Christianity - The First Three Thousand Years Part 13

Doubt is fundamental to religion. One human being sees holiness in someone, something, somewhere: where is the proof for others? The Old Testament is shot through with doubt, although in its stories doubters often feel G.o.d's wrath, as when Adam and Eve doubted the reasons which G.o.d gave for not eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Jesus Christ could be kinder to doubters - for instance, to his own disciple Thomas, who doubted the Resurrection until Christ challenged him to touch and be sure. And human beings have commonly liked a good laugh at what they hold most dear. But a distinctive feature of modern Western culture, and through it any Christianity exposed to the spread of Western culture, has come to be an inclination to doubt any proposition from the religious past, and to reject the a.s.sumption that there is a special privilege for one sort of religious truth. How may we account for this extraordinary development?

The greatest question mark set against Reformation and Counter-Reformation Christianity was posed by the continuing existence of Judaism, a separate and much disadvantaged religion within the bounds of Christendom. The 1490s had brought the greatest single disaster for the Jewish people since the destruction of Jerusalem back in 70 CE, their official expulsion from the Iberian peninsula and the creation of a 'Sephardic' diaspora (see pp. 585-91). The Portuguese were never as single-minded as the Spaniards either in expulsions or in efforts to achieve proper conversions, although after a serious 'converso' rebellion, the Portuguese monarchy did set up its own imitation of the Spanish Inquisition in 1536. In consequence, a cosmopolitan crypto-Jewish community developed, adopting Portuguese customs and language while travelling, and settling in western Europe wherever it seemed safe. Portuguese Sephardic Jews prospered, usually through trade, but also through practising that usefully marginal profession medicine and sometimes teaching in the less rigidly exclusive or more unwary universities and colleges - the munic.i.p.al College de Guyenne in the great French port of Bordeaux proved particularly significant in mid-century.15 The Portuguese monarchy, always on the lookout for ways of stretching its straitened resources, could see the usefulness of this talented and mobile community, and it was inclined to look the other way if some seemed less than whole-hearted in their Christianity - much to the displeasure of its own Inquisition. The Portuguese monarchy, always on the lookout for ways of stretching its straitened resources, could see the usefulness of this talented and mobile community, and it was inclined to look the other way if some seemed less than whole-hearted in their Christianity - much to the displeasure of its own Inquisition.

As the Reformation developed, Jews viewed it with sarcastic interest, not unreasonably seeing these bitter intra-Christian disputes as evidence of G.o.d's anger with the persecutors of the Jewish people.16 They soon found that their fortunes were as varied in Protestant as in Catholic lands, but their long experience of surviving amid Christian prejudice soon alerted them to where the danger was least. In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, traditionally multicultural and from 1573 committed to a considerable degree of religious toleration (see pp. 643-4), there was a great flouris.h.i.+ng of Jewish society, whose language Yiddish, effectively a dialect of German, marked its closeness to the German elites of eastern European urban communities. In central Europe, Prague proved a cultural melting pot for various strands of European Jewry of Iberian, eastern and Ottoman origins - thanks more to the Habsburgs than to their Bohemian subjects, whose celebrated enthusiasm for religious liberty did not extend that far. They soon found that their fortunes were as varied in Protestant as in Catholic lands, but their long experience of surviving amid Christian prejudice soon alerted them to where the danger was least. In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, traditionally multicultural and from 1573 committed to a considerable degree of religious toleration (see pp. 643-4), there was a great flouris.h.i.+ng of Jewish society, whose language Yiddish, effectively a dialect of German, marked its closeness to the German elites of eastern European urban communities. In central Europe, Prague proved a cultural melting pot for various strands of European Jewry of Iberian, eastern and Ottoman origins - thanks more to the Habsburgs than to their Bohemian subjects, whose celebrated enthusiasm for religious liberty did not extend that far.17 Above all, there was the port city of Amsterdam in the Reformed Protestant United Provinces of the Netherlands. As Amsterdam rose to commercial greatness after the War of Independence from the Spaniards, it became a major haven for Judaism, especially the Sephardic community looking for a new secure home to replace the lost glories of Iberia. The tolerance maintained by the 'regents' of the Netherlands in general and Amsterdam in particular (against the wishes of most of their Reformed clergy) allowed some remarkable cross-fertilization. In Amsterdam, most cosmopolitan of urban settings, stately synagogues were by the late seventeenth century a tourist attraction and an object of astonishment all over Europe - they looked remarkably like the most splendid of the Protestant churches being rebuilt at the same time by Sir Christopher Wren after the Great Fire of London. Around them developed a Jewish culture which acted as a solvent on the certainties which the Reformation and Counter-Reformation sought to establish.

The events of the 1490s in Spain and Portugal left a deep mark on sixteenth-century Christian upheavals. We have seen the result: a peculiarly intolerant official form of Iberian Christianity obsessed with conformity to a Catholic norm, alongside a different type of Christian religious expression with a rich and varied future. The excitements released by the destruction of Muslim and Jewish civilization in Spain fed into Spanish Christian mysticism: not only elements like the Carmelite spirituality of Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross which managed to hang on inside the official Church, but also the amorphous movement labelled alumbrado alumbrado (see pp. 590-91.) From Spain, via the mystical theologian Juan de Valdes, the (see pp. 590-91.) From Spain, via the mystical theologian Juan de Valdes, the alumbrado alumbrado style of Christianity influenced the style of Christianity influenced the Spirituale Spirituale movement in Italy, which produced such unexpected outcrops as Ignatius Loyola's Society of Jesus. When the movement in Italy, which produced such unexpected outcrops as Ignatius Loyola's Society of Jesus. When the Spirituali Spirituali were dispersed in the 1540s, Italians spread all over Protestant Europe in their own diaspora (see pp. 662-4). Many proved remarkably independent-minded once released to think for themselves, especially on the Trinity - again, Spanish crypto-Judaism was an influence here - and the result was the 'Socinianism' of eastern Europe (see pp. 642-3). Catholic Spain, through the unlikely agency of John Calvin, produced the cla.s.sic martyr for radical religion, Michael Servetus, whose project for reconstructing Christianity was inspired by his consciousness of what had happened to religion in his Iberian homeland. All these stirrings were challenges to Christian orthodoxy, and now they met new forces of doubt among the Sephardic Jews of Amsterdam. were dispersed in the 1540s, Italians spread all over Protestant Europe in their own diaspora (see pp. 662-4). Many proved remarkably independent-minded once released to think for themselves, especially on the Trinity - again, Spanish crypto-Judaism was an influence here - and the result was the 'Socinianism' of eastern Europe (see pp. 642-3). Catholic Spain, through the unlikely agency of John Calvin, produced the cla.s.sic martyr for radical religion, Michael Servetus, whose project for reconstructing Christianity was inspired by his consciousness of what had happened to religion in his Iberian homeland. All these stirrings were challenges to Christian orthodoxy, and now they met new forces of doubt among the Sephardic Jews of Amsterdam.18 At the time, doubt was generally given the blanket label atheism, just as a whole variety of s.e.xual practices of which society pretended to disapprove were given the blanket label sodomy.19 Specific examples of doubt are generally hidden from us throughout the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, since it was suicidal for anyone to proclaim doubt or unbelief, and the kindly instinct of priests and pastors was no doubt normally to still doubts in their flocks rather than risk their paris.h.i.+oners' lives by exposing them. Educated and powerful people in the sixteenth century of course did speak seriously of doubt, but rather like medieval discussion of toleration, such talk had to be understood as theory only, if it was to be considered respectable. The best way (as with sodomy) was to shelter behind interest in Cla.s.sical literature. The scrupulously dispa.s.sionate Latin poet Lucretius and the Greek satirist of philosophy and religion Lucian were widely read, while the sceptic s.e.xtus Empiricus was rediscovered in the sixteenth century, giving his name to 'empiricism'. Specific examples of doubt are generally hidden from us throughout the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, since it was suicidal for anyone to proclaim doubt or unbelief, and the kindly instinct of priests and pastors was no doubt normally to still doubts in their flocks rather than risk their paris.h.i.+oners' lives by exposing them. Educated and powerful people in the sixteenth century of course did speak seriously of doubt, but rather like medieval discussion of toleration, such talk had to be understood as theory only, if it was to be considered respectable. The best way (as with sodomy) was to shelter behind interest in Cla.s.sical literature. The scrupulously dispa.s.sionate Latin poet Lucretius and the Greek satirist of philosophy and religion Lucian were widely read, while the sceptic s.e.xtus Empiricus was rediscovered in the sixteenth century, giving his name to 'empiricism'.

Though Christian leaders regularly expressed their deep disapproval of such 'atheistic' writings, it was difficult to burn someone simply for reading a Cla.s.sical author. Then gradually in the seventeenth century doubts melded into that systematic and self-confident confrontation with religious tradition which has become part of Western culture and has deeply affected the practice of Christianity itself. At least one impulse provoking this seismic s.h.i.+ft had come - with poetic justice - from the Iberian Inquisitions, which demanded a profound and complete conversion from people, many of whom held a deep faith already. Among many possible outcomes of this shattering experience, one effect for some was to breed scepticism about all religious patterns.20 The same was true in the Netherlands, another region riven by an intense effort to eliminate one set of religious beliefs in favour of another: first Catholics persecuted Protestants and then victorious Protestants harried Catholics (see Plate 17). The same was true in the Netherlands, another region riven by an intense effort to eliminate one set of religious beliefs in favour of another: first Catholics persecuted Protestants and then victorious Protestants harried Catholics (see Plate 17).

Plenty of the Dutch, those whom the Reformed contemptuously called 'Libertines', were weary of all strident forms of religion by the end of the sixteenth century, and they remembered with pride the fact that the great Dutchman Erasmus had talked much of tolerance and thoughtfulness.21 They were joined in the 1620s by some of the most conscientious of Dutch Reformed clergy and people, the followers of Jacobus Arminius, expelled from the Church and further victimized as a result of the major Church synod at Dordt (Dordrecht) in 1618-19. This had been such an important event that it attracted delegates from overseas Reformed Churches like England. It was the nearest approximation that the Reformed Churches ever achieved to a general council, and although it produced a firm and lasting shape to Reformed orthodoxy, it did as much to alienate dissenters and force them to make decisions about their religious future outside the mainstream. Some, the 'Collegiants', produced their own brand of rational religion which dispensed with any need for clergy. They were joined in the 1620s by some of the most conscientious of Dutch Reformed clergy and people, the followers of Jacobus Arminius, expelled from the Church and further victimized as a result of the major Church synod at Dordt (Dordrecht) in 1618-19. This had been such an important event that it attracted delegates from overseas Reformed Churches like England. It was the nearest approximation that the Reformed Churches ever achieved to a general council, and although it produced a firm and lasting shape to Reformed orthodoxy, it did as much to alienate dissenters and force them to make decisions about their religious future outside the mainstream. Some, the 'Collegiants', produced their own brand of rational religion which dispensed with any need for clergy.22 When Sephardic Jews arrived in this argumentative land and regrouped in Amsterdam, they had many possible ident.i.ties to adopt. Some who had been almost completely cut off from their old religion now painstakingly reconstructed their ancient belief with new devotion and orthodoxy. Others emerged from their experience still conscious of their heritage, but prepared to take very new directions. In the Netherlands they met Christians - Libertines, Arminians, Collegiants, Socinians quitting an increasingly inhospitable Poland - who were ready to do the same thing.23 At the centre of this fusion of ideas was Baruch or Benedict de Spinoza. Son of a Portuguese-Jewish merchant in Amsterdam, and so more or less ineligible for a normal university education, he quietly taught himself amid all the intellectual opportunities that the city had to offer - and in his teenage years, those included contact with the great mathematician and natural philosopher Rene Descartes. At the centre of this fusion of ideas was Baruch or Benedict de Spinoza. Son of a Portuguese-Jewish merchant in Amsterdam, and so more or less ineligible for a normal university education, he quietly taught himself amid all the intellectual opportunities that the city had to offer - and in his teenage years, those included contact with the great mathematician and natural philosopher Rene Descartes.

In 1656, aged twenty-three, Spinoza was sensationally expelled from the Amsterdam Portuguese synagogue, accompanied by public curses. To incur such an extreme penalty, it is likely that he had already questioned some of the basic principles of all the great Semitic religions: the prospect of immortality for human beings and the intervention of G.o.d in human affairs.24 In Spinoza's remaining two decades of life, he produced two revolutionary treatises. The In Spinoza's remaining two decades of life, he produced two revolutionary treatises. The Tractatus Theologico-Politicus Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (1670), a prototype of which may have been the cause of his expulsion, demanded that the Bible be treated as critically as any other text, particularly in its description of miracles; sacred texts are human artefacts, venerable religious inst.i.tutions 'relics of man's ancient bondage'. The whole argument of the work was designed to promote human freedom: (1670), a prototype of which may have been the cause of his expulsion, demanded that the Bible be treated as critically as any other text, particularly in its description of miracles; sacred texts are human artefacts, venerable religious inst.i.tutions 'relics of man's ancient bondage'. The whole argument of the work was designed to promote human freedom: the supreme mystery of despotism, its prop and stay, is to keep men in a state of deception, and with the specious t.i.tle of religion to cloak the fear by which they must be held in check, so that they will fight for their servitude as if for salvation, and count it no shame, but the highest honour, to spend their blood and their lives for the glorification of one man. the supreme mystery of despotism, its prop and stay, is to keep men in a state of deception, and with the specious t.i.tle of religion to cloak the fear by which they must be held in check, so that they will fight for their servitude as if for salvation, and count it no shame, but the highest honour, to spend their blood and their lives for the glorification of one man.25 Spinoza's Ethics Ethics (1677) saw G.o.d as undifferentiated from the force of nature or the state of the universe. Naturally such a G.o.d is neither good nor evil, but simply and universally G.o.d, unconstrained by any moral system which human beings might recognize or create. Calvin might have a.s.sented to the latter proposition, but emphatically not the former. There could be nothing further from the spirit of vast separation between Creator and created expressed in Calvin's 'double knowledge' of G.o.d and the human self (see p. 634) than Spinoza's proposition that 'the human mind, insofar as it perceives things truly, is part of the infinite intellect of G.o.d, and thus it is as inevitable that the clear and distinct ideas of the mind are true as that G.o.d's ideas are true'. (1677) saw G.o.d as undifferentiated from the force of nature or the state of the universe. Naturally such a G.o.d is neither good nor evil, but simply and universally G.o.d, unconstrained by any moral system which human beings might recognize or create. Calvin might have a.s.sented to the latter proposition, but emphatically not the former. There could be nothing further from the spirit of vast separation between Creator and created expressed in Calvin's 'double knowledge' of G.o.d and the human self (see p. 634) than Spinoza's proposition that 'the human mind, insofar as it perceives things truly, is part of the infinite intellect of G.o.d, and thus it is as inevitable that the clear and distinct ideas of the mind are true as that G.o.d's ideas are true'.26 Soon Spinoza was regarded as the standard-bearer for unbelief, even though pervading his carefully worded writings there is a clear notion of a divine spirit inhabiting the world, and a profound sense of wonder and reverence for mystery. It was too much for the authorities in the Dutch Republic: they banned the Soon Spinoza was regarded as the standard-bearer for unbelief, even though pervading his carefully worded writings there is a clear notion of a divine spirit inhabiting the world, and a profound sense of wonder and reverence for mystery. It was too much for the authorities in the Dutch Republic: they banned the Tractatus Tractatus in 1674, and more predictably the Roman Inquisition followed suit in 1679, after the work had widely circulated in French translation. in 1674, and more predictably the Roman Inquisition followed suit in 1679, after the work had widely circulated in French translation.

'Atheist' was an easily hurled term of abuse in Spinoza's day, generally pointed with gloomy relish at someone whose sordidly self-indulgent lifestyle satisfyingly demonstrated the results of denying conventional divinity. Spinoza inconsiderately upset such rhetorical symmetry by living in serene simplicity, his only vice a very Dutch addiction to tobacco, which along with the lens-grinding by which he made his frugal living probably brought his early death at forty-four. He lived with all the contemplative austerity of a St Jerome, but was cheerfully ready to discuss sermons of the day, or to receive a stream of philosopher-tourists. 27 27 Within a few years of his death, Pierre Bayle, son of a French Huguenot pastor but in permanent exile in the Dutch Republic after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, was openly saying the previously unsayable, the conclusion to which Spinoza's writings inexorably led: it was probable that 'a society of Atheists wou'd observe all Civil and Moral Dutys, as other Societys do, provided Crimes were severely punish'd, and Honor and Infamy annex'd to certain Points'. Bayle tartly observed that morality in Christian societies seemed as p.r.o.ne to fas.h.i.+on and local custom as in those of any other faith. This was a radical attack on any a.s.sumption that Christian ethics were necessarily a product of Christian doctrine. It is perhaps the most challenging proposition that the Enlightenment has presented to the Christian Church. Within a few years of his death, Pierre Bayle, son of a French Huguenot pastor but in permanent exile in the Dutch Republic after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, was openly saying the previously unsayable, the conclusion to which Spinoza's writings inexorably led: it was probable that 'a society of Atheists wou'd observe all Civil and Moral Dutys, as other Societys do, provided Crimes were severely punish'd, and Honor and Infamy annex'd to certain Points'. Bayle tartly observed that morality in Christian societies seemed as p.r.o.ne to fas.h.i.+on and local custom as in those of any other faith. This was a radical attack on any a.s.sumption that Christian ethics were necessarily a product of Christian doctrine. It is perhaps the most challenging proposition that the Enlightenment has presented to the Christian Church.28 So around Spinoza other voices began to be raised also challenging the ancient wisdom of religion and suggesting that the Bible was not quite what it seemed: a point which Erasmus had made much more discreetly in the previous century. Few of them had the dour talent of the Englishman Thomas Hobbes, but many were excited by Hobbes's sledgehammer demolition of the sacred authority of clergy in the interests of civil power, and by the boldness of his theological revisions: Hobbes denied that it was possible for a G.o.d to exist without material substance, delicately ridiculed the Trinity out of existence and gave broad hints to his readers that they should take no Christian doctrine on trust.29 When other anti-Trinitarians followed Hobbes, their main weapon against Christian orthodoxy was the biblical text itself, which, as was rapidly becoming apparent, was full of variant readings between ma.n.u.scripts - by 1707 one distinguished mainstream English biblical scholar, John Mill, reckoned these to be around thirty thousand in number. Some of these variant readings could plausibly be considered as later interpolations in the interests of Trinitarian belief. When other anti-Trinitarians followed Hobbes, their main weapon against Christian orthodoxy was the biblical text itself, which, as was rapidly becoming apparent, was full of variant readings between ma.n.u.scripts - by 1707 one distinguished mainstream English biblical scholar, John Mill, reckoned these to be around thirty thousand in number. Some of these variant readings could plausibly be considered as later interpolations in the interests of Trinitarian belief.

Important in this questioning were the early Quakers. Since Quakers drew divine authority from the light of the Spirit within them, they were inclined to demonstrate this by denigrating the authority of the Bible. Already Martin Luther had moved the boundaries of the biblical texts by creating the category of Apocrypha, which he had cordoned off from the Old Testament, even though Jews and the pre-Reformation Christian Church had made no such distinction. Now Quakers noted scholars' increasing rediscovery of ma.n.u.scripts containing inter-testamental literature or Christian apocrypha, much of which looked remarkably like the Bible. The gifted Hebrew scholar and Quaker Samuel Fisher, who may have used the young Spinoza to translate tracts into Hebrew, and who certainly got to know the Amsterdam synagogues in his efforts to convert Dutch Jews, gleefully pointed out in 1660 that Paul's Epistle to the Laodiceans (which Paul had demanded be read in community wors.h.i.+p, and so should be considered canonical), appeared to have gone missing altogether - or rather did exist, in a text extant but not acknowledged by the Church. He also drew attention to Jesus Christ's supposed correspondence with King Abgar of Edessa (see pp. 180-81) - why were these texts outside the Bible, when a trivial letter of Paul's to Philemon was in?30 Europe's encounter with the Americas, so highly populated with other humans, had long posed doubts about humanity's single descent from the dwellers in Eden. More ambitiously still, others who accepted Copernican cosmology suggested that there were other inhabited worlds. A major contribution to that question in the years when Spinoza was reaching his moment of crisis with the Amsterdam synagogue was made by Isaac La Peyrere, a French Huguenot but with a name which reveals underneath its French guise a further descendant of the Iberian diaspora. His publication in Amsterdam and elsewhere of Prae-Adamitae Prae-Adamitae ('Men before Adam') was one of the publis.h.i.+ng sensations of 1655: reputedly it even became light reading for the Pope and his cardinals. La Peyrere was one of the most fervent apocalypticists of his day, and he urged Jews and Christians to reunite to bring on the Last Days, but his book, as its t.i.tle indicated, threw the Creation story into the melting pot by arguing that there had been races of humans earlier than Adam and Eve, who were the ancestors of the Jews only. ('Men before Adam') was one of the publis.h.i.+ng sensations of 1655: reputedly it even became light reading for the Pope and his cardinals. La Peyrere was one of the most fervent apocalypticists of his day, and he urged Jews and Christians to reunite to bring on the Last Days, but his book, as its t.i.tle indicated, threw the Creation story into the melting pot by arguing that there had been races of humans earlier than Adam and Eve, who were the ancestors of the Jews only.

La Peyrere's argument in fact gave a particular privilege to the Jewish race, but it also wiped out the Western Christian doctrine of original sin: if the Gentiles were descended from the race before Adam, presumably they could not be partic.i.p.ants in Adam's Fall. La Peyrere was imprisoned, embraced Catholicism and died in a French monastery, but at least he did not suffer the fate of Jacob Palaeologos, a Greek exile in Prague who a century before had made the same argument about Adam, and had been executed in Rome in 1585. Prae-Adamitae Prae-Adamitae went on selling, and did so because its author was increasingly not alone in his questions. If there were other worlds, not merely original sin seemed a dubious doctrine; how could the Church proclaim the uniqueness of biblical revelation? went on selling, and did so because its author was increasingly not alone in his questions. If there were other worlds, not merely original sin seemed a dubious doctrine; how could the Church proclaim the uniqueness of biblical revelation?31 Around 1680 there followed yet another work from the Netherlands. The anonymous Treatise of the three impostors Treatise of the three impostors was too shocking to put in print until 1719, but it had circulated widely throughout Europe in ma.n.u.script, often with a false attribution to Spinoza to give it authority. Written in French, probably by renegade Huguenots in exile from France, it was a crude attempt to popularize an anti-religious version of the message of Spinoza's was too shocking to put in print until 1719, but it had circulated widely throughout Europe in ma.n.u.script, often with a false attribution to Spinoza to give it authority. Written in French, probably by renegade Huguenots in exile from France, it was a crude attempt to popularize an anti-religious version of the message of Spinoza's Tractatus Tractatus, married with ideas freely adapted from Hobbes and other sceptical writers. Its 'three impostors' were Moses, Jesus Christ and Muhammad, and in its condemnation of all three Semitic faiths, it proclaimed that 'there are no such things in Nature as either G.o.d or Devil or Soul or Heaven or h.e.l.l . . . [T]heologians . . . are all of them except for some few ignorant dunces . . . people of villainous principles, who maliciously abuse and impose on the credulous populace'.32 Behind the stories of doubters from Spinoza and La Peyrere to Bayle and the Treatise of the three impostors Treatise of the three impostors were two imperilled and highly articulate communities, producing radical spirits who contributed to the rea.s.sessment of religion: Jews and Huguenots. The Huguenots were part of the international Reformed Protestant bloc which, like Jews at the same time, embraced high hopes of apocalypse and divine consummation, only to have them dashed in the political disappointments of the mid-seventeenth century which ranged from England to Transylvania. After Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685, the Huguenots had their own catastrophe to ponder as they followed the Jews into continent-wide exile. Even before that, Huguenots had been among the first to make a consistent return to Erasmus's project of historical criticism of the biblical text, particularly at Saumur's Royal Academy for Protestant theology, before Louis XIV closed it (Louis did not close Saumur's pioneering Academy for cavalry instruction, which formed part of the same foundation). The first major controversy was provoked in the early seventeenth century by the Saumur scholar Louis Cappel's demonstration that the elaborate Hebrew system of vowel pointing and accenting in the text of the Tanakh was not as ancient as it claimed to be. Many regarded this comparatively minor philological correction as a dangerous attack on the integrity and divine inspiration of scripture; but Cappel was clearly right in his conclusions, and by the end of the century they were accepted wisdom among Protestants. were two imperilled and highly articulate communities, producing radical spirits who contributed to the rea.s.sessment of religion: Jews and Huguenots. The Huguenots were part of the international Reformed Protestant bloc which, like Jews at the same time, embraced high hopes of apocalypse and divine consummation, only to have them dashed in the political disappointments of the mid-seventeenth century which ranged from England to Transylvania. After Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685, the Huguenots had their own catastrophe to ponder as they followed the Jews into continent-wide exile. Even before that, Huguenots had been among the first to make a consistent return to Erasmus's project of historical criticism of the biblical text, particularly at Saumur's Royal Academy for Protestant theology, before Louis XIV closed it (Louis did not close Saumur's pioneering Academy for cavalry instruction, which formed part of the same foundation). The first major controversy was provoked in the early seventeenth century by the Saumur scholar Louis Cappel's demonstration that the elaborate Hebrew system of vowel pointing and accenting in the text of the Tanakh was not as ancient as it claimed to be. Many regarded this comparatively minor philological correction as a dangerous attack on the integrity and divine inspiration of scripture; but Cappel was clearly right in his conclusions, and by the end of the century they were accepted wisdom among Protestants.

This was a basis for much more searching scholarly investigation of both Old and New Testaments, which has continued ever since. Saumur led the way, but the systematic application of critical principles to textual scholars.h.i.+p in general was actually a product of the Counter-Reformation in the same kingdom. A seventeenth-century Congregation of reformed French Benedictine monasteries dedicated to St Maur (a disciple of St Benedict credited with introducing his Rule to France) developed the ancient Benedictine commitment to scholars.h.i.+p in a specialized direction: Church history. Generally they eschewed the delicate business of scrutinizing the Bible itself, but they established, on a scale so comprehensive as to be impossible to ignore, the requirement to scrutinize historical texts without sentiment or regard for their sacred character. All texts were there as part of the range of historical evidence, not simply the familiar material of narrative historical sources such as chronicles, but official and legal doc.u.ments.

Even if the Maurists did not follow the logic of this through into biblical scholars.h.i.+p, others would. The Pope might laugh at La Peyrere, but the questions about the Bible troubled Catholics as well as Protestants. One Jesuit working in China, Martino Martini, was driven by his fascination with Chinese civilization and its historical writing to point to the shakiness of biblical chronology, in a work published three years after La Peyrere's best-seller.33 Protestants were nevertheless more seriously affected than Catholics, because of their general rejection of allegory in interpreting the Bible unless absolutely necessary (see pp. 596-7). They were left with the literal sense of the biblical text, if sense there was (try some of the visions of Ezekiel), and scholars.h.i.+p proved alarming for literalists then as now. La Peyrere had been joined by Hobbes and Spinoza in pointing out a conclusion now obvious to the historically minded, but which with enough willpower can be avoided for centuries, that Moses could not have written the entire Pentateuch. Protestants were nevertheless more seriously affected than Catholics, because of their general rejection of allegory in interpreting the Bible unless absolutely necessary (see pp. 596-7). They were left with the literal sense of the biblical text, if sense there was (try some of the visions of Ezekiel), and scholars.h.i.+p proved alarming for literalists then as now. La Peyrere had been joined by Hobbes and Spinoza in pointing out a conclusion now obvious to the historically minded, but which with enough willpower can be avoided for centuries, that Moses could not have written the entire Pentateuch.

As a result of this new scrutiny of the Bible, there was a growing feeling among some Western Christians that not merely other Christianities or even Judaism, but other world religions, might provide insight into truth - a conclusion opposed to the scabrous abuse in the Treatise of the three impostors Treatise of the three impostors.34 This new spirit of reverent openness directly related to the worldwide reach of Western power and trade by 1700. Islam seemed much less threatening politically as the Ottoman, Iranian and Moghul empires fell into decay. Now educated Europeans had a much better chance of understanding this other monotheism. Thanks to Andre du Ryer, a French diplomat who spent much of his career in Alexandria, they had access to a Turkish grammar in Latin and French translations of Turkish and Persian literary texts, something almost unprecedented in the West - but above all, du Ryer's reliable translation (1647) of the Qur'an into French, which was rapidly taking over from Latin as the international language of scholars.h.i.+p. That translation was the source of all Europe's vernacular translations of the Qur'an. English came first in 1649, not without incident in a turbulent year for England, the translation meeting a storm of abuse from all sides. Parliament briefly imprisoned the English printer, while one High Church pamphleteer ascribed the work to the Devil - rather paradoxically, since the princ.i.p.al translator appears to have been a former protege of Archbishop Laud, and elsewhere denounced Copernicus, Spinoza and Descartes. This new spirit of reverent openness directly related to the worldwide reach of Western power and trade by 1700. Islam seemed much less threatening politically as the Ottoman, Iranian and Moghul empires fell into decay. Now educated Europeans had a much better chance of understanding this other monotheism. Thanks to Andre du Ryer, a French diplomat who spent much of his career in Alexandria, they had access to a Turkish grammar in Latin and French translations of Turkish and Persian literary texts, something almost unprecedented in the West - but above all, du Ryer's reliable translation (1647) of the Qur'an into French, which was rapidly taking over from Latin as the international language of scholars.h.i.+p. That translation was the source of all Europe's vernacular translations of the Qur'an. English came first in 1649, not without incident in a turbulent year for England, the translation meeting a storm of abuse from all sides. Parliament briefly imprisoned the English printer, while one High Church pamphleteer ascribed the work to the Devil - rather paradoxically, since the princ.i.p.al translator appears to have been a former protege of Archbishop Laud, and elsewhere denounced Copernicus, Spinoza and Descartes.35 The Jesuits had already stimulated Western curiosity about China; Franco-British rivalry in India aroused equal interest in the cultures and religions of the subcontinent. Sir Isaac Newton was among those who concluded from these various stirrings that all the world's cultures sprang from a single civilization informed by knowledge of the divine, but scattered in Noah's Flood. The Jesuits had already stimulated Western curiosity about China; Franco-British rivalry in India aroused equal interest in the cultures and religions of the subcontinent. Sir Isaac Newton was among those who concluded from these various stirrings that all the world's cultures sprang from a single civilization informed by knowledge of the divine, but scattered in Noah's Flood.36 Between 1640 and 1700 a growing divide opened up between scepticism or openness on biblical matters among an educated and privileged minority, which parted with the pa.s.sions of the Reformation, and continuing untroubled if miscellaneous beliefs among the mult.i.tude. In place of the idea which runs through the Tanakh and New Testament of a G.o.d intimately involved with his creation and providentially repeatedly intervening in it, there was the concept of a G.o.d who had certainly created the world and set up its laws in structures understandable by human reason, but who after that allowed it to go its own way, precisely because reason was one of his chief gifts to humanity, and order a gift to his creation. This was the approach to divinity known as deism. Deist Christians have been much sneered at by later generations who like religion to be full of urgent propositions granted by revelation. It is worth reaching beyond such criticism to hear the voice of one English deist of the early eighteenth century, Joseph Addison. He was son of an Anglican cathedral dean, a poet, playwright and an undistinguished politician whose serenity was capable of rising above the disappointments of his life: for that considerable virtue he was widely loved. Taking inspiration from Psalm 19, Addison thus expressed his calm confidence in the benevolence of the Creator G.o.d: The s.p.a.cious firmament on high, With all the blue ethereal sky, And spangled heavens, a s.h.i.+ning frame Their great Original proclaim.

Th'unwearied sun, from day to day, Does his Creator's powers display, And publishes to every land The work of an Almighty Hand.

Soon as the evening shades prevail The moon takes up the wondrous tale, And nightly to the listening earth Repeats the story of her birth; While all the stars that round her burn And all the planets in their turn, Confirm the tidings as they roll, And spread the truth from pole to pole.

What though in solemn silence all Move round the dark terrestrial ball?

What though no real voice nor sound Amid the radiant orbs be found?

In reason's ear they all rejoice, And utter forth a glorious voice, Forever singing as they s.h.i.+ne, 'The hand that made us is divine.'37 It was tempting even for clergy in established Churches to sit easily to confessional statements which they had inherited from the deplorably violent age of the Reformation, and see the reasonableness of deism as both congenial and morally superior to what had gone before. It was the same mood which after 1660 had produced the 'Lat.i.tudinarian' outlook in the Church of England (see pp. 653-4). Ranged against the rationalists or deists were the anxious voices of other members of the same intellectual elite, who were promoting the view of an intensely personal, interventionist G.o.d in the various Protestant Evangelical Awakenings, from Pietism in Germany to Jonathan Edwards on the eastern American seaboard. We cannot understand the rise of Evangelicalism without seeing it against the background of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Christian and post-Christian rationalism - but also in the context of other profound changes in European society of which the Evangelicals were uncomfortably aware.

SOCIAL WATERSHEDS IN THE NETHERLANDS AND ENGLAND (1650-1750).

If Judaism and Reformed Protestantism were one fundamental pairing behind the creation of a new spirit in Christian religion and metaphysics, the other came through those sometimes uncomfortably yoked Protestant states, the Netherlands and England. The chief settings in which the millenarian, messianic or apocalyptic excitements of Reformed Protestantism and Judaism united, they pioneered the future in another and very different respect: towards the end of the seventeenth century, both societies began a long process of moving Christian doctrine and practice from the central place in European everyday life which it had enjoyed for more than a millennium, and placing it among a range of personal choices. The background to this was a conjunction of political, social and economic peculiarities in the two countries flanking the North Sea. Quite apart from their crabwise and often reluctant embrace of religious toleration for a wide variety of religious dissidence, both countries achieved a wider distribution of prosperity than any other part of seventeenth-century Europe. By improving their farming techniques and breeding new money through an exceptional range of manufactures and commercial enterprises, they were the first regions to escape famine, the constant danger of ma.s.s starvation following harvest failure.38 This had momentous consequences. An increasingly general distribution of surplus wealth opened up for the Dutch and the English. By 1700 these two nations were establis.h.i.+ng their dominance in an ever-growing trade with Asia. Merchants s.h.i.+pped home a range of goods which had the especial attraction that the cheaper end of the market could successfully imitate luxury items: princ.i.p.ally textiles and pottery - even that unprecedented household amenity, wallpaper. Manufactures at home sustained this trade and added to the abundance of goods now available. Ordinary people in these late-seventeenth-century societies revelled in the unfamiliar sensation of possessing more and more objects which they did not strictly need, and just as much, they enjoyed access to a degree of leisure, now that the provision of food was not a constant anxiety. Such leisure, consumer durables and spare money might look trivial by modern standards of prosperity, but previously these commodities were restricted to a tiny privileged elite. Now choice was becoming democratized in society, long before democracy had customarily been extended into politics.39 Christianity must now face the consequences in many different ways. Christianity must now face the consequences in many different ways.

Take one significant s.h.i.+ft in seventeenth-century Europe: a proportion of public Christian devotional music was being turned into a personal leisure activity. Without doubt throughout Christian history, there had been a very considerable element of pure aesthetic satisfaction in listening to sacred music, but listening had always been done in the context of wors.h.i.+p. During the seventeenth century, the Dutch developed the concept of the organ recital: a use of church buildings without specific devotional reference which was to spread throughout the Western Christian world. These recitals were detached from church services, for the very good reason that major Dutch parish churches had magnificent pipe organs of which their clergy disapproved, but which were protected from clerical wrath and maintained by the civic authorities - organs were in fact one of the symptoms of the Dutch regents' consistent aim to keep the clergy from tyrannizing them (see Plate 35). Dutch and north German composers led by the great Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck wrote intricate compositions to show off the splendours of these organs, which might take as the theme of their ingenious variations the metrical psalm tunes of the Reformed Church, but which were by their nature unlikely to form part of wors.h.i.+p.

A musical, social and religious straw in the wind beyond this was the changing fortunes of the oratorio. As its name implied, this was originally an Italian and therefore Catholic musical form suitable for staging by an 'oratory' or confraternity: a choral and orchestral work on a sacred subject. By 1700 in Protestant Europe oratorio performances were moving out of churches into secular public buildings, and sometimes acquiring secular subjects to match; that was not such a common phenomenon in the Catholic south, and it brought the oratorio close to another new choral musical form, the opera, which it had originally been designed to supplant during the solemnity of the Catholic Lent. The English got the best of both worlds with their acquisition in 1712 of a Protestant composer of opera and oratorio from Halle, Georg Frideric Handel. Domesticated as George Frederick Handel, he gave them in 1742 an oratorio on the birth, life, death, resurrection and second coming of Christ, Messiah Messiah, which became a national trophy of musical culture even for the unmusical - it was given an agreeable moral edge by being a frequently performed work at charity concerts.40 But the But the Messiah Messiah was first performed in a Dublin public concert hall, a building which was itself an innovation - not in either of Dublin's Protestant cathedrals, even though the two cathedral choirs combined to sing it. This was an unmistakable transition of sacred music from wors.h.i.+p to leisure, and it began a process by which the performance of or experience of music became for many Europeans the basis of an alternative spirituality to the text-based propositions of their Christian faith. was first performed in a Dublin public concert hall, a building which was itself an innovation - not in either of Dublin's Protestant cathedrals, even though the two cathedral choirs combined to sing it. This was an unmistakable transition of sacred music from wors.h.i.+p to leisure, and it began a process by which the performance of or experience of music became for many Europeans the basis of an alternative spirituality to the text-based propositions of their Christian faith.

There are other hints that even public inst.i.tutions in Protestant nations were beginning to accept society's gradual s.h.i.+ft from its construction around Christian revelation and biblical story, even within its wors.h.i.+p. The clergy's sermons on state occasions in Anglican England, Lutheran Sweden and the Reformed Netherlands can be shown to have changed emphasis in their themes after the 1740s, with England being the most precocious, but even the very confessionally uniform Sweden following suit in due course. There was less construction of the nation as chosen like the kingdom of Israel, following G.o.d's judgement and fearing the collective sin of its people: instead, much more celebration of the nation's honour, its ability to generate prosperity and liberty and therefore personal happiness. These were still rewards from G.o.d for society's good behaviour, but the reward was seen more as a matter of logical consequence than of direct divine intervention. Rome as much as Israel now shaped the preachers' rhetoric as they tried to describe the nation's glories to itself. For such a major turnaround on occasions when kings and clergy were at their most self-conscious as representatives of wider society, more general changes in society must have emerged over many previous decades. These new emphases reflected the influence of deism, that view of G.o.d which envisaged a separation between creator G.o.d and creation.41 While Western Europe's spirituality was showing signs of becoming detached from its liturgy, divinity parted company with revelation, and patterns of society were being shaped by other sources besides Christianity's sacred book, Western discourse on philosophy came to be dominated by a philosopher whose a.s.sumptions likewise radically detached the spiritual from the material. Rene Descartes was a devout French Catholic who from 1628 had found that the Protestant but pluralist northern Netherlands were the refuge best enabling him to express himself without inhibition and to strip away philosophical a.s.sumptions which he found constricting. He was the decisive influence in encouraging his contemporaries and successors to think of a human being as dual in nature: material and immaterial. The problem which has haunted Cartesian views of personality thereafter has been to show how in any sense the two natures might be united. The Oxford philosopher Gilbert Ryle in 1949 satirically characterized this approach to consciousness as the 'ghost in the machine': a spirit lurking in a contraption of material components, which together somehow interact to spring from consciousness to motivation to action.42 As Ryle pointed out, Descartes would have been aware of the long history of Christian arguments about the soul; equally, when he created his own dualism for humanity, the Jesuits had schooled him in understanding the orthodox concept of the dual nature or natures of Christ, divine and human. While Chalcedonian Christianity had sought to settle that difficulty by insistent formulae of balance, Cartesian dualism, combined with Thomas Hobbes's relentless materialism and Isaac Newton's demonstration of the mechanical operation of the universe, has tended to resolve the difficulty by privileging the material over the spiritual - after all, material substance seems a good deal easier to encounter, register or measure than spirit. The eternal problem for Cartesian views of consciousness, or for the Baconian empiricism which allied itself with Cartesianism, was to account for the criteria by which the mind registers or measures these material encounters. John Locke, considering problems of consciousness, had written that since the human mind 'hath no other immediate Object but its own Ideas Ideas . . . it is evident, that our Knowledge is only conversant about them'. . . . it is evident, that our Knowledge is only conversant about them'.43 What, then, is the source of those ideas? The problem has not ceased to trouble the heirs of Descartes. What, then, is the source of those ideas? The problem has not ceased to trouble the heirs of Descartes.

GENDER ROLES IN THE ENLIGHTENMENT.

It was that genial eighteenth-century sceptic David Hume, uncommonly sharp in seeing how philosophy and economics interacted, who observed of the consumer revolution around him that 'a commerce with strangers ... rouses men from their indolence; and . . . raises in them a desire of a more splendid way of life than what their ancestors enjoyed'.44 Varied possessions stimulate the imagination because they stimulate choice. Equally, leisure stimulates the imagination and provides the chance to make very profound choices: to reflect on personal ident.i.ty beyond prescriptions laid down by others. That is a practical application of Locke's principle about the human mind, with all its attendant complications. In that most personal of realms, human s.e.xuality, the late seventeenth century witnessed great s.h.i.+fts in the way in which masculinity and femininity were understood, and much remains mysterious about the reasons for this change. Gender roles became more rigidly divided. Most choices still favoured men: so where once women had been regarded as uncontrollable and l.u.s.tful like fallen Eve, now they were increasingly regarded as naturally frail and pa.s.sive, in need of male protection. Varied possessions stimulate the imagination because they stimulate choice. Equally, leisure stimulates the imagination and provides the chance to make very profound choices: to reflect on personal ident.i.ty beyond prescriptions laid down by others. That is a practical application of Locke's principle about the human mind, with all its attendant complications. In that most personal of realms, human s.e.xuality, the late seventeenth century witnessed great s.h.i.+fts in the way in which masculinity and femininity were understood, and much remains mysterious about the reasons for this change. Gender roles became more rigidly divided. Most choices still favoured men: so where once women had been regarded as uncontrollable and l.u.s.tful like fallen Eve, now they were increasingly regarded as naturally frail and pa.s.sive, in need of male protection.45 Most surprising of all was a new phenomenon in both Amsterdam and London: from the 1690s, both hosted a male h.o.m.os.e.xual public subculture, braving official hostility and developing a social network of bars and clubs. 'Lesbians' were so named in the early eighteenth century, a century and more before the invention of the word 'h.o.m.os.e.xual', but the activities of women did not excite so much public emotion as those of men, and it was the new visibility of gay men which provoked periodic purges and moral panics in both cities - no wonder the Societies for the Reformation of Manners were such urgent causes. Most surprising of all was a new phenomenon in both Amsterdam and London: from the 1690s, both hosted a male h.o.m.os.e.xual public subculture, braving official hostility and developing a social network of bars and clubs. 'Lesbians' were so named in the early eighteenth century, a century and more before the invention of the word 'h.o.m.os.e.xual', but the activities of women did not excite so much public emotion as those of men, and it was the new visibility of gay men which provoked periodic purges and moral panics in both cities - no wonder the Societies for the Reformation of Manners were such urgent causes.46 None of these developments owed much to existing Christian ethical teaching: Christianity was going to have to engage in new thinking for a new society which constructed its own priorities with an increasing lack of respect for Christian tradition. Even patterns of churchgoing were affected. It was in Dutch and anglophone Protestantism during the seventeenth century that there developed one of the distinctive features of modern Western religion: Christianity was becoming an activity in which more women than men partic.i.p.ated. The spectacular growth of female religious communities like the Ursulines in Counter-Reformation Catholicism was one symptom, but in Protestantism there was a different and more fundamental phenomenon: in various settings, church attendance was becoming skewed, and congregations were beginning to contain more women than men.

Once again, this was a matter of personal choice, and hence first perceptible where voluntary religion was possible. Studies of the far north of the United Provinces in the early seventeenth century, the province of Friesland, where so many people had opted to join radical groups like the Mennonites (see pp. 919-20), already show an imbalance in members.h.i.+p between men and women, even for the official Church.47 In the English civil wars of the 1640s, when the coercive structures of the established Church collapsed, members.h.i.+p lists of the growing number of voluntary churches - Independents, Baptists, Quakers and the like - often reveal women outnumbering men by two to one. In the English civil wars of the 1640s, when the coercive structures of the established Church collapsed, members.h.i.+p lists of the growing number of voluntary churches - Independents, Baptists, Quakers and the like - often reveal women outnumbering men by two to one.48 At much the same time on the other side of the Atlantic, the authorities in the established Congregational Church of Ma.s.sachusetts also began to notice the phenomenon of gender-skewed church attendance. At much the same time on the other side of the Atlantic, the authorities in the established Congregational Church of Ma.s.sachusetts also began to notice the phenomenon of gender-skewed church attendance.

It is likely that a disproportionate number of women joined the English voluntary congregations because they had more room to a.s.sert themselves than in the established Church. This a.s.sertion was at its greatest among new radical groups such as the early Quakers: in the 1650s, Quaker women could enjoy prophetic roles reminiscent of those in the early days of some radical groups in the 1520s and 1530s, and just as in sixteenth-century radicalism, the male leaders.h.i.+p of the Quakers over subsequent decades steadily moved to restrict women's activism.49 By the early eighteenth century, the appeal of the Quakers to women may have changed because the ethos of the Quakers changed: the quiet waiting on the Lord which now characterized the wors.h.i.+p of the Friends resonated with a traditional and predominantly female form of spirituality. The By the early eighteenth century, the appeal of the Quakers to women may have changed because the ethos of the Quakers changed: the quiet waiting on the Lord which now characterized the wors.h.i.+p of the Friends resonated with a traditional and predominantly female form of spirituality. The collegia pietatis collegia pietatis of Pietism (see pp. 739-40) developed a spirituality which likewise emphasized an inner encounter with the divine, although in this case the devotional group took its place alongside Lutheran public wors.h.i.+p. It is interesting that these Pietists were among the few people to take an interest in the writings of women activists from the earliest days of the Lutheran Reformation, like those of an outspoken n.o.blewoman of the 1520s and 1530s then otherwise long forgotten, Argula von Grumbach. of Pietism (see pp. 739-40) developed a spirituality which likewise emphasized an inner encounter with the divine, although in this case the devotional group took its place alongside Lutheran public wors.h.i.+p. It is interesting that these Pietists were among the few people to take an interest in the writings of women activists from the earliest days of the Lutheran Reformation, like those of an outspoken n.o.blewoman of the 1520s and 1530s then otherwise long forgotten, Argula von Grumbach.50 The phenomenon of gender-skewed congregations was already noticed in the late seventeenth century, and it contributed to new Christian reflections on gender. The English clergyman and ethical writer Richard Allestree and the leading Ma.s.sachusetts minister Cotton Mather agreed in finding women more spiritual than men, who were slaves to pa.s.sions: 'Devotion is a tender Plant', said Allestree, 'that . . . requires a supple gentle soil; and therefore the feminine softness and plyableness is very apt and proper for it . . . I know there are many Ladies whose Examples are reproaches to the other s.e.x, that help to fill our Congregations, when Gentlemen desert them'. That Protestant Oxford don even regretted the Reformation's abolition of nunneries. Mather felt that women had a greater moral seriousness than men because of their constant consciousness of death in childbirth.51 Whether he was right or not, such notions were a striking turnaround from traditional medical talk of humours and a continuous spectrum of gender, or of Augustine of Hippo's disparaging theological comments on women's uncontrolled natures. Whether he was right or not, such notions were a striking turnaround from traditional medical talk of humours and a continuous spectrum of gender, or of Augustine of Hippo's disparaging theological comments on women's uncontrolled natures.52 As women apparently showed themselves more devout than their menfolk (and perhaps more gratifyingly appreciative of the clergy's efforts), the ancient Christian stereotype of women as naturally more disordered than men and more open to Satan's temptations began to look steadily less convincing. That probably contributed to the growing elite distaste for hunting down witches. As women apparently showed themselves more devout than their menfolk (and perhaps more gratifyingly appreciative of the clergy's efforts), the ancient Christian stereotype of women as naturally more disordered than men and more open to Satan's temptations began to look steadily less convincing. That probably contributed to the growing elite distaste for hunting down witches.

Women alert to the change in atmosphere began seeking their own reconstructed place in the Church. Mary Astell was a celibate High Church Anglican Tory with a lively interest in contemporary philosophy, and her Toryism made her a clear-eyed critic of the limitations of Whig proponents of a renewed Christianity like John Locke, who seemed to talk much of freedom for men, but not for half the human race (or indeed more than half, given Locke's att.i.tude to enslaved Africans). During the 1690s she began publis.h.i.+ng her own vision, which amounted to a new Christian feminism: 'That the Custom of the World has put Women, generally speaking, into a State of Subjection, is not denied; but the Right can no more be prov'd from the Fact, than the Predominancy of Vice can justify it.' She was indignant that girls were deprived of decent education in favour of boys, and seized on what Allestree and other sympathetic commentators were saying, making their arguments her own, with a certain added sarcasm: 'One wou'd . . . almost think, that the wise disposer of all things, foreseeing how unjustly Women are denied opportunities of improvement from without without, has therefore by way of compensation endow'd them with greater propensions to Vertue, and a natural goodness of Temper within within.'53 Much of this feminism would be absorbed into the Evangelical movements, which benefited from its activist enthusiasm and provided its chief outlet in Western culture right into the twentieth century (see pp. 828-30); but Evangelical Protestantism was ultimately not able to set boundaries to the feminism of Western culture, as will become apparent. Much of this feminism would be absorbed into the Evangelical movements, which benefited from its activist enthusiasm and provided its chief outlet in Western culture right into the twentieth century (see pp. 828-30); but Evangelical Protestantism was ultimately not able to set boundaries to the feminism of Western culture, as will become apparent.

ENLIGHTENMENT IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

The history of the Enlightenment, a story usually a.s.sociated with the eighteenth century, therefore saw virtually all its elements in place by 1700. Many of its a.s.sumptions derived from the Old and New Testaments and the two religions which had created this literature, Judaism and Christianity. Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe produced two apparently contrary but actually deeply entangled movements, both of which were destined to affect a world far beyond their original settings in countries around the North Sea. The Enlightenment bred an open scepticism as to whether there can be definitive truths in specially privileged writings exempt from detached a.n.a.lysis, or whether any one religion has the last word against any other; in its optimism, commitment to progress and steadily more material, secularizing character, it represented a revulsion against Augustine of Hippo's proclamation of original sin. Yet beside the Enlightenment, the series of Protestant awakenings drew their inspiration from that same Augustine and from his interpretation in the Reformation. The mainstream Reformers had not merely proclaimed original sin as the key problem for humanity, capable of being solved only by a gracious G.o.d, but in their proclamation, they affirmed the authority and transcendence of the biblical text and jettisoned a whole raft of creative allegorical ways in which its meaning might be extended. It is possible to read the Protestant awakenings as a shocked reaction to the social and intellectual innovations of the early Enlightenment.

The two movements might therefore seem to be radically opposed. The reality was more complicated, for they constantly interacted and tangled. Key figures of the Evangelical awakenings respected the impulse to rationality which informed Enlightenment thought, and were fascinated by the intellectual ferment and the extensions of knowledge around them. Jonathan Edwards saw the Enlightenment philosophy's use of reason as an essential ally in reaffirming the Reformation message of the bondage of the human will. John Wesley, an intellectual omnivore himself, was determined as much as the Halle Pietists to introduce his flocks to the excitement of knowl