Page 273 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

1574 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

No difference there is between a temple and a mosque, nor between
the Hindu worship or the Muslim prayer: for men are the same all
over, though they appear not the same. • Guru Gobind Singh
(1666–1708)

Decius, Valerian, and Diocletian, by some estimates as
Religious Freedom many as a quarter of a million Christians were executed

for violating the mandatory worship requirements of the
eligious freedom did not emerge in human history empire. Christianity continued to grow, however, and by
Ras the widely accepted idea that it is today. In fact, the fourth century claimed as much as 10 percent of the
human governments, until the modern era, generally Roman population. The persecutions against the Chris-
have mandated religious belief on the assumption that a tians ended, however, only when Constantine became the
common religion is essential to social stability. This first emperor to become a Christian. He was instrumen-
assumption has not died easily, and prevails still in some tal in the passage of the Edict of Milan in 313, a docu-
areas of the world today. Nevertheless, religious freedom ment of landmark proportions in the history of religious
has now become an almost universally accepted norm, freedom. It provided “that liberty of worship shall not be
backed by international law and the constitutions of most denied to any, but that the mind and will of every indi-
nations. Religious freedom can be defined as the liberty vidual shall be free to manage divine affairs according to
guaranteed to human beings by state authority to believe, his own choice” (Pfeffer 1967, 13). The edict elevated
concerning matters of religion, that which is dictated by Christianity to a status equal to that of other religions in
conscience, including no belief at all. the empire, although within a decade Constantine altered
laws to give legal preference to Christianity.The Roman
Ancient Societies state built great Christian edifices, instituted Christian
In ancient societies there was no differentiation between holidays, granted exemptions from taxation to Christian
the religious and the secular.All of life was religious, and clergy, and persecuted adherents of “heathen” religions.
state authority generally assumed the role of moral agent The persecuted had become the persecutor. In 380,
and mandated religious belief to further its own ends. under Emperor Theodosius, Christianity was officially
Ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Greece were polythe- enshrined as the state religion of the empire.
istic cultures in which civil authorities were also consid- The Christian state became the model for all of Europe
ered either priests or gods themselves, and the religious during the Middle Ages. The Orthodox Church became
life of subjects was closely regulated.As popular new reli- the established religion over much of the Eastern empire,
gions emerged, state machinery frequently adopted these including Greece and Russia; Catholicism prevailed in
religions as a basis of unity for society.Thus Hinduism in the West.The goal of the church-state partnership was the
India, Buddhism in Thailand, Shintoism in Japan, Con- glory of God and the salvation of man.Any impediments
fucianism and Daoism in China, Judaism in Israel, and to this goal were dealt with harshly. Thus by the thir-
Islam in the Middle East all influenced law and public teenth century, Western authorities devised a formal
policy and still retain today a status as formal or semi- Inquisition by which heretics would be systematically
formal state religions. In these settings, freedom and reli- sought out and, if deemed beyond rehabilitation, exe-
gion have not been natural allies.The brave heretic who cuted. Between 1231, when the Inquisition was formally
has pursued religious ideas outside those of official sanc- instituted by Pope Gregory IX, until 1834, when the
tion has frequently been persecuted or even executed as Spanish Inquisition was finally abolished, tens if not hun-
a cancer on society. dreds of thousands of heretics were burned at the stake
because their faith did not match the officially approved
The Union of Church and Christian doctrines. Religious freedom, obviously, was
State in Medieval Europe not part of the medieval vocabulary.
This pattern of persecuting heretics persisted in the early Occasionally there emerged, however, from within the
Roman empire. Under emperors such as Nero, Trajan, Christian church voices in behalf of religious freedom.