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 TOLERATION

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TOLERATION

we should probably obtain a clearer view of the tolera- tion of the Church in past history by studying the re- lations of the papacy with those bodies which like the Jews and pagans were recognized as lying outside her direct jurisdiction. Regarded as a centre of spiritual authority the Holy See did not claim the unbap- tized as subjects, but still the popes as sovereigns of a temporal state had to adopt a definite attitude to- wards the Jews who hved in their dominions. Tracing these relations as a whole and comparing them with the ideas which prevailed among secular rulers of the time, the principles formulated, and for the most part acted upon, by the popes, set an example of mildness to the rest of Europe. As early as a. d. 598, Gregory the Great clearly laid down that the Jews, while they were to be restrained from presuming upon the tolera- tion accorded to them by the law, had a claim to be treated equitably and justly. They were to be allowed to keep their own festivals and religious prac- tices, and their rights of property, even in the case of their synagogues, were to be respected (Greg. Mag. Regesta, M. G. H., II, 67 and 383). In the later Middle Ages there may be traced through a long series of pontificates the repeated confirmations of the Bull, assignable probably in the first instance to Pope Cal- lixtus II (c. 1120) and known as "Sicut Juda'is". It was a sort of papal charter of protection to the Jews and in its first sentence are embodied certain words of one of Gregory the Great's letters just referred to. "As licence", says this document, ''ought not to be allowed to the Jews to presume in their synagogues beyond what is permitted by the law so they ought not to be interfered with in such things as are allowed. We therefore, although they prefer to continue in their hardness of heart ratlier than be guided by the hidden meaning of the prophets to a knowledge of the Chris- tian faith, do nevertheless, since they invoke our pro- tection and aid, following in the footsteps of our predecessors and out of the mildness of Christian piety, extend to them the shield of our protection." The document then lays down (1) that the Jews are not to be compelled by force to embrace Christianity, but are only to be baptized of their own free will; (2) that apart from a judicial sentence in a court of law no one is to injure them in life or limb or to take away their property or to interfere with such cus- tomary rights as they may have enjoyed in the places where they live; (3) that they are not to be attacked with sticks and stones on occasion of their festival celebrations, nor are they to be compelled to render any feudal services beyond such as are customary; (4) that their cemeteries in particular are not to be violated. (See M. Stern, "Urkundliche Beitrage", n. 171.) This charter reissued and confirmed as it was by some twenty or thirty pontiffs during a period of 400 years is certainly of much more weight as lay- ing down the Church's view of the duty of toleration, as an abstract principle, than any persecuting edicts evoked by special circinnstances or coloured by the prepossessions of the individual legislator.

Looking at the documents of unquestioned authen- ticity extracted by Stern from the papal Regesta it becomes clear that throughout the later Middle Ages the Jews in almost every emergency turned to the popes as to their natural protectors. Despite such legislation as that of the Fourth Council of Latei-an (1215) impo.sing the wearing of a distinctive badge and excluding Jews from public offices, still even such a summary as that in the Jewish Encyclopedia (s. v. "Popes") distinctly leaves the impression that the Holy See exercised on the whole a markedly restrain- ing influence on the persecuting spirit of the Middle Ages. In particular, more than one of the popes, beginning with Innocent IV, issued Bulls exonerating the .I<nvs from that ch.arge of ritual murder, which, as in the well-known story of little Hugh of Lincoln, prejudiced public opinion so strongly against them

(cf. Vacandard, "La question du meurtre rituel chez les Juifs" in "Etudes de critique et d'histoire rehgieuse", 3d series, Paris, 1912). It was again the popes (e. g., Sixtus IV and Clement VII) who at the time of the worst excesses of the Spanish Inquisition exerted themselves to set some cheek upon the severi- ties exercised against the Maranos in the Iberian Peninsula. The edicts issued at various times for the destruction of copies of the Talmud, the Bull "Cum nimis absurdum" of Paul IV constraining the Jews of Rome to Uve segregated in a Ghetto and subject to other harassing disabihties, represent rather the preju- dices of individual pontiff's than any consistent prin- ciple of persecution. Let it aLso be noted that the influence of the Church has repeatedly been exerted for the protection of pagan races against forcible conversion, and that it has freely tolerated such religious rites amongst savages as were not openly debasing and immoral. The history of the preaching of Christianity in the New World shows many ex- amples in which the fanatical zeal lay with the profli- gate Spanish adventurers who conquered the country, while ecclesiastical authority advocated sympathy with the natives and indulgence for their religious observances. On the other hand this indulgence shown to pagan customs, obviously enough, could not be extended without hmit. Even British rule in India ultimately considered it desirable to aboUsh the prac- tice of suttee by which the wives of the upper classes were required to commit suicide upon the death of their husbands. This, however, was not effectively prohibited, even in the British provinces, until 1829.

With regard to the toleration of Christian heretics and schismatics the reader will do well to consult the article Inquisition. No very systematic measures of repression seem to have come into practice before the twelfth century. The aggressive attitude adopted in the case of the Priscillianists (q. v.) and Donati-sts (q. V.) was owing less to the action of the bishops than to that of the emperor. On the other hand, it cannot be disputed that after the authority of the popes was firmly established, ecclesiastical camjiaigns were un- dertaken against the Cathari, the Waldenses, and Albigenses as well as later on against the followers of Wickhf and Hus. Moreover isolated executions for heresy (burning at the stake being commonly em- ployed for this purpose) were known before the twelfth century both in East and West; though at the same time the actual infliction of the punishment, then as after, must be regarded as an act of the civil power rather than that of any ecclesiastical tribunal. But though an Inquisition of heretical practices may be regarded as having been first formally set up, at any rate in embryo, about the second half of the thirteenth century no measiu'es of extreme severity were in the beginning prescribed or generally adopted. The Fourth Council of Lateran in 1215 imposed as a pen- ally the deprivation of property and civil stakes. Convicted heretics, even though repentant, were excluded from public offices and were compelled to wear a badge. If their retractation was insincere they were liable to be confined in a pubUc prison. At the same time it must not be forgotten that all these medieval heresies, as such an historian as Gairdner has noticed (Lollardy, I, 46), struck at the foundations of social order. M. Guiraud's account of the extrava- gant teaching of the Cathari and Albigenses is conclu- sive upon the point. It cannot be doubted that the severities which then began to be exercised in the name of religion were prompted by no lust for blood. It seemed rather to orthodox churchmen that the Church was so menaced by these subversive doctrines that her very exi.-ftence was at stake.

Under these circumstances it was not wonderful that the ordinances of the canon law, for the most part formulated at a time when Albigensian teach- ings were a present danger, should have inchned t o t he