In the passage just quoted, Calvin seems to reply to what Vaticanus has said in his introduction to the book that engages us, viz., that Servetus was the first who had been put to death at Geneva on grounds of religion, and that it was done at the instance and on the authority of Calvin--‘_impulsore et authore Calvino_.’ Vaticanus continues: ‘Calvin will perhaps say, as is his wont, that I am a disciple of Servetus. But let not this frighten anyone. I am no defender of the doctrines of Servetus, but I shall so expose the false doctrines of Calvin, that every one shall see as plain as noonday that he thirsted for blood. I shall not deal with him, however, as he dealt with Servetus, whom he proceeded to tear in pieces with his pen, after having burned him and his books. I do not, therefore, discuss the Trinity, Baptism, &c., seeing that I have not the books of Servetus, whence I might learn what he says on these subjects, Calvin having taken such pains to have them burned--_quippe combustos diligentia Calvini_. I shall not burn the books of Calvin; their author is alive, and his books may be had both in French and Latin, so that every one may see whether I falsify aught he writes. But Servetus was a blasphemer of God, says Calvin. The man himself, however, believed that he honoured God, and persuaded himself that he glorified God in his death. But the persuasion is false, says Calvin. Be it so; yet Servetus himself was not false; had he been so, he would assuredly have saved his life; he therefore died for his opinions.’ Without defending the views of Servetus we thus see Vaticanus asserting the courage and consistency of the victim which had been unjustly called in question by Calvin. Coming to the burden of the book we find as many as 150 passages from Calvin’s ‘Defensio orthodoxæ fidei’ commented and controverted, and in addition, four from the reply of Zürich to the Council of Geneva. By much the most complete and able of the works against Calvin and those who would have heretics punished by being put to death, is that of Minus Celsus of Sienna.[119] A fugitive from his native country to escape arrest and punishment for having forsaken Popery, Minus Celsus found safety at length after passing through many perils in Switzerland. ‘Escaped from the hands of Antichrist, as he says, and safe amid the Rhetian Alps,’ he was not a little scandalised to find nothing of the unity of doctrine among the Reformed Churches he had been led to expect before leaving his native country. ‘They held together as one, indeed, in hate of the Pope, calling him Antichrist and looking on the Mass as idolatry, but they differed on innumerable other points among themselves, and not only persecuted but went the length of putting each other to death, and this in no such primitive way as by stoning, in old Hebrew fashion, but by roasting the living man with a slow fire, _vivum lento igne torrendo_--punishment more horrible than Scythian or Cannibal ever contrived.’