XXXI. ON GENTLENESS OF MANNERS IN GENERAL
A certain general gentleness of manners, which in war prevents great atrocities, and in peace renders life more quiet and agreeable:--such is one of the valuable qualities which I have pointed out as forming the distinguishing characteristics of European civilization. This is a fact which does not require proof; we see and feel it everywhere when we look around; it is evident to all who open the pages of history, and compare our times with any others. Wherein does this gentleness of manners in modern times consist? what is the cause of it? what has favoured it? what has opposed it? These interesting questions directly apply to our present subject; for they lead straight to the examination of other questions, such as the following: has Catholicity contributed in any way to this gentleness of manners; or, on the other hand, has it opposed or retarded it? in fine, what part has Protestantism played in the work, for good or evil? First of all, we must determine wherein gentleness of manners consists. Although we have here to deal with an idea which every one sees, or rather feels, we must still endeavor to explain and analyze it by a definition as complete and exact as possible. Gentleness of manners consists in the absence of force; so that manners will be more or less gentle according as force is less or more employed. Thus, we must not confound gentle with charitable manners; the latter work good, the former only exclude the idea of force. We must also distinguish gentle manners from those that are pure, and conformable to reason and justice. Immorality is often gentle, when, instead of resorting to force, it makes use of seduction and stratagem. This gentleness of manners consists in directing the human mind, not by violence which constrains the body, but by reasons which address themselves to the intellect, or by appeals to the passions. Thus it is that gentle manners are not always under the influence of reason; but their rule is always intellectual, although they are often made the slaves of the passions by golden chains of their own formation.
If gentleness of manners consists in not making use, in human transactions, of other means than those of conviction, persuasion, or seduction, it is clear that the most advanced society--that is, that in which intelligence has been most developed--should always participate more or less in this social advantage. There the mind rules, because it is strong; while material force disappears, because the body has less strength. Moreover, in societies very much advanced, where relations and interests are necessarily much multiplied, there is an indispensable want of means capable of acting in a universal and lasting manner, and applicable to all the details of life. These means are, unquestionably, moral and intellectual: the mind operates without destruction, while force dashes violently against obstacles, and breaks itself to pieces, if it cannot overturn them. Thus it is the cause of continual commotions, which cannot subsist in a society which has numerous and complicated relations, without throwing into confusion and destroying society itself.
We always observe in young nations a lamentable abuse of force. Nothing is more natural: the passions ally themselves with force, because they resemble it; they are energetical as violence, and rude as its shocks. When society has reached a great degree of development, the passions are divorced from force, and become allied with the intelligence; they cease to be violent, in order to become artful. In the first case, if it is the people who struggle, they make war on, they contend with, and destroy each other; in the second case, they contend with the arms of industry, commerce, and contraband. Governments attack, in the first case, by arms and invasions; and in the second by diplomacy. In the first epoch, warriors are every thing; in the second, they are nothing; they have not a very important part to play when negotiation, and not fighting, is required. When we look at ancient civilization, we observe a remarkable difference between the character of its manners and the gentleness of ours. Neither the Greeks nor Romans ever regarded this precious quality in the light in which we regard it, for the honor of European civilization. Those nations became enervated, but they did not become gentle; we may say that their manners were made effeminate, but they were not softened; for we see them make use of force on all occasions, when neither vigor of body nor energy of mind was required. There is nothing more worthy of observation than this peculiarity of ancient civilization, especially of that of Rome. Now this phenomenon, which at first sight appears to us to be very strange, has very deep causes. Besides the principal of these causes, which is, the want of an element of civilization such as that which modern nations have had in Christian charity, we shall find among the ancients, if we descend to the details of their social organization, certain causes which necessarily hindered this gentleness of manners being established among them.
In the first case, slavery, one of the constituent elements of their social and domestic organization, was an eternal obstacle to the introduction of this precious quality. The man who has the power of throwing another to the fishes, and of punishing with death the crime of breaking a glass; he who during a feast, to gratify his caprice, can take away the life of one of his brethren; he who can rest upon a voluptuous couch, surrounded by the most sumptuous magnificence, while he knows that hundreds of men, crowded together in dark vaults, work incessantly for his cupidity and his pleasures; he who can hear without emotion the lamentations of a crowd of unhappy beings imploring a morsel of bread to pass through the night's misery which is to unite their labors and fatigues of the evening with those of the morning, such a man may have effeminate, but he cannot have gentle manners; his heart may become enervated, but it will not cease to be cruel. This was precisely the situation of the free man in ancient society: the organization of which we have just stated the results was regarded as indispensable; they could not even conceive the possibility of any other order of things. What removed this obstacle? was it not the Catholic Church, by abolishing slavery, after having ameliorated the cruel lot of slaves? Those who revert to the 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th chapters of this work, with the notes appended to them, will find the truth of this demonstrated by incontestable reasons and documents.
In the second place, the right of life and death, given by the laws to the paternal power, introduced into families an element of severity which could not but produce injurious effects. Happily, the hearts of fathers were continually contending against the power thus granted by law: but if this feeling did not prevent some deeds the perusal of which makes us shudder, must we not suppose that, in the ordinary course of life, cruel scenes constantly reminded the members of families of this atrocious right with which the chief was invested? Will not he who is possessed of the power of killing with impunity, be frequently hurried into acts of cruel despotism? Now this tyrannical extension of the rights of paternal authority, carried far beyond the limits pointed out by nature, was taken away by the force of laws and manners which were much aided by the influence of Catholicity (see the 24th chap. of this work). To the two causes which I have just pointed out, may be added another perfectly analogous, viz. the despotism which the husband exercised over his wife, and the little respect which was paid to her. Public spectacles were, among the Romans, another element of severity and cruelty. What could be expected of a people whose principal amusement is to look coolly upon homicide--who took pleasure in witnessing the slaughter in the arena of hundreds of men fighting against each other, or against wild beasts?
As a Spaniard, I feel called upon here to insert a paragraph, in reply to the observations which will be made against me on this point: I allude to the Spanish bull-fights. I shall naturally be asked, Is it not in a Christian and Catholic country that the custom of making men fight against animals is preserved? The objection, however plausible it may seem, can be answered. In the first place, to avoid any misunderstanding, I declare that this popular amusement is, in my opinion, barbarous, and ought, if possible, to be completely extirpated. But after this full and explicit avowal, let me be permitted to make a few observations, to screen the honor of my country. In the first place, it must be remarked, that there is in the human heart a secret taste for risks and dangers; in order to make an adventure interesting, it is necessary that the hero should be encompassed with great and multiplied perils; if a history is to excite curiosity to a high degree, it must not be an uninterrupted chain of peaceful and happy events. We wish to find ourselves frequently in the presence of extraordinary and surprising facts; and, however unpleasant may be the avowal, our hearts, while they feel the tenderest compassion for the unfortunate, seem to require the contemplation of scenes of a more violent and exciting character. Hence the taste for tragedies: hence the love of scenes in which the actors incur great risks, in appearance or in reality. It is not my duty here to explain the origin of this phenomenon; it is enough for me here to point out its existence to show foreigners who accuse us of being barbarians, that the taste of the Spanish people for bull-fights is only the application to a particular case, of an inclination inherent everywhere in the heart of man. Those who, with respect to this custom of the Spanish people, affect so much humanity, would do well to answer the following questions: To what is owing the pleasure taken by the multitude in every exhibition, when the actors run any risk in one way or another? Whence comes it that all would willingly be present at the bloodiest battle, if they could do so without danger? Whence comes it that everywhere an immense multitude assembles to witness the agonies and the last convulsions of a criminal on the gibbet? Whence comes it, in fine, that foreigners, when at Madrid, render themselves accomplices in the barbarity of Spaniards by assisting at these bull-fights? I say this, not in any degree to excuse a custom which appears to me to be unworthy of a civilized people, but to show that in this point, as well as in almost all that relates to the Spanish people, there are exaggerations which ought to be reduced within reasonable limits. Let us add an important observation, which is the best excuse that can be made for this reprehensible exhibition: instead of fixing our attention on the spectacle itself, let us consider the evils that flow from it. Now, I ask, how many men die in Spain in bull-fights? The number is extremely small, and altogether insignificant in proportion to the frequency of these spectacles; so that if a comparison were made between the accidents which occur in consequence of this amusement and those that happen in other sports, such as horse-races and others of the same kind, we should perhaps find that bull-fights, however barbarous they may be in themselves, still do not deserve all the anathemas with which foreigners have loaded them. To return to our principal object, how, we ask, is it possible to compare an amusement which, perhaps, may not cost the life of one man during many years, to those terrible shows in which death was a necessary condition for the pleasure of the spectators? After the triumph of Trajan over the Dacians, the public games lasted twenty-three days, and the fearful number of six thousand gladiators was slain. Such were the amusements at Rome, not only of the populace, but of the highest classes; such were the horrible spectacles required by a people who added voluptuousness to the most atrocious cruelty. This is a most convincing proof of what I have said, viz. that manners may be effeminate without being gentle, and that the brutality of unbounded luxury is not inconsistent with the instinct of blood-thirsty ferocity.
It is impossible that such spectacles should be tolerated among modern nations, however corrupt their manners may be. The principle of charity has extended its empire too universally for such excesses to be renewed. This charity, it is true, does not induce men to do all the good to each other that they ought; but, at least, it prevents their coldly perpetrating evil, and assisting quietly at the slaughter of their brethren to gratify the pleasure of the moment. Christianity, at its birth, cast into society the seed of this aversion to homicide. Who is not aware of the repugnance of Christians for the shows of the Gentiles--a repugnance prescribed and kept alive by the admonitions of the early pastors of the Church? It was an acknowledged fact, that Christian charity prohibited the being present at games where homicide formed part of the spectacle. "As for us," said one of the apologists of the early ages, "we make little difference between committing murder and seeing it committed."[21]
XXXII. THE IMPROVEMENT OF MANNERS BY THE ACTION OF THE CHURCH
Modern society ought, it would seem, to be distinguished for severity and cruelty, since it was formed from that of the Romans and barbarians, from both of whom it should have inherited these qualities. Who is not aware of the fierce manners of the northern barbarians? The historians of that time have left us statements that make us shudder when we read them. It was believed that the end of the world was at hand; and, indeed, it was excusable to consider the last catastrophe as near, when so many other melancholy ones had already been heaped upon humanity. The imagination cannot figure to itself what would have happened to the world at this crisis, if Christianity had not existed. Even supposing that society would have been organized anew under one form or another, it is certain that private and public relations would have remained in a state of lamentable disorder, and that legislation would have been unjust and inhuman. Thus the influence of the Church on civil legislation was an inestimable benefit; thus even the power of the clergy in temporal things was one of the greatest safeguards of the highest interests of society.
Attacks are often made upon this temporal power of the clergy and this influence of the Church in worldly affairs. But, in the first place, it should be remembered, that this power and influence were brought about by the very nature of things; that is to say, they were natural, and, consequently, to assail them is to declaim in vain against the force of events, of which no man could hinder the realization. This power and influence, besides, were legitimate; for when society is in danger, nothing can be more legitimate than that that which can save it should save it. Now, at the time we speak of, the Church alone could save society. The Church, which is not an abstract being, but a real and substantial society, acted upon civil society by real and substantial means. If the purely material interests of society were in question, the minister of the Church ought, in some way or other, to take part in the direction of those interests. These reflections are so natural and simple, that their truth must be seen by good sense. All those who know any thing of history are now generally agreed on this point; and if we are not aware how much it generally costs the human mind to enter upon the path of truth, and, above all, how much bad faith there has been in the examination of these questions, we shall have a difficulty in understanding that so much time should have been required to bring the world to agree on a thing which is apparent to those who read history. But let us return to our subject. This extraordinary mixture of the cruelty of a cultivated but corrupted people with the atrocious ferocity of a barbarous one, proud of its triumphs, and intoxicated with blood during long wars, placed in European society a germ of severity and cruelty which fermented there for ages, and the remains of which we find at a late period. The precept of Christian charity was in men's heads, but Roman cruelty and barbarian ferocity still prevailed in their hearts; ideas were pure and beneficent, since they proceeded from a religion of love, but they encountered a terrible resistance in the habits, manners, institutions, and laws, for all these were more or less disfigured by the two mixed principles which I have just pointed out. If we reflect upon the constant and obstinate struggle between the Catholic Church and the elements which contended with her, we shall clearly see that Christian ideas could never have prevailed in legislation and manners, if Christianity had been a religious idea abandoned to human caprice, as Protestants imagine; it was necessary for it to be realized in a powerful institution, in a strongly constituted society, such as we find in the Catholic Church. In order to give an idea of the efforts made by the Church, I will point out some of the regulations which she made for the purpose of improving manners. Private animosities were very violent at the time of which we speak; and right was decided by force, and the world was threatened with becoming the patrimony of the strongest. Public law did not exist, or was hurried away and confounded by outrages which its feeble hand could never prevent or repress; it was altogether powerless in rendering manners pacific, and in subjecting men to reason and justice. Then we see that the Church, besides the instruction and the general admonitions inseparable from her sacred mission, adopted at that time certain measures calculated to restrain the torrent of violence which ravaged and destroyed every thing. The Council of Arles, celebrated in the middle of the fifth century, between 443 and 452, ordains, in its 50th canon, that the Church should be interdicted to those who have public animosities, until they were reconciled. The Council of Angers, celebrated in 453, proscribes, by its 3d canon, acts of violence and mutilation. The Council of Agde, in Languedoc, celebrated in 506, ordains, in its 31st canon, that enemies who would not be reconciled should be admonished by the priests, and excommunicated if they did not follow their apostolical counsels.
The Franks at that time had the custom of going armed, and they always entered the churches with their arms. It will be understood that such a custom must have produced great evils; the house of prayer was often converted into an arena of blood and vengeance. In the middle of the seventh century, the Council of Chalons-sur-Saone, in its 17th canon, pronounces excommunication against all laymen who excite tumults, or draw their swords to strike any one in the churches or in their precincts. Thus, we see the prudence and foresight which dictated the 29th canon of the third Council of Orleans, celebrated in 538, which forbids any one to be present at mass or vespers, armed. It is curious to observe the uniformity of design and plan pursued by the Church. In countries the most distant from each other, and at times when communication could not be frequent, we find regulations analogous to those which we have pointed out. The Council of Lerida, held in 546, ordains, by its 7th canon, that he who shall have sworn not to be reconciled with his enemy, shall be deprived of the participation of the body and blood of Jesus Christ until he has done penance for his oath and been reconciled.
Centuries passed away, acts of violence continued, the precept of fraternal charity, which obliges us to love even our enemies, always met with open resistance in the harsh character and fierce passions of the descendants of the barbarians; but the Church did not cease to preach the divine command; she continually inculcated and labored to render it efficacious by means of spiritual penalties. More than four hundred years had elapsed since the celebration of the Council of Arles, where we have seen the church forbidden to those who were openly at variance; we then see the Council of Worms, held in 868, pronouncing, in its 41st canon, excommunication against enemies who refused to be reconciled. It will suffice to have some idea of the disorders of that time, to know whether it was possible to appease the violence of animosities during this long period. One would fancy that the Church would have been wearied of inculcating a precept which the unhappy state of circumstances so often rendered fruitless; but such was not the case: she continued to speak as she had spoken for ages; she never lost her confidence that her words would produce fruit in the present, and would be productive in the future. Such is her system; one would think that she heard these words constantly repeated, "Cry out, cry out without ceasing; raise thy voice like a trumpet." It is then that she triumphs over all resistance; when she cannot exert her power over the will of a nation, she makes her voice heard with indefatigable diligence in the sanctuary. There she assembles seven thousand who have not bent the knee to Baal; and while she endeavors to confirm them in faith and good works, she protests, in the name of God, against those who resist the Holy Spirit. Let us imagine that, amid the dissipation and distraction of a populous city, we enter a sacred place, where seriousness and moderation reign, in the bosom of silence and religious retirement; there a minister of the sanctuary, surrounded by a chosen number of the faithful, utters from time to time some serious and solemn words. This is the personification of the Church in times disastrous from weakened faith and corrupted morals. One of the rules of conduct of the Catholic Church has been, not to bend before the powerful. When she has proclaimed a law, she has proclaimed it for all, without distinction of rank. In the time of the power of those petty tyrants, who, under different names, persecuted the people, this conduct of the Church contributed in an extraordinary degree to render the ecclesiastical laws popular; for nothing was more likely to make a law tolerable to the people than to show that it applied to nobles, and even to kings. In the times of which we speak, hatred and violence among plebeians were severely proscribed; but the same law extended to great men and to royalty. A short time after the establishment of Christianity in England, we find a very curious example in that country, applicable to this question. It is nothing less than excommunication pronounced against three kings in the same year, and in the same town; all these were compelled by the Councils to do penance for the crimes which they had committed. The town of Llandaff, in Wales, within the metropolitan see of Canterbury, witnessed the celebration of three Councils, in the year 560. In the first, Monric, king of Glamorgan, was excommunicated for having put to death King Cinétha, although he had sworn the peace on the sacred relics; in the second, King Morcant was excommunicated for having put to death Friac, his uncle, in whose favor he had equally sworn the peace; in the third, King Guidnert was excommunicated for having put to death his brother, the competitor for the throne.
Thus, these barbarian chiefs, just changed into kings, and prone to slaughter, are compelled to acknowledge the authority of a superior power, and to expiate by penance the murder of their relatives and the violation of sacred engagements; it is useless to point out how much this must have contributed to the improvement of manners. "It was easy," the enemies of the Church will say--those who endeavor to lower the merit of her acts--"it was easy to preach gentleness of manners, to impose the observance of divine precepts on chiefs whose power was limited, and who had only the name of kings; it was easy to manage those petty barbarian chiefs, who, rendered fanatical by a religion of which they understood nothing, humbly bowed before the first priest who ventured to menace them on the part of God. But of what importance was that? What influence could it have on the course of great events? The history of European civilization presents a vast theatre, where events must be studied on a large scale, and where none but the most important scenes exercised any influence on the spirit of nations." Let us observe, that these petty barbarian kings were the origin of the principal families which now occupy the most important thrones of the world. To place the germ of real civilization in their hearts, was to graft the tree which was one day to overshadow the earth. But without staying to show the futility of such reasoning, and as our opponents desire great scenes capable of influencing European manners on a large scale, let us open the history of the Church in the first ages, and we shall soon find a page which redounds to the eternal honor of Catholicity. The whole of the known world was subject to an emperor, whose name, then universally venerated, will continue to be respected by the remotest posterity. In an important city, the rebellious inhabitants put to death the commander of the garrison; the emperor, transported with anger, orders them to be exterminated. Returning to himself, he revokes the order; but it was too late, the order was executed, and thousands of victims had been involved in the horrible carnage; at the news of this dreadful catastrophe, a bishop quits the court of the emperor, leaves the city, and writes to him in this grave language: "I dare not offer the sacrifice if you attempt to be present at it; the blood of one innocent person would suffice to forbid me; how much more the massacre of a large number." The emperor, confident in his power, takes no notice of this letter, and goes towards the church. When he arrives at the door, he finds himself in the presence of a venerable man, who, with a grave and stern countenance, stops him and forbids him to enter the church. "Thou hast imitated David in crime," he says, "imitate him also in penance." The emperor yields, humbles himself, and submits to the regulations of the bishop, and religion and humanity gain an immortal triumph. This unhappy city was Thessalonica; the emperor was Theodosius; the prelate was St. Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan.
We find face to face, in this sublime fact, force and justice personified. Justice triumphs over force; but why? Because he who represents justice, represents it in the name of Heaven; because the sacred vestments and the imposing attitude of the man who stops the emperor reminds Theodosius of the divine mission of the holy bishop, and of the office which he holds in the sacred ministry. Put a philosopher in the place of the bishop, and tell him to arrest the proud culprit by an injunction of doing penance, and you will see whether human wisdom can do as much as the Catholic priest speaking in the name of God. Put, if you please, a bishop of the Church, who has acknowledged spiritual supremacy in the civil power, and you will see whether in his mouth words have the same effect in obtaining so glorious a triumph. The spirit of the Church was always the same; her arms were always directed towards the same end; her language was always equally strict, equally strong, whether she spoke to the Roman plebeian or a barbarian, whether she addressed her admonitions to a patrician of the empire or to a noble German. She was no more afraid of the purple of the Cæsars than of the frowns of the long-haired kings. The power which she possessed during the middle ages was not exclusively owing to her having preserved alone the light of science and the principles of government; but it was also owing to the invincible firmness, which no resistance and no attack could destroy. What would Protestantism have effected in such difficult and dangerous circumstances? Without authority, without a centre of action, without security for her own faith, without confidence in her resources, what means would she have had to assist her in restraining the torrent of violence--that impetuous torrent, which, after having inundated the world, was about to destroy the remains of ancient civilization, and opposed to all attempts at social reorganization an obstacle almost insurmountable? Catholicity, with its ardent faith, its powerful authority, its undivided unity, its well-compacted hierarchy, was able to undertake the lofty enterprise of improving manners; and it brought to the undertaking that constancy which is inspired by conscious strength, and that boldness which animates a mind secure of triumph.
We must not, however, imagine that the conduct of the Church, in her mission of improving manners, always brought her into collision with force. We also see her employ indirect means, limit her demands to what she could obtain, and ask for as little, in order to obtain as much as possible. In a capitulary of Charlemagne, given at Aix-la-Chapelle in 813, and consisting of twenty-six articles, which are nothing more than a sort of confirmation and résumé of the five Councils held a little before in France, we find in an appendix of two articles the method of proceeding judicially against those who, under pretext of the right called faida, excited tumults on Sundays, holidays, and also working days. We have already seen above that they had recourse to the holy relics, to give greater authority to the oaths of peace and friendship taken by kings towards each other--an august act, in which Heaven was invoked to prevent the effusion of blood, and to establish peace on earth. We see in the capitulary which we have just quoted, that the respect for Sundays and holidays was made use of to bring about the abolition of the barbarous custom, which authorized the relations of a murdered man to avenge his death in the blood of the murderer. The deplorable state of European society at that time is vividly painted by the means which the ecclesiastical power was compelled to use, to diminish in some degree the disasters occasioned by the prevailing violence. Not to attack, not to maltreat any one, not to have recourse to force to obtain reparation or to gratify a desire of vengeance, appears to us to be so just, so reasonable, and so natural, that we can hardly imagine another way of acting. If, now, a law were promulgated, to forbid one to attack one's enemy on such or such a day, at such or such an hour, it would appear to us the height of folly and extravagance. But it was not so at that time; such prohibitions were made continually, not in obscure hamlets, but in great towns, in very numerous assemblies, when bishops were present in hundreds, and where counts, dukes, princes, and kings were gathered together. This law, by which authority was glad to make the principles of justice respected, at least on certain days,--principally on the great solemnities,--this law, which now would appear to us so strange, was, in a certain way, and for a long period, one of the chief points of public and private law in Europe. It will be understood that I allude to the truce of God, a privilege of peace very necessary at that time, as we see it very often renewed in various countries. Of all that I might say on this point, I shall content myself with selecting a few of the decisions of Councils at the time. The Council of Tubuza, in the diocese of Elne, in Roussillon, held by Guifred, Archbishop of Narbonne, in 1041, established the truce of God, from the evening of Friday until Monday morning. Nobody during that time could take any thing by force, or revenge any injury, or require any pledge in surety. Those who violated this decree were liable to the same legal composition as if they had merited death; in default of which, they were excommunicated and banished from the country.
The practice of this ecclesiastical regulation was considered so advantageous, that many other Councils were held in France during the same year, on the same subject. Moreover, care was taken frequently to repeat the obligation, as we see by the Council of Saint Gilles, in Languedoc, held in 1042, and by that of Narbonne, held in 1045. In spite of these, repeated efforts did not obtain all the desired fruit; this is indicated by the changes which we observe in the regulations of the law. Thus we see that, in the year 1047, the truce of God was fixed for a less time than in 1041; the Council of Telugis, in the same diocese of Elne, held in 1047, only ordains that it is forbidden to any one in all the comté of Roussillon to attack his enemy between the hours of none on Sunday and prime on Monday; the law was then much less extensive than in 1041, when, as we have seen, the truce of God was extended from Friday evening till Monday morning. We find in the same Council a remarkable regulation, the object of which was to preserve from all attack men who were going to church or returning from it, or who were accompanying women. In 1054, the truce of God had gained ground; we see it extended, not only from Friday evening till Monday morning after sunrise, but over considerable periods of the year. Thus we see that the Council of Narbonne, held by Archbishop Guifred, in 1045, after having included in the truce of God the time from Friday evening till Monday morning, declares it obligatory during the following periods: from the first Sunday of Advent till the octave of the Epiphany; from Quinquagesima Sunday till the octave of Easter; from the Sunday preceding the Ascension till the octave of Pentecost; the festival days of Our Lady, of St. Peter, of St. Laurence, of St. Michael, of All Saints, of St. Martin, of St. Just and Pasteur, titularies of the Church of Narbonne, and all fasting days, under pain of anathema and perpetual banishment. The same Council gives some other regulations, so beautiful that we cannot pass them over in silence, when we are engaged in showing the influence of the Catholic Church in improving manners. The 9th canon forbids the cutting of olive-trees; a reason for it is given, which, in the eyes of jurists, will not appear sufficiently general or adequate, but which, in the eyes of the philosophy of history, is a beautiful symbol of the beneficial influence exercised over society by religion. This is the reason given by the Council: "It is," it says, "that the olive-trees may furnish matter for the holy chrism, and feed the lamps that burn in the churches." Such a reason was sure to produce more effect than any that could be drawn from Ulpian and Justinian. It is ordained in the 10th canon that shepherds and their flocks shall enjoy at all times the security of the truce; the same favor is extended by the 11th canon to all houses within thirty paces of the churches. The 18th canon forbids those who have a suit, to take any active steps, to commit the least violence, until the cause has been judged in presence of the bishop and lord of the place. The other canons forbid the robbing of merchants and pilgrims, and the commission of wrong against any one, under pain of being separated from the Church, if the crime be committed during the time of the truce.
In proportion as we advance in the 11th century, we see the salutary practice of the truce of God more and more inculcated; the Popes interpose their authority in its favor. At the Council of Gironne, held by Cardinal Hugues-le-Blanc, in 1068, the truce of God is confirmed by the authority of Alexander II., under pain of excommunication; the Council held in 1080, at Lillebonne, in Normandy, gives us reason to suppose that the truce was then generally established, since it ordains, by its first canon to bishops and lords, to take care that it was observed, and to inflict on offenders against it censures and other penalties. In the year 1093, the Council of Troja, in Apulia, held by Urban II., continues the truce of God. To judge of the extent of this canonical regulation, we should know that this Council consisted of sixty-five bishops. The number was much greater at the Council of Clermont, in Auvergne, held by the same Urban II., in 1095; it reckoned no less than thirteen archbishops, two hundred and twenty bishops, and a great number of abbots. The first canon of this Council confirms the truce for Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday; it wishes, moreover, that it should be observed on all the days of the week, with respect to monks, clergy, and women. The canons 29 and 30 ordain, that if a man pursued by an enemy take refuge near a cross, he should be in safety, as if he had found asylum in a church. The sublime sign of redemption, after having given salvation to the world, by drinking on Calvary the blood of the Son of God, had already proved a refuge, during the sack of Rome, to those who fled from the fury of the barbarians; centuries later, we find it erected on the roads, to save the unfortunate, who, by embracing it, escaped their enemies, who were thus deterred from vengeance.
The Council of Rouen, held in 1096, extending still further the benefit of the truce, ordains the observance of it from the Sunday before Ash Wednesday till the second feast after the octave of Pentecost, from sunset on Wednesday preceding Advent to the octave of Epiphany, and every week from Friday after sunset till the Monday following at sunrise; in fine, on all the feasts and vigils of the Virgin and the Apostles. The 2d canon of the same Council secures perpetual peace to all clergy, monks, and nuns, to women, to pilgrims, to merchants and their servants, to oxen and horses of labor, to carmen and laborers; it gives the same privileges to all lands that belong to sacred institutions; all such persons, animals, and lands are protected from the attacks of pillage and all kinds of violence. At this time the law felt itself stronger; it could now call for obedience in a firmer tone; we see, indeed, that the third canon of the same Council enjoins upon all who have reached the age of twelve, to engage by oath to observe the truce; in the fourth canon, all who refuse to take this oath are excommunicated. Some years after, in 1115, the truce, instead of comprising certain stated parts of the year, embraces whole years; the Council of Troja in Apulia, held in that year by Pope Pascal, establishes the truce for three years.
The Popes pursued with ardor the work thus commenced; they sanctioned it with their authority, and extended the observance of the truce by means of their influence, then universal and powerful over all Europe. Although the truce was apparently only a testimony of respect paid to religion by the violent passions, which, in her favor, consented to suspend their hostilities, it was, in reality, a triumph of right over might, and one of the most admirable devices ever used to improve the manners of a barbarous people. The man who, during four days of the week, and during long periods of the year, was compelled to suspend the exercise of force, was necessarily led to more gentle manners; he must, in the end, entirely renounce it. The difficulty is not, to convince a man that he does ill, but to make him lose the habit of doing so; and it is well known that habits are engendered by the repetition of acts, and are lost when they cease for a time. Nothing is more pleasing to the Christian soul than to see the Popes laboring to maintain and extend this truce. They renew the command of it with a power the more efficacious and universal according to the number of bishops who assist at the Councils where their supreme authority presides. At the Council of Rheims, opened by Pope Calixtus II. in person, in 1119, a decree confirming the truce is promulgated. Thirteen archbishops, more than two hundred bishops, and a great number of abbots and ecclesiastics, distinguished for their rank, assisted at this Council. The same command is renewed at the General Council of Lateran, held under the care of the same Pontiff, Calixtus II., in 1123. There were assembled more than three hundred archbishops and bishops, and more than six hundred abbots. In 1130, the Council of Clermont, in Auvergne, held by Innocent II., insists on the same point, and repeats the regulations concerning the observance of the truce. The Council of Avignon, held in 1209, by Hugh, Bishop of Riez, and Milon, notary of Pope Innocent III., both legates of the Holy See, confirms the laws before enacted on the subject of the peace and the truce, and condemns the rebellious who dare to infringe them. In the year 1215, at the Council of Montpellier, assembled by Robert de Courçon, and presided over by Cardinal Benavent, in his office as legate of the province, all the regulations established at different times for the public safety, and more recently to secure peace between lord and lord, and town and town, are renewed and confirmed.
Those who have regarded the intervention of the ecclesiastical power in civil affairs as a usurpation of the rights of public authority, should tell us how it is possible to usurp that which does not exist, and how a power which is unable to exercise the authority which ought to belong to it, can reasonably complain when that authority passes into the hands of those who have force and skill to make use of it. At that time, the public authority did not at all complain of these pretended usurpations. Governments and nations looked upon them as just and legitimate; for, as we have said above, they were natural and necessary, they were brought about by the force of events, they were the result of the situation of affairs. Certainly, it would now seem extraordinary to see bishops provide for the security of roads, publish edicts against incendiaries, against robbers, against those who cut down olive-trees and commit other injuries of the kind; but, at the time we are speaking of, this proceeding was very natural, and more, it was necessary. Thanks to the care of the Church, to that incessant solicitude which has been since so inconsiderately blamed, the foundations of the social edifice, in which we now dwell in peace, were laid; an organization was realized which would have been impossible without the influence of religion and the action of ecclesiastical authority. If you wish to know whether any fact of which you have to judge is the result of the nature of things, or the fruit of well contrived combinations, observe the manner in which it appears, the places where it takes its rise, the times which witness its appearance; and if you shall find it reproduced at once in places far distant from each other, by men who can have had no concert, be assured that it is not the result of human contrivance, but of the force of events. These conditions are found united in a palpable manner in the action of the ecclesiastical power on public affairs. Open the Councils of those times, and everywhere the same facts meet your eyes; thus, to quote a few examples, the Council of Palentia, in the kingdom of Leon, held in 1129, decrees, in its 12th canon, exile or seclusion in a monastery, against those who attack the clergy, monks, merchants, pilgrims, and women. Let us pass into France; the Council of Clermont, in Auvergne, held in 1130, pronounces, in its 13th canon, excommunication against incendiaries. In 1157, the Council of Rheims, in the 3d canon, orders to be respected, during war, the persons of the clergy, of monks, women, travellers, laborers, and vine-dressers. Let us pass into Italy; the 11th Council of Lateran, a General Council, convoked in 1179, forbids, in its 22d canon, to maltreat or disturb monks, clergy, pilgrims, merchants, peasants, either travelling or engaged in the labors of agriculture, and animals laboring in the fields. In its 24th canon, the same Council excommunicates those who make slaves of, or rob, Christians on voyages of commerce, or for other lawful purposes; those who plunder the shipwrecked are subjected to the same penalty, unless they make restitution. Let us go to England; there the Council of Oxford, held in 1222, by Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, forbids, by its 20th canon, any one to have robbers in their service. In Sweden, the Council of Arbogen, held in 1396, by Henry, Archbishop of Upsala, directs, by its 5th canon, that church-burial shall be refused to pirates, ravishers, incendiaries, highway robbers, oppressors of the poor, and other malefactors; so that in all parts, and at the same periods, we see the same fact appear, viz. the Church struggling against injustice and violence, and endeavoring to substitute in their stead the empire of law and justice.
In what spirit must they read the history of the Church, who do not feel the beauty of the picture presented to us by the multitude of regulations, scarcely indicated here, all tending to protect the weak against the strong? The clergy and monks, on account of the weakness consequent on their peaceful profession, find in the canons which we have just quoted peculiar protection; but the same is granted to females, to pilgrims, to merchants, to villagers, travelling, or engaged in rural labors, and to beasts of labor--in a word, to all that is weak; and observe, that this protection is not a mere passing effort of generosity, but a system practised in widely different places, continued for centuries, developed and applied by all the means that charity suggests--a system inexhaustible in resources and contrivances, both in producing good and in preventing evil. And surely it cannot be said that the Church was influenced in this by views of self-interest: what interested motive could she have in preventing the spoliation of an obscure traveller, the violence inflicted on a poor laborer, or the insult offered to a defenceless woman? The spirit which then animated her, whatever might be the abuses which were introduced during unhappy times, was, as it now is, the spirit of God himself--that spirit which continually communicates to her so marked an inclination towards goodness and justice, and always urges her to realize, by any possible means, her sublime desires. I leave the reader to judge whether or not the constant efforts of the Church to banish the dominion of force from the bosom of society were likely to improve manners. I now speak only of times of peace; for I need not stay to prove that during the time of war that influence must have had the happiest results. The væ victis of the ancients has disappeared from modern history, thanks to the divine religion which knew how to inspire man with new ideas and new feelings--thanks to the Catholic Church, whose zeal for the redemption of captives has softened the fierce maxims of the Romans, who, as we have seen, had considered it necessary to take from brave men the hope of being redeemed from servitude, when by the chances of war they had fallen into the hands of their enemies. The reader may revert to the seventh chapter of this work, and the third paragraph of the fifteenth note, where there are, in the original text, numerous documents that may be quoted in support of our assertion; he will thus be better able to judge of the gratitude which is due to the charity, disinterestedness, and indefatigable zeal of the Catholic Church in favor of the unfortunate, who groaned in bondage in the power of their enemies. We must also consider that, slavery once abolished, the system was necessarily improved; for if those who surrendered could no longer be put to death, or be kept in slavery, the only thing to be done was, to retain them for the time necessary to prevent their doing mischief, or until they were ransomed. Now, this is the modern system, which consists in retaining prisoners till the end of the war, or until they are exchanged.
Although the amelioration of manners, as I have said above, consists, properly speaking, in the exclusion of force, we must yet avoid considering this exclusion of force in the abstract, and believing that such an order of things was possible, by virtue of the mere development of mind. All is connected in this world; it is not enough, to constitute the real improvement of manners, that they avoid violence as much as possible; they must also be benevolent. As long as they are not so, they will be less gentle than enervated; the use of force will not be banished from society, but it will remain artificially disguised. It will be understood, then, that we are obliged here to take a survey of the principle whence European civilization has drawn the spirit of benevolence which distinguishes it; we shall thus succeed in showing that the gentleness of our present manners is principally owing to Catholicity. There is, besides, in the examination of the principle of benevolence, so much importance of its own, independently of its connection with the question which now occupies us, that we cannot avoid devoting some pages to it, in the course of an analytical review of the elements of our civilization.[22]
XXXIII. ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF PUBLIC BENEFICENCE IN EUROPE
Never will manners be perfectly gentle without the existence of public beneficence; so that gentleness of manners and beneficence, although distinct, are sisters. Public beneficence, properly so called, was unknown among the ancients. Individuals might be beneficent there, but society was without compassion. Thus, the foundation of public establishments of beneficence formed no part of the system of administration among ancient nations. What, then, did they do with the unfortunate? We will answer with the author of the Génie de Christianisme, that they had no resources but infanticide and slavery. Christianity having become predominant everywhere, we see the authority of the Church employed in destroying the remains of cruel customs. In the year 442, the Council of Vaison, establishing a regulation for the legitimate possession of foundlings, decrees ecclesiastical censure against those who disturb by importunate reproaches charitable persons who have received children. The Council adopts this measure with the view of protecting a beneficent custom; for, adds the canon, these children were exposed to be eaten by dogs. There were still found fathers unnatural enough to kill their children. The Council of Lerida, held in 546, imposes seven years of penance on those who commit such a crime; and that of Toledo, held in 589, forbids, in the 17th canon, parents to commit this crime. Still, the difficulty did not consist in correcting these excesses; crimes thus opposed to the first notions of morality--so much in contradiction to the feelings of nature--tended to their own extirpation. The difficulty consisted in finding proper means to organize a vast system of beneficence, to provide constant succor, not only for children, but for old men, for the sick, for the poor incapable of living by their own labor; in a word, for all the necessitous. Familiarized as we are with such a system universally established, we see nothing in it but what is simple and natural; we can hardly find any merit in it. But let us suppose for a moment that such institutions do not exist; let us transport ourselves to the times when there was not even the first idea of them, what continued efforts would there not be required to establish and organize them!
It is clear that by the mere extension of Christian charity in the world the various wants of humanity must have been more frequently succored, and with more efficacy, than they were before; and this even if we suppose that the exercise of charity was limited to purely individual means. Assuredly, there would always have been a great number of the faithful who would have remembered the doctrines and example of Jesus Christ. Our Saviour did not content Himself with teaching us by his discourses the obligation of loving our neighbor as ourselves, nor with a barren affection, but by giving food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, clothes to the naked; by visiting the sick and prisoners. He showed us in his own conduct a model of the practice of charity. He could have shown in a thousand ways the power which belonged to Him in heaven and on earth; his voice could have controlled all the elements, stopped the motions of the stars, and suspended all the laws of nature; but He delighted above all in displaying his beneficence; He only attested his divinity by miracles which healed or consoled the unfortunate. His whole life is summed up in the sublime simplicity of these two words of the sacred text: pertransiit benefaciendo; He went about doing good.
Whatever good might be expected from Christian charity when left to its own inspiration, and acting in a sphere purely individual, it was not desirable to leave it in this state. It was necessary to realize it in permanent institutions, and not to leave the consolation of the unfortunate to the mercy of man and passing circumstances; this is the reason why there was so much wisdom and foresight in the idea of founding establishments of beneficence. It was the Church that conceived and executed this idea. Therein she only applied to a particular case her general rule of conduct; which is, never to leave to the will of individuals what can be connected with an institution: and observe, that this is one of the causes of the strength inherent in all that belongs to Catholicity. As the principle of authority in matters of faith preserves to her unity and constancy therein, so the rule of intrusting every thing to institutions secures the solidity and duration of all her works. These two principles have an intimate connection; for if you examine them attentively, the one supposes that she distrusts the intellect of man, the other, that she distrusts his individual will and capacity. The one supposes that man is not sufficient of himself to attain to, and preserve the knowledge of, certain truths; the other, that he is so feeble and capricious, that it is unwise to leave to his weakness and inconstancy the care of doing good. Now, neither one nor the other is injurious to man; neither one nor the other lowers his proper dignity. The Church only tells him, that he is, in reality, subject to error, inclined to evil, inconstant in his designs, and very miserable in his resources. These are melancholy truths; but the experience of every day attests them, and the Christian religion explains them, by establishing, as a fundamental dogma, the fall of man in the person of our first parent. Protestantism, following principles diametrically opposite, applies the same spirit of individuality to the will as to the intelligence; it is even the natural enemy of institutions. Without going further than our present subject, we see that its first step, on its appearance, was to destroy what existed, without in any way replacing it. Will it be believed that Montesquieu went so far as to applaud this work of destruction? This is another proof of the fatal influence exerted over minds by the pestilential atmosphere of the last century: "Henri VIII.," says Montesquieu, "voulant réformer l'église d'Angleterre, détruisit les moines: nation paresseuse elle-même, et qui entretenait la paresse des autres, parceque, practiquant l'hospitalité, une infinité de gens oisifs, gentilhommes et bourgeois, passoient leur vie à courir de couvent en couvent. Il ôta encore les hôpitaux, où le bas peuple trouvait sa subsistence, comme les gentilhommes trouvaient la leur dans les monastères. Depuis ce changement, l'esprit de commerce et d'industrie s'établit en Angleterre." (De l'Esprit des Lois, liv. xxiii. chap. 19.) That Montesquieu should praise this conduct of Henry VIII., and the destruction of monasteries, for the miserable reason, that it was good to deprive the idle of the hospitality of the monks, is a notion which ought not to astonish us, as such vulgar ideas were in accordance with the taste of the philosophy which had then begun to prevail. It attempted to find profound economical and political reasons for all that was in opposition to the institutions of Catholicity; and this was not difficult, for a prejudiced mind always finds in books, as well as in facts, what it seeks. We might inquire of Montesquieu, however, what is become of the property of the monasteries? As these rich spoils were in great part given to the same nobles who found hospitality with the monks, we might observe to him, that it was a singular way of diminishing the idleness of people, to give them as their own the property which they had previously enjoyed as guests. It cannot be denied, that to take to the houses of the nobles the property which had supported the hospitality which the monks showed them, was certainly to save them the trouble of running from monastery to monastery. But what we cannot tolerate is, to hear vaunted as a political chef-d'œuvre, the suppression of the hospitals where the poor people found their subsistence. What! are these your lofty views, and is your philosophy so devoid of compassion, that you think the destruction of the asylums of misfortune proper means for encouraging industry and commerce? The worst of it is, that Montesquieu, seduced by the desire of offering new and piquant observations, goes so far as to deny the utility of hospitals, pretending that, in Rome, they make all live in comfort except those who labor. He does not wish to have them in rich nations or in poor ones. He supports this cruel paradox by a reason stated in the following words: "Quand la nation est pauvre," says he, "la pauvreté particulière dérive de la misère générale, et elle est, pour ainsi dire, la misère générale. Tous les hôpitaux du monde ne sauraient guérir cette pauvreté particulière; au contraire l'esprit de paresse qu'ils inspirent augmente la pauvreté générale, et par conséquent la particulière." Thus, hospitals are represented as dangerous to poor nations, and consequently condemned. Let us now listen to what is said of rich ones: "J'ai dit que les nations riches avaient besoin d'hôpitaux, parceque la fortune y était sujette a mille accidents; mais on sent que les recours passagers vaudraient bien mieux que les établissements perpétuels. Le mal est momentané; il faut donc des secours de même nature, et qui soient applicables à l'accident particulier." (De l'Esprit des Lois, liv. xxiii. chap. 19.) It is difficult to find any thing more empty or more false. Undoubtedly, if we were to judge, by these passages, of the Esprit des Lois, the merit of which has been so much exaggerated, we should be compelled to condemn it in terms more severe than those employed by M. de Bonald, when he called it "the most profound of superficial works." Happily for the poor, and for the good order of society, Europe in general has not adopted these maxims; and on this point, as on many others, prejudices against Catholicity have been laid aside, in order to continue, with more or less modification, the system which she taught. We find in England herself a considerable number of establishments of beneficence; and it is not believed in that country that it is necessary, in order to excite the activity of the poor, to expose them to the danger of dying of hunger. We should always remember that the system of public establishments for beneficence, now general in Europe, would not have existed without Catholicity; indeed, we may rest assured, that if the religious schism had taken place before the foundation and organization of this system, European society would not now have enjoyed these establishments which do it so much honor, and are so precious an element of good government and public tranquillity. It is one thing to found and maintain an establishment of this kind, when a great number of similar ones already exist,--when governments possess immense resources, and strength sufficient to protect all interests; but it is a very different thing to establish a multitude of them in all places, when there is no model to be copied, when it is necessary to improvise in a thousand ways the indispensable resources,--when public authority has no prestige or force to control the violent passions that struggle to gain every thing that they can feed on. Now, in modern times, since the existence of Protestantism, the first only of these things has been done; the second was accomplished centuries before by the Catholic Church; and let it be observed, that what has been done in Protestant countries in favor of public beneficence, has been done by administrative acts of the government, acts which were necessarily inspired by the view of the happy results already obtained from similar institutions. But Protestantism, by itself, considered as a separate Church, has done nothing, and it could do nothing; for in all places where it preserves any thing of hierarchical organization, it is the mere instrument of the civil power; consequently it cannot there act by its own inspirations. Such is the vice of its constitution. Its prejudice against the religious institutions, both of men and women, make it sterile in this respect. Thus, indeed, it is deprived of one of the most powerful elements possessed by Catholicity to accomplish the most arduous and laborious works of charity. For the great works of charity, it is necessary to be free from worldly attachments and self-love; and these qualities are found in an eminent degree in persons who are devoted to charity in religious institutions. There they commence with that freedom which is the root of all the rest--the absence of self-love. The Catholic Church has not been instigated to this by the civil power; she has considered it as one of her own peculiar duties to provide for the unfortunate. Her bishops have always been looked upon as the protectors and the natural inspectors of beneficent establishments. Therefore there was a law which placed hospitals under the charge of the bishops; and thence it comes that that class of charitable institutions has always occupied a distinguished place in canonical legislation. The Church, from remote times, has made laws concerning hospitals. Thus, we see the Council of Chalcedon place under the authority of the bishop the clergy residing in Ptochüs,--that is, as explained by Zonarus, in the establishments destined to support and provide for the poor: "Such," he says, "as those where orphans and the old and infirm are received and cared for." The Council makes use of this expression, according to the tradition of the holy Fathers; thereby indicating that regulations had been made of old by the Church concerning establishments of this kind. The learned also know what the ancient diaconies were,--places of charity, where poor widows, orphans, old men, and other unfortunate persons, were received.
When the irruption of the barbarians had introduced everywhere the reign of force, the possessions which hospitals already had, and those which they afterwards gained, were exposed to unbounded rapacity. The Church did all she could to protect them. It was forbidden to take them, under the severest penalties; those who made the attempt were punished as murderers of the poor. The Council of Orleans, held in 549, forbids, in its 13th canon, taking the property of hospitals; the 15th canon of the same Council confirms the foundation of a hospital at Lyons, a foundation due to the charity of King Childebert and Queen Ultrogotha. The Council takes measures to secure the safety and good management of the funds of that hospital; all violating these regulations are anathematized as guilty of homicide of the poor.
We find, with respect to the poor, in very ancient Councils, regulations of charity and police at the same time, quite similar to measures now adopted in certain countries. For example, parishes are enjoined to make a list of their poor, to maintain them, &c. The Council of Tours, held in 566 or 567, by its 5th canon orders every town to maintain its poor; and the priests in the country, as well as the faithful, to maintain their own, in order to prevent mendicants from wandering about the towns and provinces. With respect to lepers, the 21st canon of the Council of Orleans, before quoted, prescribes to bishops to take particular care of these unfortunate beings in all dioceses, and to furnish them with food and clothing out of the Church funds; the Council of Lyons, held in 583, in its 6th canon ordains that the lepers of every town and territory shall be supported at the expense of the Church under the care of the bishop. The Church had a register of the poor, intended to regulate the distribution which was made to them of a portion of the ecclesiastical property; it was expressly forbidden to demand any thing from the poor for being inscribed in this book of charity. The Council of Rheims, held in 874, in the second of its five articles forbids receiving any thing from the poor thus inscribed, and that under pain of deposition. Zeal for improving the condition of prisoners, a kind of charity which has been so much displayed in modern times, is extremely ancient in the Church. We must observe that in the sixth century there was already an inspector of prisons; the archdeacon or the provost of the church was obliged to visit prisoners on all Sundays; no class of criminals was excluded from the benefit of this solicitude. The archdeacon was bound to learn their wants, and to furnish them, by means of a person recommended by the bishop, with food and all they stood in need of. This was ordered by the 20th canon of the Council of Orleans, held in 549. It would be too long to enumerate even a small part of the ordinances which attest the zeal of the Church for the comfort and consolation of the unfortunate; besides, it would be beyond my purpose, for I have only undertaken to compare the spirit of Protestantism with that of Catholicity with respect to works of charity. Yet, and as the development of this question has naturally led me to state several historical facts, I shall allude to the 141st canon of the Council of Aix-la-Chapelle, enjoining upon prelates to found, according to the example of their predecessors, a hospital to receive all the poor that the revenues of the Church were able to support. Prebendaries were bound to give to the hospital the tenth of their fruits; one of them was appointed to receive the poor and strangers, and to watch over the administration of the hospital. Such was the rule of prebendaries. In the rule destined for the canonesses, the same Council ordains that a hospital shall be established close to the house, and that it shall itself contain a place reserved for poor women. Therefore, were there seen, many centuries later, in various places, hospitals near to prebendal churches. As we approach our own times, we everywhere see innumerable institutions founded for charity. Ought we not to admire the fruitfulness with which there arise, on all sides, as many resources as are necessary to succour all the unfortunate? We cannot calculate with precision what would have happened if Protestantism had not appeared, but at least there is a conjecture authorized by reasons of analogy. If the development of European civilization had been fully carried out under the principle of religious unity, if the so-called Reformation had not plunged Europe into continual revolutions and reactions, there would certainly have been produced in the bosom of the Catholic Church some general system of beneficence, which, organized on a grand scale and in conformity with the new progress of society, would have been able to prevent or effectually to remedy the sore of pauperism, that cancer of modern nations. What was not to be expected from all the intelligence and all the resources of Europe, working in concert to obtain this great result? Unhappily, the unity of faith was broken; authority, the proper centre, past, present, and future, was rejected. From that time Europe, which was destined to become a nation of brothers, was changed into a most fiercely-contested battle-field. Hatred, engendered by religious differences, prevented any united efforts for new arrangements; and the necessities which arose out of the bosom of the social and political organization, which was for Europe the fruit of so many centuries of labor, could not be provided for. Bitter disputes, rebellions, and wars were acclimatized among us.
Let us remember that the Protestant schism not only prevented the union of all the efforts of Europe to attain the end in question, but, moreover, it has been the reason why Catholicism has not been able to act in a regular manner even in those countries where it has preserved its complete empire, or a decided predominance. In these countries it has been compelled to hold itself in an attitude of defence; it has been obliged, by the attacks of its enemies, to employ a great part of its resources in defending its own existence: it is very probably for this reason that the state of things in Europe is entirely different from what it would have been on a contrary supposition; and perhaps in the latter case there would not have existed the sad necessity of exhausting itself in impotent efforts against an evil, which, according to all appearances, and unless hitherto unknown means can be devised, appears without remedy. I shall be told that the Church in this case would have had an excessive authority over all that relates to charity, and would have unjustly usurped the civil power. This is a mistake; the Church has never claimed any thing that is not quite conformable to her indelible character of protector of all the unfortunate. During some centuries, it is true, we hardly hear any other voice or perceive any other action than hers, in all that relates to beneficence; but we must observe that the civil power during that time was very far from possessing a regular and vigorous administration, capable of doing without the aid of the Church. The latter was so far from being actuated by any motives of ambition, that her double charge of spiritual and temporal things imposed on her all sorts of sacrifices.
Three centuries have passed away since the event of which we now lament the fatal results. Europe during this period has been submitted in great part to the influence of Protestantism, but it has made no progress thereby. I cannot believe that these three centuries would have passed away under the exclusive influence of Catholicity, without producing in the bosom of Europe a degree of charity sufficient to raise the system of beneficence to the height demanded by the difficulties and new interests of society. If we look at the different systems which ferment in minds devoted to the study of this grave question, we shall always find there association under one form or another. Now association has been at all times one of the favorite principles of Catholicity, which, by proclaiming unity in faith, proclaims it also in all things; but there is this difference, that a great number of associations which are conceived and established in our days are nothing but an agglomeration of interests; they want unity of will and of aim, conditions which can be obtained only by means of Christian charity. Yet these two conditions are indispensably necessary to accomplish great works of beneficence, if any thing else is required than a mere measure of public administration. As to the administration itself, it is of little avail when it is not vigorous; and unfortunately, in acquiring the necessary vigor, its action becomes somewhat stiff and harsh. Therefore it is that Christian charity is required, which, penetrating on all sides like a balsam, softens all that is harsh in human action. I pity the unfortunate who in their necessities find only the succor of the civil authorities, without the intervention of Christian charity. In reports presented to the public, philanthropy may and will exaggerate the care which it lavishes on the unfortunate, but things will not be so in reality. The love of our brethren, when it is not founded on religious principle, is as fruitful in words as it is barren in deeds. The sight of the poor, of the sick, of impotent old age, is too disagreeable for us long to bear it, unless we are urged to it by very powerful motives. Even much less can we hope that a vague feeling of humanity will suffice to make us encounter, as we should, the constant cares required to console these unfortunate beings. When Christian charity is wanting, a good administration will no doubt enforce punctuality and exactitude--all that can be demanded of men who receive a salary for their services: but one thing will be wanting, which nothing can replace and money cannot buy, viz. love. But it will be asked, have you no faith in philanthropy? No; for as M. de Chateaubriand says, philanthropy is only the false coin of charity. It was then perfectly reasonable that the Church should have a direct influence in all branches of beneficence, for she knew better than any others how to make Christian charity active, by applying it to all kinds of necessities and miseries. Therein she did not gratify her ambition, but found food for her zeal; she did not claim a privilege, but exerted a right. In fine, if you will persevere in calling such a desire ambition, you cannot deny at least that it was ambition of a new kind. An ambition truly worthy of glory and reward, is that which claims the right of succoring and consoling the unfortunate.[23]
XXXIV. ON TOLERATION IN RELIGIOUS MATTERS
The question of the improvement of manners, treated in the preceding chapters, naturally leads me to another, sufficiently thorny in itself, and rendered still more so by innumerable prejudices. I allude to toleration in matters of religion. The word Catholicity, to certain persons, is the synonyme of intolerance; and the confusion of ideas on this point has become such, that no more laborious task can be undertaken than to clear them up. It is only necessary to pronounce the word intolerance, to raise in the minds of some people all sorts of black and horrible ideas. Legislation, institutions, and men of past times, all are condemned without appeal, the moment there is seen the slightest appearance of intolerance. More than one cause contributes to this universal prejudice. Yet, if called upon to point out the principal one, we would repeat the profound maxim of Cato, who, when accused at the age of eighty-six of certain offences of his past life, committed at times long gone by, said, "It is difficult to render an account of one's own conduct to men belonging to an age different from that in which one has lived." There are some things of which one cannot accurately judge without, not only a knowledge of them, but also a complete appreciation of the times when they occurred. How many men are capable of attaining to this? There are few who are able to succeed in freeing their minds from the influence of the atmosphere which surrounds them; but there are fewer still who can do the same with their hearts. The age in which we live is precisely the reverse of the ages of intolerance; and this is the first difficulty which meets us in discussing questions of this kind. The prejudice and bad faith of some who have applied themselves to this subject, have contributed also in a considerable degree to erroneous opinions. There is nothing in the world which cannot be undervalued by showing only one side of it; for thus considered, all things are false, or rather are not themselves. All bodies have three dimensions; only to look at one is not to form an idea of the body itself, but of a quantity very different from it. Take any institution, the most just and useful that can be imagined, then all the inconveniences and evils which it has caused, taking care to bring together into a few pages what in reality was spread over a great many ages; then your history will be disgusting, hideous, and worthy of execration. Let a partisan of democracy describe to you in a narrow compass, and by means of historical facts, all the inconveniences and evils of monarchy, the vices and the crimes of kings; how will monarchy then appear to you? But let a partisan of monarchy paint to you, in his turn, by the same method of historical facts, democracy and demagogues; and what will you then think of democracy? Assemble in one picture all the evils occasioned to nations by a high degree of development of the social state; civilization and refinement will then appear detestable. By seeking and selecting in the annals of the human mind certain traits, the history of science may be made the history of folly, and even of crime. By heaping together the fatal accidents that have occurred to masters of the healing art, their beneficent profession may be represented as a career of homicide. In a word, every thing may be falsified by proceeding in this way. God himself would appear to us as a monster of cruelty and tyranny, if, taking away his goodness, wisdom, and justice, we only attended to the evils which we see in a world created by his power and governed by his providence.
Having laid down these principles, let us apply them. The spirit of the age, particular circumstances, and an order of things quite different from ours, are all forgotten, and the history of the religious intolerance of Catholics is composed by taking care to condense into a few pages, and paint in the blackest colours, the severity of Ferdinand and Isabella, of Philip II., of Mary of England, of Louis XIV., and every thing of the kind that occurred during three centuries. The reader who receives, almost at the same moment, the impression of events which occurred during a period of three hundred years,--the reader, accustomed to live in society where prisons are being converted into houses of recreation, and where the punishment of death is vigorously opposed, can he behold the appearance of darksome dungeons, the instruments of punishment, the san-benitos and scaffolds, without being deeply moved? He will bewail the unfortunate lot of those who perish; he will be indignant against the authors of what he calls horrible atrocities. Nothing has been said to this candid reader of the principles and conduct of Protestants at the same time; he has not been reminded of the cruelty of Henry VIII. and of Elizabeth of England. Thus all his hatred is directed against Catholics, and he is accustomed to regard Catholicity as a religion of tyranny and blood. But will a judgment thus formed be just? Will this be a sentence passed with a full knowledge of the cause? What would impartiality direct us to do, if we met with a dark picture, painted in the way we have described, of monarchy, democracy, or civilization, of science, or of the healing art? What we should do, or rather what we ought to do, is to extend our view further, to examine the subject in its different phases; to inquire into its good as well as its evil: this would be to look upon these evils as they really are, that is, spread at great distances over the course of centuries; this would weaken the impression they had made upon us: in a word, we should thus be just, we should take the balance in hand to weigh the good and evil, to compare the one with the other, as we ought always to do when we have duly to appreciate things in the history of humanity. In the case in question, we should act in the same way, in order to provide against the error into which we may be led by the false statements and exaggerations of certain men, whose evident intention it has been to falsify facts by representing only one side of them. The Inquisition no longer exists, and assuredly there is no probability of its being re-established; the severe laws in force on this matter in former times no longer exist; they are either abrogated or they are fallen into desuetude: no one, therefore, has an interest in representing this institution in a false point of view. It may be imagined that some men had an interest in this while they were engaged in destroying their ancient laws, but that once attained, the Inquisition and its laws are become a historical fact, which ought to be examined here with attention and impartiality. We have here two questions, that of principle, and that of its application; in other words, that of intolerance, and that of the manner of showing it. We must not confound these two things, which, although very closely connected, are very different. I shall begin with the first.
The principle of universal toleration is now proclaimed, and all kind of intolerance is condemned without appeal. But who takes care to examine the real meaning of these words? who undertakes to analyze the ideas which they contain by the light of reason, and explain them by means of history and experience? Very few. They are pronounced mechanically; they are constantly employed to establish propositions of the highest importance, without even the suspicion that they contain ideas, the right or wrong comprehension and application of which is every thing for the preservation of society. Few persons consider that these words include questions as profound as they are delicate, and the whole of a large portion of history; very few observe that, according to one solution given to the problem of toleration, all the past is condemned, and all the present overturned; nothing is left thereby to build on for the future but a moving bed of sand. Certainly, the most convenient way in such a case is, to adopt and employ these words such as we already find them in circulation, in the same way as we take and circulate the current coin, without considering whether it be composed of alloy or not. But what is the most convenient is not always the most useful; and, as when receiving coins of value, we carefully examine them, so we ought to weigh words the meaning of which is of such paramount importance. Toleration--what is the meaning of this word? It means, properly speaking, the patience with which we suffer a thing which we judge to be bad, but which we think it desirable not to punish. Thus, some kinds of scandals are tolerated; prostitutes are tolerated; such and such abuses are tolerated; so that the idea of toleration is always accompanied by the idea of evil. When toleration is exercised in the order of ideas, it always supposes a misunderstanding, or error. No one will say that he tolerates the truth. We have an observation to make here. The phrase to tolerate opinions is commonly used: now, opinion is very different from error. At first sight, the difficulty appears great; but if we examine the thing well, we shall be able to explain it. When we say that we tolerate an opinion, we always mean an opinion contrary to our own. In this case, the opinion of another is, according to us, an error; for it is impossible to have an opinion on any point whatever--that is, to think that a thing is or is not, is in one way or in another--without thinking at the same time that those who judge otherwise are deceived. If our opinion is only an opinion--that is, if our judgment, although based on reasons which appear to us to be good, has not attained to a degree of complete certainty--our judgment of another will be only a mere opinion; but if our conviction has become completely established and confirmed--that is, if it has attained to certainty--we shall be sure that those who form a judgment opposed to ours are deceived. Thence it follows, that the word toleration, applied to opinions, always means the toleration of an error. He who says, yes, thinks no is false; and he who says, no, thinks yes is a mistake. This is only an application of the well-known principle, that it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be at the same time. But, we shall be asked, What do you mean when you use these words, 'to respect opinions?' is it always understood that we respect errors? No; for these words can have two different and equally reasonable meanings. The first is founded on the feebleness of the conviction of the person from whom the respect comes. When on any particular point we have only just formed an opinion, it is understood that we have not reached certainty; consequently, we know that there are reasons on the other side. In this sense, we may well say that we respect the opinions of others: we express thereby our conviction that it is possible that we are deceived--that it is possible the truth is not on our side. In the second meaning, to respect opinions is to respect, sometimes those who profess them, sometimes their good faith, sometimes their intentions. Thus, when we say that we respect prejudices, it is clear that we do not mean a real respect professed in this place. We see thus, that the expression 'to respect the opinions of others' has a very different meaning, according as the person from whom the respect comes has or has not assured convictions in the contrary sense.
In order the better to understand what toleration is, what its origin and its effects, it is necessary, before we examine it in society, to reduce it to its simplest element. Let us analyze toleration considered in the individual. An individual is called tolerant, when he is habitually in a disposition of mind to bear without irritation or disturbance opinions contrary to his own. This toleration will bear different names, according to the different matters to which it relates. In religious matters, tolerance as well as intolerance may be found in those who have religion as well as in those who have none; so that neither of these situations, with respect to religion, necessarily implies the one or the other. Some people imagine that tolerance is peculiar to the incredulous, and intolerance to the religious; but they are mistaken. Who is more tolerant than St. Francis de Sales? who more intolerant than Voltaire?
Tolerance in religious men--that tolerance which does not come from want of faith, and which is not inconsistent with an ardent zeal for the preservation and propagation of the faith--is born of two principles, charity and humility. Charity, which makes us love all men, even our greatest enemies; charity, which inspires us with compassion for their faults and errors, and obliges us to regard them as brothers, to employ all the means in our power to withdraw them from being fatally deceived; charity, which forbids us ever to regard them as deprived of the hope of salvation as long as they live. Rousseau has said, that "it is impossible to live in peace with those that one believes to be damned." We do not, and we cannot, believe in the condemnation of any man as long as he lives; however great may be his iniquity, the mercy of God and the value of the blood of Jesus Christ are still greater. We are so far from thinking with the philosopher of Geneva, "that to love such people would be to hate God," that no one could maintain such a doctrine among us without ceasing to belong to our faith. The other source of tolerance is Christian humility: humility, which inspires us with a profound sense of our weakness, and makes us consider all that we have as given by God; humility, which makes us consider our advantages over our neighbor as so many more powerful motives for acknowledging the liberality of Providence; humility, which, placing before our eyes the spectacle of humanity in its proper light, makes us regard ourselves and all others as members of the great family of the human race, fallen from its ancient dignity by the sin of our first parent; humility, which shows us the perverse inclinations of our hearts, the darkness of our minds, and the claims which man has to pity and indulgence in his faults and errors; humility, that virtue sublime even in its abasement. "If humility is so pleasing to God," is the admirable observation of St. Theresa, "it is because it is the truth." This is the virtue which renders us indulgent towards all men, by never allowing us to forget that we ourselves, perhaps, more than any others, have need of indulgence.
Yet for a man to be tolerant, in the full extent of the word, it is not enough for him to be humble and charitable; this is a truth which experience teaches and reason explains to us. In order perfectly to clear up a point, the obscurity of which produces the confusion which almost always prevails in these questions, let us make a comparison between two men equally religious, whose principles are the same, but whose conduct is very different. Let us suppose two priests both distinguished for learning and eminent virtue. The one has passed his life in retirement, surrounded by pious persons, and having no intercourse with any but Catholics: the other has been a missionary in countries where different religions are established, he has been obliged to live and converse with men of creeds different from his own; he has been under the necessity of witnessing the establishment of temples of a false religion close to those of the true one. The principles of Christian charity will be the same with both these priests; both will look upon faith as a gift of God, which he has received, and must preserve; their conduct, however, will be very different, if they meet with a man of a faith different from their own, or of none at all. The first, who, never having had intercourse with any but the faithful, has always heard religion spoken of with respect, will be horrified, will be indignant, at the first word he shall hear against the faith or ceremonies of the Church; it will be impossible, or nearly so, for him to remain calm during a conversation or discussion on the question: the second, accustomed to such things, to hear his faith impugned, to dispute with men of creeds opposed to his own, will remain tranquil; he will engage in a discussion with coolness, if it be necessary; he will skilfully avoid one, if prudence shall advise such a course. Whence comes this difference? It is not difficult to discover. The second of these priests, by intercourse with men, by experience, by contradiction, has obtained a clear notion of the real condition of men's minds in the world; he is aware of the fatal combination of circumstances which has led a great number of unfortunate persons into error, and keeps them there; he knows how, in some measure, to put himself in their place; and the more lively is his sense of the benefit conferred upon him by Providence, the more mild and indulgent he is towards others. The other may be as virtuous, as charitable, and as humble as you please; but how can you expect of him that he will not be deeply moved, and give utterance to his indignation, the first time that he hears that denied which he has always believed with the most lively faith? He has up to this time met with no opposition in the world, but a few arguments in books. Certainly he was not ignorant that there existed heretics and unbelievers, but he has not frequently met with them, he has not heard them state their hundred different systems, and he has not witnessed the erroneous creeds of men of all sorts, of different characters, and the most varied minds; the lively susceptibility of his mind, which has never met with resistance, has not been blunted; for this reason, although endowed with the same virtues, and, if you will, with the same knowledge as the other, he has not acquired that penetration, that vivacity, so to speak, with which a man of practised intellect enters into the minds of those with whom he has to deal, discerns the reasons, seizes the motives which blind them and hinder them from obtaining a knowledge of the truth.
Thus tolerance, in a person who is religious, supposes a certain degree of gentleness of mind, the fruit of intercourse with men, and the habits thereby engendered; yet this quality is consistent with the deepest conviction, and the purest and most ardent zeal for the propagation of the truth. In the moral, as in the physical world, friction polishes, use wears away, and nothing can remain for a long time in an attitude of violence. A man will be indignant, once, twice, a hundred times, when he hears his manner of thinking attacked; but it is impossible for him to remain so always; he will, in the end, become accustomed to opposition; he will, by habit, bear it calmly. However sacred may be his articles of belief, he will content himself with defending and putting them forward at convenient opportunities; in all other cases, he will keep them in the bottom of his soul, as a treasure which he is desirous to preserve from any thing that may injure them. Tolerance, then, does not suppose any new principles in a man, but rather a quality acquired by practice; a disposition of mind, into which a man finds himself insensibly led; a habit of patience, formed in him by constantly having to bear with what he disapproves of.
Now, if we consider tolerance in men who are not religious, we shall observe that there are two ways of being irreligious. There are men who not only have no religion, but who have an animosity against it, either on account of some fatal error they entertain, or because they find it an obstacle to their designs. These men are extremely intolerant; and their intolerance is the worst of all, because it is not accompanied by any moral principle which can restrain it. A man thus circumstanced feels himself, as it were, continually at war with himself and the human race; with himself, because he must stifle the cries of his own conscience: with the human race, because all protest against the mad doctrine that pretends to banish the worship of God from the earth. Therefore we find among men of this kind much rancor and spleen; therefore their words are full of gall; therefore they have constantly recourse to raillery, insult, and calumny.
But there is another class of men who, although devoid of religion, are not strongly prejudiced against the faith. They live in a kind of skepticism, into which the reading of bad books, or the observations of a superficial and frivolous philosophy, have led them; they are not attached to religion, but they are not its enemies. Many of them acknowledge the importance of religion for the good of society, and some of them even feel within themselves a certain desire to return to the faith; in their moments of recollection and meditation, they remember with pleasure the days when they offered to God an obedient spirit and a pure heart; and at the sight of the rapid course of life, they perhaps love to cherish the hope of becoming reconciled with the God of their fathers, before they descend into the grave. These men are tolerant; but, if carefully examined, their tolerance is not a principle or a virtue, it is only a necessity resulting from their position. It is difficult to be indignant at the opinions of others, when we have none of our own--when, consequently, we do not come into collision with any. It is difficult to be violently opposed to religion, when we consider it as a thing necessary for the welfare of society; there can be no hatred or rancor towards faith in a soul which desires its mercy, and which, perhaps, fixes its eyes upon it as the last beam of hope amid the terrors of an alarming future. Tolerance, in this case, is nothing strange; it is natural and necessary. Intolerance would be inconceivable and extravagant, and could arise only from a bad heart.
In applying these remarks to society instead of individuals, it must be observed that tolerance, as well as intolerance, may be considered in government, or in society. It sometimes happens that government and society are not agreed; while the former maintains one principle, the reverse may prevail in the latter. As governments are composed of a limited number of individuals, all that has been said of tolerance, considered individually, may be applied to them. Let us not forget, however, that men placed in authority are not free to give themselves up without limit to the impulses of their own opinions or feelings; they are often forced to immolate their own feelings on the altar of public opinion. They may, owing to peculiar circumstances, oppose or impede that opinion for a time; but it will soon stop them, and force them to change their course.
As sooner or later government becomes the expression of the ideas and feelings of society, we shall content ourselves with considering tolerance in the latter; we shall observe that society, with respect to tolerance, follows the same path as individuals. This is with it not the effect of a principle, but of a habit. Men of different creeds, who live together for a long time in the same society, end by tolerating each other; they are led to this by growing weary of collision with each other, and by the wish for a kind of life more quiet and peaceful. But when men, thus divided in creed, find themselves face to face for the first time, a shock more or less rude is the inevitable result. The causes of this phenomenon are to be found in human nature itself; it is one of those necessities against which we struggle in vain.
Some modern philosophers have imagined that society is indebted to them for the spirit of toleration which prevails there; they have not seen that it is much rather a fact slowly brought about by the force of circumstances, than it is the fruit of their doctrines. Indeed, what have they said that is new? They have recommended universal fraternity; but this has always been one of the doctrines of Christianity. They have exhorted men of all the different religions to live in peace together; but before they had opened their mouths to tell them this, men began to adopt this course in many countries of Europe; for, unhappily, religions in many countries were so numerous and different, that none of them could pretend to exclusive dominion. It is true that some infidel, philosophers have a claim, and a deplorable one, in support of their pretensions with respect to the development of toleration; it is, that, by their efforts to disseminate infidelity and skepticism, they have succeeded in making general, in nations and governments, that false toleration which has nothing virtuous, but is indifference with respect to all religions. Indeed, why is tolerance so general in our age? or, rather, in what does our tolerance consist? If you observe well, you will find that it is nothing but the result of a social condition perfectly similar to that of the individual who has no creed, but who does not hate creeds, because he considers them as conducive to the public good, and cherishes a vague hope of one day finding a last asylum therein. All that is good in this is in no degree owing to the infidel philosophers, but may rather be said to be a protest against them. Indeed, when they could not obtain the supreme command, they lavished calumnies and sarcasms on all that is most sacred in heaven and on earth; and, when they did raise themselves to power, they overturned with indescribable fury all that existed, and destroyed millions of victims in exile or on the scaffolds. The multitude of religions,--infidelity, indifference, the improvement of manners, the lassitude produced by wars,--industrial and commercial organization, which every day becomes more powerful in society,--communication rendered more frequent among men by means of travelling,--the diffusion of ideas by the press;--such are the causes which have produced in Europe that universal tolerance which has taken possession of all, and has been established in fact when it could not by law. These causes, as it is easy to observe, are of different kinds; no doctrine can pretend to an exclusive influence; they are the result of a thousand different influences, which act simultaneously on the development of civilization.[24]
XXXV. ON THE RIGHT OF COERCION IN GENERAL
How much, during the last century, was said against intolerance! A philosophy less superficial than that which then prevailed would have reflected a little more on a fact which may be appreciated in different ways, but the existence of which cannot be denied. In Greece, Socrates died drinking hemlock. Rome, whose tolerance has been so much vaunted, tolerated, indeed, foreign gods; but these were only foreign in name, since they formed a part of that system of pantheism which was the foundation of the Roman religion; gods, who, in order to be declared gods of Rome, only needed the mere formality, as it were, of receiving the name of citizens. But Rome did not admit the gods of Egypt any more than the Jewish or Christian religion. She had, no doubt, many false ideas with respect to these religions; but she was sufficiently acquainted with them to know that they were essentially different from her own. The history of the Pagan emperors is the history of the persecution of the Church; as soon as they became Christians, a system of penal legislation was commenced against those who differed from the religion of the state. In subsequent centuries, intolerance continued under various forms; it has been perpetuated down to our times, and we are not so free from it as some would wish to make us believe. The emancipation of Catholics in England is but of recent date; the violent disputes of the Prussian government with the Pope, on the subject of certain arbitrary acts of that government against the Catholic religion, are of yesterday; the question of Argau, in Switzerland, is still pending; and the persecution of Catholicity by the Russian government is pursued in as scandalous a manner as at any former period. Thus it is with religious sects. As to the toleration of the humane philosophers of the 18th century, it was exemplified in Robespierre.
Every government professing a religion is more or less intolerant towards those which it does not profess; and this intolerance is diminished or destroyed, only when the professors of the obnoxious religions are either feared on account of their great power, or despised on account of their weakness. Apply to all times and countries the rule which we have just laid down, you will everywhere find it exact; it is an abridgment of the history of governments in their relations with religions. The Protestant government of England has always been intolerant toward Catholics; and it will continue to be so, more or less, according to circumstances. The governments of Russia and Prussia will continue to act as they have done up to this time, with the exception of modifications required by difference of times; in the same way, in countries where Catholicity prevails, the exercise of the Protestant worship will always be more or less interfered with. I shall be told of the instance of France as a proof of the contrary; in that country, where the immense majority profess the Catholic religion, other worships are allowed, without any disposition on the part of the state to disturb them. This toleration will perhaps be attributed to public opinion; it comes, I think, from this, that no fixed principle prevails there in the government: all the policy of France, internal and external, is a constant compromise to get out of difficulties in the best possible way. This is shown by facts; it appears from the well-known opinions of the small number of men who, for some years, have ruled the destinies of France. It has been attempted to establish in principle universal toleration, and refuse to government the right of violating consciences in religious matters; nevertheless, in spite of all that has been said, philosophers have not been able to make a very clear exposition of their principle, still less have they been able to procure its general adoption as a system in the government of states. In order to show that the thing is not quite so simple as has been supposed, I will beg leave to ask a few questions of these soi-disant philosophers. If a religion which required human sacrifices were established in your country, would you tolerate it? No. And why? Because we cannot tolerate such a crime. But then you will be intolerant; you will violate the consciences of others, by proscribing, as a crime, what in their eyes is a homage to the Divinity. Thus thought many nations of old, and so think some now. By what right do you make your conscience prevail over theirs?--It matters not; we shall be intolerant, but our intolerance will be for the good of humanity.--I applaud your conduct; but you cannot deny that it is a case in which intolerance with respect to a religion appears to you a right and a duty. Still further: if you proscribe the exercise of this atrocious worship, would you allow the doctrine to be taught which preaches as holy and salutary the practice of human sacrifices? No; for that would be permitting the teaching of murder. Very well, but you must acknowledge that this is a doctrine with respect to which you have a right to be, and are obliged to be, intolerant. Let us pursue our subject. You are aware, no doubt, of the sacrifices offered in antiquity to the goddess of Love, and the infamous worship which was paid to her in the temples of Babylon and Corinth. If such a worship reappeared among you, would you tolerate it? No; for it is contrary to the sacred laws of modesty. Would you allow the doctrine on which it was based to be taught? No; for the same reason. This, then, is another case in which you believe you have the right and the obligation to violate the consciences of others; and the only reason you can assign for it is, that you are compelled to do so by your own conscience. Moreover, suppose that some men, over-excited by reading the Bible, desired to establish a new Christianity, in imitation of Mathew of Haarlem or John of Leyden; suppose that these sectaries began to propagate their doctrines, to assemble together in bodies, and that their fanatical declamation seduced a portion of the people, would you tolerate this new religion? No; for these men might renew the bloody scenes of Germany in the 16th century, when, in the name of God, and to fulfil, as they said, the order of the Most High, the Anabaptists invaded all property, destroyed all existing power, and spread everywhere desolation and death. This would be to act with as much justice as prudence; but you cannot deny that you would thereby commit an act of intolerance. What, then, becomes of universal toleration, that principle so evident, so predominant, if you are compelled at every step to limit, and I will say more, to lay it aside, and act in a way diametrically opposite to it? You will say that the security of the state, the good order of society, and public morality compel you to act in this way. But then, what sort of a principle is it that, in certain cases, is in opposition to the interests of morality and to society, and to the safety of the state? Do you think that the men against whom you declaim did not intend also to protect these interests, by acting with that intolerance which is so revolting to you?
It has been acknowledged at all times and in all countries, as an incontestable principle, that the public authority has, in certain cases, the right of prohibiting certain acts, in violation of the consciences of individuals who claim the right of performing them. If the constant testimony of history were not enough, at least the dialogue which we have just held ought to convince us of this truth; we have seen that the most ardent advocates of tolerance may well be compelled, in certain cases, to be intolerant. They would be obliged to be so in the name of humanity, of modesty, of public order; universal toleration, then, with respect to doctrines and religions--that toleration which is proclaimed as the duty of every government--is an error; it is a theory which cannot be put in practice. We have clearly shown that intolerance has always been, and still is, a principle recognised by all governments, and the application of which, more or less indulgent or severe, depends on circumstances, and above all, on the particular point of view in which the government considers things.
A great question of right now presents itself--a question which seems, at first sight, to require to be solved by condemning all intolerance, both with respect to doctrines and acts; but which, when thoroughly examined, leads to a very different result. If we grant that the mind is incapable of completely removing the difficulty by means of direct reasoning, it is not the less certain that indirect means, and the reasoning called ad absurdum, are here sufficient to show us the truth, at least as far as it is necessary for us to know it as a guide for human prudence, always uncertain. The question is this: "By what right do you hinder a man from professing a doctrine, and acting in conformity with it, if he is convinced that it is true, and that he only fulfils his duty, or exercises a right, by acting as it prescribes?" In order to prevent the prohibition being vain and ridiculous, there must be a penalty attached to it; now, if you inflict this penalty, you punish a man who, according to his own conscience, is innocent. Punishment by the hand of justice supposes culpability; and no one is culpable without being so first in his conscience. Culpability has its root in the conscience; and we cannot be responsible for the violation of a law, unless that law has addressed us through our conscience. If our conscience tells us that an action is bad, we cannot perform it, whatever may be the injunctions of the law which prescribes it; on the contrary, if conscience tells us that an action is a duty, we cannot omit it, whatever may be the prohibitions of the law. This is, in a few words, and in all its force, the whole argument that can be alleged against intolerance in regard to doctrines and facts emanating from them. Let us now see what is the real value of these observations, apparently so conclusive.
It is apparent that the admission of this principle would render impossible the punishment of any political crime. Brutus, when plunging his dagger into the heart of Cæsar; Jacques Clement, when he assassinated Henry III., acted, no doubt, under the influence of an excitement of mind, which made them view their attempts as deeds of heroism; and yet, if they had both been brought before a tribunal, would you have thought them entitled to impunity--the one on account of his love of country, and the other on account of his zeal for religion? Most political crimes are committed under a conviction of doing well; and I do not speak merely of those times of trouble, when men of parties the most opposed are fully persuaded that they have right on their side. Conspiracies contrived against governments in times of peace are generally the work of some individuals who look upon them as illegal and tyrannical; when working to overthrow them, they are acting in conformity with their own principles. Judges punish them justly when they inflict on them the penalties appointed by legislators; and yet, neither legislators when they decree the penalty, nor the judges when they inflict it, are, or can be, ignorant of the condition of mind of the delinquent who has violated the law. It may be said, that compassion and indulgence with respect to political crimes increase every day, for these reasons. I shall reply, that if we lay down the principle that human justice has not the right to punish, when the delinquent acts according to his conviction, we must not only mitigate our punishments, but even abolish them. In this case, capital punishment would be a real murder, a fine a robbery, and other penalties so many acts of violence. I shall remark in passing, that it is not true that severity towards political crimes diminishes as much as it is said to do; the history of Europe of late years affords us some proofs to the contrary. We do not now see those cruel punishments which were in use at other times; but that is not owing to the conscience of the criminal being considered by the judge, but to the improvement of manners, which, being everywhere diffused, has necessarily influenced penal legislation. It is extraordinary that so much severity has been preserved in laws relating to political crimes, when so great a number of legislators among the different nations of Europe knew well that they themselves, at other times, had committed the same crimes. And there is no doubt that more than one man, in the discussion of certain penal laws, has inclined to indulgence, from the presentiment that these very laws might one day apply to himself. The impunity of political crimes would bring about the subversion of social order, by rendering all government impossible. Without dwelling longer on the fatal results which this doctrine would have, let us observe, that the benefit of impunity in favor of the illusions of conscience would not be due to political crimes alone, but would be applicable also to those of an ordinary kind. Offences against property are crimes of this nature; and yet we know that many at former periods regarded, and that unfortunately some still regard, property as a usurpation and an injustice. Offences against the sanctity of marriage are ordinarily considered crimes; and yet have there not been sects in whose sight marriage was unlawful, and others who have desired, and still desire, a community of women? The sacred laws of modesty and respect for innocence have alike been regarded by some sects as an unjust infringement of the liberty of man; to violate these laws, therefore, was a meritorious action. At the time when the mistaken ideas and blind fanaticism of the men who professed these principles were undoubted, would any one have been found to deny the justice of the chastisement which was inflicted on them when, in pursuance of their doctrines, they committed a crime, or even when they had the audacity to diffuse their fatal maxims in society?
If it were unjust to punish the criminal for acting according to his conscience, all imaginable crimes would be permitted to the atheist, the fatalist, the disciple of the doctrine of private interest; for by destroying, as they do, the basis of all morality, these men do not act against their consciences; they have none. If such an argument were to hold good, how often would we have reason to charge tribunals with injustice, when they inflict any punishment on men of this class. By what right, we would say to magistrates, do you punish this man, who, not admitting the existence of God, does not acknowledge himself culpable in his own eyes, or consequently in yours? You have made a law, by virtue of which you punish him; but this law has no power over the conscience of this man, for you are his equals; and he does not acknowledge the existence of any superior, to give you the power of controlling his liberty. By what right do you punish another, who is convinced that all his actions are the effect of necessary causes, that free-will is a chimera, and who, in the action which you charge on him as a crime, believes that he had no more power of restraining himself than the wild beast, when he throws himself upon the prey before his eyes, or upon any other animal that excites his fury? With what justice do you punish him, who is persuaded that all morality is a lie; that there is no other principle than individual interest; that good and evil are nothing but this interest, well or ill understood? If you make him undergo any punishment, it will not be because he is culpable in his own conscience; you will punish him for being deceived in his calculation, for having ill-understood the probable result of the action which he was about to commit. Such are the necessary and inevitable deductions from the doctrine, which refuses to the public authority the power of punishing crimes committed in consequence of an error of the mind.
But I shall be told that the right of punishment only extends to actions, and not to doctrines; that actions ought to be subject to the law, but that doctrines are entitled to unbounded liberty. Do you mean doctrines shut up in the mind and not outwardly manifested? It is clear that not only the right, but also the possibility of punishing them is wanting, for God alone can tell the secrets of the heart of man. If avowed doctrines are meant, then the principle is false; and we have just shown that those who maintain it in theory, find it impossible to reduce it to practice. In fine, we shall be told that, however absurd in its results may be the doctrine which we have been combating, it is still impossible to justify the punishment of an action which was ordered or authorized by the conscience of the man who committed it. How is this difficulty to be solved? How is this great obstacle to be removed? Is it lawful in any case to treat as culpable the man who is not so at the tribunal of his own conscience?
Although this question seems entirely to turn upon some point on which men of all opinions are agreed, there is nevertheless a wide difference in this respect between Catholics on one side and unbelievers and Protestants on the other. The first lay it down as an incontestable principle, that there are errors of the understanding which are faults; the others, on the contrary, think, that all errors of the understanding are innocent. The first consider error in regard to great moral and religious truths, as one of the gravest offences which man can commit against God; their opponents look upon errors of this kind with great indulgence, and they ought to do so in order to be consistent. Catholics admit the possibility of invincible ignorance with respect to some very important truths; but with them this possibility is limited to certain circumstances, out of which they declare man to be culpable: their opponents constantly extol liberty of thought, without any other restriction than that imposed by the taste of each one in particular; they constantly affirm that man is free to hold the opinions which he thinks proper; they have gone so far as to persuade their followers that there are no culpable errors or opinions, that man is not obliged to search into the secret recesses of his soul, to make sure that there are no secret causes which induce him to reject the truth; they have in the end monstrously confounded physical with moral liberty of thought; they have banished from opinions the ideas of lawful and unlawful, and have given men to understand that such ideas are not applicable to thought. That is to say, in the order of ideas, they have confounded right with fact, declaring, in this respect, the uselessness and incompetency of all laws, divine and human. Senseless men! as if it were possible for that which is most noble and elevated in human nature to be exempt from all rule; as if it were possible for the element which makes man the king of the creation, to be exempted from concurring in the ineffable harmony of all parts of the universe with themselves and with God; as if this harmony could exist, or even be conceived in man, unless it were declared to be the first of human obligations to adhere constantly to truth.
This is one of the profound reasons which justify the Catholic Church, when she considers the sin of heresy as one of the greatest that man can commit. You, who smile, with pity and contempt at these words, the sin of heresy; you, who consider this doctrine as the invention of priests to rule over consciences, by retrenching the liberty of thought; by what right do you claim the power of condemning heresies which are opposed to your orthodoxy? By what right do you condemn those societies that profess opinions hostile to property, public order, and the existence of authority? If the thought of man is free, if you cannot attempt to restrain it without violating sacred rights, if it is an absurdity and a contradiction to wish to oblige a man to act against his conscience, or disobey its dictates--why do you interfere with those men who desire to destroy the existing state of society? Why baffle, why oppose those dark conspiracies, which, from time to time, send one of their members to assassinate a king? You invoke your convictions to declare unjust and cruel the intolerance which has been practised at certain times against your enemies; but you must remember that such societies and such men can also invoke their convictions. You say that the doctrines of the Church are human inventions; they say that the doctrines prevailing in society are also human inventions. You say that the ancient social order was a monopoly; they say the present social order is a monopoly. In your eyes, the ancient authorities were tyrannical; in theirs the present ones are so. You pretended to destroy what existed, in order to found new institutions conducive to the good of humanity; to-day these men hold the same language. You have proclaimed holy the war which was waged against ancient power; they proclaim holy the war against present power. When you availed yourselves of the means which offered themselves, you pretended that necessity rendered them legitimate; they declare to be not less legitimate the only means which they possess, that of combinations, of preparing for their opportunity, and of hastening it by assassinating great men. You have pretended to make all opinions respected, even atheism, and you have taught that nobody has a right to prevent your acting in conformity with your principles; but the fanatics in question have also their horrible principles and their dreadful convictions. Do you require a proof of this? See them amid the gayety of public celebrations, glide, pale and gloomy, among the joyful multitude, choose the fitting moment to cast desolation over a royal family, and cover a nation with mourning, while they accumulate on their own heads the public execration, certain, moreover, of finishing their lives on the scaffold. But our adversaries will say, such convictions are inexcusable. Yours are so also. All the difference is, that you have contrived your ambitious and fatal systems amid ease and pleasure, perhaps in opulence, and under the shadow of power, while they have conceived their abominable doctrines in the bosom of obscurity, poverty, misery, and despair.
Indeed, the inconsistency of some men is shocking to the last degree. To ridicule all religions, to decry the spirituality and immortality of the soul, and the existence of God, to overturn all morality, and sap its deepest foundations, all this they have considered excusable, and we may even say, worthy of praise; moreover, the writers who have undertaken this fatal task are worthy of apotheosis; men must expel the Divinity from his temples to place there the names and busts of the leaders of their schools; under the vaults of splendid basilicas, where repose the ashes of Christians awaiting the resurrection, they must raise the mausoleum of Voltaire and Rousseau, in order that future generations, when they descend into their dark and silent abodes, may receive the inspirations of their genius. But have they, then, a right to complain that property, and domestic life, and social order are attacked? Property is sacred; but is it more sacred than God? However great may be the importance of the truths relating to the family and to society, are they of a superior order to the eternal principles of morality, or rather, are they any thing more than the application of these principles?
But let us resume the thread of our discourse. When the principle, that there are culpable errors, is once established (a principle which in practice, if not in theory, must be received by all men, but which Catholicity alone can logically maintain in theory), it is easy to see the reason of the punishments which human power decrees against the propagation and teaching of certain doctrines; and we can understand why it is legitimate to punish, without considering the conviction that animated the culprit, the actions which are the result of his doctrines. The law shows that this mortal error has existed, or can exist; but in this case it declares the error itself to be culpable; and if man adduces the testimony of his own conscience, the law reminds him that it is his duty to rectify his conscience. Such is, in truth, the foundation of a legislation which has appeared so unjust; a foundation which it is necessary to point out, in order to vindicate a great many human laws from a deep disgrace; for it would be a great disgrace to claim the right of punishing a man who was really innocent. Such an absurd right is so far from belonging to human justice, that it does not belong even to God. The infinite justice of God would cease to be what it is, if it could punish the innocent.
Perhaps another origin will be assigned for the right which governments possess, of punishing the propagation of certain doctrines and the actions committed in consequence of them, when the criminal has acted from the deepest conviction. "Governments," it may be said, "act in the name of society, which, like every being, possesses the right of self-defence. There are certain doctrines which menace its existence; it has, therefore, of necessity and right, the power of resisting those who promulgate them." Such a reason, however plausible it may appear, is liable to this grave objection, that it destroys at one blow the idea of punishment and justice. To wound an aggressor in self-defence is not to chastise but to resist him. If we consider society in this point of view, the criminal led to punishment will no longer be a real criminal, but the unfortunate victim of a rash and unequal struggle. The voice of the judge condemning him will no longer be the august voice of justice; his sentence will only be the act of society avenging the attack made upon it. The word punishment will then assume quite a different meaning; the gradations of it will depend entirely upon calculations, and not on justice. We must remember this; if we suppose that society, by virtue of the right of self-defence, inflicts a punishment upon the man whom it considers quite innocent, it no longer judges or condemns, but fights and struggles. That which is perfectly suitable with respect to the relations between one society and another, is in no way suitable to society in its relations with individuals. It then appears like a combat between a giant and a pigmy. The giant takes the pigmy in his hand, and crushes him against a stone.
The doctrine which I have just explained evidently shows the value of the much vaunted principle of universal toleration; it has been demonstrated that that principle is as impracticable in fact as it is unsustainable in theory; consequently all the accusations made against the Catholic Church on the subject of intolerance are overturned. It has been clearly shown that intolerance is in some measure the right of all public power; this has always been acknowledged; it is acknowledged still, generally speaking, when philosophers, the partisans of tolerance, attain to power. No doubt, governments have a thousand times abused this principle; no doubt, more than once the truth has been persecuted in virtue of it; but what do men not abuse? Their duty, then, as good philosophers, was not to establish principles that cannot be sustained, and are extremely dangerous; not to declaim to satiety against the times and institutions which have preceded us; but to endeavor to propagate sentiments of mildness and indulgence, and, above all, not to impugn important truths, without which society cannot be sustained, and which cannot be destroyed without abandoning the world to the empire of force, and, consequently, to despotism and tyranny.
Men have attacked dogmas; but they have not been willing to see that morality was intimately connected with dogmas, and that it was itself a dogma. By proclaiming unbounded liberty of thought, they have asserted the impeccability of the mind; error has ceased to figure among the faults of which men can be guilty. They have forgotten that, in order to will, it was necessary to know; and that to will rightly, it was necessary to know truly. If we examine the greater part of the errors of our hearts, we shall see that they have their source in a misunderstanding; is it possible, then, that it should not be the duty of man to preserve his mind from error? But since it has been said that opinions are of little importance, that man is free to choose such as please him, even in matters of religion and morality, truth has lost its value; its intrinsic worth is no longer what it was in the eyes of man; and too many consider themselves exempt from attempting to attain it,--a deplorable condition of mind, which is one of the greatest evils afflicting society.[25]
XXXVI. ON THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN
I find myself naturally led to make a few observations on the intolerance of certain Catholic princes, on the Inquisition, and in particular on that of Spain. I must make a rapid examination of the charges against Catholicity on account of its conduct during the last centuries. The dungeons, the burnings of the Inquisition, and the intolerance of some Catholic princes, have furnished the enemies of the Church with one of their most effective arguments in depreciating her, and rendering her the object of odium and hatred; and it must be allowed that they have, in attacks of this kind, many advantages, which give them good prospects of success. Indeed (as we have said above, for the generality of readers, who, without undertaking to examine things to the bottom, naïvely allow themselves to be led away by a subtle writer; as we have said, for all those who have sensitive hearts, and are prompt to pity the unfortunate), what is more likely to excite indignation than the exhibition of dark dungeons, instruments of torture, san-benitos, and burnings? Imagine what effect must be produced, amid our toleration, our gentle manners, our humane penal codes, by the sudden exhibition of the severities, the cruelties of another age; the whole exaggerated and grouped into one picture, where are shown all the melancholy scenes which occurred in different places, and were spread over a long period of time. They take care to remind us that all this was done in the name of the God of peace and love; thereby the contrast is rendered more vivid, the imagination is excited, the heart becomes indignant; and the result is, that the clergy, magistrates, kings, and popes of those remote times, appear like a troop of executioners, whose pleasure consists in tormenting and desolating the human race. Writers, who have ventured to act in this way, have certainly not added to their reputation for delicacy of conscience. There is a rule which orators and writers ought never to forget, viz. that it is not allowable to excite the passions, until they have convinced the reason, unless it had been convinced before. Besides, there is a degree of bad faith in appealing to the feelings with respect to matters which ought to be examined by the light of reason alone, if they are to be examined properly. In such a case we ought not to begin by moving, but by convincing; to do otherwise is to deceive the reader.
I am not going to write the history of the Inquisition, or of the different systems which various countries have adopted with respect to religious intolerance; this would be impossible within my narrow limits; besides, it would lead me away from the object of my work. Ought we to draw from the Inquisition in general, that of Spain in particular, or from the greater or less intolerance of the legislation of some countries, an accusation against Catholicity? Can it, in this respect, be put in comparison with Protestantism? Such are the questions I have to examine.
Three things at first present themselves to the eyes of the observer: 1st, the legislation and institutions proceeding from the principle of intolerance; 2d, the use which has been made of this legislation and these institutions; 3d, the intolerant acts which have been committed illegally. With respect to the latter, I must say at once that they have nothing to do with the question. The Massacre of St. Bartholomew, and other atrocities committed in the name of religion, ought not to trouble the apologists of religion: to render her responsible for all that has been done in her name, would be to act with manifest injustice. Man is endowed with so strong and lively a sense of the excellence of virtue, that he endeavors to cover the greatest crimes with her mantle;--would it be reasonable to banish virtue from the earth on that account? There are, in the history of mankind, terrible periods, where a fatal giddiness seizes upon the mind; rage, inflamed by disorder, blinds the intellect and changes the heart; evil is called good, and good evil; the most horrible attempts are made under the most respectable names. Historians and philosophers, in treating of such periods, should know what ought to be their line of conduct; strictly accurate in the narration of such facts, they ought to beware of drawing from them a judgment as to the prevailing ideas and institutions. Society then resembles a man in a state of delirium; we should ill judge of the ideas, character, and conduct of such a man, from what he says and does in that deplorable condition. What party, in those calamitous times, can boast of not having committed great crimes? If we fix our eyes on the period just mentioned, do we not see the leaders of both parties assassinated by treason? Admiral Coligny died by the hands of the assassins who began the massacre of St. Bartholomew; but the Duke of Guise had been also assassinated by Poltrot, before Orleans. Henry III. was assassinated by Jacques Clement; but this same Henry III. had treacherously murdered the other Duke of Guise in the corridors of his palace, and his brother, the Cardinal, in the tower of Moulins; this same Henry III. had taken part in the massacre of St. Bartholomew. We see atrocities committed by the Catholics; but did not their opponents also commit them? Let us throw a veil over these catastrophes, over these afflicting proofs of the misery and perversity of the human heart. The tribunal of the Inquisition, considered in itself, is only the application to a particular case of that doctrine of intolerance, which, to a greater or less degree, is that of every existing power. Thus, we have only to examine the character of that particular application, and see whether its enemies are correct in their charges against it. In the first place, we must observe that those who extol antiquity, sadly falsify history, if they pretend that intolerance only appeared after the time when, according to them, the Church had degenerated from her primitive purity. As for myself, I see that from the earliest times, when the Church began to exert political influence, heresy began to figure in the codes as a crime; and I have never been able to discover a period of complete tolerance. I must here make an important remark, which shows one of the causes of the rigor displayed in later centuries. The Inquisition was first directed against the Manichean heretics; that is, against the sectaries who at all times were treated with the greatest severity. In the 11th century, when the punishment of fire had not yet been applied to the crime of heresy, the Manicheans were excepted from this rule. Even in the time of the Pagan emperors, these sectaries were treated with extreme rigor. In the year 296, we see Diocletian and Maximilian, by an edict, condemning to different punishments the Manicheans who had not abjured their dogmas, and consigning their leaders to the fire. These sectaries have always been considered as great criminals; and to punish them has always been judged necessary, not only for the interests of religion, but even for the morals and good order of society. This was one of the causes of the rigor of the Inquisition at its commencement: if we add to this, the turbulent character of the sects which, under various names, arose in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries, we shall have two of the causes that contributed to produce those scenes which now we can scarcely credit. In studying the history of those centuries, and fixing our attention on the troubles and disasters which ravaged the south of France, we clearly see that it was not a dispute as to a particular dogma, but that the whole social system was compromised. The sectaries of those times were precursors of those of the 16th century; with this difference, that the latter, if we except the frantic Anabaptists, were less democratic, less apt to address the multitude. Amid the cruelties of those times, when long ages of violence and revolution had given an excessive preponderance to brute force, what could be expected from governments incessantly menaced with such imminent danger? It is clear that the laws, and their application, must savour of the times.
As to the Spanish Inquisition, which was only an extension of that which was established in other countries, we must divide it, with respect to its duration, into three great periods;--we omit the time of its existence in the kingdom of Aragon, before its introduction into Castille. The first of these comprehends the time when the Inquisition was principally directed against the relapsed Jews and Moors, from the day of its installation under the Catholic sovereigns, till the middle of the reign of Charles V. The second extends from the time when it began to concentrate its efforts to prevent the introduction of Protestantism into Spain, until that danger entirely ceased; that is, from the middle of the reign of Charles V. till the coming of the Bourbons. The third and last period is that when the Inquisition was limited to repress infamous crimes, and exclude the philosophy of Voltaire; this period was continued until its abolition in the beginning of the present century. It is clear that, the institution being successively modified according to circumstances at these different epochs,--although it always remained fundamentally the same,--the commencement and termination of each of these three periods which we have pointed out cannot be precisely marked; nevertheless, these three periods really existed in its history, and present us with very different characters.
Every one knows the peculiar circumstances in which the Inquisition was established in the time of the Catholic sovereigns; yet it is worthy of remark, that the Bull of establishment was solicited by Queen Isabella; that is, by one of the most distinguished sovereigns in our history,--by that queen who still, after three centuries, preserves the respect and admiration of all Spaniards. Isabella, far from opposing the will of the people in this measure, only realized the national wish. The Inquisition was established chiefly against the Jews; the Papal Bull had been sent in 1478; now, before the Inquisition published its first edict, dated Seville, in 1481, the Cortes of Toledo, in 1480, had adopted severe measures on the subject. To prevent the injury which the intercourse between Jews and Christians might occasion to the Catholic faith, the Cortes had ordered that unbaptized Israelites should be obliged to wear a distinctive mark, dwell in separate quarters, called Juiveries, and return there before night. Ancient regulations against them were renewed; the professions of doctor, surgeon, shopkeeper, barber, and tavern-keeper, were forbidden them. Intolerance was, therefore, popular at that time. If the Inquisition be justified in the eyes of friends to monarchy, by conformity with the will of kings, it has an equal claim to be so in the eyes of lovers of democracy.
No doubt the heart is grieved at reading the excessive severities exercised at that time against the Jews; but must there not have been very grave causes to provoke such excesses? The danger which the Spanish monarchy, not yet well established, would have incurred if the Jews, then very powerful on account of their riches and their alliances with the most influential families, had been allowed to act without restraint, has been pointed out as one of the most important of these causes. It was greatly to be feared that they would league with the Moors against the Christians. The respective positions of the three nations rendered this league natural: this is the reason why it was looked upon as necessary to break a power which was capable of compromising anew the independence of the Christians. It is necessary also to observe, that at the time when the Inquisition was established, the war of eight hundred years against the Moors was not yet finished. The Inquisition was projected before 1474; it was established in 1480, and the conquest of Granada did not take place till 1492. Thus it was founded at the time when the obstinate struggle was about to be decided; it was yet to be known whether the Christians would remain masters of the whole peninsula, or whether the Moors should retain possession of one of the most fertile and beautiful provinces; whether these enemies, shut up in Granada, should preserve a position, excellent for their communication with Africa, and a means for all the attempts which, at a later period, the Crescent might be disposed to make against us. Now, the power of the Crescent was very great, as was clearly shown by its enterprises against the rest of Europe in the next century. In such emergencies, after ages of fighting, and at the moment which was to decide the victory for ever, have combatants ever been known to conduct themselves with moderation and mildness? It cannot be denied that the system of repression pursued in Spain, with respect to the Jews and the Moors, was inspired, in great measure, by the instinct of self-preservation: we can easily believe that the Catholic princes had this motive before them when they decided on asking for the establishment of the Inquisition in their dominions. The danger was not imaginary: it was perfectly real. In order to form an idea of the turn which things might have taken if some precaution had not been adopted, it is enough to recollect the insurrections of the last Moors in later times.
Yet it would be wrong, in this affair, to attribute all to the policy of royalty; and it is necessary here to avoid exalting too much the foresight and designs of men; for my part, I am inclined to think that Ferdinand and Isabella naturally followed the generality of the nation, in whose eyes the Jews were odious when they persevered in their creed, and suspected when they embraced the Christian religion. Two causes contributed to this hatred and animadversion. First, the excited state of religious feeling then general in all Europe, and especially in Spain; 2d, the conduct by which the Jews had drawn upon themselves the public indignation.
The necessity of restraining the cupidity of the Jews, for the sake of the independence of the Christians, was of ancient date in Spain: the old assemblies of Toledo had attempted it. In the following centuries the evil reached its height; a great part of the riches of the peninsula had passed into the hands of the Jews, and almost all the Christians found themselves their debtors. Thence the hatred of the people against the Jews; thence the frequent troubles which agitated some towns of the peninsula; thence the tumults which more than once were fatal to the Jews, and in which their blood flowed in abundance. It was difficult for a people accustomed for ages to set themselves free by force of arms, to resign themselves peacefully and tranquilly to the lot prepared for them by the artifices and exactions of a strange race, whose name, moreover, bore the recollection of a terrible malediction.
In later times, an immense number of Jews were converted to the Christian religion; but the hatred of the people was not extinguished thereby, and mistrust followed these converts into their new state. It is very probable that a great number of these conversions were hardly sincere, as they were partly caused by the sad position in which the Jews who continued in Judaism were placed. In default of conjectures founded on reason in this respect, we will regard as a sufficient corroboration of our opinion, the multitude of Judaizing Christians who were discovered as soon as care was taken to find out those who had been guilty of apostacy. However this may be, it is certain that the distinction between new and old Christians was introduced; the latter denomination was a title of honor, and the former a mark of ignominy; the converted Jews were contemptuously called marranos,--impure men, pigs. With more or less foundation, they were accused of horrible crimes. In their dark assemblies they committed, it was said, atrocities which could hardly be believed, for the honor of humanity. For example, it was said that, to revenge themselves on the Christians and in contempt of religion, they crucified Christian children, taking care to choose for the purpose the greatest day among Christian solemnities. There is the often-repeated history of the knight of the house of Guzman, who, being hidden one night in the house of a Jew whose daughter he loved, saw a child crucified at the time when the Christians celebrated the institution of the sacrifice of the Eucharist. Besides infanticide, there were attributed to the Jews, sacrileges, poisonings, conspiracies, and other crimes. That these rumors were generally believed by the people is proved by the fact, that the Jews were forbidden by law to exercise the professions of doctor, surgeon, barber, and tavern-keeper; this shows what degree of confidence was placed in their morality. It is useless to stay to examine the foundations for these sinister accusations. We are not ignorant how far popular credulity will go, above all when it is under the influence of excited feelings, which makes it view all things in the same light. It is enough for us to know that these rumors circulated everywhere and with credit, to understand what must have been the public indignation against the Jews, and consequently how natural it was that authority, yielding to the impulse of the general mind, should be urged to treat them with excessive rigor.
The situation in which the Jews were placed is sufficient to show, that they might have attempted to act in concert to resist the Christians; what they did after the death of St. Peter Arbues shows what they were capable of doing on other occasions. The funds necessary for the accomplishment of the murder, the pay of the assassins, and the other expenses required for the plot, were collected by means of voluntary contributions imposed on themselves by all the Jews of Aragon. Does not this show an advanced state of organization, which might have become fatal if it had not been watched.
In alluding to the death of St. Peter Arbues, I wish to make an observation on what has been said on this subject, as proving the unpopularity of the establishment of the Inquisition in Spain. What more evident proof, we shall be told, can you have than the assassination of the Inquisitor? Is it not a sure sign that the indignation of the people was at its height, and that they were quite opposed to the Inquisition? Would they otherwise have been hurried into such excesses? If by 'the people' you mean the Jews and their descendants, I will not deny that the establishment of the Inquisition was indeed very odious to them; but it was not so with the rest of the nation. The event we are speaking of gave rise to a circumstance which proves just the reverse. When the report of the death of the Inquisitor was spread through the town, the people made a fearful tumult to avenge his death. They spread through the town, they went in crowds in pursuit of the new Christians, so that a bloody catastrophe would have ensued, had not the young Archbishop of Saragossa, Alphonsus of Aragon, presented himself to the people on horseback, and calmed them by the assurance that all the rigor of the laws should fall on the heads of the guilty. Was the Inquisition as unpopular as it has been represented; and will it be said that its adversaries were the majority of the people? Why, then, could not the tumult at Saragossa have been avoided in spite of all the precautions which were no doubt taken by the conspirators, at that time very powerful by their riches and influence?
At the time of the greatest rigor against the Judaizing Christians, there is a fact worthy of attention. Persons accused, or threatened with the pursuit of the Inquisition, took every means to escape the action of that tribunal: they left the soil of Spain and went to Rome. Would those who imagine that Rome has always been the hotbed of intolerance, the firebrand of persecution, have imagined this? The number of causes commenced by the Inquisition, and summoned from Spain to Rome, is countless, during the first fifty years of the existence of that tribunal; and it must be added, that Rome always inclined to the side of indulgence. I do not know that it would be possible to cite one accused person who, by appealing to Rome, did not ameliorate his condition. The history of the Inquisition at that time is full of contests between the Kings and Popes; and we constantly find, on the part of the Holy See, a desire to restrain the Inquisition within the bounds of justice and humanity. The line of conduct prescribed by the court of Rome was not always followed as it ought to have been; thus we see the Popes compelled to receive a multitude of appeals, and mitigate the lot that would have befallen the appellants, if their cause had been definitely decided in Spain. We also see the Pope name the judge of appeal, at the solicitation of the Catholic sovereigns, who desired that causes should be finally decided in Spain: the first of these judges was Dr. Inigo Manrique, Archbishop of Seville. Nevertheless, at the end of a short time, the same Pope, in a Bull of the 2d of August, 1483, said that he had received new appeals, made by a great number of the Spaniards of Seville, who had not dared to address themselves to the judge of appeal for fear of being arrested. Such was then the excitement of the public mind; such was, at that time, the necessity of preventing injustice, or measures of undue severity. The Pope added, that some of those who had had recourse to his justice had already received the absolution of the Apostolical Penitentiary, and that others were about to receive it; he afterwards complained that indulgences granted to divers accused persons had not been sufficiently respected at Seville; in fine, after several other admonitions, he observed to Ferdinand and Isabella, that mercy towards the guilty was more pleasing to God than the severity which it was desired to use; and he gave the example of the good Shepherd following the wandering sheep. He ended by exhorting the sovereigns to treat with mildness those who voluntarily confessed their faults, desiring them to allow them to reside at Seville, or in some other place they might choose; and to allow them the enjoyment of their property, as if they had not been guilty of the crime of heresy.
Moreover, it is not to be supposed that the appeals admitted at Rome, and by virtue of which the lot of the accused was improved, were founded on errors of form and injustice committed in the application of the law. If the accused had recourse to Rome, it was not always to demand reparation for an injustice, but because they were sure of finding indulgence. We have a proof of this in the considerable number of Spanish refugees convicted at Rome of having fallen into Judaism. Two hundred and fifty of them were found at one time; yet there was not one capital execution. Some penances were imposed on them, and when they were absolved, they were free to return home, without the least mark of ignominy. This took place at Rome in 1498.
It is a remarkable thing that the Roman Inquisition was never known to pronounce the execution of capital punishment, although the Apostolic See was occupied during that time by Popes of extreme rigor and severity in all that relates to the civil administration. We find in all parts of Europe scaffolds prepared to punish crimes against religion; scenes which sadden the soul were everywhere witnessed. Rome is an exception to the rule; Rome, which it has been attempted to represent as a monster of intolerance and cruelty. It is true, that the Popes have not preached, like Protestants, universal toleration; but facts show the difference between the Popes and Protestants. The Popes, armed with a tribunal of intolerance, have not spilled a drop of blood; Protestants and philosophers have shed torrents. What advantage is it to the victim to hear his executioners proclaim toleration? It is adding the bitterness of sarcasm to his punishment. The conduct of Rome in the use which she made of the Inquisition, is the best apology of Catholicity against those who attempt to stigmatize her as barbarous and sanguinary. In truth, what is there in common between Catholicity and the excessive severity employed in this place or that, in the extraordinary situation in which many rival races were placed, in the presence of danger which menaced one of them, or in the interest which the kings had in maintaining the tranquillity of their states, and securing their conquests from all danger? I will not enter into a detailed examination of the conduct of the Spanish Inquisition with respect to Judaizing Christians; and I am far from thinking that the rigor which it employed against them was preferable to the mildness recommended and displayed by the Popes. What I wish to show here is, that rigor was the result of extraordinary circumstances,--the effect of the national spirit, and of the severity of customs in Europe at that time. Catholicity cannot be reproached with excesses committed for these different reasons. Still more, if we pay attention to the spirit which prevails in all the instructions of the Popes relating to the Inquisition; if we observe their manifest inclination to range themselves on the side of mildness, and to suppress the marks of ignominy with which the guilty, as well as their families, were stigmatized, we have a right to suppose that, if the Popes had not feared to displease the kings too much, and to excite divisions which might have been fatal, their measures would have been carried still further. If we recollect the negotiations which took place with respect to the noisy affair of the claims of the Cortes of Aragon, we shall see to which side the court of Rome leaned.
As we are speaking of intolerance with regard to the Judaizers, let us say a few words as to the disposition of Luther towards the Jews. Does it not seem that the pretended reformer, the founder of independence of thought, the furious declaimer against the oppression and tyranny of the Popes, should have been animated with the most humane sentiments towards that people? No doubt the eulogists of this chieftain of Protestantism ought to think thus also. I am sorry for them; but history will not allow us to partake of this delusion. According to all appearances, if the apostate monk had found himself in the place of Torquemada, the Judaizers would not have been in a better position. What, then, was the system advised by Luther, according to Seckendorf, one of his apologists? "Their synagogues ought to be destroyed, their houses pulled down, their prayer-books, the Talmud, and even the books of the Old Testament, to be taken from them; their rabbis ought to be forbidden to teach, and be compelled to gain their livelihood by hard labor." The Inquisition, at least, did not proceed against the Jews, but against the Judaizers; that is, against those who, after being converted to Christianity, relapsed into their errors, and added sacrilege to their apostacy, by the external profession of a creed which they detested in secret, and which they profaned by the exercise of their old religion. But Luther extended his severity to the Jews themselves; so that, according to his doctrines, no reproach can be made against the sovereign who expelled the Jews from their dominions.
The Moors and the Mooriscoes no less occupied the attention of the Inquisition at that time; and all that has been said on the subject of the Jews may be applied to them with some modifications. They were also an abhorred race--a race which had been contended with for eight centuries. When they retained their religion, the Moors inspired hatred; when they abjured it, mistrust; the Popes interested themselves in their favor also in a peculiar manner. We ought to remark a Bull issued in 1530, which is expressed in language quite evangelical: it is there said, that the ignorance of these nations is one of the principal causes of their faults and errors; the first thing to be done to render their conversion solid and sincere was, according to the recommendation contained in this Bull, to endeavor to enlighten their minds with sound doctrine.
It will be said that the Pope granted to Charles V. the Bull which released him from the oath taken in the Cortes of Saragossa in the year 1519; an oath, by which he had engaged not to make any change with respect to the Moors; whereby, it is said, the Emperor was enabled to complete their expulsion. But, we must observe, that the Pope for a long time resisted that concession; and, that if he at length complied with the wishes of the Emperor, it was only because he thought that the expulsion of the Moors was indispensable to secure the tranquillity of the kingdom. Whether this was true or not, the Emperor, and not the Pope, was the better judge; the latter, placed at a great distance, could not know the real state of things in detail. Moreover, it was not the Spanish monarch alone who thought so; it is related that Francis I., when a prisoner at Madrid, one day conversing with Charles V., told him that tranquillity would never be established in Spain, if the Moors and Mooriscoes were not expelled.
XXXVII. SECOND EPOCH OF THE INQUISITION IN SPAIN
It has been said that Philip II. founded a new Inquisition in Spain, more terrible than that of the Catholic sovereigns; at the same time the Inquisition of Ferdinand and Isabella receives a certain degree of indulgence, which is refused to that of their successors. At the very outset, we find an important historical mistake in this assertion. Philip did not establish a new Inquisition; he maintained that which the Catholic sovereigns had left him, and which Charles V., his father and predecessor, had particularly recommended to him by will. The Committee of the Cortes of Cadiz, in the project for the abolition of the tribunal of the Inquisition, excuses the conduct of the Catholic sovereigns, and blames with severity that of Philip II.; it attempts to make all the fault and odium fall on that prince. An illustrious French writer, very recently treating of this important question, has allowed himself to be led into the same errors, with that candor which sometimes accompanies genius. "There were," says M. Lacordaire, "in the Spanish Inquisition, two solemn periods, which must not be confounded; the one at the end of the fifteenth century, under Ferdinand and Isabella, before the Moors were expelled from Granada, their last asylum; the other, in the middle of the sixteenth, under Philip II., when Protestantism threatened to propagate itself in Spain. The Committee of the Cortes has perfectly distinguished these two epochs; and while it stigmatizes the Inquisition of Philip II., expresses itself with moderation with respect to that of Ferdinand and Isabella." After these words the writer quotes a text, where it is affirmed that Philip II. was the real founder of the Inquisition; if that institution attained in the end to a high degree of power, it was owing, it says, to the refined policy of that prince. We read, a little further on, that Philip II. was the inventor of the auto-da-fé, to terrify heretics; and that the first of these bloody spectacles was seen at Seville in 1559. (Mémoire pour le rétablissement de l'Ordre des Frères Precheurs, chap, vi.) Setting aside the historical mistake with respect to the auto-da-fés, it is well known that neither the san-benitos nor the fagots were the invention of Philip II. Such mistakes easily escape a writer who is satisfied with alluding to a fact incidentally; if we bring forward this one, it is because it contains an accusation against a monarch to whom, for a long time, too little justice has been done. Philip II. continued the work which had been begun by his predecessors; if they are excused, he ought not to be treated with greater severity. Ferdinand and Isabella directed the Inquisition against the apostate Jews; why could not Philip II. avail himself of it against Protestants? But I shall be told he abused his right and carried rigor to excess. Certainly there was not more indulgence in the times of Ferdinand and Isabella. Are the numerous executions at Seville and other places forgotten? Or what Mariana says in his history, and the public measures taken by the Popes for the purpose of checking the excessive severity? The words quoted against Philip II. are taken from the work called La Inquicitión sin mascura (the Inquisition unveiled,) published in Spain in 1811. We may judge of the value of this authority, when we know that the author of the book was distinguished till his death by a deep hatred to the Spanish kings. The book bears the name of Nathanael Jomtob; but the real author is a well-known Spaniard, who, in his latter writings, seems to have undertaken to avenge, by his unbounded exaggerations and furious invectives, all that he had previously attacked; a writer who assails, with an intolerable partiality, all that presents itself before him--religion, country, classes of society, individuals, and opinions--insulting and tearing to pieces all, as if he had been seized with a sally of passion, and not even sparing the men of his own party. Is it, then, surprising that this writer regarded Philip II. as Protestants and philosophers do, that is, as a monarch placed on the earth for the disgrace and misfortune of humanity,--a monster of Machiavellianism, anxious to diffuse darkness, in order to maintain himself in safety in his cruelty and perfidy? I will not undertake to justify, on all points, the policy of Philip II.; I will not deny that there are exaggerations in the eulogiums which some Spanish writers have given to that prince. But, on the other hand, it cannot be doubted, that Protestants and the political enemies of Philip II. have ever been careful to denounce him. And do you know why Protestants have done this? It is because it was he who prevented Protestantism from penetrating into Spain; it was he who, at that period of agitation, maintained the cause of Catholicity. Let us set aside the great events of the rest of Europe, of which each one will judge as he pleases; let us limit ourselves to Spain. We do not fear to assert, that the introduction of Protestantism into that country was imminent and inevitable without the system which he pursued. Whether Philip used the Inquisition for political purposes, in certain cases, is not the question we have to examine here; but at least it must be acknowledged that it was not a mere instrument of ambitious projects; it was an institution strengthened and maintained in presence of an imminent danger.
It appears, from the proceedings of the Inquisition at this time, that Protestantism began to spread in an incredible manner in Spain; eminent ecclesiastics, monks, nuns, seculars of distinction, in a word, individuals of the most influential classes, were attached to the new errors. Could the efforts of Protestants to introduce their creed into Spain remain altogether unproductive, when they employed every stratagem in their ardor to introduce their books? They went so far as to place their prohibited writings in casks of Champagne and Burgundy wine, with so much art as to deceive the custom-house men: thus wrote the Spanish Ambassador at Paris.
To perceive the whole danger, it is enough to observe with attention the state of minds in Spain at this time; besides, incontestable facts come in support of conjectures. The Protestants, taking great care to declaim against abuses, represented themselves as reformers, and labored to draw to their side all who were animated by an ardent desire for reform. This desire for reform had existed for a long time in the Church; but with some it was inspired by bad intentions; in other words, the specious name of reform concealed the real intention of many, which was to destroy. At the same time, with some sincere Catholics, this desire, although pure in principle, went to imprudent zeal, and reached an ill-regulated ardor. It is probable that such zeal, carried to too great an extent, was, with many, changed into acrimony; thence a certain facility in receiving the insidious suggestions of the enemies of the Church. Many people who had begun with indiscreet zeal, perhaps fell into exaggeration, then into bitterness, and finally into heresy. Spain was not exempt from this disposition of mind, from whence the course of events might have drawn very bitter results, if Protestantism had obtained any footing on our soil. We know that the Spaniards at the Council of Trent distinguished themselves by their reforming zeal, and their boldness in expressing their opinions. Let us remark, moreover, that religious discord being once introduced into a country, minds are excited by disputes, they are irritated by frequent shocks, and it sometimes happens that respectable men precipitate themselves into excesses which they would have abhorred a short time before. It is difficult to say with precision what would have happened if the rigor had been at all relaxed on this point. Certain it is, that, when reading some passages of Luis Vives, of Arias Montanus, of Carranza, and of the consultation of Melchior Cano, we can fancy we find, at the bottom of their minds, a sort of disquietude and agitation, which may best be compared to those heavy murmurings which announce from afar the commencement of a tempest.
The famous trial of the Archbishop of Toledo, Fray Bartolomé de Carranza, is one of the facts which are most frequently cited to show the arbitrary nature of the proceedings of the Spanish Inquisition. We certainly cannot see without emotion, shut up in prison for many years, one of the most learned men in Europe, the Archbishop of Toledo, honored with the intimate confidence of Philip II. and the Queen of England, allied in friendship with the most distinguished men of the time, and known to all Christendom by the brilliant part which he had played at the Council of Trent. The process lasted seventeen years; and although the cause was carried to Rome, where the Archbishop must have found powerful friends, a declaration of innocence in his favor could not be obtained. Without staying to notice the many incidents of a cause so long and so complicated, without insisting on the more or less reason which the discourses and writings of Carranza may have afforded for suspicions against his faith, I am quite certain, in my own mind, that, in his own conscience and before God, he was perfectly innocent. Here is a proof that places my opinion beyond a doubt. A short time after the judgment was given, he fell ill; his malady was supposed to be mortal, and the sacraments were administered to him. At the moment of receiving the Viaticum, in the presence of a large concourse, he declared, in the most solemn manner, that he had never left the Catholic faith, that his conscience acquitted him of all the accusations made against him; and he confirmed his declaration by calling to witness God, in whose presence he was, whom he was about to receive under the most sacred species, and before whose awful tribunal he was in a few moments to appear. This pathetic act drew tears from all present; all suspicions against him were dissipated as by a breath, and a new sympathy was added to that which his continued misfortunes had excited. The Sovereign Pontiff did not doubt the sincerity of the declaration, as a magnificent epitaph was placed upon his tomb, which certainly would not have been allowed if there had been the least doubt of it. It certainly would be rash to refuse to believe a declaration so explicit from the mouth of such a man as Carranza, expiring, and in the presence of Jesus Christ Himself.
After having paid this tribute to the knowledge, virtues, and misfortunes of Carranza, it remains for us to examine whether, whatever may have been the purity of his conscience, it can be justly said that his trial was a perfidious intrigue, carried on by envy and hatred. This is not the place to examine the immense procedure in this case; but since allusion has been made to it to condemn Philip II. and the adversaries of Carranza, I wish, in my turn, to make some observations, to endeavor to place the affair in its proper light. In the first place, is it not astonishing that a trial devoid of all foundation should have had so extraordinary a duration? At least there must have been some appearance of it. Besides, if the cause had been decided in Spain, the length of the trial might not have been so extraordinary. But it was not so; the cause remained pending in Rome many years. Were the judges so blind or so wicked that they could not discover the calumny, or that they wanted the virtue to destroy it, supposing it to have been as clear and evident as it has been pretended? It may be replied to this, that the intrigues of Philip II., who was determined on the destruction of the Archbishop, prevented the truth from appearing; in proof of this assertion, have we not the difficulties which the king made to allow the prisoner to be transferred to Rome? It was necessary, it is said, for Pius V. to effect this by the threat of excommunication. I will not deny that Philip II. attempted to aggravate the situation of the Archbishop, and wished for a sentence little favorable to the illustrious accused. Yet, before deciding that the conduct of the king was criminal, we must know whether he acted thus from personal resentment, from conviction, or from the suspicion that the Archbishop inclined towards Lutheranism. Carranza, before his disgrace, was highly favored and esteemed by Philip, as appears from the missions which were confided to him in England, and from his elevation to the first ecclesiastical dignity in Spain. How, then, can we presume that so much good-will was converted on a sudden into personal and violent hatred? Is it not, at least, necessary that history should afford a fact in support of this conjecture? Now, I find this nowhere in history, nor am I aware that others have done so. If Philip took so decided a part against the Archbishop, it was evidently because he believed, or strongly suspected him of being heretical. In that case, Philip may have been rash, imprudent--all that you please; but it cannot be said that, in the pursuit, he was moved by the spirit of vengeance, or by low animosity.
Other men of the time were equally accused. Among the rest, Melchior Cano. Carranza himself seemed to be suspicious; he bitterly complained that Melchior Cano had ventured to say that the Archbishop was as heretical as Luther. But Salazar de Mendoza, when relating the fact in the life of Carranza, asserts that Cano, hearing this, openly denied it, saying, that he had said nothing of the kind. Indeed, the mind is easily inclined to believe him; men with intellects as favored as his, have, in their own dignity, too powerful a preservative against baseness, to allow them to be suspected of playing the infamous part of calumniators.
I do not believe that it is necessary to seek for the cause of the misfortunes of Carranza in private hatred or jealousy; it is found in the critical circumstances of the time, and in the character of this illustrious man himself. The grave symptoms which produced alarm lest Protestantism might make proselytes in Spain; the efforts of the Protestants to introduce their books and emissaries there; the experience of what happened in other countries, and particularly in the kingdom of France, created so much dread in men's minds, rendered them so fearful and mistrustful, that the least suspicion of error, above all, in persons elevated in dignity or distinguished for their knowledge, occasioned disquietude and apprehension. We are aware of the hot disputes which took place with respect to the Polyglot of Antwerp and Arias Montanus, and we are not ignorant of the sufferings of the famous Fray Luis de Leon, and some other illustrious men of that time. Another conjuncture which contributed to push things to extremes was, the political situation of Spain with respect to strangers. The Spanish monarchy had too many enemies and rivals for her not to have reason to fear that heresy, in the hands of her adversaries, would become a means of introducing discord and civil war into her bosom. These causes united, naturally rendered Philip suspicious and mistrustful; the hatred of heresy combining in his mind with the desire of self-preservation, he showed himself severe and inexorable with respect to all that could affect the purity of the Catholic faith in his empire.
On the other hand, it must be acknowledged that the character of Carranza was not exactly what was required, in such critical times, to avoid all dangerous wanderings. We perceive, in reading his commentaries on the Catechism, that he was a man of acute penetration, of vast erudition, of profound learning, of severe character, and of a heart generous and frank. He spoke his thoughts without circumlocution, without regard to the displeasure which his words might give to this person or that. When he believed that he had discovered an abuse, he pointed it out and condemned it openly, wherein he resembled his supposed adversary, Melchior Cano, in more features than one. The accusations against him in the trial were founded, not only on his writings, but also on some of his sermons and private conversations. I know not to what extent he exceeded the just limits; but I hesitate not to affirm, that a man who wrote in the tone which we find in his works, must have expressed himself viva voce with great force, and perhaps with excessive boldness. It must be added, to speak the whole truth, that when treating of justification, in his commentaries on the Catechism, he does not explain himself with all the clearness desirable, and is wanting in the simplicity required by the unhappy circumstances of the times. Men versed in this delicate matter know how delicate certain points are. These points were then the subject of the errors of Germany; and it may be easily imagined how much the attention must have been fixed on the words of Carranza, and how alarming the least shadow of ambiguity must have been. It is certain that, at Rome he was not acquitted of all the accusations; he was compelled to abjure a series of propositions, with respect to which he was judged liable to suspicion; and some penances were imposed on him. Carranza on his death-bed protested his innocence; but he took care to declare that he did not regard the sentence of the Pope as unjust. The explanation of the enigma is this: the innocence of the heart is not always accompanied by the prudence of the lips.
I have dwelt upon this famous cause because it involves considerations which strikingly exhibit the spirit of the age. These considerations have, besides, the advantage of showing the truth in its proper light, and prevent every thing being explained according to the wretched measure of the malice of men. There is unhappily a tendency to explain all in this way; and it may be truly said, that men too often give a just foundation for it; yet, whenever there is no evident necessity to do so, we ought to abstain from condemnation. The picture of the history of humanity is sombre enough in itself; let us not take pleasure in darkening it still more by new stains. We often call crime that which was only ignorance. Man is inclined to evil; but he is not less subject to error, and error is not always culpable.
Moreover, I believe that to Protestants themselves were owing the rigor and anxious mistrust which the Inquisition of Spain displayed at that time. They excited a religious revolution; and it is a constant law, that all revolutions either destroy the power assailed, or render it more harsh and severe. What before was looked upon as indifferent, is now considered as suspected; and what, in all other circumstances, would only have appeared a fault, is now regarded as a crime. Men are in continual dread of seeing liberty converted into licentiousness; and as revolutions destroy all, while they profess to reform, whoever ventures to speak of reform, runs the risk of being blamed as a disturber. Even prudent conduct is stigmatized as hypocritical caution; frank and sincere language is termed insolence and dangerous suggestion; reserve is a concealment full of cunning; even silence itself assumes a meaning--it becomes alarming dissimulation. We have seen so many things come to pass in our days, that we are placed in an incomparable situation easily to understand the various phases of the history of humanity. It is an undoubted fact, that Protestantism produced a reaction in Spain. Its errors and excesses were the reason why the ecclesiastical and civil power infinitely restrained the liberty which had been previously enjoyed in all that related to religion. Spain was preserved from the Protestant doctrines, when all the probabilities were in favor of their being introduced there, in one way or another. It is clear that this could not be obtained without extraordinary efforts. Spain, at that time, appears to me like a place besieged by a powerful enemy, where the leaders continually watched, not only against attacks from without, but also against treason from within. I will confirm these observations by an example, which will serve for many others. Let us remember what took place with respect to Bibles in the vulgar tongue; we shall then have an idea of what passed with relation to all the rest, according to the natural order of things. I have before me a testimony of what I have just said, as respectable as it is worthy of interest--that of Carranza himself. Hear what he says in his prologue to his commentaries on the Christian Catechism: "Before the heresies of Luther had come from the infernal regions to the light of this world, I do not know that the Holy Scriptures in the vulgar tongue were anywhere forbidden. In Spain, Bibles were translated into it by order of the Catholic sovereigns, at the time when the Moors and Jews were allowed to live among the Christians according to their own law. After the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, the judges of religion found that some of those who had been converted to our holy faith instructed their children in Judaism, and taught them the ceremonies of the law of Moses by means of those Bibles in the vulgar tongue, which they took care to have printed in Italy, in the town of Ferrara. This is the real cause why Bibles in the vulgar tongue were forbidden in Spain; but the possession and reading of them were always allowed to colleges and monasteries, as well as to persons of distinction above all suspicion." Carranza continues to give, in a few words, the history of these prohibitions in Germany, France, and other countries; then he adds: "In Spain, which was, and still is, by the grace and goodness of God, pure from the cockle, care was taken to forbid generally all the translations of the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue, in order to prevent strangers having an opportunity of holding controversy with simple and ignorant persons, and also because they had, and still have, experience of certain particular cases, and of the errors which began to arise in Spain from the ill-understood reading of certain passages of the Bible. What I have just stated is the real history of what took place; this is why the Bible in the vulgar tongue was prohibited."
This curious passage of Carranza shows us, in a few words, the progress of things. At first there was no prohibition; but the abuse committed by the Jews provoked one, although still confined, as we have just seen, within certain limits. Afterwards came the Protestants, upsetting all Europe by means of their Bibles; Spain is threatened with the introduction of the new errors; it is discovered that some persons have been misled by the false interpretation of certain passages of the Bible; they are compelled to take away this weapon from these strangers, who attempt to use it to seduce simple people: from that time the prohibition becomes rigorous and general.
To return to Philip II., let us not forget that this monarch was one of the firmest defenders of the Catholic Church; and that in him was personified the policy of the faithful ages, amid the vertigo which, under the impulse of Protestantism, had taken possession of European policy. If the Catholic Church, amid these great perturbations, could reckon on a powerful protection from the princes of the earth, it was in great measure owing to Philip II. This age was critical and decisive in Europe. If it is true that he was unfortunate in Flanders, it is not less undoubted that his power and ability afforded a counterpoise to the Protestant power, which prevented it making itself master of Europe. Even supposing that the efforts of Philip had only the result of gaining time, by breaking the first shock of the Protestant policy, this was not a slight service rendered to the Catholic Church, then attacked on so many sides. What would have happened to Europe, if Protestantism had been introduced into Spain as into France? if the Huguenots had been able to count on the assistance of the Peninsula? And what would have happened in Italy, if she had not been held in respect by the power of Philip? Would not the sectaries of Germany have succeeded in introducing their errors there? Here I appeal to all men who are acquainted with history, whether, if Philip had abandoned his much-decried policy, the Catholic religion would not have run the risk of finding itself, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, under the hard necessity of existing only as a tolerated religion in the generality of the kingdoms of Europe? Now, we know what this toleration is worth to the Catholic Church; England has told us for centuries; Prussia shows us at this moment, and Russia adds her testimony in a manner still more lamentable. Such is the point of view in which we must consider Philip II. One is forced to allow that, considered in this way, that prince is a great historical personage,--one of those who have left the deepest marks on the policy of the age which followed,--one of those who exert the greatest influence after them on the course of events.
Spaniards, who anathematize the founder of the Escurial, have you, then, forgotten our history, or do you esteem it of no value? Do you stigmatize him as an odious tyrant? Do you not know that, in denying his glory, in covering it with ignominy, you efface a feature of your own glory, and throw into the mud the diadem which encircled the brows of Ferdinand and Isabella? If you cannot pardon Philip II. for having sustained the Inquisition,--if that reason alone obliges you to load his name with execration, do the same with his illustrious father, Charles V.; and, going back to Isabella of Castille, write also on the list of the tyrants and scourges of humanity that name which was venerated by both worlds, and which is the emblem of the glory and power of the Spanish monarchy. They all took part in the fact which excites your indignation; do not curse some, while you lavish hypocritical indulgence on the others. If that indulgence is found in your words, it is that the feeling of nationality which beats in your bosom compels you to partiality--to inconsistency; you recoil when you are about to efface the glories of Spain with a stroke of the pen--to wither all her laurels--to deny your country. We have nothing left, unfortunately, but great recollections; let us at least avoid despising them: these recollections are, in a nation, like the titles of ancient nobility in a fallen family; they raise the mind, they fortify the soul in adversity; and, nourishing hope in the bottom of the heart, they serve to prepare what is to come.
The immediate effect of the introduction of Protestantism into Spain would have been, as in other countries, civil war; and this war would have been more fatal to us than to other people, because the circumstances were much more critical for us. The unity of the Spanish monarchy could not have resisted the shocks and disturbances of intestine dissension; the different parts were so heterogeneous among themselves, and were so slightly united, that the least blow would have parted them. The laws and manners of the kingdoms of Navarre and Aragon were very different from those of Castille; a lively feeling of independence, supported by frequent meetings of their own Cortes, was kept alive in the hearts of those unconquered nations; they would certainly have availed themselves of the first opportunity to shake off a yoke which was not pleasing to them. Moreover, in the other provinces, factions were not wanting to distract the country. The monarchy would have been miserably divided at a time when it was necessary to make head in the affairs of Europe, Africa, and America. The Moors were still in sight of our coasts; the Jews had not had time to forget Spain: certainly both would have availed themselves of the conjuncture to raise themselves by means of our discords. On the policy of Philip depended not only the tranquillity, but perhaps even the existence of the Spanish monarchy. He is now accused of having been a tyrant; if he had pursued another course, he would have been taxed with incapacity and weakness.
One of the most unjust attacks of the enemies of religion against her friends is, to attribute bad faith to them, to accuse them of having in every thing false intentions, tortuous and interested views. When they speak of the Machiavellianism of Philip II., they suppose that the Inquisition, while apparently only religious in its object, was, in reality, an obedient instrument of policy in the hands of a crafty monarch. Nothing is more specious to the man in whose eyes history is only a matter for piquant and malicious observations; but nothing is more false according to facts. Some people, seeing in the Inquisition an extraordinary tribunal, have not been able to imagine the existence of that exceptional tribunal, without supposing, in the monarch who sustained and encouraged it, profound reasons, and views carried much further than appears on the surface of things. They have not been willing to see that an epoch has its spirit, its own manner of regarding things, its own system of action, both in doing good and in preventing evil. During those times, when all the nations of Europe appealed to fire and sword to decide questions of religion, when Protestants and Catholics burnt their adversaries, when England, France, and Germany assisted at the bloodiest scenes, to bring a heretic to the scaffold was a natural and customary thing, which gave no shock to prevailing ideas. We feel our hair grow stiff on our heads at the mere idea of burning a man alive. Placed in society where the religious sentiment is considerably diminished; accustomed to live among men who have a different religion, and sometimes none at all; we cannot bring ourselves to believe that it could be at that time quite an ordinary thing to see heretics or the impious led to punishment. But, if we read the authors of the time, we shall see the immense difference on this point between their manners and ours; and we shall remark, that our language of moderation and toleration would not even have been understood by the man of the sixteenth century.
Do you know what Carranza himself, who suffered so much from the Inquisition, thought of this matter? Every time that he has occasion to touch on this point in the work which I have quoted, he expresses the ideas of his time, without even staying to prove them; he gives them as undoubted principles. In England, with Queen Mary, he did not fear to express his opinions as to the rigor with which heretics ought to be treated; and he was certainly far from suspecting that his name would one day be made use of to attack this intolerance. Kings and peoples, ecclesiastics and seculars, were all agreed on this point. What would be said now-a-days of a king who would carry with his own hands the wood to burn heretics, and would condemn blasphemers to have their tongues pierced with a hot iron? Now, the first of these things is related of St. Ferdinand, and we know that the second was done by St. Louis. We now exclaim in seeing Philip II. assisting at an auto-da-fé; but, if we consider that the court, the great men, all that was most select in society, surrounded the king on these occasions, we shall understand that, if this spectacle is horrible and intolerable to us, it was not so in the eyes of those men, widely different from us in ideas and feelings. And let it not be said that they were forced there by the will of the monarch,--that they were compelled to obey: this was not the effect of the monarch's will; it was only a consequence of the spirit of the age. No monarch would have been sufficiently powerful to perform such a ceremony, if the spirit of the age had been opposed to it; besides, no monarch is so hard and insensible as not to feel the influence of the times in which he lives. Suppose the most absolute despot of our time, Napoleon, at the height of his power, or the present Emperor of Russia, and see whether they could thus violate the manners of the age.
An anecdote is related which is little adapted to confirm the opinion of those who assert that the Inquisition was a political instrument in the hands of Philip. As it paints in a curious and interesting manner the customs and ideas of the age, I will insert it here. Philip II. held his court at Madrid; a certain preacher, in a sermon delivered in presence of the king, advanced, that sovereigns had an absolute power over the persons as well as over the property of their subjects. The proposition was not of a nature to displease a king; the preacher at one blow relieved kings from all control over the exercise of their power. Now, it seems that at that time all men were not in such abject subjection to despotic control as we have been led to believe; some one was found to denounce to the Inquisition the words in which the preacher had not been ashamed to flatter the absolute power of kings. Surely the orator had chosen a secure asylum; and our readers may well suppose that this denunciation coming into collision with the power of Philip, the Inquisition would have maintained a prudent silence. Yet it was not so: the Inquisition made an inquiry, found the proposition contrary to sound doctrine, and the preacher, who was perhaps far from expecting such a reward, had divers penances imposed on him, and was condemned to retract publicly his proposition in the same place where he had made it. The retractation took place with all the ceremonies of a juridical proceeding; the preacher declared that he retracted his proposition as erroneous; he explained the reasons by reading, as he had been directed, the following words, well worthy of remark: "Indeed, messieurs, kings have no other power over their subjects than that which is given to them by the divine and human law; they have none proceeding from their own free and absolute will." This is related by D. Antonio Perez, as may be seen at length in the note which corresponds to the present chapter. We know, moreover, that he was not a fanatical partisan of the Inquisition.
This took place at the time which some persons never mention without stigmatizing it with the words obscurantism, tyranny, and superstition. Yet I doubt whether, at a time nearer to us--that, for example, when it is asserted that light and liberty dawned on Spain under the reign of Charles III.--a public and solemn condemnation of despotism would have been carried so far. This condemnation, at the time of Philip II., did as much honor to the tribunal which ordered it as to the monarch who consented to it.
With respect to knowledge, it is a calumny to say that a design was formed to maintain and perpetuate ignorance. Certainly the conduct of Philip does not indicate such a design, when we see this prince, not content with favoring the great enterprise of the Polyglot of Antwerp, recommending to Arias Montanus to devote to the purchase of chosen works, printed or manuscript, the money which would revert to the printer Plantinus, to whom the king had advanced a large sum to aid in the enterprise. This chosen collection was to be placed in the library of the monastery of the Escurial, which was then built. The king had also charged Don Francis de Alaba, his ambassador in France, to collect in that kingdom the best books which it was possible for him to procure, as he himself says in his letter to Arias Montanus. No; the history of Spain, with respect to intolerance in religious matters, is not so black as it has been represented. When foreigners reproach us with cruelty, we will reply that, when Europe was stained with blood by civil wars, Spain was at peace. As to the number of persons who perished on the scaffold or died in exile, we challenge the two nations who claim to be at the head of civilization, France and England, to show us their statistics on that subject at the same time, and to compare them with ours: we do not fear the comparison.
In proportion as the danger of the introduction of Protestantism into Spain diminished, so did the rigor of the Inquisition. We may observe, moreover, that the procedure of that tribunal always became milder, in accordance with the spirit of criminal legislation in the other countries of Europe. Thus we see the auto-da-fé becoming more rare as we approach our own times, so that, at the end of the last century, the Inquisition was only a shadow of what it had been. It is useless to insist on this point, which nobody denies, and on which we are in unison with the most ardent enemies of that tribunal; and this it is which, in our eyes, proves, in the most convincing manner, that we must seek in the ideas and manners of the time, what people have attempted to find in the cruelty, in the wickedness, or in the ambition of men. If the doctrines of those who plead for the abolition of the punishment of death are carried into effect, posterity, when reading the executions of our time, will be seized with the same horror with which we view the punishment of times past, and the gibbet and the guillotine will figure in the same rank as the ancient Quemaderos.[26]