Forschungsstelle "Westfälischer Friede": Dokumentation

DOCUMENTATION | Exhibitions: 1648 - War and Peace in Europe
Essay Volumes > Tome II: Art and culture

KLAUS GARBER
War and peace: Dogmatism and tolerance in the literature of European Humanism [1]

The Querela Pacis of Erasmus as a Humanist legacy

Thus speaks the prince of Humanists in what is probably the most well-known text on peace produced by the Humanists of Europe: Erasmus in his Querela Pacis of 1517, the year in which C as legend would have it C Luther nailed his ninety-five theses to the palace church of Wittenberg! The occasion was one of immediate relevance. An international peace conference was to take place in Cambrai. Erasmus, already a famous man at the time, was asked by the young duke of Burgundy, later Emperor Charles V, to prepare a speech for the event. The politicians naturally did not succeed in finding a solution, but the work of Erasmus survived the times, for it is devoted to a timeless subject. And it is constructed in such a way that generation after generation has identified with it and been able to draw from it as a source of arguments against the madness of war. Yet what is it that guarantees this brief paper, this oftentime reissued and translated text its topicality to the present day? [3]

First of all C even before its contents C its form. Erasmus was a scholar as well as a publicist. He wanted to have an impact with what he wrote, and always carefully considered which style would be most appropriate for the chosen topic. For the Querela Pacis he decided upon the form of the speech, making it clear from the start that the work would not revolve around academic debates and definitions. After all, anything and everything could be asserted and explained. Here the aim was to convince, to influence, to bring about change in the thoughts and feelings of the people, more even: to provide their deeds with a new basis. This rousing, summoning function had been characteristic of the speech since its very beginnings with the Sophists of Greece. Erasmus went further. It is not he who speaks but peace itself C or, more precisely, the goddess of peace. For in classical antiquity, to which everything could be traced back, it was as a goddess that peace first showed itself: In a league with order (Eunomia) and justice (Dice), the goddess of peace, the blossoming Eirene, appears in Hesiod's Theogeny of the seventh century before Christ. As a threesome the Horae tend the works of the mortals with loving care. The Horae are suggestive of the seasons, of the ever-repeating sequence of natural events, of order and regularity. In all of the major visions of peace, from the very earliest on, the natural and human worlds are parallel entities. Peace can only be comprehensive. By having the goddess herself voice them, Erasmus lends his words reliability, dignity and absolute certainty. But why is this praise of peace expressed as a lamentation?

Because the thought of the endless blessings of peace is inseparable from the horror evoked by the atrocities of war so awful that no imagination can picture them. Always a realist, Erasmus was not capable of averting his gaze from what was taking place in the heart of Europe, in the midst of a world calling itself Christian. From the mouth of the goddess of peace, however, that which he saw and had her say could only ring out as an abysmal lamentation. The fine ironist, master of the subtly changing tone, he slid into another role by lending the goddess his voice. In her speech there are no playful castlings, no intimations or allusions imbued with Humanist wit. With piercing simplicity informed by deep knowledge, with abysmal sorrow and never-ebbing hope, a voice is heard here C divine and yet entirely human. In this sense the voice resembles another, the one it will most often cite: the voice of Christ. The antique goddess and the divine shepherd of peace, joined in a harmonious league under the direction of the great Humanist C is it not possible that the secret of the work's lasting impact lies in this constellation? An impressive announcement of the European spirit in a nascent Europe, the Querela Pacis must be placed at the beginning of our brief survey.

Like every outstanding creation, Erasmus's lamentation of peace is saturated with historical experience. Twenty years C in some cases an even shorter period C sufficed to open the eyes of the Humanists to the circumstances becoming imminent on the political level and unbridgeably different from the ideal world they envisioned. Let us not forget that Erasmus was accompanied by Macchiavelli, witness of the same events in his own homeland who set about drawing farsighted conclusions from them in a manner much different from that of his Dutch counterpart. [4] We are accustomed to regarding the sixteenth century or, more specifically, its first half, the age of Raphael, Leonardo, Michelangelo, as the golden age of the arts and sciences, the paragon of Renaissance culture. In the process we all too easily forget that, at the very same time, the native land of these great artists was reduced to the plaything of foreign powers and interests. Certainly with regard to Humanism, if not the Renaissance, the classical century C in the sense of the comprehensive assimilation of antiquity C was not the sixteenth but the fifteenth century, the quattrocento. [5] This is particularly true of Italy, for three centuries the birthplace of everything pointing to the Modern Age. The second half of the quattrocento saw the formation of five leading powers C Venice, Milan, Florence, Rome and Naples C all of them enjoying a quiet interlude in the wake of the Peace of Lodi (1454) and hardly disturbed by intervention from the outside. It was the time in which Florentine culture reached its prime under the Medici, in which Ficino and the Florentine academy undertook their great attempt to renew Platonic and Neo-Platonic thought, and Greek, Byzantine, Arabic and Christian elements were fused into a first great synthesis of the modern spirit C truly a work of peace! C, the time of the great printers, with Manutius of Venice at their head, the time in which academies sprouted out of the ground like mushrooms, providing forums for the processing of all the new knowledge and its preparation for representative functions in the cities and principalities, which profited grandly from decking themselves out with the trappings of renewed antiquity.

This relative peace was destroyed overnight when Charles VIII of France asserted old Anjou claims in the south of Italy, invading the country and establishing himself in Naples. [6] One of the many consequences of this incursion was the temporary banishment of the Medici from Florence, a family which like the Neapolitan House of Aragon had distinguished itself as patrons of the new arts. But would France's competitors be content to sit back and watch Charles gain power? Under the leadership of Spain the "Holy League" was quickly formed, and within a year Charles was forced to retreat. Now, interrupted by phases of "holy" peace conclusions and new "holy alliances," there began a ceaseless tug-of-war for influential positions on the Apennine Peninsula, the cradle of the Renaissance and Humanism. Spain, the Holy Roman Empire German Nation C joined in personal union under Charles V in 1519 C and the pope were steady contenders; the once proud Italian republics and principalities raced from one coalition to the next, more the sport than the sportsmen in a no-longer-predictable game. It was the heyday of Fortuna, the goddess of luck. In 1516, when Francis I of France and Charles V had divided Italy's spheres of influence in north and south among themselves, hopes of peace were temporarily aroused. But they were just as quick to evaporate when, a few years later, Rome was the victim of the rabid German mercenaries under Georg von Frundsberg. Churches, art treasures and libraries perished in a violent act of iconoclasm. Horrified, Erasmus and his friends observed the destruction of a cultural florescence in the "Sacco di Roma" (1527) and all of Charles V's attempts to erase the slur thus cast on his reputation were in vain. Another thirty years were to pass before the bloody struggle between Spain and France was finally ended by the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis (1559). Erasmus was long dead. But he and the others of his generation had experienced the beginnings of the schism on German soil, quite soon to cause the Schmalkaldic War, just as they had witnessed the awakening of unvarnished national expansion politics. By the dawn of the sixteenth century, the two most advanced monarchies of Europe had set out to realise these ambitions on a large scale; ambitions which have since ruled the Continent, eventually reducing it to a heap of ruins in the two world wars of our century . . . .

Such was the background of Erasmus's Querela Pacis. Lasting influence tends to be achieved by texts which succeed in weaving quite diverse, widely isolated, even contradictory elements of the intellectual tradition into a single dense fabric. [7] Erasmus was a master of this art without ever being subject to the dangers of opportunism. A synopsis of European thought was not only called for by the dictates of the hour, as a means of assuaging the hotheads and untiringly calling their attention to common values, common possessions. Synopsis was itself an act of intellectual peacemaking in the process of writing and speaking. Like all really original thinkers, Erasmus was aware of two tasks: that of integrating the themes of classical philosophy into the Christian conception of the world and that of determining the essentials of God's Word, to which all Christians were bound. It is in precisely this manner that Erasmus proceeded in his Querela Pacis. He first scrutinises the arguments for peace originating in the realm of nature, formulated to a large extent in classical philosophy and resumed during the Renaissance; he then goes on to consult Christ: the person and the doctrine. In conclusion he ascertains that all of the testimonies examined speak unanimously in favour of peace; all have a share in the truth and are worthy of commemoration and honour. And these testimonies are fashioned in such a way that people of the most varying origins and convictions should easily be able to come to an understanding about them.

For Renaissance thinkers, the sublime emblem of harmony was the order and regularity prevailing in both the macrocosm and the microcosm. Accordingly, this theme is the very first to be addressed in the writing of Erasmus.

There are so many heavenly bodies; their orbits are not the same, their efficacy is not the same, but nevertheless they are subject to laws valid since the beginning of time. Through their balance the opposing forces of the elements maintain eternal peace, and despite great tension they cultivate harmony by means of coordination and mutual exchange. [8]

In the largest and smallest of systems, nature contrives the organic law of all being, uniting divergence and opposition with harmony and equilibration in a third, higher element, peace. Thus nature is man's instructor; man must only rise to her perspective to find symbolic models of the elementaria of her existence. Erasmus hastens to furnish innumerable examples from the realm of nature in order to deduce one truth: With all of her "arguments nature teaches man, with many enticements she lures him, with many bonds she leads him, with many means she forces him: to live in peace and harmony." [9]

The people of Europe and soon of the New World have access to yet another testament urgently admonishing them to uphold peace: that of Jesus Christ. Erasmus did nothing to attach the special character of revelation to the words of Christ. They speak for themselves, not requiring any accentuation, and are verified by the acts of their preacher. That is important. For even if Erasmus does not say so directly, he certainly implies an idea advanced on a large scale by later representatives of the Enlightenment such as Lessing: Christ's is one of many great voices imparting religion to the human race. All of them converge on a common point C love and conciliation. And what matters in the end is not the doctrine but individual behaviour: That alone is the test of true faith, faith capable of transforming life. If what Erasmus has his goddess of peace cite from the Gospel is fundamentally valid for all people, how much more likely it is to unite those who expressly call themselves Christians. Dogmatic differences, various emphases of faith may always have their relative justification, but they can never go so far as to allow human beings, Christians, to violate peace, to fight irreconcilably, to persecute with hatred. By undertaking the simple operation of stating a few fundamental Christian principles of peace at a time coinciding with Luther's first public appearance, Erasmus determines unequivocally that war, terror and persecution may not and cannot be carried out for the sake of Christ's doctrine, because in its few essential statements it is unambiguous and clear and binding. All of these statements converge in the triad of love, harmony and peace as the supreme good of the Christian doctrine. But what happens in praxi with human beings who garnish themselves with Christ's name? Let us give heed once again to the voice of Peace as she desperately searches the community of man for evidence of her blessings.

When I hear the word >man' I run quickly as to a creature born especially for me, full of trust that I might find repose there. When I hear the word >Christian' I run all the faster, full of hope that I will surely be able to rule among these men. But there, full of shame, I must concede: Marketplaces, courts of justice, guildhalls and churches ring with conflict as nowhere among the heathens. [10]

The circumstances among the "non-believers" cannot be worse than among the Christians. On the contrary, the heathens put the Christians to shame, revealing themselves to be in possession of a religion that makes less of an uproar about itself but has more power over its believers. Indirectly, unspokenly, the Christians are deprived of every last right to set out on crusades, missionary journeys, expeditions of spiritual conquest and subjugation, as long as the state of things at home is the way Erasmus presents it to all of his listeners and readers as beheld by his figure of peace. There is discord in the cities and the principalities, although the princes are supposed to be the "spirit and eye of the people" by emulating the foremost "teacher and prince of peace," [11 ]Jesus Christ. Among the learned, the leading philosophers and theologians, there are relentless disputes, even to the point of physical violence. Among the priests and bishops, between the religious orders and within their communities, in the monasteries and cloisters, in the houses of families, between married folk and kinfolk, even within the soul of the individual C wherever the goddess of peace looks, she discovers forms of life not worthy of claiming the title "Christian."



For what is Christ, what does he demand of his followers?

If we consider his entire life, what is it if not a doctrine of concord and mutual love? What do his teachings, his parables delineate if not peace, if not mutual love? When the great prophet Isaiah, possessed by the Holy Spirit, proclaimed that Christ would come as the great conciliator of all things, did he call him a satrap, a destroyer of cities, a warlord or a triumphator? Nothing of the kind. He called him a prince of peace. . . . He is a prince of peace; he loves peace and is offended by discord. [12]

But how is it that in the Old Testament God is referred to as a "Lord of hosts," a "God of wrath"? Erasmus offers two answers to this question. First he acknowledges that there are indeed differences between the images of God in the Old and the New Testaments. Above all, however, one is advised to become accustomed to contemplating the hidden meaning of God's Word, as did the great church fathers of antiquity. For is the call to battle not directed first and foremost towards each individual to take up the fight against vice and sin, "to tear wanton passions from his heart"? [13 ]And there is overwhelming agreement between the Old and New Testaments in the message of consummate bliss as the bliss of peace. Do we thus understand Erasmus's concern, which has kept its relevance since time immemorial? He thwarts the intentions of those who are out to drive a wedge between Jews and Christians. The Old and New Testaments concur on the most essential point, on the message of salvation and peace. And even the differences between Christians dissolve into the triviality of man's work, seen in the splendid but mild light of the words and life of Christ. In good Humanist manner a return has been made to the sources, and they disclose a truth which, when heard with open ears, is simple as well as radical, special as well as all-encompassing, capable of touching and satisfying man's reason as well as his feelings. As Erasmus himself says in the end, it is basically no longer the gospel of a specific religion, but humanity C humanitas C itself, which addresses all people of all faiths. [15] Yet if humanity calls for complete commitment, it is at the same time an unerring probe of true faith. And in this way it is treated by Erasmus. Measured against the standard of a Christianity reduced to its bare core C the Sermon on the Mount C the Christian lands of Europe were compelled to listen to the bitterest truths, coming from the mouth of the prince of Humanists. The Spanish and Italian translations were soon listed in the Index. The Church thus evinced the work the honour it still deserves today for its uncompromising and unsparing exposure of the foul difference between word and deed, pretension and reality, in the lives of the people and in the communiqués of their governments. Bad, abstract, hopelessly overdrawn moralism, a utopia far removed from reality? C This it has been called again and again to the present day. On the contrary: the consequent articulation of something new and unused at the border line between an old age and a new one, a courageous declaration of war on old, out-moded powers and institutions, just as courageously clearing the way for a new, purer life C herein lies the significance of the Querela Pacis and the entire work of Erasmus.



The Humanists and the civil wars of Europe

A common misconception, encountered even in serious historical depictions, tells us that with the appearance of Erasmus Humanism had reached its zenith and that it began to decline even during his lifetime. The Reformers were thought to have taken the leading role, to be casting a spell over Europe. Particularly on German soil, Humanism was destined to become increasingly rigid, indulging in the very scholasticism it had once opposed and, in the process, losing touch with life and current issues. We must acknowledge that a long time will elapse before a contrary point of view is able to assert itself. All we can do is patiently explain, again and again, how wrong this notion appears in terms of both Germany and Europe. The return to the origins is of great importance, partly because it is the only way of elucidating how initial impulses survived, were adopted, productively transformed and adjusted to the circumstances of the times. To risk a paradox, one might say C and has said C that Humanism was not put to the decisive historical test until the occurrence of that universal event, the Reformation. [16] This is true in many respects. The Reformation was a test of convictions formed upon antiquity, convictions which threatened to go overboard in the process of faith's radicalisation. Also and above all, it was a test of the capacity to mediate between extremes. And finally a test of Humanism's search for a way out: Already in the second half of the sixteenth century, such disaster was caused by the hate and mutual destructive will of the religions then in the process of becoming established that the demand for imaginative and knowledgeable inventors of alternatives was more urgent than ever. European cultural studies have yet to produce a complete discussion of the common history C lasting more than a century C of Humanism and confessionalism. The field does, however, possess initial approaches, orientation points, even attempts at a European synopsis, the leading work being C significantly C that of an outsider: Friedrich Heer's Die dritte Kraft, der europäische Humanismus zwischen den Fronten des konfessionellen Zeitalters, a work which, though nearly forty years old, has remained young and is highly recommended to the interested reader. [17]

One country after the other was ignited by the torch meant to bring illumination but nearly always ending in the scorching embers of the fire under the stake, the bloodbaths of the fanatics all too often incited by ecclesiastical or political authorities, who pursued aims quite different from the genuine cause of faith. Even the radical Franciscans on Italian soil, the Franciscan Spirituals, had to put up with excommunication and persecution by the papal church. The first fire to engulf an entire country was the one that broke out in Bohemia. The spark had flown from John Wyclif's England to the newly founded University of Prague, where Jan Hus and his rapidly growing swarm of followers adhered to the pure Word of God, undisguised by tradition and dogma, no longer denying laymen the chalice of the Holy Communion.

Devout Christian, seek the truth, hear the truth, learn the truth, love the truth, speak the truth, hold the truth fast, defend the truth unto death, for the truth delivers you from sin, from the devil, from the death of the soul and finally from eternal death, which means eternal departure from God's mercy and from all bliss. [18]

Possessed by this conviction, Jan Hus climbed to the stake in 1415, sentenced by the council of Constance. Not until his death did the Hussites join to form a cohesive group, soon to be divided into the moderates and the radicals, the latter C the Taborites C no longer shying away from the use of violence or the open conflict with the state authorities, which more than once staggered and threatened to fall. The struggles lasted for decades and were by no means restricted to Bohemia.

Thus Europe knew what was at stake with regard to matters of faith. It was this knowledge, that made Erasmus instinctively hesitant to take sides with Luther, and moved him instead to employ every conceivable means to avert the schism C in vain. Much unlike Erasmus, Luther was unconcerned about the political consequences, aspiring solely towards the genuine articulation of religious experience. Only the political and social reworking of Luther's ideas during the Peasant Wars caused the partisans of Lutheranism to place his teachings under the protection of the sovereigns. Yet through this move, whether intentionally or not, Luther's work became a political affair. The first great battle revolving around faith C as well as around empire and imperial power C was fought in the Schmalkaldic War less than thirty years after the alleged posting of the Lutheran theses. And no sooner had the consequences been drawn in the Religious Peace of Augsburg (1555) then the struggle started afresh on German soil, now between the Lutherans, Zwinglians and Calvinists; with regard to violence and bitterness soon surpassing the conflict between the Protestants and followers of the old faith. Emerging in Calvinist guise from Geneva, the new faith worked its way westward C to France, to the Netherlands, to England and Puritanism. France was the first to supply a demonstration of the consequences of politicising religious struggles, exceeding all earlier examples in radicalness. The climax, serving as a beacon to Protestants everywhere, was reached on the Eve of St. Bartholomew in1572, when thousands of Huguenots C as the reformed of France called themselves C were slain at the command of Catherine de Médicis. Pictures of the massacre circulated all over the continent. Philipp II of the neighbouring Netherlands attempted to stamp out the spark of the new faith with the aid of his governor Alba, commander of an army which stopped at nothing. The struggle raged for decades and still the Spanish failed to subdue the rebels. After 1579 the Netherlands were divided: The northern provinces C the Union of Utrecht C maintained their Calvinist beliefs while the south C today's Belgium C remained Catholic. Thus allies for the new religion emerged in the west, a circumstance of particular interest to the reformed principalities of Germany. On both sides the formation of fronts continued unceasingly until the Defenestration of Prague triggered the cruellest war to take place on German soil before the Second World War. Only England seemed spared; there a moderate national church had crystallised, appearing to embody a tolerable compromise. But appearances were deceptive. Like the Protestants, the Anglican Church became increasingly radical. When the Puritan parliament forced King Charles I of the House of Stuart to mount the scaffold, an earthquake shook Europe.

These nearly two hundred years of European civil war history C summarised here in the briefest of forms C form a setting for the political commitment and courage exhibited by countless Humanists in their search for a means of attaining peace. Only a few names can be mentioned in commemoration of the intellectual C and human! C potential possessed by Europe in the two centuries stretching from the final expulsion of the Jews and the Moors from Spain to the "Bill of Rights," from Luther's first appearance to Gottfried Arnold's attempt to erect a compendious historical monument to the untold, mostly nameless, mostly victims C to mention only a few arbitrarily exchangeable events.

Spain, a land rapidly growing in strength, was the protagonist for the unity of the church C and was perceived as such by Humanists internationally. The country's rise went hand in hand with the struggle for purity of faith, at home and soon in the empire and the Netherlandish provinces as well. For many centuries large areas of the Iberian Peninsula had been settled by the Arabs, and it had become a refuge for non-Christians, even Jews. The era of tolerance ended, however, in the wake of the Reconquista, when the Arabs were driven back to their last stronghold in Granada. The years 1478-80 saw the introduction of the Inquisition in Castile, 1487 its expansion to include Aragon. In 1492, following a struggle of nearly ten years, Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon finally made their entry into Granada. The Reconquista had been successfully completed and the desire to reach out to Africa followed on its heels. . . . Supported by the Inquisition, the crown could now begin forcing Jews and Moslems to adopt the Christian faith or be expelled. Over half a million Jews and Moors left the country. Violent uniformity thus heralded the precedence of the state's interests over the heterogeneous religious denominations of its mixed population, once the country's honorary title. Following the Bohemian prelude, this was the first time in the history of modern Europe that the power struggle revolving around faith so crassly showed its face. Spain soon became the feared vicar, propagator of the merciless suppression of religious minorities. Thousands of Jews and Muslims converted C pro forma only C, leaving the Spanish Inquisition (more than that of any other country) to deal with the unbreakable phenomenon of heresy, particularly in the guise of Cryptojudaism.

In the name and spirit of Erasmus, his followers began to protest against these activities and soon incurred the mistrust of church and state. [19] Even before the end of the fifteenth century C in 1498 C the University of Alcalá was founded by Cardinal Cisneros, soon to become one of the two strongholds of Erasmianism, the other being formed for a while by the court of Charles V. In Alcalá professorial chairs for Greek, Hebrew, Arabic and Syrian were established, allowing biblical studies in the original languages and, as early as 1517, leading to a polyglot edition of the bible. It was at this very point in time that Erasmus became known to Spain. Also in Alcalá, Miguel de Eguia published a collection of Erasmus's religious writings. Alfonso and Juan de Valdés, Francisco de Bergara, Fra Alonso de Virues and above all Juan Luis Vives became self-ordained advocates of the Erasmian teachings of tolerance, the simple Christian life of faith, the dignity of marriage and of women and C naturally C peace. In 1529 the Diálogo de doctrina cristiana of Juan de Valdés appeared, repeating Erasmus's message of charity and devotion C the undying ethos of the Sermon on the Mount C in the dialog form he was so fond of. Juan's brother Alfonso, also an Erasmian, was secretary to Charles V. In his Dialog on the events occurring in Rome he interpreted the "Sacco di Roma" as a trial by ordeal to which God had sentenced the secularised city. What is the cruelty of the imperial soldiers A year later his Dialog of Mercury and Charon was issued, revolving around two elliptical focuses: world peace and imperial politics, the latter as the executor of the former. "Are you not ashamed to call yourselves Christians, you who live worse than the Arabs and the wild animals?" [21 ]This is the Erasmian tone, transposed into the Spanish milieu. Is it any wonder that Valdés was on friendly terms with Melanchthon? The death of the Chancellor Gattinara, the secretary Alfonso de Valdés, meant the wilting of the brief and so auspicious Erasmian blossom which had been possessed by the desire to guide and assist the emperor along the path to peace.

A wholly different path was tread by the great competing power, France. This country was not impeded by imperial aspirations. And it was fortunate in that the activities of its Humanists greatly benefited the state, widening instead of narrowing its scope for action, paving its progress into the Modern Age. Naturally, a temporary paralysis C in some cases the dissolution of state sovereignty C was necessary in order to find a way out of the deepest crisis. Credit for this is due to France's great parliamentary jurists of the sixteenth century. All of them were touched by the spirit of Humanism; at the same time they occupied essential positions of power in the parliaments of Paris and the outlying regions and were capable of lending their ideas political effectiveness. [22] Michel de L'Hôpital (1503-1573) was Chancellor, Jacques Auguste de Thou the leading historian of the land and author of a major contemporary history; the president of the parliament, Philippe Duplessis-Morney (1549-1623) was a publicist. Differing from one another in descent, position and intellectual horizon, they shared the experience of civil war in their country and its influence on their way of thinking.

France also knew Erasmians of the first hour, led by Guillaume Budé; Bishop Guillaume Briçonnet founded the "School of Meaux" with Lefèvre d'Estaples and Gérard Roussel, later to be joined by such significant persons as the king's sister, Margarete of Navarra, and the Bishop of Bayonne, Jean du Bellay, as well as his brother Guillaume. [23] All of them were in favour of reform if it did not divide the One Church. In the surviving work of Guillaume Postel (ca. 1510-1581), just as in the work of Nicolaus von Cues, a synthesis of the various religions is introduced. [24] Nevertheless, the various efforts undertaken by these promoters of peace to unite the Catholics and the Huguenots were to no avail; attempts to come to an understanding were launched at colloquia again and again but never crowned with lasting success. Instead the land was ruled by fanatic hatred and sheer violence; the royal authority not only becoming involved in this development but even promoting it.

The conclusion drawn by the group of jurists, the "politicians," culminating in the Six Books on the State of Jean Bodin (1530-1596), was an unequivocal one, bearing the clarity and stringency of French thought, to which the future would belong. If the religious parties themselves are incapable of producing solutions that would allow their peaceful coexistence, then it is the duty of the state to see to it that mutual tolerance prevails between them. The prerequisite for intermediation of this kind is that the state not take sides with any one group but maintain strict neutrality in religious and all other philosophical matters. The state thus commissioned with the task of pacification C which it may be required to enforce with the aid of the power it monopolises C guarantees all religious and philosophical communities the right to exist and observe their beliefs actively, as long as they refrain from any and all violence and do not prevent others from exercising the same right. In other words, the state privatises the convictions of its citizens, itself no longer the agent of a certain confession, and by relinquishing the power to monopolise the people's Weltanschauung, it emerges as the upholder of its citizens' rights and safety. Thus as early as the mid-sixteenth century a concept of the modern state was formed, naturally in the guise of monarchy but flanked by powerful juridical institutions, the parliaments. In 1598 under the regency of Henri IV C the Henri Quatre of Heinrich Mann C, all citizens were guaranteed the free exercise of religion by the Edict of Nantes, perhaps the most convincing expression of the resolve C born of the Humanist spirit C to uphold state authority . When it was retracted less than 100 years later (1685) under Louis XIV, the absolutist state was clearly relinquishing one of its most significant achievements, thus contributing to its own downfall in a process to be completed by the French Revolution.

In the Netherlands the assertion of the new faith went hand in hand with the attainment of state autonomy. This double, mutually supportive effect resulted in the rise of the Netherlands to the status of leading Protestant power, both politically and culturally, in the last third of the sixteenth and first half of the seventeenth century. In the eyes of the country's most brilliant thinkers, kindred souls to the French politiques, the casting off of Spanish domination should have been accompanied by a declaration guaranteeing freedom of religious practice, a step which would have established the growing nation's inner conceptual unity, particularly in relation to Spain. This truly farsighted philosophy of "Religionsfrid" had to be defended in the face of the failure to maintain the unity of the seventeen provinces, leading to the land's political and religious division. In the young republic the Calvinists formed the dominant church. But there were also Catholics, several Lutheran congregations and Anabaptists, and at the beginning of the seventeenth century the country was shaken by the Arminian struggle. Once again, the religious scholars were sought after, and once again the thinkers schooled in Humanism made the articulation of tolerance their cause.

Is anyone still acquainted today with the name of Dirck Volckertzoon Coornhert (1522-1590), with which a scholar of early spiritual and religious history, Wilhelm Dilthey, inaugurated his famous work on the "natural system of the humanities in the seventeenth century" 100 years ago? [25] Although he never abandoned the Catholic faith, Coornhert stood between the fronts both politically and confessionally because, like Erasmus, he was primarily concerned with ethics and its vital basis C freedom. The Holy Spirit is also free in the manner in which it takes possession of man, as Luther's great opponent Sebastian Franck taught. Active tolerance meant acknowledgement of the minorities, and thus Coornhert's conflict with the Calvinists was inevitable. In his view the state was under no circumstances obliged to act as the defender and protector of a single confession, as he eloquently reminded that convinced advocate of state authority, his countryman Justus Lipsius: "The sovereigns of this world do not neglect to pose as protectors of the Christian church. But the church cannot be protected by any weapon, for the kingdom of Christ is not of this world." [26]

Shortly thereafter the leading church itself was threatened by schism when Jacob Arminius (1550-1609) advanced his criticism of the predestination doctrine, wholly in the spirit of Coornhert. The greatest Humanists emerging from Holland C Hugo Grotius, Gerard Vossius C soon joined the ranks of those demanding tolerance towards both sides. The Synod of Dordrecht (1619), however, condemned Arminianism and sacrificed one of the leading political minds of the republic, the seventy-two-year-old Oldenbarnevelt, to death on the scaffold. A dark shadow was thus cast over the young nation. Having managed to escape from his fatherland, Grotius drew the consequences of this experience in his De Jure belli et pacis, a work laying the foundations for human rights and at the same time representing a great European document of religious tolerance. The restoration of ecclesiastical unity, the dream of thinkers from Erasmus to Leibniz, was a hope to which Grotius also clung. The fact that the young Netherlands gradually succeeded in loosening the rigid control of the unrelenting Calvinists is one of the strokes of luck occasionally encountered in world history. On the eve of the Enlightenment the Netherlands were the most liberal country of Europe C like Poland two centuries earlier! C where the persecuted found refuge and where, above all, suppressed writings could be published. The great editions of Erasmus, of Jakob Böhme, the works of Abraham von Franckenberg, Quirinus Kuhlmann and all the other outcasts C here they first saw the light of the world. Here, in the Dictionnaire historique et critique of Pierre Bayle, who had fled from France because of his faith, the first great encyclopaedia was produced, a comprehensive introduction to the spirit of the early Enlightenment and its critical perspective on tradition. [27]

The circumstances in England were quite different again. Thus it is all the more interesting that ideas and arguments known to us from the Continent recur there. For these ideas and arguments were the common property of Europe, capable of adjusting to various situations and repeatedly testifying to the conclusiveness of Humanist thought. Erasmus's closest friends were in England. Two of the three to be mentioned here mounted the scaffold before Erasmus's death (1536) at the command of Henry VIII. John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, defended Queen Catherine against the king's petition for divorce and was beheaded fourteen days before Thomas More in 1535. Chancellor of State More refused to recognise the king's supreme authority over the church and went to his death calmly, praying for his opponent the king. Dean John Colet (1467-1519) established St. Paul's in London as a centre for the cultivation of a Christian-Humanist way of life, introduced the Greek language to England and contributed to the impressive Platonic renaissance above all in Cambridge. [28] The publication of Thomas More's Utopia by Erasmus in 1516 is an obvious expression of the author's close association with the Humanists. Today we tend to label More's work as a "utopia of state." Yet it is above all a vision of ideal life and community, praising the fortune and blessing of life as a precious gift, to be tendered and suckled in profound, informed leniency rather than strangled intellectually and spiritually by regimentation and uniformation. The love and worship of God takes on different forms the world over and yet is essentially always the same.

Every individual is convinced of what he himself regards as the highest being; whatever it may be, in the end it is always the same being. In His sole divine grandeur and majesty we may behold the incarnation of all things (according to the unanimous judgement of all peoples). [29]

This is the cheerful and wise confession of a man who went to his death in the calm assurance of life in the hereafter.

By binding ecclesiastical and spiritual concerns to the monarchy, Henry VIII revoked an old Humanist achievement dating back to Dante. This act was the particular target of the criticism voiced first by the more immediately affected Catholic side and later by the increasingly radical Protestants. In the work of the publicist Robert Parsons, a Jesuit, we have a clear illustration of how the teachings of the French politiques proved useful in the fight against the amalgamation of church and state in the Anglican system.

Faith and well-being would be greatly endangered and severely undermined if religion were dependent on the will of the sovereign and the law expressing this will; the only means of attaining true religion would then be to conform to the opinions of the secular power and regulate one's faith according to the moods of the sovereign. [30]

At the end of the sixteenth century, advanced intellectual circles had recognised the need for mutual liberation to the benefit of both sides. But the compromising character of the High Church was naturally a thorn in the side of the Puritans emerging from Calvinism. From their point of view, the separation from the blasphemous relicts of the old faith should be much more radical. The spiritual power belonged to the congregations. The tractate by Samuel Rutherford, A free disputation against pretended liberty of conscience of 1649, bears witness to the struggle belatedly facing insular England: Life on the Continent was finally beginning to calm down while in England the Stuart King Charles I was sent to the scaffold by the rebellious Puritan parliament under Oliver Cromwell. Freedom of conscience? The free development of heterogeneous confessions? Certainly not. Magistrates and pastors alike were charged with supervising confessional purity and enforcing it where necessary with violence, even with the killing of the resisters. "The Christian magistrate, who must guard God's honour, is obligated to punish all evident false doctrines, regardless of whether or not they are fundamental." [31]

It is a credit to men like John Goodwin, Roger Williams and innumerable others, particularly those arising from the sects which sprouted like mushrooms on the fertile English soil, that they immediately reacted to these practices by attacking the state no less adamantly than the Anglican Church. If the secular hand was empowered with intervention in religious matters one might as well simply install God or Christ on the throne, for the whole business amounted to usurpation of divine right. "We must be led to unity by the hand of an angel of light, not chased there by an evil angel of fear and terror." [32] A Humanist conviction, translated into the language of an Arminian who had fled from the Puritans on account of their intolerance. Or the voice of two Baptists: "May they be heretics, Turks, Jews or anything else, earthly powers are not entitled to punish them." [33] "All of these bishops who force the sovereigns and the peoples to accept their faith and their discipline are like Judas attacking the limbs of Christ with swords and clubs and halberds." [34] These outcries still echo the philosophy of nurturing life and religion as formulated by Erasmus and his fellow Humanists. From the midst of the innumerable sects there arose the common and firm confession to the coexistence of all and the abstinence of the state. The most radical and most consequent voice was that of Roger Williams, the founder of the colony Rhode Island and the city of Providence. In the eyes of many, the confusion of the spiritual and the secular constituted the real "Mystery of Evil." [35] There is no carnal sword in the empire of Christ! The ill had already begun with Constantine and his well-meant protection of the Christians! The pope as the beast of the apocalypse C the comparison is drawn once again, the Protestants deserving no better judgement when they cast their eye on worldly power, make a pact with it, enthrone it with spiritual attributes. Elizabeth as the "popess" of the Anglican Church! Since Dante, the Humanists had been advocating the separation of the powers. Now, after a struggle lasting centuries, a theoretician like Roger Williams of mid-seventeenth-century England uncompromisingly reconfirms this necessity and puts it into practice in the New World. In the area of political philosophy, Williams's contemporary John Locke came to a conclusion that put England at the head of Europe with one fell swoop C and was echoed in the work of the greatest English poet of the seventeenth century, John Milton. A hundred years before the French Revolution, John Locke's Letters on Tolerance (1689-1692) appeared, accompanying the extremely farsighted political compromise between the parliament and the monarchy, the 1689 "Bill of Rights. " [36]

Italy, however, the land in which Humanism had originated, was now the arena of the Tridentine Council, at which Catholicism joined forces with the Jesuit order founded by Ignatius of Loyola to arm itself for the spiritual, moral and military reconquest of Europe. Here, on Italian soil, an experiment in radical religious thought once again emerged, the most sagacious of its time, with all of the unforeseeable consequences for the advocates of a vision which C concerned with a God once again accessible to reason Cfailed to conform to any of the existing patterns and was therefore quickly subjected to severe persecution by all of the existing confessions. [37] And in turn, the whole gamut of confessions were the target of the words fearlessly flung at the raging Calvin by Sebastian Castellio: With the approval of no less a person than Melanchthon, Calvin had seen to the execution of one of the early supporters of the Unitarian teachings C Michael Servetus. Servetus had rejected the Trinitarian Creed as a clerical construction and this thread was picked up by the Italians. Already two years before Servetus, Giorgio Siculo of Ferrara had been executed.

Why do the Protestants so humiliate reason? C and place human nature lower than that of a horse. ... Why do they burden divine mercy with all of our guilt and our evil deeds? The Holy Scripture does the opposite: It splendidly glorifies human nature, revealing to us its greatness and divine dignity. [39]

Thus the Socinians wed the Renaissance message expressed by figures like Ficino, Lorenzo de Medici and Pico della Mirandola with that of Christ. These Italians C Camillo Renato, Lelio and Fausto Sozzini, Bernardino Ochino, Celio Secundo Curione and all the others C found temporary refuge in Basle and to some degree in the Grisons, before they and their descendants were compelled to move on, eastward to Poland, Transylvania and Russia, then westward to the Netherlands, England and America. In the sixteenth century Poland was the most liberal land on the Continent and soon home to anti-Trinitarians, Socinians, Unitarians, the Bohemian Brotherhood, the Polish Brotherhood, etc. And in the seventeenth century it was there that the Silesian, Bohemian and Hungarian Humanists (and poets such as Opitz!) managed to survive. [40]

And Germany, the empire, the far eastward-reaching linguistic area, and Switzerland with Zurich and the stronghold Geneva on the border between the German and French tongues? Any discussion of Humanism would profit considerably from devoting its attention first to Philipp Melanchthon, the 500 [th] anniversary of whose birth was recently celebrated (1497-1560). For more than a generation his slender shoulders bore the prodigious burden of fighting out the consequences of the Reformation triggered by the work of Luther. That meant hundreds of things. But above all it meant maintaining contact to the Humanists after the breach between Luther and Erasmus had become irreparable. That conflict had been kindled by one of the Humanists' cardinal themes, the confession to free will, guided by reason and aiming at self-determination, to which Luther responded with his harsh avowal to God's sole disposition of man. That was a subject worthy of fighting over. But Melanchthon was dragged into the formulation of the strictly Lutheran confession. Here the scholars sworn to Luther knew no mercy. Rather than granting the Zwinglians or Calvinists, the "zealots" and "spiritualists," even the trace of a concession, they defended Luther's writings C which were certainly not always completely consistent or easy to harmonise C to the last T. The more obscure the late Luther became, however, and the more rigid his orthodox followers, the more affinity many of the Humanists felt for the doctrines of the "competitors" because they were more human, more comprehensible, more sensible. How can we explain the fact that a bitter dispute raged for more than a century over the interpretation and words of institution of the Holy Communion? In reality the contenders were struggling as over much more than this topic, more than the sacrament; also at stake was the dignity and autonomy of man, who wanted to be able to comprehend what he was being requested to believe. And a doctrine which emphasised the symbolic character of the Holy Communion as a commemorative act had better chances among the "learned" than one insisting on the transformation of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ through their pious intake. Melanchthon was sought after on both fronts, was unceasingly enlisted as an authority on issues of the "correct" Lutheran doctrine. And he was expected C even by himself! C to mediate the disputes. What he would have given to possess the magic key to universal conciliation. More than any other, he was deeply imbued with the Erasmian conviction that the first Christian duty was conciliation, compromise, agreement C as a major element of both religious belief and practical political sense. For if the breach with the Catholic church, which pained him as deeply as it did Erasmus, was irreversible C again and again he had difficulty believing it C, it was a simple matter of survival for Protestants to approach one another in search of peace, with regard to both the Christian doctrine and everyday life, all the way up to the highest level of politics. For this great goal he lived and fought, only to fail in the end as Erasmus had failed in another way.

The fronts between the Lutherans, Zwinglians and Calvinists could not be made to yield; on the contrary, they hardened increasingly. Soon the Upper German of a different Protestant belief was regarded to be incomparably more dangerous than the orthodox adherent to Catholicism. Not only did the Humanists turn away in disgust, they even preferred to return to the old belief, Lutheranism thus losing them, to Melanchthon's great disappointment. But was he not also aware of the danger threatening the Christian faith if the hair-splitting did not end? We are certain that this thought disturbed him at the bottom of his heart. And did he not prove right? In Germany as throughout Europe, wherever an element of scepticism took root in Humanism C leading in the end to the Enlightenment and its search for the true, natural religion capable of satisfying the demands of reason C, the deeply religious seekers of God took refuge in the confession-free realms of divine inspiration and experience, which offered them more steadfast security than letter and dogma. In Humanist circles the immortal words of conciliation were spoken, words which were to become the inalienable heritage of the European concept of peace. [41] The illustrious spectrum ranges from Paracelsus and Sebastian Franck to Caspar Schwenckfeld, Valentin Weigel and Jakob Böhme, and further, to Friedrich Spree, Johan Scheffler (Angelus Silesius) and Christian Breckling. One of their school, Johann Christoph Arnold, perpetuated their memory in his Kirchen- und Ketzergeschichte of the year 1700. [42] Is it any coincidence that it was the lot of the outcasts to make the longest and deepest marks on the history of German thought? Whether in the works of Hamann or Herder, Goethe or Jean Paul, the Romantics from Novalis to Eichendorff, even the philosophers, from Schelling to Hegel, Bloch to Benjamin, everywhere their voices are encountered. Every peace movement, no matter how much in the minority, would do well to remember the thoughts and hopes of their predecessors on the margins of society, for doing so will help to ensure the continuation of these thoughts and hopes into every conceivable future.




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FOOTNOTES

1. This text is based on a lengthier discussion; only the most important references are supplied below. Cp. Garber 1986b, containing a wealth of literature references. French translation in Chomarat 1990, pp. 393-425; Garber 1995.

2. Erasmus 1967ff., here V, pp. 433ff.

3. The most easily accessible German translation of Erasmus's Querela Pacis is in Erasmus 1986. The German translation by Leo Jud (Erasmus 1521) has been reprinted in a facsimile edition along with the Latin original. The translation by Georg Spalatin appeared the same year. A facsimile of the first edition of the Latin texts with the woodcuts by Hans Holbein d.J. (Basle 1517) was published by Ferdinand Geldner (Munich, no year given). The reader who wishes to inform himself about Erasmus in greater detail is referred to Huizinga 1958, Bainton 1972, Gail 1974. Erasmus 1936 is a particularly comprehensive source. Buck 1988 concentrates on the influence of Erasmus in Europe. The two excellent anthologies Raumer 1953 and Wollgast 1968 place the Querela Pacis in its historical literary context.

4. An outstanding discussion of this topic is found in Gilbert 1991 (German translation). Also cp. Münkler 1984.

5. Hay 1961 provides a particularly good introduction to this subject. See also Goez 1988 and the numerous new works of Peter Burke. A discussion of the philosophical tradition is found in the work by the leading scholar on Ficino and the Platonic Academy: Kristeller 1986.

6. Details on these events can be found in every historical depiction of the era. I would like to take this opportunity to refer to a very brief but profound comment made by a historian inspired by the German disaster (World War II) to review the topic of hegemonic political activity in Europe: Dehio 1948. Cp. also Schulze 1993, pp. 87ff. (containing previously unpublished reflections by Dehio).

7. The reader is referred here only to the important documentation in Margolin 1973; for further references to literature on Erasmus's Querela Pacis see Garber 1986b, p. 533, n. 27.

8. Erasmus 1967ff., V, p. 363.

9. Erasmus 1967ff., V, p. 369.

10. Erasmus 1967ff., V, p. 371.

11. Erasmus 1967ff., V, p. 373.

12. Erasmus 1967ff., V, p. 379ff.

13. Erasmus 1967ff., V, p. 383.

14. Erasmus 1967ff., V, p. 381ff.

15. Erasmus 1967ff., V, p. 446f.

16. Cp. Garber 1987. A French translation C imprecise in many passages C is found in Lauvergnat-Gagnière and Yon 1986, pp. 157-177.

17. Heer 1959; unfortunately a paperback edition was never published. This work also contains a wealth of literature references. In addition to the classical study by Stupperich 1936, the reader is referred above all to the more recent works by Worstbrock (1986) and Diesner (1990). Aside from Friedrich Heer another classical work is Lecler 1965, also abundantly equipped with literature references. The anthology by Lutz 1977 is also important. As a documentation for the following passage cp. especially Guggisberg 1984. Schulze 1987 provides an extremely comprehensive special study of the otherwise little-discussed circumstances in sixteenth-century Germany. For insight into the current discussion see Broer and Schlüter 1996, containing a comprehensive bibliography.

18. Hus 1969, p. 95f.

19. A fundamental study of this subject is found in Bataillon 1937. Also cp. Castro 1957 and the more recent Otto 1992. Of the wealth of literature on Vives, special reference is made here to Strosetzki 1995.

20. Heer 1959, pp. 326f.

21. Heer 1959, pp. 328.

22. Schnur 1962; also Garber 1987 containing numerous references to further literature.

23. Cp. Renaudet 1953.

24. The reader still profits greatly from Bouwsma 1957. Also see the important conference volume Postel 1985.

25. Dilthey 1923, pp. 90-245, here pp. 95ff.

26. Quoted in Lecler 1965, II, p. 349.

27. The great work by Hazard 1939 is a fundamental reference for this topic.

28. Cp. Cassirer 1932, a book overshadowed by this author's other works. This and Cassirer's work on the Enlightenment were the last he wrote in Germany before his emigration.

29. More 1922, p. 98. An easily accessible German translation (with literature references) has been published by Reclam-Bücherei, Vol. 513.

30. Quoted in Lecler 1965, II, p. 447 (retranslated into English by Judith Rosenthal).

31. Lecler 1965, II, p. 551 (retranslated into English by Judith Rosenthal).

32. Lecler 1965, II, p. 559.

33. Lecler 1965, II, p. 564 (Thomas Helwy).

34. Lecler 1965, II, p. 565 (Leonhard Busher).

35. Lecler 1965, II, pp. 568ff.

36. Cp. Euchner 1996.

37. Cp. the classical work by Cantimori 1949. See also the interesting contribution by Seidel Menchi 1984 and 1981.

38. Quoted in Lecler 1965, I, pp. 463, 468. Cp. also the recent Guggisberg 1997.

39. Quoted in Heer 1959, p. 490

40. Cp. Tazbir 1977.

41. Of the endless literature on this subject, specific reference is made here to Wollgast 1993.

42. Cp. the extensive new anthology Blaufuß and Niewöhner 1995. In this context cp. also Garber 1991.



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