The History of Freedom, and Other Essays

Where these sentiments prevailed, Gregory XIII. was not alone in deploring that the work had been but half done. After the first explosion of gratified surprise men perceived that the thing was a failure, and began to call for more. The clergy of Rouen Cathedral instituted a procession of thanksgiving, and prayed that the King might continue what he had so virtuously begun, until all France should profess one faith.155 There are signs that Charles was tempted at one moment, during the month of October, to follow up the blow.156 But he died without pursuing the design; and the hopes were turned to his successor. When Henry III. passed through Italy on his way to assume the crown, there were some who hoped that the Pope would induce him to set resolutely about the extinction of the Huguenots. A petition was addressed to Gregory for this purpose, in which the writer says that hitherto the French court has erred on the side of mercy, but that the new king might make good the error if rejecting that pernicious maxim that noble blood spilt weakens a kingdom, he would appoint an execution which would be cruel only in appearance, but in reality glorious and holy, and destroy the heretics totally, sparing neither life nor property.157 Similar exhortations were addressed from Rome to Henry himself by Muzio, a layman who had gained repute, among other things, by controversial writings, of which Pius V. said that they had preserved the faith in whole districts, and who had been charged with the task of refuting the Centuriators. On the 17th of July 1574, Muzio wrote to the King that all Italy waited in reliance on his justice and valour, and besought him to spare neither old nor young, and to regard neither rank nor ties of blood.158 These hopes also were doomed to disappointment; and a Frenchman, writing in the year of Henry's death, laments over the cruel clemency and inhuman mercy that reigned on St. Bartholomew's Day.159

This was not the general opinion of the Catholic world. In Spain and Italy, where hearts were hardened and consciences corrupted by the Inquisition; in Switzerland, where the Catholics lived in suspicion and dread of their Protestant neighbours; among ecclesiastical princes in Germany, whose authority waned as fast as their subjects abjured their faith, the massacre was welcomed as an act of Christian fortitude. But in France itself the great mass of the people was struck with consternation.160 "Which maner of proceedings," writes Walsingham on the 13th of September, "is by the Catholiques themselves utterly condemned, who desire to depart hence out of this country, to quit themselves of this strange kind of government, for that they see here none can assure themselves of either goods or life." Even in places still steeped in mourning for the atrocities suffered at the hands of Huguenots during the civil war, at Nîmes, for instance, the King's orders produced no act of vengeance. At Carcassonne, the ancient seat of the Inquisition, the Catholics concealed the Protestants in their houses.161 In Provence, the news from Lyons and the corpses that came down in the poisoned waters of the Rhone awakened nothing but horror and compassion.162 Sir Thomas Smith wrote to Walsingham that in England "the minds of the most number are much alienated from that nation, even of the very Papists."163 At Rome itself Zuñiga pronounced the treachery of which the French were boasting unjustifiable, even in the case of heretics and rebels;164 and it was felt as an outrage to public opinion when the murderer of Coligny was presented to the Pope.165 The Emperor was filled with grief and indignation. He said that the King and Queen-mother would live to learn that nothing could have been more iniquitously contrived or executed: his uncle Charles V., and his father Ferdinand, had made war on the Protestants, but they had never been guilty of so cruel an act.166 At that moment Maximilian was seeking the crown of Poland for his son; and the events in France were a weapon in his hands against his rival, Anjou. Even the Czar of Muscovy, Ivan the Terrible, replying to his letters, protested that all Christian princes must lament the barbarous and needless shedding of so much innocent blood. It was not the rivalry of the moment that animated Maximilian. His whole life proves him to have been an enemy of violence and cruelty; and his celebrated letter to Schwendi, written long after, shows that his judgment remained unchanged. It was the Catholic Emperor who roused the Lutheran Elector of Saxony to something like resentment of the butchery in France.

For the Lutherans were not disposed to recognise the victims of Charles IX. as martyrs for the Protestant cause. During the wars of religion Lutheran auxiliaries were led by a Saxon prince, a margrave of Baden, and other German magnates, to aid the Catholic forces in putting down the heresy of Calvin. These feelings were so well known that the French Government demanded of the Duke of Wirtemberg the surrender of the Huguenots who had fled into his dominions.167 Lutheran divines flattered themselves at first with the belief that it was the Calvinistic error, not the Protestant truth, that had invited and received the blow.168 The most influential of them, Andreæ, declared that the Huguenots were not martyrs but rebels, who had died not for religion but sedition; and he bade the princes beware of the contagion of their spirit, which had deluged other lands with blood. When Elizabeth proposed a league for the defence of Protestantism, the North German divines protested against an alliance with men whose crime was not only religious error but blasphemous obstinacy, the root of many dreadful heresies. The very proposal, they said, argued a disposition to prefer human succour rather than the word of God.169 When another invitation came from Henry of Navarre, the famous divine Chemnitz declared union with the disciples of Calvin a useless abomination.170

The very men whose own brethren had perished in France were not hearty or unanimous in execrating the deed.171 There were Huguenots who thought that their party had brought ruin on itself, by provoking its enemies, and following the rash counsels of ambitious men.172 This was the opinion of their chief, Theodore Beza, himself. Six weeks before, he wrote that they were gaining in numbers but losing in quality, and he feared lest, after destroying superstition, they should destroy religion: "Valde metuo ne superstitioni successerit impietas."173 And afterwards he declared that nobody who had known the state of the French Protestants could deny that it was a most just judgment upon them.174

Beza held very stringent doctrines touching the duty of the civil magistrate to repress religious error. He thought that heresy is worse than murder, and that the good of society requires no crime to be more severely punished.175 He declared toleration contrary to revealed religion and the constant tradition of the Church, and taught that lawful authority must be obeyed, even by those whom it persecutes. He expressly recognised this function in Catholic States, and urged Sigismund not to rest until he had got rid of the Socinians in Poland;176 but he could not prevail against the vehement resistance of Cardinal Hosius. It was embarrassing to limit these principles when they were applied against his own Church. For a moment Beza doubted whether it had not received its death-blow in France. But he did not qualify the propositions which were open to be interpreted so fatally,177 or deny that his people, by their vices, if not by their errors, had deserved what they had suffered.

The applause which greeted their fate came not from the Catholics generally, nor from the Catholics alone. While the Protestants were ready to palliate or excuse it, the majority of the Catholics who were not under the direct influence of Madrid or Rome recognised the inexpiable horror of the crime. But the desire to defend what the Pope approved survived sporadically, when the old fierceness of dogmatic hatred was extinct. A generation passed without any perceptible change in the judgment of Rome. It was a common charge against De Thou that he had condemned the blameless act of Charles IX. The blasphemies of the Huguenots, said one of his critics, were more abominable than their retribution.178 His History was put on the Index; and Cardinal Barberini let him know that he was condemned because he not only favoured Protestants to the detriment of Catholics, but had even disapproved the Massacre of St. Bartholomew.179 Eudæmon-Johannes, the friend of Bellarmine, pronounces it a pious and charitable act, which immortalised its author.180 Another Jesuit, Bompiani, says that it was grateful to Gregory, because it was likely to relieve the Church.181 The well-known apology for Charles IX. by Naudé is based rather on political than religious grounds; but his contemporary Guyon, whose History of Orleans is pronounced by the censors full of sound doctrine and pious sentiment, deems it unworthy of Catholics to speak of the murder of heretics as if it were a crime, because, when done under lawful authority, it is a blessed thing.182 When Innocent XI. refused to approve the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, Frenchmen wondered that he should so far depart from the example which was kept before him by one of the most conspicuous ornaments of his palace.183 The old spirit was decaying fast in France, and the superb indignation of Bossuet fairly expresses the general opinion of his time. Two works were published on the medals of the Popes, by a French and an Italian writer. The Frenchman awkwardly palliates the conduct of Gregory XIII.; the Italian heartily defends it.184 In Italy it was still dangerous ground. Muratori shrinks from pronouncing on the question,185 while Cienfuegos, a Jesuit whom his Order esteemed one of the most distinguished Cardinals of the day, judges that Charles IX. died too soon for his fame.186 Tempesti, who lived under the enlightened rule of Benedict XIV., accuses Catherine of having arrested the slaughter, in order that some cause should remain to create a demand for her counsels.187 The German Jesuit Biner and the Papal historian Piatti, just a century ago, are among the last downright apologists.188

Then there was a change. A time came when the Catholics, having long relied on force, were compelled to appeal to opinion. That which had been defiantly acknowledged and defended required to be ingeniously explained away. The same motive which had justified the murder now prompted the lie. Men shrank from the conviction that the rulers and restorers of their Church had been murderers and abetters of murder, and that so much infamy had been coupled with so much zeal. They feared to say that the most monstrous of crimes had been solemnly approved at Rome, lest they should devote the Papacy to the execration of mankind. A swarm of facts were invented to meet the difficulty: The victims were insignificant in number; they were slain for no reason connected with religion; the Pope believed in the existence of the plot; the plot was a reality; the medal is fictitious; the massacre was a feint concerted with the Protestants themselves; the Pope rejoiced only when he heard that it was over.189 These things were repeated so often that they have been sometimes believed; and men have fallen into this way of speaking whose sincerity was unimpeachable, and who were not shaken in their religion by the errors or the vices of Popes. Möhler was pre-eminently such a man. In his lectures on the history of the Church, which were published only last year,190 he said that the Catholics, as such, took no part in the massacre; that no cardinal, bishop, or priest shared in the councils that prepared it; that Charles informed the Pope that a conspiracy had been discovered; and that Gregory made his thanksgiving only because the King's life was saved.191 Such things will cease to be written when men perceive that truth is the only merit that gives dignity and worth to history.

[167] Et est toute la dispute encores sur les derniers évènemens de la France, contre lesquels l'Electeur est beaucoup plus aigre qu'il n'estoyt à mon aultre voyage, depuys qu'il a esté en l'escole à Vienne (Schomberg to Brulart, May 12, 1573; Groen, iv. App. 76).

V

THE PROTESTANT THEORY OF PERSECUTION 192

The manner in which Religion influences State policy is more easily ascertained in the case of Protestantism than in that of the Catholic Church: for whilst the expression of Catholic doctrines is authoritative and unvarying, the great social problems did not all arise at once, and have at various times received different solutions. The reformers failed to construct a complete and harmonious code of doctrine; but they were compelled to supplement the new theology by a body of new rules for the guidance of their followers in those innumerable questions with regard to which the practice of the Church had grown out of the experience of ages. And although the dogmatic system of Protestantism was not completed in their time, yet the Protestant spirit animated them in greater purity and force than it did any later generation. Now, when a religion is applied to the social and political sphere, its general spirit must be considered, rather than its particular precepts. So that in studying the points of this application in the case of Protestantism, we may consult the writings of the reformers with greater confidence than we could do for an exposition of Protestant theology; and accept them as a greater authority, because they agree more entirely among themselves. We can be more sure that we have the true Protestant opinion in a political or social question on which all the reformers are agreed, than in a theological question on which they differ; for the concurrent opinion must be founded on an element common to all, and therefore essential. If it should further appear that this opinion was injurious to their actual interests, and maintained at a sacrifice to themselves, we should then have an additional security for its necessary connection with their fundamental views.

The most important example of this law is the Protestant theory of toleration. The views of the reformers on religious liberty are not fragmentary, accidental opinions, unconnected with their doctrines, or suggested by the circumstances amidst which they lived; but the product of their theological system, and of their ideas of political and ecclesiastical government. Civil and religious liberty are so commonly associated in people's mouths, and are so rare in fact, that their definition is evidently as little understood as the principle of their connection. The point at which they unite, the common root from which they derive their sustenance, is the right of self-government. The modern theory, which has swept away every authority except that of the State, and has made the sovereign power irresistible by multiplying those who share it, is the enemy of that common freedom in which religious freedom is included. It condemns, as a State within the State, every inner group and community, class or corporation, administering its own affairs; and, by proclaiming the abolition of privileges, it emancipates the subjects of every such authority in order to transfer them exclusively to its own. It recognises liberty only in the individual, because it is only in the individual that liberty can be separated from authority, and the right of conditional obedience deprived of the security of a limited command. Under its sway, therefore, every man may profess his own religion more or less freely; but his religion is not free to administer its own laws. In other words, religious profession is free, but Church government is controlled. And where ecclesiastical authority is restricted, religious liberty is virtually denied.

For religious liberty is not the negative right of being without any particular religion, just as self-government is not anarchy. It is the right of religious communities to the practice of their own duties, the enjoyment of their own constitution, and the protection of the law, which equally secures to all the possession of their own independence. Far from implying a general toleration, it is best secured by a limited one. In an indifferent State, that is, in a State without any definite religious character (if such a thing is conceivable), no ecclesiastical authority could exist. A hierarchical organisation would not be tolerated by the sects that have none, or by the enemies of all definite religion; for it would be in contradiction to the prevailing theory of atomic freedom. Nor can a religion be free when it is alone, unless it makes the State subject to it. For governments restrict the liberty of the favoured Church, by way of remunerating themselves for their service in preserving her unity. The most violent and prolonged conflicts for religious freedom occurred in the Middle Ages between a Church which was not threatened by rivals and States which were most attentive to preserve her exclusive predominance. Frederic II., the most tyrannical oppressor of the Church among the German emperors, was the author of those sanguinary laws against heresy which prevailed so long in many parts of Europe. The Inquisition, which upheld the religious unity of the Spanish nation, imposed the severest restrictions on the Spanish Church; and in England conformity has been most rigorously exacted by those sovereigns who have most completely tyrannised over the Established Church. Religious liberty, therefore, is possible only where the co-existence of different religions is admitted, with an equal right to govern themselves according to their own several principles. Tolerance of error is requisite for freedom; but freedom will be most complete where there is no actual diversity to be resisted, and no theoretical unity to be maintained, but where unity exists as the triumph of truth, not of force, through the victory of the Church, not through the enactment of the State.

This freedom is attainable only in communities where rights are sacred, and where law is supreme. If the first duty is held to be obedience to authority and the preservation of order, as in the case of aristocracies and monarchies of the patriarchal type, there is no safety for the liberties either of individuals or of religion. Where the highest consideration is the public good and the popular will, as in democracies, and in constitutional monarchies after the French pattern, majority takes the place of authority; an irresistible power is substituted for an idolatrous principle, and all private rights are equally insecure. The true theory of freedom excludes all absolute power and arbitrary action, and requires that a tyrannical or revolutionary government shall be coerced by the people; but it teaches that insurrection is criminal, except as a corrective of revolution and tyranny. In order to understand the views of the Protestant reformers on toleration, they must be considered with reference to these points.

While the Reformation was an act of individual resistance and not a system, and when the secular Powers were engaged in supporting the authority of the Church, the authors of the movement were compelled to claim impunity for their opinions, and they held language regarding the right of governments to interfere with religious belief which resembles that of friends of toleration. Every religious party, however exclusive or servile its theory may be, if it is in contradiction with a system generally accepted and protected by law, must necessarily, at its first appearance, assume the protection of the idea that the conscience is free.193 Before a new authority can be set up in the place of one that exists, there is an interval when the right of dissent must be proclaimed. At the beginning of Luther's contest with the Holy See there was no rival authority for him to appeal to. No ecclesiastical organism existed, the civil power was not on his side, and not even a definite system had yet been evolved by controversy out of his original doctrine of justification. His first efforts were acts of hostility, his exhortations were entirely aggressive, and his appeal was to the masses. When the prohibition of his New Testament confirmed him in the belief that no favour was to be expected from the princes, he published his book on the Civil Power, which he judged superior to everything that had been written on government since the days of the Apostles, and in which he asserts that authority is given to the State only against the wicked, and that it cannot coerce the godly. "Princes," he says, "are not to be obeyed when they command submission to superstitious errors, but their aid is not to be invoked in support of the Word of God."194 Heretics must be converted by the Scriptures, and not by fire, otherwise the hangman would be the greatest doctor.195 At the time when this was written Luther was expecting the bull of excommunication and the ban of the empire, and for several years it appeared doubtful whether he would escape the treatment he condemned. He lived in constant fear of assassination, and his friends amused themselves with his terrors. At one time he believed that a Jew had been hired by the Polish bishops to despatch him; that an invisible physician was on his way to Wittenberg to murder him; that the pulpit from which he preached was impregnated with a subtle poison.196 These alarms dictated his language during those early years. It was not the true expression of his views, which he was not yet strong enough openly to put forth.197

The Zwinglian schism, the rise of the Anabaptists, and the Peasants' War altered the aspect of affairs. Luther recognised in them the fruits of his theory of the right of private judgment and of dissent,198 and the moment had arrived to secure his Church against the application of the same dissolving principles which had served him to break off from his allegiance to Rome.199 The excesses of the social war threatened to deprive the movement of the sympathy of the higher classes, especially of the governments; and with the defeat of the peasants the popular phase of the Reformation came to an end on the Continent. "The devil," Luther said, "having failed to put him down by the help of the Pope, was seeking his destruction through the preachers of treason and blood."200 He instantly turned from the people to the princes;201 impressed on his party that character of political dependence, and that habit of passive obedience to the State, which it has ever since retained, and gave it a stability it could never otherwise have acquired. In thus taking refuge in the arms of the civil power, purchasing the safety of his doctrine by the sacrifice of its freedom, and conferring on the State, together with the right of control, the duty of imposing it at the point of the sword, Luther in reality reverted to his original teaching.202 The notion of liberty, whether civil or religious, was hateful to his despotic nature, and contrary to his interpretation of Scripture. As early as 1519 he had said that even the Turk was to be reverenced as an authority.203 The demoralising servitude and lawless oppression which the peasants endured, gave them, in his eyes, no right to relief; and when they rushed to arms, invoking his name as their deliverer, he exhorted the nobles to take a merciless revenge.204 Their crime was, that they were animated by the sectarian spirit, which it was the most important interest of Luther to suppress.

The Protestant authorities throughout Southern Germany were perplexed by their victory over the Anabaptists. It was not easy to show that their political tenets were revolutionary, and the only subversive portion of their doctrine was that they held, with the Catholics, that the State is not responsible for religion.205 They were punished, therefore, because they taught that no man ought to suffer for his faith. At Nuremberg the magistrates did not know how to proceed against them. They seemed no worse than the Catholics, whom there was no question at that time of exterminating. The celebrated Osiander deemed these scruples inconsistent. The Papists, he said, ought also to be suppressed; and so long as this was not done, it was impossible to proceed to extremities against the Anabaptists, who were no worse than they. Luther also was consulted, and he decided that they ought not to be punished unless they refused to conform at the command of the Government.206 The Margrave of Brandenburg was also advised by the divines that a heretic who could not be converted out of Scripture might be condemned; but that in his sentence nothing should be said about heresy, but only about sedition and murderous intent, though he should be guiltless of these.207 With the aid of this artifice great numbers were put to death.