Dr. Vaughan observes, in criticising the virtuous character and sincere persecuting spirit of Sir Thomas More:— “If there be any opinion which it would be just to punish as a crime, it is the opinion which makes it to be a virtue not to tolerate opinion." (Revolutions in English History, vol. ii. p. 178.)
I find the following striking anecdote in the transactions of the Académie Royale de Belgique, 1862; Bulletins, 2me Sér., tom. xiii. p. 567 seq.; Vie et Travaux de Nicolas Cleynaerts par M. Thonissen. Cleynaerts (or Clenardus) was a learned Belgian (born 1495 — died 1543), professor both at Louvain and at Salamanca, and author of Grammaticæ Institutiones, both of the Greek and the Hebrew languages. He acquired, under prodigious difficulties and disadvantages, a knowledge of the Arabic language; and he employed great efforts to organise a course of regular instruction in that language at Louvain, with a view to the formation of missionaries who would combat the doctrines of Islam.
At Grenada, in Spain (1538), “Clenardus ne réussit pas mieux à arracher aux bûchers de l’inquisition les manuscrits et les livres” (Moorish and Arabic books which had been seized after the conquest of Grenada by the Spaniards) “qu’elle avait entassés dans sa succursale de Grenade. Ce fut en vain que Cleynaerts, faisant valoir le but éminemment chrétien qu’il voulait atteindre, prodigua les démarches et les prières, pour se faire remettre ‘ces papiers plus nécessaires à lui qu’à Vulcain’.… L’inexorable inquisition refusa de lâcher sa proie. Un savant théologien, Jean-Martin Silicæus, précepteur de Philippe II., fit cependant entendre à notre compatriote, que ses vœux pourraient être exaucés, s’il consentait à fonder son école, non à Louvain, mais à Grenade, où une multitude de néophytes faisaient semblant de professer le Christianisme, tout en conservant les préceptes de Mahomet au fond du cœur. Mais le linguiste Belge lui fit cette réponse, doublement remarquable à cause du pays et de l’époque où elle fut émise: ‘C’est en Brabant, et nullement en Espagne, que je poserai les fondements de mon œuvre. Je cherche des compagnons d’armes pour lutter là où la lutte peut être loyale et franche. Les habitants du royaume de Grenade n’oseraient pas me répondre, puisque la terreur de l’inquisition les force à se dire chrétiens. Le combat est impossible, là où personne n’ose assumer le rôle de l’ennemi’ — .” Galen calls for a strict censorship, even over medical books — ad Julianum — Vol. xviii. p. 247 Kühn.
[348] Plato, Apol. Sokr. p. 29. Gorgias, p. 472 A-B: καὶ νῦν περὶ ὧν σὺ λέγεις ὀλίγου σοι πάντες συμφήσουσι ταὐτὰ Ἀθηναῖοι καὶ ξένοι … Ἀλλ’ ἐγώ σοι εἷς ὢν οὐχ ὁμολογῶ.
Compare also p. 482 B of the same dialogue, where Sokrates declares his anxiety to maintain consistency with himself, and his indifference to other authority.
[349] Plato, Apol. Sokr. p. 29 D. πείσομαι δὲ μᾶλλον τῷ θεῷ ἢ ὑμῖν. Comp. pp. 30 A, 31 D, 33 C.
[350] The indictment of Melêtus against Sokrates ran thus — Ἀδικεῖ Σωκράτης, οὓς μὲν ἡ πόλις νομίζει θεούς, οὐ νομίζων, ἕτερα δὲ καινὰ δαιμόνια εἰσηγούμενος· ἀδικεῖ δὲ καὶ τοὺς νέους διαφθείρων· τίμημα, θάνατος (Diog. Laert. ii. 40; Xenoph. Memor. i. 1). The charge as to introduction of καινὰ δαιμόνια was certainly well founded against Sokrates (compare Plato, Republic, vi. p. 496 C). Whoever was guilty of promulgating καινὰ δαιμόνια in the Platonic city De Legibus, would have perished miserably long before he reached the age of 70; which Sokrates attained at Athens.
Compare my ‘History of Greece,’ ch. xxviii.
I have in one passage greatly understated the amount of severity which Plato employs against heretics. I there affirm that he banishes them: whereas the truth is, that he imprisons them, and ultimately, unless they recant, puts them to death.
The persons denounced by Plato as heretics, and punished as such, would have included a majority of the Grecian world.