The Scholastics and the Jews

The Scholastics and the Jews: Coexistence, Conversion, and the Medieval Origins of Tolerance Kindle Edition
by Edmund Mazza

Why be tolerant?

Seriously, if you know the answer, and you are faced with ignorant people who are getting in the way of something that is good or necessary because they are foolishly adhering to the wrong answer, why should you tolerate their wrong beliefs, which are getting in the way of everyone's benefit?

Recently, the answer seems to be you shouldn't. Doubts about the efficacy or prudence of Covid shutdowns or vaccinations, or wearing masks, were not only condemned but arguments supporting the doubts were squelched and the doubters were stigmatized as murderers. Likewise, an entire industry has developed to condemn those who do not swear allegiance to the maximally extreme position in support of what is vaguely called “anti-racism.” It is no longer sufficient to be against racism in order to be an “anti-racist,” but, rather, the person must commit to a variety of ideological positions amounting to taking a position on history, sociology, and economics. Those who do not profess their allegiance to these propositions are fired, shamed, or otherwise removed from the public square. Another belief that permits no dissent is the belief that climate change is an existential threat. When she was California's Attorney General Kamala Harris threatened to use RICO to punish those who dared to dispute the truth of this claim. https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/04/11/attorney-generals-conspire-free-speech-schneiderman-harris-exxon-cei-column/82878218/

This is an odd turn of events. Traditionally, it was liberals who professed to be tolerant. Admittedly, the people doing this are not liberals. Liberals have long since left the building, being replaced by Leftists. Nonetheless, Leftism, like liberalism, has its genesis from the Enlightenment, and tolerance of religious differences was a core Enlightenment principle.

Enlightenment tolerance was based on epistemic humility, i.e., Enlightened people knew that no one possessed the truth or that there may be no truth. Does God exist? Which religion is the true religion? Who knows? Maybe none are. Under such epistemic humility, persecution makes no rational sense. In fact, it might be counterproductive since what people need is more information to slowly make conclusions about the truth. In areas of values, opinions, philosophy, and religion, it is best to let people make their own decision and let all the truths compete with each other in a “marketplace of ideas.”

Enlightenment tolerance was based on or benefited from nihilism. If a single truth did not exist or if truth could not be known, then tolerance made more sense since no one could know who was right, or, perhaps, everyone, or no one, was right.

One thing that seems clear is that Leftists do not suffer from epistemic nihilism about their beliefs. For them, racism is evil, masks are necessary, and climate change is causing the seas to boil.

Faced with this certain knowledge, why shouldn't Leftists persecute.

Edmund Mazza offers a different approach to the idea of tolerance, a Catholic approach based on friendship and sharing the good.

“Catholic tolerance” may seem like and oxymoron, but Mazza traces the historical thread of a Catholic concept of tolerance. Christianity, which is to say Catholicism in the West, always accepted the proposition that salvation through Christ had to be freely accepted and that people could not be coerced into believing. Forced baptism didn't save. Coercion to make people Christian was regularly condemned by Catholic thinkers and leaders.

For Catholic Europe, the issue of religious toleration applied to three groups: Jews, Muslims, and heretics. Heretics were a special case because they were Christian. Since they had been baptized, Catholics believed that heretics could be held to their baptismal promises. Jews and Muslims were outside of Christianity. Muslims presented the problem of being an outsider community linked to external threats. Jews were outsiders who were not linked to external threats, and, more importantly, had a special status for Christians. As Paula Fredrikson points out in “Augustine and the Jews” ( https://www.amazon.com/Augustine-Jews-Christian-Defense-Judaism-ebook/dp/B005LMEYOU/ref=sr_1_8?crid=USBQQ0LFX8ZY&keywords=Paula+Fredriksen&qid=1696201985&s=digital-text&sprefix=paula+fredriksen%2Cdigital-text%2C231&sr=1-8 ) , Jews enjoyed a special status for Christians as guarantors of the Christian scriptures. Christians could point to Jews as the source of Christianity, which vouched for the provenance of Christianity. In addition, Christian scriptures had a place for Jews; they were to be converted en masse in the final days.

Mazza's concern seems to be with defending Catholicism in general, and the Dominicans, in particular, against the charge of being a “persecuting society.” This is the dominant modern academic view of medieval Catholicism and is based on the paradigm that Catholicism sought to exterminate everything not-Catholic in the interest of political and cultural uniformity. In this paradigm, the emergence of mendicant orders with a mission of preaching and converting non-Catholics is viewed as a species of persecution and intolerance. Modern academics present medieval Christianity as a fascist police state with Dominicans as storm troopers. For them, the Gospel of John is the doorway to the Shoah. (p. 35.)

In criticizing this view, Mazza's approach is to review the explanations given by the historical actors themselves. What Mazza finds is that these people were not motivated by a desire to persecute but by love, friendship and a desire to share the good with friends.

Mazza begins with earliest Christianity for context. He points out that the rhetoric used in the gospels and Christian polemics adopted the tropes and rhetoric of intra-Jewish disputations. Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes vilified each other with a wild abandon. Christianity was just another member of the family. Its anti-Judaism was not remarkable compared to its siblings.(p. 37.)

In addition, Christianity could not divorce itself from Judaism. Jewish practices were accepted as a forerunner of Christian practices. Justin Martyr used Jewish scripture as a basis for his friendly dialogue with Trypho. Augustine fashioned a place for a permanent Jewish presence within the Christian polity. Christianity also made its own pleas for tolerance based on the universal human power of reason. Mazza claims that the term “religious liberty” may have been coined by Tertullian:

Or as he writes elsewhere:

We are worshippers of one God, of whose existence and character Nature teaches all men; at whose lightnings and thunders you tremble, whose benefits minister to your happiness. You think that others, too, are gods, whom we know to be devils. However, it is a fundamental human right, a privilege of nature that every man should worship according to his own convictions: one man's religion neither harms nor helps another man. It is assuredly no part of religion to compel religion—to which free-will and not force should lead us—the sacrificial victims even being required of a willing mind. You will render no real service to your gods by compelling us to sacrifice.48 (emphasis mine)

Though he develops these principles no further, the significance of Tertullian's testimony can hardly be overestimated. One may search the thousand-year history of Greece and Rome and never find a forerunner to Tertullian's plea for individual liberty grounded in reason/natural law. He recognized that human liberty is rooted in human nature and Nature's God, to be used in accordance with His eternal Law, which Nature obeys blindly, but which man—whose nature is fashioned in the image and likeness of God—may rationally choose to obey. That is to say: Liberty is not the right to do whatever you want; it is the freedom to do what you ought. And conversely then, “sin” is defined as “an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law,” to use the words of that infamous-sinner-turned-saint, Augustine of Hippo.49

Furthermore, we might state that this definition of liberty is not limited to Christians of Late Antiquity or the Middle Ages. In his 1963 landmark Letter From a Birmingham Jail, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. explained in scholastic fashion to fellow Evangelical Christian pastors why he advocated obeying the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision outlawing segregation in the public schools, while disobeying other so-called “laws” during his civil rights protests in the prejudiced South.

Mazza, Edmund. The Scholastics and the Jews: Coexistence, Conversion, and the Medieval Origins of Tolerance . Angelico Press. Kindle Edition.

Mazza turns to the early Scholastics. This book made me appreciate that Aquinas did not spring forth from virgin soil. According to Mazza, Anselm was friendly to Jews. His Cur Deus Homo (1094-1098) was a response to objections made by London Jews. Anselm made arguments that appealed to reason, and, significantly, he did assumed that Jews could understand his reasoned arguments as rational human beings:

Ultimately then, Anselm believes his non-Christian audience just as capable of analyzing his arguments as Christians. This is surely belief in the mental equality of infidel intellects. Furthermore, he demonstrates that his true goal is to see them united with Christians praising God. This is the development of a theology of inclusion based on Christ's redemption: Because God made man in his own image, the human mind is capable of grasping reasonable arguments: Christian and non-Christian minds. Because death had entered into the human race through the disobedience of the first man, all are stained with the same sin: Christians and non-Christians. Because God became man and paid man's penalty for sin on the cross, He is the Redeemer of all and deserving of praise: Christian and non-Christian. With Anselm, we have the beginning of a deeper exploration of the mystery of God's mercy, of the development of a scholastic theology of sin and redemption and its implications for Christians—and non-Christians. Indeed, it is precisely inquiry into human sin and divine mercy that motivates Anselm to write a work answering the objections of unbelievers—for Anselm's investigation leads him to believe that salvation is for them also, and how else shall this redemption reach them if he does not supply rational proofs to convince them?

Mazza, Edmund. The Scholastics and the Jews: Coexistence, Conversion, and the Medieval Origins of Tolerance . Angelico Press. Kindle Edition.

Abelard was more than an amorous teacher. Abelard continued Anselm's belief in the primacy of reason to persuade all humans. Mazza credits Abelard with establishing that the sacrament of repentance was principally effected by the penitent's inner act of repentance. Abelard wrote a philosophical dialogue between a fictional Christian, Jew, and philosopher that explored religious issues from a rational perspective and presupposed that humans shared the ability to reason and could find the truth through reason.

Abelard was followed by successors who were motivated to reach out to Jews because of a belief that Jews had the same interest in overcoming sin as Christians had. The mysterious Odo continued Abelard's view that Jews like Christians should pursue sinlessness. Alan of Lille (1120-1202) also developed an interest in penitence. For Alan, the priest who heard confessions was a doctor for the cure of souls. Alan would have “sinners healed through confession and ultimately attain life everlasting.” This included Jews, but since Jews did not accept the Christian scriptures, Alan employed philosophy. Alan also used the Talmud in his arguments.

St. Dominic entered history because of his missionary ambition. Dominic wanted to missionize the Cuman, who were then ensconced in what is now Hungary, and who would shortly be crushed by the Mongols. Dominic's goal shows a total reorientation from Anselm. Anselm believed that salvation could not be obtained outside of monasteries. There was no idea that it would be worthwhile to missionize outside the monastery walls; if anyone wanted salvation, they would need to enter a monastery.

By Dominic's day, this attitude had reversed as devout Christians proposed to go into the world preaching and hearing confession. In order to carry out this mission Dominicans became educated. They learned the languages of the people they proposed to missionize. They learned philosophy, which was virtually the universal language. They went into the field as wanderers dependent on the charity of those to whom they ministered.
Dominic was followed by St. Ramon de Penaforrt. Ramon edited the Decretals and asked St. Thomas Aquinas to write the Summa Contra Gentile in order to assist missionaries in working among non-Christians. Ramon de Penafort was followed by St. Ramon Lull. These last two seem to complete the transition of the Dominicans to an outward looking missionizing movement that learned the languages of the people they would missionize and learned arguments based on the language and ideas of those people. Mazza characterizes the motivation of these people as being to share the good of forgiveness with people who were in need of that good.

In the Summa Theologica, St. Thomas Aquinas explains that non-Christians are not sent to Hell because of their unbelief, but they may be sent to Hell because of their unforgiven sins. The implication of this would be that it is essential that Christians provide non-Christians with the means to obtain forgiveness. Aquinas also affirmed that non-Christians were not to be prevented from practicing their religion. In these conclusions, Aquinas was incorporating ideas that Ramon de Penaforte had already explored.

This is not to say that there was no anti-Semitism. Mazza points out that the Talmud was put on trial resulting in mass burnings in 1242. However, there was an “about face” by Pope Innocent IV in 1247 when the pope was convinced by Jews that the Talmud was essential for their religious practices. Likewise, Dominicans were given permission to preach in Jewish communities, which resulted in bands of Christian rowdies accompanying them and doing violence to the Jews. This behavior resulted in the crown imposing conditions on the Dominicans to reduce the violence.

As “persecuting societies” go, this all seems pretty half-hearted. Although Christians and Dominicans could be cruel, It doesn't seem that the intent of Christians or Dominicans was to exterminate Jews. If that was the intent, why would they have backed off? It seems that there cruelty was based on ignorance and chauvinism.

Why was there any restraint? Do we expect restraint as a normal human practice? Do we see it among, say, Communists?

Mazza's explanation is that in recognizing non-Christians as rational human, the Scholastics recognized that non-Christians were open to learning the truth through reason. Further, in being humans, non-Christians bore the image of God. Therefore, in Catholic sacramental understanding, non-Christians were as entitled to have their religious liberty respected as Christians because they were bearers of the image of God. Further, they were also entitled to be treated with friendship, which meant sharing the good that Christians had, namely medicine for their sins.

All of this bears on “tolerance.” “Tolerance” means tolerating the bad for the sake of the good. Sometimes friendship means accepting the bad of a friend to avoid making that person worse. We must exercise prudence in applying fraternal correction. If we think that fraternal correction will cause a friend to amend their ways, then fraternal correction is prudent. If we think that our friend will resent the fraternal correction and dig their heels in and become worse, then fraternal correction should be foregone in the name of friendship. Mazza explains:

The Catholic ideal of both proselytism and tolerance was based on the notion of the brotherhood of poor sinners in need of transformation in Christ. It was considered the highest compliment to the dignity of the “Other” to invite him to share in that greatest good, which the Christian already possessed. True, this meant disabusing him of alleged untruths, but always by force of reason, not compulsion. To call this “tolerance” is not to diminish in any way the obvious hardships that the Jewish aljamas experienced as a direct result of its implementation. The Catholic construct, however, actually came with built-in curbs against its own excesses. If the Dominicans in the Crown of Aragon are guilty of anything, it was not adhering to the self-imposed limits of the medieval Catholic conception of tolerance, as elaborated by their own Thomas Aquinas: “Now fraternal correction is directed to a brother's amendment: so that it is a matter of precept, in so far as it is necessary for that end, but not so as we have to correct our erring brother at all places and times.” (emphasis mine) The Angelic Doctor explains in his Summa theologiae that whereas the Catholic faith obliges men never to commit blasphemy, murder, adultery, or other violations of the Decalogue under any pretext, the converse, never missing any opportunity to practice the virtues (like fraternal correction), is not an obligation:

Mazza, Edmund. The Scholastics and the Jews: Coexistence, Conversion, and the Medieval Origins of Tolerance . Angelico Press. Kindle Edition.

And:

But if admonishing our friend the sinner was only likely to make him more stubborn in his sin, then admonishment was to be foregone. Indeed, God requires that one practice prudence and mercy toward one's neighbor, not the malevolent vigilance that awaits every opportunity to catch him in his sin: “As Augustine says (De Doctr. Christ. i, 28) ... that ‘Our Lord warns us not to be listless in regard of one another's sins: not indeed by being on the lookout for something to denounce, but by correcting what we see': else we should become spies on the lives of others, which is against the saying of Proverbs 24:19: ‘Lie not in wait, nor seek after wickedness in the house of the just, nor spoil his rest.'”24 Thus, the medieval practice of preaching to sinners and proselytizing unbelievers came with its own built-in curbs against excesses that degrade the dignity of the “Other.” This is medieval Catholic tolerance, which, as we have said, is not the passive restraint of hatred, but the active practice of love.

Mazza, Edmund. The Scholastics and the Jews: Coexistence, Conversion, and the Medieval Origin