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The ravaging of marble works accounts for the thin ornate slabs with ancient inscriptions still found in many churches today. The Church did little to encourage trade. The canons of Gratian include a sixth century document which states, "Whoever buys a thing in order to re-sell it intact, no matter what it is, is like the merchant driven from the Temple.
Commercial contracts of the time indicate that the Church would sometimes intervene and free a debtor from liabilities, undermining even further the likelihood of anyone wanting to lend money. As such, it provided a potentially lucrative occupation for many men. At least forty different Popes are known to have bought their way into the papacy. In a particular one hundred year period, more than forty Popes came to office.
In the twelve year period from to alone, no less than ten different Popes held power. Patrimonial properties, the Church-held lands that were free and clear of taxes or military obligation to the king, made up between one-quarter and one-third of western Europe. The Church made money by collect- ing revenues from imperial rulers, by confiscating property as the result of court judgments, by selling the remission of sins called "indulgences" , by selling ecclesiastical offices called "simony" , and sometimes by simply taking land by force.
However, unlike during the Roman Empire, several imperial forces now held power. By the year , for example, the West was divided into four political realms. Spain was ruled by the Christian Visigoths and would fall in to the Islamic Moors. The Franks mled Gaul. Italy was held primarily by the Lombards with a few regions still in the hands of the Byzantine Empire. Both Church and state profited from their alliance. Imperial rulers provided not only military resources but also lucrative positions for the clergy.
They came to be as powerful and as influential as the greatest of feudal lords. The historian Jeffrey Burton Russell writes: The system was self-perpetuating: It is no wonder that the bishops kept their eyes more attentively upon the throne than upon the cross. The Church also brought a semblance of unity to an imperial realm by converting its people to Christianity.
These widespread conversions, however, were usually little more than a facade. Pope Gregory I in a letter to his emissary to Britain, St. Augustine of Canterbury, illustrates his concern with the appearance that people had converted to Christianity: The Church's continual admonishments against pagan practices indicate how insubstantial most conversions to Christianity were. Sacred springs were renamed in honor of saints and churches built over the sites of pagan temples, yet the nature of reverence and worship remained unchanged.
The Church played a critical role in taking Europe into the Dark Ages. Its devastating impact was felt in nearly every sphere of human endeavor. Ironically, the one area where the medieval Church had little profound impact was in changing the spiritual- ity of common people. While most people adopted a Christian veneer, they did not significantly change their understanding or perception of God. The Middle Ages - C. The spirit of the Middle Ages challenged the Church's now- established authority.
The Church responded by bolstering its authoritarian structure, asserting the Pope's supremacy over all imperial powers, and rallying Europe against Muslims, Jews and Eastern Orthodox Christians. When the crusades failed to unify Europe under its control, the Church attacked whomever it perceived as an enemy: Dramatic changes after the turn of the millennium ushered in the high Middle Ages. An agricultural society began to give way to rapidly growing towns as the population exploded in a surge unparalleled in the Western world until the 19th and 20th centuries.
These merchants often served as examples that through wit, activity and industry one could change one's lot in life. Latin classics, largely lost under Christian rule, were translated from Arabic back into Latin. When Aristotle's work was reintroduced to the West, its example of systematic thought spawned scholasticism, a discipline that challenged the Church's demand that one accept its assertions on blind faith. The twelfth century Peter Abelard, for example, used the scholastic method to encourage individual decision-making, to question authoritar- ian assertions, and to point out contradictions in Church doctrine and scripture.
The Church's confinement of all education and creativity to monasteries began to break down. Not only were lay schools created to provide elementary education to merchant and artisan classes, but universities were formed in urban areas such as Paris, Oxford, Toulouse, Montpellier, Cambridge, Salerno, Bologna and Salamanca. Renewed interest in architecture produced the culmination of the Romanesque style and the beginning of Gothic artistic and engineering feats.
Even within twelfth century monasteries, the art of illumination and ornamentation of manuscripts came alive. Having prospered and thrived while society remained subdued and quiescent, the Church now resisted the many changes taking place. Papal prohibitions in and restricted the teaching of Aristotle's works in Paris. By discussion of any purely theological matter was forbidden. Bernard of Clairvaux gave voice to Church sentiment when he said of Abelard's scholasti- cism, "everything is treated contrary to custom and tradition.
Human reason is snatching everything to itself, leaving nothing for faith. As the twelfth century Christian Honorius of Autun asked: How is the soul profited by the strife of Hector, the arguments of Plato, the poems of Virgil, or the elegies of Ovid, who, with others like them, are now gnashing their teeth in the prison of the infernal Babylon, under the cruel tyranny of Plutof The Church regarded poetry with particular disfavor, sometimes classifying poets with magicians whom the Church despised.
The illustrations in the twelfth century Hortus deliciarum of Herrad of Landsberg, for example, depict four "poets or magicians," each with an evil spirit prompting him. The outspoken fifteenth century Dominican prophet Girolamo Savonarola believed that classical poets should be banished and that science, culture and education should return entirely to the hands of monks. The only good thing that we owe to Plato and Aristotle is that they brought forward many arguments which we can use against the here- tics. Yet they and other philosophers are now in hell When there were not so many books and not so many arguments and disputes, religion grew more quickly than it has since.
Books, particularly those of Latin and Italian poets, illuminated manuscripts, women's ornaments, musical instruments, and paintings were burned in a huge bonfire in , destroying much of the work of Renaissance Florence. Yet medieval society abounded with dissent.
Many began to seek a relationship with God outside of the Church. Common people in the Middle Ages found little in the Church to which they could relate.
Churches had become grander and more formal, sharply emphasizing the difference between the clergy and laity. In some churches, a choir screen would even segregate the congregation from the altar. The language of the Mass, which in the fourth century had been changed from Greek to Latin so as to be more easily understood, was by the end of the seventh century totally incomprehensible to most people, including many priests. As a result, services were often an unintelligible mumbling which was absolutely meaningless to the congregation.
The medieval Church's preoccupation with riches was such that its ten commandments were said to have been reduced to one: A huge disparity developed not only between the clergy and the laity but also between ranks of the clergy. In the twelfth century the Church forbade clergy to marry in order to prevent property from passing out of the Church to the families of clergy.
These medieval heresies exhibited great diversity of thought. There were apocalyptic sects that were convinced that the world was coming to an end, such as those led by Tanchelin, Peter de Bruys, Henry of Lausanne, and Arnold of Brescia. Other groups such as the Waldensians and Lollards foreshadowed the Protes- tants in their desire for a stricter adherence to Christian scrip- ture. And yet other groups like the Brethren of the Free Spirit, the Tulupins, and the Adamites embraced pantheistic and animistic beliefs that perceived the physical world to be wholly imbued with God's presence.
He wrote, "When the Kingdom appears to the soul and it is recognized, there is no further need for preaching or instruc- tion. Despite the danger, they translated the Bible into common or vernacular languages which lay people could understand. Simple possession of such a Bible was punishable by death. From Romanesque depictions of Jesus as the stiff, hieratic, and unapproachable judge of the universe, Gothic art now portrayed him as more of a suffering, compassionate human being.
In his book The Virgin, Geoffrey Ashe tells of the stories which illustrate her kindness and compassion: A thief prays to her before going out to rob, and when he is hanged, she sustains him in the air till the hangman acknowledges the miracle and lets him live. A nun who leaves her convent to plunge into vice, but keeps praying to Mary, returns at last to find that Mary has taken her place and no one has missed her. The grandest of medieval cathedrals were dedicated to her: When her figure is opened, the Madonna is shown to contain the whole Trinity.
The papacy expanded its administrative and advisory council called the curia, increased its regulation of bishops, began again to summon councils, and, most signifi- cantly, used papal legates. Papal legates were officers who could override the authority of bishops and archbishops, effectively eroding the local authority of bishops and bringing the monaster- ies more directly under papal control. With the help of angels, she shelters people from God's arrows. Bernard had realized the implicit threat of civil law to the Church and complained that the courts rang with Justin- ian's laws rather than those of God.
The eleventh century Ivo of Chartres and the twelfth century Gratian reworked the bulk of uncoordinated and often conflicting decrees and letters into comprehensive codes that asserted the Pope's supremacy. Should the Pope himself find these laws inconvenient, however, he was allowed under these same canon laws to dispense with them at any time. Ecclesiastical tribunals claimed jurisdiction over all cases in which Church interests were at stake such as those concerning tithes, benefices, dona- tions and wills.
To protect its own, the Church claimed the right to try all members of the clergy. As one historian points out, "there was scarcely a limit to [the Church's] intervention; for in medieval society wellnigh every- thing was connected with a sacrament or depended upon an oath. The theory of the "plentitude of power" gave the Pope as the vicar of Christ full authority over both secular and spiritual affairs.
It allowed him to prohibit the distribution of sacraments within an imperial realm and to both excommunicate and depose a king.
One such letter, the "Donation of Constantine," purported to be a letter from Emperor Constantine to Pope Sylvester in which Constantine attributes his power to the Pope. It reads, "We give to Sylvester, the Universal Pope The Pope became increasingly involved in directing political conflicts and the conquering of lands. It is not doubted, and you know it, that Ireland and all those islands which have received the faith, belong to the Church of Rome; if you wish to enter that Island, to drive vice out of it, to cause law to be obeyed and St.
Peter's Pence to be paid by every house, it will please us to assign it to you. To depose princes, to absolve subjects from allegiance, to actively foment rebellion as again- st Frederick II, to divert lands as in Southern France, to give away crowns, to extort by threat of the severest ecclesiastical penalties the pay- ment of tribute, to punish religious dissenters with perpetual imprisonment or turn them over to the secular authorities, knowing death would be the punishment, to send and consecrate 64 THE DARK SIDE OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY crusading armies, and to invade the realm of the civil court, usurp its authority, and annul a nation's code, as in the case of Magna Charta, — these were the high prerogatives actually exercised by the papacy.
Seeing themselves as superior to all other mortals, Popes claimed not only that every person was subject to papal authority, but that the Pope himself was accountable to no one but God. In Pope Boniface issued the bull Unam Sanctam: Therefore, if the earthly power errs, it shall be judged by the spiritual power Therefore we de- clare, state, define and pronounce that it is altogether necessary to salvation for every human creature to be subject to the Roman pontiff.
In what was called the Great Schism, two separate lines of Popes, one living in Rome and one in Avignon, reigned from to They disagreed, not over matters concerning Christian ideology or religious practices, but over politics and who should reign. Another means with which the Church responded to the time was an attempt to focus attention away from the tumultuous social changes and towards an outside enemy. In Pope Urban n called for the knights of Europe to unite and march to Jerusalem to save the holy land from the Islamic infidel.
The cmsades provided an opportunity to vastiy increase the influence of the Catholic Church. They also served a political purpose much closer to home. When the Pope initiated the first crusade in , many of the imperial powers were outside the Church: The crusades were a means of uniting much of Europe in the name of Christianity.
Crusaders, caught up in their sense of righteousness, brutally attacked the Church's enemies. Wonderful things were to be seen. Numbers of the Saracens were beheaded Others were shot with arrows, or forced to jump from the towers; others were tortured for several days, then burned with flames. In the streets were seen piles of heads and hands and feet. One rode about everywhere amid the corpses of men and horses. In the temple of Solomon, the horses waded in the blood up to their knees, nay, up to the bridle. It was a just and marvelous judgement of God, that this place should be filled with the blood of unbelievers.
The cultures of the East and West had been growing apart for centuries. Having upheld more respect for the arts, literature and education, Eastern culture seemed more sophisticated than the West. The East had rever- ently preserved the writings of the ancient Greeks. Greek remained the official language of law, government, the Eastern church, and Eastern literature. In the West, however, even the Greek alphabet was lost. As the historian Charles H.
They celebrated Easter on different days. They differed in their views regarding the use of icons, and in the ordering of the Holy Trinity in the Nicene Creed. In , after attempts at reconciling the differences between Rome and Constantinople failed, the two branches of Christianity formalized their separation. To a Roman Church that vigorously asserted its supremacy over all, however, such a separation was seen as an affront to and a rejection of the Pope's authority. With the help of priests who encouraged the idea that the schismatic Greeks were satan's henchmen and were to blame for every misfortune, the People's Crusade of sacked Belgrade, the chief imperial city after Constantinople.
The soldiers of Christ fell upon Constantinople with a vengeance, raping, pillaging and burning the city. While the ostensible purpose of the crusades was to rescue the holy land from the infidel, the crusades also helped unify Europeans under the banner of Christianity and avert criticism from the papacy. Those who would not join Noah in his ark perished justly in the deluge; and these have justly suffered famine and hunger who would not receive as their shepherd the blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles Biblical passages supported his stance: In the roughly years of crusades, thousands, if not millions, were killed.
Invading crusaders destroyed in much the same way as the Church had at the onset of the Dark Ages. They burned any books they found. Although the crusades did bring about moments of solidarity as Europeans rallied together in the name of Christianity, they fell far short of all their other intentions. The crusades failed to gain more than fleeting control of Jerusalem, and failed to enrich their crusaders.
Far from gaining converts to the Roman Catholic Church, the crusades spread a bitter animosity that still lingers today. But Christian persecution of Jews continued long after the crusades ended. Jews became the scapegoats for many problems that the Church could not fix. When, for example, the black death, the 5. These were the same tales that Romans once told of the hated Christians, the same tales that Christians would tell of witches, and the same tales Protestants would tell of Catholics.
Jews were easy targets for they had never been embraced by Christian society.
Under the feudal system, a ceremony of investiture involving a Christian oath excluded Jews from working the land and sent them into commerce and crafts in the towns. However, with the rapid population expansion of the eleventh and twelfth centuries and the consequent influx of people to the cities, artisan guilds were established, each with its own patron saint.
Jews were again driven from the crafts into what fields remained: Religious arguments were taken up by indebted kings to justify their confiscation of Jewish property and their expulsion of Jews from their domains. The Knights Templar, a group originally formed to protect crusaders, gained political influence and became known as trustworthy moneylenders. Threatened by the Templars' growing political power, suspicious of their seemingly independent religious beliefs, and jealous of their wealth, both Church and kings had reason to persecute them.
Accused of homosexuality, of killing illegitimate children, and of witchcraft, the Templars were murdered and their property confiscated. It reacted swiftly and forcefully to suppress the first seeds of nationalism and desire for independence from Rome. When disputes over tribute payments arose in , the Pope excommunicated the whole town of Florence.
After failing to take the city of Bologna, this band set upon the smaller town of Cessna. Then summoning his mercenaries Women were seized for rape, ransom was placed on children, plunder succeeded the killing, works of art were ruined, handicrafts laid waste, 'and what could not be carried away, they burned, made unfit for use or spilled upon the ground. Catharism thrived in southern France, an area then known as Langedoc.
Politically and culturally distinct from the north, Langedoc was tolerant of difference. Many races lived together harmoniously — Greeks, Phoenicians, Jews and Muslims.
Jews were not only free from persecution, but held management and advisory positions with lords and even prelates. There was less class distinction, a milder form of serfdom, freer towns, and a judicial system based upon Roman law. Catharism incorporated diverse religious elements. There is evidence of a strong connection between Catharism, Moslem Sufi communities and the Jewish Kabbalist tradition. Bernard, who was hardly a friend of the Cathars, said of them: If you interrogate them, nothing can be more Christian; as to their conversation, nothing can be less reprehensible, and what they speak they prove by deeds.
Disregarding one of the 5. While this set a precedent for providing the Church with a warlike militia to fight the Church's private quarrels, 74 it failed to rally force against the popular Cathars. Then in Pope Innocent III destroyed what remained of the independence of local churches when he armed his legates with the authority "to destroy, throw down, or pluck up whatever is to be destroyed, thrown down, or plucked up and to plant and build whatever is to be built or planted.
The savagery of the thirty-year-long attack decimated Langedoc. At the Cathedral of St. Nazair alone 12, people were killed. Bishop Folque of Toulouse put to death 10, One historian wrote that "even the dead were not safe from dishonor, and the worst humiliations were heaped upon women.
Entrenched in its authoritarian structure and consumed by the belief in its own supremacy, the Catholic Church was unable to respond to the rapid growth and changes of medieval society. Instead it demanded obedience to the Pope's dictates. When cmsades against the Muslim, Greek and Jewish infidel failed to bring about lasting European unity under the banner of Christian- ity, the Church struck closer to home, attacking anyone who threatened its power or disobeyed its commands.
Its thirty-year- long Albigensian crusade ushered in a five-hundred-year-long period of brutal repression, the length and scope of which has no parallel in the Western world. Chapter Six Controlling the Human Spirit: Developed within the Church's own legal frame- work, the Inquisition attempted to terrify people into obedience. As the Inquisitor Francisco Pena stated in , "We must remember that the main purpose of the trial and execution is not to save the soul of the accused but to achieve the public good and put fear into others.
And along with the tyranny of the Inquisition, churchmen also brought religious justification for the practice of slavery. The unsubmissive spirit of the high Middle Ages only seemed to exacerbate the Church's demand for unquestioning obedience. The Church's understanding of God was to be the only under- standing.
There was to be no discussion or debate. Pope Innocent EI declared "that anyone who attempted to construe a personal view of God which conflicted with Church dogma must be burned without pity. The following is an example of such terms: On three Sundays the penitent is to be stripped to the waist and scourged by the priest from the entrance of the town He is to abstain forever from meat and eggs and cheese, except on Easter, Pentecost, and Christ- mas, when he is to eat of them as sign of his abnegation of his Manichaean errors.
For twoscore days, twice a year, he is to forgo the use of fish, and for three days in each week that of fish, wine, and oil, fasting, if his health and labors will permit. He is to wear monastic vestments, with a small cross sewed on each breast. If possible, he is to hear mass daily and on feast-days to attend church at vespers. Seven times a day he is to recite the canonical hours, and, in addition the Paternoster ten times each day and twenty times each night.
He is to observe the strictest chastity. Every month he is to show this paper to the priest, who is to watch its observance closely, and this mode of life is to be maintained until the legate shall see fit to alter it, while for infraction of the penance he is to be held as a perjurer and a heretic, and to be segregated from the society of the faithful. In Pope Gregory IX established the Inquisition as a separate tribunal, independent of bishops and prelates. Its administrators, the inquisitors, were to be answerable only to the Pope.
A suspected friendship with a convicted heretic was also a crime, yet no information was given as to which heretic the accused was to have "adored. Paul were accused of 'adoring' heretics and were prosecuted after the fashion of the Inquisition, there would be no defense open for them.
While he was technically to arrive at his decision after consulting with an assembly of experts of his choosing, this check to his power was soon abandoned.
And in , the Pope granted him the right to absolve these assistants for any acts of violence. Inquisitors grew very rich. They received bribes and annual fines from the wealthy who paid to escape accusation. So unless children had come forth spontaneously to denounce their parents, they were left penniless. Inquisitors even accused the dead of heresy, sometimes as much as seventy years after their death. They exhumed and burned the alleged heretic's bones and then confiscated all property from the heirs. It was hardly a coincidence that the eagerness of the Inquisition in any given region was proportionate to the opportunities for confiscation.
The Church did little to encourage their ideal of poverty. Although it regarded the Franciscan founder, Francis of Assisi, as a saint, the Church persecuted Francis's followers who upheld his ideas of poverty, those known as the Fraticelli, or "Spiritual Franciscans. While it did not overtly endorse the Inquisition's avarice and corrup- tion, the Church did little to stop it. The Inquisition had devastating economic impact. Aside from directly seizing the property of successful merchants by accusing them of heresy, inquisitors crippled commerce by holding certain operations suspect.
For example, maps and map-makers, so essential to navigating traders and merchants, were held in deep suspicion. Inquisitors believed the printed word to be a channel of heresy and so hampered the communication produced by the fifteenth century invention of the printing press. The historian Henry Charles Lea writes: As no man could be certain of the orthodoxy of another, it will be evident how much distrust must have been thrown upon even the commonest transactions of life.
The blighting influence of this upon the development of commerce and industry can readily be perceived, coming as it did at a time when the commercial and industrial movement of Europe was beginning to usher in the dawn of modern culture. The Inquisition was merciless with its victims. The same man who had been both prosecutor and judge decided upon the sentence. Each and every sentence included flagellation. Of the sentences, pilgrimages were considered the lightest. Yet, undertaken on foot, such penances could take years, during which the penitent's family might perish.
The life expectancy in all the prison sentences was very short. Although the Church had begun killing heretics in the late fourth century and again in at Orlean, papal statutes of now insisted that heretics suffer death by fire. The words of the Gospel of John were understood to sanction burning: Such secular authorities, however, were not allowed to decline.
When the Senate of Venice in refused to approve such executions, for example, Pope Leo X wrote that secular officials were: From this order there is no appeal. Torture remained a legal option for the Church from when it was sanctioned by Pope Innocent IV until when the new Codex Juris Canonici was put into effect.
Thus, with license granted by the Pope himself, inquisitors were free to explore the depths of horror and cruelty. Dressed as black-robed fiends with black cowls over their heads, inquisitors extracted confessions from nearly anyone. The Inquisition invented every conceivable devise to inflict pain by slowly dismembering and dislocating the body.
Many of these devices were inscribed with the motto "Glory be only to God. Victims were rubbed with lard or grease and slowly roasted alive. One particularly gruesome torture involved turning a large dish full of mice upside down on the victim's naked stomach. Should a victim withstand such pain without confessing, he or she would be burned alive at the stake, often in mass public burnings, called auto-da-fe.
Juan de Mariana reported in the 's that people This was considered by some the most wretched slavery and equal to death. Bit by bit many rich people leave the country for foreign realms, in order not to live all their lives in fear and trembling every time an officer of the Inquisition enters their house; for continual fear is a worse death than a sudden demise.
The Inquisition now lent its authority to the long-standing Christian persecution of Jews. Particularly during the Christian Holy Week of the Passion, Christians frequently rioted against Jews or refused to sell them food in hopes of starving them. As one inquisitor stated, "We must remember that the main purpose of the trial and execution is not to save the soul of the accused but to achieve the public good and put fear into others. Muslims experienced little better. Not surprisingly, Islamic countries offered far safer sanctuaries to escaping Jews than Christian lands.
Historians have often diminished Christian responsibility for the Inquisition by dividing the Inquisition into three separate phases: The greater secular influence of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella is thought to separate the Spanish Inquisition from the medieval. Jews were expelled from Spain, not from a profit motive there was little money to be made in banishing a large community whose taxes were paid directly to the crown , but from the fear that Jews contaminated Christian society.
Each phase was identical, however, in its demand for absolute submission of the individual to authority, a demand rooted in the orthodox conviction that God similarly requires unquestioning obedience. The tyranny inherent in the belief in singular supremacy accompanied explorers and missionaries throughout the world.
When Columbus landed in America in , he mistook it for India and called the native inhabitants "Indians. That such treatment resulted in complete 6. His converting native inhabitants to Christianity seemed to justify the atrocities committed against them. In his own words, Columbus described how he himself "took [his] pleasure" with a native woman after whipping her "soundly" with a piece of rope.
By the Inquisition had established an independent tribunal in Peru and the city of Mexico for the purpose of "freeing the land, which has become contaminated by Jews and heretics. If the image of God venerated in a foreign land was not Christian, it was simply not divine. Portuguese missionaries in the Far East destroyed pagodas, forced scholars to hide their religious manuscripts, and suppressed older customs. Before the coming of the Spaniards, there was no robbery or violence. The Spanish invasion was the beginning of tribute, the beginning of church dues, the beginning of strife.
In the Near East, the Franciscans fought with the Capuchins. And in India, the Jesuits fought several wars against the Capuchins. Many became missionaries to get rich quickly and then return to Europe to live off their gains. In Mexico, Dominicans, Augustinians and Jesuits were known to own "the largest flocks of sheep, the finest sugar ingenios, the best kept estates A papal Bull justified declaring war on any natives in South America who refused to adhere to Christianity. The king has every right to send his men to the Indies to demand their territory from these idol- aters because he had received it from the pope.
If the Indians refuse, he may quite legally fight them, kill them and enslave them, just as Joshua enslaved the inhabitants of the country of Ca- 65 naan. Orthodox Christians defended slavery as part of the divinely ordained hierarchical order. Passages in the Bible support the institution of slavery: Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids.
Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever. Paul instructed slaves to obey their masters.
The slave should be resigned to his lot, in obey- ing his master he is obeying God Even the well-known Jesuit Antonio Vieira, who was imprisoned by the Inquisition for his work on behalf of the native inhabitants, advocated importing black Africans to serve as slaves for colonial settlers. And he still considered fugitives from slavery guilty of sin and worthy of excommunication.
The eighteenth century Anglican Church made it clear that Christianity freed people from eternal damna- tion, not from the bonds of slavery. The Bishop of London, Edmund Gibson, wrote: The Freedom which Christianity gives, is a Freedom from the Bondage of Sin and Satan, and from the Dominion of Men's Lusts and Passions and inordinate Desires; but as to their outward Condition, whatever that was before, whether bond or free, their being baptised, and becoming Christians, makes no manner of Change in it.
In keeping with the orthodox Christian belief in a singular and fearful God who rules at the pinnacle of hierarchy, power resided solely with authority, not with the individual. Obedience and submission were valued far more than freedom and self-determination. The Inquisition played out the darkest consequences of such a belief system as it imprisoned and killed the bodies and spirits of countless people — and not simply for a brief moment of time.
The Inquisition spanned centuries and was still active in some places as late as Converting the Populace - C. Both the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter Reformation attempted to purge Christianity of pre-Christian and pagan elements. While the medieval Church had embraced orthodox ideology in theory, in practice it had concerned itself far more with amassing wealth and enforcing social obedience than with directing the spirituality of common people. Reformers now set about teaching the European populace a better under- standing of orthodox Christianity.
By frightening people with stories of the devil and the danger of magic, they convinced people to believe in an authoritarian God who demanded discipline, struggle, and the renunciation of physical pleasure. Protesting a Church more concerned with collecting money than with teaching scripture, Martin Luther ignited the Protestant Reformation. When he posted his 95 theses on the door of his town's church in , Luther gave voice to a widespread resentment of the Church. The Catholic Church responded with its own Reformation, called the Counter Reformation, centered around the decisions and canons of the Council of Trent which met between and That both sides consid- ered themselves Christian did not temper the bloodshed.
On August 24, , for example, in what is known as the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day, 10, Protestants were slaughtered in France. Protestants led this effort by advocating stricter adherence to scripture.
Aided by the printing press, the Protestant message demonstrated more uniformity and was less likely to be adapted to older pagan beliefs. Rather than invoking God's participation as a helpmate in life as many had continued to do, Protestants believed that one should be more concerned with supplication and obedience to God's sovereign will.
Jesus should be seen, not as a human being with whom to relate, but as part of almighty God. Some Protestants even denied that Jesus had taken on a biologically human body; his had been a "celestial flesh. His protests against the Catholic Church touched off the Protestant Reformation. The presence of two major branches of Christianity, each convinced that theirs was the only true path to God, turned Europe into a bloodbath.
An individual, they believed, should develop a relationship with God strictly through the word of scripture rather than through the humanized images of Jesus, Mary, the saints, or even through symbols. Much in the way that fourth century Christians vandalized the sacred sites and images of more ancient traditions, so now Protestant mobs, incited by preachers and with the endorsement of public author- ity, destroyed images of saints.
Catholic reformers also diminished the veneration of saints. Saints were now to be seen as heroic figures and models of virtue rather than as friends or benefactors. Yes, Christian faith should be sourced in the Bible, but — as the Council of Trent declared — the Bible was best clarified by "the testimonies of approved holy fathers and councils, the judgement and consensus of the Church.
Some Protestants, on the other hand, rejected rituals and sacraments entirely, insisting that one should experience God strictly through preaching or reading scripture. Augustine's ideas about free will and predestination: Salvation was now possible only through the grace of God, not through individual determination.
Canon Four of the Council of Trent reads: If anyone says that man's free will, moved and stimulated by God, cannot cooperate at all by giving its assent to God when he stimulates and calls him Martin Luther believed that differences in gender, class, race, and belief indicated superior and inferior states of being. In he wrote, "Girls begin to talk and to stand on their feet sooner than boys because weeds always grow up more quickly than good crops. John Calvin, whose doctrine formed the basis of Presbyterianism, wrote of: For He does not create them equal, but appoints some to eternal life, and others to eternal dam- nation.
Calvin's pupil, John Knox, condemned all other creeds. As Protestants fragmented, each new denomination laid claim to the sole divine truth, denouncing all others. In keeping with their belief in an authoritarian God, both Protestants and Catholics advocated strict enforcement of their perception of God's laws. The Catholic Church had already established the means with which to control society and enforce obedience.
Protestants, however, lacked the well-developed judicial structure and hierarchy of the Catholic Church and lacked its global reach. Instead, they transferred the enforcement of personal morality to the state. Aside from its secular func- tions, the state should now uphold the moral purity of society; it should be "the Godly state. Both Protestants and Catholics diminished the important role of the community, making it easier for the Church and state to have more direct control of the individual.
The Reformation discouraged fraternities, which in the Middle Ages had provided for its members in times of need, organized celebrations and plays, helped care for the poor, and set up hospitals. Catholic confessions, which had been a public act of forgiveness that restored a sinner back into the community, became a private matter between the individual and the priest with the introduction of the confession-box in The Reformation — both Protestant and Catholic — replaced the importance of communal harmony with an emphasis upon Godly order and obedience.
Those sins that destroyed the sense of community had been considered the worst: The most important of the ten commandments, however, was the one that upheld, not communal harmony, but parental and civil authority: In Stephen Gardner described a parish in Cambridge: In John Norden wrote: In some parts where I have travelled, where great and spacious wastes, mountains and heaths are, Spirituality, or a relationship with God, lay in repudiating physical pleasure, which often encompassed not just the pleasure of the physical senses but simple comforts as well.
The late seventeenth century Tronson went so far as to declare: If you want to be heirs of Jesus and paradise, that is, if you want not to be damned everlast- ingly but to be happy for ever in heaven, then you must renounce the world entirely and bid it an eternal farewell. Since God was no longer to be found in the physical, the body was ungodly.
Protestants and Catholics competed with each other over how little they could care for their bodies, using little soap and water throughout a lifetime. A youth who dared to bathe at one of our coun- try houses did drown there, perhaps by God's merciful judgement, for He may have wished this fearful example to serve as law. Christian history is replete with condemnations of human sexuality. In the fifth century St. Augustine developed a theory not only of how sin passed from generation to generation by the sexual act, but also how sexual desire was in itself proof of the lack of human free will.
Inquisitors at the turn of the sixteenth century wrote that "God allows the devil more power over the venereal act, by which the original sin is handed down, than over other human 30 actions. It became common, for example, to cite Jerome's remark that a husband committed a sin if he enjoyed sex with his wife too much. Grignon de Montfort, a Catholic missionary, denounced love songs, tales and romances "which spread like the plague A Massachusetts law of prohibited Sunday walks and visits to the harbor as being a waste of time.
Playing children or stalling young men and women were warned that they were engaging in "things tending much to the dishonor of God, the reproach of religion and the prophanation of the holy Sabbath. The seventeenth century bastion of Puritanism in New England frowned upon ornamentation of any sort.
Furniture and dwellings were extremely austere. Beautiful clothing was considered sinful. In the General Court forbade garments: Clothing which revealed the female body was illegal. A New England law prohibited "short sleeves, whereby the nakedness of the arm may be discovered. The perceived separation of humanity from a strictly heavenly God produced a great sense of shame during the Reformation. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, declared: Must this not be my wish in punishment for my sins?
We are all made of mud, and this mud is not just on the hem of our gown, or on the sole of our boots, or in our shoes. We are full of it, we are nothing but mud and filth both inside and out- side. Believing the physical world to be ungodly, Protestant reformers condemned pleasure of any sort: You are a little, wretched, despicable creature; a worm, a mere nothing, and less than nothing; a vile insect, that has risen up in contempt against the majesty of heaven and earth. Reformers extolled discipline and struggle as measures of a person's spirituality and godliness.
Much of the Catholic Counter Reformation focused upon the administration and education of priests so that they could better teach discipline and the laws of the almighty God to their parishioners. Penance became a means of avoiding sinful behavior rather than a way of making amends for sins already committed. Jesus's greatest act was understood to be, not his miracles of healing or his courageous rebellion against injustice, but his suffering and dying on the cross.
The Church canonized individuals as saints, not because of their ease of accomplish- ment, but because of their torment and martyrdom. As the poet of the Spiritual Canticle wrote, one may not "look for Christ without the cross," and "suffering is the livery of those who love God reigned from above and demanded hard work and suffering. As the historian Keith Thomas notes, "man was to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. God hath given nothing unto man but for his travail and pain; and according to his studious industry, care, prudence, providence, assiduity and diligence, he dispenseth unto him every good thing.
He hath not ordained wonders and miracles to give supply unto our common needs, nor to answer the ordinary occasions or uses of our life. This was news to much of medieval Europe. Most people still believed in a multifaceted God who could be called upon to assist in everyday life.
The early Church, unable to convert people from such a belief, had established its own system of ecclesiastical magic. So strong was the belief in the power of the spoken word, for instance, that the Church discouraged people from learning exactly what the priest was saying for fear that they would be able to use such powerful words to work their own magic.
John's Gospel to hang about men's necks The bishop mumbleth a few Latin words over the child, charmeth him, crosseth him, smeareth him with stinking popish oil, and tieth a linen brand about the child's neck and sendeth him home Pre-reformational society had designated a man's rank either by his position within the Church hierarchy or by his status as a noble or fighter. But as the Church hierarchy and the role of nobility declined, financial 7. Articles used in Catholic worship compose the figure: Wealth was considered to be a symbol of a person's hard work and spiritual evolution.
Such a "Puritan work ethic" would crumble, however, if a person could achieve prosperity magically. The increased significance of financial success did not, however, lead churchmen to encourage poor people to escape their poverty or to better their lot. The poor were to endure financial injustice without protest. A seventeenth century preacher explained that: If there are people who abuse the authority of sovereigns and charge you unfair taxes, God allows it in order to enact His justice, to punish your sins and the ill use you make of your.
A missionary hymn from the eighteenth century called An exhortation for working people urges people to bear their station in life quietly: Do not suffer to complain Of life's arduous pain, And harbor no envy For those who dwell on high. Reformers taught that God was in heaven, not on earth. Any supernatural energy in the physical world could therefore only be the work of the devil and his demons.
Indeed, the whole belief in and fear of the devil became paramount during the Reformation. Martin Luther reported having physical encounters with the devil and 7. Anything magical or supernatural could now only be the devil's work. Many imagine that the whole matter is fictitious, since they think that they are not attacked them- selves.
This means that they are in the power of the Devil and have no Christian virtue. There- fore the Devil has no need to tempt them, as their souls are already the Devil's abode. The Protestant Roger Hutchinson wrote: If there be a God, as we most steadfastly must believe, verily there is a Devil also; and if there be a Devil, there is no surer argument, no stronger proof, no plainer evidence, that there is a God.
The catechism of the Jesuit Canisius, for example, mentions the name of satan more often than it does the name of Jesus. Belief in the devil is a means of frightening people into obedience. Churchmen of the Refor- mation were no different from earlier orthodox Christians who had considered fear to be imperative. In Christophe Schrader advised other preachers of the necessity of having: The devil is a necessary counterpart to such an "all-powerful and excellent" God. The devil carries out God's judgment, torment- ing sinners for all eternity.
He is, as King James I called him, "Gods hangman. Attributing malevolence and negativity to the devil removes responsibility from human beings — as well as the power that accompanies responsibility. For, if one is responsible for something, one can do something about it. But if negativity comes from an external devil, one can do little but cower in fear or attack those who represent the devil. Like the belief in the lack of human free will, the belief in the devil engenders a sense of powerlessness, making people easier to control.
The Reformation brought profound and dramatic change. Nations and imperial powers claimed their independence from the Pope. Medieval social structures and values changed. Perhaps most significantiy, the Reformation changed the way people perceived the world. The physical world, once a divine, magical creation, was now understood to be alien to God, belonging only to the devil.
The spiritual path was to be marked by suffering, struggle and chastisement. Chapter Eight The Witch Hunts: The End of Magic and Miracles - C. The Reformation did not convert the people of Europe to orthodox Christianity through preaching and catechisms alone. It was the year period of witch-hunting from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, what R.
Robbins called "the shocking nightmare, the foulest crime and deepest shame of western civilization," 1 that ensured the European abandonment of the belief in magic. The Church created the elaborate concept of devil worship and then, used the persecution of it to wipe out dissent, subordinate the individual to authoritarian control, and openly denigrate women.
The witch hunts were an eruption of orthodox Christianity's vilification of women, "the weaker vessel," in St. Clement of Alexandria wrote: The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age: You are the devil's gateway: You destroyed so easily God's image, man. On account of your desert — that is, death — even the Son of God had to die. The sixth century Christian philosopher, Boethius, wrote in The Consolation of Philosophy, "Woman is a temple built upon a sewer.
Thomas Aquinas suggested that God had made a mistake in creating woman: As I Corinthians 7: King James I estimated that the ratio of women to men who "succumbed" to witchcraft was twenty to one. An historian notes that thirteenth century preachers Throughout the Middle Ages, Mary's powers were believed to effectively curtail those of the devil. Devotion to Mary often became indicative of evil.
In the Canary islands, Aldonca de Vargas was reported to the Inquisition after she smiled at hearing mention of the Virgin Mary. Levers would move the arms of the statue crushing the victim against the knives and nails. Aug 02, Jody Mena rated it it was amazing Shelves: This is a book that every one needs to read, if for no other reason than that if we forget the past we are doomed to repeat it.
The history presented is straightforward and unbiased, though I'm sure it would upset some people to read these facts about Christian history. Much of the information here was history I had already read about in other books, and was here corroborated, filled out and supported with primary sources, but there was also a lot to be learned, and Interesting and informative. Much of the information here was history I had already read about in other books, and was here corroborated, filled out and supported with primary sources, but there was also a lot to be learned, and many concepts were presented and explained in new and interesting ways that helped the reader to better understand them.
It also provided a lot to think about. Something very interesting, and honestly somewhat frightening, was the development of the common conception of God, Nature, humanity, etc, as the Church acted upon the Western world; it drastically affected humanity's very perception of the world around us, and this influence still holds today, so ingrained in our social structure that we are rarely even aware of it.
I was particularly fascinated by Chapter 10, "A World Without God", which demonstrated how the Christian and Atheist world views are essentially very similar in nature, and how this transformation of the way most people view the world is responsible for the hierarchical, conflict-based structure of our modern society, governments, economics and many other factors that one would not usually associate with religion. This book was a fascinating read, I had a hard time putting it down and the pages just flew by.
It was not only entertaining, but extremely relevant, and I think everyone could benefit from it and enjoy reading it! Pick it up if you get a chance! Aug 02, Book rated it really liked it Shelves: Researcher and writer, Helen Ellerbe, provides the readers with an often ignored part of history. This book is provocative, concise and unrelenting. This insightful page book includes the following eleven chapters: Seeds of Tyranny, 2. Making Christianity Palatable to the Romans, 3. The Church Takes Over: The Dark Ages, 5. The Church Fights Change: The Middle Ages, 6. Controlling the Human Spirit: The Inquisition and Slavery, 7.
Converting the Populace, 8. The End of Magic and Miracles, 9. Alienation from Nature, A World Without God, and A concise, concentrated expose of a book. A fascinating and often ignored topic. To say that this book is thought-provoking is an understatement of biblical proportions. Presents the dark legacy of Christianity in an unrelenting manner. Clearly defines Orthodox Christians and drives the dark part of their history home. The immediate impact of a Church takeover is revealed and the dark history is exposed. Misogyny rears its ugly head.
A brief history of how Christianity went from a cult into the official religion of the Roman Empire. How the Bible and in particular the New Testament was compiled. Eye-opening facts, "Constantine, a man who had his own son executed and his wife boiled alive,17 saw in Christianity a pragmatic means of bolstering his own military power and uniting the vast and troubled Roman Empire. The Church doctrines, their purpose and impact. In each case, it chose ideological positions which best justified Church control over the individual and over society. The critical role that the Church played in taking Europe to the Dark Ages.
The Crusades and here we go Invading crusaders destroyed in much the same way as the Church had at the onset of the Dark Ages. They burned any books they found. And along with the tyranny of the Inquisition, churchmen also brought religious justification for the practice of slavery. The interesting history of the Reformation. The ugly that is the witch hunts.
If that wasn't enough, nature takes a backseat. As people came to perceive God as a singular supremacy detached from the physical world, they lost their reverence for nature. In Christian eyes, the physical world became the realm of the devil. His scientific laws of gravity and motion lent validation to the orthodox Christian belief that God no longer worked miracles or intervened in the physical world. Excellent conclusion that brings Ellerbe's main thoughts together. Notes and Bibliography provided. Missed opportunities to cover other historical topics of interest: For the most part Ellerbe stays on topic and is true to the title; where she loses focus is when she inexplicably inserts quantum mechanics in the latter part of the book.
In short, her science was weak. Ellerbe would have done herself a favor had she left her limited understanding of science out of it. The book in general is well-cited but there were citations missing when one would be expecting one. The book lacks scholarship and at times comes across as sensationalized. In summary, this book delivers the goods in a concise almost unrelenting manner. The book is full of eye-opening facts that are guaranteed to raise your blood pressure.
It's thought provoking, dark and exposes a part of history that the Church wants no part of but is necessary to know so as to avoid repeating the theocracies of the past. Is all this history accurate, has it been embellished, is it portraying just the dark history of Christianity?
Ellerbe makes it clear, "This book is, as the title suggests, only an exploration of the dark side of Christian history. I highly recommend you read this book if you dare have the stomach for it. Haught, "The Origin of Satan: A Collection of Essays" by Barbara G. Aug 23, Signy rated it really liked it Shelves: The book serves well as an overview of the history of imperial Christianity called Orthodox Christianity in the book and how they actively wiped out native cultures, which often emphasized a multi-faceted view of divinity and a deep respect for the natural world, and created a new one based on strict adherence to male authority.
It is far from comprehensive, though perhaps because a more complete history would have required a much larger project. The book presents a good review of the ideologic The book serves well as an overview of the history of imperial Christianity called Orthodox Christianity in the book and how they actively wiped out native cultures, which often emphasized a multi-faceted view of divinity and a deep respect for the natural world, and created a new one based on strict adherence to male authority. The book continually references native cultures and spiritualities as if none of those peoples still exist, even though some of us are indeed left.
We are beginning to make a come back in this age even, as people slowly decolonize themselves. Near the end of the book, it gives a very good overview of how Christian ideology has strongly shaped what has come to be called Western society though such would more appropriately be called modern Anglo-Roman society.
This includes even modern perspectives on government, economics, and science. It feels safe to call this book required reading for all those looking to make the world a better place. Mar 01, Rodrigo J rated it it was amazing. If you want knowledge, you need to read both sides of the story, and I say story because history is what it should be, but stories is what we get.
A key point in the book that perhaps summarizes the book is that for the Church it has been essential to monopolize both: They insist that it should be through them, and not directly or through another religion, thus, even though not necessarily the point of the book, all the problems with mystics, and of course with sister religions If you want knowledge, you need to read both sides of the story, and I say story because history is what it should be, but stories is what we get.
They insist that it should be through them, and not directly or through another religion, thus, even though not necessarily the point of the book, all the problems with mystics, and of course with sister religions. Those two should be partners in a common goal spirituality , not enemies, and 2 The definition of God. The Catholic Church went to far as to make a lot of dogmas, or fixed truth about God, as if we humans can define the infinite, as if the infinite can be grasped and made to fit in our limited concepts Some of these dogmas were drafted by Emperor Constantine, who was not even Catholic, at least not until at his deathbed, and that if you believe the father who was with him and was the only one who know if he did convert or not.
Any way, to give an idea of who Constantine was, it should suffice by indicating that he killed his father in law, his brother in law, his wife and his own son. And he made the dogmas in between these assassinations after the father and brother in law, before the wife and son. Not very blessed, it seems. In following these 2 objectives the Church has insisted that, as the exclusive franchisee of God on earth or perhaps the universe, have not read the franchise agreement, and for a good reason, there is none , they somehow have sovereign over us, humans.
MAde quite clear through years of Inquisition.
That has been a grave error, it is us humans who were made at the image of God. The Church, in my opinion, is like a waiter, giving us, humans, a service, that we can take if we want, but should not be in any way forced to take. This presumption that we are the way, that only the Church has the keys of heaven, as if God is ours and not the other way around , well, that is tribal arrogance. If you want to read of the Church from the Church itself, read the Manual for the Inquisitor. There you will see what they the Church think of us humans. You will not like it, not a bit.
I wish more people knew about this book - a really good general overview of the repressive history of the church. I stumbled upon this book tucked away on a shelf in a used bookstore. The crazy, sensationalist cover was almost too much for me, but it's been increasingly hard to find radical history past the 's and so have been turning more and more to histories of heretical groups, which this book touches on. I read it over the course of a few days and really grew to appreciate Ellerbes analys I wish more people knew about this book - a really good general overview of the repressive history of the church.
I read it over the course of a few days and really grew to appreciate Ellerbes analysis, touching on most of the things I wanted her to: And most of all I was holding my breath throughout the whole book hoping she wouldn't fall into the rationalist trap Ellerbe doesn't see the enlightenment as oppositional to and the end of the church's mentality, but the extension and realization of some of it's most repressive ideas - excellent! So many people who don't like the traditional church become obsessed with stupid enlightenment ideas, I'm so glad she didn't ruin the end of the book with that.
She does from time to time cheerlead certain ideas that the church crushed that I don'k think are worth supporting, but overall does a good job. I also really enjoyed hearing about the specific events that lead to certain church dogma. Jul 13, Donald Fox rated it it was amazing Shelves: Naming the sin indeed October 31, I flew through this amazingly interesting book and am sure that the majority of conservative Christians will be upset or at least frustrated by its clear presentation of Christian historical wrongdoings.
It will make some fundamentalists shake with fear as it demonstrates to us that Christianity did not suddenly appear on earth and that the idolization of power has been ever-present in church doctrine and action. If not taken as a threat, this work will ul Naming the sin indeed October 31, I flew through this amazingly interesting book and am sure that the majority of conservative Christians will be upset or at least frustrated by its clear presentation of Christian historical wrongdoings. If not taken as a threat, this work will ultimately strengthen Christian conviction to see the "plank" in its own eye, namely the evil that many Christians have done, supported, or not fought against in the name of the Church and its deity.
So much has already been written by other reviewers, that I will keep my comments on a more personal level. I was excited to see the connections that Helen Ellerbe makes between the origins of Christianity and the other "pagan" religions that surrounded it. It was wonderful to read her deconstruction of the accumulation of power in the Church and to see how the institutional church has used its power to threaten and subdue any serious adversaries.
I was impressed by the notes and while I agree with others that it is biased, I was not surprised at all by the author's conclusions since the title of the book reflects exactly where Ellebe takes the reader. This is an excellent piece of writing for those serious Christian readers who want to build on their faith in a way in which reason is an acceptable gift of God.
The information can be misused in attempts to vilify the Church, but does little in any purported swipes at the Gospel. Aug 29, John rated it it was amazing Shelves: Big gifts in small packages. Ellerbe condenses years of church history into small pages but covers the ground solidly and completely, citing dozens of references in each chapter.
As the title suggest, this is no fair-and-balanced treatment… she leaves the up side to others. Being reasonably well read in history, I was surprised at how much I learned. The story of the Dark Ages, Middles Ages, Inquisition and Reformation atrocities including witch hunts is laid out with power, if not gr Big gifts in small packages.
The story of the Dark Ages, Middles Ages, Inquisition and Reformation atrocities including witch hunts is laid out with power, if not great style. A large percentage of the text are actual historical quotations, thoroughly footnoted. The included artwork brings a richness to the story being told. Ellerbe shows the history of the western church to be not lacking in morality, but hideously immoral in thought and deed.
Ellerbe does a credible job of linking evolving orthodoxy with the institution's behavior. This book did nothing to change my long held belief that all religion has been and continues to be a source of evil in our world. Oct 25, David Corbet rated it really liked it. I would not say this book is a must read, but it is an interesting read.
She does set out from the beginning with the clear agenda to find and support all the bad things the church did over the ages. And she certainly found what she was looking for. But if it happened with the intention and cruelty that she depicts is another question all together. There is no doubt that religions of any sort have been used to control people and populations.
And the reason it is that way is because religions a I would not say this book is a must read, but it is an interesting read. And the reason it is that way is because religions are made up of humans, humans seek security and power. And then they learn to abuse that power to maintain control.
There is nothing in the teachings of Jesus, or the church, that dictates the kind of violence and hate portrayed in this book unless twisted to do so. And we have seen much twisting over the ages. I think a more balanced approach, that is striving to understand the historical and cultural contexts in which much of this history takes place, will help to better understand why things came about the way they did.
Much of that history is overlooked in this book in order to find the conclusions she is looking for. May 05, Zweegas rated it really liked it.