Abstract
As the first Christian theologian to write a defense of the use of force against schismatics, Augustine of Hippo has played an important role in the history of intolerance. His vision of the church as a mixed body, however, is also central to Christian thinking about toleration. Shifting our attention from his influential ideas about the limits of toleration to the more fruitful terrain of the nature of toleration, this chapter focuses on the role that Augustine’s understanding of evil has upon his understanding of toleration. The chapter next considers Aquinas’ expansion of Augustine’s ethics of toleration to the political realm, and finally John Owen’s adaptation of this mentality to the increasingly plural early modern world.
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Notes
- 1.
Worden, “Toleration and the Cromwellian Protectorate,” 200.
- 2.
Fiala , Tolerance and the Ethical Life.
- 3.
Kreider , Patient Ferment.
- 4.
Enarrationes in Psalmos 31, 2. My translations throughout for both Augustine and Aquinas.
- 5.
Sermo 359a, 2.
- 6.
For the place of tolerance between these dispositions, see Fletcher, “The Case for Tolerance.”
- 7.
Sermo 359a, 2. See also Enarrationes in Psalmos 52, 1.
- 8.
Rico , Legacy of Dignitatis Humanae, 85.
- 9.
De sermone Domini in monte I, 5, 13.
- 10.
Williams, “Toleration: An Impossible Virtue?,” 18.
- 11.
Tocqueville, Letters from America, 89.
- 12.
Horton, “Traditional Conception,” 295.
- 13.
Mathewes , Evil and the Augustinian Tradition.
- 14.
Contra Faustum XIX, 24.
- 15.
Russell, “Augustine’s Secular Ambivalence.”
- 16.
Bainton , “The Parable of the Tares.”
- 17.
De civitate Dei I, 35.
- 18.
Markus , Saeculum: History and Society in the Age of St. Augustine.
- 19.
Gray, Enlightenment’s Wake, 27.
- 20.
Kaufman , Incorrectly Political, 98.
- 21.
Lombardini , “Stoicism and the Virtue of Toleration.”
- 22.
For a representative version of this critique, see Brown , Regulating Aversion.
- 23.
Virgil, Aeneid, VI, 853.
- 24.
De civitate Dei, prologue (quoting Virgil).
- 25.
Bejczy, “Tolerantia: A Medieval Concept,” 372.
- 26.
Bejczy, 370–71.
- 27.
The argument that follows is taken from Svensson, “Toleration in Aquinas?”
- 28.
In Matt., cap. 13 l. 2. In his commentary on Colossians, Aquinas writes that virtue “cannot exist without patience and tolerance of evils,” In Col., cap. 1 l. 3. See also In II Thes., cap. 3 l. 1. In his systematic works, this approach can be found in places like S. Th. II–II, q. 128 ad 6.
- 29.
S. Th. II-II, q. 10, a. 11.
- 30.
S. Th. II-II, q. 10, a. 11.
- 31.
S. Th. I-II, q. 92, a.2.
- 32.
S. Th. I-II, q. 96, a.2.
- 33.
For an influential version of this argument see Finnis, Aquinas: Moral, Political and Legal Theory, 228.
- 34.
S. Th. I-II, q. 96, a. 2.
- 35.
S. Th. II-II, q. 10, a. 12. It is important to underline that in contrast with the frequently quoted questions regarding the toleration of heretics (S. Th. II-II, q.10, a.11), the question regarding the baptism of Jewish children represented a new challenge. The question had only begun to be raised in the 1260s, and it is only in 1269 that Aquinas discussed it for the first time (in quodl. II, q. 4, a. 2). On this, see Turner, “Duns Scotus on Jews and Judaism,” 214.
- 36.
Williams, The Bloody Tenent yet More Bloody, 325 and 327.
- 37.
Works 8:55.
- 38.
Nederman, “Historical and Global Perspectives.”
- 39.
Remer , Humanism and the Rhetoric of Toleration.
- 40.
Bejczy, “Tolerantia: A Medieval Concept,” 383.
- 41.
In much recent literature—like Zagorin’s general history of toleration—Castellio is celebrated as “the first champion of religious toleration” circumventing this problem. Zagorin, How the Idea of Religious Toleration Came to the West, 93; for a more reflective approach, see Curley, “Sebastian Castellio’s Erasmian Liberalism.”
- 42.
For a contrast between Owen and Locke along these lines, see Svensson, “John Owen and John Locke.”
- 43.
For his biography see Gribben, John Owen and English Puritanism.
- 44.
For his stature as a scholastic theologian, see Trueman, John Owen; for his place in non-conformity, see Cooper, Formation of Nonconformity.
- 45.
For the ups and downs of his writings on toleration see Coffey, “John Owen and the Puritan Toleration Controversy, 1649–59.”
- 46.
Indulgence and Toleration Considered, in Works 13:532.
- 47.
An Answer to Dr Stillingfleets Book of the Unreasonableness of Separation, in Works 15:406.
- 48.
A Country Essay, in Works 8:57.
- 49.
Works 13:530.
- 50.
Works 13:531.
- 51.
Works 13:532.
- 52.
Works 8:57.
- 53.
Works 8:57.
- 54.
Of Toleration; and the Duty of the Magistrate About Religion, in Works 8:170.
- 55.
Works 8:170.
- 56.
Works 8:170.
- 57.
Works 13:538.
- 58.
For texts representative of these three approaches, see Ivanhoe, “Ethical Promiscuity”; Galeotti, Toleration as Recognition; Bretherton, “Toleration with Hospitality.”
- 59.
Sabl acknowledges that his list of 12 conflicting frameworks for toleration is by no means comprehensive, but in the context of the present volume it makes sense to stress how markedly secular most of them are. See Sabl, “‘Virtuous to Himself’: Pluralistic Democracy and the Toleration of Tolerations,” 225–27.
- 60.
Confessiones X, 28, 39.
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Svensson, M. (2020). A Dirty Word? The Christian Development of the Traditional Conception of Toleration in Augustine, Aquinas, and John Owen. In: Karpov, V., Svensson, M. (eds) Secularization, Desecularization, and Toleration. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54046-3_2
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