pagan predecessors, for he pictured hierarchies of good and evil
spirits who were ever aiding him to reach heaven or seducing him into
the paths of sin and error. Miracles were of common occurrence and
might be attributed either to God or the devil; the direct
intervention of both good and evil spirits played a conspicuous part
in the explanation of daily acts and motives.[20]
As a distinguished church historian has said, the God of the Middle
Ages was a God of arbitrariness--the more arbitrary the more Godlike.
By frequent interferences with the regular course of events he made
his existence clear, reassured his children of his continued
solicitude, and frustrated the plots of the Evil One. Not until the
eighteenth century did any considerable number of thinkers revolt
against this conception of the Deity and come to worship a God of
orderliness who abode by his own laws.
The mediaeval thinkers all accepted without question what Santayana
has strikingly described as the "Christian Epic". This included the
general historical conceptions of how man came about, and how, in view
of his origin and his past, he should conduct his life. The universe
had come into being in less than a week, and man had originally been
created in a state of perfection along with all other things--sun,
moon, and stars, plants and animals. After a time the first human pair
had yielded to temptation, transgressed God's commands, and been
driven from the lovely garden in which he had placed them. So sin came
into the world, and the offspring of the guilty pair were thereby
contaminated and defiled from the womb.
In time the wickedness became such on the newly created earth that God
resolved to blot out mankind, excepting only Noah's family, which was
spared to repeople the earth after the Flood, but the unity of
language that man had formerly possessed was lost. At the appointed
time, preceded by many prophetic visions among the chosen people, God
sent his Son to live the life of men on earth and become their Saviour
by submitting to death. Thereafter, with the spread of the gospel, the
struggle between the kingdom of God and that of the devil became the
supreme conflict of history. It was to culminate in the Last Judgment,
when the final separation of good and evil should take place and the
blessed should ascend into the heavens to dwell with God forever,
while the wicked sank to hell to writhe in endless torment.
This general account of man, his origin and fate, embraced in the
Christian Epic, was notable for its precision, its divine
authenticity, and the obstacles which its authority consequently
presented to any revision in the light of increasing knowledge. The
fundamental truths in regard to man were assumed to be established
once and for all. The Greek thinkers had had little in the way of
authority on which to build, and no inconsiderable number of them
frankly confessed that they did not believe that such a thing could
exist for the thoroughly sophisticated intelligence. But mediaeval
philosophy and science _were grounded wholly in authority_. The
mediaeval schoolmen turned aside from the hard path of skepticism,
long searchings and investigation of actual phenomena, and confidently
believed that they could find truth by the easy way of revelation and
the elaboration of unquestioned dogmas.
This reliance on authority is a fundamental primitive trait. We have
inherited it not only from our mediaeval forefathers, but, like them
and through them, from long generations of prehistoric men. We all
have a natural tendency to rely upon established beliefs and fixed
institutions. This is an expression of our spontaneous confidence in
everything that comes to us in an unquestioned form. As children we
are subject to authority and cannot escape the control of existing
opinion. We unconsciously absorb our ideas and views from the group in
which we happen to live. What we see about us, what we are told, and
what we read has to be received at its face value so long as there are
no conflicts to arouse skepticism.
We are tremendously suggestible. Our mechanism is much better adapted
to credulity than to questioning. All of us believe nearly all the
time. Few doubt, and only now and then. The past exercises an almost
irresistible fascination over us. As children we learn to look up to
the old, and when we grow up we do not permit our poignant realization
of elderly incapacity among our contemporaries to rouse suspicions of
Moses, Isaiah, Confucius, or Aristotle. Their sayings come to us
unquestioned; their remoteness makes inquiry into their competence
impossible. We readily assume that they had sources of information and
wisdom superior to the prophets of our own day.
During the Middle Ages reverence for authority, and for that
particular form of authority which we may call the tyranny of the
past, was dominant, but probably not more so than it had been in other
societies and ages--in ancient Egypt, in China and India. Of the great
sources of mediaeval authority, the Bible and the Church Fathers, the
Roman and Church law, and the encyclopaedic writings of Aristotle,
none continues nowadays to hold us in its old grip. Even the Bible,
although nominally unquestioned among Roman Catholics and all the more
orthodox Protestant sects, is rarely appealed to, as of old, in
parliamentary debate or in discussions of social and economic
questions. It is still a religious authority, but it no longer forms
the basis of secular decisions.
The findings of modern science have shaken the hold of the sources of
mediaeval authority, but they have done little as yet to loosen our
inveterate habit of relying on the more insidious authority of current
practice and belief. We still assume that received dogmas represent
the secure conclusions of mankind, and that current institutions
represent the approved results of much experiment in the past, which
it would be worse than futile to repeat. One solemn remembrancer will
cite as a warning the discreditable experience of the Greek cities in
democracy; another, how the decline of "morality" and the
disintegration of the family heralded the fall of Rome; another, the
constant menace of mob rule as exemplified in the Reign of Terror. But
to the student of history these alleged illustrations have little
bearing on present conditions. He is struck, moreover, with the ease
with which ancient misapprehensions are transmitted from generation to
generation and with the difficulty of launching a newer and clearer
and truer idea of anything. Bacon warns us that the multitude, "or the
wisest for the multitude's sake", is in reality "ready to give passage
rather to that which is popular and superficial than to that which is
substantial and profound; for the truth is that time seemeth to be of
the nature of a river or stream, which carrieth down to us that which
is light and blown up, and sinketh and drowneth that which is weighty
and solid".
It is very painful to most minds to admit that the past does not
furnish us with reliable, permanent standards of conduct and of public
policy. We resent the imputation that things are not going, on the
whole, pretty well, and find excuses for turning our backs on
disconcerting and puzzling facts. We are full of respectable fears and
a general timidity in the face of conditions which we vaguely feel are
escaping control in spite of our best efforts to prevent any
thoroughgoing readjustment. We instinctively try to show that Mr.
Keynes must surely be wrong about the Treaty of Versailles; that Mr.
Gibbs must be perversely exaggerating the horrors of modern war; that
Mr. Hobson certainly views the industrial crisis with unjustifiable
pessimism; that "business as usual" cannot be that socially perverse
and incredibly inexpedient thing Mr. Veblen shows it to be; that Mr.
Robin's picture of Lenin can only be explained by a disguised sympathy
for Bolshevism.
Yet, even if we could assume that traditional opinion is a fairly
clear and reliable reflection of hard-earned experience, surely it
should have less weight in our day and generation than in the past.
For changes have overtaken mankind which have fundamentally altered
the conditions in which we live, and which are revolutionizing the
relations between individuals and classes and nations. Moreover, we
must remember that knowledge has widened and deepened, so that, could
any of us really catch up with the information of our own time, he
would have little temptation to indulge the mediaeval habit of
appealing to the authority of the past.
The Christian Epic did not have to rely for its perpetuation either on
its intellectual plausibility or its traditional authority. During the
Middle Ages there developed a vast and powerful religious State, the
mediaeval Church, the real successor, as Hobbes pointed out, to the
Roman Empire; and the Church with all its resources, including its
control over "the secular arm" of kings and princes, was ready to
defend the Christian beliefs against question and revision. To doubt
the teachings of the Church was the supreme crime; it was treason
against God himself, in comparison with which--to judge from mediaeval
experts on heresy--murder was a minor offense.
We do not, however, inherit our present disposition to intolerance
solely from the Middle Ages. As animals and children and savages, we
are naively and unquestioningly intolerant. All divergence from the
customary is suspicious and repugnant. It seems perverse, and readily
suggests evil intentions. Indeed, so natural and spontaneous is
intolerance that the question of freedom of speech and writing
scarcely became a real issue before the seventeenth century. We have
seen that some of the Greek thinkers were banished, or even executed,
for their new ideas. The Roman officials, as well as the populace,
pestered the early Christians, not so much for the substance of their
views as because they were puritanical, refused the routine reverence
to the gods, and prophesied the downfall of the State.
But with the firm establishment of Christianity edicts began to be
issued by the Roman emperors making orthodox Christian belief the test
of good citizenship. One who disagreed with the emperor and his
religious advisers in regard to the relation of the three members of
the Trinity was subject to prosecution. Heretical books were burned,
the houses of heretics destroyed. So, organized mediaeval religious
intolerance was, like so many other things, a heritage of the later
Roman Empire, and was duly sanctioned in both the Theodosian and
Justinian Codes. It was, however, with the Inquisition, beginning in
the thirteenth century, that the intolerance of the Middle Ages
reached its most perfect organization.
Heresy was looked upon as a contagious disease that must be checked at
all costs. It did not matter that the heretic usually led a
conspicuously blameless life, that he was arduous, did not swear, was
emaciated with fasting and refused to participate in the vain
recreations of his fellows. He was, indeed, overserious and took his
religion too hard. This offensive parading as an angel of light was
explained as the devil's camouflage. No one tried to find out what the
heretic really thought or what were the merits of his divergent
beliefs. Because he insisted on expressing his conception of God in
slightly unfamiliar terms, the heretic was often branded as an
atheist, just as to-day the Socialist is so often accused of being
opposed to all government, when the real objection to him is that he
believes in too much government. It was sufficient to classify a
suspected heretic as an Albigensian, or Waldensian, or a member of
some other heretical sect. There was no use in his trying to explain
or justify; it was enough that he diverged.
There have been various explanations of mediaeval religious
intolerance. Lecky, for example, thought that it was due to the theory
of exclusive salvation; that, since there was only one way of getting
to heaven, all should obviously be compelled to adopt it, for the
saving of their souls from eternal torment. But one finds little
solicitude for the damned in mediaeval writings. The public at large
thought hell none too bad for one who revolted against God and Holy
Church. No, the heretics were persecuted because heresy was, according
to the notions of the time, a monstrous and unutterably wicked thing,
and because their beliefs threatened the vested interests of that day.
We now realize more clearly than did Lecky that the Church was really
a State in the Middle Ages, with its own laws and courts and prisons
and regular taxation to which all were subject. It had all the
interests and all the touchiness of a State, and more. The heretic was
a traitor and a rebel. He thought that he could get along without the
pope and bishops, and that he could well spare the ministrations of
the orthodox priests and escape their exactions. He was the
"anarchist", the "Red" of his time, who was undermining established
authority, and, with the approval of all right-minded citizens, he was
treated accordingly. For the mediaeval citizen no more conceived of a
State in which the Church was not the dominating authority than we can
conceive of a society in which the present political State may have
been superseded by some other form of organization.
Yet the inconceivable has come to pass. Secular authority has
superseded in nearly all matters the old ecclesiastical regime. What
was the supreme issue of the Middle Ages--the distinction between the
religious heretic and the orthodox--is the least of public questions
now.
What, then, we may ask, has been the outcome of the old religious
persecutions, of the trials, tortures, imprisonings, burnings, and
massacres, culminating with the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes?
What did the Inquisition and the censorship, both so long
unquestioned, accomplish? Did they succeed in defending the truth or
"safeguarding" society? At any rate, conformity was not established.
Nor did the Holy Roman Church maintain its monopoly, although it has
survived, purified and freed from many an ancient abuse. In most
countries of western Europe and in our own land one may now believe as
he wishes, teach such religious views as appeal to him, and join with
others who share his sympathies. "Atheism" is still a shocking charge
in many ears, but the atheist is no longer an outlaw. _It has been
demonstrated, in short, that religious dogma can be neglected in
matters of public concern and reduced to a question of private taste
and preference_.
This is an incredible revolution. But we have many reasons for
suspecting that in a much shorter time than that which has elapsed
since the Inquisition was founded, the present attempt to eliminate by
force those who contemplate a fundamental reordering of social and
economic relations will seem quite as inexpedient and hopeless as the
Inquisition's effort to defend the monopoly of the mediaeval Church.
We can learn much from the past in regard to wrong ways of dealing
with new ideas. As yet we have only old-fashioned and highly expensive
modes of meeting the inevitable changes which are bound to take place.
Repression has now and then enjoyed some temporary success, it is
true, but in the main it has failed lamentably and produced only
suffering and confusion. Much will depend on whether our purpose is to
keep things as they are or to bring about readjustments designed to
correct abuses and injustice in the present order. Do we believe, in
other words, that truth is finally established and that we have only
to defend it, or that it is still in the making? Do we believe in what
is commonly called progress, or do we think of that as belonging only
to the past? Have we, on the whole, arrived, or are we only on the
way, or mayhap just starting?
In the Middle Ages, even in the times of the Greeks and Romans, there
was little or no conception of progress as the word is now used. There
could doubtless be improvement in detail. Men could be wiser and
better or more ignorant and perverse. But the assumption was that in
general the social, economic, and religious order was fairly
standardized.
This was especially true in the Middle Ages. During these centuries
men's single objective was the assurance of heaven and escape from
hell. Life was an angry river into which men were cast. Demons were on
every hand to drag them down. The only aim could be, with God's help,
to reach the celestial shore. There was no time to consider whether
the river might be made less dangerous by concerted effort, through
the deflection of its torrents and the removal of its sharpest rocks.
No one thought that human efforts should be directed to making the lot
of humanity progressively better by intelligent reforms in the light
of advancing knowledge.
The world was a place to escape from on the best terms possible. In
our own day this mediaeval idea of a static society yields only
grudgingly, and the notion of inevitable vital change is as yet far
from assimilated. We confess it with our lips, but resist it in our
hearts. We have learned as yet to respect only one class of
fundamental innovators, those dedicated to natural science and its
applications. The social innovator is still generally suspect.
To the mediaeval theologian, man was by nature vile. We have seen
that, according to the Christian Epic, he was assoiled from birth with
the primeval sin of his first parents, and began to darken his score
with fresh offenses of his own as soon as he became intelligent enough
to do so. An elaborate mechanism was supplied by the Church for washing
away the original pollution and securing forgiveness for later sins.
Indeed, this was ostensibly its main business.
We may still well ask, Is man by nature bad? And accordingly as we
answer the question we either frame appropriate means for frustrating
his evil tendencies or, if we see some promise in him, work for his
freedom and bid him take advantage of it to make himself and others
happy. So far as I know, Charron, a friend of Montaigne, was one of
the first to say a good word for man's animal nature, and a hundred
years later the amiable Shaftesbury pointed out some honestly
gentlemanly traits in the species. To the modern student of biology
and anthropology man is neither good nor bad. There is no longer any
"mystery of evil". But the mediaeval notion of _sin_--a term heavy
with mysticism and deserving of careful scrutiny by every thoughtful
person--still confuses us.
Of man's impulses, the one which played the greatest part in mediaeval
thoughts of sin and in the monastic ordering of life was the sexual.
The presuppositions of the Middle Ages in the matter of the relations
of men and women have been carried over to our own day. As compared
with many of the ideas which we have inherited from the past, they are
of comparatively recent origin. The Greeks and Romans were, on the
whole, primitive and uncritical in their view of sex. The philosophers
do not seem to have speculated on sex, although there was evidently
some talk in Athens of women's rights. The movement is satirized by
Aristophanes, and later Plato showed a willingness in _The Republic_
to impeach the current notions of the family and women's position in
general.
But there are few traces of our ideas of sexual "purity" in the
classical writers. To the Stoic philosopher, and to other thoughtful
elderly people, sexual indulgence was deemed a low order of pleasure
and one best carefully controlled in the interests of peace of mind.
But with the incoming of Christianity an essentially new attitude
developed, which is still, consciously or unconsciously, that of most
people to-day.
St. Augustine, who had led a free life as a teacher of rhetoric in
Carthage and Rome, came in his later years to believe, as he struggled
to overcome his youthful temptations, that sexual desire was the most
devilish of man's enemies and the chief sign of his degradation. He
could imagine no such unruly urgence in man's perfect estate, when
Adam and Eve still dwelt in Paradise. But with man's fall sexual
desire appeared as the sign and seal of human debasement. This theory
is poignantly set forth in Augustine's _City of God_. He furnished
therein a philosophy for the monks, and doubtless his fourteenth book
was well thumbed by those who were wont to ponder somewhat wistfully
on one of the sins they had fled the world to escape.
Christian monasticism was spreading in western Europe in Augustine's
time, and the monkist vows included "chastity". There followed a long
struggle to force the whole priesthood to adopt a celibate life, and
this finally succeeded so far as repeated decrees of the Church could
effect it. Marriage was proper for the laity, but both the monastic
and secular clergy aspired to a superior holiness which should banish
all thoughts of fervent earthly love. Thus a highly unnatural life was
accepted by men and women of the most varied temperament and often
with slight success.
The result of Augustine's theories and of the efforts to frustrate one
of man's most vehement impulses was to give sex a conscious importance
it had never possessed before. The devil was thrust out of the door
only to come in at all the windows. In due time the Protestant sects
abolished monasteries, and the Catholic countries later followed their
example. The Protestant clergy were permitted to marry, and the old
asceticism has visibly declined. But it has done much to determine our
whole attitude toward sex, and there is no class of questions still so
difficult to discuss with full honesty or to deal with critically and
with an open mind as those relating to the intimate relations of men
and women.
No one familiar with mediaeval literature will, however, be inclined
to accuse its authors of prudishness. Nevertheless, modern
prudishness, as it prevails especially in England and the United
States--our squeamish and shamefaced reluctance to recognize and deal
frankly with the facts and problems of sex--is clearly an outgrowth of
the mediaeval attitude which looked on sexual impulse as of evil
origin and a sign of man's degradation. Modern psychologists have
shown that prudishness is not always an indication of exceptional
purity, but rather the reverse. It is often a disguise thrown over
repressed sexual interest and sexual preoccupations. It appears to be
decreasing among the better educated of the younger generation. The
study of biology, and especially of embryology, is an easy and simple
way of disintegrating the "impurity complex". "Purity" in the sense of
ignorance and suppressed curiosity is a highly dangerous state of
mind. And such purity in alliance with prudery and defensive hypocrisy
makes any honest discussion or essential readjustment of our
institutions and habits extremely difficult.
One of the greatest contrasts between mediaeval thinking and the more
critical thought of to-day lies in the general conception of man's
relation to the cosmos. To the medieval philosopher, as to the
stupidest serf of the time, the world was made for man. All the
heavenly bodies revolved about man's abode as their center. All
creatures were made to assist or to try man. God and the devil were
preoccupied with his fate, for had not God made him in his own image
for his glory, and was not the devil intent on populating his own
infernal kingdom? It was easy for those who had a poetic turn of mind
to think of nature's workings as symbols for man's edification. The
habits of the lion or the eagle yielded moral lessons or illustrated
the divine scheme of salvation. Even the written word was to be
valued, not for what it seemed to say, but for hidden allegories
depicting man's struggles against evil and cheering him on his way.