow struck by that man was shaking the foundations of the spiritual building which was being erected to the glory of God. These debates made a great noise in other lands. All kinds of rumors were current at a distance, and evil reports were circulated about the Genevese reformers. People were asking one another what this contest between Caroli and Calvin was about, and they waited impatiently for the issue of it. French vivacity had been offensive to some theologians of German Switzerland. Megander himself complained to Bullinger of the annoyance which those turbulent Frenchmen had caused him.[524] People, however, were as easily agitated in German Switzerland, and even in the land of Luther. Some Catholics began to attach importance to these struggles, and to take advantage of them. Letters were exchanged on the subject. Bucer and Capito wrote from Strasburg, the former to Melanchthon, the latter to Farel; and Myconius wrote from Basel to the assembly itself. This must needs invest with more solemnity the judgment on the appeal which was about to be heard at Berne.