It cannot be made a matter of reasonable doubt that one of the chief causes of Christian intolerance is the theological doctrine that salvation is dependent upon right belief in religious matters, and that error in belief, even though honest, is a crime that merits and receives eternal punishment.[699] This dogma leads logically and inevitably to intolerance and persecution;[700] for if wrong belief is a crime of so heinous a nature as justly to subject the misbeliever to everlasting and horrible torments, and if the misbeliever is likely to bring others into the same fatal way of thinking, then it follows that heresy should be extirpated, just as the germs of a dreaded contagion are stamped out, by any and every means however seemingly harsh and cruel. Thus St. Thomas Aquinas and other theologians logically “argued that if the death penalty could be rightly inflicted on thieves and forgers, who rob us only of worldly goods, how much more righteously on those who cheat us out of supernatural goods—out of faith, the sacraments, the life of the soul.”[701]
It was this theological teaching that heresy is a fault of unmeasured sinfulness, an “insidious preventable contagion,” which was the main root that fostered Christian intolerance and persecution.[702] The activities of the Holy Office were maintained not by bad men but by good men. “With such men it was not hope of gain, or lust of blood, or pride of opinion, or wanton exercise of power [that moved them], but sense of duty, and they but represented what was universal public opinion from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century.”[703]
Reflecting on these facts, we readily give assent to the charitable judgment of the historian Von Holst in commenting on the acts of the Terrorists in the French Revolution, that “wrongdoing to others lies not so much in the will as in the understanding.” The greatest crime of history was committed by men who knew not what they did.[704] It was a theological doctrine which is to-day rejected by the reason and conscience of a large section of the Church itself, that caused the loss for centuries of the virtue of toleration, which in the ethical systems of the classical world had been assigned a prominent place among the virtues, and which, could it have found a place in the standard of goodness of the Church, would have saved Christendom the horrors of the Albigensian crusades, the pious cruelties of the Inquisition, and the mutual persecutions of Catholics and Protestants throughout the age of the Reformation.
Political morality: Machiavellian ethics
The matter of dominant importance in the sphere of political morality during the Renaissance was the creation of a code of morals for princes. This was a system formulated by the Italian philosopher Machiavelli, who wrote under the secularizing influences of the classical revival and of the paganized courts of the Italian princes of his time.[705] It was a code which the ruling class, for whom it was designed, eagerly adopted, for the reason that it harmonized with their desires, ambitions, and practices, and sanctioned as not only morally permissible, but even as obligatory and meritorious, policies and acts which, without such sanction, might have awakened in some at least inconvenient and hampering scruples of conscience.
This princely ideal, notwithstanding that the conduct of the prince who acted in accordance with it was generally condoned, was not one which, like the ascetic or the knightly ideal, awakened moral enthusiasm. It was a standard of conduct never approved by the best conscience of Christendom. On the contrary, the work in which Machiavelli embodied this ideal for princes was, on its first appearance, fiercely assailed as grossly immoral, and ever since has called forth the severest condemnation of moralists.
The fundamental principle of Machiavelli’s system is that the moral code binding on the subject is not binding on the ruler; or rather that ethics has nothing to do with politics.[706] With the prince the end justifies the means. He is at liberty to lie, defraud, steal, and kill, in fine, to employ all and every form of deception, injustice, cruelty, and unrighteousness in dealing with his enemies and with other princes or states.
This moral standard set for princes by Machiavelli was the dominant force in international affairs from the middle of the sixteenth to the middle of the seventeenth century. During this period it debased the public morals not only of Italy but of every other land in Christendom. Its vicious principles were acted upon by every court of Europe.[707] Even to-day Machiavellism, though condemned in theory, is still too often followed in practice. It would not be an exaggeration to say that The Prince has exercised a more baneful influence over the political morals of Europe than any other book ever written.
It is instructive to contrast the influence of Machiavellism with that of Stoicism. Among the good effects of Roman Stoicism was its ennobling influence upon the imperial government. It gave the Roman Empire such a succession of high-minded and conscientious rulers as scarce is shown by the history of any other state ancient or modern. In contrast to the influence of this noble philosophy which apotheosized duty and exalted in rulers the virtues of clemency, truthfulness, magnanimity, and justice, Machiavellism filled, or contributed to fill, the thrones of Christendom with rulers whose moral sense was so blunted by its sinister doctrines that for generations truth speaking, sincerity, regard for the obligations of treaties, and respect for the rights of sister states were almost unknown in the diplomacy and mutual dealings of the governments of Europe. It is only after the lapse of more than three centuries that Christendom is freeing itself from the evil influence of Machiavelli’s teachings, and that there has been generated a new public conscience which recognizes that states like individuals are subjects of the moral law, and that the code which is binding on individuals is binding likewise on governments and communities.
The ethical value of the ideal of the courtier