Flowers of Freethought Volume II Part 16

"Is it not true," asked King Gundobald of Bishop Avitus, "that the event of national wars and private combats is directed by the judgment of G.o.d; and that his providence awards the victory to the juster cause?" The Bishop could not answer "No," for if he did he would have demolished the whole Church system of ordeals, so he yielded to the arguments of his sovereign.

Single combats, under the Gothic code, were fought according to judicial forms. They were held, Robertson says, "as solemn appeals to the omniscience and justice of the Supreme Being." Shakespeare is careful to to notice this feature. When Bolingbroke and Norfolk, in _Richard II._, challenge each other as traitors, the king consents to their duel in the following terms:

At Coventry, upon Saint Lambert's day: There shall your swords and lances arbitrate The swelling difference of your settled hate. Since we cannot atone you, we shall see Justice design the victor's chivalry.

Modern duelling is thus a survival of the old judicial combat. The "point of honor" is the excuse for a practice which has lost its original sanction. The appeal to G.o.d is forgotten, and the duellists talk of "satisfaction." Illogical no doubt, but this is only one of many customs that survive their original meaning.

Now the Church cannot hold itself guiltless in regard to this folly. She cherished the superst.i.tion on which it rested. She taught the policy of appealing to G.o.d, and only frowned on the particular method which brought no grist to her mill. Her own methods were still more senseless.

Unless the laws of nature were constantly subverted, her ordeals must have operated at random when they were not regulated by fraud. The hand of guilt might be harder than that of innocence, and more likely to bear a moment's contact with hot iron or boiling oil. Besides, as Montesquieu observes, the poltroon stood the poorest chance in the judicial combat, and the poltroon was more likely to be guilty than the man of courage.

The weak, of course, were at the mercy of the strong; but in one point, at least, the combat had an obvious advantage over the other ordeals.

How amusing it must have been to a sceptic, if such then existed, to see the opposition between the n.o.bles and the clergy. The n.o.bles said "Fight!" and the clergy cried "That is impious." The clergy said "Swear!" and the n.o.bles cried "That is sacrilege and leads to perjury."

No less amusing was the turn which combat took in Spain in the eleventh century. There was a struggle between the Latin and the Gothic liturgy.

Aragon yielded to the papal pressure, but Castile thought the contest should be decided by the sword. Accordingly, Mosheim tells us, two champions were chosen; they fought, and the Latin liturgy was defeated.

But the Romish party was not satisfied. The two liturgies were thrown into a fire, and the result of the ordeal was another triumph for the Goths. Still the divine decisions are frail when opposed to the interests of the Church. Queen Constantia, who controlled King Alphonso, sided with the pontiff of Rome, and the priest and the lady carried the day.

Though incorporated in the judicial system of Christendom, the duel is scorned by the Turks, and was unknown to the Greeks and Romans. Lord Bacon remarks this in one of his admirable law tracts:

"All memory doth consent that Greece and Rome were the most valiant and generous nations of the world; and, that which is more to be noted, they were free estates, and not under a monarchy; whereby a man would think it a great deal the more reason that particular persons should have righted themselves; and yet they had not this practice of duels, nor anything that bare show thereof." (_Charge against Duels._)

Bacon observes that the most valorous and generous nations scorn this practice. Why then did it obtain so long in Christendom? Was it because the Northern and Western nations were cowardly and selfish? Nothing of the kind; it was because they were superst.i.tious, and their superst.i.tion was cherished by the Church. Even at the present day the Church calls international combat an appeal to G.o.d; regimental banners are consecrated by priests, and laid up in temples when dilapidated; and Catholic and Protestant priests alike implore victory for their respective sides in time of war. And why not? Is not the Bible G.o.d "the Lord of Hosts" and "a man of war"? Did he not teach David's fingers to fight? Were not Joshua and Jehu, the two greatest tigers in history, his chosen generals? Why then should he be averse to international butchery in Europe? Should he not rejoice in the next b.l.o.o.d.y c.o.c.kpit of featherless bipeds? And is it not hard to see his infinite appet.i.te for blood reduced to content itself with an occasional duel, in which not enough of the sanguine fluid is shed to make a small black-pudding?

Bishop Freppel is ill-advised. He should not rob his Deity of his last consolation.

DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN. *

* July 2, 1893.

The ramming and sinking of the "Victoria" is the great event of the day.

It is said to show the uselessness of big ironclads in naval warfare.

But as the "Camperdown," which sent the "Victoria" to the bottom in a few minutes, has herself sustained very little damage, it looks as though "rams" were anything but inefficient. There has never yet been an engagement between two fleets of ironclads, and no one knows how they would behave in an actual battle. Our own impression is that both fleets would go to the bottom, and this opinion is shared by a good many practical persons at Portsmouth and Devonport. However that may be, it is a great pity that "civilised" nations are still so uncivilised as to spend their time and money on these costly engines of destruction. We are well aware that the newspapers go into hysterics over our soldiers and sailors, and no doubt many of them are very gallant fellows. But in this, we venture to think, they do not represent the ma.s.ses of the people. Never have we witnessed such deep and sincere enthusiasm as was displayed by the crowd of spectators at the Agricultural Hall, while the American, Portuguese, and English firemen were going through their evolutions. The business of these fine fellows was to _save_ life. They incurred the deadliest danger for human preservation, and not for human destruction. And how the people cheered them as they rode upon their engines, drawn by galloping horses! With what breathless interest they watched them climbing up ladders, sliding down ropes, and bearing men on their backs out of third-floor windows! It did one good to watch the proceedings, which showed that a new spirit was taking possession of the people, that they were beginning to be more interested in the savers than in the slayers of men.

But all this is a digression. Let us return to the "Victoria." She is now in eighty fathoms of water with her hundreds of dead. Poor fellows!

theirs was a sad fate; though not more so than the fate of miners blasted or suffocated in explosive pits. We pity their dear ones--mothers, sisters, wives, and children. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of hearts are aching on their account; mourning for the dead who will never be buried under the sweet churchyard gra.s.s, though they have the whole ocean for their tomb and the stars for its nightlamps.

On Sunday, of course, the sky-pilots, all over England, were busy at "improving the occasion." They always make profit out of death and disaster. "Prepare to meet thy G.o.d!" was the lesson which most of them derived from this catastrophe. Of course the preachers are ready _themselves_. Who can doubt it? But they are in no hurry to have it tested. They do not want to meet their G.o.d until they are obliged to. It is so much better to be a commercial traveller in G.o.d's service than to take a situation in the house.

Some of the preachers dared to talk about "Providence"--the sweet little cherub that sits up aloft, to keep watch o'er the life of poor Jack, and lets him go to the bottom or furnish a dinner for sharks. Surely that Providence is a rare old fraud. A cripple, a paralytic, a sleeper, a dead man, could have done as much for the "Victoria" as Providence managed to do. "Oh!" it is said, "but the drowned sailors are gone to Heaven; Providence looked after them in that way." Indeed! Then why do you lament over them? Still more, why do you congratulate the survivors?

According to your theory, they have missed a slice of good luck.

We have frequently remarked, and we now repeat, that religion is based upon the bed-rock of _selfishness_; and nothing proves the truth of this so clearly, and so convincingly, as the talk that people indulge in about Providence. For instance, take this telegram, which is printed in the newspapers as having been sent home to a gentleman in England:--"Jack saved. Awful affair. Thank G.o.d!" This telegram was written hastily, but it was sincere; the writer had no time to drop into hypocrisy. "Jack saved" was his first thought; that is, Jack is still on earth and out of heaven. "Awful affair" was his second thought; that is, a lot of other poor devils are gone to heaven--anyhow, they are no longer on earth. "Thank G.o.d" was his third thought; that is, Jack's all right. Thus it was two for our Jack, and one for all the hundreds who perished! It may be pointed out, too, that "Thank G.o.d!" comes in the wrong place; where it stands it seems to thank G.o.d for the calamity.

Yes, so it does, if we look at the mere composition; but the order of the e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns is all right, if we look at the sentiment, the pious sentiment, of the person who wrote the telegram. He followed the logic of his personal feelings, like everyone else who "thanks G.o.d" and talks of Providence.

Season and personal feeling often do not coincide. In this case, for instance, it requires a very slight exercise of the intellect to see that, if Providence saved "Jack," Providence drowned the rest. "No,"

some will reply, "Providence did not drown them, but only let them drown." Well, that is exactly the same thing. Superficially, it is the same thing; for Providence, like men, is responsible for omissions as well as commissions. If you let a blind man walk over a precipice without warning him, you are his murderer, you are guilty of his blood.

Resolving not to do a thing is as much an act of will as resolving to do it. "Thou shalt" is a law as imperative as "Thou shalt not," though it does not figure in the decalogue. Profoundly also, as well as superficially, Providence, if it saved Jack, killed those who perished; for, as Jack was not visibly fished out of the water by Providence, it can only be held that Providence saved him on the ground that Providence _does everything_, which covers the whole of our contention. "I the Lord do all these things." So says the Bible, and so you must believe, if you have a G.o.d at all.

SMIRCHING A HERO.

"He who fights with priests may make up his mind to have his poor good name torn and befouled by the most infamous lies and the most cutting slanders."--Heine.

The great poet and wit, Heinrich Heine, from whom we select a motto for this article, was not very partial to Englishmen, and still less partial to Scotchmen. He had no objection to their human nature, but a strong objection to their religion, which so resembles that of the chosen people--being, indeed, chiefly modelled on the Old Testament pattern--that he was led to describe them as modern Jews, who only differed from the ancient ones in eating pork. Doubtless a great improvement has taken place since Heine penned that pungent description, but Scotland is still the home of orthodoxy, and most inaccessible to Liberal ideas, unless they wear a political garb. It need not astonish us, therefore, that a bitter attack on a Freethought martyr like Giordano Bruno should emanate from the land of John Knox; or that it should appear in the distinctly national magazine which is called the _Scottish Review_. The writer does not disclose his name, and this is a characteristic circ.u.mstance. He indulges his malevolence, and airs his ignorance, under a veil of anonymity. His stabs are delivered like those of a bravo, who hides his face as he deals his treacherous blow.

Many books and articles have been written on Giordano Bruno, but this writer seems ignorant of them all, except a recent volume by a Romish priest of the Society of Jesus, which he places at the top of his article, and relies upon throughout as an infallible authority. It does not occur to him that an account of Bruno by a Jesuit member of the Church which murdered him, is hardly likely to be impartial; nor does he scent anything suspicious in the fact that the doc.u.ments reporting Bruno's trial were all written by the Inquisition. He would probably sniff at a report of the trial of Jesus Christ by the Scribes and Pharisees, yet that is precisely the kind of doc.u.ment on which he relies to blast the memory of Bruno.

Some of those Inquisition records he translates, apparently fancying he is making a revelation, though? they have long been before the scholarly public, and were extensively cited in the English _Life of Bruno_, by I.

Frith, which saw the light more than twelve months ago. Berti reprinted the doc.u.ments of Bruno's trial in Venice in 1880, so that the startling revelations of Father Previti are at least seven years behind the fair.

Before dealing, however, with the use he would make of those doc.u.ments, we think it best to track this Scotch slanderer throughout his slimy course, and expose his astounding mixture of ignorance, impudence and meanness.

Let us take two instances of the last "virtue" first. He actually condescends to attempt a feeble point in regard to Bruno's name. Bruno, he sagely observes--with an air of originality only intelligible on the ground that he is conscious of writing for the veriest ignoramuses--is the same as _Brown_; and hence, if we take the baptismal name of Filippo Bruno, it simply means Philip Brown. Well, what of that? What's in a name? One great English poet rejoiced in the vulgar name of Jonson; two other English poets bore the no less vulgar name of Thomson; while at least two have descended so low as Smith. We might even remind the orthodox libeller that Joshua, the Jewish formi of Jesus, was as common as Jack is among ourselves. Perhaps the reminder will sound blasphemous in his delicate ears, but fact is fact, and if reputations are to depend on names, we may as well be impartial.

Now, for our second instance. Bruno was betrayed to the Venetian Inquisition by Count Mocenigo while he was that n.o.bleman's guest.

Mocenigo had invited him to Venice in order that he might learn what this writer calls "his peculiar system for developing and strengthening the memory," although this "peculiar" system was simply the Lullian method. What the n.o.bleman really wanted to learn seems to have been the Black Art. He complained, and Bruno resolved to leave him; whereupon the "n.o.bleman," who had harbored Bruno for months, forcibly detained him, and denounced him to the Inquisition as a heretic and a blasphemer. A more dastardly action is difficult to conceive, but our Scotch libeller is ready to defend it, or at least to give it a coat of whitewash. He allows that Mocenigo does not appear to have been animated "with the motive of religious zeal," and that his "conscience" never "troubled him" before the "personal difference." But he discovers a plea for this Judas in his "sworn statement" to the Inquisition that he did not suspect Bruno of being a monk until the very day of their quarrel. What miserable sophistry! Would not a man who violated the most sacred laws of friendship and hospitality be quite capable of telling a lie? Still more miserable is the remark that Bruno was not ultimately tried on Mocenigo's denunciations, but on his own published writings. Jesus Christ was not tried on the denunciations of Judas Iscariot, but on his own public utterances, yet whoever pleaded that this gave a sweeter savor to the traitor's kiss?

So much--though more might be said--for the writer's meanness. Now for his other virtues, and especially his ignorance. After dwelling on the battle at Rome over the proposal to erect a public monument to Bruno, this writer tells us that "a small literature is arising on the subject," and that the name of Bruno is "suddenly invested with an importance which it never formerly possessed." Apparently he is unaware that, so far from a small literature arising, a large Bruno literature has long existed. He has only to turn to the end of Frith's book, and he will find an alphabetical list of books, articles, and criticisms on Bruno, filling no less than ten pages of small type. He might also enlighten his ridiculous darkness by reading the fine chapter in Lewes's _History of Philosophy_, Mr. Swinburne's two n.o.ble sonnets, and Professor Tyndall's glowing eulogy of Bruno's scientific prescience in the famous Belfast address. Perhaps Hallam, Schwegler, Hegel, Bunsen and Cousin are too recondite for the Scotch libeller's perusal; but he might, at any rate, look up Lewes, Swinburne and Tyndall, who are probably accessible in his local Free Library.

What on earth, too, does he mean by Bruno's "great obscurity" when he returned to Italy and fell into the jaws of the Inquisition? Every scholar in that age was more or less obscure, for the mult.i.tude was illiterate, and sovereigns and soldiers monopolised the public attention. But as notoriety then went, Bruno was a famous figure. Proof of this will be given presently. Meanwhile we may notice the cheap sneer at Bruno as "a social and literary failure." Sh.e.l.ley was a literary failure in his lifetime, but he is hardly so now; and if Bruno was poor and unappreciated, Time has adjusted the balance, for after the lapse of three centuries he is loved and hated by the rival parties of progress and reaction.

Now let us disprove the Scotch libeller's statements as to "the extreme obscurity in which Giordano Bruno lived and died." Bruno was so "obscure" that he fled from Naples, and doffed his priest's raiment, at the age of twenty-eight or twenty-nine, because his superiors were proceeding against him for heresy, through an act of accusation which comprised no less than one hundred and thirty counts. He was so "obscure" that the rest of his life was a prolonged flight from persecution. He was so "obscure" that the Calvinists hunted him out of Geneva, whence he narrowly escaped with his life; the doc.u.ments relating to the proceedings against him being still preserved in the Genevan archives. He was so "obscure" that he took a professorship at Toulouse, and publicly lectured there to large audiences for more than a year. He was so "obscure" that King Henry III. made him professor extraordinary at Paris, and excused him from attending Ma.s.s. He was so "obscure" that the learned doctors of the Sorbonne waxed wroth with him, and made it obvious that his continued stay in Paris would be dangerous to his health. He was so "obscure" that he lived for nearly three years as the guest of the French amba.s.sador in London. He was so "obscure" that he was known at the court of Elizabeth. He was so "obscure" that he was a friend of Sir Philip Sidney, and an intimate a.s.sociate of Dyer, Fulk Greville, and the chief wits of his age. He was so "obscure" that he was allowed, as a distinguished foreigner, to lecture at Oxford, and to hold a public disputation on the Aristotelian philosophy before the Chancellor and the university. He was so "obscure" that on his return to Paris he held another public disputation under the auspices of the King.

He was so "obscure" that his orations were listened to by the senate of the university of Wittenberg. He was so "obscure" that he was publicly excommunicated by the zealot Boethius. He was so "obscure" that the Venetian Inquisition broke through its stern rule, and handed him over as a special favor to the Inquisition of Rome. He was so "obscure" that he was at last "butchered to make a Roman holiday," the cardinals having presided at his trial, and his sentence being several pages at length.

Such was "the obscurity in which Giordano Bruno lived and died."

The Scotch libeller hints that Bruno was not burnt after all. He forgets, or he is ignorant of the fact, that all doubt on that point is removed by the three papers discovered in the Vatican Library. He merely repeats the insinuation of M. Desduits, which has lost its extremely small measure of plausibility since the discovery of those doc.u.ments.

The martyrdom of Bruno is much better attested than the Crucifixion.

There always was contemporary evidence as well as unbroken tradition, and now we have proofs as complete as can be adduced for any event in history.

From the doc.u.mentary evidence it is clear that Bruno fought hard for his life, and he would have been a fool or a suicide to have acted otherwise. He bent all his dialectical skill, and all his subtle intellect, to the task of proving that religion and philosophy were distinct, and that so long as a scholar conformed in practice he should be allowed the fullest liberty of speculation. The Inquisition, however, pretends that he abjured all his errors, and the Scotch libeller is pleased to say he recanted. But, in that case, why was Bruno burnt alive at the stake? According to the laws of the Inquisition, all who reconciled themselves to the Church after sentence were strangled before they were burnt. And why was Bruno allowed a week's grace before his execution, except to give him the opportunity of recanting? Despite all this Jesuitical special pleading, the fact remains that Bruno was sentenced and burnt as an incorrigible heretic; and the fact also remains that when the crucifix was held up for him to kiss as he stood amidst the flames, he rejected it, as Scioppus wrote, "with a terrible menacing countenance." Not only did he hurl scorn at his judges, telling them that they pa.s.sed his sentence with more fear than he heard it; but his last words were that "he died a martyr and willingly"--_diceva che moriva martire et volontieri_.

Bruno is further charged by the Scotch libeller with servility, an accusation about as plausible as that Jesus Christ was a highwayman. A pa.s.sage is cited from Bruno's high-flown panegyric on Henry III. as "a specimen of the language he was prepared to employ towards the great when there was anything to be got from them." Either this writer is ineffably ignorant, or his impudence is astounding. In the first place, that was an age of high-flown dedications. Look at Bacon's fulsome dedication of his _Advancement of Learning_ to James I. Nay, look at the dedication of our English Bible to the same monarch, who is put very little below G.o.d Almighty, and compared to the sun for strength and glory. In the next place, Bruno's praise of Henry III. was far from mercenary. He never at any time had more than bread to eat. He was grateful to the King for protection, and his grat.i.tude never abated.

When Henry was in ill repute, Bruno still praised him, and these panegyrics were put into one of the counts against "the heretic" when he was arraigned at Venice.

The last libel is extorted from Bruno's comedy, _Il Candelajo_. The Scotch puritan actually scents something obscene in the very t.i.tle; to which we can only reply by parodying Carlyle--"The nose smells what it brings." As for the comedy itself, it must be judged by the standard of its age. Books were then all written for men, and reticence was unknown. Yet, free as _Il Candelajo_ is sometimes in its portrayal of contemporary manners, it does not approach scores of works which are found "in every gentleman's library." It certainly is not freer than Shakespeare; it is less free than the Song of Solomon; it is infinitely less free than Ezekiel. Nor was the comedy the work of Bruno's maturity; it was written in his youth, while he was a priest, before he fell under grave suspicion of heresy, and we may be sure it was relished by his brother priests in the Dominican monastery. To draw from this youthful _jeu d'e'sprit_, a theory of Bruno's att.i.tude towards women is a grotesque absurdity. We have his fine sonnets written in England, especially the one "Inscribed to the most Virtuous and Delightful Ladies," in which he celebrates the beauty, sweetness, and chast.i.ty of our English "spouses and daughters of angelic birth." Still more striking is the eulogy in his "Canticle of the Shining Ones." Bruno, like every poet, was susceptible to love; but he was doomed to wander, and the affection of wife and babes was not for him. So he made Philosophy his mistress, and his devotion led him to the stake. Surely there was a prescience of his fate in the fine apostrophe of his _Heroic Rapture_--"O worthy love of the beautiful! O desire for the divine!

lend me thy wings; bring me to the dayspring, to the clearness of the young morning; and the outrage of the rabble, the storms of Time, the slings and arrows of Fortune, shall fall upon this tender body and shall weld it to steel."

KIT MARLOWE AND JESUS CHRIST. *

* December, 1888.