Descending to further particulars suggested by the petition, the prisoner was asked, ‘On what grounds he rested the statement he makes concerning the judgment of heretics in the ancient church?’ To which he answered: ‘On the histories we have of Constantine the Great.’ ‘In the course of his law studies at Toulouse, however,’ said the prosecutor, ‘the prisoner must have made acquaintance with the code of Justinian, with the chapters in particular which treat of the Trinity, of the Catholic Faith, and of Heresy and Apostacy, in which he must know that opinions such as those he professes are condemned.’ The prisoner replied that ‘it was now twenty-four years since he had seen Justinian, and indeed he had never read him save in a cursory way, as young men at school or college are apt to do; and then,’ he went on to say, ‘Justinian did not live in the age of the primitive church, but in times when many things had become corrupted; when Bishops had begun to tyrannise and had already made the Church familiar with criminal prosecutions.’ To this most pertinent reply, no answer was attempted. Reproached with having calumniated the Ministers of the Word of God as teachers of false doctrine--which on his part, said Monsieur Rigot, amounts to a capital crime--Servetus admitted that calumny of the kind deserved the severest punishment, but maintained nevertheless that in disputation it was common and not unpardonable for opponents to gainsay one another in strong language, without being held guilty of calumny or defamation, and so of deserving punishment by the civil authorities for what they say. Referring next to his intercourse with Œcolampadius and Capito, to whom he had ascribed conformity with his views, although, said Rigot, he must know that they were both doctors well approved by the reformed churches, and consequently could not possibly be of his mind on the subjects in debate; he replied ‘that consonance in every particular was not universal either among the Reformers or the reformed churches; Luther and Melanchthon, for instance, had both of them written against Calvin on the subject of the sacraments and free will. Without being in a condition to prove what he says in his petition, he declares nevertheless that in conversation with Capito, when they were private and without other witness than God, he--Capito--did assent to his views. Œcolampadius, he owned, had withdrawn the approval he seemed to accord in the first instance.’