The Irish Great Famine: Official English Attitudes from London

An Gorta Mór or the Great Irish Famine: A Look from London

           

         It took 150 years for a British Prime Minister to issue a statement on the Irish Potato Famine. Tony Blair's publicly regret and apology came in 1997 at a weekend festival in County Cork to commemorate the Great Famine, which claimed one million lives and caused the immigration of many more. A letter was read out from the Prime Minister in which he blamed "those who governed in London" at the time for the disaster.While the Irish had finally an apology, other victims of mass killings and genocides, such as the Armenians, are still waiting for such late but welcome honesty from the guilty nations.  Tony Blair's statement read: "The famine was a defining event in the history of Ireland and Britain. It has left deep scars. That one million people should have died in what was then part of the richest and most powerful nation in the world is something that still causes pain as we reflect on it today. Those who governed in London at the time failed their people."

         But what was the official attitude of the British Government toward the Irish during the Famine, and did prejudice play a role in that major human disaster? Was it possible to prevent the massive loss of life and the uprooting of millions if London had acted and felt differently about the victims?

A Famine cemetery from county Cork, Southern Ireland  (Photo via Moonhops87)

         The Irish Great Famine of 1845-1849 is also known as the “Great Hunger”, implying that there were many human factors and neglect involved in the calamity. The Famine is considered to be one of the major natural disasters of nineteenth century Europe, and certainly the major watershed calamity in Irish history. It was the result of the potato blight (Phytophtora infestans) that decimated the staple food of the Irish people for consecutive years. The resulting food shortage resulted in the death of an estimated million and a half through starvation and disease. Another million emigrated, the population of Ireland dropping from the pre-famine estimates of 8.5 million to barely 6 million by 1850’s.

Severity of the Great Famine was very uneven. Note that the Protestant dominated Ulster around Belfast as well as Dublin were almost famine free, while the heavily Catholic remote areas were devastated.

            The British government’s response to the Famine has been a very contentious issue. Many different critical explanations have been formulated qualifying the official policies and actual relief efforts from “inadequate”, “inefficient” to “negligent”. In nationalist narratives,  An Gorta Mór is often described as actively or passively “genocidal” both in intent and mismanagement of the calamity. The British government’ relief efforts (or the lack of them) were shaped by various socio- economic principle of the period, such as Laissez-Faire and non interference in the forces of the market. The authorities were thought to be more concerned about the faith of landlords than the fate of the starving masses. These controversial policies were undoubtedly influenced also by the prevailing anti- Irish attitudes held by the authorities and shared by segments of the English public opinion. The letter written by Sir Charles Trevelyan, the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury  to R.H. Lord Monteagle in 1846 clearly states that firmly believed that the government was doing everything possible “short of transferring the famine from Ireland to England” and pointed the finger to the morbid habits and social evils of the Irish as roots of the Famine. Such views were supported by influential newspapers in London, such as The Times, echoing Trevelyan and disseminating opinions that the natural catastrophe and the resulting human tragedy were the direct results of the backwardness and primitive lifestyle of the Irish Catholics, and that the Famine could at least finally open the path to a more civilized lifestyle.

Sir Charles Trevelyan, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during the Famine: He was the official ''face'' of the British government's response during the Famine, but his actions and words were very controversial to say the least.

            It is important to stress that the pre famine Ireland was not the most peaceful of the places, nor was the Great Famine the only time there were widespread food shortages on the island. The period of 1845-49 however, was surely the most devastating, and came after a long period of great socio political turmoil in modern Irish history: Plantations, appropriations of land, forced expulsions of the Catholics, the Penal Laws, the reforms pushed by the likes of Henry Grattan, the Relief act (1791-92), the rise of sectarianism, agrarian violence and the 1798 failed rising led by the United Irishmen. Ireland was in constant turmoil under British rule and the “glue sticking the Harp to the Crown” was problematic at best for both sides.

            The political tensions of the late eighteenth century had culminated in the forced Act of Union between Great Britain and Ireland. The Irish parliament was abolished and Ireland sent representatives to Westminster. January 1, 1801 was therefore a date of enormous importance, when the Act of Union became operative after ‘bribery on a scale such as history has seldom witnessed.[1] Therefore, with the forced Union:

           

       The economy of Ireland was assimilated into the economy of England, the Irish Parliament in Dublin disappeared and the Parliament at Westminster hence forward legislated for both countries. It was as if a marriage between England and Ireland had been celebrated, with the clauses of the Act of Union as the terms of the marriage settlement. [2]

           

           The Act of Union, however, could not end centuries of animosity between the Irish and the colonial power from across the Irish Sea, and pre famine Ireland was generally full of poverty and human suffering, especially in the western and southern counties with pockets of relative prosperity such as in rapidly industrializing Ulster (especially counties Down and Antrim). 

Potato Blight fungal disease: Phytophtera infestans

            The decades following the Union had been ripe with political developments, especially the thorny issue of catholic emancipation and the Repeal movement. Major gains were achieved, but Ireland was not free and was directly ruled from Westminster and Whitehall. Therefore it is important to underline that during the Famine, counties Mayo, Kerry and Cork were as much part of Great Britain as Kent, Lancashire, Cheshire or Essex. But Ireland was a much different place than England, with a very large peasant cottiers class, a very uneven distribution of land and wealth, political and sectarian- based oppression and centuries of discrimination against the majority Catholics. Corn Laws, tillage and pasturage land management (graziers), the middlemen system, the absentee landlordism were all red flags that would have fatal consequences with the crop failures of 1945-49.

Evicted families ended up in last resort public "workhouses" where many just died.

            Pre-famine Ireland, however, offered favorable circumstances for a rapid population growth that had reached a peak of 8.17 millions taken at a census in 1841.[3] It is estimated that 5.5 million or 66 percent of the Irish population was dependant on agriculture[4], which meant a very heavy reliance on potato and a inherent vulnerability to any crop failure. The potato was abundant and full of nourishment when complemented with milk, young couples were marrying earlier and the children were seen as an ‘insurance against destitution in old age’[5] as the Poor Laws came into effect just in 1838, offering a very basic form of charity and welfare to the poorest of the poor. Potato had become the staple food for many, a quasi monoculture that fed millions. Práta,was an easy vegetable to grow with minimal care in Lazy beds by lazy people, or so was the interpretation of many.

            The British Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel was responsible for the creation of the Relief Commission in 1831 after many disastrous mini famines. Peel had an “expressed distaste for the jobbery or good-natured slackness of Irish public life, but had a businesslike concern for the condition of the country and its inhabitant”.[6] The Duke of Wellington, an Irish born Protestant, in the summer of 1843 had declared that “Ireland was in no longer in a social state” thus pressuring the prime minister the formation of an exclusively protestant force to deal with the situation.[7]

Desperate digging for inedible potato tubers.

           
         In 1843, the British government felt the strong need to intervene in Ireland and appointed the Devon Commission to improve the fate of Irish peasants. The bill was opposed staunchly, amended and finally dropped. Other measures to help the poor peasants through government programs were also devised and opposed by those who thought that providing relief through public funds was unacceptable.[8] Various public works (new roads etc.) were implemented instead of money handouts, and most of these works were pointless infrastructure projects such as these roads built leading nowhere. Nevertheless, these projects were regarded more preferable than straight charity to a people judged lazy and untrustworthy to the crown.

             The potato crop had already proven to be an unreliable crop and it was a known fact that a major failure would be serious enough for England but for Ireland it would be a disaster.[9] When the very alarming news were confirmed that the crop had indeed failed, the British government took steps to find a substitute, imported maize (an acquired taste), lift the duties on flour and oatmeal, regulate exports and open ports for free trade in food.[10] It is therefore obvious that the poor Irish were not masters of their own destiny, and the blame of the decimation of their communities during the Great Famine could not be solely placed on their shoulder.

            This was not, however, the opinion of Charles Edward Trevelyan and his administration overseeing the Relief efforts during the Great famine. Trevelyan’s letter to Thomas Spring-Rice Lord Monteagle, is a good indicator of his conservative policies and dubious attitudes. He writes that the relief efforts of his majesty’s government were adequate in insofar as not transfer the “famine from Ireland to England”, despite the fact that hundreds of thousands were starving as he wrote. He reiterated his firm belief in laissez faire, non interventionist and pro-business policies, even in face of the calamity worsening by the day:

            
         The institution of the business of society, it falls to the share of the government to protect the  merchant and the agriculturalist in free exercise of their respective employments, but not itself to carry on those employments, and the conditions of a community depends upon the result of the efforts which each member of it makes in his private and individual capacity.[11]   

           
         Trevelyan further expressed his opposition to the expressed opinions that the government should do more to help the country in crisis. He clearly stated his opposition to any direct government involvement in such affairs as the “sale of food in every part of Ireland” or “arranging with the tenants the terms on which the rent is to be adjusted”. Trevelyan did not support any micro management of the official response, and relief of the starving poor by public works came as “too little too late and also slow, inefficient and sometimes corrupt”[12] The conservative protectionist policies that had prevailed under Robert Peel were superseded by the Whig Liberal policies under Lord John Russell, Trevelyan remaining at the Treasury until 1859.Trevelyan had also expresses openly racist views about the Great Famine as a deserved punishment from God to a undeserving (Roman Catholic) people:

         
       The judgment of God sent the calamity to teach the Irish a lesson, that calamity must    not be too much mitigated. …The real evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the Famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people.[13]

           

Eviction of a poor ''cottier'' class family by the local authorities on orders from the landlord. The results of such evictions were more misery, starvation, disease or emigration.

            A very contentious issue during the Famine was the way the landlords were willing or rather refusing to cooperate with government devised relief schemes. Plans were proposed to improve the land, change the employment act and checking speculation in foodstuff to allow for a sustainable life for the poor cottiers. The government was adamant that the landlords show goodwill and do their fair share but the opposition from the landlords was overwhelmingly negative. Trevelyan’s correspondence with Lord Monteagle, an important landlord, was done within this context, as the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury felt strongly that the landlords “failed to fulfill their obligation”.  [14] However, the government’s anti landlord feelings were not necessarily the result of any sympathy for the victims of the hunger. It was rather the result of the firm belief that government intervention must be absolutely minimal and the relief efforts must be executed locally in the communities. Therefore, Trevelyan firmly believed that the Irish people were to blame for their own misfortunes, but that did not prevent him of being openly critical of the landlords and their lack of good will, purely based on economic principles.

Jeanie Johnston Famine Ship in Dublin...

          The Times of London, the influential newspaper published an article on 22 September 1846, strongly supporting the non interventionist policies of the government and did not hide its racist attitude towards the Irish. The newspaper firmly rejected any notion that London was responsible. The British government was required to procure subsistence to the peasants but nothing more, ward off starvation, and its duty was to “stimulate others to give employment, not outbid them, or drive them from the labour market”.[15] The Times went even further and put the blame squarely on the Irish peasants’ shoulders: “The Irish peasant has tasted of famine and found that it was good”, hoping to get free manna from the sky. Moreover, the religion of the peasants (Roman Catholicism) holds that “Man shall not labour by the sweat of his brow”.

Quarantine stations at Partridge Island (Saint John, New Brunswick) and at Grosse-Île (Québec, Quebec) were overwhelmed by the arrival of thousands of poor and sick Irish immigrants. Of the nearly 100,000 immigrants who came through Grosse Île in 1847, the plague year, more than half were Irish. At least 5,000 died on the island. Many perished in the immigrant sheds that were their first temporary homes in their new land. Grosse Île is now a National Historic Site commemorating the Irish who landed there during the famine years.

         The Times also stated that the Irish were used to laziness, accustomed to potatoes and leeks and that they must change their diet and develop a taste for grains and meat. The Irish must therefore evolve, be less Irish and resemble more the English and the Scots. Likewise, Trevelyan had written that he seeing a bright light shining in the distance through the dark cloud of the famine. Likewise, the Times considered the potato blight as a blessing that will perhaps open the opportunity to the semi savage Irish to become more civilized and avoid future punishments.

 

Skibbereen mass graves in County Cork (above) and Armenian Genocide memorial in Deir el Zor (Syrian Desert, where hundreds of thousands Armenians marched to their death in 1915): While the Irish have had their very late apology from the British Government's Tony Blair in 1997, the Armenians are still waiting for such a courageous leader to emerge in Ankara.

             Trevelyan is depicted by some as a non compassionate racist who let the Irish people suffer and die, a short distance away from all powerful England. It is very likely, however, that he was a “well meaning but officious civil servants with Whig sympathies”[16] carrying zealous economic policies: The relief efforts under his administration proved to be mostly inefficient and too little too late in face of the huge wave of tragedy that was taking place despite all the food imports, soup kitchens and other private and public relief efforts.

            The question remains if Trevelyan and the government would have been much more “flexible” in their economic orthodoxy if the Famine was ravaging the countryside in England, Scotland, Wales or even Ulster, rather than the impoverished Catholic Connaught or Kerry. On the other hand, the vindictive and openly racist attitudes such as the ones expressed by the Times were indicative of the period: Very little sympathy or comprehension of the historical facts, the social, economic and political segregation and depravation that the victims and their communities had been subjected to during centuries of English colonial subjugation. 

© Krikor Tersakian, Montreal,  December, 2011

References:

[1] Cecil Woodham-Smith, (New York : Harper & Row, publishers,  1962. p. 15

[2] ibid,  p. 15

[3]  Cecil Woodham-Smith, (New York : Harper & Row, publishers,  1962.  p.31

[4] R.Dudley Edwards and T.Desmond Williams, The Great Famine, New York: Ny University press, 1957. p. 89

[5] Cecil Woodham-Smith, p. 31.

[6] R.Dudley Edwards and T.Desmond Williams, The Great Famine, New York: Ny University press, 1957. p. 79.

[7] R.Dudley Edwards and T.Desmond Williams,p.79,

[8] It is believed that Daniel O’Connell himself opposed some relief measures, as he feared that any interventionist policies might dilute the power of the Catholic Church in a predominantly Catholic Ireland.

[9] Cecil Woodham-Smith, (New York : Harper & Row, publishers,  1962. p. 39.

[10] Cecil Woodham-Smith, (New York : Harper & Row, publishers,  1962. p. 41

[11] Charles Trevelyan, Letter to Lord Monteagle. (Oct. 9, 1846) in Kissane (ed.), p 51.

[12]University College Cork: Charles Edward Trevelyan:             http://multitext.ucc.ie/d/Charles_Edward_Trevelyan

[13] University College Cork: Charles Edward Trevelyan:             http://multitext.ucc.ie/d/Charles_Edward_Trevelyan

[14] R.Dudley Edwards and T.Desmond Williams, The Great Famine, New York: Ny University press, 1957. p. 151.

[15] The Times.  Indolent preference of the Irish for relief over labour. (Sept.22, 1846), in Gray pages 154-155.

[16] R.Dudley Edwards and T.Desmond Williams, The Great Famine, New York: Ny University press, 1957. p. 215.

Religious Toleration and Dissenters

Walls of intolerance separating Protestant and Catholic working class communities in Belfast.  (photo via changesinlongitude.com)

Religious or ethnic toleration does not mean to agree with any minority. Toleration is the courage or the will to stop any majority in its attempts to crush the minority.

The “Letter Concerning Toleration” (1689) by John Locke was written after centuries of wars, persecutions and intolerance between various Christian denominations in Europe. The letter was published after the protracted and bloody wars of Religion, the Edict of Nantes and the English Act of Toleration, Westphalia. These were all attempts to regulate and bring an acceptable modus vivendi and peace to a divided European society. The major struggles were of course between Catholicism and Reformation churches, but there was also a continuing intolerance toward “non normative”, “heretical” or “dissenting” groups. John Locke belonged to a non Trinitarian sect, was constantly under suspicion, and naturally he was very much in favour of norms and guidelines for toleration under the protective arm of the state.

             Dissenting and “heretical” groups have been part and parcel of Christianity from the very early days of Christianity and Christology. John Locke could not have written such a seminal work if he was not himself persecuted and living under extreme pressure, as a non –Trinitarian Socinian in exile in the Low Countries as a victim of intolerance. In those days Holland was, perhaps the only part of Europe “where a man could profess and even express unorthodox opinions without imprisonment or torture”.[1]  

Who shall we burn next? Who's the target today?

            Heretical or dissenting sects are not the preserve of Christianity. All major world religions have continuously experienced schisms, dissentions and theological disagreements from the group that eventually succeed in mustering the most followers. The majority religion is often a reflection of the governing secular power and its elites or vice versa, facilitating and even inciting intolerance and violence toward the minorities. The Age of Enlightenment was no exception with widespread tensions and war caused by and leading to religious intolerance.

Religious intolerance and violence terrorize more humans than we suspect. A toddler watches in horror the riots in Short Strand Catholic enclave in East Belfast. (Photo via CFP)

            Dissenters (with a capital D), were the nonconformist and Free Churchmen[2]  in England who “did not conform to the established Church of England (Anglican, after the 16^th century Reformation had reached England through special circumstances during the reign of Henry VIII). They did not belong to the state sanctioned Anglican church (Church of England) and therefore refused the orthodoxy of the religion followed by the majority. Dissenting or splinter groups were not a new phenomenon in seventeenth century Europe, nor were they an exclusively European challenge. From its earliest days, Christianity had an ambiguous start.[3] Christians were themselves considered undesirable by Jews, “a rival twin of unrepentant renegades and tainted heretics”[4]. Shaping of Christianity, as we know it today, was a long, arduous and often a very bloody process. The establishment of what became as the normative or orthodoxy went through endless phases: theological and actual wars of assertion and exclusion between all the tendencies and interpretations of the Scriptures and later “saints”, clergy or philosophers claiming to hold the absolute truth. The very nature of the eventually accepted Scriptures ,which became normative, was a matter of huge debates and struggles in early Christianity and a somehow sloppy process. 

John Locke was an Arian Socinian, rejecting the Holy Trinity doctrine of Christian orthodoxy. His theory on Toleration is of capital importance.

In the absence of any absolute authority to decide on the matters, various early theologians and the secular authorities had to literally hand pick and “decide” which gospel or sacred writing would be qualified to be universally accepted as “normative” and which ones would be destined for the dustbin. Many Scriptures or otherwise interesting and valid theological opinions were rejected and discarded. Some texts were modified while others were retained as the “true and acceptable” words of God. The selection process used was arbitrary and greatly influenced by secular powers. The sects or philosophers and their followers that were left out of the emerging orthodoxy did not necessarily die. While the officially approved majority had the very difficult task of keeping “heretics” away, many of these marginalized Christian beliefs survived. On the other hand, the emerging orthodoxy, mostly in Constantinople and to some lesser degree in Rome, had to consolidate and enforce their beliefs through edicts, state intervention, councils and sheer persecution. Inter Christian intolerance was therefore well established by the fourth century.

 

 The Nicene Creed was signed in modern day Iznik near Constantinople in 325 CE. It defined the Holy Trinity and rejected anti-Trinitarianism. The creed is still read today in most churches as affirmation of the form of Christian theology accepted by mainstream "established churches". The picture below is the Creed's version in Armenian, called Havadamk (Հաւատամք, Նիկիական Հանգանակ).

            Manichaeism, Arianism, Donatism, Gnosticism Appollinarism, Montanism, Origen, Tertullian, Marcion and various other theological schools were therefore rejected and varying degrees. Their leaders and followers were persecuted during the early period of Christian orthodox consolidation period, especially up to the fifth century. These marginalized groups were excluded by the majority within what became considered and applied as the “accepted” Christology that gave itself rise to Heresiology or the study of the heresies.[5] The resulting intolerance started to became institutionalized and deeply rooted in popular and ecclesiastical behavior. The early ecumenical councils of Nicaea (325 CE), Constantinople (381CE), Council of Ephesus (Nestorian Controversy, 431 CE), Monophysitism and Chalcedon (451) were Empire-sponsored initiatives or machinations designed both by Church and by State, in perfect communion in case of Constantinople. These councils passed legislation and issues creeds and edicts to curb any perceived dissent to the young Christian theology. These attempts to standardize and crystallize the emerging normative theology were necessarily accompanied by fierce denunciation of any dissent with harsh penalties to the guilty groups or leaders.

John Toland:Christianity Not Mysterious (1696) appeared and created even more waves in the restless religious landscape in England.

             The theological flood of ideas was overwhelming from all corners of the burgeoning Christian world around the Mare Nostrum, the Mediterranean Sea. Overlapping and diverging views about fundamental issues such as damnation, salvation and Christian were major challenges. Therefore the emerging Christian ultimate reality, social expressions, personal expressions and the ultimate transformation[6] of the swelling number of devotees had to be defined and refined. The definition of the Holy Trinity was probably the major contentious issue that divided the Christian early world. The nature of the Son, the Holy Ghost and their relation to God was never a unifying concept. The final definitions eventually adopted by the ecumenical councils, especially the Nicene Creed, set the standard of what it meant be a ‘real’ Christian and who gets accepted or left out as heretic. Those who do not accept the Nicean Creed and its concept of the Trinity were heretics and practically not even Christians.

Huguenots Protestants fleeing France from La Rochelle port- by Luykens, 1696: Up to 200,000 Huguenots are thought to have fled France in the years after 1685, ending up in places as far afield as North America, South Africa, Germany, Switzerland, Holland and England. (via Gravaud Family)

Anti Hate and Intolerance police task force in Glasgow, Scotland: Can brute force be the answer to stop hate? Can  uniformed policemen help stop hate crimes and change attitudes? (Photo via theglaswegian.co.uk)  

             Arianism was a particularly divisive and unacceptable viewpoint, totally outside the acceptable parameters established by Nicaea. This theological school of thought was named after Arius (250-336), a presbyter from Alexandria (Egypt), then part of the Roman Empire. Arianism is of importance, because it was the philosophy adopted by Locke in varying forms. The teachings attributed to Arius were based on the total rejection of the divine nature of Jesus, and therefore the rejection of the Holy Trinity itself. Arians maintained “that Jesus was a creature, made from ‘nonexistence’ and had not always existed. Hence he was not quite equal to the Father. Jesus/logos was created and therefore could not be God himself and was human”.[7] The bitter rejection process of Arianism through the Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople helped define the major orthodoxy of Christianity that is accepted today by the mainstream Orthodox, Catholic and Reformation churches and their followers.
   It is important to note that Arianism never died and was particularly strong in northern Europe with the arrival of the Germanic tribes of Goths and Vandals who adopted Arianism before converting to orthodox Catholicism. Nevertheless, the non Trinitarian doctrines were never completely wiped out until its marginal revival during the sixteenth and seventeenth century both in England and Northern Europe. Arius was eventually excommunicated after a very divisive battle but his ideas somehow thrived and continue to this day under various names such as the various Unitarian Churches.

          

The Armenian Genocide of 1915 "officially" started around 1895 with the indiscriminate killings and the deportation of Christian Armenian from their ancestral homeland. The Ottoman Empire was in total disarray and defeated during WWI, leading to centrally planned mass executions of the minorities within its sustainable borders (modern Turkey). The unprecedented massacres of around 1.5m Armenians has gone both unpublished and unrecognized by Turkey, the legal inheritor of Ottoman realm. This is a classic case of religious and ethnic intolerance pushed to its most extreme limits.

             All those who call themselves Christians “agree that Jesus Christ is pivotal and indispensable to Christianity”: the question is “who Jesus was and is, and just how the moral significance of his life is supposed to be bear”[8] Does any disagreement over Jesus and his divinity enough grounds to exclude and persecute devotees who insist on call themselves Christians? Were Arian Socinian Christians and did they have legitimate claims to belong to the Faith?  Divergences within the same family abound, but Trinitarian beliefs were considered to be fundamental and non negotiable to the majority.  

             Centuries later, the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century was led by Martin Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Knox and others who were to rattle the foundations of the Roman Catholic Church in Western Europe. Major social and political upheaval followed, with the European religious wars theoretically ending with the treaty of Westphalia in 1648. Europe was divided between those remaining loyal to the Pope’s authority and those who embraced some form of Reformed movement. However, finding a new orthodoxy even within the Reform movement and protestantism proved to be as elusive as it had been earlier within the ecumenical Christianity. 

All denominations make symbolic but not very fruitful efforts, at least they often do not publicly voice their differences and pray together for inter-faith tolerance. (Photo via http://ivarfjeld.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/ecumenical-guests.jpg)

            The religious landscape of Europe in the 17^th century was drastically different from the one that preceded the Reformation. Post- Lutheran Europe was different beyond recognition compared to the days when the Roman Catholic Church was the only acceptable orthodoxy in along with the Orthodox Church in eastern realms. The north European territories had for the most part fallen under Lutheran, Calvinistic, Anglican and other newly established Churches and parted ways with the Papal authority over secular and faith matters. Various dissenting sects, such as the protestant Huguenots in France were persecuted and massacred across the continent in the name of the True Church. However, all Christian denominations shared the same faith in the Nicean, Chalcedonian creeds, council decisions and the ecumenical precepts that made Trintarianism the only normative system, be it Lutheran, Roman Catholic or Calvinist or Puritan. Believing in the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit as three consubstantial elements is the common denominator of all “Christian” churches. Socinians were not welcome in that extended family.

Some are persecuted for their version of the "Bible" or their interpretation of the Scriptures. But which Church can claim to hold the "truest of the truths"? Is there an absolute Truth? Who can punish the other claiming to hold the only absolute truth?

            Religious intolerance and persecution towards various Protestant groups came in two basic forms. The first was the persecution by the loyal Catholic powers against their own Protestant minorities, such as the Huguenots in France. The other form of intolerance was the within the wider Protestant movement: persecution of minority “sects” and dissenting views practicing their faith within the Protestant world but outside the Protestant orthodoxy. Minority groups such as Anabaptists, non-Trinitarian, Arminians, English dissenters (including rational dissenters as well as such groups as Presbyterians, Puritans) and newly emerging schools of philosophical thought such as followers of deism and pantheism were all under fire by the religious and secular authorities in Protestant Europe. They were seen nothing short but undesirable heretics by the “established” authorities, such as The Church of England (Anglican Communion). Therefore, toleration or the lack of it, was not a new phenomenon in Europe. The earlier massacres of the Cathars (twelfth century), the Waldensian tragedies and the massacres at Merindol, John Hus, and John Wycliffe were all notable victims of intolerance.

            Intolerance continued well into the Age of the Enlightenment, with watershed events that shaped an age where the war of religious ideas was reaching new heights and taking new dimensions, such as atheism and deism. The Socinian Locke was himself exiled to the Low Countries for his safety. John Locke wrote his famous A Letter Concerning Toleration in 1689. He was writing to his friend Limbroch, a Dutch Arminian.

            John Locke was born in 1632, educated in Oxford where he received a master’s degree in science and later was admitted to the prestigious Royal Society. He also got a degree in medicine, though he seldom practiced in that field. Locke became the family physician of Earl of Shaftesbury, a man with liberal political ideas.[9] When Lord Shaftesbury fled to Holland in 1682, Locke followed him there in 1683 and remained there until “after the successor, King James II, had been removed by the successful revolution of 1688”. Locke returned to England the following year in 1689. That was also the year A Letter Concerning Toleration was first published. Locke was known to be a Socinian, named after an Italian theologian Faustus Socinus (1539-1604) who rejected orthodox Roman Catholic religious doctrines and espoused Unitarian (non Trinitarian) theology seeing Jesus as fully human.[10] Socinian thoughts were later espoused by an Englishman John Biddle (1615-1662), whose teachings were instrumental in establishing the non Trinitarian doctrine in England in the seventeenth century and of which Locke was a follower.

            The major arguments presented by Locke in his Letter were indeed far- reaching. He was not the first person to propose religious toleration, but he was certainly one of the most influential. The Letter was written in a period of intense debate on toleration as well as persecution of dissent under William of Orange. It was clearly written about and in support of the dissenters’ resistance to government imposition of Anglican uniformity and struggle for religious toleration, including civil equality, in Restoration England.[11]

The concept of Holy Trinity is both amazing and controversial. The schema above explains the Who's Who of that complex structure as understood by the Christian orthodoxy that includes Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and most Protestant faiths. Trinity has been the source of many controversies and several sects that were rejected as''heresies'' by the "established" churches.

            The situation in England was very volatile in the Restoration (post –Cromwellian) period up till the restoration of Charles II in 1660, up till events that led to the reign of William II of Orange in 1689. There were various dissenting non conformist groups struggling under the Laudian clergy and their “rigid uniformity of religious worship”[12] during the Glorious Revolution: Baptists, Independents, Presbyterians and non conformist Quakers, making up to “ten percent of the national population”. On the other hand, the struggle between the Socinians and the orthodox opponents reached its climax in the 1690’s,[13] the same period that John Toland’s Christianity Not Mysterious (1696) appeared and created even more waves in the restless religious landscape in England.

The Molotov Cocktail  ignited by poverty, rage, fear, hatred, desperation, unemployment and plain ignorance. (Photo via abc.net.au) 

             In Letter Concerning Toleration Locke defines the Church as being a “voluntary Society of Men, joining themselves together of their own accord to worship God”.[14] He stresses the freedom of all individuals to join any church they choose, “as nobody is born a member of any church”. Faith and belonging to a church are not therefore hereditary, nor are they certitude in terms of beliefs they behold and teach. Locke challenges the divine right of bishops or their right to succession, as there are different ways, all acceptable, to worship or organize congregations. He chastises the inventions and falsehoods and interpretations of Priests, “as if they were of Divine Authority”[15] He clearly states that violence should not be used or incited by Church as the clergy have no right to prosecute anyone. The reason given by Locke is an ethical one: joining a Church is a voluntary action and therefore “men do not renounce any of their natural rights” when they become a member of a congregation. The worst a church can do to an unorthodox member is to expel him from membership.[16] The concept of Church infallibility is an important building block in his logic limiting the powers of the church hierarchy and giving to the power and privilege of interpretation of the Holy Scriptures to the reader. In a separate document entitled “Infallibility”, Locke denies the necessity hence the powers grant to any interpreter (clergy). He writes:

                        Not after so many messengers is necessary to add an interpreter. Therefore it is agreed                         that it is not necessary to grant there be an Infallible Interpreter of Holy Scriptures in the                         Church... Besides, disagreements among Christians concerning divine things sufficiently                         show that there has been no infallible interpreter.[17]   

The underlying message is that the clergy is not infallible and therefore the Church has no right whatsoever to persecute anyone who espouses dissenting views. A similar logic is applied to the limitation of powers of civil authorities in religious matters: religion is the preserve of church. Therefore the civil power of the magistrates must stay clear from interfering in places or worship, as long as the Commonwealth is not negatively affected by their behavior. The care of souls does not belong to the Magistrate, because “every man’s Soul belongs unto himself and is to be left unto himself”[18] The argument is to deny the civil authorities the right to prosecute any citizen in matters concerning his soul.  Locke concludes by advocating total freedom of any Church from any kind of interference from the Magistrates, and presumably vice versa:

                      

                      The Magistrates have no Power to impose by his Laws, the use of any Rites and                       Ceremonies in any Church, so neither has he any power to forbid the use of such rites and                        ceremonies as are already received, approved and practiced by any Church: because if he                        did so, he would destroy the church itself, the end of whose institution is only worship                        God with freedom, after its own matter.[19]

Toleration Gives Way to violence and hatred: Another Republican funeral in Derry, Northern Ireland (Photo via Paul Mcerlane, The Guardian)

            Another important component of Locke’s arguments is the limitation of the Church’s power in its relationship with the rules and regulations of the Commonwealth. The Church cannot prohibit anything that the civil law permits in daily lives, while the magistrates must be very careful to restrict themselves to temporal issues as not to overuse their powers and oppress the church “under the pretense of public good”[20] Faith and worship of various sorts must be tolerated as long as they do not infringe on the rights of the neighbours. Locke concludes by stating that “every man may enjoy the same rights that are granted to others”.[21]

            The strict separation between the temporal realm of the state and faith- related church jurisdiction produces interesting exceptions. Locke’s far- reaching toleration related arguments have their own restrictive limits and are not extended to everyone. He excludes all Catholics from his large blanket of toleration, because he sees them as untrustworthy because of their allegiance to the secular Papal power. England had a deep running opposition to the Church of Rome since Mary Tudor, “with the fear that the country would fall under the influence of foreign powers if Catholics ascend to power. These fears were somehow justified at the time of the Spanish Armada, but in later years the treat had little substance”[22] In any case the supposed allegiance of all Catholics to papal temporal and secular powers disqualified them from any toleration as suspect and untrustworthy. This was based on the premise that the Pope is the head of a foreign power and therefore potentially “Papists” could be traitors. Catholics lived in England but were believed to consider Rome as their true state. Moreover, Locke disqualifies the atheists along with the Catholics and does not see them worthy of any tolerance. 

            The views of Locke concerning heresy are particularly interesting and strong. The scope and the “limits of human knowledge being so narrow and the probability of error on speculative matters so great, that we can never know for certain that our religious opinions are correct and all others false and heretical”.[24] Locke explains that heresy is basically a separation made between men of the same religion. He says that when the stronger part or the majority separates itself from the minority with the help of the magistrates, the state can conveniently make anyone guilty of heresy. He defends the viewpoint that the majority does not determine the ultimate or absolute truth, especially when they espouse interpretations and teachings that are not expressly thought by the Scriptures.[25]

Catholics, depicted as crocodiles, not welcome in "Protestant America". Locke did not extend Toleration to Catholics either, arguing that they pledge allegiance to a foreign power, the Vatican.

            There is a hint that Locke adopts an anti Cartesian attitude to base his toleration thesis upon, because he argues that “since belief is not under our voluntary control, it is not the sort of thing that can be influenced by threats, coercion or inducements”.[26] Therefore, he thinks that it makes no sense for the majority to prosecute or force people to change their beliefs.

            Locke takes a very permissive and liberal view of all non orthodox sects, as the majority or established religions cannot prove that these dissenters are wrong in what they believe. Lutherans, Anabaptist, Calvinists and other sects are all entitled to their opinions, yet Locke does not specifically mention non Trinitarians like himself. Theses minority groups must be totally free to preach their teachings and interpretations directly from Holy Scripture[27], without undue intervention or intolerant action.  He obviously dislikes the word “heresy”. Locke also thinks that the word religious “schism” should be avoided, as the ones separating from the larger group may not necessarily be wrong in their interpretation of the Scriptures, the unique source of Christian truth that can be interpreted freely by the faithful. Locke thinks that the real motives behind state-sanctioned intolerance are rooted in ignorance of theology and natural science. A ruler may be able to produce a semblance of outward conformity by prosecuting his subjects out of arrogance, cruelty and love of power. Moreover, persecuting “heretics” for the sake of their own spiritual welfare is sheer hypocrisy.[28]

            Therefore Locke sought protection for minorities when persecution and intolerance was rampant. States, he says, are to regulate this temporal world. They cannot and should not save us or regulate our lives through other means such as salvation, dogma and faith. States should secure and enforce laws and regulations that secure liberties of the citizens as well as their earthly properties. It is interesting to deduce that states cannot impose or guide us as to which theological club to adhere to (sect, fringe religious group or the established majority church). This is the prerogative of each person as he or she believes or sees fit, according to his or her inner beliefs. Free exercise of religion is therefore a must to all the Protestant sects

            It is important to note that in the Letter, Locke did not refer directly to his Socinian faith. He obviously wrote it as a dissenter, and went as far as discarding the very notion of heresy as a notion, but Socinian or Arianism was not dealt in a direct way. Perhaps this was because of the enormous risks involved if he chose to do so.  In a late essay entitled “The Reasonableness of Christianity”(1695) Locke says that he is actually accused of being a Socinian by association or to the least an atheist that shares their views by not openly condemning their “faith”.

           

       Locke seems to deny belonging to the faith by adding a one paragraph later: “I shall leave the Socinians themselves to answer the charges against them, and shall examine the proof of my being Socinian [29]

In The Reasonableness of Christianity, Locke was “silent about Christological and Trinitarian matters” and repeated the aforementioned position that he had never confirmed being a Socinian.[30] He was either very tired or simply afraid to pursue that debate in the public sphere.

Peace of Westphalia (1648) was a short term solution to bloody and most often absurd religious conflicts in Central Europe.

    

                The Toleration professed by Locke is not “perfect by today’s standards, but extends well beyond all the Protestant Christians to other members of Abrahamic religions and beyond. Locke states that neither pagan, nor Mahometan, nor Jew, ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the commonwealth because of his religion”[31]. He basically pleads for toleration of all sects (with the exceptions we discussed above) and the separation of the state and the Church as they will all “suffer one another to go to heaven everyone his own way”. Individual freedoms and the rise of different dissenting sects and faith systems were a challenge to the established normative social orders, highlighted by the innovative ideas and rational thinking fostered by the Age of enlightenment.

    The issue of religious toleration or the lack of it dates back to the early centuries of Christology when the normative orthodoxy arose, often violently eliminating the dissenting theologies.  Just before the Age of the Enlightenment, the Christian Europe went again through shock waves as the Reformation movement further split Christianity into new normative churches, creating even more marginalized minority groups. Toleration is often described as a necessary evil that must be kept under control. The idea is not necessarily for the majority to agree with a minority, such as dissenters in England or Huguenots in France but rather to force a workable modus vivendi. Toleration does not mean agreeing with the minority, nor does it imply to espouse or condone. It simply meant that the majority does not prosecute, persecute or openly harass those who think or prey differently. The idea that toleration is a virtue is another fallacy. There is virtue in toleration: the virtue of restricting the majority and avoiding unnecessary tension and even bloodshed within a society. Therefore it can be strongly argued that toleration not only avoids tensions, but in fact it beneficial to the society it espouses. In the early days of Christianity, “from Paul to Origen the conviction widely prevails that heresies and dissent were necessary and useful for the construction of orthodoxy”. [32] This early convenient tolerance was unfortunately diluted with passing centuries and the exclusion and intolerance in order to ‘secure the contours’ of the established churches. Religious peace or nonaggression is essential for any political stability, a prerequisite for having the appropriate environment for commerce, travel, expansion and economic prosperity.

           

© Krikor Tersakian, November, 2011, Montreal, Canada.

[1] John Locke. Dover publication, New York, 1667. p.211,

[2] "Nonconformist." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2011. Web. 08 Oct. 2011. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/417591/Nonconformists>.

[3] Gerard Vallée : The Shaping of Christianity, Pailist Press, New jersey, 1999. page 70

[4] Vallée, 20.

[5] Vallée, 20

[6] Frederick Streng. Nature and Study of Religion, Belmont, Ca, 1985 Chapter 1, page 4

[7] Vallée, 87

[8] Harvey Cox. What is “Christian” – Christianity in the World Today, Concordia University, page 361.

[9] Michael H. Hart. John Locke, 1632-1704, Hart publishing, New York, 1978. p. 261

[10] Faustus Socinus." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2011. Web. 14 Nov. 2011. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/551856/Faustus-Socinus>

[11] James H.Thully. Introduction to a “Letter concerning Toleration”, Hackett Publishing, Indianapolis, Indiana, 1983, p.2

[12] Thully, 2.

[13] Vere Chappelle, The Cambridge Companion to Locke, Cambridge University Press, 1994. page 22.

[14] Locke John: A Letter Concerning Toleration, Hackett Publishing Company, Indiana, U.S.A. 1983.p. 28.

[15] Locke, 29

[16] O’Connor, 212.

[17] John Locke, Writings on Religion, Edited by Victor Nuovo,Clarendon Press, Oxford, UK, 2004. p. 70

[18] Locke, 29

[19] Locke, 41

[20] Locke, 42

[21] Locke 53

[22] O’Connor, 214

[23] Locke, 56

[24] O’Connor, 212

[25] Locke, 57

[26] Nicholas Jolley. Locke: His Philosophical Thought. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, U.K. 1999., page 193

[27] Locke, 58

[28] O’Connor, 212-213

[29] John Locke. Writings on Religion, Edited by Victor Nuovo,Clarendon Press, Oxford, UK, 2004.p. 211-212     

[30] Chappell, 184.

[31] Hart, 261

[32] Vallée, 77