1On 27 October 1553, the Spanish theologian Michael Servetus, well-known for his critical positions on Trinity and baptism and considered a heretic by both Rome and Geneva, was burned alive after a long trial. This event fuelled a fierce controversy over whether it was permitted to the civil Magistrate to punish heresy by death. A few months after Servetus’s burning, several detractors led by a mysterious Martinus Bellius, most probably Sebastian Castellio, published the De haereticis, an sint persequendi, a compilation of extracts by various authors arguing that heretics should not be punished by the death sentence1. A month later, Calvin’s Defensio orthodoxae Fidei was published to justify the killing of Servetus2. Yet, neither of the two works answered the other. A clear response to the De haereticis was thus needed. While teaching in Lausanne, the Reformed theologian Théodore de Bèze (1519–1605) managed to publish by the end of the year his De haereticis a civili Magistratu puniendis – “That heretics should be punished by the civil Magistrate”; this work was to be translated into French by the theologian Nicolas Colladon in 15593.

2The term tolerance has been employed extensively in studies dedicated to the Servetus case and the ensuing controversy, yet it appears problematic, if not ambiguous, due to its confessional or ideological uses4 and to its multiple meanings5. Many scholars have been or are still keen to speak of Castellio and his collaborators as “apostles of tolerance”, yet another anachronism6. Indeed, Théodore de Bèze designates the latter, sarcastically, as “advocates of clemency” (patroni clementiae), as “those gentle people (clementes), advocates of heretics” or as “protectors, not of liberty but of public licence”7. Therefore, one should favour the terms “clemency” or “leniency” found in the sources, that is, showing mercy towards heretics by not killing them (and arguing one must not do so). Furthermore, tolerance brings up new issues when confronted with the expression of its opposite. Scholars have tended to perceive Bèze’s De haereticis as a manifesto of intolerance, through the prism of Castellio8. Intolerance is an anachronistic concept which cannot historically be applied to Calvin and Bèze, even if they considered their doctrine as the “only true one”, “excluding all others”9. Although not found in the sources, the neutral term inclementia, intended as a lack of leniency, seems appropriate. The clementes opposed their plea for clemency to the core accusation of crudelitas towards the inclementes10. Of course, the latter did not refer to themselves as “cruel” – quite the opposite in fact. They rather appealed to a “legitimate severity” (justa severitate) or “authority” (legitimam potestatem) of the Magistrate11. As we will see, one of Bèze’s objectives was to reverse this accusation of cruelty. He and Calvin intended to “defend the orthodox faith” threatened by what they viewed as the ultimate danger, heresy12.

3This paper aims to better understand the discourse of Théodore de Bèze as a defender of the coercion of conscience. Rather than focusing on Bèze’s political and theological arguments13, this contribution examines a selection of discursive strategies used along the text14. Bèze denounces the resort of the clementes to pseudonyms and allusive writing as “masks” hiding their intentions15. In this way, I will examine how the author gives shape to an accusatory rhetoric of falseness, and how he instrumentalizes this rhetoric of the mask to reverse the accusation of cruelty and to call to action against his opponents. These discursive practices are far from being original as they form a common feature in humanistic jurisprudence16 – e.g., one can think to Calvin’s posture against what he called “hypocrisy”17. Yet a specific interest of such practices in the context of the Servetus case lies in their framing of Bèze’s inclementia. I will proceed by first underlining the author’s issue with the resort of pseudonyms before examining how, with the help of the metaphors of the wolf and of the Devil, he further masks his opponents to better unmask them. I will then see how Bèze’s rhetoric instrumentalizes fear and calls to retaliation.

Fake names and allusive writing: factual concealing

4The living authors who played a part in the De haereticis, an sint persequendi used pseudonyms: Martinus Bellius, who wrote the preface, most likely is Sebastian Castellio18; Georgius Kleinbergius may be David Joris19; Basilius Montfortius certainly hides Castellio20. Bèze’s correspondence with Bullinger shows him puzzled by the fake names. He tends to bring Bellius and Castellio together21, and claims Montfortius to be Celio Curione22. Yet the identity of his opponents remains a problematic issue, and he will address “Bellius and his faction” by their pseudonyms, rather than risk giving names23.

5Montfortius resorted to a fake name due to the peril of the enterprise: he claims that he would have come to the inclementes if they were not “discussing by blades, flames and waters”, and thinks safer to write “from a distance” (eminus)24. Bèze denies such practice and calls him sycophanta (slanderer); he states that Montfortius must be indeed a heretic if he feels too frightened to expose his true name. In the Bezan De haereticis, fake names become a matter for reproach, even more: an accusation. The reformer does not miss any occasion to hammer this point home: “why did you pass over your name in silence (subticuisti)25?”

6Moreover, falseness and omissions are not limited to the identity of the authors. Indeed, the place of publishing states Magdeburg instead of Basel, which does not fool Bèze26. The context of the matter discussed in the first De haereticis remains voluntarily allusive, as there is no explicit mention of the Servetus case, another omission for which Bèze criticizes his opponents27. Bèze also disqualifies their writing itself as devious and marked by circumlocutions28. Yet underlining the factual resort to pseudonyms and allusive writing only forms a part of the rhetoric of the mask.

Down with the masks: fictional veiling and unveiling

7Bèze’s introduction to the treatise alludes to Pharaoh’s army pursuing the people of Israel as they were fleeing Egypt (Ex 14:7–10). On the verge of being freed by Moses, the Hebrews were attacked by “an infinite number of enemies” who acted against them “under the disguise of piety” (per simulatione pietatis). He adds: “Of such ungrateful minds, we have recently seen a notable example, whose vileness made me think that I should by no means remain silent now29.” Indeed, the Ministers of Geneva who tried to make Servetus abjure were accused by some “spies of Satan” (Satanae emissarii – “supposts de Satan” in French), some “cunning men” (homines astuti), of having cloaked (induisse) their own cupiditas in the name of piety. According to their detractors, the intention of the pastors would have been to “oppress” Servetus “under the pretence of religion30”, but Bèze claims that it is in fact those detractors, the clementes, who are acting under cover to “proceed against the orthodox Churches” with all impunity31. This idea is remanent in the whole text32, as it is indeed the nature of heretics to “cloak their pertinacity in a shadow of piety33”. On the contrary to factual concealing, these accusations result from Bèze’s own interpretations. One crafts oneself the mask one accuses the other of wearing.

8The fictional charges of concealing aim in turn at legitimizing and providing materials to a discourse of unveiling. Bèze shoulders the task to pull off the masks and uncover the truth:

From the latter it appears that the simpleness and the conscience of those are nothing else but masks they put to deceive the incautious. But now pulling off such masks, let us yet examine whence they argue that there are no people among all men who are to be feared less than heretics34.

9The theme of the mask (personatus, simulatio, species, praetexere, etc.), alongside the urgent need to uncover what hides behind it, recurs throughout the whole treatise35. Bèze best expresses this rhetoric through two biblical metaphors much frequent in polemics, the one of the wolves and the one of the Devil.

Wolves in sheep’s clothing

10In the first De haereticis, Montfortius referred to Mt 10:16 (“I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves”) to compare heretics to sheep being persecuted by the Magistrate36. Both he and Kleinbergius implicitly suggested that the Genevan authorities are wolves too afraid of the Roman Catholic “lioness” to assault anyone but sheep (i.e. Servetus and the Anabaptists)37.

11To which Bèze replies, on the one hand, by denying his opponents’ resort to the metaphor. He argues that the use against heretics of the sword God gave to the Magistrate does not make him a wolf38, and that those whom Bellius’s group describes as sheep are in fact the wolves threatening the herd of the faithful39. He focuses on the principle of Mt 7:15 (“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves”) as a tool of discursive reversal.

12On the other hand, Bèze stresses more the common semantics in his discourse. The clementes are said to be wolves hungry for souls40, “howling” their arguments41 and trying to substitute for the pastors42; on the contrary, Magistrates and ministers are depicted in a compliant manner as faithful dogs and shepherds protecting the sheep43. The most elaborate use of the metaphor allows Bèze to counter the well-known parable of the “white robes” (vestes albas) found in the preface to the first De haereticis: Christ asked humans to wear them, which means living together in piety and friendship without contentions44. Bèze effectively flips the image: so-called sheep become “those white wolves” (albos istos lupos) threatening the souls of the faithful from inside the herd, all ready to jump on them to feast45. He also gives his own definition of the white robe: the clementes’ plea that one should not punish but even reward they who endanger men’s salvation, a claim by which they show all their hate for mankind46. In other words, the white robe shows an appearance of piety but hides the rage of wolves. This follows the Erasmian logic of the “inverted Silenus” Bèze had already used in previous works47: while Silenus is a wise man of ugly looking, he becomes attractive while masking his true, vile nature. The discrepancy between outer and inner self and their inversion or reversal are at the core of the rhetoric of the mask. The image of the Devil follows the same vein.

Devils in disguise

13Both parties also resort to demonization. In Christianity, the image of the Devil is used to designate otherness and to define oneself in relation to it48. Bellius associated the inclementes with the Devil: they are worse than Satan himself, because he would not persecute in the name of Christ as they do; they must either think of Christ as some Moloch who wants his worshippers to be burned as offering, or as the Devil, whose nature is to burn Christians49.

14Once again, Bèze undertakes to turn Bellius’s discourse against him while amplifying it. According to him, the worst evil one should fear is Satan, disguised as God, operating with full licence inside the true Church – in other words the internal corruption of doctrine: here lies the whole danger of the mask, and the need to unveil what is concealed50. To this end, the Devil secretly dispatches (summittit) his henchmen (Satanae emissarii), i.e. heretics and the clementes, to overthrow the foundations of religion51. In accordance with Protestant literature indeed52, Satan never acts by himself, but personatus, “masked”, which means through his agents (2 Cor 11:13–15). Servetus’s depiction in the Bezan De haereticis offers a striking example of polemical demonization: whatever the resemblance at first sight between his death and the pyres of the martyrs, their cause distinguishes them, as Servetus did not have faith in the true Christ, but in an idol. Bèze thus undertakes to reveal Servetus not as a “true martyr of God”, but as a “martyr of the Devil”53. Besides, devils and heretics are brought together. According to the reformer, they both can have the knowledge of God, but not faith: they cannot be among the elect54. Adducing 1 Tim 1:20, in which Paul writes to have handed heretics over to Satan, Bèze expresses an exclusivist conception of the corpus Christianum by asserting that everyone who is expelled from the Church is abandoned to Satan’s power55.

15Like Bellius, Bèze declares his adversaries to be worse than the Devil himself56. He underlines the assertion of the clementes that the knowledge of God is not needed to gain salvation: he who does not understand the essence of faith can only be a devil; indeed, even devils could not conceive such heresy – so what to say about such men who publish books to claim that57? As for their exegesis, the Devil can quote Scripture for his own purpose, as the proverb says, and so do the patrones clementiae, Bèze states. But in doing so the henchmen surpass their master, as they invoke the authority of Scripture without even a quote58. If the clementes are worse than the Devil himself, what more is there to fear?

Masks and fear

16Both processes of veiling and unveiling are tied close to a frightening discourse. In the Bezan De haereticis, fear plays three distinct roles: discrediting the opponent, frightening them, and targeting the reader for polarization effects and as a call to action59.

17Firstly, Bèze argues that fear is one of the main reasons the clementes did resort to masks. Intertwining the rhetoric with accusations of cowardice allows him to vilify them and their doctrine, as they are said not brave enough to stand publicly for it: Bellius wears a mask (personatus) because he was afraid to be publicly exposed60; the lack of allusion to the papacy and its tyranny is grounded by the fear of repression61; the names of the cities the clementes refer to are omitted for the same reason62. Distress is also invoked to deny that Servetus died showing constancy, as a true martyr of God would63. Thus, in Bèze’s discourse, falsity, which was supposed to cover fear, ends up revealing it.

18Fear also seems to be Bèze’s way to compensate his doubt regarding the identity of his opponents. He repeatedly threatens to disclose them and takes care to leave the uncertainty open: what if he knows? In fact, he claims to know the names of two of the clementes but says he does not want to reveal it to avoid “contaminating” his book64. This vague statement allows him to avoid risking a mistake while maintaining the threat over all his opponents. Moreover, his phrasing intentionally suggests that he is aware of Montfortius’s identity: the latter is all too well known among those against whom he wrote65; he mocks with impunity the faithful of England whose good graces he recently sought in his prefaces66. Those clues provided for the reader invite him to expose who hides behind the mask. The conclusion of the treatise attempts to turn their so-called falseness against the clementes one last time:

For even though you carefully conceal your names, your style, and the name of that town in which your collection (farrago) was published, as many other books that are not worth much better, your impudence, your desire for novelty and your pretence come forth. Therefore, everyone understands both who you are and what you plan to do67.

19The last sentence sounds like a threat: everyone is able to unmask them. Bèze thus places himself in a position of strength by acting as if he chose to leave the advocates of leniency under the protection of false names but could pull off their masks at any moment. In truth, while reproaching factual concealing, he does not undertake to lift it.

20Thirdly, the rhetoric of the mask seeks to inspire fear and disgust in the reader. Devils and wolves play a part, but one could also look at the omnipresent semantics of heresy as poison, plague and gangrene on the verge of spreading in the corpus Christianum68: these frightening images illustrate the accusation of subversion. The idea that the clementes undermine religion and political order to their foundations forms a recurrent theme throughout the text. Indeed, according to Bèze, they not only defend Servetus and the Anabaptists, but also downplay the crimes those heretics stood accused of (anti-Trinitarianism, Anabaptism, sedition, etc.). Moreover, Bèze considers the statements of the clementes on Trinity, scepticism and other problematic positions as highly heretical. He raises the alarm bell:

But you even make the knowledge of Trinity to be as useless, certainly so that nothing might be left safe in the Christian religion. […] Therefore, what is left for us but to take you for new devils who undertake to throw off God himself from his throne69?

21The last sentence is well representative of a polarization discourse, as it means that the inclementes cannot but reject their opponents – dialogue is impossible, one cannot reason with them70. The recurrent rhetorical question quid superest? and the charge of undermining religious foundations best stress the alarmist discourse71. The assault on doctrine poses the greatest threat. Indeed, heretics and their advocates are said to prey on the souls of the faithful72. Bèze calls them soul-destroyers (animicidas) and deduces that they are the cruel ones, not the inclementes73. Among the readers targeted, the Bezan treatise especially urges the magistrates to act against the clementes74. If the latter threaten the integrity of the Church, the Magistrate has the right and even the duty to repress them. Bèze thus asks the same treatment for the defenders of heresy as for the heretics, since the clementes are themselves heretics.

Conclusion

22In Bèze’s De haereticis, the rhetoric of the mask emerges among discursive strategies as one including several others (accusation of falseness, demonization, frightening discourse, etc.) in a coherent whole. This rhetoric consists of two intertwined processes. The first is to gather both factual and fictional (or interpretative) charges of concealing – fake names and omissions are factual, whereas the assertion of veiled intentions is the author’s own making. Hammering these accusations home further justifies the urge to pull off the mask, which is the second face (or phase, although both are processed all at once) of its rhetoric. Unmasking does not operate on an objective basis – although factual concealing is denounced, it remains undisclosed – but follows the same wire as masking: the veil does not reveal facts but otherness75, in its most despicable form. That is, in Bèze’s terms, heretics undermining doctrine and threatening souls. Therefore, the rhetoric of the mask has two faces: veiling and unveiling.

23The discursive strategies examined in this paper are not exhaustive: one could also have looked deeper at the semantics of blindness, the disqualification based on incompetence in exegesis and textual analysis, etc. But the images of wolves and devils best illustrate the reversal aspect of the rhetoric of the mask. Indeed, the unveiling discourse fuels a dynamic of inversion. Asking “that one have more consideration for sheep than wolves76” may suit both Bellius’s and Bèze’s call, but the rhetoric takes care to set it in Bèze’s terms. The reformer thus inverts the core accusation of cruelty in the polemic: the clementes prove to be the cruel ones, not the inclementes77. Also echoing the anti-Silenus trope, Bellius’s well-known “golden coin” is displayed as counterfeited as it is turned into lead78. Piety is turned into heresy, gentleness into cruelty, and freedom into public licence. In his response to Bèze’s De haereticis, Montfortius-Castellio will criticize this ars dicendi of reversal79. Wolves’ and devils’ metaphors are not only reversed but also emphasized by rhetorical build-up: the polemist must strike back, harder80.

24The rhetoric of the mask is instrumentalized in a frightening discourse. While vilifying the resort to factual concealing, fear proves to be a semiological tool, paradoxically revealing what was originally hidden because of it. Fear is also a way for Bèze to compensate for not lifting factual concealing by posing a constant threat of disclosing and thereby setting a balance of power. Devil’s henchmen, white wolves, plague-bearers, subverters of doctrine, soul-destroyers: masks are manifold. The metaphors serve to didactically make the rhetoric manifest. All these hideous depictions warn the reader (the Magistrate included) to fear heretics and their schemes and encourages taking action against them. In this way, Bèze’s rhetoric produces polarization effects, as it inspires hatred and full rejection of alterity81.

25In summary, the specific significance of common rhetoric features in Bèze’s De haereticis consists of legitimizing and promoting inclementia towards heretics, their patrones included. Although acknowledging Bèze’s vehemence of tone, his intransigence regarding the doctrine, and above all his call to the killing of heretics, one should not get dragged into examining his discourse through the anachronistic prism of intolerance, because it would amount to failing to take the reformer’s perspective into proper account (through the bias of historiography on Castellio). The inclementes defended a point of doctrine which had its own coherence, both theological and political – that is what Bèze wanted to demonstrate82. They were convinced of the supreme necessity to preserve the integrity of the Church, or else quid superest? Confronted with such threat, the polemist sets himself up as a master of masks, crafting them, leaving them in place or pulling them off as needed.

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I am much grateful to Annick Delfosse, Nicolas Fornerod, Alexandre Goderniaux, Odile Panetta, and Ueli Zahnd for their advice in the writing of this paper.