Wednesday, August 23, 2017
WHIG HISTORY ENLIGHTENMENT REFORMATION HISTORY LESSON TEARING DOWN MONUMENTS
I just like to quote Butterfield....
If I could quote the whole monograph, that would be great, but I am not going to do that....
"If Protestants and Catholics of the 16th century could return to look at the 20th century, they would equally deplore this strange mad world, and much as they fought one another there is little doubt that they would be united in opposition to us; and Luther would confess that he had been wrong and wicked if it was by his doing that this liberty, this anarchy had been let loose, while his enemies would be quick to say that this decline of religion was bound to be the result of a schism such as his. The issue between Protestants and Catholics in the 16th century was an issue of their world and not of our world, and we are being definitely unhistorical, we are forgetting that Protestantism and Catholicism have both had a long history since 1517, if we argue from a rash analogy that the one was fighting for something like our modern world while the other was trying to prevent its coming. Our most secular historians, and the ones who are most grateful for that 'process of secularisation,' that 'break-up of mediaevalism,' of which so much has been traced to the Reformation, are inclined to write sometimes as though Protestantism in itself was somehow constituted to assist that process. It is easy to forget how much Luther was in rebellion against the secularisation of Church and society, how much the Reformation shares the psychology of religious revivals, and to what extent Luther's rebellion against the Papacy helped to provoke that very fanaticism of the Counter-reformation against which we love to see the Protestant virtues shine." pb p 36, 37
Palmer:
"In theory, the church had to be intolerant, for it was responsible to God for bringing the true faith to mankind. In theory, the philosophers stood for the toleration of all beliefs and the free expression of all ideas. In fact, however, the situation was less simple. The philosophers were by no means willing to allow liberty to their opponents, not even to those who were far from representing the formidable power of the church. Their method was not often the mild persuasion favored by liberals. They talked much of reason, but their sharpest instruments were ridicule and vilification, which enabled them to throw off a man's arguments by defaming his character or belittling his intelligence. La Baumelle went to jail, thanks partly to Voltaire, whose works he had ventured to criticize. Freron, a conservative and Catholic journalist, was called by Voltaire, in a single work, a scribbler, scoundrel, toad, lizard, snake, spider, viper's tongue, crooked mind, heart of filth, doer of evil, rascal, impudent person, cowardly knave, spy, and hound. He found his journal gagged, his income halved and his career ruined by the concerted attacks of the philosophers. To silence him, at least two of these philosophers, Marmontel and d'Alemberte, appealed to the censors whose very existence the enlightened thinkers are supposed to have abhorred. It is not possible, in short, to accept as characteristic of these thinkers the statement often attributed to Voltaire, that, though he disagreed with what a man said, he would fight to the death for his right to say it." Catholics and Unbelievers in Eighteenth Century France, pb, p 6.
"Though he disagreed with what a man said, he would fight to the death for his right to say it."
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/06/01/defend-say/
"Though he disagreed with what a man said, he would fight to the death for his right to say it."
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/06/01/defend-say/
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