_September 15._--The Court constituted in the usual manner, with
Servetus before them sworn to speak the truth, Calvin, who seems now to
have taken the place of the Attorney-General, proceeded to interrogate
the prisoner on the new Articles of Impeachment. One of the first of
these, referring to the relationship of the Son to the Father in the
mystery of the Trinity, appears to have given rise to another long,
and we may imagine excited debate between Calvin and the prisoner;
from which, however, the judges were able to gather so little light
that they interposed, and came to a resolution to have any further
discussion that might arise carried on in writing and in the Latin
tongue, instead of by word of mouth and in French as heretofore.
The substitution of Latin for French had in fact become a necessity
when the determination to consult the other Reformed Churches of the
Confederation was adopted. Native to Geneva with its French-speaking
population, French was little understood at Berne, Basle, Zürich,
and Schaffhausen with their German inhabitants; but the liberally
educated among them were generally familiar with Latin. Calvin, we must
therefore presume, had presented his new Articles in French, so that
they had to be translated and turned back into Latin; but the trial
appears to have suffered no particular delay on this account. Presented
anew in the Latin tongue and approved by the Court, they were ordered
by it to be submitted to the prisoner, with the intimation that he
was required to answer them, and to feel himself at liberty to alter
or retract anything he might now think he had written unadvisedly; to
explain anything he had said that was misunderstood; and to defend
such of his opinions as were challenged, by the citation of Scripture
in their support. Nor was he to be hurried in sending in his replies;
he was to take his own time, and to enter as fully as he pleased into
every question.
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