作者：陆鸿基 Luk, Hung Kay, Bernard 年份：1981
AN INQUIRY INTO MEDIEVAL AND REFORMATION THOUGHT
Nineteenth-century liberal historians, whose writings often affected an anti-Medieval bias derived from the political anti-clericalism of their own age, tended to treat the Middle Ages as a dark, uncivilised, illiberal era, intolerant of any deviance from Catholic dogma. For examples they would cite the papal and conciliar condemnation of heretics, the domestic crusades against the Albigensians and other dissidents, and the Spanish and Roman Inquistions of medieval and early modern Europe, To these writers, the revival of Classical learning, the Protestant revolt against the Catholic Church, and the rise of capitalism, signified the dawn of a new and more tolerant age.
Recent historians are likely to dispute these images. Their researches have shown that although the medieval record of religious tolerance was far from brilliant, it was not uniformly unenlightened or irrational. Medieval thought did differentiate between various kinds of dissidence from the magisterium of the Church for different treatments. The infamous wars against the Albigensians, Hussites and other popular heretics are found to have been motivated more by the land greed of the feudal nobility than by the religious dogmatism of churchmen. Furthermore, the height of religious intolerance was reached not during the Middle Ages but in the era of Protestant-Catholic confrontation, in part under the sponsorship of John Calvin. In this view, the Renaissance and Reformation were not so much the beginning of a better age as the period between the waning of medieval civilisation and the coming of modern times.(1)
This article inclines towards the latter view, and will trace the development of attitudes towards heresy in medieval and reformation thought, and the slow emergency of religious toleration. It is important first to clarify certain concepts.
Dissidence and orthodoxy are relative terms that depend for their meaning on each other. To call a body of thought or a type of behaviour orthodox implies the existence of thoughts, words, and deeds that are deviant from it. Thus, as ideas, actions, and people splinter into more and more groups, there would appear tiers of orthodoxies and dissidences. But while the orthodox might have existed in general form before the development of dissidence, the precise formulation and reformulation of orthodoxy might have been precipitated as a defence against the dissidents. Examples of this process abound in the Patristic period of Church history. Thus, not only in logic, but in actual development as well, are orthodoxy and dissidence interdependent.
Heresy is a particular kind of dissidence in the context of a particular kind of orthodoxy.(2) Traditional Christianity presupposes an absolute truth that is knowable by humans and is in fact known to (if not fully understood by) good Christians. This truth is capable of more and more precise formulation, but the outline is believed, to have been established by divine inspiration, and is beyond dispute. Dissidence, therefore, could imply grave error, and is to be avoided. But what constitutes heresy at any one point in history depends on the scope of the formulated dogma, which grew in time. What to do with heretics would in turn depend on the pertinent theories current in the Church and on external circumstances.
From a theological approach, heresy is a problem for the conscience of the Christian as well as for society and the Church; in addition, the hierarchy's policy towards heresy and heretics involves also the theoretical relations between ecclesia and mundus, In the discussions that follow, it is important to bear in mind the tiers of orthodoxies and dissidences as well as the dynamic nature of the meanings of truth and heresy.
HERESY AND THE INDIVIDUAL CONSCIENCE
Since the proper purpose of the Church is the salvation of souls, the primary theological concern on heresy should be the state of the heretic's conscience; in other words, can a heretic be saved?
Traditional Christian teaching recongised three kinds of consciences :－
1) The conscientia recta et vera (upright andcorrect conscience), which sincerely observes norms that are objectively true.
2) The conscientia exlex (outlaw conscience), which follows its own whims without reference to any objective norm.
3) The conscientia recta sed non vera (upright but incorrect conscience), which adheres to sincerely held objective norms that are without the fulness of truth.(3)
The first one is the good conscience of the true believer; the second is sinful; but it is the third, the erroneous conscience, that presents the main problem in the case of heresy. If it is granted that the heretic is a person of goodwill and sincere in her or his belief of the wrong doctrine, would she or he be expected to follow the orthodox version of the truth and thus go against her or his own dissident conscience? Or should the conscience be obeyed against the dogmatic truth? In which case, if either, would the poor heretic be saved? On the various treatments of this problem were hinged the diverse theories of persecution and tolerance.
The Biblical and Patristic teachings are rather ambivalent. Paul of Tarsus, the first to have touched on the subject explicitly, seems to have been of the opinion that the erroneous conscience is binding on the individual, and should be followed by himself and respected by others.(4) Augustine of Hippo held that a man cannot believe unless he wants to, but also argued that it was legitimate and advantageous to use force to 'help' the erroneous conscience correct its beliefs.(5) In the Middle Ages, there gradually arose two different schools of thought on the subject. On the one side were mostly Franciscans and Augustinians who denied any righteousness on the part of the erroneous conscience, and ruled that the individual would sin whether following it (and thus going against the truth) or disobeying it (and thus willingly doing wrong according to his own light). The only obligation for such a person was to put aside his erroneous conscience in favour of a correct one. This was the position, for example, of Bonaventure. According to such logic, the orthodox members of the Church, charitably mindful of the salvation of their dissident brethren, should do the utmost, including the use of necessary force, to bring the heretics back to the one true fold. Tolerance was out of the question because it was actually to the harm of the lost sheep. The other school of thought was led by Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, who differentiated between involuntary and voluntary ignorance of the truth. They held that the involutary erroneous conscience was guiltless, did not impair salvation, and should be respected; such was the ignorance of the pagan, who could attain salvation by goodwill and good works. Voluntary ignorance, on the other hand, did not excuse any fault; and ignorance of the divine law which everyone was supposed to know in one's own mind was considered one kind of voluntary ignorance. Since the heretic had once known the truth and then fell away, his erroneous conscience was not innocent, his salvation was impaired; intolerance and persecution of him was also justified.(6) Guided by these two schools of thought, which arrived at broadly similar positions by way of different paths, the medieval Church condemned thousands of heretics to the merciless 'secular arm', which usually had its own political or economic motive for bounding the dissidents.
During the Reformation period, the struggle between orthodoxy and heresy became more and more heated. As each major reformer considered his teaching to be true and deviations from it to be false, it is historically more accurate to speak of othodoxies and heresies. Thus, when Martin Luther established his doctrine as an orthodoxy, he adopted a position on heresy remarkably close to that of the Franciscans and Augustinians. Although Luther was at first (while himself a dissident in the Catholic Church) opposed to the use of force on heretics, his final stand was in fact consistent with his basic theological tenet of sola Scriptura. If the Bible is the only truth and the only salvation, an erroneous conscience, one that does not adhere to Biblical truth, has no hope of salvation. Thus he writes: 'A really good conscience desires nothing better than to listen to the teaching of the Scriptures and to examine itself with the help of these Scriptures.' The use of force on the heretic was ultimately to be sanctioned.(7) Perhaps Luther's background as an Augustinian monk also contributed to his position.
Nevertheless, Luther drew a distinction between heresy, which was an act of the erroneous conscience, and blasphemy, which was the sin committed by the outlaw conscience. Calvin made no such distinction. This again was consistent with his theology. Since faith and salvation are predetermined anyway, the traditional distinction between three kinds of consciences is irrelevant. This is not to say, however, that it does not matter what one thinks about God. Since God is high above and one far below, any unworthy expression about God is an affront to God's dignity and honour, and must be vindicated. Heresy is thus the same as blasphemy, and both are lese-majeste; toleration is completely out of the question.(8) The Reformation, by bringing about religious diversity and strife, also therefore witnessed a diminution of what little there was of religious tolerance in medieval thought.
It must not be thought that Calvin was the only one of his time to deny bona fides in the heretic. In the heat of controversy, fine points of doctrinal distinction were only too easily forgotten. After the Munster coup, for instance, Luther's definition of blasphemy broadened considerably to include the rejection of an article in the Apostles' Creed!(9) The Jesuit Peter Canisius also considered heresy as lese-majeste.(10) It is only too tempting for the orthodox to brand the dissidents as evil people.
Heresy and society
The salvation of the individual was of course not the only concern of the orthodox. Since the Church functions in a social context, the welfare of one part of the Church has to be balanced against that of other parts. Thus, heresy troubled the Church not only because of the salvation of individual heretics, but also because other members of the ecclesia and mundus might be affected by the spread of dissident beliefs. To prevent large numbers from following false prophets, the case was often made for weeding out heretics before they could recruit others to their side. Aquinas regarded heresy as a contagious evil; logically, therefore, 'an enlightened charity towards the masses of Christian people demanded energetic measures…… when, because of constant relapses, the culprit gives the simple faithful a dangerous example of inconstancy in matters of faith.'(11) For such a reason was the crusade preached against the Albigensians, who were condemned for both doctrinal and moral deviance.(12)
The view of Thomas was shared by Calvin, who expressed the same point with colourful imagery:－
That humanity, advocated by those who are in favour of a pardon for heretics, is greater cruelty because in order to save the wolves they expose the poor sheep. I ask you, is it reasonable that heretics should be allowed to murder souls and to poison them with their false doctrine, and that we should prevent the sword, contrary to God's command, from touching their bodies, and that the whole Body of Jesus Christ be lacerated that the stench of one rotten member may remain undisturbed?(13)
Calvin himself would go so far as to cooperate with his archenemy the Roman Inquistition to secure the arrest (and subsequent burning at the stake) of the anti-Trinitarian Michael Servetus.(14)
The adherence of the masses to truth is but another way of saying the unity of the orthodoxy. The unity and universality of Latin Christendom was regarded as a matter of great importance in the Middle Ages, indeed, as the basis of society.(15) Although this ideal lost much of its reality in the Reformation period, the unity of faith in each territory was still generally cherished, and constituted a problem for ecclesiology as well as for political theory. (Infra)
It is evident from the above discussions that orthodox attitudes towards dissidents were often based not so much on considerations for the dissidents themselves as for the rest of society. Thus, distinctions were sometimes made between freedom of private belief and freedom of public worship. The former was a matter for the individual conscience and not to be coerced, while the latter could constitute a public scandal, and should be regulated. Such was Luther's position in 1525, as was Zwingli's strategy in Switzerland in 1529.(16) Distinctions were also made between peaceful heresies and seditious ones. Luther indeed thought at first that the former were necessary for the ultimate triumph of truth!(17) The great exponent of Christian humanism, Erasmus, would tolerate religious heresy but not the anti-authoritarianism of the Anabaptists. Johann Brenz, the reformer of Wurttemberg, stressed the differences between the violent and non-violent elements of the Anabaptist movement, the 'black sheep' and the 'genius', and argued that the whole lot should not be punished categorically for the crime of the former.(18) Indeed, the parellel that was frequently drawn by the orthodox from Aquinas to Canisius between heresy and the counterfeiting of money(19) may as well be turned around to show one possible limit of intolerance－heresy that does not spread or provoke social upheavals, like counterfeit money that does not circulate, is relatively harmless and may be afforded somewhat more tolerance. Such arguments, obviously, would not be applied or accepted by Calvin.(20)
Church, State, and Sect
If a heresy is seditious, it would naturally involve the state, in which case the concern would be political rather than dogmatic. But this was not the only way in which the secular power entered into the story of tolerance and intolerance. While the waning of the Middle Ages was in part the breakdown of the dualism of Church and State, diverse new patterns of Church-State relations evolved during the Reformation period, each supplying a different approach to the problem of dissidence.(21)
The power of the ruler to intervene in religious and ecclesiastical matters had long been a matter of debate in Latin Christendom. Although Eastern caesaropapism was vigourously denied by the medieval Latin Church, the tendency in the late Middles Ages was for the prince to gain political ascendancy gradually over the Church in his territory. The Reformation, course, greatly facilitated this development. In the Middle Ages, the 'secular arm' of the Church was given the nasty tasks which the Church considered outside its scope and below its dignity to perform. Such, for instance, were the massacre of heretical villages, or the burning of dissidents condemned by the Inquistition. But it was for the Church, and the Church alone, to decide what the people should believe and what constituted heresy. Luther, however, pressed by the Catholics from one side and by the Zwinglians and Anabaptists from another, had to turn to the princes for support.(22) He conceded to the princes a three-fold task, viz.:－
1) The prince should as far as possible encourage the preaching of the Gospel.
2) He should prevent the preaching of false and heretical doctrine and at the same time repress whatever should constitute an attack on God's honour.
3) He must see to it that all his subjects come to listen to the word of God.(23)
This being the prince's province, heresy came to be considered a crime against the secular ruler, and loyalty to the ruler would demand at least outward adherence to the state religion. From this doctrine of the cura religionis of the prince grew his power as 'guardian of both tablets of the Ten Commandments' (in the words of Philip Melanchthon, Luther's lieutenant), and as defender of religious unity, in his own territory. This was in effect an extension of the idea of the secular arm, with the State gaining the upper hand over the Church. Any heresy, whether seditious or not, would be a crime against the State. Finally, this doctrine developed into the Augsburg formula of cujus regio, ejus religio－the prince was to enjoy complete freedom of conscience between Catholicism and Lutheranism, but not so his subject, who had to choose between obedience or exile.(24) This political compromise, which was to the disadvantage of both the dissidents and the Church, was accepted by Catholic apologists, contrary to traditional teachings. (25)
It probably made little practical difference to the individual dissident, once persecution started, whether he was bounded by the Churches or by the State, as may be gathered from Roland Bainton's vivid portraits in The Travail of Religious Liberty.(26) This was especially the case for the various Anabaptist sects, which were almost universally reviled. By radically revising many of the basic tenets of medieval Christianity, as well as by refusing to obey civil authorities (no taxes, no military service, etc.), they attracted to themselves the hatred of Europe's increasing number of hardening orthodoxies. At the same time, since most Anabaptist groups had no political ambitions, and were made up of entirely voluntary memberships, they had no territory in which to set themselves up as the orthodox, and no dissident groups to persecute in turn. They thus formed the lowest tier in the pecking order of the orthodox and heretics. Only in a very few places, for example in Poland from around 1550 to 1530, were they free to develop. One of the most famous, ,and for the question of tolerance the most important, of these sects was Socinianism, named after the Italian refugee Faustus Socinus (Sozzini) and his followers at Rakow. Racovian ecclesiology denied the need for any church or the exclusive claim of any church to truth and salvation, and advocated a complete separation of church and state.(27)
Anabaptism was not the only religion that found refuge in Poland. As a matter of fact, all manners of faith were able to take advantage of the peculiar political structure of the monarchical republic. Other countries which legally allowed religious diversity in the sixteenth century were France under the edict of Nantes and Brandenburg during the reign of Johann Sigismund.
Moral religion and doctrinal indifference
The Socinian indifference to doctrinal distinctions was not a unique phenomenon. In fact, it stemmed from a background of the Erasmian irenic tradition of conciliating the divergent factions of the divided Church.(28) The Christian humanist had advocated a non-doctrinal piety that included a Christian life of heartfelt virtues; he believed in leaving theological problems to the speculations of professional theologians. He had followers in all camps of the religious strife of the Reformation era. One of the most famous Catholic irenic writers was Georg Cassander, who attempted to formulate a very few basic articles of faith acceptable to all Christians, and to leave the rest for each Church to decide－a kind of diversity in unity which he hoped would establish permanent peace.(29) Such efforts, however, were largely unsuccessful,(30) although they did leave important traces.
One interesting offshoot of this counciliatory tendency was the growth of English Latitudinar-ianism as a solution of tolerance in a state church. The form taken by the Elizabethan Church had been inspired to a large extent by the secular politics of compromise among several non-Roman positions, and in the late 16th and early 17th century, efforts were made under such men as Richard Hooker to broaden the doctrinal base of the church to make it more than just state established, but national as well.(31) Partly influenced by socinianism,(32) it was under attack from both Catholics and Puritans. From the viewpoint of these repressed elements, this church was not exceedingly liberal (as Catholics familiar with the story of Edmund Campion well know). Yet loosely defined doctrines did tend to reduce the instances of dissidence and conflict during the reign of the Virgin Queen.
Another solution to the problem of tolerance of religious disparity in a state was that attempted by France under the Edict of Nantes. The king belonged to one church, but loyalty to him was considered to be above religious differences. Thus, peace and national interest were invoked for tolerance and accomodation of a dissident group. This solution proposed by the Politiques was also practised in Poland and Brandenburg, and may be considered a secularised version of the medieval concept of the 'greater good'.
More Rigid Definitions of Orthodoxies
But while some nations compromised within themselves the broken ideal of Christian unity, the Churches, in defence against one another, undertook to define their own doctrines in ever more uncompromising terms. 'This stiffening of attitudes all round was the result of the rise of Calvinism (1550-1560). Not only the Catholics, with the Council of Trent, but the Lutherans, too, were provoked by the clear-cut rigidity of Calvinism to formulate their own position and doctrine more clearly.' (33) Such rigidity could only have led to greater exclusiveness and intolerance in thought and word, if not always accompanied by cruelty of action as well.
Summing up
The above survey serves to outline the questions of heresy and tolerance in medieval and reformation thought, and shows how intolerance actually reached a peak suring the Catholic-Protestant confrontation. A few points may be raised here.
Much of the theological controversy during the Reformation period centred around the efficacy of faith versus works for salvation. However, the concern in most churches with the purity of doctrine seems to indicate an anxious though unarticulated place for cognition somewhere between the dichotomy of faith and works. While the devil knows more about God than man does and yet is damned to eternity, how much, and what, must man know in order to be saved? A Christian humanist would have answered not very much. A study of what the orthodox persecutors might have answered may give us fresh insight into the structures of their theologies.
In terms of social history, tolerance and intolerance among the Christian groups should be placed in the context of the discrimination and persecution of Jews, Moors, and witches. Since the High Middle Ages, there had been occasional pogroms, expulsions, and witch trials. The step-by-step break-down of medieval society in the fifteenth century led to mass frenzies over issues where this world and the next one met. The Lutheran revolt in Germany had been proceeded by the expulsion of minorities from Spain, the publication of the Malleus maleficarum by the Dominicans, and the Savonarola uprising in Italy. There were profound social, economic, psychological, no less than sincerely religious causes behind the phenomenon of religious intolerance and persecution. Theoretical issues were probably just the rallying points and rationalisations of the bitter struggles. In the heated atmosphere of the Reformation period, calm resolution of theological disputes was well-nigh impossible. It takes a different mind-set, a more charitable disposition, and today, for religious tolerance and ecumenism to be established and peace to prevail.
1)See, for instance, Norman Cantor, Medieval history (London, 1969).
2)'Heresy', in Karl Rahner, Ed., Encyclopaedia of theology (London, 1975)
3)Murray, John Courtenay, S.J., The problem of religious freedom (London, 1965), 7-8.
4)Lecler, Joseph, S.J., Toleration and the Reformation, English translation by T.L. Westow (London, 1960), I, 17-18.
5)Ibid., 51-60. Castellio, Sebastien, Concerning heretics, translation and introduction by Roland Bainton (New York, 1935), 21-29.
6)Lecler, op. cit., 94-100.
7)Ibid., 150. Cf. John Dillenberger, ed., Martin Luther－selections from his writings (New York, 1961), 389-390. Lecler, ibid., 156-169.
8)Lecler, 334. Cf. Roland Bainton, Hunted heretics (Boston, 1953), 169-171.
9)Bainton, Roland, The travail of religious liberty (London, 1953), 62. Cf. Lecler, 161.
10)Lecler, 280.
11)Ibid., 88.
12)Cantor, op. cit., 419 et seq.
13)Quoted in Lecler, 88.
14)Bainton, Hunted heretics, ch.8 et seq.
15)Lecler, 70-71.
16)Ibid., 157, 314-315.
17)Ibid., 153.
18)Castellio, op. cit., 41-42, 162.
19)E.g., Aquinas, Canisius, and in the France of Francois I; see Lecler, I, 85, 280; and II, 15, respectively.
20)Castellio, 69-72.
21)Cantor, ch. 20. George Sabine, A history of political theory (New York, 1961), ch. 14, 15.
22)Lecler, I, 80, 145-164.
23)Ibid., 242.
24)Ibid., 242-260.
25)Ibid., 290-293.
26)Bainton, Travail, op. cit.
27)Lecler, 383, et seq. C.f. Stanislas Kot, Socinianism in Poland (Boston, 1957 ).
28)Lecler, 413. Cf. H. John McLachlan, Socinianism in 17th century England (Oxford, 1951), 9.
29)Lecler, 270-276.
30)Ibid., 225-235; 263-264.
31)Klein, Arthur Jay, Intolerance in the reign of Elizabeth (Port Washington, N.Y., 1968), 94-99. Lecler, II, 355, 398 et seq.
32)McLachlan, 54 et seq.
33)Lecler, II, 478.