I 



i BRUNO BEFORE CONSISTORY 15 



he be duly admonished, that he have to admit his 

 fault, and that, should he refuse to do so, he be 

 forbidden communion, and sent back again to the 

 Council, who are prayed not to endure such a person, 

 a disturber of the school ; and in the meantime he 

 shall have to admit his fault. He replied that he 

 repented of having committed the fault, for which 

 he would make amends by a better conversation, 

 and further confessed that he had uttered calumny 

 against De la Faye. The admonitions and exclusions 

 from the communion were carried out, and he was 

 sent back with admonitions." Apparently these steps 

 were effective ; the required apology was made, and 

 on August 27 Bruno was absolved from the form 

 of excommunication passed upon him. No doubt, 

 however, life in Geneva was made less easy for him, 

 and he left soon after. The sentence of excommunica- 

 tion passed by the Consistory the only one within 

 its power does not prove that Bruno was a full 

 member of the Protestant community, nor that he 

 partook of the communion, which at his trial in 

 Venice he absolutely denied ever having done ; but 

 formal excommunication must have entailed many un- 

 pleasantnesses, so that his appeal for remission is 

 quite comprehensible. His unfortunate experiences in 

 Geneva account, however, for the extreme dislike of 

 Calvinism which his writings express. Of the two 

 reformed schools, Lutheranism was by far the more 

 tolerant, and gave him, later, the more cordial welcome. 

 Calvin, we must remember, whose spirit continued 

 in Theodore Beza, had written a pamphlet on Servetus, 

 a " faithful exposition of the errors of Michael Servetus, 

 a short refutation of the same, in which it is shown to 



1 Register of Consistory, 1577-1579. 



