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On Religious Toleration: Prudence and Charity in Augustine, Aquinas

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On Religious Toleration: Prudence and Charity in Augustine, Aquinas ON RELIGIOUS TOLERATION: PRUDENCE AND CHARITY IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND TOCQUEVILLE By MARY C. IMPARATO A dissertation submitted to the School of Graduate Studies Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in Political Science Written under the direction of P. Dennis Bathory And approved by _____________________________________ _____________________________________ _____________________________________ _____________________________________ New Brunswick, New Jersey October, 2020 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION On Religious Toleration: Prudence and Charity in Augustine, Aquinas, and Tocqueville By MARY C. IMPARATO Dissertation Director: P. Dennis Bathory This work seeks to explore the concept of religious toleration as it has been conceived by key thinkers at important junctures in the history of the West in the hopes of identifying some of the animating principles at work in societies confronted with religious difference and dissent. One can observe that, at a time when the political influence of the Catholic Church was ascendant and then in an era of Church hegemony, St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas respectively, faced with religious dissent, argue for toleration in some cases and coercion in others. While, from a contemporary liberal standpoint, one may be tempted to judge their positions to be opportunistic, harsh, or authoritarian, if we read them in the context of their social realities and operative values, we can better understand their stances as emanating ultimately from prudence (that virtue integrating truth and practice) and charity (the love of God and neighbor). With the shattering of Christian unity and the decoupling of throne and altar that occurs in the early modern period, the context for religious toleration is radically altered. Alexis de Tocqueville seeks a toleration of religion within the liberal political order, and again we see prudence and charity, manifested in an attention to what is possible in a given reality, play an important role. In contemporary political life, however, we find marginalization of and even hostility towards religion. Perhaps, in examining the operation of religious toleration in the past and carefully assessing the arguments for the central place of religion, we can draw lessons for a political future not marked by liberal neutrality and walls of separation, but the care for the soul and the common good. ii Dedication For Benedict Joseph, Dominic, and Teresa iii Acknowledgements I am grateful to Professor John O’Brien of the History Department of Queens College, City University of New York, in whose Master’s course on the Church in the Middle Ages my exploration of religion toleration began. He, along with Professor James Jordan of the Philosophy Department and Liberal Studies Program at Queens College, aided and encouraged me in my pursuit of doctoral studies. I am also indebted to Professor Peter Simpson of the City University of New York Graduate Center, in whose course on Aquinas I began my formal graduate study of the Angelic Doctor. I am further indebted to the Department of Political Science at Rutgers University for a five-year Excellence Fellowship that enabled me to pursue this doctorate and explore the fascinating world of political thought. In particular, I am thankful to have studied with political theorists Dennis Bathory, who generously shared his keen insights on Augustine and Tocqueville, and Andrew Murphy, for his attention to method in political theory and for challenging my thoughts on liberalism, religion, and politics. I acknowledge the financial support of the Institute for Humane Studies PhD Scholarship and the Friedelbaum Dissertation Award, as well as generous scholarships to attend the Thomistic Institute’s Summer Philosophy Seminar and the Lumen Christi Institute’s Seminar on Catholic Social Thought. I am grateful for feedback I’ve received and for the numerous discussions on iv topics covered in this dissertation with fellow doctoral students Michael Richards (Rutgers), Dan Jacob (Rutgers), Gabrielle Girgis (Princeton), Theresa Smart (Notre Dame), and Robert Burton (Notre Dame). Finally, I am eternally indebted to my family, whose patience, love, and support have helped me throughout this process. v Contents Abstract ii Dedication iii Acknowledgements iv 1 Introduction 1 2 Religious Toleration and Coercion in the Thought of Augustine 22 3 Aquinas on the Coercion of Heretics and the Toleration of Unbelievers 56 4 Tocqueville and the Toleration of Religion 86 5 Conclusion 114 vi 1 Introduction Sir, didst thou not sow good seed in thy field? whence then hath it cockle? And he said to them: An enemy hath done this. And the servants said to him: Wilt thou that we go and gather it up? And he said: No, lest perhaps gathering up the cockle, you root up the wheat also together with it. Suffer both to grow until the harvest, and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers: Gather up first the cockle, and bind it into bundles to burn, but the wheat gather ye into my barn.1 The above scripture passage has served for centuries as the locus classicus for Christian instruction on religious toleration. St. Jerome interprets the passage as providing direction in dealing with error: “Let us then be willing to correct our brethren to the utmost of our power, but let it be always with mercy, charity and compassion; what we cannot correct, let us bear with patience, permitting what God permits, and interceding with him to move and convert their hearts. But when an opportunity offers, let us publicly advocate the truth, and condemn error.”2 In St. Jerome’s commentary we see that he urges charity in the manner of correction and prudence in seizing the right opportunity to persuade. St. Augustine, too, relies on this passage to comprehend what ought to be done about dissenters in the midst of the faithful, writing in Letter 105 to the Donatists (c. 409/410), “…[W]e tolerate them until the time of harvest or winnowing…[f]or we do not want because of them to uproot the 1 Matthew 13:27-30. Douay-Rheims translation. 2 Haydock, George Leo. "Commentary on Matthew 13:29". "George Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary". https:https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/hcc/matthew-13.html. 1859. 2 corn or remove the bare grains from the threshing floor by cleansing them before time…”3 He continues, “That is why the Lord used these and other similes to encourage tolerance in his servants, to avoid them destroying little ones, or to avoid little ones [Mt 18.14] being lost through reckless human disputes…”4 The interpretation of Jesus’ words in the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares sets a standard for the treatment of religious dissenters in the West. They should be treated with charity, forborne patiently (lest too hasty a response cause greater damage to the faithful), and prudentially challenged at the appropriate time. In other words, this passage laid the groundwork for the pre-modern tradition of religious toleration. St. Jerome’s counsel that the truth should be proclaimed and error condemned publically “when an opportunity offers,” indicates that a primary virtue required to exercise religious toleration is prudence or practical wisdom. We will see that this is the animating principle at work in the treatment of heretics and unbelievers not only in the thought of St. Augustine, but in the work of St. Thomas Aquinas. Religious toleration, then, is the virtue or stable disposition of forbearance in the face of error. It only makes sense in a context of a shared commitment to the true and the good, such that any affront to these transcendentals can be judged tolerable or intolerable. Prudence is also an architectonic virtue in the relationship of religion and society for Alexis de Tocqueville. However, for Tocqueville, the field of political possibilities had been radically altered; conceptions of the good had become privatized, while a more procedural notion of rights took priority over the good. In this political landscape, Tocqueville provided numerous prudential arguments on the necessity for secularists to 3Letter 105.16 in Atkins, E.M. and Dodaro, R.J., eds., Augustine: Political Writings (Cambridge, U.K. ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001). 172 4 Letter 105.16 in Atkins, E.M. and Dodaro, R.J., 172. 3 safeguard (or at least tolerate) religion in a democracy. While the problem of the place of religion in the liberal political order persists, a close examination of religious toleration in pre-modern society may yield insights for a time and place where shared conceptions of the good produce standards for judgment and foster solidarity among democratic citizens. Liberalism, Its Critics, and Post-Liberal Possibilities Liberalism, the regnant political ideology in the West, is the lens through which we typically conceptualize religious toleration. To begin this project, we must disentangle liberalism and toleration, first by painting the contours of liberal ideology and then by reviewing some of the arguments of its more prominent critics. This will set the stage for reflections on a notion of toleration conceived of apart from liberal categories. Over the course of nearly 500 years, numerous thinkers have articulated liberal ideas in various historical contexts. Although this makes it difficult to give a comprehensive definition of liberalism, it is possible to highlight a few concepts that have emerged as central to this political ideology: the view of the individual as free, equal, and rights- bearing, the role of the state as providing a neutral, procedural framework in which the individual can pursue his interests, and the view that truth—which cannot be known with certainty—ought not be enforced by the suppression of error or the resort to cruelty. Liberalism begins with the individual, standing apart from society, and possessing basic equality with others.5 This abstracted individual bears rights independent of membership 5 For Thomas Hobbes, this equality is based on the fact that all are vulnerable to violent death at the hands of others; even the weakest can kill the strongest.
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