One does not need great art and skilful eloquence to prove that
Christians ought to tolerate each other--nay, even to regard all
men as brothers. Why, you say, is the Turk, the Chinese, or the Jew
my brother? Assuredly; are we not all children of the same father,
creatures of the same God?
But these people despise us and treat us as idolaters. Very well; I
will tell them that they are quite wrong. It seems to me that I might
astonish, at least, the stubborn pride of a Mohammedan or a Buddhist
priest if I spoke to them somewhat as follows:
This little globe, which is but a point, travels in space like many
other globes; we are lost in the immensity. Man, about five feet
high, is certainly a small thing in the universe. One of these
imperceptible beings says to some of his neighbours, in Arabia or
South Africa: “Listen to me, for the God of all these worlds has
enlightened me. There are nine hundred million little ants like us on
the earth, but my ant-hole alone is dear to God. All the others are
eternally reprobated by him. Mine alone will be happy.”
They would then interrupt me, and ask who was the fool that talked
all this nonsense. I should be obliged to tell them that it was
themselves. I would then try to appease them, which would be
difficult.
I would next address myself to the Christians, and would venture
to say to, for instance, a Dominican friar--an inquisitor of the
faith: “Brother, you are aware that each province in Italy has its
own dialect, and that people do not speak at Venice and Bergamo as
they do at Florence. The Academy of La Crusca has fixed the language.
Its dictionary is a rule that has to be followed, and the grammar of
Matei is an infallible guide. But do you think that the consul of
the Academy, or Matei in his absence, could in conscience cut out
the tongues of all the Venetians and the Bergamese who persisted in
speaking their own dialect?”
The inquisitor replies: “The two cases are very different. In our
case it is a question of your eternal salvation. It is for your good
that the heads of the inquisition direct that you shall be seized
on the information of any one person, however infamous or criminal;
that you shall have no advocate to defend you; that the name of your
accuser shall not be made known to you; that the inquisitor shall
promise you pardon and then condemn you; and that you shall then be
subjected to five kinds of torture, and afterwards either flogged or
sent to the galleys or ceremoniously burned. On this Father Ivonet,
Doctor Chucalon, Zanchinus, Campegius, Royas, Telinus, Gomarus,
Diabarus, and Gemelinus are explicit, and this pious practice admits
of no exception.”[30]
I would take the liberty of replying: “Brother, possibly you are
right. I am convinced that you wish to do me good. But could I not be
saved without all that?”
It is true that these absurd horrors do not stain the face of the
earth every day; but they have often done so, and the record of them
would make up a volume much larger than the gospels which condemn
them. Not only is it cruel to persecute, in this brief life, those
who differ from us, but I am not sure if it is not too bold to
declare that they are damned eternally. It seems to me that it is
not the place of the atoms of a moment, such as we are, thus to
anticipate the decrees of the Creator. Far be it from me to question
the principle, “Out of the Church there is no salvation.” I respect
it, and all that it teaches; but do we really know all the ways of
God, and the full range of his mercies? May we not hope in him as
much as fear him? It is not enough to be loyal to the Church? Must
each individual usurp the rights of the Deity, and decide, before he
does, the eternal lot of all men?
When we wear mourning for a king of Sweden, Denmark, England, or
Prussia, do we say that we wear mourning for one who burns eternally
in hell? There are in Europe forty million people who are not of the
Church of Rome. Shall we say to each of them: “Sir, seeing that you
are infallibly damned, I will neither eat, nor deal, nor speak with
you”?
What ambassador of France, presented in audience to the Sultan,
would say in the depths of his heart: “His Highness will undoubtedly
burn for all eternity because he has been circumcised”? If he really
believed that the Sultan is the mortal enemy of God, the object of
his vengeance, could he speak to him? Ought he to be sent to him?
With whom could we have intercourse? What duty of civil life could
we ever fulfil if we were really convinced that we were dealing with
damned souls?
Followers of a merciful God, if you were cruel of heart; if, in
worshipping him whose whole law consisted in loving one’s neighbour
as oneself, you had burdened this pure and holy law with sophistry
and unintelligible disputes; if you had lit the fires of discord
for the sake of a new word or a single letter of the alphabet; if
you had attached eternal torment to the omission of a few words or
ceremonies that other peoples could not know, I should say to you:
“Transport yourselves with me to the day on which all men will be
judged, when God will deal with each according to his works. I see
all the dead of former ages and of our own stand in his presence.
Are you sure that our Creator and Father will say to the wise
and virtuous Confucius, to the lawgiver Solon, to Pythagoras, to
Zaleucus, to Socrates, to Plato, to the divine Antonines, to the
good Trajan, to Titus, the delight of the human race, to Epictetus,
and to so many other model men: “Go, monsters, go and submit to a
chastisement infinite in its intensity and duration; your torment
shall be as eternal as I. And you, my beloved, Jean Chatel,
Ravaillac, Damiens, Cartouche, etc. [assassins in the cause of the
Church], who have died with the prescribed formulæ, come and share my
empire and felicity for ever.”[31]
You shrink with horror from such sentiments; and, now that they have
escaped me, I have no more to say to you.