The Bible may well be called the persecutor's text-book. It is
difficult, if not impossible, to find in all its pages a single text
in favor of real freedom of thought. Dr. Farrar champions what he
calls "true Christianity," to which he declares that all persecution is
entirely "alien." This "true Christianity" appears to depend upon "the
spirit" of Christ, and seems to have little or no relation to the letter
of Scripture. But what is the actual fact, when we view it in the light
of history? In one of his lucid intervals of mere common sense, Dr.
Farrar makes an important admission with regard to the worse than
Armenian atrocities of the Jewish policy of extermination in Palestine.
Those atrocities of cruelty and lust are said to have been ordered by
God, but Dr. Farrar says that on this point the Jews were mistaken. They
thought they were doing God a service, but they thought so ignorantly.
And how was their ignorance corrected? Not by a special monition from
heaven, but by the ordinary progress and elevation of the human mind.
"It required," Dr. Farrar says, "but the softening influence of time
and civilisation to obliterate in the best minds those fierce
misconceptions." Precisely so. And is it anything but the softening
influence of time and civilisation that makes Christians like Dr. Farrar
ashamed of the bloody deeds of their co-religionists; which bloody
deeds, by the way, have always been justified by appeals to the
teachings of the Bible? Let there be no mistake on this point. Dr.
Farrar himself does not scruple to write of the "deep damnation of deeds
of deceit and sanguinary ferocity committed in the name of Holy Writ."
"In some of their deadliest sins against the human race," he further
says, "corrupted and cruel Churches have ever been most lavish in their
appeals to Scripture." He admits that "the days are not far distant
when it was regarded as a positive duty to put men to death for their
religious opinions," and that this was defended by Old Testament
examples, and also by some texts from the New Testament. And it was
"by virtue of texts like these" that enemies of the human race were
"enabled" to combine the "garb and language of priests with the temper
and trade of executioners."
Now, what has Dr. Farrar to urge _per contra?_ Simply this: that the
"early Christians" pleaded for toleration. "Force," they said, "is
hateful to God." "It is no part of religion," said Tertullian, "to
_compel_ religion." But suppose all this be admitted--and there is much
to be said by way of qualification--what does it amount to? The "early
Christians" were in a minority. They did not yet command the sword of
the magistrate. They could not persecute except by holding no fellowship
with unbelievers, by shaking off the dust of their feet against those
who rejected their Gospel, and by other harmless though detestable
exhibitions of bigotry. They had to plead for their own existence, and
in doing so they were obliged to appeal to the principle of general
toleration. But the moment they triumphed, under Constantine, they began
to flout the very principle to which they had formerly appealed. The
humility of their weakness was more than equalled by the pride of their
power. And what was the result? "From Augustine's days down to those
of Luther," Dr. Farrar says, "scarcely one voice was raised in favor,
I will not say of _tolerance_, but even of abstaining from fire and
bloodshed in support of enforced uniformity." Dr. Farrar denounces in
creditable language the frightful butcheries of Alva in the Netherlands,
for which the Pope presented him with a jewelled sword bearing a
pious inscription. He is properly horrified at the massacre of St.
Bartholomew, in honor of which Pope Gregory XIII. struck a triumphant
medal, and went in procession to sing a Te Deum to God, while the cannon
thundered from the Castle of St. Angelo and bonfires blazed in the
streets of Rome. He is bitter against the Church of Rome for its
vast shedding of innocent blood. He reminds us that the infamous Holy
Inquisition is still toasted by Catholic professors at Madrid; and that
intolerance, having lost its power, has not lost its virulence, nor
"ceased to justify its burning hatred by Scripture quotations." And
he cites Manning's successor at Westminster, the truculent Cardinal
Vaughan, as declaring with perfect approval that "the Catholic Church
has never spared the knife, when necessary, to cut off rebels against
her faith and authority."
But let it not be imagined that all the guilt of persecution rested upon
the Church of Rome. Protestantism persecuted as freely as the Papacy.
That heretics should be put down, and if necessary killed, was a
principle common to both Churches. The question in dispute was, Which
_were_ the heretics? This is so incontestable that we need not fortify
it with Protestant quotations and Protestant examples. It is not true,
as Dr. Farrar alleges, that Luther "boldly proclaimed that thoughts are
toll-free," if it is meant that he condemned persecution. Thoughts were
toll-free against Romish exactions; that was what Luther meant. He held
as strongly as any Papist that those who denied one essential doctrine
of Christianity should be punished by the magistrates. He declared that
reason always led to unbelief. He besought the Protestant princes to
uphold "the faith" by every means in their power. And when the serfs
rebelled, thinking that the "freedom" the Reformers talked about was
to become a reality, it was Luther who wrote against them with
unsurpassable ferocity, and advised that they should be "slaughtered
like mad dogs."
Dr. Farrar rather judiciously refrains from mentioning Calvin in this
connection, but in another part of the volume he refers to the great
Genevian "reformer" in a somewhat gingerly manner. When the sins of
Catholics have to be condemned he is quite dithyrambic; but when he
has to censure the sins of Protestants he displays a most touching
tenderness. Nothing could well be worse than the mixture of religious
bigotry, personal spleen, and low duplicity, with which Calvin hunted
Servetus to his fiery doom. Dr. Farrar sympathetically describes this
vile act as an "error." He tries to satisfy his conscience, afterwards,
by confessing that the Calvinists in general "were for the most part as
severe to all who differed from them as they imagined God to be severe
to the greater part of the human race."
Dr. Farrar's treatment of this subject is superficial. It is not a Bible
text here or there which is the real basis of persecution. We advise him
to read George Eliot's review of Lecky's _History of Rationalism_. He
will then see that persecution is founded upon the fatal doctrine of
salvation by faith. This doctrine makes the heretic more noxious than a
serpent. A serpent poisons the body, a heretic poisons the soul. If it
be true that his teaching may draw souls to hell, human welfare demands
his extermination. Dr. Farrar does not disclaim this doctrine, and if he
fails to act upon it he only betrays an amiable inconsistency. His heart
is better than his head.
Dr. Farrar, like other Protestants, talks about the right of private
judgment. But this is only fine and futile verbiage, unless he admits
the sinlessness of intellectual error. If judgment depends on the will,
it is through the will amenable to motives; consequently, the way
to pro-mote correct opinions is to promise rewards and threaten
punishments. But if judgment does not depend on the will; if it is
necessarily determined by the laws of reason and evidence; then it is
an absurdity to bribe and intimidate. Now there is no third alternative.
One of these two theories must be right, and the other must be wrong.
Dr. Farrar is logically bound to take his choice. If he believes that
judgment depends on the will, he has no right to denounce persecution.
If he believes that judgment does not depend on the will, he has no
right to censure the most absolute freethought.
There are but two camps--the camp of Faith and the camp of Reason.
Dr. Farrar belongs to the former. But he does not find his position
comfortable. He casts a longing eye on the other camp. He wants to be
in both. He therefore tries to form an alliance between them, if not to
amalgamate them under one banner.
Reason, said Bishop Butler, is the only faculty wherewith we can judge
of anything, even of revelation itself. Dr. Farrar quotes this statement
with approval. He quotes similar sentences from other Protestant
writers. Then he turns upon the Roman Church for keeping the Bible
out of the hands of the people, and denounces it for this with
ultra-Protestant vigor. He imagines that this is a vindication of
Protestantism, at any rate relatively, as a champion of reason in
opposition to blind faith and absolute authority. But _private_ judgment
and _free_ judgment are not identical. When the Protestant puts an open
Bible into your hands, and tells you to read it and judge of it for
yourself, he is acting like a Freethinker; but when he proceeds to say
that if you do not find it to be a divine book, and believe all its
teaching about God, and Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, and heaven
and hell, you will infallibly be damned, he is acting like a Papist.
His right of private judgment, at the finish, always means the right to
differ from him on trivial points, and the duty of agreeing with him on
every point which he chooses to regard as essential. If this is denied
by Dr. Farrar, let him honestly answer this question--Is a Freethinker
who has examined the Bible, and rejected it as a divine revelation,
liable to any sort of penalty for his disbelief? The answer to this
question will decide whether Dr. Farrar is really maintaining the rights
of reason, or is merely maintaining the Protestant theory of faith
against that of the Catholics, and standing up for the authority of the
Book instead of the authority of the Church.
Meanwhile we venture to suggest that the Bible texts referred to by Dr.
Farrar, as requiring us to exercise the right of private judgment, are
very little to the point. "The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord"
is a pretty text, but it does not seem to have much bearing on the
issue. "Try the spirits" is all right in its way; but what if you find
that _all_ the spirits are illusions? "Prove all things" is good, but it
must be taken with the context. Jesus indeed is reported to have said,
"Why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right?" But he is also
reported to have said, "He that believeth and is baptised shall be
saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned."
By a judicious selection of texts you can prove anything from the Bible,
and disprove anything--as Catholics have often reminded Protestants. To
pick out passages that to some extent are favorable to a certain view,
and to ignore much stronger passages that are clearly opposed to it, may
be an exercise of private judgment, and may satisfy the conscience
of neo-Protestants of the school of Dr. Farrar; but it invites a
contemptuous smile from Freethinkers who believe that Reason ought not
to suffer such a prostitution.
We have to point out, finally, that Protestantism, with its open Bible,
has everywhere maintained laws against blasphemy and heresy. The laws
against heresy have fallen into desuetude in England, but while they
lasted they were simply ferocious. We heard the late Lord Coleridge say
from his seat in the Court of Queen's Bench, as Lord Chief Justice, that
the Protestant laws against Roman Catholics, particularly in Ireland,
where they were executed with remorseless ferocity, are without a
parallel in the history of the world. Catholicism, however, is no longer
under a ban. Even the Jews have been admitted to equal rights with their
fellow citizens. But laws still remain in existence, and are
occasionally put into operation, against "blasphemers." According to the
language of common law indictments, it is a crime to bring the Holy
Scripture or the Christian Religion into disbelief and contempt. It is
true that many Christians are ready to profess a certain aversion to
such laws, but they make no effort to repeal them. Many others contend
that "blasphemy" is a question of manner, that the feelings of
Christians should be protected, and that while men should not be
punished for being Freethinkers, they should be punished for wounding
orthodox susceptibilities. It is not proposed, however, that any
limitations of taste or temper should be imposed upon Christian
controversialists; and this contention may therefore be regarded as a
subterfuge of bigotry. On the whole, it may be said that Catholics
without the Bible, and Protestants with the Bible, persecute unbelief to
the full extent of their opportunities; and it is only as toleration
grows from other roots, and is nourished by other causes, that the
Bibliolaters find out subtle interpretations of simple texts in favor of
the prevailing tendency.