IF NON-TOLERATION WAS
KNOWN AMONG THE GREEKS.
The several nations with which history has made us in part
acquainted, all considered their different religions as ties by which
they were united; it was the association of human kind. There was a
kind of law of hospitality among the gods, the same as among men. If
a stranger arrived in any town, the first thing he did was to pay his
adoration to the gods of the country, even though they were the gods
of his enemies. The Trojans offered up prayers even to those gods who
fought for the Greeks.
Alexander made a journey into the deserts of Libya, purposely to
consult the god Ammon, to whom the Greeks gave the name of Zeus and
the Latins that of Jupiter, though both countries had their Jupiter
and their Zeus among themselves. When they sat down before any town
or city, they offered up sacrifices and prayers to the gods of that
city or town, to render them propitious to their undertaking. Thus,
even in the midst of war, religion united mankind; and though it
might sometimes prompt them to exercise the most inhuman cruelties,
at other times it frequently softened their fury.
I may be mistaken, but it seems to me that not one of all the
civilized nations of antiquity ever laid a restraint upon liberty
of thinking. They all had a particular religion; but they seem to
have acted in this respect toward men in the same manner as they did
toward their gods; they all acknowledged one Supreme Being, though
they associated him with an infinite number of inferior deities;
in like manner, though they had but one faith, yet they admitted a
multitude of particular systems.
The Greeks, for example, though a very religious people, were not
offended with the Epicureans, who denied Providence and the existence
of the soul, not to mention divers other sects, whose tenets were
all of them repugnant to the pure ideas we ought to entertain of a
Creator, and yet were all of them tolerated.
Socrates, who came the nearest to the knowledge of the true God,
is said to have suffered on that account, and died a martyr to
the Deity; he was the only one whom the Greeks ever put to death
on account of opinion. If this was really the cause of his being
condemned, it does very little honor to persecution, since he was put
to death for being the only one who gave true glory to God, whilst
those who taught notions the most unworthy of the Deity were held
in high honor; therefore, I think, the enemies of toleration should
be cautious how they lay a stress upon the infamous example of his
judges.
Moreover, it is evident from history that he fell a victim to the
revenge of an enraged party. He had made himself many inveterate
enemies among the sophists, orators, and poets, who taught in the
public schools, and even among the preceptors who had the care of the
children of distinction. He himself acknowledges in his discourse
handed down to us by Plato, that he went from house to house to
convince these preceptors that they were a set of ignorant fellows,
a conduct certainly unworthy of one who had been declared by an
oracle the wisest of mankind. A priest and one of the members of the
Areopagus were let loose upon him, who accused him I cannot precisely
say of what, as his apology to me seems very vague; from which,
however, we learn in general that he was charged with inspiring
the youth of the nation with notions contrary to the religion and
government of the country, an accusation which the slanderers of all
times and places have constantly made use of; but a court of justice
requires positive facts, and that the charge should be circumstantial
and well supported, none of which are to be found in the proceedings
against Socrates. All we know is that he had at first two hundred and
twenty voices for him; therefore there must have been two hundred
and twenty out of the five hundred judges who were philosophers, a
great many more, I believe, than are to be found anywhere else. At
length, however, the majority were for the hemlock potion. But here
let us not forget, that when the Athenians came to their reason,
they held both his accusers and judges in detestation; made Melitus,
who had been the principal author of the sentence pronounced against
him, pay for that act of injustice with his life; banished all the
others concerned in it, and erected a temple to Socrates. Never
was philosophy so nobly avenged, so highly honored. This affair of
Socrates then is, in fact, the most powerful argument that can be
alleged against persecution. The Athenians had an altar dedicated to
the strange gods, gods they could never know. What stronger proof
then can there be, not only of their extreme indulgence towards all
nations, but even of their respect for the religion of those nations?
A very worthy person, who is neither an enemy to reason, learning,
or probity, nor to his country, in undertaking to justify the affair
of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, quotes the war of the Phocians,
by them called the sacred war, as if that war had been entered into
on the score of religion, or a particular point in divinity, whereas
it is well known that it was caused by a dispute about a particular
spot of ground, the constant cause of all wars. A few corn-grounds
can certainly never be a symbol of belief; it is as certain that none
of the Greek cities ever made war on one another for the sake of
opinion. After all, what would this modest and humane writer drive
at? Would he have us undertake a sacred war!