To this task Calvin would seem to have been more especially incited by Bullinger, who loses no opportunity of showing himself hostile to Servetus; and even thinks that ‘were Satan to come back from hell and take to preaching for pastime, he would make use of much the same language as Servetus the Spaniard.’[106] Writing to Calvin at this time, and thinking doubtless of the growing unpopularity of his friend, Bullinger says: ‘See to it, dear Calvin, that you give a good account of Servetus and his end, so that all may have the beast in horror--_ut omnes abhorreant a bestia_!’ To which Calvin replies: ‘If I have but a little leisure I shall show what a monster he was.’[107] Such were the inducements Calvin had for entering on the apologetic defence of himself through denouncing the errors, impugning the motives, and blackening the fame of Servetus to which he now applied himself and had ready for publication both in French and Latin early in the year 1554, the title of the French book in brief being ‘_Déclaration pour maintenir la vraye Foy_;’ that of the Latin, ‘_Defensio Orthodoxæ Fidei de sacra Trinitate contra errores Michaelis Serveti, &c._’[108] In his introduction Calvin informs the reader that he had ‘not at first thought it necessary to come forward with any formal refutation of the errors of Servetus,’ the ponderous absurdity of his ravings appearing so plainly that he imagined it would be like winnowing the wind to do so, for there was really no danger of anyone of sound mind and ordinary understanding not being found superior to such follies. ‘But better informed, knowing the poison to be deadly in its kind, and having regard to the amount of stupidity and confusion which God, to avenge Himself, inflicts on all who despise his doctrine, I have felt myself compelled as it were to take up the pen, and in exposing the errors of the man to furnish grounds for better conclusions. When Servetus and his like, indeed, presume to meddle with the mysteries of religion, it is as if swine came thrusting their snouts into a treasury of sacred things. May God pay all with the wages they deserve whose vicious proclivities lead them to burn after one novelty or another, which they can no more resist than can the man from scratching who has the itch!--_pas plus que celui qui a la ratelle qui démange_.’ ‘The punishment that befel Servetus,’ he continues, ‘is always ascribed to me. I am called a master in cruelty, and shall now be said to mangle with my pen the dead body of the man who came to his death at my hands. And I will not deny that it was at my instance he was arrested, that the prosecutor was set on by me, or that it was by me that the articles of inculpation were drawn up. But all the world knows that since he was convicted of his heresies I never moved to have him punished by death. There needs no more than simple denial from me to rebut the calumnies of the malevolent, the brainless, the frivolous, the fools, or the dissolute.’