By the same token, it is easy to identify countless examples of anti-Judaic sentiments and actions, such as pogroms and even mass killing in the Middle Ages and well beyond.56 Medieval Christian communities were always prone to turn to violence in their interaction with the Jewish neighbors. However, if we listen only to the loud voices in the chronicles, for instance, and disregard the multiple alternative comments and events concerning actually good neighborly relationships, we contribute to the continued growth of mythical concepts about the past that mirror preconceived notions, but not the factual conditions on the ground.57 There were many more outspoken defenders of the medieval Jews than we might have assumed, and some of them enjoyed the highest authority in the Christian Church, such as the Church Father St. Augustine.58 I do not intend to write a revisionist history here, and I do not try to whitewash the past, which was often just as bad and as good as the present time. Instead, the goal consists of bringing to light significant voices that shed a different light on the pre-modern world and allow us to understand its complexities more than heretofore, especially in light of numerous attempts to reach out to the others, to keep an open mind, and to communicate across religious borders. To reiterate the most critical difference in terminology, we will be fortunate enough to identify those medieval and early modern voices that subscribed to the concept of toleration, whereas true ‘tolerance’ in the modern sense of the word might be hard to identify.
I do not have any ambition to detect a medieval Voltaire, John Locke, or Gotthold Ephraim Lessing; however, this book will be about their precursors without whom their own tolerant ideas could not have been developed.59 After all, the Middle Ages were not a homogenous world, just like the following centuries. Paganism continued to exert its deep, not so hidden, influence in many parts of Europe,60 and it was also present even among the learned, some of whom were outspoken atheists and yet managed to survive in a highly dogmatic world determined by the Christian religion.61 In the late Middle Ages, the entire world of magic, astrology, geomancy, hydromancy, etc. experienced a tremendous growth, and even the Catholic Church was deeply affected by it.62 Jews lived in diaspora all over the continent, irrespective of the numerous pogroms and other forms of persecutions at certain times. Both on the Iberian Peninsula and in Southern Italy, Christians found themselves in direct confrontation with Muslims, and in Eastern and Southeastern Europe, the Orthodox Christian Church pursued its own teaching, in clear distinction from the Catholic Church in the West.63 In short, despite much clamor in public life, which often led to violent interactions, medieval and early modern Europe witnessed many more forms of peaceful cohabitation of different religionists than we might have assumed.
However, when we learn that Christians joined Jews during their festivals and danced with them, or when we are told about high-ranking clerics involved in card games with Jews, and this within a Carmelite monastery and during the Christmas season, this would not allow us to claim that the individuals reported about in the historical documents truly espoused tolerance.64 Nevertheless, we can be certain in those cases that individual Christians reached out to their neighbors, accepted them as ordinary citizens with whom they enjoyed doing business, from whom they sought medical and financial advice, and with whom they celebrated festive events. Of course, then pogroms started again, and horrible crimes were committed against the Jewish population. How would we have to balance the one report against the other? We always need to keep both aspects in mind, but traditionally there has been a strong tendency to paint only a negative picture, which does not do full justice to the Middle Ages and the early modern age either. Already, Frank Puaux had pointed out the tremendous impact of the famous Edict of Nantes signed into law by the French King Henry IV in 1598, granting the Huguenots, that is, the Calvinist Protestants, equal rights compared to the majority, the Catholics.65 Tragically, King Louis XIV revoked this Edict again in 1685, forcing thousands of Huguenots to flee once again.66 The history of toleration/tolerance has not been linear and progressive, but has constantly undergone many transformations and has witnessed numerous setbacks, recoveries, and difficult struggles throughout time.67
Let us first consider some of the earliest scholarly voices arguing in favor of tolerance during the early modern age. As early as in the years from 1684 until 1688, the famous Huguenot philosopher Bayle published the first major treatise defining and defending tolerance, his Philosophical Commentary, followed by his massive Dictionnaire Historique et Critique, first in two volumes in 1697, subsequently in three volumes in 1702, and in its third edition in 1715. It was republished many times thereafter—the eleventh edition appeared in 1824 in sixteen volumes—and thus exerted a tremendous influence on the contemporary audiences all over Europe and the New World. Bayle had based his work on Louis Moréri’s Grand dictionnaire historique, which had appeared in Lyon in 1674, but he expanded and elaborated on every aspect so dramatically that his own work could claim to be original, after all.68
Even though Bayle structured his work in a dialectical fashion with juxtapositions, opinions, and offering the other side of the argument in each of the entries, his encyclopedia was immediately banned by the Church and yet quickly found a large readership especially among the Enlightenment philosophers. Moreover, the articles in the encyclopedia do not simply represent a digest of the available knowledge, but they actually question the alleged facts and offer copious footnotes and references confirming possibly alternative aspects. In a way, this was scholarly tolerance in practice.69 He argued particularly against the use of force in terms of a religious faith and rejected conversions by means of threat of punishments because there was no rational evidence for any specific faith and because individuals could not be expected to change their mind under duress.70 I will return to his reflections further below and then examine some of his ideas at greater length. But first, it seems appropriate to outline the subsequent tradition in other major encyclopedias.
Not much later, already in 1745, the famous universal encyclopedia by Johann Heinrich Zedler included a significant article on tolerance. Because of its early appearance, it will be worth our efforts to summarize and analyze briefly what the author had to say about this topic. After all, as today, an encyclopedia represents mostly a digest of what the standard ideas and the common level of knowledge used to be.71 Insofar as the issue of tolerance entered the mindset of the editor of this most comprehensive reference work, we might be able to conclude that here the author of the article (Zedler himself?) outlined the common concept and indicated the contemporary standards regarding this ideal.72 We are informed that the term is normally applied to a public authority that grants members of a different religion to exist in their community or territory as well. Members of another faith would be allowed to practice their religion, even though some people commonly assume that this could lead to unrest and conflict. The very opposite would be the case, as various examples in England and Holland confirm. Referring to an act of the British Parliament from 1710, he asserts that those who are radically opposed to other religious groups and would speak up against them in hate speech or sermons would face the consequence of a fine or punishment. Common experience teaches that most private individuals embrace a variety of ideas and would not all conform to the standards of one and the same church: “Die Erfahrung aber lehret uns taeglich, daß Privat=Personen von unterschiedenen Meynungen, wenn sie sonst nur wollen, gantz friedlich und schiedlich bey einander leben und wohnen” (1115; Experience, however, teaches us daily that private citizens, who harbor different opinions, can live quite peacefully and agreeably with each other, if they only are willing to embrace that concept).
In response to the argument that everywhere people do not tolerate each other and tend to fight against each other, he emphasizes that in those cases, religion would not be the cause of conflict but a range of character weaknesses, including ambition, monetary greed, anger, desire for revenge, and other human shortcomings (1116). Authorities would do well to embrace toleranc
e as a principle of public mores. All people ought to share the burden of the natural law, while preachers and other theologians should argue softly and rationally from their pulpits against other religions. He specifically emphasizes the terms “Vernunfft” (reason) and “Bescheidenheit” (knowledge) (1116) and warns at the same time against mixing of the terms ‘tolerance’ and ‘syncretism,’ since he is still concerned with protecting the religious community. Tolerating representatives of another faith would have to be based on the ideals of love and pity. Converting others would have to be pursued by means of rational conviction, and certainly not by way of fear or force (“Zwang,” 1116). Significantly, this crucial component can be traced already to the high Middle Ages when both theologians and poets formulated the same idea, insisting on faith to be predicated on the free will.
Tolerance, thus, would not serve as a principle of maintaining traditional society next to newer features of a social community. Instead, it should be applied to bring about change among those who hold onto a different faith and to convince them of their own errors. The final goal would always be to make room for “Wahrheit” (1116; truth), that is, the Christian teaching. The author, however, also warns the reader not to confuse tolerance with an instrument to create internecine strife and to allow conflicts to emerge within society (1117). He even refers to an article that was published addressing “Gewissens-Freyheit” (1808; Freedom of Conscience), to which he subscribed deeply.
The author continues to embrace the Christian religion as the only true one, but Zedler explicitly supports a general policy according to which representatives of other religions should be tolerated as well. Conversion, to emphasize this again, by way of physical force would be the worst and a very wrong approach to matters of religion. However, the members of a society would have to demonstrate their willingness and readiness to accept the others and to allow them to exist within society as well. The intellectual exchange with them should take place in a calm and open-minded fashion, based on the notions of friendship and mutual respect (“Freundschafft und Verträglichkeit,” 1117). The edict by the Prussian King Frederick would support this general approach, and yet he alerts the reader also to the danger of granting every freedom that would destroy tolerance by itself (1116). The numerous references to relevant treatises on this topic finally confirm how much the author knew how to rely on the already well-established discourse and only had to support his claims with those citations.
As mentioned above, the massive Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers appeared a few years later in Neuchatel, Switzerland (1751), once again laying the foundation of early modern knowledge, and here as well the editors allowed a lengthy entry on tolerance to appear (originally in 1697).73 The anonymous author (Bayle) insists immediately that all people need some form of tolerance if they want to survive within society, a society of individuals who all are at least somewhat similar. Society, however, makes it very difficult to live a virtuous life because there are just too many people, and they all tend to get on each other’s nerves (“discordes,” 390a). Insofar as people embrace sentiments and religion, there is constantly the danger of strife to emerge. Disagreement and misunderstandings rule everywhere, despite all the intelligence that individuals demonstrate:
ce qui est évident pour l’un est souvent obscur pour l’autre; l’évidence n’étant, comme on sait, qu’une qualité relative, qui peut venir ou du jour sous lequel nous voyons les objets, ou du rapport, q’il y a entre eux & nos organes, ou de telle autre cause.
(390a)
[what is obvious for one person is often obscure for the other: evidence is, as we know, only a relative quality that stems from the light [or perspective] in which we see the objects, or from the relationship between those object and our [sensory] organs, or from other causes.]
Even if most people look the same, their spirits differ in many regards, which leads to extensive disagreements everywhere (390b): “les sentimens se partagent, & sont d’autant plus arbitraires, que chacun y met du sien, & trouve des résultats plus particuliers” (390b; Feelings [and opinions] differ from one person to the next and are necessarily arbitrary [and unpredictable], colored by our own personal views and experiences, and by the idiosyncratic conclusions we draw from them”). As a result of the multiplicity of opinions and sentiments, disagreement arises everywhere. The author then examines the many situations in which people begin to disagree with each other, outlining the grave difficulties universally to form a harmonious community. As much as tolerance would be desired, it proves to be very difficult to achieve. The issue centrally rests in one’s conscience, but who would be capable of discerning clearly enough what is right and what is wrong? That is, who would be able to judge properly the own brother (391a)? He rightly raises the question: “Qui peut connoitre, encore une fois, la nature intime des esprits, & et toutes les modifications don’t ils sont susceptibles?” (391a; Once again, who can comprehend the inner workings of people’s minds, and all the perturbations to which they are susceptible?).
In practical terms, physical violence would be the worst means to reach out to others and make them accept one’s own opinion. By way of torture, no one would be able to convince the others to change their mind; neither fire nor iron could truly teach anyone; pain would be the simple tool to force the other to proclaim a new opinion, which could only be called fake (391a). This then leads the author to conclude that there is no divine or natural law, nor any political rule that could force individuals to submit under a different faith or opinion: “Dieu n’a jamais commandé que les peuples fléchissent leur conscience au gré de leurs monarques, & nul homme ne peut s’engager de bonne foi à croire & à penser comme son prince l’exige” (394a; God has never commanded that people bend their conscience to the will of their monarchs; and no one can commit him or herself to believe and think as the prince demands). Religion is, as he states most explicitly, a matter of free choice, not of force: “la religion se persuade & ne se commande pas” (394a; religion persuades and does not command). The political system in place at that time often tried to force people to follow a specific religion, but the author radically argues against such practices, insisting on the absolute value of tolerance and freedom of religion.
In most direct terms, here, the fundamental essence of tolerance is spelled out already very clearly, combined with a stern warning against any attempts by a governmental entity to impose its own will or religion on the subjects. The princes, hence, would be charged with the task to fight against any dogmas or against those who would promote dogmas to the disadvantage of disbelievers (394b). As a rule, then, the author underscores:
Respectez inviolablement les droits de la conscience dans tout ce qui ne trouble point la société…. la diversité des opinions régnera toujours parmi des êtres aussi imparfaits que l’homme; la vérité produit les hérésies comme le soleil des impuretés & des taches.
(394b)
[Respect inviolably the rights of conscience in all those matters that do not disturb society…. The diversity of opinions will always rule among those beings who are as imperfect as humans are; truth produces heresies just as the sun creates impurities and spots.]
In case of disagreements, one should never resort to any form of torture; instead, the only operable principles should be “la douceur, l’exemple, & la persuasion” (394b; softness, example, and persuasion). The diversity of religions, for instance, would have to be regarded as a natural outgrowth of the very nature of the human spirit. Different opinions characterize all human societies, and it would be absurd to enforce something like a uniformity and homogeneity, which could not even exist in nature. If the
partis différens s’accordoient un mutuel support, & ne cherchoient à se combattre que par l’exemple, la régularité des mœurs, l’amour des lois & de la patrie; si c’etoit-là l’unique preuve que chache secte fî valoir en faveur de sa croyance, l’harmonie & la paix régneroient bient-tôt dans l’état, malgré la
variété d’opinions, comme les dissonannces dans la musique ne nuisent point à l’accord total.
(394b)
[If different groups helped one another rather than fighting, armed only with exemplary behavior, uprightness of character, and love of laws and country, and if these were the only ways they defended (or sought to prove the merits of) their beliefs, then peace and harmony would soon reign throughout the land despite people’s differing opinions, like dissonances in music that do not detract from (or compromise) the concord (or euphony) of the whole].
Finally, however, he also admits that there is a difference between tolerating another religion and accepting it (395a), which he calls “tolérance pratique” (395a; practical tolerance).
Altogether, as one can observe, the discourse on tolerance had set in already very early and was reflected in the major encyclopedic works of the eighteenth century.
Let us turn, however, next to the relevant research on the history of tolerance from the twentieth century. The article on tolerance by Schlüter and Gröker in the famous Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie sets out in a rather curious fashion, defining this phenomenon not as tolerance in the sense as Lessing outlined it, but as toleration, i.e. as the acceptance of others in terms of religion or ideologies while still rejecting them for moral or other reasons.74 However, Schlüter and Gröker immediately also add a comment about the historical development of the call for religious freedom as part of the larger discourse on this issue in the course of time.
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