The mediaeval conscience was different from ours
The medieval conscience was nominally free, but it gradually became more and more restricted by the church. About the history of conscience, from the ancient Greeks to Luther.
In a short series of articles we delve into the origins of the ideal of freedom of conscience in our civilisation.
In the previous episode we saw what a conscience is, what it can do for you, and what happens when you try to stretch the boundaries of conscience. We saw how much influence peer pressure can have on our conscience. And that violations of our conscience can be accompanied by intense emotions. Although we now see our conscience as very individual, we still have to put that into perspective. Our conscience function can be just as effective when it comes to morality that we share with fellow members of our group: our church community, our work or our ideological peers, for example. And we saw that we now have a very relativistic attitude towards consciences: the content of our conscience only comes into question when we no longer keep it to ourselves, but also bother others with it.
Keep these observations in mind when you read this article. You will read how freedom of conscience was thought about from classical antiquity, via Jesus and Paul, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, up to and including Luther. The principle of freedom of conscience was never disputed, but there were certainly limitations.
Conscience in Antiquity
We are born with self-reflection. We think about why we did something and how it turned out. Sometimes we regret it and hope we learn a lesson from it. Sometimes we feel ashamed or guilty. Do it differently next time.
What can you regret? If you're shooting yourself in the foot, that's the first thing. Or if you hurt or sadden other people. Then you feel guilt and shame. If you disappoint yourself or others, you feel ashamed because you have not lived up to expectations. You may also have violated moral rules: rules that you have set for yourself or that you believe apply to everyone. And finally, you can also violate moral rules that apply generally, but to which you do not consider yourself bound. Guilt and shame are then absent.
The Greeks and Romans saw the conscience primarily as that inner voice, a witness that reflects on what you have done. The Greek playwrights talked about syneidesis: sharing knowledge with oneself. The Latin conscientia literally means the same thing. “I couldn't live with myself anymore,” is an often-recorded outburst of remorse. In Greek culture, feelings of regret, guilt, and shame were nothing to be ashamed of.
That inner voice, the witness, was mainly assessing what you had done. It was less common to consult that same voice for your current actions. It was a witness, a judge perhaps, but not a legislator. At least, the same word syneidesis was not used for that.
Something like an individual conscience did exist among the Greeks, but the norms were general. It was not often that a Greek imposed standards on himself that differed from those of the community. Usually these concerned generally applicable standards. If you fell short in this regard, for example when you broke a promise, then you should feel ashamed.
While negative evaluation predominated among the Greeks, conscience could also give the Romans positive feedback. Well done! Romans, and especially the Stoics, could reflect quite cheerfully on their own behaviour. When Cicero and Seneca compared their behaviour to their conscience, it sounded as if they were doing quite well for themselves. The Stoics also imposed standards on themselves that did not apply generally, but only to themselves or to gentlemen of rank.
Seneca wrote several times that you should live as if someone else was constantly looking over your shoulders. Besides, he added, there is such a person, namely God.
The Romans also offered freedom of conscience to a certain extent to foreigners within their empire. Most polytheistic religions could continue to worship their own gods and practise their own rustic rules, as long as they kept it decent and respected the Roman gods. Even monotheistic Judaism, which wanted nothing to do with Roman gods, was little hindered in practice. Not that the Romans had such a high regard for the consciences of exotic peoples; freedom of conscience was motivated by pragmatism. If one touched their religion, one could count on fierce resistance. There were more important things to worry about. Taxes, for instance.
Christian ideas about conscience were deeply influenced by the Greeks and Romans, primarily through the Greek-speaking Roman Jew Paulos. Conscience played a major role in Christian theology, and that is not surprising. In the Roman Empire you did not become a Christian by birth, you became a Christian by conscious choice, especially before Christianity had become the state religion. That free will was therefore vital for the growth of the church. The difficult thing, of course, is that free will can also make wrong choices, and even turn away from God. What to do in such cases?
Freedom of conscience according to Jesus
As an itinerant Jewish teacher, Jesus mainly talked about the laws of purity and the kingdom of God. His views on free will are particularly applicable to freedom of conscience: an aversion to coercion. Keep God's laws or not; the consequences are for yourself.
Compliance with God's laws is a free choice; you should not be forced.
Jesus
Jesus' parable about the wheat and the tares also fits in here. Weeds grow among the wheat. The servants want to weed the tares, but the farmer stops them: he is afraid that the wheat will also suffer. He says: let both grow, so that we can separate the wheat from the tares at the harvest. With the harvest, Jesus referred to the final judgement. The message: leave sinners alone, God will deal with them.
Leave sinners alone; God will deal with them.
Jesus
Furthermore, Jesus believed that one should separate main and secondary matters of the law, that as a victim you are obliged to forgive the perpetrator, and he clearly had a missionary attitude.
Victims are obliged to forgive perpetrators.
Jesus
The latter is well expressed in the parable about the party: a rich man throws a big party. Many guests don't show up, so he sends his staff to bring in the guests. The rich man represents God, the guests represent humanity. Later there would be much discussion about the level of pressure the staff should put on the guests to come along. Force them to come, that is how the Bible text was read. That seems a translation error; insist, was probably intended. That translation error had major consequences, as we will see later.
The conscience according to Paulos
The main distinction between Paulos and Jesus was that Paulos was clearly looking for non-Jewish converts, which Jesus had no interest in at all. Furthermore, Paulos was clearly busy building a church organisation, something that Jesus had not been concerned with either. Paulos' instructions are often more practical in nature. He also developed a more refined Christian theology.
Jewish law did not apply to non-Jewish Christians, Paulos believed. I previously devoted an entire article to this. But if Jewish law didn’t apply, what did? Paulos was a bit embarrassed about that, because it was an untrodden path. Moreover, he was never able to completely separate himself from his own Jewish background, which is why he occasionally declared elements of Jewish law applicable. But the gist was: there is no written law anymore. Instead, there is a law written in the hearts of believers, and their conscience confirms that law.
Some people naturally obey the Law's commands, even though they don't have the Law. This proves that the conscience is like a law written in the human heart. And it will show whether we are forgiven or condemned, when God appoints Jesus Christ to judge everyone's secret thoughts, just as my message says.
— Paulos of Tarsos, Letter to the Romans 2:14–16 (c. 57 CE)
Note that there are two separate things: the (universal, divine) law, and conscience. The law is of course infallible. But conscience is people's individual, fallible reflection on their own behaviour. Paulos thus recognised that everyone can make their own decision in their conscience.
It is an indication that individuals have freedom of conscience. Everyone is baked differently, so consciences can also differ, even between good believers. This is confirmed in the issue of eating sacrificial meat. The question was: could Christians also eat meat slaughtered in pagan temples? Paulos wrote that there is nothing 'legally' wrong with eating that meat, but some cannot reconcile this with their conscience. This implies that conscience can also be mistaken. The law that is in your heart is not wrong, but the witness, the conscience, can be wrong. Paulos believed that you should nevertheless follow your conscience. And you must consult your conscience before taking action. In any case, in his letter to the Romans he urged reasonableness:
One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgement on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls.
—Paulos of Tarsos, Letter to the Romans 14:1–2 (c. 57 CE)
As long as you follow the law written in your heart, do what your conscience tells you.
Paulos
After Paulos
After Paulos, conscience continued to play a major role in early Christianity. In line with Greek tradition, feelings of guilt and shame prevailed. Believers were constantly aware of their sinfulness, their inability to submit to the will of God.
Origenes of Alexandria (ca. 185–254) spoke of a biting conscience. Every evening and every morning he asked himself: what have I done, where have I gone astray, and where have I forsaken? His own sinfulness bothered him: sources mention that he would have cut off his own balls so that he no longer had to succumb to the temptations of the flesh.
We owe an important innovation in Christian thinking about conscience to a mistake made by the church father Iëronimos of Stridon in the 4th century. In a Bible text (Ezekiel), four creatures come down from heaven, each with their own face: that of a man, a lion, an ox and an eagle. What do they mean? Well, Iëronimos wrote, they represent the four parts of the soul. The human face represents intellect, that of the lion represents courage, the ox represents desire. So far the parts corresponded to Plato's description of the three parts of the soul in his book Politeia. But what about that eagle? That's right, wrote Iëronimos, the pagan Plato wasn’t aware of the eagle. It is about synderesis, the spark of conscience.
Huh, synderesis? Didn't the Greeks use the word syneidesis for conscience? Iëronimos probably made a mistake, using the wrong word. But his mistake made a difference: in the Christian tradition there were from now on two consciences: synderesis stood for the intention of God, and syneidesis (usually referred to by the Latin synonym conscientia) for the reasoned conscience. Synderesis is ingrained in everyone, but conscientia can be lost. Synderesis is about principles, conscientia is about concrete cases. Your synderesis is free of errors, but your conscientia can get away with you. “Synderesis is that which mutters back against sin and without reservation correctly considers and wills the good,” wrote Philippe le Chancelier in 1228. We will leave that for the moment as far as the mediaeval concept of conscience is concerned. Just remember that Scholasticism made it more and more complicated, but empirical psychological knowledge was lacking.
Freedom of conscience in the Middle Ages
More important is what the scholastics, and Tomasso Aquinas in particular, thought about freedom of conscience and divergent religious views.
The early Church Fathers lived at a time when Christians were still a persecuted community in the pagan Roman Empire. It is therefore not surprising that early theologians such as Tertullianus (160–240) and Lactantius (240–320) believed that faith cannot be forced on anyone: anyone who does not convert out of conviction has no value before God. This argument would be repeated for centuries by all who stood up against heretic persecution.
Faith cannot be forced on anyone; only voluntary conversion counts.
Tertullianus, Lactantius, Augustinus, Tomasso of Aquino, Erasmus, Luther, Castellio, Coornhert, Locke
You can see above that Augustinus also endorsed that statement, but he placed an important footnote. During his fruitless attempts to bring the heretical Donatists into line, he had to admit that a little coercion could help. Because rebellious believers who know that they will not be harmed become lethargic, contemptuous and apathetic towards the true faith. They need a push. The death penalty goes too far, but a little violence doesn't hurt.
It is okay to use a little violence to bring heretics to repentance: with love, as a father hits his child.
Augustinus, Calvin, Proast
What is less known is that Augustinus also had no moral objection to the death penalty for sinners, including probably the worst heretics, such as the Manichaeans. Because if you don't intervene, sin will spread. The death penalty can also be an act of love. The punished person can then no longer sin and his soul can be saved.
Tomasso of Aquino went even further than Augustinus. Faith is a free choice, he also thought. You may not push anyone into the church against their will. And it is a sin to go against your conscience, even if your conscience is wrong. But Catholics who went against the teachings of the Church were heretics and deserved punishment. They have to be warned twice, and then you have to hand them over to the authorities. Why? Because they broke their promise; they had voluntarily surrendered themselves to the authority of the church.
Unbelievers who once accepted and professed the faith must be forced, even with physical violence, to carry out what they promised and adhere to what they once accepted.
— Tomasso of Aquino, Summa theologiae (1265)
As long as the wheat is safe, there is no objection to destroying tares, he qualified Jesus' words. Heresy is a proliferating weed that can endanger the wheat. Just as one must cut off an inflamed limb to prevent the whole body from succumbing to the contagion, so is it inevitable to put heretics to death.
If heresy poses a danger to the religious community, the death penalty is justified. In doing so you stop the spread of sin and you can save the soul of the executed.
Augustinus, Tomasso of Aquino, Calvin, Lipsius
I can be brief about the church's usual defence that they are not responsible for the punishment, that the church was a prosecutor but not a judge. Tomasso believed that heretics should first be banished from the church, and then the church should ensure that the authorities gave these sinners the death penalty. Saint Thomas’s pen was a lethal weapon, and his word was law.
There was some consensus on this in Christian circles until well into the 16th century, until Castellio spoiled the party in 1554:
Killing a man does not mean defending a doctrine, it means killing a man.
— Sébastien Castellio, Contra libellum Calvini (1554)
Heretic burnings continued for centuries in parts of Europe; the Catholic Spaniards in particular had a hand in it. The last one, the schoolmaster Cayetano Ripoll, was hanged in Valencia in 1826 for heresy, namely the spread of deistic ideas. After hanging, his body was burned in the town square.
The monopolisation of conscience by the church
Traditionally, the Reformation is explained by increasing individualism, urbanisation, emerging prosperity among the citizens, the introduction of the printing press and perhaps even a hesitant beginning of the process of secularisation. But there is also another side: the Church of Rome expanded and claimed more and more space over the conscience of the faithful.
A brief summary:
In 325 it was agreed at the Council of Nicea that Jesus is of the same substance as God senior, and therefore truly a god. A general confession of faith was agreed upon, to which every Catholic was bound. Anyone who did not agree with that could just fuck off.
In 1075, a collection of sayings was proclaimed by Pope Gregorius VII known as Dictatus Papae. The statements can be summarised as: the Pope is the boss and his word is law. He himself is not to be judged by anyone; the Church of Rome has never erred and never will err in eternity.
From around 1200, the death penalty for heresy was introduced into canon law, inspired by Roman law, which also punished heresy with death.
In 1215, confession and penance became mandatory. Theologically, it is undisputed in Christianity that only God can forgive us of our sins. Priests are at most intermediaries: people who - unlike God - sometimes say something back. After confession, it is logical for the priest to say to the sinner: “may God forgive you” or, if you assume that God always forgives: “I declare God's forgiveness.” But Tomasso of Aquino, based on inimitable reasoning, came up with a different formulation after 1215 that would make a difference. The priest had to say, “I forgive you.”
Using that formulation was asking for misunderstandings. It seemed that the church now decided what was sinful, what the penalty was, and whether or not you were forgiven. As a result, the church monopolised its interpretation of sin and conscience. If you wanted to be forgiven, you had to accept the views of the church. This naturally caused bad blood, including among the theologians John Wycliff (1330–1384) and Jan Hus (1371–1415). In response, the church had Hus burned alive as a heretic, a fate Wycliff only escaped by dying prematurely on his own. Luther's rebellion began on the same grounds: the church has no say in forgiveness.
The church has nothing to say about forgiveness of sins.
Wycliff, Hus, Luther
In 1233, Pope Gregorius IX established the Inquisition, consisting of Dominican and Franciscan priests. The mission was to protect orthodoxy against heresy. In a bull of 1252, Ad extirpanda, confessions under duress became legitimate. The Inquisition was therefore allowed to use torture on suspected heretics.
The priests mainly worked among the Cathars and Waldensians; when they were exterminated in the 14th century, the Papal Inquisition lived a dormant existence. But in 1478, the King of Spain established his own Inquisition, over which the Pope had little control. The Spanish Inquisition in particular, which also became active in the Netherlands, was known for its merciless and cruel actions.In 1302, Pope Bonifatius VIII issued the bull Unam Sanctam: “For salvation it is absolutely necessary that every human creature should be subject to the Pope of Rome.” And: “insofar as any action has moral implications, it is subject to his judgement.”
The Council of Florence decreed in 1442 that outside the Catholic Church no one, no pagan, no Jew, no unbeliever and no schismatic, will share in eternal life, but will be subject to eternal fire. It was reiterated that forgiveness was only available from the Church of Rome.
IT faces the well-known problem of legacy: old software is not replaced, but is continually provided with new layers that are linked in an inscrutable way. Ultimately you get a system that no one understands anymore: knowledge of the old system is dying out and no one has an overview of the whole anymore. Something similar happened in scholasticism. The Vatican relied on scholasticism for theological knowledge, which was practised at the highest level at the University of Paris. There, generations upon generations of scholars dealt with complicated theological issues that became increasingly complex and over which ultimately only a petrified bunch of professors had an overview. Erasmus, educated at that university, made fun of it in his Praise of Folly:
Setting themselves up as moral judges of the world, they force you to recant everything that is not entirely consistent with their direct and indirect conclusions; they pronounce like oracles: ‘This proposition is scandalous; this irreverent; this has a smack of heresy; that one sounds bad.’ (...) Who had delivered the church from such mists of error, which yet no one ever met with, if they had not brought them to light in proclamations bearing the great seal of the University?
— Erasmus of Rotterdam, Moriae encomium (1509)
The ambiguity of conscience
Gradually the realisation arose that consciences were not as singular as the church had led us to believe. The ancient Greeks were already familiar with the phenomenon of the moral dilemma. The mythological Orestes was the classic example. His father was killed, so he was morally bound to take revenge on the perpetrator. But then it turned out that his mother was behind the murder. Should he kill his mother to avenge his father's murder? (Orestes thought so, and did it.)
Of course the Church of Rome was aware of the phenomenon of the moral dilemma, they were not stupid. Conscience was a much-discussed topic among mediaeval theologians. People even worried about questions like: do you have a conscience when you sleep? And do infants also have a conscience?
The classic solution for moral dilemmas was: choose the lesser of the two evils. But scholasticism gradually realised that the lesser of the two evils is sometimes difficult to determine. In fact, there may be three consciences in one soul: the will of God, the rational moral consideration and the spirit of compassion: follow your heart.
Another well-known issue, which concerned Pierre Abelard (1079–1142), for example, was: what about people who follow their conscience to the best of their ability, but make a mistake and therefore sin? For example, suppose you give money to a charity that — without you knowing it — supports terrorist groups. Or the other way around: you have bad intentions, but by chance your action actually turns out very well. For example, out of cruelty, you cause someone to trip, and that happens to be a thief being chased by the police. What counts, the intention or the outcome? The same debate is still going on among ethicists: deontology or consequentialism, more about which soon.
So, at the end of the Middle Ages it gradually became clear that conscience does not always offer an unambiguous solution, that there are more moral truths, and that one person's right does not always mean another's wrong.
The individualisation of conscience
Our culture is highly individualised, I don't need to elaborate on that. No clear cause can be identified. But when it comes to the individualisation of conscience, there was one mediaeval thinker who demonstrably had a major influence; Luther himself mentioned this. It was the French theologian Jean de Gerson (1363–1429), chancellor of the Paris university. He was mentioned before, as the one who pioneered the existence of individual rights.
The reason for his work was the Western Schism, the period in church history around 1400 in which Europe was divided between two popes, one in Rome, and the other one in Avignon. Gerson owed it to his position to take a stand on this: who is the rightful pope? But that question was not easy to answer, and Gerson was aware of the risks. If he obeyed the illegitimate pope, he would go to hell. But he had no idea which one it was. And if he didn't choose, he was anyway denying Peter's rightful successor. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. The case was too complex to make an unequivocal judgement.
What does one do in such a case? In mediaeval scholasticism, this kind of dilemma was known as scruples: the fear caused by the realisation that you were morally or religiously deficient, that you could be wrong. The common solution was risk aversion: ensuring that you did not have to make such choices. Unnecessary involvement in morally risky activities was, according to mediaeval theologians, a mortal sin. Good Christians were obliged to avoid moral hazards. If that didn't work, you had to apply the regula magistralis: choose the solution with the smallest chance of sin. If you still couldn't reach an agreement, you had to follow the opinion of the majority of all experts consulted.
That was unrealistic, Gerson wrote. You can never act decisively like this. Perhaps this is the best way to solve mathematical problems, but morality is not mathematics, Aristotle had already noted. How can a merchant ever do business again if he had to tackle moral dilemmas in a scholastic way? Gerson argued that ordinary mortals should be able to tackle moral dilemmas with common sense. After careful consideration and consultation with experts, choose the most reasonable option. You can't ask more from a normal person.
Don't be paralysed by moral dilemmas; think for yourself and make decisions.
Gerson
Another thinker who especially influenced both Erasmus and Luther was Thomas of Kempen (ca. 1380–1471) with his work De imitatione Christi. They had both read the book. The core of his message was: “what would Jesus do?” Don't worry too much about the worldly fuss, but turn within yourself and focus on Jesus' instructions. All church teachings must be judged with Jesus' purposes in mind.
What would Jesus do?
Thomas of Kempen
That instruction inspired Erasmus and the reformers to take a headstrong attitude towards the church hierarchy, to think for themselves, back to the source. After all, you do it on the highest authority, the instructions of God's son himself.
And then Luther came
I had already announced it: we arrive at Luther, who took on the Pope himself. In 1521 he had to answer for himself by order of the emperor. In his closing words he appealed to his conscience:
If I am not convinced by the testimonies of Scripture and plain grounds of reason — for I believe neither the Pope alone nor the councils, because they have often erred and contradicted themselves — then I am convinced by the passages of Sacred Scripture which I have led, convicted by my conscience, and captivated by the word of God. Therefore I cannot and will not withdraw anything, because doing something against conscience is neither safe nor useful. God help me, Amen!”
— Martin Luther in the Diet of Worms (1521)
Here Luther gave priority to his conscience, to his interpretation, over the statements of the pope and the clergy, because they are (also) not infallible. Putting your conscience ahead of the official doctrine of the church, how dare he?
This did not mean that Luther can be mentioned in the same breath as freedom of conscience. For himself, yes, but those who thought differently could take a flying leap, because they were wrong. Lutheran worship was compulsory for everyone; Catholics, Zwinglians and Jews should buzz off, and Anabaptists deserved death.
After Luther
In the next episode we’ll finally arrive at the famous discussion about freedom of conscience in the 16th and 17th centuries. But at the end of this article I would like to emphasise that the discussion about religious tolerance after the Reformation was by no means just about freedom of conscience. There were also very different approaches. I list the most important ones below:
Freedom of conscience did not play such a major role for Erasmus and his contemporaries. We already know Erasmus's plea, for whom the entire Reformation wasn’t the solution: just keep it reasonable, watch out for polarisation, distinguish between main and secondary issues, focus on the core of the faith, the peaceful and forgiving instructions of Jesus.
Erasmus' position fit into the tradition of Irenicism with predecessors such as Nikolaus of Cusa and Marsilio Ficino. His plea came back in different guises and continues to have an influence to this day. A (politically) pragmatic school emerged with followers such as L'Hospital and Cassander. An ecumenical tradition emerged with advocates such as the German philosophers Leibniz and Wolff. And a mystical movement arose in which Erasmian ideas were interwoven in the form of quietism and pietism, including by the Protestants Sebastian Franck and Kaspar Schwenckfeld and the 17th-century Catholic Miguel de Molinos, who at one point became so influential that the Vatican banned him.We have previously discussed in detail about pragmatic dealing with religious differences. The national interest does not benefit from religious division. Religious repression only leads to a hardening of positions. The state must also stand above the parties in religious matters. If religious divisions cannot be resolved, you just have to deal with it. Later, the Dutch in particular discovered that religious tolerance also offers unsuspected advantages. Not only did it not turn out to be that difficult to govern a religiously divided country. But religious tolerance is also good for trade and can create prosperity.
Moreover, Bayle argued that one should not confuse morality and religion. You have devout Christians who act like assholes, and you have atheists who act like saints. You should not argue about what the best religion is, because that is a matter of individual conscience separate from the interests of the community. It's not about everyone following the "best" religion, it's about cooperation and moral rectitude. That is separate from religion.
Let’s continue next week.
For further reading
Joseph Lecler, Histoire de la tolérance au siècle de la Réforme (1958), translated as Toleration and the Reformation (1960)
Erik D’Arcy, Conscience and its right to freedom (1961)
Thomas Bokenkotter, A concise history of the catholic church (1978/2005)
Gary Remer, Humanism and the rhetoric of toleration (1996)
Rainer Forst, Toleranz im Konflikt. Geschichte, Gehalt und Gegenwart eines umstrittenen Begriffs (2003), translated as: Toleration in conflict: past and present (2013)
Paul Strohm, Conscience, a very short introduction (2011)
Rudolf Schüssler, Jean Gerson, moral certainty and the Renaissance of ancient scepticism, in: Harald Braun, Edward Vallance (red.), The Renaissance conscience (2011)
Hélène Suzanne, Conscience in the Early Renaissance: the case of Erasmus, Luther and Thomas More, Moreana (2014)
Richard Sorabji, Moral conscience through the ages: Fifth Century BCE to the present (2014)
Steve Clarke, The justification of religious violence (2014)
Carlos Eire, Reformations. The Early Modern world, 1450–1650 (2016)
Howard Louthan, Irenicism and ecumenism in the Early modern world: a reevaluation, Odrodzenie i Reformacja w Polsce (2017)
Peter Eardley, Medieval theories of conscience, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2021)
Alberto Giubilini, Conscience, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2023)
This was the eighteenth newsletter in a long series on Toleration and Christianity. An overview of all articles in this series can be found in the overview article Toleration in the history of Christianity.
The next episode will be about the debate on freedom of conscience following the Reformation.