Advocates
of Religious Toleration & Freedom
Dr. James Leo Garrett, Jr., Distinguished Professor of Theology
Southwestern Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas, 1978
The author was privileged to deliver the 1976
Day-Higginbotham Lectures at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort
Worth, Texas on 10‑12 February 1976.
This lectureship was established in 1965 by an endowment fund donated by
Mrs. Edwin M. Reardon III, of Fort
Worth, as a memorial to the late Paul Clanton Higginbotham and to Mr. and Mrs.
Riley Day. The author wishes to express
his gratitude to Mrs. Reardon and to the president and faculties of
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary for the opportunity to explore both
the classic advocacy of and the contemporary situation concerning religious
freedom.
The first and second of the three Day-Higginbotham Lectures appear here
in slightly revised form. The author
is especially indebted to Dr. E. Bruce Thompson, Dr. Bill L. Lanning, and Mr.
Edward N. Curtis for their valuable assistance in bringing these lectures to
their present form.
James Leo Garrett, Jr., Baylor University, February 1978
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PART ONE -- “Key Documents in Advocacy of Religious Toleration: From Chelčickỳ to Helwys.”
PART TWO -- “Key Documents
Toward the Advocacy of Religious Freedom:
From Roger Williams Through Vatican Council II.”
PART THREE -- “Religious
Freedom: Why and How in Today’s World,”
has been published in Southwestern Journal of Theology 18 (Spring 1976): 9‑24.
Parts One and Two are shown here with permission
and that their viewing is at no charge and that there is no violation of
copyright, as Professor Garrett retains all copyrights to Parts One and
Two. Part Three with permission from
Southwestern Seminary, Fort Worth. Placed
into HTML and book-marked by MG Maness.
Key
Documents in Advocacy of Religious Toleration:
From Chelčický to Helwys
Professor James Leo Garrett, Jr., 1978
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas
“We must obey
God rather than men.” These words of
Peter (Acts 5:29), addressed to the Jewish Sanhedrin rather than to Roman
imperial authorities after the apostles had been admonished “not to teach in
this name [of Jesus]” (5:28), has served as the primal apostolic text to which
all subsequent Christians could refer and from which they could draw courage if
and when they faced a conflict of allegiances:
divine and human, heavenly and earthly, eternal and temporal, ecclesial
and civil. For more than three
centuries most of the early Christians lived, witnessed, suffered, and died in
a political context hostile to their faith.
Then in the fourth century A. D. came the double changes of toleration
and establishment within the Roman Empire--events which some later Christians
interpreted as the “fall” of the church.
These changes were soon to be followed by the suppression and persecution
by use of civil power of those who were not Catholic Christians. In later centuries Christendom was to
participate in the Crusades, to justify the just war, and to inflict and suffer
the Inquisition.
The purpose of
this study is to investigate the more significant and representative writings
in advocacy of religious toleration and religious freedom during the classic
period of such literature—the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth
centuries—and in the light of such investigation to consider the whether,
the why, and the how of religious freedom during
the last quarter of the twentieth century.
The histories
of religious toleration or freedom have generally embraced the leading
monographs, compacts, treaties, constitutions, public documents, and events
pertaining to that history.1 The scope of
this study is much more limited: it
focuses on key monographs by individual authors. It does not embrace the literature of confessional minimalism or
of Christian reunion, even though such seems to have affected the struggle for
toleration and liberty. This study
will, however, be more inclusive than the scope suggested by Alfred North
Whitehead's statement in Adventures of Ideas: “The apostles of modern tolerance—in so far
as it exists‑‑are Erasmus, the Quakers, and John Locke.”[1]
Peter Chelčický (1390?‑late 1450s?)
Peter
Chelčický (1390?-late 1450s?) was a south Bohemian Christian writer and
leader who went beyond the heritage of John Hus and the stance of the Prague
Hussites and refused to embrace the militant chiliasm of the Taborites but
served as the conceptual forerunner of the Unitas Fratrum. He pioneered the recovery of the doctrine of
apostolic nonviolence and applied such to religious wars and persecution.[2] The first of The
Four Articles of Prague, finalized in 1420, specified the free and
unhindered proclamation of “‘the Word of God .
. . by Christian priests in the kingdom of Bohemia,’” but such
language, as J. K. Zeman has noted, probably meant “the freedom of Hussite
propaganda.”[3]
Early in the
1420s, in his treatise On the Holy Church Chelčický
declared:
For God did not, through his
apostles, ordain a king for the Holy Church, to bear her tribulations on his
sword, to fight for her against her enemies, and through force to make that
Church serve him. Nor did he give her
judges or magistrates, so that the Holy Church might come before them and
litigate over the goods of this world.
Nor did he give her bailiffs and hangmen, so that some members of the
Holy Church could hang others, or torture others on the rack, for the sake of
material things‑‑this is for the pagans and for this world.[4]
In his treatise On the Triple Division of Society,[5] written in 1424 or 1425, Chelčický sharply
differentiated the secular order with its societal divisions from “the order of
Christ,” the one functioning “through power and under compulsion” and the other
“through love and good will.” Hence
setting up a physical lord over themselves with the
sword, to chop off all the dead limbs and to drive others against their will,
to put others in prison, to torment people and enslave them, just as he
likes--this is as far from the words of St.
Paul as the throne of Lucifer is from that of Christ.[6]
The mixture of Christian
faith with secular power resulted in the violent taking of life in numerous
ways, but such “doctrine” was of Jewish or pagan, but not Christian, origin.
If he [Christ] had wanted people to cut each other up, to
hang, drown, and burn each other, and otherwise pour out human blood for his
Law, then that Old Law could also have stood unchanged, with the same bloody
deeds as before.[7]
During the early 1440s
Chelčický, the village sage, wrote his “most mature and most representative
work,”[8] The Net of Faith[9] a treatise on the relation of the Christian, the church,
and the state. The book's framework is
an allegorical interpretation of the miraculous draft of fish recorded in Luke
5:4‑11. The “net” is the
Christian faith, or the faith in Christ that leads to salvation. The net has encompassed not only many
believers but also numerous “adverse” fish.
The net remained untorn for three centuries but at the time and by the
act of the Donation of Constantine two great whales, the emperor and the pope,
entered the net, turned about in it, and tore it “so that little of it
remains.” The two whales “spawned many
scheming schools” that further tore the net.[10] The pope
abandoned apostolic poverty and tried to rule in pagan fashion both believers
and the world. Only he could validate
the ministry of other priests, the pope claimed. He took to himself divine prerogatives, i.e., the forgiveness of
sins, and he multiplied the number of laws that were contrary to God's
law. Likewise, the emperor was guilty
of infiltrating the net with paganism and pagan rulership.[11] Civil authority
operated by coercion, which is contrary to the love of Christ. A true Christian cannot be civil ruler‑over
either true fellow Christians or the strayed, disobedient ones, because
coercion and brotherly equality and love are incompatible. War and bloodshed are not Christ's way. Hence the coercive method of civil authority
and the persuasive method of Christ must be kept distinct.[12] Strictly
speaking, The Net of Faith is not a book devoted to the subject
of religious freedom, but it contains a critique of that use of force which
prevails in state‑churchism and would increasingly evoke the laments,
protests, and appeals of the advocates of toleration or of freedom of
conscience during the next two centuries.
Desiderius Erasmus (1466‑1536)
Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536), the great humanist and irenicist
“with deep roots in the devotio moderna, who was critical of, yet
loyal to, the Roman Catholic Church, is normally treated in the history of
religious toleration. Perhaps his
greatest contributions to toleration were his quest for the foundational or
essential Christian doctrines and his vigorous advocacy of peace. Kamen has contended that “for Erasmus, as
for other contemporary humanists, toleration was not an ideal; it was only a means towards securing that
religious harmony for which all Christians yearned.”[13]
According to Bainton, Erasmus “magnified the non‑essentials
[in dogma] in order to enlarge the area of beliefs immune to persecution.”[14] But neither
minimal doctrine nor peace as treated in the works of Erasmus can be traced in
detail here.
Erasmus did not produce a
major monograph on religious toleration but did treat the subject in various
treatises and letters. The magistrate,
he wrote in 1513, should cautiously use the death penalty for any offense and
should attempt to reclaim the guilty.[15] In writing to
Paul Volz in 1518 he proposed the formulation of “a kind of resume of the whole
‘philosophy of Christ’” and said:
“Those who would receive such instruction . . . would understand that
they had found fathers, not tyrants;
shepherds, not robbers; that
they were called unto salvation, not dragged into slavery.”[16] Erasmus declared
in a treatise published the same year, in commenting on Isaiah 42: 1‑3 and Matthew 12:18‑20:
Here one hears no mention of
tortuous syllogisms, nor of threats and thunderbolts; no mention here of troops armed with steel, nor of bloodbaths and
burnings. But you do hear of
gentleness, of kindness towards the weak in whom there is still some hope of
the fruits of goodness. . . . Who, then, does not see that if the Christian commonwealth has fallen into a state of
decadence, it must be defended and saved by the same means which helped it to
be born, to grow, and to establish itself.[17]
Erasmus commented on the proper treatment of Martin
Luther when he wrote to Albert of Brandenburg, archbishop of Mainz, in 1519:
[I]f he is innocent, I would not like to see him crushed
by evil factions; if he is in error, I
would like to see him cured, not lost.
Such conduct would agree better with the example of Christ who . . . did
not extinguish the smoking flax, nor break the bruised reed.[18]
Many of the
theologians “do nothing but constrain, destroy or extinguish,” despite
Augustine's ancient disapproval, concerning the treatment of Donatists, of
“those who satisfy themselves with compulsion, instead of giving instruction.”[19] Even the
treatment of heretics had changed:
Formerly the heretic was given an attentive hearing. If he explained himself satisfactorily, he
was absolved; if after conviction of
heresy he remained obstinate, his supreme penalty was to be excluded from communion
with the Church. Nowadays the crime has
changed its character; for any futile
reason they shout at once: ‘Heresy!
Heresy!’[20]
The increase of persecution
was a mark of the church's fall from apostolic purity.[21]
Erasmus
interpreted the parable of the tares so that the “servants” desiring to root
out the tares in the present age contrary to the intention of the “householder”
were those who wrongly claimed that the false teachers and heretics should be
put to death.[22] He deplored
coerced faith in a letter to John Carondolet (1523):
When faith is in the mouth rather than in the heart, when
the solid knowledge of Sacred Scripture fails us, nevertheless by terrorization
we drive men to believe what they do not believe, to love what they do not
love, to know what they do not know.
That which is forced cannot be sincere, and that which is not voluntary
cannot please Christ.[23]
Both to Philip Melanchthon, a
Protestant, and to Duke George of Saxony, a Catholic, Erasmus wrote in 1524 of
“the futility of persecution.”[24]
In a treatise on the errors in the censure by Noël Beda
(1526) Erasmus cited Jerome and Chrysostom as opposed to putting heretics to
death. “Is it a law of the Church to
cast anyone into vengeful flames? For
the ancient bishops the extreme penalty was excommunication.” Citing Augustine of Hippo Regius, Erasmus
held that if heretics should “disturb the public peace,” magistrates “should
curb” them. But inquisitorial methods
employed by bishops and theologians were often unjust. Beda had failed to “distinguish between
ecclesiastical censures and capital punishment inflicted by civil law.” However, the parable of the tares did not
prevent princes, only church officials, from punishing heretics.
I will not favor a milder treatment of one whom I know to
be a heretic, that is, one who errs maliciously, who is factious and
incurable. I do not urge clemency for
heretics to the point that I become one myself.[25]
After 1526
Erasmus boldly proposed “a temporary, but legalized, tolerance towards the Lutherans,”
not unlike the cuius regio eius religio of 1555, but the appeal fell on
deazo ears.[26] Imperial usage
of force on heretics “is indeed a bad remedy which kills more patients than it
saves.”[27]
Another treatise critical of inquisitorial methods appeared
in 1528 in reply to Spanish monks.
Imprisonment and burning of heretics were contrary to the mercy of
Christ, but Erasmus defended the appeal by Catholic bishops to the emperor in
opposition to the Donatists and Circumcellions on the ground of the “unsufferable
fury” and “intolerable savagery” of the latter. Erasmus assessed the transfer of responsibility for heretics from
ecclesiastical to civil authorities as “mere subterfuge” and contended that the
sixteenth‑century treatment of heretics was more severe than the late
patristic or the early medieval. But
John Chrysostom had allowed various forms of restraint of heretics, although
not the death penalty.[28] In 1529 Erasmus
declared:
If Paul were here today he would not disapprove of the
state of the church, I think, but would lament the vices of men. . . . These vices, however, are to be corrected
without tumult, and we must take care lest the remedy be worse than the
disease.[29]
Bainton has
reckoned with the question as to whether Erasmus retrogressed on religious
toleration.[30] Leading evidence
may be derived from his treatise on the Turkish War of 1530, in which he
responded to a protest against persecution by stating, “Not that I condemn the
present severity which is perhaps necessary.”[31] Nevertheless,
the religious and ethical‑rational aspects of the Erasmian writings on
persecution and toleration were destined to impress and influence later
advocates of toleration.
Balthasar Hübmaier (1481‑1528)
Of a different character were the relatively brief
thirty-six articles entitled Von Ketzern und ihren Verbrennen (Concerning
Heretics and Those Who Burn Them[32] and written by the former Catholic theologian who had
become Anabaptist pastor in the upper Rhine Austrian‑ruled town of
Waldshut, Balthasar Hübmaier (1481‑1528). Composed while Hübmaier was in refuge in the Benedictine
monastery of Schaffhausen in Switzerland and published in the German city of
Constance during late September or early October 1524, these articles presented
the burning of “heretics” as a Satan‑inspired evil. “Heretics,” according to Hübmaier, were
“those who deceitfully undermine the Scriptures” or “those who conceal the
Scriptures and interpret them other than the Holy Spirit demands.” The law prescribing that they be burned
“builds up both Zion in blood and Jerusalem in wickedness,” and “the
inquisitors,” among whom the Dominicans were predominant, were “the biggest
heretics of all,” since their action is contrary to “the teaching and example
of Christ,” who came to give “abundant” life.[33] Hübmaier
interpreted the parable of the tares (Matt.
13:24‑30) to mean that both the “wheat,” or the orthodox, and the
“tares,” or the heretics, were to “grow together until the harvest,” for then
God would judge the heretics.
Consequently, in the present era heretics, even including Turks, ought to
be persuaded and convinced by “strong proofs and evangelical reasons,” not
burned, though some may become hardened in their heresy.[34] Efforts to
justify the burning of heretics were an alteration of the Scriptures, and the
only sword rightly to be used by Christians against “the godless” is the
Bible. Civil authorities ought to “put
to death criminals” but not heretics, including atheists.[35] While it was “a
disgrace to kill a heretic,” it was a “greater offense to burn to ashes the
faithful preachers of the Word of God without conviction or arraignment by the
truth.”[36]
Henry C. Vedder
at the beginning of the twentieth century referred to Hübmaier's articles as
“the earliest plea that has come down to us for complete toleration.”[37] But more
recently Torsten Bergsten has written of the document:
It has been called the most outstanding apology for the
idea of toleration which the sixteenth century has brought forth. Originally, however, the theses were not
intended as a theoretical justification of universal religious freedom but as
self‑defense.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
When Hübmaier explained in the articles concerning
heretics, that the civil authority has no power over faith, he gave expression
to a common conviction of the Reformers. . . .
For this type of religious freedom Hübmaier became an early and zealous
advocate. His conduct as an Anabaptist
leader in Waldshut and Nikolsburg however, yields the conclusion that he was
not prepared to concede to each individual the right to bring into a city or
territory a different persuasion of faith.
No more than the remaining Reformers can one call Hübmaier a defender of
the unlimited individual freedom of religion in the modern sense of the word.[38]
If Bergsten is correct,
Hübmaier's contribution centered in exposing the antichristian character of
burning heretics.
John Brenz (1499‑1570)
But the evil of burning “heretics” was also deplored by a
leading representative of the Lutheran Reformation, John Brenz (1499‑1570),
who ironically became “one of the principal sixteenth‑century architects
of the Lutheran territorial state church (landesherrliche Kirchenregiment)”
and one who “assigned to the office of Christian magistrate that which Luther .
. . had assigned to the congregations, that is, full responsibility for the
external ordering of the church.”[39] Brenz, the town
preacher in Schädbish‑Hall from 1522 to 1548, in 1528 wrote a treatise
entitled Ob ein Weltliche Obrigkeit in Göttlichen und billichen Rechten
die Widertäoruffer durch Fewer oder Schwerdt von Leben zum todt richten lassen
möge? (Whether a Secular Magistrate by
Divine and Equitable Rights May Allow the Anabaptists to Be Sentenced through
Fire or Sword from Life to Death).[40]
Should magistrates, Brenz asked, put to death “by fire or
sword” those guilty of the “fanatical heresy” of the Anabaptists on the basis
of the imperial law against rebaptism dating from Theodosius and Justinian
I? Brenz's negative answer hinged on
his distinction between “spiritual” and “civil” offenses. The former, such as “unbelief,
misunderstanding of Scripture, heresy . . . [and] covetousness,” ought to be
punished only by spiritual means, i.e., “the Word of God.” On the contrary, the “civil” offenses,
notably “treason, murder, robbery, theft, [and] adultery,” ought to be punished
“by the sword of the emperor.” The
civil sword, when used against heretics, would “entrench the devil” and confirm
the heretics in their heresy but not “disclose” their “secret sin.” Only the gospel and the Bible could truly
expose heresy. Hence heretics who were
not criminals should not have inflicted on them civil punishment.[41] The “tyrannical
use” of the civil sword multiplies Anabaptists.[42] Brenz contended
that the law against rebaptism in the Justinian Code referred only to rebaptism
by Catholic ministers, applied only to those apprehended in the very act of
baptizing and survives only in an excerpt.
The Swabian Lutheran leader identified the parabolic “tares” as
“unbelievers and heretics” and recognized as legitimate the ecclesiastical
excommunication of heretics.[43] Brenz asked, “if
heresy were to be expelled by force what point would there be in studying Scripture?”[44]
Kantzenbach has contrasted Brenz’s “word of mildness”
with Melanchthon's Augustinian justification of the use of the sword against
Donatists and has noted Brenz’s opposition both to “the performance of the
death penalty” and “to the toleration [Duldung] of the
sects.”[45] Consequently,
Steinmetz can assert that “Brenz is not
an advocate of tolerance in the modern sense,” for the state “has the right to
forbid heretics from preaching and may even compel the children of Anabaptists
to be baptized against the express wishes of their parents.”[46] But Brenz's
distinction between spiritual offenses and penalties and civil offenses
and punishments was an important step toward that fuller toleration.
Sebastian Franck (1499‑1542)
Sebastian
Franck (1499-1592), the rational Spiritualist in his Chronica, Zeÿtbuch
und Geschÿhtbibel (1531),[47] added to the consideration of the bodily punishment of
“heretics” the element of a reversal of judgments, human and divine,
temporal and eternal. Franck quoted
approvingly Jerome's statement “'that the bodies of many are revered on earth
whose souls are tormented in Hell.’”
The “world,” said Franck, “holds as heretical anything, no matter how
right and true, which opposes its abomination.” Hence the Hebrew prophets, Jesus and the apostles, Peter Waldo,
John Rokyczana, John Wyclif, and John Hus “were condemned as heretics.” In Franck's era “many are regarded as
heretics and punished, whom future generations will revere as saints.” Franck feared “that many good Christians have
been numbered among the heretics.”
Rejecting any progressive amelioration of society, Franck declared: “Subsequent generations always build and garnish the tombs of the
prophets, Christ, and the apostles and yet ever, like the Jews, fill up the
measure of their fathers.”[48] Moreover, “if I
had the choice I should prefer to be among those whom the world condemned as
heretics rather than among those who have been esteemed as saints.” Contemporary persecutors are in accord with
neither the gospel nor the “Catholic doctors.”
Unfortunately books by “heretics” have been destroyed. Such destruction has made a fresh,
undistorted appraisal of teachings so-called “heretics” impossible. Franck found that Augustine of Hippo,
Regius, Chrysostom, Bede, and Anselm of Canterbury had interpreted the parable
of the tares so as to apply to the non‑punishment of heretics. Heretics, therefore, are to be “Punished
only by excommunication” or possibly by banishment, but to use the sword
against them is to return to Moses.[49]
Menno Simons (c.1496-1561)
Persecution of
the Anabaptists constituted a major theme in the writings of Menno Simons
(c.1496‑1561), the former Roman Catholic priest who, after the Münster
debacle, gathered together and shepherded the Obbenite Anabaptists of Holland
and northern Germany. Menno hardly set
forth a formal theory of toleration or of religious freedom but repeatedly
appealed to civil authorities for toleration and interpreted for his fellow
Anabaptists the experience of persecution.
To throttle the
“truth” and to defend “lies” “with the sword” is not the way of Christ. “For this is the real disposition and
conduct of Antichrist: to employ
slander, arrest, torture, fire, and murder against the Spirit and Word of God.”[50] In his
“Foundation of Christian Doctrine” (1539) Menno appealed to the magistrates on
the basis of the irrationality of man's persecution of his fellow man and the
limitation of coercion by magistrates to criminal offenses.
Do not excuse yourselves, dear sirs, and judges, because
you are the servants of the emperor.
This will not clear you in the day of vengeance. . . . Serve the emperor in imperial matters, so
far as Scripture permits, and serve God in divine matters. . . . Do not usurp the judgment and kingdom of
Christ, for He alone is the ruler of the conscience, and besides Him there is
none other. Let Him be your emperor in
this matter and His holy Word your edict, and you will soon have enough of
storming and slaying. You must hearken
to God above the emperor, and obey God's Word more than that of the emperor.[51]
Can persecutors rightly claim
to belong to Christ's true church?
0 Lord, if it were true that this vast church were Thy
holy church, bride, and body as they boast it to be, then we might truthfully
assert that Thou art the prince, bridegroom, and head of an abominable,
detestable band of murderers who seek after the innocent blood of those who
sincerely seek, fear, love, and serve God.[52]
Menno despaired of finding a
true Christian magistrate.
When I think to find a magistrate who fears God, who
performs his office correctly and uses his sword properly, then verily I find
as a general rule nothing but a Lucifer, an Antiochus, or a Nero, for they
place themselves in Christ's stead so that their edicts must be respected above
the Word of God.[53]
Yet he also declared that
we seek, desire, teach, and preach that all magistrates,
emperors, kings, dukes, counts, barons, mayors, knights, junkers, and
burgomasters may be taught and trained by the Spirit and Word of God that they
may sincerely seek, honor, fear, and serve Christ Jesus . . . .[54]
Menno also appealed to
magistrates to cease their persecutions.
Dear lords,
look out, the hour is fast approaching that . . . the impartial, righteous
Judge of all our affairs will judge and give sentence; then you will discover too late whom you
have persecuted and pierced. Therefore,
rouse yourselves in time, fear God, reflect, and reform while it is still
called today.[55]
By 1552 Menno identified
persecution unto death as “the manifest work of Satan and found it necessary to
answer false charges against Dutch and north German Anabaptists: that they were Münsterites, that they would
not recognize and obey the magistracy, that they were engaged in revolutionary
sedition, that they practiced community of goods, and that they practiced
polygamy.[56] Menno's “The
Cross of the Saints” (c.1554) proved to be a manual on persecution. Indeed, the persecution of the godly,
originating with Cain and Abel, extends throughout history until Christ's parousia. The contemporary persecutors “are not
Christians but an unbelieving, carnal, earthly, wanton, blind, hardened, lying,
idolatrous, perverted, malicious, cruel, unmerciful, frightful, and murderous
people, who by their actions and fruits show that they neither know Christ nor
His Father.” They are persecuting the
Anabaptists, explained Menno, because of the manifestation of divine grace and
the transformation of lives among the persecuted and because Anabaptists are
supremely loyal to Christ and test religious teachings and practices by the
norm of Scripture, a document replete with examples of the persecution of the
godly. But bearing the cross in
persecution is the role of true Christians.[57]
Sebastian Castellio (1515?‑1563)
“Michael Servetus was burned in Geneva, at
the instigation of John Calvin, for anti‑Trinitarianism and
Antipaedopabtism in the year 1553.”[58] Thus Roland H.
Bainton has succinctly identified the event that was to evoke one of the most
significant treatises in the entire history of the advocacy of religious
freedom, an anthology entitled Concerning Heretics by
Sebastian Castellio (1515?‑1563), former associate and co‑laborer
with Calvin in Strasbourg and in Geneva but by then a resident of Basel,
alienated from Calvin and living in semi‑poverty.
Castellio's pen was not the first to respond to the
burning of the Spanish physician‑theologian. David Joris (?‑1556), the Flemish‑born chiliastic
Anabaptist who had left his followers, the Davidians, and had become a refugee
in Basel under an assumed name, had written a letter to the magistrates,
probably late in 1553, in which he declared that Jesus forbade persecution and
in which he warned the preachers involved in turning over Servetus to the civil
authorities to “avoid the sin against the Holy Ghost.” If “free rein were given” to “kill
heretics,” there would be a massive loss of life among competing religious
groups. Admonition or banishment should
have been the severest punishment inflicted on Servetus, wrote Joris, if indeed
he “is a heretic or a sectary before God.”
Persecutors act “in the time of their ignorance and blindness similar to
Paul’s.”[59]
By 1551 Castellio had completed a translation of the
Bible into Latin. Its preface,
dedicated to the young King Edward VI of England, insisted that “there is much
in Scripture which we do not understand and hence about which we should not
persecute” and pointed to yet to be fulfilled biblical predictions which should
discourage the passing of “hasty judgments.”[60] “We declare
that we are not allowed to kill anyone,” wrote Castellio, “yet we deliver men
to Pilate and if he releases we say that he is no friend of Caesar.” This “is done through zeal for Christ and .
. . in His name,” thus covering “the cruelty of the wolf with sheep's
clothing.” Instead of following the
patterns of toleration in Judas Maccabeus, Moses, Gamaliel, and Paul,
persecutors “pull up the tares.”
Moreover, “it is absurd to wage spiritual war with earthly arms. The enemies of the Christians are the vices
which are to be cured by the virtues.
The office of the doctor [i.e., teacher] is not to be committed to the
executioner.” “If we suffer Turks and
Jews to live among us” and also various kinds of immoral people, “we ought at
least to concede the right to breathe the common air to those who
confess with us the same Christ and harm no one.”[61] In the
“Preface” to his French translation of the Bible (1555) Castellio called
for the cessation of persecution and martyrdom on the basis of an analogy: the ending of a battle at nightfall lest
friends be killed instead of enemies and for the same precaution the silencing
of the artillery in daytime when hand to hand combat has begun.[62]
Concerning Heretics: Whether They Are to Be Persecuted and How They Are to Be Treated; A Collection of the opinions of Learned Men Both Ancient and
Modern, a refutation of the burning
of Servetus, appeared in 1554 one month after Calvin's Defence had
appeared. The anthology contained passages
from certain Church Fathers, Luther, Brenz, Erasmus, Franck, and others and
passages attributed to one “George Kleinberg” and to “Basil Montfort.”
The “Dedication” to Duke
Christoph of Württemberg was attributed to one “Martin Bellius.” Modern scholarship has tended to regard
Kleinberg, Montfort, and Bellius as pseudonyms of Castellio, although Castellio
may have been assisted by others. The
“Dedication,” according to Rufus M. Jones, “is one of the mother documents on
freedom of conscience from which in time came a large offspring.”[63]
Christ is the Prince of this world who on His departure
from the earth foretold to men that He would return some day at an uncertain
hour, and He commanded them to prepare white robes for His coming, that is to
say, that they should live together in a Christian manner, amicably, without
controversy and contention, loving one another.[64]
But instead disputes over the
person of Christ, the Trinity, predestination, and free will, have engendered
pride and led to condemnation and persecution-- “banishments, chains,
imprisonments, takes, and gallows.”
Those striving “to prepare the white robe,” if deviating from the
majority on any dogma, have been ruthlessly put to death, the action being
attributed to the “will” of Christ. But
will Christ at his coming, the prince was asked, commend such activity? Ought Antipaedobaptism to be treated as a
crime? Let the persecutors examine
their own consciences and lives. A man
may be falsely accused of being a “heretic,” and the punishment of a genuine
“heretic” may be too severe. Indeed
Christian history shows that “persecution has always accompanied genuine
religion.” Moreover, Christians, “when
elevated to riches and power, degenerate” and, betraying Christ, “defend Mars
and convert true religion into force and violence.” People tend to apply the label “heretic” to all “with whom” they
“disagree,” whether or not their contrary teaching is accompanied by great
moral offenses. Jews and Turks are not
to be condemned but won “by true religion and justice” and mercy. Professing Christians, moreover, ought to be
able to live together with their disagreements until reaching a true
unity. If Christ were a persecutor, we
would reckon him “a Satan.”[65]
Deploring the
bloodshed of the contemporary wars of religion, Castellio as “George Kleinberg”
argued that if heretics are indeed the “tares,” then they should not be put to
death but Left to the harvest, and, on the contrary, if the “tares” should mean
criminals, the stay of their executions until the end of the age would mean
that “the world could not endure” with such rampant crime. “He who suffers persecution for the faith is
either correct or mistaken. If he is
correct he should not be harmed. If he
is mistaken he should be forgiven.” But
the “bloodthirsty” are “drunk with the cup of Antichrist.”[66]
Under the
pseudonym “Basil Montfort” Castellio accused the promoters of persecution of
collecting and misusing biblical texts to “enflame princes to bloodshed.” Castellio sought “to answer the arguments of
the persecutors” in order “to open their eyes” so “that others may not be
deceived by their authority.” He then
dealt with specific texts, especially in the Pentateuch and in Acts,[67] in an effort to
show that they do not advocate death for “heretics.” Castellio noted that the office of the magistrate and the office
of the minister are “vastly different” and not interchangeable, as Calvin
himself had taught, and hence the magistrate ought not to “kill by the sword
those whom the minister ought to kill by the word.” Nor can the citation of the “examples and decrees” of Roman
emperors “for the punishment of heretics” sustain the contemporary case for
persecution, because there were emperors who avoided cruel religious
persecution: Gratian, Valentinian,
Valens, and Theodosius. Furthermore,
“to resort to force even in civil matters is a confession of quilt and a lack
of confidence in the justice of one's case.”
Christ's wisdom needs “no other weapons.” Castellio stood, it would seem, in the succession of Abel, not of
Cain.[68] Those who
persecute for religious beliefs are Ishmaelites. Even as the “younger and weaker” Isaac could not persecute
Ishmael, so “Christians, because they are born after the Antichrists, are
weaker and are not able to persecute the Antichrists.” Even as Sarah did not cast out Ishmael but
asked her husband Abraham to do so, so also the contemporary church ought not
to cast out or punish “the ungodly,” i.e., heretics, but rather to ask God or
Christ to do the same in the eschatological judgment.[69]
In his Counsel to
France in Her Distress (1562), wherein he warned that the effort to
restrain religion would bring ruin to the nation, Castellio made appeals both
to the Catholics and to the Evangelicals.
To the Catholics he wrote: You
have severely persecuted the Evangelicals for the “crime” of not accepting the
pope, the mass, and purgatory, which are not mentioned in the Bible. Do you profess as Catholics “to maintain the
Catholic faith contained in the sacred Scriptures” and yet burn “heretics” who
wish to believe only what is in the Scriptures? For this you will have to answer to Christ the Judge on the last
day. To the Evangelicals he wrote: You formerly endured persecution with
patience, loving your enemies and returning good for evil. But now some of you are fighting with carnal
weapons; though Christ's commandment is
unchanged, you “shed blood,” “force consciences,” and “condemn as infidels
those who do not agree with your doctrine.”
In so doing you follow your “enemies” and violate the Golden Rule. Of both Catholics and Evangelicals who
engage in violence Castellio asked whether they would want to have their
consciences forced. Catholics by
persecuting Luther and Lutherans had multiplied their numbers, and Evangelicals
had been blessed of God so long as they “fought with spiritual arms.” Alas, Zwingli took the sword and perished by
it! Here is the dilemma; if the persecuted goes against his
conscience, he will be finally “damned”;
if he goes with his conscience, he will lose his property and his life.[70]
In the same year (1562)
Castellio, using the pseudonym “Vaticanus,” produced his Reply to
Calvin's Book in Which He Endeavors to Show That Heretics should be Coerced by
the Right of the Sword.
Calvin's program, Castellio contended, would result in the extermination
of all non‑Calvinists except Jews and Turks. Christ's rule (Matt.‑l.8:15‑17) is private
admonition, the taking of witnesses, and the report to the church; but Calvin's rule is admonition, prison, and
the magisterial rod.[71] He asked Calvin,
If Servetus had attacked you by arms, you had rightly
been defended by the magistrate; but
since he opposed you in writings, why did you oppose them with iron and flame?
. . . And do you dare upbraid the
Papists? Produce a single instance in
which the Panists dragged a Lutheran or Calvinist from Mass to prison as
Servetus among you was dragged from a sermon.[72]
Castellio countered: “To assert one's faith is not to burn a man,
but rather to be burned.” Indeed in Christ's
kingdom the “sword is not admitted . . . save to kill Christ and His
disciples. There are those who bear the
sword as ministers of God, but to punish malefactors, not to erect the kingdom
of Christ.”[73] As if reaching
his peroration Castellio, declared:
To kill a man is not to defend a doctrine, but to kill a
man.
When the Genevans killed Servetus they did not defend a doctrine;
they killed a man. . . . What has the
sword to do with doctrine?[74]
Castellio answered
successively Calvin's attempt to use as support for sixteenth‑century
persecution of “heretics” Jesus, driving of the moneychangers from the temple,
Peter's “striking” Ananias and Sapphira “with sudden death,” and
Nebuchadnezzar's application of the death penalty to those who blasphemed the
God of Israel. Calvin tried to attach
to the literal interpretation of the parable of the tares the charge that it
would destroy all church discipline, and he downgraded the advice of Gamaliel
on the same ground. Both Calvin and
“the sects,” declared Castellio, claim that “their religion” has been
“established by the Word of God.” Both
wish to judge the truth. “Who made
Calvin judge of all the sects, that he alone should kill?” But, it should be
noted, Castellio did not advocate religious freedom for all. Those whom he called “the impious, the
despisers of Sacred Scripture and blasphemers” could be rightly “punished by
the magistrate, not on account of religion‑‑they have none‑‑but
on account of irreligion” to the extent of imprisonment, “in the the hope of
correction.”[75]
Bainton understands Castellio’s “theory of religious liberty” as the result of the confluence of two streams: “the ethical and rational, borrowed largely from Erasmus” and “the spiritual and mystical taken from Sebastian Franck and the German mystics.” According to the ethical, “deed is more important than creed” and “deeds must be the test of creeds.” According to the rational, “We do not know enough to persecute.” According to the spiritual, religion is a thing of the Spirit, which the carnal can neither judge nor create.” According to the mystical, “the way of salvation” and hence the way to God “is the bearing of the cross,” or the way of suffering. By combining the two, or indeed four streams, according to Bainton, Castellio avoided both the “rabid anti-clericalism” that may result from “rationalism” and the “strident prophetism” that may issue from “mysticism.” Whereas Johannes Kühn has attributed the limits which Castellio placed on