Introduction

1 Understanding the Past without Omitting Injustice

At Saint Peter’s Cathedral in the Vatican, on the Day of Pardon (March 12, 2000) during the international Jubilee Year, Pope John Paul II celebrated a mass in which he, together with cardinals (as representatives of the Roman Curia), confessed “the sins of the past” in accordance with an authentic “purification of memory” and asked for forgiveness “on the path of true conversion.”1 After this general confession, the pope and the cardinals confessed more particular sins of the past, each confession ending with a prayer from the pope. Among these sins were those committed in the service of truth by “men of the Church” who “in the name of faith and morals, have sometimes used methods” against the ideal of the Gospel “in the solemn duty of defending the truth.” The pope, for his part, confessed that “in certain periods of history Christians have at times given in to intolerance and have not been faithful to the great commandment of love, sullying in this way the face of the Church.” The third prayer concerned the confession of sins that have harmed the unity of the body of Christ, stating that believers “have […] opposed one another, become divided, and have mutually condemned one another and fought against one another.” The fourth confession of sins concerned the sufferings endured by the people of Israel throughout history; and the fifth the sins that Christians have committed in actions against love, peace, the rights of peoples, and against respect for cultures and religions. In this part, forgiveness was asked for “the words and attitudes caused by pride, by hatred, by the desire to dominate others, by enmity towards members of other religions and towards the weakest groups in society, such as immigrants and itinerants.” For his part, the pope confessed that “Christians […] have violated the rights of ethnic groups and peoples, and shown contempt for their cultures and religious traditions.” The sixth apology concerned the sins “against the dignity of women, who are too often humiliated and marginalized, and the unity of the human race” in which the pope confessed that “Christians have been guilty of attitudes of rejection and exclusion, consenting to acts of discrimination on the basis of racial and ethnic differences.” The section ends with the confession of sins in relation to the fundamental rights of people, “especially […] minors who are victims of abuse, or the poor, the alienated, the disadvantaged.”2

In Western historiography, Christianity has been accused of being perhaps the most intolerant of all great world religions, and medieval and early modern societies have been seen as singularly cruel and violent, especially on account of crusades, conquests, persecution, and inquisitions.3 The reasons are manifold: from human beings’ tendency to commit evil to the self-identification of the Catholic Church as a holy and infallible institution outside of which there is no salvation.4 Being a Christian meant being baptized, an act which signaled the birth of a new nation. In baptism, the old barbaric pagan past was washed away in a single moment, and a new person was born. Thus, being a Christian also meant belonging to a group of the (potentially) saved, and therefore conversion to Christianity meant transformation into a person for whom the possibility of salvation in the afterlife was open. Early Christians adopted the originally Jewish practice of referring collectively to all peoples who did not share their faith by using such terms as ‘pagan’ and ‘gentile.’ This exclusive terminology of othering ‘us’ from ‘them’ based on religious reasons remained more or less standard from the medieval period until the early modern era. The divisions within Christianity were also usually due to faith and thus, doctrinal disagreements. Those who departed from the true faith and doctrine (explicated by church authorities) were condemned as ‘heretics.’5 Political differences between Christian groups were often conceptualized in religious terms by both sides of the debate, and it was not uncommon for politically dissenting groups to be labeled religious heretics.

As the book cover illustrates, dehumanization has been one way of justifying harming, abusing, violating, or killing others, often non-believers but also heretics inside the Church. In addition to illustrative representations, dehumanization was also manifested in figurative language that was nurtured by propagandistic writings and stereotypes. Heretics were described, for example, as carrying infectious diseases and indigenous people as monkeys. There were also several other ways in which individuals and groups were constructed as strange and divorced from the community of those who supposedly had truth and goodness on their side.6

2 Understanding Ourselves in Encountering Others

By ‘othering’ we refer to a process in which differently perceived people or groups are defined as worse than and as inferior to how the perceivers see themselves. This concerns confirming and defining one’s identity with the help of a counterpart. It may be the question of the majority’s power over minorities although minorities themselves can create their own identities by othering other groups. There were, of course, reasons for othering people apart from religious grounds, for instance, differences in the physical (e. g., gender, skin color, facial features) and cultural (e. g., primitiveness) sense. Both have been viewed from the perspective of Western people and culture, holding it to be superior to others.7

Notwithstanding the prevailing representation of Christianity, recent scholarship has shown that ideas on toleration and recognition are also to be found in medieval and early modern sources.8 In these narratives, human dignity and diversity were accepted and defended – and this concerned not only faithful Christians but also non-Christians. These studies have also bolstered our knowledge of interfaith encounters in early history. Studying and valuing such encounters does not contradict but complements taking responsibility for others and seeking reconciliation and forgiveness.9 These processes of self-criticism and self-understanding are needed to ensure that the atrocities committed never happen again.10

The main aim of this volume is to highlight the significance of understanding ourselves when encountering others.11 The mere fact that there are other human beings and the kind of obligation this creates for each and every one of us makes for a kind of encounter with otherness. Mostly, though, the ‘others’ studied here are, or might be, objects of toleration within a given political community. This would include members of other religions, like Judaism and Islam in Christian societies, but also members of Jewish, Muslim, or minority Christian communities within greater Christian communities. Regarding internal disagreements between communities that see themselves as Christians, we focus on disagreements between Eastern and Western Christianity, heretical movements, and the different sects within radical Reformation. In addition, we also consider early modern politics.

Another aim of this volume is to look at medieval and early modern ideas on toleration. Even though there are already a number of studies that focus on this subject in specific periods, we argue that paying attention to the identification of ourselves as a key factor in our attitudes toward others will also offer new perspectives in understanding the processes of toleration. The volume will ultimately inform the reader concerning the nature of religious toleration, including beliefs and doctrines, altruistic ideas, and even social emotions, as well as the self-definitions of religious communities when encountering and defining otherness in different ways.

As distinct from Cary Nedermann’s Worlds of Difference: European Discourses of Toleration, c.1100–c.1550, where four Western theologians (John of Salisbury, William Rubruck, Nicholas of Cusa, and Domingo de Las Casas) from the twelfth century to the sixteenth century are studied, we offer perspectives on both Eastern and Western Christian traditions in addition to Judaism and Islam from the seventh century to the seventeenth century. This rectifies the scholarly tradition of studying Western and Eastern Christianities in separate camps, in which the history of Eastern Europe is studied under the field of ‘Byzantine’ studies.

In his How the Idea of Religious Toleration Came to the West, Perez Zagorin argues that as a common attitude towards otherness, religious persecution should even be considered the norm in the medieval era. As the chapters in this volume maintain, the period also shows examples of religious toleration, and even of recognition of others. Thus, some modes of religious toleration can be traced back to the early medieval period. Religious toleration also remained a relatively constant topic among theologians throughout the Middle Ages up to the late seventeenth century.