RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Liberty, Religious
for themselves; but are not so absolutely sure that their own views of religion are exclusively valid as to consider it necessary to force them 4. Hu- upon others. The growth of scientific manistic study and the application of the his- Influences. torical method tc the study of religion have tended to break down dogmatism and intolerance. The French freethinking of the eighteenth century not only prepared the way for the French Revolution, but covered Europe and America with its influence. French freethinking cooperated with Baptist insistence on separation of Church and State and equality of rights for all religious parties in the American struggle. See Conventicle Act ; Corporation Act ; Five Mile Act ; Test Act ; Toleration Act of 1689 ; Uniformity, Acts of. A. H. Newman.
II. In Germany : There is now no German State which does not grant freedom of conscience, both to individuals and to communities which are united by common religious interests. In itself toleration may be observed toward non-Christian as well as toward Christian bodies, as in Germany toward the Jews; yet in Germany the legislation concerning the Jews has not arisen from motives of toleration but of alien laws, and as it still retains this character it falls outside the limits of the present discussion. A Church, as such, while loving and patient in pastoral care, can not be tolerant either in dogmatics or ethics. For since an individual Church exists simply because it recognizes a certain concept of Christian revelation as the only correct one, it can not permit divergent concepts within 1. The its fold. This was the actual attitude Theory assumed before the Reformation, espeof Non- cially as the Church then not only con- Toleration, trolled both her own members, so that she could exclude irreclaimable heretics from her communion, but also had such power over the State that the latter would punish such heretics, if necessary, with death. The constitution Ad decus of Frederick II. (1220), requiring the death penalty, repeats almost literally the third chapter of the fourth Lateran Council (1215), and is rendered still more strict by the same emperor's constitutions Catharos (1232) and Patarenos (1238). The enforcement of the death penalty by burning, prescribed also by the Sachsenspiegel (Landrecht, II., xiv. 17) and the Bamberg criminal code of 1507 (art. 30), is illustrated by the proceedings against Huss at Constance and by the action of the German princes against the Hussites. This use of power of the pre-Reformation Church is fully explicable from her point of view. If, as she believed, she was the one visible Church founded by Christ, if every one baptized belonged to her, if she was responsible for their salvation, and if this salvation depended on the obedience of each individual to her authority, there was no reason for her to hesitate to use her influence with the State to gain her such obedience. The Church had developed into a dogmatic system her claim to control the executive means of the State in given cases to her advantage; and as long as this principle was acknowledged by the authorities of the State, its powers were in a sense her own, to be employed when conscience dictated.
When Luther, at the Leipsic disputation, rejected the doctrine that the interpretation of the Bible was to be conditioned by the authority of the Church, the latter appealed to the laws against 2. The heretics. But these were ignored by Situation those princes who held that the Church at and must be reformed and who were in sym- During the pathy with Luther's views. On the Reforma- other hand, the ban against Luther and tion. the bull Decet Romanum pontificem (Jan. 3, 1521) led to the Edict of Worms (Jan. 26, 1521; antedated Jan. 8), which followed the laws against heretics, declared Luther an outlaw, and required the local authorities to imprison him and his adherents. Other princes, however, refused to execute the edict, declaring that they could not reconcile it with their duty to their subjects and their land; and in view of the wide- felt need of a religious reformation, and in consideration of the unsettled religious conditions, the Diet of Speyer (Aug. 27, 1526) declared that, until a council should have been held, no prince should be obliged to obey the edict. This enactment at Speyer was the first German law of toleration, although primarily it was merely a provisional suspension of a law which was by no means abrogated. The next step in advance was the religious peace of Augsburg in 1555 (see Augsburg, Religious Peace of). The most promising, though unsuccessful, attempt to force the German princes to obey the Edict of Worms was made in the Schmalkald War, and the proviso of 1526 now became definite. Although the old laws against heretics were still in force, it was no longer possible, by the laws of the empire, to secure their obedience from such princes as would not maintain them in their dominions. A second fruitless attempt to have the laws against heretics enforced was made by the Roman Catholics in the Thirty Years' War (q.v.), but with the Peace of Westphalia (Oct. 24, 1648; see Westphalia, Peace of; and below) the religious peace of Augsburg was confirmed by imperial law. Nevertheless, this merely gave the German princes a right which they had not legally possessed before, permitting them, in so far as they were unfettered by agreements with their estates, to enforce or ignore the old laws against heretics. The empire was accordingly divided, in the eyes of the Curia, into States " in which the Holy Office is exercised," and those " in which heretics rage unpunished." But it must be borne in mind that anything like the modern concept of toleration was equally unknown to the Protestants as well. The theory of the Reformers was that the State had received authority not only to maintain the law in general, but the law of God, especially as set forth in the Decalogue, in particular. In virtue of the First Table, therefore, the State was divinely required to permit only the right worship of God. The pre-Reformation relation of Church and State thus received a theological foundation. Toleration of any worship which was " not right " was accordingly excluded, and its prevention was a duty for which the State was responsible to God— the only change was the abolition of the criminal proceedings against heretics, and the substitution of
Liberty, Religious IiichtenDerger, Frederic