History of Christian thought on persecution and tolerance

Persecution is an aimed "hostility, combined with ill-treatment, especially because of race or political or religious beliefs." Such hostility and ill-treatment can vary in degree and type from social persecution such as preventing employment, exclusion from participation in communal activities, blocking a person's promotion, or repressing how much and whether a person gets paid for their work to more serious forms of institutionalized persecution. This can also take many forms from withholding building permits for building, repairing or protecting sacred places, to the denial of legal rights, interference with an inheritance, unequal representation in the courts, false arrest, criminalization and defamation, and even violence against individuals and groups through assault, maiming, torture and death.

Tolerance, as defined by Merriam-Webster, is an "indulgence (benevolent forgiveness and allowance) for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one's own." The concept of tolerance assumes the existence of a disagreement over something considered important that cannot be resolved through normal means without violence or war. Tolerance is essentially modern and is not generally found before the Reformation and the subsequent Enlightenment period. Indeed, even the history of the study of tolerance doesn't go further back than the 18th century. However, there is some evidence of similar ideals in earlier thought, and scholars of tolerance, and historians, agree the modern concept has a "prehistory" traceable to those ideals.

Both these concepts inherently contain the idea of alterity, the state of otherness. In some instances in history, therefore, tolerance would have been seen as ‘a flawed virtue’ because it concerns acceptance of things it was believed were better overcome. “The fact that ‘tolerance is not by definition good, and intolerance is not by definition bad,’ further complicates our understanding of tolerance.” Murphy explains that "We can improve our understanding by defining "toleration" as a set of social or political practices and "tolerance" as a set of attitudes."

While it is not possible to give a thorough view, a historical overview of the inclusivity and exclusivity which are both inherent to Christian thought, including views on religious persecution, the other, heresy, heterogeneity, hospitality, forced conversion, supersessionism, deicide, and other related topics, gives an indication of some of the Christian thinking that forms the pre-history of the concept of tolerance and practices of persecution. Scholars say tolerance has never been an attitude broadly espoused by an entire society, not even in western societies, and that only a few outstanding individuals, historically, have truly fought for it. There is a long list of such individuals from a variety of viewpoints who advocated for tolerance in the century preceding, during, and after the Reformation and into the Enlightenment. In contemporary thought, tolerance is no longer reserved for religious differences only but "is applied to diverging political orientations, ethnic and racial diversity, gender issues and matters such as homosexuality, euthanasia and abortion. The common denominator remains, that tolerance comes into play when beliefs are controversial and intergroup relations conflictual." Contemporary Christians generally agree that tolerance is preferable to conflict, and that heresy and dissent are not deserving of punishment.

Early Christian Thought from the First to the Fourth Centuries

Early Christianity was a minority religion in the Roman Empire and the early Christians were persecuted, on and off, during their first 300 years. The influence of such persecution on Christian thought was mixed, producing both increased commitment and apostasy. Early Christian communities were highly inclusive in terms of social stratification and other social categories, much more so than were the Roman voluntary associations. Heterogeneity characterized the Pauline groups, and the role of women was much greater than in either of the forms of Judaism or paganism in existence at the time. Early Christians were told to love others, even enemies, and Christians of all classes and sorts called each other "brother" and "sister." These concepts and practices were foundational to early Christian thought, have remained central, and can be seen as early precursors to modern concepts of tolerance.

According to religion scholar Guy Stroumsa, these early groups represent part of the pre-history of tolerance as a concept. Though not a fully developed concept, and one held with some ambivalence, Stroumsa says Christian thought of this era presents both inclusivity, and it invents the concept of heresy at the same time. Tertullian (155-200 CE) was a Christian intellectual in late second century Africa who advocated for religious tolerance. It was primarily an effort to convince pagan readers that Christianity should be allowed into the religious ‘market-place’ that John North says second century Rome had become. On the other hand, G.Stroumsa says Tertullian also knew co-existence meant competition, so he attempted to delegitimize that competition through images of idolatry and Christian identity at the same time he advocated for tolerance. It is not known exactly when Tertullian wrote his Apologeticus pro Christianis, but it was during the same era when Irenaeus (130-202 CE) wrote Adversus Haereses, and Justin Martyr (100-165) wrote the First Apology which are generally considered as polemics against heretics.

New Testament scholar Eric Osborn asserts that Justin Martyr, who saw Christianity as the fulfillment of his former Platonism and is generally attributed with inventing the concept of heresy in Christian thought, does not simply write polemic. He says Justin writes only to answer objections his friends are facing and to defend these friends from ill treatment and even death. He quotes Justin in a letter to the emperor as saying he is writing: "On behalf of those from every race of men who are unjustly hated and ill-treated, being one of them myself." However, Le Boulluec notes that it is within this same second century that both meaning and use of the term “heretic” in Christian thought and writings changes from neutral to derogatory.

It isn't possible to precisely date the genesis of supersessionism (replacement theology) in Christian thought, but it probably began in the second century. The belief that Christianity did not only provide an alternative to Judaism, but that it replaced it, superseded it, is a vein of Christian thought that many believe developed into anti-semitism. Justin Martyr in his Dialogue 11, 123,124, is the first to write that Christianity has become the new Israel, but Justin is no anti-semite. He says Christians should pray for Jews, that Jews should continue to exist among Christians, but that their hope, as Justin sees hope for everyone, lies in conversion to Christianity and not in Judaism. Deicide as the prime accusation against the Jews appears for the first time in a highly rhetorical poem by Melito of which only a few fragments have survived. His writings were not influential and the idea was not immediately influential either, but it returned in fourth century thinking and sixth century actions and again in the late middle ages.

Antiquity: from Constantine to the 500s

Main article: Persecution of Pagans by the Christian Roman Empire

See also: Constantinian shift

After he adopted Christianity following the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, Constantine I issued the Edict of Milan in 313 (together with his co-emperor Licinius) granting religious toleration to the Christian faith. The Edict did not only protect Christians from religious persecution, but all religions, allowing anyone to worship whichever deity they chose. After 320, Constantine continuously supported the Christian church with his patronage, had a number of basilicas built for the Christian church, and endowed it with land and other wealth. In doing this, he required the still largely pagan government "to foot the bill" which led to the closure of some pagan temples due to a lack of support. While not making a direct contribution to Christian thought, he was an influencer who began a "political theology" which shows up again in the middle ages.

After Constantine, Christianity gradually became the dominant religion in the Roman Empire. In the view of many historians, the Constantinian shift turned Christianity from a persecuted religion into a persecuting religion. However, the claim that there was a Constantinian shift has been disputed. Theologian Peter Leithart argues that there was a "brief, ambiguous 'Constantinian moment' in the early fourth century", but that there was "no permanent, epochal "Constantinian shift"". Instead, fourth century Rome featured sociological, political, economic and religious competition, producing tensions and hostilities between various groups, leading the fourth century to become one of the most polemical centuries in the history of Christian thought.

During the course of his life, Constantine progressively became more Christian and turned away from any syncretic tendencies he appeared to favour at times, thus demonstrating, according to some of his biographers, that "The God of the Christians was indeed a jealous God who tolerated no other gods beside him. The Church could never acknowledge that she stood on the same plane with other religious bodies, she conquered for herself one domain after another".

Fourth Century Christian Thought

Historians and theologians often refer to the fourth century as the "golden age" of Christian thought. Towering figures such as John Chrysostom, Ambrose, Jerome, Basil, Gregory of Nazianus, Gregory of Nissa, and the prolific Augustine, all made a permanent mark on Christian thought and history itself. They were primarily defenders of what they saw as apostolic orthodoxy of the time, many of whom wrote polemics dealing with the theological and philosophical conflicts of the era, and some had a long term effect on tolerance and persecution in Christian thought.

In the East, there was the Arian controversy with its debate of Trinitarian formulas. Athanasius, who was on the receiving end of violence whenever the Arians were in power, believed that violence was justified in weeding this out. John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople, is best known for his brilliant oratory and his exegetical works on moral goodness and social responsibility, but his Discourses Against the Jews is almost pure polemic, using replacement theology (also known as supersessionism) that he either derived independently or from the second century writings of Melito.

In north Africa, Augustine of Hippo, one of history’s most influential theologians and philosophers, had originally rejected all violence in religious matters. At this time, Augustine characterized himself in De utilitate credenti (392) as cupidus veri, eager for truth. Later, this changed, and he justified the use of violence against the Donatists: "and so Augustine has appeared to generations of religious liberals as ‘le prince et patriarche des persécuteurs’." Since hostility is a necessary aspect of true persecution, this view of Augustine is debated.

After the Diocletian persecution of the third century, many of those who had recanted wanted to return to the church. Donatists refused to accept them back as clergy and remained resentful toward the old Roman government. Catholics wanted to wipe the slate clean and accommodate the new government under Constantine. Attempts to reconcile the Donatists, made by Constantine, a number of Popes and councils, and respected religious leaders such as Augustine of Hippo, all failed. Donatists fomented protests and street violence, refused compromise, attacked random Catholics without warning, doing serious and unprovoked bodily harm such as beating people with clubs, cutting off their hands and feet, and gouging out eyes. After decades of seeing people he was responsible for on the receiving end of such violence, and his failure to affect it through persuasion and debate, Bishop Augustine of Hippo in letter 93., described himself as quietis avidus, needing rest, and gave as his reason: the Donatists.

Augustine, who believed the church had responsibility for training and disciplining its people, became convinced of the effectiveness of mild forms of what he called "discipline," and what others have called persecution, to deal with them, writing a justification for using mild force to “educate” the Donatists. His authority on this question was undisputed for over a millennium in Western Christianity and it provided the foundation for later thought on discipline and what became persecution in the High Middle Ages. Within this Augustinian consensus, there was always disagreement about the extent to which Christians should "discipline" heretics but not whether. However, after Augustine wrote, the Donatists were persecuted by the Roman government to such a degree that Augustine later protested their treatment. Augustine had advocated fines, imprisonment, banishment, and moderate floggings, but, according to Henry Chadwick, "would have been horrified by the burning of heretics."

In the west in Spain, Priscillianism was taking hold. In 385, Priscillian, a bishop in Spain, was the first Christian to be executed for heresy, though this sentence was roundly condemned by prominent church leaders like Ambrose. Priscillian was also accused of gross sexual immorality and acceptance of magic, and politics may have been involved in his sentencing.

Anti-paganism

Theodosius’ Edict of Thessalonica was designed as the final word on the controversy between paganism and the early church. With it, the old pagan religions were now suppressed. Temples were destroyed, monetary support withdrawn, and various other repressive measures were taken. This represents Christian thought at the time. However,"throughout the period of absolute monarchy known as the Dominate, (284-476), there were many signs of continuing paganism." There were no mass murders of pagans sponsored by the church, and though there was periodic mob violence, peaceful non-Christians were protected under the Theodosian decrees. Decree 16.10.24 of the Edicts, promulgated June 8, 423, also represents Christian thought. It says:

‘Sed hoc Christianis, qui vel vere sunt vel esse dicuntur, specialiter demandamus, ut Iudaeis ac paganis in quiete degentibus nihilque temptantibus turbulentum legibusque contrarium non audeant manus inferre religionis auctoritate abusi.' English translation: "But above all we demand this to Christian people, whether they’re really Christian or just call themselves so: that they don’t dare, abusing religious authority, lift their hand to Jews or Pagans that live in peace, and don’t attempt anything for insurrection or against the laws." (In fact, if they are violent against the quiet ones or damage their possessions, they will return what they took not once, but three or four times. Provincial governors and officials too must be aware that, if they allowed what happened, they too will be punished.)

In the Massacre of Thessalonica, Theodosius’ killed 7000 pagans who rioted over a local power struggle. Bishop Ambrose was appalled and refused to see him until he repented and made a law to prevent it happening again.

Hypatia (born c. 350–370; died 415) was a philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician in Alexandria, Egypt. She had both pagan and Christian students, and was well thought of in both communities. She was murdered by a mob in one of the most well known acts of violence in Antiquity. Historical accounts vary. Damascius sees Hypatia as a philosopher who fell victim to Christian anti-intellectual violence. This view is hard to support since some of Hypatia's students were eminent Christian intellectuals who would not have attended her school if Christian leadership had disapproved. John of Nikiu presents her death as a triumph of Christianity over paganism. Both of these versions pandered to emotion over fact and served the ideological needs of the teller over history. Socrates Scholasticus presents a less emotional, more historical, report of Hypatia's murder as a result of her involvement with the highly charged political situation in Alexandria. He makes no mention of any role that Hypatia's paganism, or her science, or her philosophy might have played in her death. Christian writings of the time reflect genuine mourning of her death with no approval of mob violence. However, rumors of Bishop Cyril's involvement persist to this day.

Perceptions of alterity in Antiquity are still a matter of intense research and controversial debate. Benjamin Isaac has collected considerable material from Antiquity and interpreted it as the "invention of racism.” Erich S. Gruen, on the other hand, has tried to show “that ancient societies, while certainly acknowledging differences among peoples (indeed occasionally emphasizing them) could also visualize themselves as part of a broader cultural heritage, could discover or invent links with other societies, and could couch their own historical memories in terms of a borrowed or appropriated past.”

Dark Ages (500 ~ 800)

Main article: Dark Ages (historiography)

In the immediate aftermath of the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, Christian writers were more concerned with preserving the past than in composing original works. Life had returned to an agrarian subsistence type, and sometime in the 500s, settled somewhat. Missionary activity was peaceful. The Germanic tribes which had overthrown Rome became the new rulers, dividing the empire between them. In most of history, the victors imposed their religion on the newly subjugated people, however, these Germanic tribes gradually adopted Christianity instead. This brought, in its wake, a broad process of cultural change that lasted for the next 500 years. What had been formed by the unity of the classical world and Christianity, was now transplanted into Germanic tribal culture, thereby forming a new synthesis that became western European Christendom. This combination with the Germanic warrior tradition had an eventual impact on Christian thought on tolerance and persecution.

There is some evidence of toleration in the writings of the 8th century monk Bede between pagan and Christian religious leaders, but as a rule, the focus of this era was voluntary conversion, not toleration.

The Jews

Jews and Gentiles mostly lived at peace alongside each other. Any forced conversion of the Jews generally took place during riots which were led by mobs, local leaders, and lower level clergy without the support of church leaders and without agreement with Christian thought. This is because, as historians generally agree, Catholic thought on the Jews, before the 1200s, was guided by the teachings of Augustine of Hippo (354 AD-430 AD). Augustine's position on the Jews, with its accompanying argument for their "immunity from religious coercion enjoyed by virtually no other community in post-Theodosian antiquity" was preceded by a positive evaluation of the Jewish past, and its relationship to divine justice and human free will. Augustine rejected those who argued that the Jews should be killed, or forcibly converted, by saying that Jews should be allowed to live in Christian societies and practice Judaism without interference because they preserved the teachings of the Old Testament and were witnesses to the teachings of the New Testament.

Gregory the Great, who became the Roman Pope in 590, followed Roman Law and Augustinian thought with regard to how the Jews should be treated. He wrote the Bishop of Terracina that:

"Those who differ from the Christian religion must be won to the unity of the faith by gentleness, by kindness, by admonition, by exhortation, lest we repel by threats and ill treatment those who might have been allured to the faith by the charm of instruction and the anticipated fear of the coming judge. It is more desirable that they should assemble with kindly feelings to hear from you the word of God, than that they should tremble at the immoderate exercise of your severity."

Gregory was always opposed to violent conversions, but offered "incentives" such as remission of taxes to Jews who wanted to convert. In 828, Gregory IV wrote a letter to the Bishops in Gaul and Germany warning that Jews must not be baptized by force. Even Pope Innocent III, who generally found the behavior of Jews in Christian society to be "intolerable," still agreed that the Jews should not be killed or forcibly converted when he called for the Second Crusade.

Benedict

St.Benedict, (480-547), was another major figure who impacted pre-modern ideals of tolerance in Christian thought. Considered the father of western monasticism, he wrote his Rule around three values: community, prayer, and hospitality. This hospitality was extended to anyone without discrimination. "Pilgrims and visitors from every rank of society from crowned heads to poorest peasants, came in search of prayers or alms, protection and hospitality."

Byzantium

Visigothic leaders in Spain subjected the Jews to persecution and unsuccessful efforts to convert them forcibly. The Visigoths were strongly influenced by Byzantine legal codes, which were themselves influenced by the Christian thought of the fourth century John Chrysostom, instead of Augustine. Following the Council of Chalcedon in 451, dispute over the role of Mary and the nature of Christ developed into a schism between the Christians in Byzantium and the Coptic Christians in Egypt. In 567 the Patriarchate of Alexandria split. Sources speak of the destruction, by the Persian army in the employ of the Byzantines, of over 600 Coptic monastic establishments. The Byzantines persecuted the Copts, but it did not last long as the Arab army invaded Egypt in 639 and occupied the entire country within two years.

Early Middle Ages (800 ~ 1000)

Main article: Early Middle Ages

Early Middle Ages

Charlemagne's empire included most of modern France, Germany, the Low Countries, Austria and northern Italy.

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•   Charlemagne's empire (814)

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Balkan Peninsula / Western Asia

•   East Roman Empire
•   Abbasid Caliphate
•   Bulgaria
•   Croatia
•   Serbia

Northern Europe / Scandinavian Peninsula

•   Norsemen
•   Finnish Tribes
•   Swedes and Goths
•   Danes

Eastern Europe

•   Esthland
•   Slavonic Tribes
•   Kingdom of the Chazars
•   Atelcusu (Magyars)
•   Kingdom of the Avars (not shown)

British Isles

•   Ireland
•   Picts
•   Scots
•   Welsh
•   Angles

Italian peninsula

•   Duchy of Beneventum
•   Sardinia
•   Sicily

Iberian peninsula

•   Kingdom of Galicia
•   Emirate of Cordova

An event of persecution took place in 782 in what had been Roman Gaul and would one day be modern France. Charlemagne was king. As king, he advocated Christian principles, had at least one Christian advisor, and openly supported Christian missions. The Franks had been fighting the Saxons since Charlemagne's grandfather, with Charlemagne himself beginning in earnest in 772, taking years to finally defeat them. They made treaties. The events of 782 began when Widukind, the Saxon leader, persuaded a group of Saxons who had submitted to Charlemagne, to break their treaty and rebel. Charlemagne was elsewhere, so they went to battle with the Frankish army that had been left behind and annihilated it. They killed two of the King’s chief lieutenants, and some of his closest companions and counsellors. Charlemagne gathered his forces, returned to Saxony, conquered the Saxon rebels, giving them the option of convert or die. The Saxons largely refused, and though no one knows the number for sure, it is said 4500 unarmed prisoners were murdered in what is called the "Massacre of Verden." Massive deportations followed, and death was decreed as the penalty for any Saxon who refused baptism thereafter.

Alcuin of York, Charlemagne's Christian advisor who was not present in Verden, later wrote his king that: "Faith must be voluntary not coerced. Converts must be drawn to the faith not forced. A person can be compelled to be baptized yet not believe. An adult convert should answer what he truly believes and feels, and if he lies, then he will not have true salvation.". This was the accepted position of Christian thought at this time but that began to change by the end of this era.

Crusades

See also: Crusades

In 1095 at the Council of Claremont, in response to an appeal for help from the Patriarch of Constantinople, Urban II preached a sermon urging his listeners to undertake an expedition to the Near East under papal leadership. It is probably the most studied sermon in history. This is problematic, since the original has been lost and the three writers who attended the Council of Clermont recorded three different versions which are each quite distinctive in content and style. However, there is some consensus that a comparison of the best 5 versions of the sermon (the three witnesses and two they told personally) makes it possible to identify the subjects Urban discussed and reach some conclusions on Christian thinking on crusade.

The necessity of aiding the brethren in the East is in all versions; that there were appeals for aid from the East is mentioned in four of the five best sources; the victorious advance of the Turks is mentioned in three and assumed in the other two; the suffering of Christians and/or pilgrims in the East is mentioned by all; desecration or destruction of churches and Christian Holy places is mentioned by all; the idea this is God's work is mentioned by all; that rich and poor alike should go is mentioned only by one; plenary indulgence is mentioned by all and confirmed by the canon of the Council; expressions of contempt for Turks are present in all, use the common terms of the era, and whether they are from the authors or Urban is unknown; fight a righteous war instead of local combats is mentioned in all versions; and the special sanctity of Jerusalem is mentioned by three. There is no call to convert Muslims or occupy land, but the call to rescue and aid those portrayed as in need, through the application of military force, exemplifies a powerful shifting of Christian thought.

According to author and historian Robert G. Clouse:

It is clear from the crusades that what finally overpowered the early Christian teaching against violence was not merely a just war theory but rather a merger of violence and holiness at all levels of Christian life. ... The liturgy was expanded to include the blessing of weapons and standards. Knights were consecrated by ceremonies which were often a revival of old pagan customs. There were new militant religious orders established such as the Templars who promised to fight the enemies of God in addition to taking the normal vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. When violence became sacred, the enemy was believed to be diabolical. Thus the Turks were looked upon as opponents of the kingdom of God, a fulfillment of the forces of the antichrist as predicted in the book of Revelation.

This view of holiness and violence as merged in Christian thought is supported in Riley-Smith who says the crusades were products of the renewed spirituality of the central Middle Ages, with its concern for living the vita apostolica and expressing Christian ideals in active works of charity, exemplified by the new hospitals, the pastoral work of the Augustinians and Premonstratensians, and the service of the friars. Smith says, "The charity of St. Francis may now appeal to us more than that of the crusaders, but both sprang from the same roots." Indeed, crusading was seen as an act of Christian charity, of selfless love, of “laying down one’s life for one’s friends”: an act of duty and service, to God and to others.

New scholarship directly challenges old largely dated views of the crusades as acts of intolerance. Historians undertook a revision of this view earlier this century and postmodern scholars have continued that revision. Concepts of tolerance and intolerance were not starting points for thoughts about relations for any of the various groups involved in or affected by the crusades. Instead, concepts of tolerance began to grow during the crusades from efforts to define legal limits and the nature of co-existence. The greatest intellectual figure of the time was William, archbishop of Tyre and chancellor of the kingdom. Like others of his day, he did not start with a notion of tolerance, but he did contribute to its eventual development in his thought and writings.

Ideas such as holy war and Christian chivalry, in both Christian thought and culture, continued to evolve gradually from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries. This can be traced in expressions of law, traditions, tales, prophecy, and historical narratives, in letters, bulls and poems written during the crusading period.

High middle ages (1000 - 1200 CE)

Religion, society and politics are so intertwined in the High Middle ages that it is impossible to separate them. The primary focus of Christian thought was on the development of a genuine rationalist tradition created by Thomas Aquinas, the scholastics, and the newly founded Universities. St. Thomas Aquinas supported tolerance as a general principle, using the analogy between human and divine law to teach that human government is derived from divine government which it should imitate. God is all-powerful, yet He permits evil in the universe in order to prevent the suppression of greater goods or the creation of worse evils. Aquinas said it should be the same with human government: governing well includes tolerating some evil in order to foster good or prevent worse evil.

However, culture was highly diverse and interconnected such that change in one area affected change in the other, and politics and society began to change. Kings began centralizing power into themselves and their nation-state, building their own armies of mercenaries, and taking over legal processes that had traditionally belonged to local nobles and local church officials. Feudalism began to decline. The question of church authority in the West had remained unsettled until the eleventh century, when the 'papal monarchy' began, as the church hierarchy worked to centralize power into the Pope, and the church gradually began to resemble its secular counterparts in its conduct, thought, and objectives.

Heresy

There is a vast array of scholarly opinions on heresy, including whether it actually existed. Russell says that, as the church became more centralized and hierarchical, it was able to more clearly define orthodoxy than it ever had before, and concepts of heresy developed along with it as a result. Heresy was a religious, political, and social issue, so "the first stirrings of violence against dissidents were usually the result of popular resentment." There are many examples of this popular resentment involving mobs murdering heretics and most historians agree this is what led to the medieval inquisitions. Leaders reasoned that both lay and church authority had an obligation to step in when sedition, peace, or the general stability of society was part of the issue. However, Roger Moore says these examples reflect dispute over jurisdiction from authorities in search of power. Mitchell Merback speaks of three groups involved: the civil authorities, the church and the people.

The dissemination of popular heresy to the laity (non-clergy) was a new problem for the bishops of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, since heresy had previously been an accusation made solely toward Bishops and other church leaders who knew and understood theology. The collection of ecclesiastical law from Burchard of Worms around 1002 did not include the concept of popular heresy at all. Clergy understood that ordinary people often had uninformed and mistaken beliefs. The idea that the church was divided between the intellectuals and the ordinary people colored the thinking of all. This was taught to every theology student during lectures on a key textbook "Four Books of the Sentences of Peter Lombard." The official response was to simply correct them.

While there were acts of violence in response to heresy undertaken by secular powers for their own reasons, Christian thought on this problem (at the beginning of the High Middle Ages) still tended to coincide with Wazo of Liège who said reports of heresy should be investigated, true heretics excommunicated, and their teachings publicly rebuked. "Although much inquisitorial history has been written as though papally appointed inquisitors were the only zealous pursuers of heretics in medieval Europe, the inquisitors were always less violent, and often less zealous, than secular judges in dealing with heretics."

However, by the end of the eleventh century Christian thought had evolved a definition of heresy as the "deliberate rejection of the truth." This helped revive the church's early belief in punishment as an appropriate response to the church's need to police itself. The Council of Montpellier in 1062 and the Council of Toulouse in 1119 both demanded that heretics be handed over to secular powers for legal retributive punishment. As most Bishops thought this would be participation in shedding blood, and because retribution is not about reclamation, it didn't happen until 1148 when the notorious and violent Eon de l'Etoile was so delivered. Eon was found mad, but a number of his followers were burned. This marks a watershed in the history of Christian thought that opened wide the door to persecution.

The Albigensian crusade

Main article: Albigensian crusade

Cathars, also known as Albigensians, were the largest of the heretic groups of the late 1100s and early 1200s. Pope Innocent III initiated the campaign against them. From 1125-1229, Cistercian monks left their isolation and served as itinerant preachers traversing town and country in anti-heretical campaigns, especially against the Albigensians. This Cistercian anti-heretical preaching is important to the history of church discipline and whether a line between it and persecution existed. The Dominicans, founded in 1206, picked up the anti-heretical baton after them.

Scholars have disagreed on whether the brutal nature of the Albigensian war was determined more by the Pope or by King Philip Augustus of France and his proxies. Some, such as J. Sumption, say the Pope was the true leader, in which case the campaign would reflect Christian thought. Others like Robert Moore say it was the king, that he “needed a way to channel the aggressive nature [of his nobles] in the north and establish dominance in the South,” and the Pope merely provided an excuse for something the king wanted to do anyway. In that case, the conduct of the campaign would reflect contemporary methods of war without necessarily reflecting Christian thought. Markale states that it was Phillip who petitioned Innocent for permission to conduct the Crusade because he had heard of a treasure the Cathars had brought back from crusading.. K.Repgen writes: "The Albigensian war was indisputably a case of the interlinking of religion and politics" which was the nature of society at the time.

Massacre at Béziers

On 22 July, 1209, in the first battle of the Albigensian crusade, mercenaries rampaged through the streets, killing and plundering. Those citizens who could, sought refuge in the churches and cathedrals, but there was no safety from the raging mob. The doors of the churches were broken open, and all inside were slaughtered."

Some twenty years later, an apocryphal story arose about this event claiming the papal legate, Arnaud Amaury, the leader of the crusaders, was said to have responded: “Kill them all, let God sort them out.” Historian Laurence W. Marvin says it is unlikely the legate ever said any thing at all. “The speed and spontaneity of the attack indicates that the legate probably did not know what was going on until it was over." Marvin adds they did not kill them all at any rate: "clearly most of Bezier’s population and buildings survived" and the city "continued to function as a major population center" after the campaign..

Some scholars say the legate probably did say it, that the statement is not inconsistent with what was recorded by the contemporaries of other church leaders, or with what is known of Arnaud Amaury's character and attitudes toward heresy. . ”WA and MD Sibly point out that: contemporary accounts suggest that, at this stage, the crusaders did not intend to spare those who resisted them, and the slaughter at Béziers was consistent with this."

The Pope's response was not prompt, but in 1213, just four years after the massacre, he canceled crusade indulgences for Languedoc and called for an end to the campaign. This was not reversed until the Fourth Lateran council re-instituted crusade two years later in 1215. How much any of this reflects Christian thought on persecution is heavily debated.

Inquisitions

The label Inquisition is problematic because it implies "an institutional coherence and an official unity that never existed in the Middle Ages." The Medieval Inquisition was actually a series of separate Inquisitions beginning from around 1184. Canon law was still developing at this time, and it was based on Roman law to such a degree that it can be said that the church reintroduced Roman law in Europe in the form of the Inquisition when it seemed that Germanic law had failed. In the Late Roman Empire, an inquisitorial system of justice had developed that allowed magistrates to investigate crimes in the absence of formal charges. The roles of evidence collector, prosecutor, and judge were combined in the inquisitor. This inquisitorial process was in place when the Roman Empire converted to Christianity in the fourth century, and it is the system that was revived in the middle ages. As a result, Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) made heresy a political question when he took Roman law’s doctrine of lèse-majesté, and combined it with his view of heresy as laid out in the 1199 decretal Vergentis in senium, thereby equating heresy with treason against God.

The historian Robert Moore says most complex traditional societies have contained some kind of persecution that occurred and subsided and occurred again, but that twelfth century Europe's persecution was more serious because it was characterized by the demonization of the accused, a new attitude, and mechanisms such as new laws, and the inquisitions, a new method. Medieval inquisitions were about bringing law and order to places where law had broken down, therefore, how much they represent Christian thought, and how much they represent a sociological movement, is without consensus. No pope ever succeeded in establishing complete control of the inquisitions. "The institution reached its apex in the second half of the 13th century. During this period, the tribunals were almost entirely free from any authority, including that of the pope. Therefore, it was almost impossible to eradicate abuse.”

Minorities

The cultural and religious process of centralizing power included the development, between the tenth to the thirteenth centuries, of a new kind of persecution aimed at minorities who provided much of the fodder for inquisition. For example, Peter Comestor (d.1197) was the first influential scholar to interpret biblical injunctions against sodomy as referring specifically to homosexual intercourse. The Third Lateran council of 1179 then became the first to legislate on it as deserving of being deprived of office or excommunicated. The Fourth Lateran council reduced those penalties, but later Gregory IX ordered the Dominicans to extirpate homosexuality from Germany. A series of legal codes were thereafter promulgated from the 1250s on in Spain, France, Italy and Germany. By 1300, places where sodomy was not a capitol offense had become the exception rather than the rule.

The Jews

Historians agree that the period which spanned the eleventh to the thirteenth century was a turning point in Jewish-Christian relations.

"Bernard of Clairvaux, (1090-1153) pillar of European monasticism and powerful twelfth century preacher, provides a perfect example of a Christian thinker who was balancing on a precipice, preaching hateful images of Jews but sounding Scripture based admonitions that they must be protected despite their nature.

Low level theological repartee had long existed between Jews and Christians. These interchanges attest to neighborly relations as Jews and Christians both struggled to fit the "other" into their sense of the demands of their respective faiths, and balance the human opponents who were facing them, with the traditions which they had inherited. By the thirteenth century that repartee had changed in both tone and quality, growing more polemical.

In 1215, the Fourth Lateran Council, known as the Great Council, met and accepted 70 canons that reflect Christian thinking as both militant and victorious in tone. It hammered out a working definition of Christian community, stating the essentials of membership in it, thereby defining the "other" within Christian thought for the next three centuries. The last three canons required Jews to distinguish themselves from Christians in their dress, prohibited them from holding public office, and prohibited Jewish converts from continuing to practice Jewish rituals. As Berger has articulated it: "The other side of the coin of unique toleration was unique persecution." There was an increased and focused effort to convert and baptize Jews rather than tolerate them.

Anti-semitism

The term anti-semitism was coined in the nineteenth century, however, many Jewish intellectuals have insisted that modern anti-semitism which is based on race, and the religiously based anti-Judaism of the past, are two forms of a single historical phenomenon. Other scholars follow John Gager by making a clear distinction between anti-Judaism and anti-semitism. Craig Evans defines anti-Judaism as opposition to Judaism as a religion, while anti-semitism is opposition to the Jewish people themselves. Langmuir insists that anti-Judaism did not become widespread in popular culture until the eleventh century when it took root among people who were being buffeted by rapid social and economic changes.

Supersessionism

Perhaps the greatest Christian thinker of the middle ages was Thomas Aquinas who continues to be highly influential in Catholicism. There is disagreement over where exactly Aquinas stood on the question of supersessionism. He did not teach punitive supersessionism, but did speak of Judaism as fulfilled and obsolete. Aquinas does appear to believe the Jews had been cast into spiritual exile for their rejection of Christ (On the Government of the Jews,233), but he also says Jewish observance of Law continues to have positive theological significance. Both views are found amongst other 13th century theologians.

Deicide

The Latin word deicidae was a translation of the Greek word that first appeared in Antiquity in Augustine's commentary on Psalm 65:1. Augustine concluded that the charge of Jewish deicide could only be valid if the Jews had known that Jesus was the son of God, but it could not be valid because they didn't. However, the accusation flourished in the middle ages as a result of the altered situation, and it was used to legitimize crimes against the Jews. The debate within Christian thought over the transubstantiation of the communion host helped foster the legend that Jews desecrated it. The ritual murder legend can also be tied to the accusation of Jewish deicide.. By 1255, when Jews were charged with Hugh of Lincoln's ritual murder, it was not the first time they had been charged with such a crime. At other times, such allegations were rejected after full investigations had been conducted.

Trial of the Torah

As their situation deteriorated, many Jews became enraged and the polemic between the two faiths sunk to new depths. As they learned how the central figures in Christianity were mocked, inquisitors went after the Talmud, and other Jewish writings. The Fourth Lateran council, in its 68th canon, placed on the secular authorities the responsibility for obtaining an answer from the Jews to the charge of blasphemy. For the first time in their history, Jews had to answer in a public trial the charges against them. There is no consensus in the sources as to who instigated the trial against the Talmud, but in June of 1239, Gregory IX (1237-1241) issued letters to various Archbishops and Kings across Europe in which he ordered them to seize all Jewish books and take them to the Dominicans for examination. The order was only heeded in Paris where, on June 25th, the Royal court was opened to hear the case. Eventually, each side claimed victory; a final verdict of guilt and condemnation was not announced until May of 1248, but the books had been burned six years before.

As a result of this trial, the people of Europe thought that, even if they had once had an obligation to preserve the Jews for the sake of the Old Testament, Talmudic Judaism was so different from its biblical sources that the old obligation no longer applied. In the words of Hebrew University historian Ben-Zion Dinur, from 1244 on, the state and the Church would “consider the Jews to be a people with no religion (benei bli dat) who have no place in the Christian world.”

Expulsions

Main article: Expulsions and exoduses of Jews

Expulsions of Jews in Europe from 1100 to 1600

The situation of the Jews differed from that of other victims of persecution during the eleventh and twelfth centuries because of their relationship with civic authorities and money. They often filled the role of financial agent or manager for the Lords; they and their possessions were considered the property of the King in England; and they were often exempted from taxes and other laws because of the importance of their usury. This attracted unpopularity, jealousy and resentment from non-Jews. As J. H. Mundy has put it: "The opponents of princes hated the Jews" and "almost every medieval movement against princely or seignorial power began by attacking Jews." Opposition to the Barons in England led to the Jewish expulsion in 1290. The expulsion from France in 1315 coincided with the formation of the league against arbitrary royal government. Princes were able to be less dependent on the Jews once they instituted general taxation and were less inclined to protect them and were instead more inclined to expel them and confiscate their property for themselves.

Townspeople also attacked Jews. "Otto of Friesing reports that Bernard of Clairvaux in 1146 silenced a wandering monk at Mainz who stirred up popular revolt by attacking the Jews," but as the people gained a measure of political power around 1300, they became one of Jewry's greatest enemies.

Churchmen were the idealogues who voiced the passion of their age, and the increase in hostility toward the Jews impacted Christian thought. Local anti-Jewish movements were often headed by local clergy, especially its radicals. The Fourth Lateran council of 1215 required Jews to restore 'grave and immoderate usuries.' Thomas Aquinas spoke against allowing the Jews to continue practicing usury. In 1283, the Archbishop of Canterbury spearheaded a petition demanding restitution of usury and urging the Jewish expulsion in 1290.

Emicho of Leiningen, who was probably mentally unbalanced, massacred Jews in Germany in search of supplies, loot, and protection money for a poorly provisioned army. The York massacre of 1190 also appears to have had its origins in a conspiracy by local leaders to liquidate their debts along with their creditors. In the early fourteenth century, systematic popular and judicial attack left Jewish community impoverished by the next century.

Although subordinate to religious, economic and social themes, racist concepts also reinforced hostility..

Late Middle Ages (1200 ~ 1400)

People in the "calamitous" fourteenth century with its plague, famine and wars were thrown into confusion and despair. The unique culture of the High middle ages with its union of the spiritual and the secular began to come apart. Rival European states at war with each other dimmed the church's dream of a united Christendom.

From its pinnacle of power in the 1200s, the church entered a period of decline, internal conflict, and corruption. Devoted and virtuous nuns and monks became increasingly rare. Monastic reform had been a major force in the High Middle Ages but is largely unknown in the Late Middle ages. This led to the development in Christian thought of lay piety--the devotio moderna--the new devotion, which worked toward the ideal of a pious society of ordinary non-ordained people.

Response to Reform

Advocates of lay piety who called for church reform met strong resistance from the Popes. John Wycliffe (1320-1384) urged the church to give up ownership of property, which produced much of the church's wealth, and to once again embrace poverty and simplicity. He urged the church to stop being subservient to the state and its politics. He denied papal authority. John Wycliff died of a stroke, but his followers, called Lollards, were declared heretics. After the Oldcastle rebellion many of its adherents were killed.

Jan Hus (1369-1415) accepted some of Wycliff's views and aligned with the Bohemian Reform movement which was also rooted in popular piety and owed much to the evangelical preachers of fourteenth century Prague. In 1415, Hus was called to the Council of Constance where his ideas were condemned as heretical and he was handed over to the state and burned at the stake. It was at the same Council of Constance that Paulus Vladimiri presented his treatise arguing that Christian and pagan nations could co-exist in peace.

Reform efforts from within the church fared no better. The Fraticelli, who were also known as the "Little Brethren" or "Spiritual Franciscans," were dedicated followers of Saint Francis of Assisi. These Franciscans honored their vow of poverty and saw the wealth of the Church as a contributor to corruption and injustice when so many lived in poverty. They criticized the worldly behavior of many churchmen as evidence of that corruption. This is strikingly similar to the Cathar view of Catholicism at that time. Thus the Brethren were declared heretical in 1296 by Pope Boniface VIII.

Their leader, Bernard Délicieux (c. 1260-1270 – 1320) confessed, after torture and threat of excommunication, to the charge of obstructing the Inquisition. He was defrocked and sentenced to life in prison, in chains, in solitary confinement, and to receive nothing but bread and water. The judges attempted to ameliorate the harshness of this sentence due to his age and frailty, but Pope John XXII countermanded them and delivered the friar to Inquisitor Jean de Beaune. Délicieux died shortly thereafter in early 1320.

Inquisition

Although inquisitions had always had a political aspect, the Inquisitions of the late middle ages became more political, less religious, and highly notorious. "The long history of the Inquisition divides easily into two major parts: its creation by the medieval papacy in the early thirteenth century, and its transformation between 1478 and 1542 into permanent governmental bureaucracies-—the Spanish, Portuguese, and Roman Inquisitions--all of which endured into the nineteenth century."

Spanish Inquisition

Historian Helen Rawlings says, “the Spanish Inquisition was different [from other inquisitions] in one fundamental respect: it was responsible to the crown rather than the Pope and was used to consolidate state interest.” It was authorized by the Pope, yet the initial Inquisitors proved so severe that the Pope almost immediately opposed it. After the 1400s, few Spanish inquisitors were from the religious orders. It was a religious institution, but it was run as a political tool of the crown who employed religion and its legal system for his own ends.

Portuguse inquisition

The Portuguese inquisition was also fully controlled by the crown who established a government board known as the General Council to oversee it. The Grand Inquisitor was chosen by the king and always came from the royal family. The first statute of Limpieza de sangre (purity of blood) appeared in Toledo in 1449 and was later adopted in Portugal as well. Initially these statutes were condemned by the Church, but in 1555, the highly corrupt Pope Alexander VI approved a ‘blood purity’ statute for one of the religious orders. There is a deep connection between the rise of the Felipes in Portugal, the growth of the inquisition, and the increasingly broad adoption of the statutes of purity of blood which were more concerned with ethnic ancestry than religion.

Roman Inquisition

Historian T. F. Mayer writes that “the Roman Inquisition operated to serve the papacy’s long standing political aims in Naples, Venice and Florence.” Under Paul III and his successor Julius III, and under most of the popes thereafter, the activity of the Roman Inquisition was relatively restrained and was considerably more bureaucratic than other inquisitions. Where the medieval Inquisition had focused on popular misconceptions which resulted in the disturbance of public order, the Roman Inquisition was concerned with orthodoxy of a more intellectual, academic nature. The Roman Inquisition is probably best known for its condemnation of the difficult and cantankerous Galileo which was more about “bringing Florence to heel” than about heresy.

Forced conversion

The Church's acceptance of forced conversion was a new development within Christian thought. Beginning with the Wendish Crusade, the Church began to sponsor and endorse forced conversion through conquest, something it had hitherto not done. An example of how the use of forced conversion was justified as compatible with previous Church doctrine on the subject, can be found in a statement by Pope Innocent III in 1201:

[T]hose who are immersed even though reluctant, do belong to ecclesiastical jurisdiction at least by reason of the sacrament, and might therefore be reasonably compelled to observe the rules of the Christian Faith. It is, to be sure, contrary to the Christian Faith that anyone who is unwilling and wholly opposed to it should be compelled to adopt and observe Christianity. For this reason a valid distinction is made by some between kinds of unwilling ones and kinds of compelled ones. Thus one who is drawn to Christianity by violence, through fear and through torture, and receives the sacrament of Baptism in order to avoid loss, he (like one who comes to Baptism in dissimulation) does receive the impress of Christianity, and may be forced to observe the Christian Faith as one who expressed a conditional willingness though, absolutely speaking, he was unwilling ...

Northern Crusades

The Church accepted the use of forced conversion for the elimination of hostile or recalcitrant tribes that did not easily submit to conquest. In 1171 or 1172, Pope Alexander III, in the Bull Nos parum animus noster, declared the conquest and forced conversion of pagans in northern Europe an official Crusade, recognizing it as a spiritually meritorious activity whose participants would receive the same remission of sin as those fighting in the Levant. The concept of just war was extended to include any war against pagans, with tactics traditionally outside the concept of just war included as acceptable. Dominican friars helped ideologically justify the crusades and their tactics by portraying the pagans as evil and deserving of conquest, persecution and forced conversion in their preaching in support of the crusades. There were often severe consequences for populations that chose to resist. For example, the conquest and conversion of Old Prussia resulted in the death of much of the native population, whose language subsequently became extinct..

"These crusades can only be properly understood in light of the Cistercian movement, the rise of papal monarchy, the mission of the friars, the coming of the Mongol hordes, the growth of the Muscovite and Lithuanian empires, and the aims of the Conciliar movement in the fifteenth century." The Conciliar movement arose out of the profound malaise within western Christendom over schism and corruption in the church. It asked: where did ultimate authority in the church reside? Did it reside in the Pope, the body of cardinals who elected him, the bishops, or did it reside in the Christian community at large? This was a vein of Christian thought that turned out to be revolutionary and led to the eventual development of tolerance as a Christian value.

Witches

Main article: Witch trials in the early modern period

See also: Little ice age

Dominican Inquisitors and the Growth of Witch-phobia

The official position of the Roman Catholic Church until the 1300s was that witches did not exist. Christian thought in medieval canon law is found in a passage called the Canon Episcopi, which takes the position that what the common people perceived about witches were actually deceptions, dreams or illusions. The Canon had many supporters. It was never repudiated by the theological faculty at the University of Paris, by any majority of bishops, or by the Council of Trent which immediately preceded the peak of the witch trials. However, by the mid-fifteenth century, popular conceptions of witches changed dramatically, and Christian thought, as represented by the canon, was being challenged by the Dominicans. No historian has pinpointed a single cause of what became “witch frenzy” but a common stream of thought developed in secular society, and in parts of the church, that witches were both real and malevolent.

During the witch trials, the church concerned itself with the suppression of superstitious belief in witches on the one hand, yet was also committed to the elimination of the demon worship thought to spawn them on the other. Some scholars question whether this ambivalence is connected, in part, to why witch trials were more prevalent in regions where the Catholic church was weakest (Germany, Switzerland and France), while “in areas with a strong church (Spain, Poland and Eastern Europe) the witch craze was negligible.”

Eventually Christian thought solidified behind Cautio Criminalis (Precautions for Prosecutors) written by Friedrich Spee, in 1631. As a Jesuit priest, he personally witnessed witch trials in Westphalia. Driven by his priestly charge of enacting Christian charity, he describes the inhuman torture of the rack with the graphic language of the truly horrified. As a professor, Spee sought to expose the flawed arguments and methods used by the witch-hunters through sarcasm, ridicule and piercing logic and put an end to it. The moral impression of his book was great, and it brought about the abolition of witch trials in a number of places, while also leading the way to its gradual overall suppression in others. Witch trials became scant in the second half of the 17th century, and their growing disfavor eventually resulted in the practice simply subsiding.

Conditional toleration

Conditional toleration that included discrimination was common everywhere in Europe of the Renaissance era. For example, at the cost of discrimination, Frankfurt's Jews also flourished between 1543 and 1613. They were restricted to one street, had rules concerning when they could leave it, and had to wear a yellow ring as a sign of their identity, but within their community they also had some self-governance, their own laws, elected their own leaders, and had a Rabbinical school that became a religious and cultural center. Prior to the Thirty Years war there was conditional toleration between Catholics and Protestants. Political authorities of the day maintained order by keeping groups separated both legally and physically. "The maintenance of civil order through legislated separation and discrimination was part of the institutional structure of all European states ingrained in law, politics, and the economy."

The Protestant theory of persecution from Reformation to the Early Modern Era (1500-1715)

The Protestant Reformation changed the face of Western Christianity forever, but initially it did nothing to change the Christian endorsement of religious persecution. The Reformers "fully embraced" Augustine's advocacy of coercion in religious matters, and many regarded the death penalty for heresy as legitimate.

• Martin Luther had written against persecution in the 1520s, and had demonstrated genuine sympathy towards the Jews in his earlier writings, especially in Das Jesus ein geborener Jude sei (That Jesus was born as a Jew) from 1523, but after 1525 his position hardened. In Wider die Sabbather an einen guten Freund (Against the Sabbather to a Good Friend), 1538, he still considered a conversion of the Jews to Christianity as possible, but in 1543 he published On the Jews and their Lies, a "violent anti-semitic tract."
• John Calvin helped to secure the execution for heresy of Michael Servetus, although he unsuccessfully requested that he should be beheaded instead of being burned at the stake.

Effectively, however, the 16th-century Protestant view was less extreme than the medieval Catholic position. In England, John Foxe, John Hales, Richard Perrinchief, Herbert Thorndike and Jonas Proast all only saw mild forms of persecution against the English Dissenters as legitimate. But (with the probable exception of John Foxe), this was only a retraction in degree, not a full rejection of religious persecution. There is also the crucial distinction between dissent and heresy to consider. Most dissenters disagreed with the Anglican Church only on secondary matters of worship and ecclesiology, and although this was a considered a serious sin, only a few 17th-century Anglican writers thought that this 'crime' deserved the death penalty. The English Act of Supremacy significantly complicated the matter by securely welding Church and state.

The Elizabethan bishop Thomas Bilson was of the opinion that men ought to be "corrected, not murdered", but he did not condemn the Christian Emperors for executing the Manichaeans for "monstrous blasphemies". The Lutheran theologian Georgius Calixtus argued for the reconciliation of Christendom by removing all unimportant differences between Catholicism and Protestantism, and Rupertus Meldenius advocated in necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas (in necessary things unity; in uncertain things freedom; in everything compassion) in 1626.

Protestant advocacy of toleration from Reformation to the Early Modern Era (1500-1715)

The early call

By the 18th century, persecutions of unsanctioned beliefs had been reduced in most Europeans countries due to early Protestant Christians who helped pioneer the concept of religious toleration. There had been a concerted campaign for tolerance in mid-sixteenth century northwestern Switzerland in the town of Basle. Sebastian Castellio was among the earliest of the reformers to advocate for both religious and political tolerance and he had moved to Basel after he was exiled from France. Castellio’s argument for toleration was essentially theological: "By casting judgment on the belief of others, don’t you take the place of God?" However, since he also pled for social stability and peaceful co-existence, his argument was also political. Making similar arguments were, Anabaptist David Joris from the Netherlands, and the Italian reformer Jacobus Acontius who also gathered with Castellio in Basle. Other advocates of religious tolerance, Mino Celsis and Bernardino Ochino (1487-1564), joined them, publishing their works on toleration in that city.

One of the leading secular skeptics of the sixteenth century was Leiden professor Justus Lipsius (1547-1606). He published ''Politicorum libri sex'' in 1589 which argued for the persecution of religious dissenters. Lispius believed that plurality would lead to civil strife and instability: “it is better to sacrifice one than to risk the collapse of the whole Commonwealth.” Dirck Coornhurt responded by eloquently defending religious liberty using his belief that free access to what he saw as the ultimate truth in the scriptures would bring about harmony and stability.

Historians indicate Lispius was not out of step with religious leaders in recognizing that reconciling religious tolerance with political reality was problematic. Luther thought this as well. He was fully in favor of religious toleration in 1523 writing that secular authorities should never fight heresy with the sword, then after the Peasants War in Germany in 1524, Luther determined that lay authority had an obligation to step in when sedition, peace, or the stability of society was part of the issue.

Geoffrey Elton says English reformer John Foxe (1517-1587) demonstrated his deep faith in religious toleration when he attempted to stop the execution of the English Catholic Edmund Campion and the five Dutch Anabaptists who had been sentenced to be burned in 1575.

The English Protestant 'Call for Toleration'

In his book on 'The English Reformation', particularly in the chapter 'The Origins of Religious Toleration', the late A. G. Dickens argued that from the beginning of the Reformation there had "existed in Protestant thought – in Zwingli, Melanchthon and Bucer, as well as among the Anabaptists – a more liberal tradition, which John Frith was perhaps the first to echo in England". Condemned for heresy, Frith was burnt at the stake in 1533. In his own mind, he died not because of the denial of the doctrines on purgatory and transubstantiation but "for the principle that a particular doctrine on either point was not a necessary part of a Christian's faith". In other words, there was an important distinction to be made between a genuine article of faith and other matters where a variety of very different conclusions should be tolerated within the Church. This stand against unreasonable and profligate dogmatism meant that Frith, "to a greater extent than any other of our early Protestants", upheld "a certain degree of religious freedom".

Frith was not alone. John Foxe, for example, "strove hard to save Anabaptists from the fire, and he enunciated a sweeping doctrine of tolerance even towards Catholics, whose doctrines he detested with every fibre of his being".

In the early 17th century, Thomas Helwys was principal formulator of that distinctively Baptist request: that the church and the state be kept separate in matters of law, so that individuals might have a freedom of religious conscience. Helwys said the King "is a mortal man, and not God, therefore he hath no power over the mortal soul of his subjects to make laws and ordinances for them and to set spiritual Lords over them". King James I had Helwys thrown into Newgate prison, where he had died by 1616 at about the age of forty.

By the time of the English Revolution, Helwys' stance on religious toleration was more commonplace. While accepting their zeal in desiring a 'godly society', some contemporary historians doubt whether the English Puritans during the English Revolution were as committed to religious liberty and pluralism as traditional histories have suggested. However, historian John Coffey's recent work emphasizes the contribution of a minority of radical Protestants who steadfastly sought toleration for heresy, blasphemy, Catholicism, non-Christian religions, and even atheism. This minority included the Seekers, as well as the General Baptists and the Levellers. Their collective witness demanded the church be an entirely voluntary, non-coercive community able to evangelize in a pluralistic society governed by a purely civil state.

In 1644 the "Augustinian consensus concerning persecution was irreparably fractured." This year can be identified quite exactly, because 1644 saw the publication of John Milton's Areopagitica, William Walwyn's The Compassionate Samaritane, Henry Robinson's Liberty of Conscience and Roger William's The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution. These authors were Puritans or had dissented from the Church of England, and their radical Protestantism led them to condemn religious persecution, which they saw as a popish corruption of primitive Christianity. Other non-Anglican writers advocating toleration were Richard Overton, John Wildman and John Goodwin, the Baptists Samuel Richardson and Thomas Collier and the Quakers Samuel Fisher and William Penn. Anglicans who argued against persecution were: John Locke, Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, James Harrington, Jeremy Taylor, Henry More, John Tillotson and Gilbert Burnet.

All of these considered themselves Christians or were actual churchmen. John Milton and John Locke are the predecessors of modern liberalism. Although Milton was a Puritan and Locke an Anglican, Areopagitica and A Letter concerning Toleration are canonical liberal texts. Only from the 1690s onwards the philosophy of Deism emerged, and with it a third group that advocated religious toleration, but, unlike the radical Protestants and the Anglicans, also rejected biblical authority; this group prominently includes Voltaire, Frederick II of Prussia, Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, Thomas Jefferson and the English-Irish philosopher John Toland. When Toland published the writings of Milton, Edmund Ludlow and Algernon Sidney, he tried to downplay the Puritan divinity in these works.

The Holy Roman Emperor, Joseph II, issued the Patent of Toleration in 1781.

Following the debates that started in the 1640s, the Church of England was the first Christian church to grant adherents of other Christian denominations freedom of worship, with the Act of Toleration 1689, which nevertheless still retained some forms of religious discrimination and did not include toleration for Catholics. At present, only individuals who are members of the Church of England at the time of the succession may become the British monarch.

Modern Era

In the United States

Main article: Freedom of religion in the United States

The Puritan-Whig tradition of toleration did not have its greatest effect in England, which retains a state religion to this day, but in the Thirteen Colonies that would later form the United States. Notable tolerationists were directly involved in the founding of the colonies. Roger Williams founded the colony of Rhode Island, "a haven for persecuted minorities," John Locke drafted the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina and William Penn drew up the constitution of Pennsylvania. Voltaire pointed the readers of his Traité sur la Tolérance (1763) specifically to the examples of Carolina and Pennsylvania. People like Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and John Adams stood self-consciously in the tradition of Milton, Sidney and Locke, and extended their tolerationism further to also apply to Catholics and atheists. Coffey considers it possible to argue, "that the tolerationist tradition of seventeenth-century England reached its fulfilment in the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom and the First Amendment to the American Constitution."

That the North American colonies and later the United States provided a refuge for religious minorities from Europe partly explains the higher degree of religiosity in the contemporary United States and the "unusual sectarian quality of U.S. Protestantism". Compared to Europe, "the United States has a superabundance of denominations and sects (...) as well as a far higher ratio of churchgoers." What importance the Christian religion should have in the United States, with its strong concept of Separation of church and state, is a contentious question. For political commentator Kevin Phillips, "few questions will be more important to the twenty-first-century United States than whether renascent religion and its accompanying hubris will be carried on the nation's books as an asset or as a liability." Johnson and Koyama observe that "The relationship between religion and the state remains contentious. Even in liberal democracies there are frequent disagreements about the scope of religious freedom. Do states have the right to regulate religious clothing? Can the state prohibit religious organizations from discriminating against individuals who do not share their beliefs? Should states fund religious schools? How stable are institutions that support religious liberty?"

According to a 2008 survey, 65% of US-American Christians believe that many religions can lead to eternal life. 52% of US-American Christians think that at least some non-Christian faiths can lead to eternal life. (At its surface, the percentages may seem contradictory; the key is in the appellation of the term non-Christian in the second, lesser quantity. For some Christians, different sects of Christianity represent "different religions." These people thus mistake the survey term "many religions" to mean "different sects of Christianity," even though that is not the commonly intended use of the phrase. What the survey really shows is that more US Christians believe that God can make himself known through multiple Christian sects, than believe that He can make Himself known even through other religions. It is worth noting that a majority of US Christians take the more inclusive stance.)

The mid-20th-century Spanish model

As of the mid-20th century, an example of Catholic church-state relations was the Catholic situation in Franco's Spain, where according to the doctrine of National Catholicism the Catholic Church:

• was officially recognized and protected by the state,
• had substantial control over social policy, and
• had this relationship explicitly set out in a Concordat.

It had long been the policy of the Catholic Church to support toleration of competing religions under such a scheme, but it also supported legal restrictions on attempts to convert Catholics to those same religions, under the motto that "error has no rights".

Contemporary Roman Catholic policy

Leo XIII (1810-1903) confirmed Aquinas' view of tolerance in ACTA LEONIS XIII 205 in 1892.

On the seventh of December 1965 The Catholic Church's Vatican II council issued the decree "Dignitatis humanae" which dealt with the rights of the person and communities to social and civil liberty in religious matters. It states:

"2. The Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. Freedom of this kind means that all men should be immune from coercion on the part of individuals, social groups and every human power so that, within due limits, nobody is forced to act against his convictions in religious matters in private or public, alone or in associations with others. The Vatican Council further declares that the right of religious freedom is based on the very word of God and by reason itself. This right of the human person to religious freedom must be given such recognition in the constitutional order of society as will make it a civic right...but if it [the civil authority] presumes to control or restrict religious activity it must be said to have exceeded the limits of its power...Therefore, provided the just requirements of public order are not violated, these groups [i.e. religious communities] have a right to immunity so that they may organize their own lives according to their religious principles...From this it follows that it is wrong for a public authority to compel its citizens by force or fear or any other means to profess or repudiate any religion or to prevent anyone from joining or leaving a religious body. There is even more serious transgression of God's will and of the sacred rights of the individual person and the family of nations when force is applied to wipe out or repress religion either throughout the whole world or in a single region or in a particular community".

On 12 March 2000 Pope John Paul II prayed for forgiveness because "Christians have often denied the Gospel; yielding to a mentality of power, they have violated the rights of ethnic groups and peoples, and shown contempt for their cultures and religious traditions"

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) wrote "The quality of exemplarity which the honest admission of past faults can exert on attitudes within the Church and civil society should also be noted, for it gives rise to a renewed obedience to the Truth and to respect for the dignity and the rights of others, most especially, of the very weak. In this sense, the numerous requests for forgiveness formulated by John Paul II constitute an example that draws attention to something good and stimulates the imitation of it, recalling individuals and groups of people to an honest and fruitful examination of conscience with a view to reconciliation"

Around the world

Some recent political conflicts have included religious persecutions. Among these is the case of the Hue Vesak shootings in South Vietnam on May 8, 1963 and the ethnic cleansing of Albanians, most of whom were Muslim, in Kosovo between 1992 and 1999, along with the genocide of the Bosnian Muslims.

Christians are currently persecuted in multiple countries around the world.

See also

• Criticism of Christianity
• Antisemitism in Christianity
• Christianity and colonialism
• Christianity and other religions
• Christianity and violence
• Christian views on slavery
• History of Christianity
• Persecution of Buddhists by Christians
• Persecution of Christians
• Persecution of Christians by Christians
• Persecution of Christians in the post–Cold War era
• Sectarian violence among Christians
• Totalism
• Public Worship Regulation Act 1874

Literature

• John Coffey (2000), Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England 1558-1689, Studies in Modern History, Pearson Education
• Ramsay MacMullen, "Christianizing The Roman Empire A.D.100-400, Yale University Press, 1984, ISBN 0-300-03642-6
• Ramsay MacMullen, "Christianity & Paganism in the Fourth to Eight Centuries", Yale University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-300-07148-5

Further reading

• John Courtney Murray; J. Leon Hooper (1993). Religious Liberty: Catholic Struggles With Pluralism. Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 978-0-664-25360-8.
• Robert P. Geraci; Michael Khodarkovsky (2001). Of Religion and Empire: Missions, Conversion, and Tolerance in Tsarist Russia. Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-3327-6.
• Ole Peter Grell; Bob Scribner (2002). Tolerance and Intolerance in the European Reformation. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-89412-8.
• R. Po-Chia Hsia; Henk Van Nierop (2002). Calvinism and Religious Toleration in the Dutch Golden Age. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-80682-4.
• Chris Beneke (2006): Beyond toleration. the religious origins of American pluralism, Oxford University Press
• Alexandra Walsham (2006): Charitable hatred. Tolerance and intolerance in England, 1500 - 1700, Manchester University Press
• Hans Erich Bödeker; Clorinda Donato; Peter Reill (2008). Discourses of Tolerance & Intolerance in the European Enlightenment. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-1-4426-9136-0.
• C. Scott Dixon; Dagmar Freist; Mark Greengrass (2009). Living With Religious Diversity in Early-Modern Europe. Ashgate. ISBN 978-0-7546-6668-4.
• Adam Wolfson (2010). Persecution or Toleration: An Explication of the Locke-Proast Quarrel, 1689-1704. Lexington Books. ISBN 978-0-7391-4724-5.
• John Corrigan; Lynn S. Neal (2010). Religious Intolerance in America: A Documentary History. Univ of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-3389-6.
• John Laursen; Cary Nederman (2011). Beyond the Persecuting Society: Religious Toleration Before the Enlightenment. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-8122-1567-0.
• Chris Beneke; Christopher Grenda (2011). The First Prejudice: Religious Tolerance and Intolerance in Early America. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-8122-4270-6.