DBSJ 17 (2012): 63–77
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY AND
THE EARLY CHURCH
by
Paul Hartog1
Modern concepts of “religious tolerance” often view religion
through a skeptical lens, ground during the Enlightenment, which
magnifies the historical wrongs committed by organized religion.2 As
Voltaire penned in his Treatise on Toleration (1763), “The less we have
of dogma, the less dispute; the less we have of dispute, the less misery.”3 It is no wonder that Voltaire described theological controversy as
a “plague” and an “epidemic illness.” For many historians, therefore,
the Enlightenment plays the hero in the quest for religious freedom.4
As a corollary, “Constantinianism” (portrayed as the Christian utilization of the power of the state to accomplish religious purposes) is often
seen as the inevitable outgrowth of the very essence of Christianity.5
“But,” warns John Bowlin, “these assumptions of Enlightenment
historiography cheat the truth.”6 The common interpretation does not
1
Dr. Hartog is an Associate Professor at Faith Baptist Theological Seminary in
Ankeny, IA.
2
See the complexities of early modern views in Perez Zagorin, How the Idea of
Religious Toleration Came to the West (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003).
3
From the English translation available at http://classicliberal.tripod.com/
voltaire/toleration.html (accessed 6 May 2012).
4
Another famous Enlightenment piece, although varying in tenor from Voltaire’s,
was John Locke’s Letter on Toleration (1685).
5
Peter Garnsey notes this common assumption in “Religious Toleration in
Classical Antiquity,” in W. J. Sheils, ed., Persecution and Toleration (London:
Blackwell, 1984), 20. Guy G. Stroumsa more complexly claims that “religious
intolerance” is a natural outworking of “a double tradition within early Christian
psyche: a demand for tolerance together with an acceptance of intolerance, its
presuppositions and its consequences” (Guy G. Stroumsa, “Tertullian on Idolatry and
the Limits of Tolerance,” in Tolerance and Intolerance in Early Judaism and Christianity
[New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998], 181; cf.173). According to Stroumsa,
religious tolerance must presuppose “a certain relativism in religious matters” (ibid.,
174). But see below.
6
John Bowlin, “Tolerance among the Fathers,” Journal of the Society of Christian
Ethics 26 (2006): 11. Bowlin’s essay makes the point that the church fathers had to
learn that “tolerance” was only extended to those who were already accepted as
members of the community. “Christians could not be tolerated without first being
regarded as members, and they could not be so regarded without forsaking the
activities they hoped would be tolerated” (ibid., 23). “Refusal to participate is what
Christians want tolerated, and it is precisely their refusal that makes their request
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take into account the historic role of religious groups, such as Baptists,
upon the development of “religious liberty.”7 The common interpretation also overlooks the emphasis upon religious liberty in preConstantinian (“ante-Nicene”) Christianity. In fact, the phrase “religious liberty” (libertas religionis) was actually coined by an early church
author, Tertullian of Carthage (c. A.D. 197).8 Early church leaders
defended religious freedom based upon the proper nature of religious
belief, religious worship, religious persuasion, and religious defense.9
Moreover, the universal arguments underlying the early Patristic position were pertinent to all, not only to fellow Christians.
THE NATURE OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF
AND RELIGIOUS PRACTICE
Philip Schaff, the renowned church historian, asserted, “The early
Apologists—Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Lactantius—boldly claimed the
freedom of religion as a natural right.”10 In the mid-second century,
Justin Martyr resolutely argued that coercion is contrary to religious
devotion.11 Several decades later, Tertullian similarly insisted that no
impossible to grant…. They ask to be tolerated as harmless outsiders, yet it is precisely
because they are outsiders that they cannot be tolerated” (ibid., 16–17).
7
“It is arguable that no Christian denomination has made greater contributions
toward preserving religious liberty in America and in the world than Baptists” (Derek
H. Davis, “Baptists and the American Tradition of Religious Liberty,” Perspectives in
Religious Studies 33 [2006]: 64). For two recent studies of Baptists and religious
liberty, see Thomas White, Jason G. Duesing, and Malcom B. Yarnell III, eds., First
Freedom: The Baptist Perspective on Religious Liberty (Nashville: B&H Academic,
2007); and W. M. Pinson, Baptists and Religious Liberty (Dallas: BaptistWay Press,
2007). For nuances concerning the early Baptist views of religious liberty, see William
G. McLoughlin, New England Dissent, 1630–1833: The Baptists and the Separation of
Church and State, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971); John Coffey,
Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England 1558–1689 (Harlow: Longman,
2000); Theodore Dwight Bozeman, “John Clarke and the Complications of Liberty,”
Church History 75 (2006): 69–93. See also the historical sections of Charles McDaniel,
“The Decline of the Separation Principle in the Baptist Tradition of Religious
Liberty,” Journal of Church and State 50 (2008): 413–430.
8
See Garnsey, “Religious Toleration in Classical Antiquity,” 16.
9
I will use the terms “religious freedom” and “religious liberty” interchangeably in
this study. “Religious Liberty,” according to Glenn Hinson, “means the freedom of every
human being, whether as an individual or in a group, from social coercion in religious
matters.... Religious liberty defined in this manner encompasses several freedoms. One
is freedom of conscience, the right freely to determine what faith or creed to follow.
Others are freedom of religious expression, freedom of association, and freedom for
corporate and institutional activities” (Glenn Hinson, Religious Liberty: The Christian
Roots of Our Fundamental Freedoms [Louisville: Glad River, 1991], 13; italics original).
10
Philip Schaff’s essay on “The American Idea of Religious Freedom” can be
found at http://truthinheart.com/EarlyOberlinCD/CD/6/religfre.htm (accessed 6 May
2012).
11
M. Searle Bates, Religious Liberty: An Inquiry (New York: International
Missionary Council, 1945), 137; cf. Justin Martyr, Apology 10.
Religious Liberty and the Early Church
65
one should “wish to receive reluctant worship,” nor “to do away with
freedom of religion, to forbid a man choice of deity, so that I may not
worship whom I would, but am forced to worship whom I would
not.”12 Not even a human would long to receive such unwilling homage.13
Tertullian explained in his Apology,
Moreover, the injustice of forcing men of free will to offer sacrifice
against their will is readily apparent, for, under all other circumstances, a
willing mind is required for discharging one’s religious obligations. It
certainly would be considered absurd were one man compelled by another to honor gods whom he ought to honor of his own accord and for
his own sake.14
In another work, ad Scapulam, Tertullian reiterated,
It is the law of mankind and the natural right of each individual to
worship what he thinks proper, nor does the religion of one man either
harm or help another. But, it is not proper for religion to compel men to
religion, which should be accepted of one’s own accord, not by force,
since sacrifices also are required of a willing mind. So, even if you compel
us to sacrifice, you will render no service to your gods.15
A century later, Lactantius argued that religious persecution was a
violation of both human and divine law.16 Lactantius queried, “Who is
so insolent, so lofty as to forbid me to raise my eyes to heaven, to impose on me the necessity either of worshiping what I do not want to or
of not worshiping what I wish?”17 Lactantius maintained that freedom
ultimately dwells in religion, since religion “is a matter which is voluntary above all others, nor can necessity be imposed upon any, so as to
worship that which he does not wish.”18 An individual may be physically forced to pretend he or she is worshiping, but the true desire
12
Tertullian, Apology 24; trans. T. R. Glover, Tertullian: Apology, De Spectaculis,
Loeb Classical Library (New York: Heinemann, 1931), 133.
13
Tertullian, Apology 24.
14
Tertullian, Apology 28; trans. Emily J. Daly, and Edwin A. Quain, Tertullian:
Apologetical Works and Minucius Felix: Octavius, Fathers of the Church (New York:
Fathers of the Church, 1950). Tertullian went on to appeal to “the right of liberty
(iure libertatis)” (Apology 28).
15
Tertullian, To Scapula 2; trans. Arbesmann, Daly, and Quain, Tertullian. See
also Martha C. Frank’s comments upon Origen’s views in “Gilbert Burnet, Tolerance,
and the Fathers of the Church,” Anglican and Episcopal History 1 (1998): 43–44.
16
Garnsey, “Religious Toleration,” 15.
17
Lactantius, Divine Institutes 5.13; trans. Mary F. McDonald, Lactantius: Divine
Institutes, Books 1–7, Fathers of the Church (Washington: CUA Press, 1965). For a
recent examination of this Patristic work, see Anthony Bowen and Peter Garnsey,
Lactantius: Divine Institutes (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2003).
18
Lactantius, Epitome of the Divine Institutes, 54; trans. William Fletcher in
Fathers of the Third and Fourth Centuries, Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 7 (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1951).
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remains absent.19
Lactantius further asserted that worship against one’s will, worship
that is “without devotion and faith,” is “useless to God.”20 “If you
wish, indeed, to defend religion by blood, if by torments, if by evil,
then, it will not be defended, but it will be polluted and violated.
There is nothing so voluntary as religion, and if the mind of the one
sacrificing in a religious rite is turned aside, the act is now removed;
there is no act of religion.”21 As Charles Freeman explains Lactantius’
views, “Belief imposed from outside is meaningless to God, who places
greater value on conviction from within.”22
How will God grant an answer to prayer, asked Lactantius, if one
does not pray properly from the heart? When such faithless individuals
“come to do sacrifice, they offer nothing intimate, nothing personal to
their gods; they have no uprightness of mind, no reverence, no fear.
And when the empty sacrifices have been gone through, they leave all
their religion in the temple and with the temple, just as they had found
it, and they do not bring or take back with them anything from it.”23
Such heartless religion, void of all conviction of faith and persuasion of
conscience, is no more than “a ritualistic act.”24 A “sacrifice which is
wrested from one against his will” is an oxymoron, since worship that
is not “spontaneous and from the heart” is “an execration,” as “when
men do it driven by postscription or injuries or prison or torments.”25
THE NATURE OF RELIGIOUS DEFENSE
AND RELIGIOUS PERSUASION
In the mid-second century, Cyprian of Carthage contrasted physical coercion with proper religious persuasion. He asked the pagan
authorities why they would ever use physical intimidation to accomplish religious purposes: “Why do you concern yourself with the
weakness of the body, why do you contend with the feebleness of
earthly flesh? Attack the vigor of the mind, break the strength of the
mind, destroy faith; conquer, if you can, by discussion, conquer by
reason.”26 Cyprian continued with a rational critique of religious
19
Ibid. Libanius, a pagan rhetorician, also noted that policies of coercion led to
religious hypocrisy (see Garnsey, “Religious Toleration in Classical Antiquity,” 22).
20
Lactantius, Divine Institutes, 5.19; trans. McDonald, Lactantius: Divine
Institutes.
21
Ibid.
22
Charles Freeman, AD 381: Heretics, Pagans and the Christian State (London:
Pimlico, 2008), 37.
23
Ibid.
24
Ibid.
25
Lactantius, Divine Institutes, 5.20; trans. McDonald, Lactantius: Divine
Institutes.
26
Cyprian, To Demetrian, 13; trans. Roy J. Deferrari, Saint Cyprian: Treatises,
Religious Liberty and the Early Church
67
coercion: “Indeed, if your gods have any divinity and power, let them
themselves rise to their vindication, let them themselves defend themselves by their own majesty…. You should be ashamed to worship
those whom you yourself defend; you should be ashamed to hope for
protection from those whom you protect.”27
Lactantius also noted the inherent contradiction of a deity worthy
of worship yet dependent upon followers to force “the unwilling to
sacrifice.”28 “If those are gods who are thus worshiped, assuredly, on
account of this alone, they ought not to be worshiped because they
wish to be worshiped in this way. They are truly deserving of the detestation of men to whom libation is offered with tears, with groans, with
blood pouring from all the members.”29 “We, however,” countered
Lactantius, “do not ask that anyone against his will should worship our
God.”30 “Therefore, when we endure wickedness, we make opposition
by not even a word, but refer vengeance to God, not as those do who
wish to seem defenders of their gods and rage savagely against those
who do not worship them.”31
Both Origen and Cyprian argued that Christians were not to enforce religious conformity through capital punishment.32 “Christ conquers none who is unwilling, but he persuades.”33 “Religion ought to
be defended, not by killing but by dying,” proclaimed Lactantius, “not
by fury but by patience, not by crime but by faith. The former action
each time belongs to evil, the latter to good, and it is necessary that
good be the practice of religion, not evil.”34 Instead, religion should be
defended by patience, devotion, or even a faithful death. Such a sacrificial response is “pleasing to God Himself, and it adds authority to religion.”35
Lactantius boldly criticized those who defended religion through
Fathers of the Church (Washington: CUA Press, 1958).
27
Ibid., 14. Garnsey explains that “it was entirely logical for a pagan political
community in antiquity to be intolerant of nonconformity and protective of its gods.
The polis protected its gods because the gods protected the polis” (Garnsey, “Religious
Toleration in Classical Antiquity,” 3). Cyprian’s logical query went deeper by asking
whether a deity who had to be protected by humans was worthy of worship at all.
28
Lactantius, Divine Institutes, 5.20; trans. McDonald, Lactantius: Divine
Institutes.
29
Ibid.
30
Ibid.
31
Ibid.
32
Origen, Against Celsus, 7.26; Cyprian, Letters 4.4.
33
Origen, Sermons in Psalms, 4.1; cited in Everett Ferguson, “Voices of Religious
Liberty in the Early Church,” Restoration Quarterly 1 (1976): 20–21.
34
Lactantius, Divine Institutes, 5.19; trans. McDonald, Lactantius: Divine
Institutes.
35
Ibid.
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force: “How the poor things err, though their intention is honest!”36
Although such combatants understood “that there is nothing in human affairs more important than religion,” they were deceived “in the
manner of its defense.”37 Lactantius expounded, “There is no need of
force and injury, because religion cannot be forced. It is a matter that
must be managed by words rather than by blows, so that it may be
voluntary.”38 He contrasted the truly Christian approach with a coercive approach: “But we teach, we prove, we explain.”39 “Poles apart are
execution and piety, and truth cannot be joined with force, nor justice
with cruelty.”40
RECENT USE OF THE EARLY CHURCH FATHERS
An examination of the Patristic understanding of religious liberty
has recently found a surprising home: a report by a Standing Joint
Committee of the Parliament of Australia. The report, published in
2002, was entitled “Conviction with Compassion.” The document
recognizes that “arguments against intolerance and for religious liberty
can be traced back to ancient times.”41 Among the earliest church fathers, it highlights the perspectives of Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and
Lactantius (although not Cyprian).
The report explains, “The majority of those arguing for religious
freedom, however, were themselves victims of persecution at the time,
seeking an end to this persecution and freedom to practice their own
religion. There were relatively few advocates for a universal religious
liberty until modern times.”42 Now certainly the discussion of religious
liberty in nascent Christianity was hammered out upon the hot anvil
of persecution.43 And there is no doubt that after Christianity’s affiliation with imperial power, many of its leaders eventually (and unfortunately) abandoned earlier notions of religious freedom.44 The formerly
36
Ibid.
37
Ibid.
38
Ibid.
39
Ibid.
40
Ibid.
41
The Parliament of Australia Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Defence and Trade, “Conviction with Compassion: A Report on Freedom of Religion
and Belief,” 3.2; cf. 3.17. See also Garnsey, “Religious Toleration,” 1.
42
“Conviction with Compassion,” 3.5.
43
“Arguments for religious toleration, when they do emerge in antiquity, are part
of a response to active or threatened persecution or intolerance from those under
attack” (Garnsey, “Religious Toleration in Classical Antiquity,” 13). Cf. Brian
Tierney, “Religious Rights: A Historical Perspective,” in Noel Reynolds and W. Cole
Durham, eds., Religious Liberty in Western Thought (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996), 32.
44
See Freeman, AD 381, 117–30, 140–56; Clifford Ando, “Pagan Apologetics
and Christian Intolerance in the Ages of Themistius and Augustine,” Journal of Early
Christian Studies 4 (1996): 171–207. Themistius, a pagan philosopher and rhetorician,
Religious Liberty and the Early Church
69
oppressed became oppressors.45
Nevertheless, the Australian Parliament did not fully or equitably
portray the early church fathers’ concern for religious liberty. First, the
Australian Parliament failed to appreciate the notion of universal human “natural rights” found in the early church fathers. The report asserted that “Medieval thinkers began to develop the idea that all people
possess natural rights. This doctrine would also be important for later
theories of religious freedom.”46 Long before the Medieval thinkers,
however, several Patristic authors had already described freedom of
religion as a basic human right, “and did so in the name of a universal
principle to which anyone could appeal.”47 The innovation of this early
Christian position is accentuated by contrasting it with the intellectual
milieu of its historical context: “To us this principle [of religious liberty] appears incontestable (though the history of our own times shows
that it is still not universally accepted), but in that day it was not
among the self-evident truths. In antiquity none assumed that religion
rests on free decisions, which each must make for himself.”48
The early Christians argued that religious freedom was founded
upon universal tenets concerning the nature of humans and religion,
the nature of the conscience and truth, and the nature of persuasion
and apologetics. Tertullian argued from the “nature of religion” and
the “natural right of each individual” to the freedom of worship. Lactantius believed that religious persecution was a violation of both human and divine law.
Such argumentation, reflected in a universal anthropology, is readily accessible to all humans. John Bowlin explains, “The fact that no
one can be compelled by force to sincere belief must follow from a law
delivered a plea for toleration to Jovian in 364. See Lawrence J. Daly, “Themistius’
Plea for Religious Tolerance,” in Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 12 (1971): 65–
79. For an introduction to Augustine’s views, see John R. Bowlin, “Augustine on
Justifying Coercion,” Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics 17 (1997): 49–70.
45
“But when the Emperor Constantine heard their plea for tolerance and then
favored them and their church with imperial power, they forgot. The persecuted
became persecutors” (E. Glenn Hinson, “Some Things I’ve Learned from the Study of
Early Christian History,” Review and Expositor 101 [2004]: 740). “One of the major
historical paradoxes reflected by the development of early Christianity is its
transformation, during the course of the fourth century, from a religio illicita seeking
recognition and tolerance into an established religion refusing to grant others (and its
own dissenters from within, the ‘heretics’) what it had sought for itself until the recent
past” (Stroumsa, “Tertullian on Idolatry and the Limits of Tolerance,” 173). See also
Michael Gaddis, There Is No Crime for Those Who Have Christ: Religious Violence in the
Christian Roman Empire (Berkeley, University of California Press, 2005). For a
broader look at this unfortunate trend of the persecuted becoming persecutors, see
Anthony Gill, The Political Origins of Religious Liberty (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2008).
46
“Conviction with Compassion,” 3.56; cf. 3.50.
47
Hermann Doerries, Constantine and Religious Liberty, trans. Roland Bainton
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1960), 4.
48
Ibid., 4–5.
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that governs the nature we happen to share. It must be a matter of
natural equity. As all have access to this truth about our nature, in potency if not in act, all should be able to follow the argument from
natural equity to universal tolerance.”49 One is not required to be a
persecuted early Christian in order to appreciate the early Christian
defense of religious liberty. One must only be human.
Second, the Australian report criticized the Patristic perspective by
appealing to a modern, relativistic notion of “religious tolerance.” On
the one hand, the report highlighted the “eloquent plea for universal
religious liberty” found in Tertullian’s Apology for the Christian faith.50
Not satisfied with this positive appraisal, however, the document then
laments that Tertullian, “despite his open-minded statements,” “actually concludes with an assertion of the absolute superiority of the
Christian religion.”51 With the insertion of the word “actually,” we can
almost hear the Australian jaws drop in shocked amazement. In this
revealing sentence, the Australian committee has clearly confused the
desire of religious freedom for all with the impropriety of making any
religious value judgments. Their criticism suggests that religious liberty
must not include the right to assert the superiority of one’s religion
above all others. Obviously, competing claims to superiority are mutually exclusive, but the freedom to make such exclusive claims is part
and parcel of full religious liberty.
PORPHYRY AND LACTANTIUS
Lactantius also argued for the superiority (and even exclusivity) of
Christianity, although his similar outlook was not mentioned in the
Australian parliamentary report. Lactantius declared of Christianity:
“This road, which is a path of truth and wisdom and virtue and justice
is the one source, the one force, the one seat of all these things. It is a
single road by which we follow…and worship God; it is a narrow
path—since virtue is given to rather few.”52 According to Lactantius,
the philosophers did not recognize this only path to God, but followed
the “false” road of “many paths” that led in the opposite direction.53
Lactantius masterfully combined his personal conviction in the
49
Bowlin, “Tolerance among the Fathers,” 27.
50
“Conviction with Compassion,” 3.26. In this depiction, the Standing Joint
Committee implicitly acknowledged Tertullian’s concept of natural rights.
51
Ibid; italics added. Guy Stroumsa concurs, “Tertullian shows us how arguments
in favour of religious toleration could be developed which did not entail a deep
transformation of thought-patterns, a real internalization of the idea of tolerance”
(Stroumsa, “Tertullian on Idolatry and the Limits of Tolerance,” 174). In Stroumsa’s
view, this lack was inevitable since “Christian intellectuals were arguing for toleration,
and yet they were unwilling (or unable) to accept the basic premise of religious
toleration: a certain relativism in religious matters” (ibid.).
52
Lactantius, Divine Institutes 6.7–6.8.
53
Ibid., 6.7.
Religious Liberty and the Early Church
71
exclusivity of Christianity with a call to virtuous “forbearance” toward
other beliefs.54 Harold Drake has labeled Lactantius’ “plea for religious
freedom,” which resulted from this creative union, as “the most elaborate and eloquent of its kind surviving from antiquity.”55 Elizabeth
DePalma Digeser has also examined Lactantius’ “original and comprehensive argument for religious toleration.”56 She argues that Lactantius’
views contributed to Constantine’s own understanding of religious
tolerance as early as A.D. 310.57
The so-called “Edict of Milan” (A.D. 313) promised Christians
“free and unrestricted opportunity to practice their religion.”58 But it
did more. In accordance with “sound and upright reason,” it also guaranteed “all others” the freedom to observe their preferred religious
commitments.59 “To others as well the freedom and full liberty has
been granted, in accordance with the peace of our times, to exercise
free choice in worshipping as each one has seen fit. This has been done
by us so that nothing may seem to be taken away from anyone’s honor
or from any religion whatsoever.”60 Drake declares that the Edict of
Milan is a “landmark in the evolution of Western thought—not
54
One emphasis of Lactantius’ overall perspective was to leave the punishment of
religious offenses with God alone. Cf. Justin, Apology 1.68; Tertullian, ad Scapulam 2;
Garnsey, “Religious Toleration in Classical Antiquity,” 14–15.
55
Harold A. Drake, Constantine and the Bishops: The Politics of Intolerance
(Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2000), 46.
56
Elizabeth DePalma Digeser, The Making of a Christian Empire: Lactantius and
Rome (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000), 91–143. The same argument is also
found in Elizabeth DePalma Digeser, “Lactantius, Porphyry, and the Debate over
Religious Toleration,” Journal of Roman Studies 8 (1998): 129–46.
57
Although Drake concurs, not all classical historians have agreed with Digeser’s
conclusions (see Drake, Constantine and the Bishops, 207–12). Constantine’s seemingly
inconsistent religious perspectives and policies remain complex questions. See also
Digeser, Making of a Christian Empire, 115–43; Doerries, Constantine and Religious
Liberty; Robert Wilken, “In Defense of Constantine,” First Things 112 (2001): 36–40;
Peter J. Leithart, Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of
Christendom (Downers Grove: IVP, 2010), 106–10. Leithart affirms that “the story of
Constantine’s religious policies is more complicated, and therefore more interesting,
than is often supposed” (ibid., 106).
58
Licinius posted the edict in Nicomedia in his own name and that of
Constantine.
59
Such sentiments can only be properly understood within a context of religious
pluralism. See John North, “The Development of Religious Pluralism,” in Judith Lieu,
John North, and Tessa Rajak, eds., The Jews Among Pagans and Christians in the
Roman Empire (London: Routledge, 1992), 174–93; Robert L. Wilken, “Religious
Pluralism and Early Christian Theology,” Interpretation 44 (1988): 379–91; idem,
“Religious Pluralism and Early Christian Thought,” Pro Ecclesia 1 (1992): 89–103.
60
As found in Lactantius, On the Death of Persecutors 48; trans. Mary F.
McDonald, Lactantius: Minor Works, Fathers of the Church (Washington: CUA Press,
1992). “Such is the cunning of providence. An argument designed to convince the
pagan elite to tolerate Christian dissenters is used to convince Christian bishops to
tolerate traditional pagan worship” (Bowlin, “Tolerance among the Fathers,” 29).
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because it gives legal standing to Christianity, which it does, but because it is the first official government document in the Western world
to recognize the freedom of belief.”61
Digeser further maintains that Lactantius was opposing the views
of Porphyry, a pagan philosopher, in “the first-known debate between
Greek philosophy and Christian theology over the question of religious
tolerance.”62 “Porphyry denied that toleration was an appropriate response to Christianity,” at least in the form he confronted it.63 He contended that Christians were not worthy of forbearance but should be
justly punished, since they had abandoned the traditions of the fathers
by “choosing impieties and atheism.”64 Although Porphyry believed
that many paths led to the divine, not all paths did, including Christianity. He believed that people who abandoned traditional worship
should be justly suppressed. For the pagan philosopher, the problem
with Christianity was its stress upon the deity of this one particular
human (the “God-man” in Christian teaching)—Jesus of Nazareth.
Porphyry maintained that Christianity could be made compatible with
traditional worship and philosophy by forsaking its worship of Jesus.65
In modern parlance, Porphyry was an inclusivist who excluded exclusivity.66
Digeser explains,
Unlike Porphyry’s proposal of many paths, Lactantius’ argument is a
true theory of toleration: he understands that both Christians and the
followers of the traditional religions strongly disapprove of and disagree
with the other, but he also argues that neither group should use force
against the other. And he advocates forbearance in order to achieve a
greater good, nothing less than that of proper worship.67
61
As quoted in Wilken, “In Defense of Constantine,” 37. Galerius had granted an
“indulgence” to Christianity already in A.D. 311. But the so-called “Edict of Milan”
went further in its religious concessions, and it had a more lasting influence. A
Constantinian letter to the eastern provinces, issued in 324, reiterated a policy of
religious toleration (see Freeman, AD 381, 38). On the other hand, Constantine
became increasingly oppressive of dissenters as his reign proceeded, including those
deemed to be heretics and schismatics. According to Craig Carter, Constantine
squandered his opportunity to “promote religious liberty and increase respect for
human life and dignity” (Craig A. Carter, Rethinking Christ and Culture: A PostChristendom Perspective [Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2006], 96).
62
Digeser, “Lactantius,” 146. See also Leithart, Defending Constantine, 108–9.
63
Ibid., 142.
64
Eusebius, Preparatio Evangelica 1.2, as found in Digeser, “Lactantius,” 129. See
also Robert Wilken, “Pagan Criticism of Christianity: Greek Religion and Christian
Faith,” in William Schoedel and Robert Wilken, eds., Early Christian Literature and
the Classical Intellectual Tradition (Paris: Beauchesne, 1979), 117–34.
65
Digeser, “Lactantius,” 142.
66
For a nuanced explanation of ancient “inclusivism,” see Garnsey, “Religious
Toleration in Classical Antiquity,” 24–25.
67
Digeser, “Lactantius,” 142–43.
Religious Liberty and the Early Church
73
Digeser is mistaken, however, when she claims that Tertullian, unlike Lactantius, did not include reciprocity in his description of religious toleration.68 Such an assertion seems odd in light of Tertullian’s
own Apology: “Let one worship God, and another Jupiter; let one extend his hands in supplication to heaven, and another to the altar of
Fides;…let one offer his God his own soul, and another the soul of a
goat” (24).69 Tertullian’s ad Scapulam described a common ground for
this reciprocity: “It is the law of mankind and the natural right of each
individual to worship what he thinks proper.”70
Similarly, Robert Wilken misleadingly declares that Lactantius’
work was “the first theological rationale for religious freedom, because
it is the first rationale to be rooted in the nature of God and of devotion to God.”71 But Tertullian already expressed this argumentation in
ad Scapulam 2: a genuine deity would not crave coerced “worship.”
THE EARLY CHURCH FATHERS AND THE
AMERICAN FOUNDING FATHERS
Thomas Jefferson composed what came to be called the “Virginia
Statute for Religious Freedom.”72 Although the bill was not immediately adopted upon its introduction in Williamsburg in 1779, James
Madison later resuscitated and advocated the statute, and the Virginia
Assembly finally passed it in 1786.73 John Leland, a Baptist leader in
Virginia, corresponded with Madison and lobbied for Jefferson’s bill.74
Jefferson’s interaction with Baptists in the matter of religious freedom,
68
Ibid., 142.
69
Stroumsa quips, “With this lapidary plea Tertullian establishes himself as one of
the earliest advocates of religious toleration in the Christian tradition” (Stroumsa,
“Tertullian on Idolatry and the Limits of Toleration,” 173). Tertullian’s Apology 24
goes on to describe libertas religionis (“religious liberty”).
70
Tertullian, To Scapula 2; trans. Arbesmann, Daly, and Quain, Tertullian.
71
Wilken, “In Defense of Constantine,” 37.
72
See Paul B. Rasor and Richard E. Bond, eds., From Jamestown to Jefferson: The
Evolution of Religious Freedom in Virginia (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press,
2011).
73
See Michael Novak, “Virginia and the Origins of Religious Liberty,” in Charles
W. Dunn, ed., Future of Religion in American Politics (Lexington: University of
Kentucky Press, 2009), 115–19.
74
Davis, “Baptists and the American Tradition,” 48–49; Brandon O’Brien, “From
Soul Liberty to Self-Reliance: John Leland and the Evangelical Origins of Radical
Individualism,” American Baptist Quarterly 27 (2008): 136–50. For an examination of
the relative roles of ardent Christian believers and Enlightenment philosophers upon
early American formulations of religious liberty, see William Lee Miller, The First
Liberty: America’s Foundation in Religious Freedom (Washington: Georgetown
University Press, 2003). See also Thomas E. Buckley, “Patrick Henry, Religious
Liberty, and the Search for Civic Virtue,” in Daniel L. Dreisbach, Mark David Hall,
and Jeffry H. Morrison, eds., The Forgotten Founders on Religion and Public Life (Notre
Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2009), 125–144.
74
Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal
especially his Letter to the Danbury Baptist Association of Connecticut
(1802), are well-known in early American studies.75 “Few letters in
American history have been as frequently quoted or have had as profound an impact on public discourse as Jefferson’s Danbury letter.”76
Is it possible that the early church fathers in some manner—
however slight—influenced the “Founding Fathers” of this nation in
their understanding of religious liberty? Did Jefferson ever read relevant Patristic texts? I summon the fascinating evidence of the catalog
of Thomas Jefferson’s personal library.77 In chapter 17 (“Religion”) of
his catalog, with the entries numbered by shelf position, Jefferson
listed #31: “Tertullianus”; #32: “Lactantius”; #33: “Lactantius on the
death of Persecutors”; and #177: “Justinii Martyris opera.” Of course,
we cannot know for sure if the erudite Jefferson, no adherent of orthodox Christianity himself, ever read these specific books in his library,
much less if they directly impacted his views on religious liberty.78 If
Jefferson did peruse the volumes at all, Lactantius’ lengthy discussion
of religious liberty as found in book five of his Divine Institutes would
have been especially hard to overlook. We do know from Jefferson’s
essay “Notes on Religion” (written in 1776) that he could oppose Cyprian’s view of ecclesiastical polity, while leading into a discussion of
“religious liberty.”79
Jon Meacham, the managing editor of Newsweek magazine, notes
that James Madison objected to the notion of “religious tolerance,”
because tolerance suggests that the majority had granted the minority a
right that could be withdrawn at any time.80 Madison insisted on “the
75
See J. Larry Durrence, “Thomas Jefferson and the Baptist Struggle for
Separation of Church and State in Virginia,” Foundations 16 (1973): 73–78; Daniel L.
Dreisbach, “‘Sowing Useful Truths and Principles: The Danbury Baptists, Thomas
Jefferson, and the ‘Wall of Separation,’” Journal of Church and State 39 (1997): 455–
501.
76
Ibid., 457.
77
The Library of Congress has placed a reprint online: http://www.loc.gov/
catdir/toc/becites/main/jefferson/88607928_ch17.html (accessed 6 May 2012).
78
Jefferson does not quote any of the pertinent passages in his extant works. The
church fathers directly and demonstrably influenced sixteenth-century authors. For
example, Sebastian Castellio’s 1554 work against religious persecution (Concerning
Heretics) cited Lactantius, and Menno Simons occasionally appealed to the church
fathers (see J. Travis Moger, “Father May I? Appeals to Patristic Authority in the
Sixteenth-Century Toleration Debate,” Faith & Mission 20 [2002]: 34–47). Hans
Guggisberg has called Sebastian Castellio “the first systematic defender of toleration in
early modern Europe” (Hans R. Guggisberg, “The Defense of Religious Toleration
and Religious Liberty in Early Modern Europe: Arguments, Pressures, and Some
Consequences,” History of European Ideas 4 [1983]: 47).
79
The essay then turns to emphasize the language of religious “toleration.” The
piece is available through the Liberty Fund at: http://oll.libertyfund.org/
?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=755&chapter=86091&layout
=html&Itemid=27 [accessed July 24, 2012].
80
Jon Meacham, Online NewsHour “Interview with Jeffrey Brown,” available at
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/religion/jan-june06/gospel_06-30.html (accessed 6
Religious Liberty and the Early Church
75
idea of religious liberty, the liberty to believe or not believe, to worship
or not worship, liberty of conscience.”81 “And it was that idea,” continues Meacham, “which is the central American insight that religion is
hugely important in the life of the nation, but it has to be a matter of
individual conscience.”82
Robert Wilken, a distinguished early church historian, has noted
the similarities between Madison’s concept of “religious liberty” and
the church fathers, without positing any theory of dependence. “It is
not far-fetched to say that Lactantius’ view of religious freedom is echoed in James Madison’s defense of the free exercise of religion….
Madison quietly replaced the [proposed] term ‘toleration’ with the ‘full
and free exercise of religion.’”83 Wilken then adds, “It is unlikely that
Madison read Lactantius, though he was theologically well informed,
but Lactantius’ insight, which is really an insight drawn from biblical
religion, is confirmed by other Christian thinkers in antiquity and in
the Middle Ages.”84
Everett Ferguson, another Patristic scholar, affirms, “In the modern era, in new circumstances, the principles of the early Christians
have come into practice.”85 Although one cannot prove direct influence, therefore, such parallels at least demonstrate that these great
thinkers (the church fathers and the Founding Fathers) came to similar
positions, even if independently.
May 2012). Cf. the letter of the Danbury Baptists, who expressed concern that the
religious privileges they enjoyed as a minority group were held as “favors granted”
rather than as “inalienable rights.” The Danbury Baptists wrote Jefferson: “Our
Sentiments are uniformly on the side of Religious Liberty—That Religion is at all
times and places a matter between God and individuals—That no man ought to suffer
in name, person, or effects on account of his religious Opinions—That the legitimate
Power of civil government extends no further than to punish the man who works ill to
his
neighbor”
(italics
original).
The
letter
is
available
at
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/dba_jefferson.html (accessed 7 May 2012).
81
Meacham, “Interview.” See also Chester Williams, Religious Liberty (Evanston:
Row Peterson, 1941), 59–61. For a perspective that sees “religious toleration” and
“religious liberty” as more synonymous, see Zagorin, How the Idea of Religious
Toleration Came to the West, 5–7.
82
Meacham, “Interview.”
83
Wilken, “In Defense of Constantine,” 40.
84
Ibid.
85
Ferguson, “Voices of Religious Liberty,” 22. Ferguson adds, “Pragmatic and
secular considerations, however, sometimes obscure the essential philosophical and
theological basis of the principle of religious liberty, to which these [Patristic]
quotations testify” (ibid.). Cf. Wilhelm Pauck, “The Christian Faith and Religious
Tolerance,” Church History 15 (1946): 220–34. Garnsey notes the importance of both
Christian and pagan calls for religious toleration in antiquity: “The ancient ‘literature
of toleration’ though unimpressive in bulk contained promising ideas which in some
cases were to be elaborated and extended in later periods” (Garnsey, “Religious
Toleration in Classical Antiquity,” 26).
76
Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal
CONCLUSIONS
First, we have demonstrated that the call for religious liberty is not
a modern phenomenon alone. Digeser cites the common yet mistaken
“traditional view” that “theoretical conceptions” of religious toleration
or liberty began in the sixteenth century.86 This present examination
reinforces those studies that have argued otherwise.87 According to
Wilken, “The true hero of this eventful tale is Lactantius, whose discussion of religion lays bare the spiritual roots of Western notions of
religious liberty.”88
Second, we have argued that the recent report on religious liberty
by the Australian Parliament includes two shortcomings. It fails to recognize the language of universal human rights found in the early
Christian writers. And it fails to appreciate the compatibility between a
defense of religious liberty and a belief in the exclusive superiority of
Christianity as found among the Patristic authors. Wilken explains,
It is commonly assumed that because polytheism is not exclusive it
must be tolerant. But the historical evidence will not bear this interpretation…. Christianity, on the other hand, is exclusive, for it claims not
only that one can know the true God but that the way to God has been
revealed in Christ. Hence it is often assumed that Christianity is inherently intolerant. But this confuses exclusivism and intolerance. Polytheism is not exclusive, but it can be intolerant as it was at the time of
Diocletian’s persecution. Christianity is exclusive, but it can be tolerant
(though of course it can also be intolerant, as later history will demonstrate).89
Third, we have exposed Digeser’s mistaken claim that Lactantius
argued from reciprocity but Tertullian did not. Tertullian, too, defended religious liberty by appealing to mutual forbearance as the only
response intrinsically congruent with any genuine religious belief. This
86
Digeser, “Lactantius,” 130. As an example, see Bernard Crick, Political Theory
and Practice (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 63.
87
Besides the works already cited, see also Joseph Lecler, “Religious Freedom: An
Historical Survey,” in Neophytos Edelby and Teodoro Jiménez-Urresti, eds., Religious
Freedom (New York: Paulist Press, 1966), 3–20; John Christian Laursen and Cary J.
Nederman, eds, Beyond the Persecuting Society: Religious Toleration before the
Enlightenment (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998). Laursen and
Nederman declare, “The chief thrust of this book is that there is no overstatement in
saying that in medieval and early modern Europe the voices favoring the actual
practices of toleration were present, both in number and in variation, on a scale
hitherto unappreciated” (ibid., 2).
88
89
Wilken, “In Defense of Constantine,” 40. Cf. Freeman, AD 381, 37–38, 170.
Ibid., 38. It may be debated whether Lactantius fully preserved his own attitude
after the rise of Constantine. Overall, “The Christian church, for its part, stands
accused, and convicted, of intolerance towards pagans, Jews and nonconformists
within its own ranks (heretics, schismatics)” (Garnsey, “Religious Toleration in
Classical Antiquity,” 2). Everett Ferguson has gathered some post-Constantinian
denunciations of religious coercion among the church fathers (Ferguson, “Voices of
Religious Liberty,” 21). Cf. the case of Gregory Nazianzus in Freeman, AD 381, 170.
Religious Liberty and the Early Church
77
evidence adds further weight to Drake’s analysis, which was built upon
the sole data of Lactantius: “The coercive Christian as normative is a
modern construct—the worst sort of conceptual anachronism, one
that has required every ounce of scholarly ingenuity to maintain.”90
Finally, we have proposed the intriguing possibility that the writings of the church fathers as found in Thomas Jefferson’s library may
have—and if so, perhaps only minimally—influenced at least one
American Founder. Apart from this tantalizing (yet unverifiable) possibility of literary impact, the Founding Fathers manifest similar concerns and insights as the church fathers, but not direct dependence.
In any case, contemporary thinkers—both religious and nonreligious—can learn from the early Christian plea for religious freedom. The Patristic defense of religious liberty was founded upon universal principles concerning the proper nature of belief, worship, and
persuasion. These arguments should be attractive to all, not just to
persecuted early Christians. Moreover, they should remain dear
to
91
Baptists, historic defenders of the principles of “religious liberty.”
90
As quoted in Wilken, “In Defense of Constantine,” 38. All agree that institutionalized Christianity became increasingly intolerant and coercive in the fourth century, as exemplified by the Theodosian decrees and policies. The question concerns
whether such intolerant coercion was the necessary outworking and/or natural consequence of the essence of Christianity. Is the coercive Christian normative? For more
recent studies of Christian tolerance and especially intolerance in Late Antiquity, see
Peter Brown, “The Limits of Intolerance,” in Authority and the Sacred: Aspects of the
Christianisation of the Roman World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995),
pp. 27–54; Harold A. Drake, “Lambs into Lions: Explaining Early Christian Intolerance,” Past and Present 153 (November 1996): 6–7; Maijastina Kahlos, Forbearance
and Compulsion: The Rhetoric of Religious Tolerance and Intolerance in Late Antiquity
(London: Duckworth, 2009); Thomas Sizgorich, Violence and Belief in Late Antiquity:
Militant Devotion in Christianity and Islam (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 2009); Harold A. Drake, “Intolerance, Religious Violence, and Political Legitimacy in Late Antiquity,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 79 (March
2011): 193–235; Nicholas Marinides, “Religious Toleration in the Apophthegmata
Patrum,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 20 (Summer 2012): 235–68.
91
For recent, relevant biographical sketches, see Muriel James, Religious Liberty on
Trial: Hanserd Knollys, Early Baptist Hero (Franklin: Providence House, 1997); James
P. Byrd, The Challenges of Roger Williams: Religious Liberty, Violent Persecution, and the
Bible (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2002); L. Raymond Camp, “Roger Williams,
Religious Liberty, and the Massachusetts Bay: A Rhetorical History Perspective,” in
James Robertson Andrews, ed., Rhetoric, Religion, and the Roots of Identity in British
Colonial America (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2007), 121–64; John
Calvin Davis, On Religious Liberty: Selections from the Works of Roger Williams
(Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2008). See also Thomas E. Buckley, “Church and State in
Massachusetts Bay: A Case Study of Baptist Dissenters, 1651,” in Journal of Church
and State 23 (1981): 309–22. I would like to thank the Acton Institute for the Study
of Religion and Liberty for a Calihan Travel Grant in order to present a draft of this
article at a national Evangelical Theological Society meeting.