It requires a more practised pen than mine to even faintly sketch the
progress of heresy during the past three centuries, but I trust to
say enough to give the reader an idea of its rapid growth and wide
extension. I say of the past three centuries, because it is only during
the past three hundred years that heresy has made the majority of its
converts amongst the mass of the people. In earlier times heretics were
not only few, but they talked to the few, and wrote to the few, in the
language of the few; and indeed it may be fairly said, that it is only
during the last hundred years that the greatest men have sought to
make heresy "vulgar;" that is, to make it common. One of our leading
scientific men admitted recently that he had been reproved by some of
his more orthodox friends, for not confining to the Latin language such
of his geological opinions as were supposed to be most dangerous to the
Hebrew records. The starting-point of the real era of popular heresy may
be placed at the early part of the sixteenth century, when the memories
of Huss and Ziska (who had really inoculated the mass with some spirit
of heretical resistance a century before) aided Luther in resisting
Rome.
Martin Luther, born at Eisleben in Saxony, in 1483, was one of the
heretics who sought popular endorsement for his heresy, and who
following the example of the Ulrich Zuingle, of Zurich, preached to the
people in rough plain words. While others were limited to Latin, he rang
out in plain German his opposition to Tetzel and his protectors. I know
that to-day, Martin Luther is spoken of by orthodox Protestants as if
he were a saint without blemish, and indeed I do not want to deprive
the Christian Church of the honour of his adherence; he is hardly good
enough and true enough for a first-class heretic. Yet in justification
of my ranking him even so temporarily amongst the heretics of the
sixteenth century, it will be sufficient to mention that he regarded
"the books of the Kings as more worthy of credit than the books of the
Chronicles," that he wrote as follows:--"The book of Esdras I toss into
the Elbe." "I am so an enemy to the book of Esther I would it did not
exist." "Job spake not therefore as it stands written in his book." "It
is a sheer _argumentum fabulae_" "The book of the Proverbs of Solomon has
been pieced together by others," of Ecclesiastes "there is too much of
broken matter in it; it has neither boots nor spurs, but rides only in
socks." "Isaiah hath borrowed his whole art and knowledge from David."
"The history of Jonah is so monstrous that it is absolutely incredible."
"The Epistle to the Hebrews is not by St. Paul, nor indeed by any
Apostle." "The Epistle of James 1 account the writing of no Apostle,"
and "is truly an Epistle of sham." The Epistle of Jude "allegeth sayings
or stories which have no place in Scripture," "of Revelation I can
discover no trace that it is established by the Holy Spirit." If Martin
Luther were alive to-day, the Established Church of England,
which pretends to revere him, would prosecute him in the English
Ecclesiastical Courts if he ventured to repeat the foregoing phrases
from her pulpits. What would the writers who attack me for coarseness,
say of the following passage, which occurs with reference to Melancthon,
whom Luther boasts that he raised miraculously from the dead?
"Melancthon," says Sir William Hamilton, to whose essay I am indebted
for the extracts here given, "had fallen ill at Weimar from contrition
and fear for the part he had been led to take in the Landgrave's
polygamy: his life was even in danger." "Then and there," said Luther,
"I made our Lord God to smart for it. For I threw down the sack before
the door, and rubbed his ears with all his promises of hearing prayer,
which I knew how to recapitulate from Holy Writ, so that he could
not but hearken to me, should I ever again place any reliance on his
promises." Martin Luther, with his absolute denial of free-will, and
with his double code of morality for princes and peasants--easy for one
and harsh for the other--may be fairly left now with those who desire
to vaunt his orthodoxy; here his name is used only to illustrate the
popular impetus given to nonconformity by his quarrel with the papal
authorities. Luther protested against the Romish Church, but established
by the very fact the right for some more advanced man than Doctor Martin
to protest in turn against the Lutheran Church. The only consistent
church in Christendom is the Romish Church, for it claims the right to
think for all its followers. The whole of the Protestant Churches are
inconsistent, for they claim the right to think and judge against Rome,
but deny extremer Nonconformists the right to think and judge against
themselves. Goethe, says Froude, declares that Luther threw back the
intellectual progress of mankind by using the passions of the multitude
to decide subjects which should have been left to the learned. I do not
believe this to be wholly true, for the multitude once having their ears
fairly opened, listened to more than the appeal to their passions, and
examined for themselves propositions which otherwise they would have
accepted or rejected from habit and without inquiry. Martin Luther's
public discussions with pen and tongue, in Wittemberg, Augsburg,
Liebenwerd, and Lichtenberg, and the protest he encouraged against Rome,
were the commencement of a vigorous controversy, in which the public
(who heard for the first time sharp controversial sermons preached
publicly in the various pulpits by Lutheran preachers on free-will and
necessity, election and predestination, &c.) began to take real part and
interest; and which is still going on, and will in fact never end until
the unholy alliance of Church and State is everywhere annulled, and each
religion is left to sustain itself by its own truth, or to fall from
its own weakness, no man being molested under the law on account of his
opinions on religious matters. While Luther undoubtedly gave an impetus
to the growth of Rationalism by his own appeal to reason and his
reliance on reason for himself, it is not true that he contended for the
right of general freedom of inquiry, nor would he have left unlimited
the privileges of individual judgment for others. He could be furious in
his denunciations of reason when a freer thinker than himself dared to
use it against his superstitions. It is somewhat remarkable that while
on the one hand one man, Luther, was detaching from the Church of Rome
a large number of minds, another man, Loyola, was about the same time
engaged in founding that powerful society (the Society of Jesuits),
which has done so much to check free inquiry and maintain the priestly
domination over the human intellect. That which Luther commenced in
Germany roughly, inefficiently, and perhaps more from personal feeling
for the privileges of the special order to which he belonged than
from desire for popular progress, was aided in its permanent effect by
Descartes, in England by Bacon, in France by Montaigne, and in Italy by
Bruno.
Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, was born on the 22nd January, 1561, and
died 1626. His mother, Anne, daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke, was a woman
of high education, and certainly with some inclinations favourable to
Freethought, for she had herself translated into English some of the
sermons on fate and free-will of Bernard Ochino, or Bernardin Ochinus,
an Italian Reforming Heretic, alike repudiated by the powers at Rome,
Geneva, Wittemberg, and Zurich. Ochino, in his famous disquisition
"touching the freedom or bondage of the human will, and the
foreknowledge, predestination, and liberty of God," after discussing,
with great acuteness, and from different points of view, these important
topics, comes to the conclusion that there is no outlet to the mazes of
thought in which the honest speculator plunges in the endeavour to
solve these problems. Although, like other writers of that and earlier
periods, many of Bacon's works were published in Latin, he wrote and
published also in English, and if I am right in numbering him as one of
the heretics of the sixteenth century, he must be also counted a vulgar
heretic--i.e., one who wrote in the vulgar tongue, who preached his
heresy in the language which the mass understood. Lewes says, "Bacon and
Descartes are generally recognised as the Fathers of Modern Philosophy,
although they themselves were carried along by the rapidly-swelling
current of their age, then decisively setting in the direction of
science. It is their glory to have seen visions of the coming greatness,
to have expressed in terms of splendid power, the thoughts which were
dimly stirring the age, and to have sanctioned the new movement by
their authoritative genius." Bacon was the populariser of that method of
reasoning known as the inductive, that method which seeks to trace
back from the phenomena of the moment to the eternal noumenon or
noumena--from the conditioned to the absolute. Nearly two thousand years
before, the same method had been taught by Aristotle in opposition to
Plato, and probably long thousands of years before the grand Greek,
pre-historic schoolmen had used the method; it is natural to the human
mind. The Stagirite was the founder of a school, Bacon the teacher and
populariser for a nation. Aristotle's Greek was known to few, Bacon's
eloquent English opened out the subject to the many whom he impregnated
with his own confidence in the grand progressiveness of human thought.
Lewes says; "The spirit of his philosophy was antagonistic to Theology,
for it was a spirit of doubt and search; and its search was for visible
and tangible results." Bacon himself, in his essay on Superstition,
says: "Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety,
to laws, to reputation, all which may be guides to an outward moral
virtue, though religion were not; but superstition dismounts all these,
and erecteth an absolute monarchy in the minds of men: therefore Atheism
did never perturb states; for it makes men wary of themselves, as
looking no further; and we see the times inclined to Atheism, as the
time of Augustus Caesar were civil times; but superstition hath been
the confusion of many states, and bringeth in a new _primum mobile_ (the
first motive cause), that ravisheth all the spheres of government." It
is true that he also wrote against Atheism, and this in strong language,
but his philosophy was not used for the purpose of proving theological
propositions. He said: "True philosophy is that which is the faithful
echo of the voice of the world, which is written in some sort under the
dictation of things, which adds nothing of itself, which is only the
rebound, the reflection of reality." It has been well said that the
words "Utility and Progress" give the keynotes of Bacon's teachings.
With one other extract we leave his writings. "Crafty men," he says,
"contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for
they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and
above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute, nor
to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse; but to
weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed,
and some few to be chewed and digested. Reading maketh a full man;
conference a ready man; and writing an exact man; and therefore, if a
man write little, he need have a great memory; if he confer little, he
need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much
cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise;
poets witty; the mathematics subtle; natural philosophy deep; moral,
grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend." He was the father of
experimental philosophy. In one of his suggestions as to the force
of attraction of gravitation may be found the first aid to Sir Isaac
Newton's later demonstrations on this head; another of his suggestions,
worked out by Torricelli, ended in demonstrating the gravity of the
atmosphere. But to the method he so popularised may be attributed the
grandest discoveries of modern times. It is to be deplored that the
memory of his moral weakness should remain to spoil the praise of his
grand intellect.
Lord Macaulay, in the _Edinburgh Review_, after contrasting at some
length the philosophy of Plato with that of Bacon, said;--"To sum up
the whole: we should say that the aim of the Platonic philosophy was to
exalt man into a god. The aim of the Baconian philosophy was to provide
man with what he requires while he continues to be man. The aim of the
Platonic philosophy was to raise us far above vulgar wants. The aim of
the Baconian philosophy was to supply our vulgar wants. The former aim
was noble; but the latter was attainable. Plato drew a good bow; but,
like Acestes in Virgil, he aimed at the stars; and therefore, though
there was no want of strength or skill, the shot was thrown away. His
arrow was indeed followed by a track of dazzling radiance, but it struck
nothing. Bacon fixed his eye on a mark which was placed on the earth and
within bowshot, and hit it in the white. The philosophy of Plato began
in words and ended in words--noble words in deed-words such as were to
be expected from the finest of human intellects exercising boundless
dominion over the finest of human languages. The philosophy of Bacon
began in observations and ended in arts."
In France the political heresy of Jean Bodin--who challenged the
divine right of rulers; who proclaimed the right of resistance
against oppressive decrees of monarchs; who had words of laudation for
tyrannicide, and yet had no conception that the multitude were entitled
to use political power, but on the contrary wrote against them--was
very imperfect, the conception of individual right was confounded in the
habit of obedience to monarchical authority. Bodin is classed by Mosheim
amongst the writers who sowed the seeds of scepticism in France; but
although he was far from an orthodox man, it is doubtful if Bodin ever
intended his views to be shared beyond the class to which he belonged.
To the partial glimpse of individual right in the works of Bodin add
the doctrine of political fraternity taught by La Boetie, and then this
political heresy becomes dangerous in becoming popular.
The most decided heretic and doubter of the sixteenth century was
one Sanchez, by birth a Portuguese, and practising as a physician
at Toulouse; but the impetus which ultimately led to the spread and
popularity of sceptical opinions in relation to politics and theology,
is chiefly due to the satirical romances of Rabelais and the essays
of Montaigne. "What Rabelais was to the supporters of theology," says
Buckle, "that was Montaigne to the theology itself. The writings of
Rabelais were only directed against the clergy, but the writings of
Montaigne were directed against the system of which the clergy were the
offspring."
Montaigne was born at Bordeaux 1533, died 1592. Louis Blanc says of
his words, "Et ce ne sont pas simples discours d'un philosophe a des
philosophes. Montaigne s'addresse a tous." Montaigne's words were not
those of a philosopher talking only to his own order, he addressed
himself to mankind at large, and he wrote in language the majority could
easily comprehend. Voltaire points out that Montaigne as a philosopher
was the exception in France to his class; he having succeeded in
escaping that persecution which fell so heavily on others. Montaigne's
thoughts were like sharp instruments scattered broadcast, and intended
for the destruction of many of the old social and conventional bonds; he
was the advocate of individualism, and placed each man as above society,
rather than society as more important than each man. Montaigne mocked
the reasoners who contradicted each other, and derided that fallibility
of mind which regarded the opinion of the moment as infallibly true,
and which was yet always temporarily changed by an attack of fever or
a draught of strong drink, and often permanently modified by some new
discovery. Less fortunate than Montaigne, Godfrey a Valle was burned for
heresy in Paris in 1572, his chief offence having been that of issuing a
work entitled "De Arte Nihil Credendi."
Heresy thus championed in France, Germany, and England, had in Italy its
sixteenth century soldiers in Pomponatius of Mantua, Giordano Bruno, and
Telesio, both of Naples, and in Campanella of Calabria, a gallant band,
who were nearly all met with the cry of "Atheist," and were either
answered with exile, the prison, or the faggot.
Pomponatius, who was born 1486 and died 1525, wrote a treatise on the
Soul, which was so much deemed an attack on the doctrine of immortality
despite a profession of reverence for the dogmas of the Church, that
the work was publicly burned at Venice, a special bull of Leo X. being
directed against the doctrine.
Bernard Telesio was born at Naples in 1508, and founded there a school
in which mathematics and philosophy were given the first place. During
his lifetime he had the good fortune to escape persecution, but sites
his death his works were proscribed by the Church; Telesio was chiefly
useful in educating the minds of some of the Neapolitans for more
advanced thinking than his own.
This was well illustrated in the case of Thomas Campanella, born 1568,
who, attracted by the teachings of Telesio, wrote vigorously against the
old schoolmen and in favor of the new philosophy. Despite an affected
reverence for the Church of Rome, Campanella spent twenty-seven years
of his life in prison. Campanella has been, as is usually the case with
eminent writers, charged with atheism, but there seems to be no fair
foundation for the charges He was a true heretic, for he not only
opposed Aristotle; but even his own teacher Telesio. None of these
men, however, yet strove to reach the people, they wrote to and of one
another, not to or of the masses. It is said that Campanella was fifty
times arrested and seven times tortured for his heresy.
One Andrew de Bena, a profound scholar and eminent preacher of the
Church of Rome, carried away by the spirit of the time, came out into
the reformed party; but his mind once set free from the old trammels,
found no rest in Luther's narrow church, and a poetic Pantheism was the
result.
Jerome Cardan, a mathematician of considerable ability, born at Pavia
1601, has been fiercely accused of atheism. His chief offence seems
to have been rather in an opposite direction; astrology was with him a
favourite subject. While the strange views put forward in some of his
works served good purpose by provoking inquiry, we can hardly class
Cardan otherwise than as a man whose undoubted genius and erudition were
more than counterbalanced by his excessively superstitious folly.
Giordano Bruno was born near Naples about 1550. He was burned at Rome
for heresy on the 17th February, 1600. Bruno was burned for alleged
atheism, but appears rather, to have been a Pantheist. His most
prominent avowal of heresy was the disbelief in eternal torment and
rejection, of the common orthodox ideas of the devil. He wrote chiefly
in Italian, his vulgar tongue, and thus effectively aided the grand
march of heresy by familiarising the eyes of the people with newer and
truer forms of thought. Bruno used the tongue as fluently as the pen.
He spoke in Italy until he had roused an opposition rendering flight the
only possibly escape from death. At Geneva he found no resting place,
the fierce spirit of Zuingle and Calvin was there too mighty; at Paris
he might have found favour, with the King, and at the Sorbonne, but
he refused to attend mass, and delivered a series of popular lectures,
which won many admirers; from Paris he went to England, where we find
him publicly debating at Oxford and lecturing on theology, until he
excited an antagonism which induced his return to Paris, where he
actually publicly discussed for three days some of the grand problems
of existence. Paris orthodoxy could not permit his onslaughts on
established opinions, and this time it was to Germany Bruno turned
for hospitality; where, after visiting many of the different states,
lecturing freely but with general success, he drew upon himself a
sentence of excommunication at Helmstadt. At last he returned to Italy
and spoke at Padua, but had at once to fly thence from the Inquisition;
at Venice he found a resting place in prison, whence after six years
of dungeon, and after the tender mercy of the rack, he was led out to
receive the final refutation of the faggot. There is a grand heroism
in the manner in which he received his sentence and bore his fiery
punishment. No cry of despair, no prayer for escape, no flinching at
the moment of death. Bruno's martyrdom may favourably contrast with the
highest example Christianity gives us.
It was in the latter half of the sixteenth century, that Unitarianism
or Socinianism assumed a front rank position in Europe, having its chief
strength in Poland, with considerable force in Holland and England.
In 1524, one Lewis Hetzer had been publicly burned at Constance, for
denying the divinity of Jesus; but Hetzer was more connected with the
Anabaptists than with the Unitarians. About the same time a man named
Claudius openly argued amongst the Swiss people, against the doctrine
of the trinity, and one John Campanus contended at Wittemberg, and other
places, against the usually inculcated doctrines of the Church, as to
the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
In 1566, Valentine Gentilis, a Neapolitan, was put to death at Rome, for
teaching the superiority of God the Father, over the Son and the Holy
Ghost. Modern Unitarianism appears to have had as its founders or chief
promoters, Laelius Socinus, and his nephew Faustus Socinus; the first
having the better brain and higher genius, but marred by a timid and
irresolute character; the second having a more active nature and bolder
temperament. From Cracow and Racow, during the latter half of this
century, the Unitarians (who drew into their ranks many men of advanced
minds.) issued a large number of books and pamphlets, which were
circulated amongst the people with considerable zeal and industry.
Unitarianism was carried from Poland into Transylvania by a physician,
George Blandrata, and a preacher Francis David, or Davides, who obtained
the support and countenance of the then ruler of the country. Davides,
unfortunately for himself, became too unitarian for the Unitarians; he
adopted the extreme views of one Simon Budnffius, who, in Lithuania,
entirely repudiated any sort, of religious worship in reference to
Jesus. Budnaeus was excommunicated by the Unitarians themselves, and
Davides was imprisoned for the rest of his life. As the Unitarians were
persecuted by the old Romish and new Lutheran Churches, so they in turn
persecuted seceders from and opposers of their own movement. Each
man's history involved the widening out of public thought; each act
of persecution illustrated a vain endeavour to check the progress of
heresy; each new sect marked a step towards the destruction of the old
obstructive faiths.
About the close of the sixteenth century, Ernestius Sonerus, of
Nuremberg, wrote against the doctrine of eternal torment, and also
against the divinity of Jesus, but his works were never very widely
circulated. Amongst the distinguished Europeans of the sixteenth century
whom Dr. J. F. Smith mentions as either atheists or favouring atheism,
were Paul Jovius, Peter Aretin, and Muretus. Rumour has even enrolled
Leo X. himself in the atheistical ranks. How far some of these men had
warranted the charge other than by being promoters of literature
and lovers of philosophy, it is now difficult to say. A determined
resistance was offered to the spread of heretical opinions in the South
of Europe by the Roman Church, and it is alleged that some thousands of
persons were burned or otherwise punished in Spain, Portugal, and Naples
during the sixteenth century. The Inquisition or Holy Office was
in Spain and Portugal the most prominent and active persecutor, but
persecution was carried on vigorously in other parts of Europe by the
seceders from Rome. Zuingle, Luther, and Calvin, were as harsh as the
Pope towards those with whom they differed.
Michael Servetus, or Servede, was a native of Arragon, by profession a
physician; he wrote against the ordinary doctrines of the Trinity, but
was far from ordinary Unitarianism.
He was burned at Geneva, at the instance of Calvin. Calvin was rather
fond of burning heretical opponents; to the name of Servetus might be
added that of Gruet, who also was burned at the instance of Calvin, for
denying the divinity of the Christian religion, and for arguing against
the immortality of the soul.
It is worth notice that while heresy in this sixteenth century began
to branch out openly, and to strike its roots down firmly amongst the
people, ecclesiastical historians are compelled to record improvement
in the condition of society. Mosheim says, "In this century the arts
and sciences were carried to a pitch unknown to preceding ages, and from
this happy renovation of learning, the European churches derived the
most signal and inestimable advantages." "The benign influence of true
science, and its tendency to improve both the form of religion and the
institutions of civil policy, were perceived by many of the states."
The love of literature is the most remarkable and characteristic form
of advancing civilisation. Instead of being the absorbing passion of
the learned few, it becomes gradually the delight and occupation of
increasing numbers. This cultivation of literary pursuits by the mass
is only possible when enough of heresy has been obtained to render their
scope of study wide enough to be useful. Rotterdam gave life to the
polished Erasmus, Valentia to Ludovico Vivez, Picardy to Le Fevre, and
France to Rabelais.
In the latter half of this century, giants in literature grew out,
giants who wrote for the people. William Shakespeare wrote even
for those who could not read, but who might learn while looking and
listening. His comedies and tragedies are at the same time pictures
for the people of diverse phases of English life and character, with a
thereunto added universality of pourtrayal and breadth in philosophy,
which it is hardly too much to say, that no other dramatist has ever
equalled. Italy boasts its Torquato Tasso, whose "Jerusalem Delivered,"
the grand work of a great poet, marks, like a mighty monument, the age
capable of finding even in a priest-ridden country, an audience amongst
the lowest as well as the highest, ready to read and sing, and finally
permeated with the poet's outpourings. In astronomy, the name of
Tycho Brahe stands out in the sixteenth century like one of the first
magnitude stars whose existence he catalogued.