  In this letter Bodin refrained from all commentary on the doctrine of the sacraments and dogma. Instead he considered the religion of Christ, to which he himself belonged (mea vel potius Christi religio), as accessible to all men of good will. This included the luminaries of the ancient world, most notably the Platonists, whom Bodin considered “close to being Christians.” His words, although far from being those of an adherent of the Reformation, are no less those of a critic of the papal curia an advocate of reform within the Catholic Church who was calling for a return to the essential, pure message of the Gospels. On the other hand, amongst fervent Catholics, Bodin’s views on the freedom of  conscience[14]   caused him to be suspect, even though his opinions on the freedom of the conscience was distinct from his theory of religious tolerance (the first was a matter for the private individual, the second for civil and public life).  According to one contemporary in Bodin’s city of Laon, Antoine Richart, Bodin was “a politique and a dangerous Catholic” (Richart 1869, 68; cited in Chauviré 1914, 80).  A later writer, Traiano Boccalini, labeled Bodin a “notorious atheist” because he had recommended the “the freedom of conscience” (Boccalini 1618, I, 64, p. 195). 