*Infidel [https://en.wikipedia.] (literally “unfaithful”) is a term used in certain religions for those accused of unbelief in the central tenets of their own religion, for members of another religion, or for the irreligious.
Infidel is an ecclesiastical term in Christianity around which the Church developed a body of theology that deals with a clear differentiation between those who were baptized and followed the teaching of the Church versus those who are outside the faith. The term infidel was used by Christians to describe those perceived as the enemies of Christianity.
After the ancient world of the concept of otherness, an exclusionary notion of the outside by societies with more or less coherent cultural boundaries, became associated with the development of the monotheistic and prophetic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam (cf. pagan). In modern literature, the term infidel includes in its scope atheist, polytheists, animists, heathens and pagans.
A willingness to identify other religious people as infidels corresponds to preference for orthodoxy over pluralism.
Infidels under canon law. Right to rule. In Quid super his, Innocent IV (c. 1195-1254), asked the question “Is it licit to invade a land that infidels possess or which belongs to them?” and held that while Infidels had a right to dominium (right to rule themselves and choose their own governments), however the pope, as the Vicar of Christ, de jure possessed the care of their souls and the right to politically intervene in their affairs if they ruler violated or allowed his subjects to violate a Christian and Euro-centric normative conception of Natural law, such as sexual perversion idolatry. He also held that he had an obligation to send missionaries to infidel lands, and that if they were prevented from entering or preaching, then the pope was justified in dispatching Christian forces accompanied with missionaries to invade those lands, as Innocent stated simply “If the infidels do not obey, they ought to be compelled by the secular arm and war may be declared upon them by the pope, and nobody else.” This was however not a reciprocal right and non-Christian missionaries such as those of Muslims could not be allowed to preach in Europe “because they are in error and we are on a righteous path.”
A long line of Papal hierocratic canonists, most notably those who adhered to Alanus Anglicus’s influential arguments of the Crusading-era, denied Infidel dominium, and asserted Rome’s universal jurisdictional authority over the earth, and the right to authorize pagan conquests soley on the basis on non-belief because of their rejection of the Christian god. In the extreme hierocratic canonical discourse of the mid-twelfth century such as that espoused by Bernard of Clairvaux, the mystic leader of the Cistercians, legitimized German colonial expansion and practice of forceful Christianisation in the Slavic territories as a holy war against the Wends, arguing that infidels should be killed wherever they posed a menace to Christians. When Frederick the II unilaterally arrogated papal authority, he took on the mantle to “destroy, convert, and subjugate all barbarian nations.” A power in papal doctrine reserved for the pope. Hostiensis, a student of Innocent, in accord with Alanus, also asserted “....by law infidels should be subject to the faithful.” and the heretical quasi-Donatist John Wycliff, regarded as the forefather of English Reformation, also held that valid dominium rested on a state of grace.
The development of counter arguments later on the validity of Papal authority, the rights of infidels and the primacy of natural law, led to various treatises… which in turn led to the transformation of international law’s treatment of the relationship between Christian and non-Christian societies and the development of human rights.
Colonization of America. During the Age of Discovery (from the end of the 15th century to the 18th century), the Papal Bulls such as Romanus Pontifex and more importantly inter caetera (1493), implicitly removed dominium from infidels and grated them to the Spanish Empire and Portugal with the charter of guaranteeing the safety of missionaries. Subsequent English and French rejections of the bull refuted the Pope's authority to exclude other Christian princes. As independent authorities such as the Head of the Church of England, they drew up charters for their own colonial missions based on the temporal right for care of infidel souls in language echoing the inter caetera. The charters and papal bulls would form the legal basis of future negotiations and consideration of claims as title deeds in the emerging Law of nations in the European colonization of the Americas.
The rights bestowed by Romanus Pontifex and inter caetera have never fallen from use, serving as the basis for legal arguments over the centuries. The U.S Supreme Court ruled in the 1823 case Johnson v. M’Intosh that as a result of European discovery and assumption of ultimate dominion, Native Americans had only a right to occupancy of native lands, no the right of title. This decision was upheld in the 1831 case Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, giving Georgia authority to extend state laws over Cherokees within the state, and famously describing Native American tribes as “domestic dependent nations.” This decision was modified in Worcester v. Georgia, which stated that the U.S federal government, and not individual states, had authority in Indian affairs, but it maintained the loss of right to title upon discovery by Europeans.
Native American groups including the Taino and Onondaga have called on the Vatican to revoke the bulls of 1452, 1453, and 1493.
Marriage. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the Church views Marriage as forbidden and null when conducted between the faithful (Christians) and infidels, unless a dispensation has been granted. This is because marriage is a sacrament of the Catholic Church, which infidels are deemed incapable of receiving.
As a philosophical tradition. Some philosophers such as Thomas Paine, David Hume, George Holyoake, Charles Bradlaugh, Voltaire and Rousseau earned the label of infidel or freethinkers, both personally and for their respective traditions of thought because of their attacks on religion and opposition to the Church. They established and participated in a distinctly labeled, infidel movement or tradition of thought, that sought to reform their societies which were steeped in Christian thought, practice, laws and culture… These traditions also sought to set up various independent model communities, as well as societies, whose traditions then gave rise to various socio-political movements such as secularism in 1851, was well as developing close philosophical ties to some contemporary political movements such as socialism and the French Revolution.
Towards the early 20th century, these movements sought to move away from the tag “infidel” because of its associate negative connotation in Christian thought, and is attributed to George Holyoake’s coining the term ‘secularism’ in an attempt to bridge the gap with other theist and Christian liberal reform movements.
In 1793, Immanuel Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, reflected the Enlightenment periods’ philosophical development, one which differentiated between the moral and rational and substituted rational/irrational for the original true believer/infidel distinction.
Implications for medieval civil law. Laws passed by the Catholic Church governed not just the laws between Christians and Infidels in matters of religious affairs, but also civil affairs…
In the Early Middle Ages, based on the idea of the superiority of Christians to infidels, regulations came into place such as those forbidding Jews from possessing Christian slaves; the laws of the decretals further forbade Christians from entering the service of Jews, for Christian women to act as their nurses or midwives; forbidding Christians from employing Jewish physicians when ill; restricting Jews to definite quarters of the towns into which they were admitted and to wear a dress by which they might be recognized.
Later during the Victorian era, testimony of either self declared, or those accused of being Infidels or Atheists, was not accepted in a court of law because it was felt they they had no moral imperative to not lie under oath because they did not believe in God, or Heaven and Hell.
These rules have now given way to modern legislation and Catholics, in civil life, are not longer governed by ecclesiastical law.
Analogous terms in other religions.
Islam. Judaism.
(See also) Agnosticism, Antitheism, Apostasy, Blasphemy, Deism, Freethought, Kafir.
*
*Secularism -Separation of Church and State.
*Secularism [https://en.wikipedia.] is the principle of the separation of government institutions and persons mandated to represent the state from religious institutions and religious dignitaries. One manifestation of secularism is asserting the right to be free from religious rule and teachings, or, in a state declared to be neutral on matters of belief, from the imposition by government of religion or religious practices upon its people. Another manifestation of secularism is the view that public activities and decisions, especially political ones, should be uninfluenced by religious beliefs or practices.
Secularism draws its intellectual roots from Greek and Roman philosophers such as Epicurus and Marcus Aurelius; from Enlightenment thinkers such as John Locke, Denis Diderot, Voltaire, Baruch Spinoza, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and Thomas Paine; and from more recent freethinkers and atheists such as Robert Ingersoll, Bertrand Russell, and Christopher Hitchens.
|
*
*Related, destruction of pagan idols and killing of pagans who refuse to convert.
(Jody Gray) in the following Blog Post, we see, first, the Christians as enemies of the Germanic pagans who destroy their sacred objects. Then, we are presented with the Christians Saint Boniface and Charlemagne, as heroes destroying the idols of the pagans in order to convert them to Christianity. And, we see, in the Religious nature of War, that killing pagans who refuse to convert is justifiable.
*Donar’s Oak aka Thor’s Oak, was a sacred tree of the Germanic pagans… (cut down by Saint Boniface) when in the strength of his steadfast heart he had cut the lower notch, (Legend) there was present a great multitude of pagans, who in their souls were earnestly cursing the enemy of their gods.
*Irminsul (universal all-sustaining), a sacral pillar-like object attested as playing an important role in the Germanic paganism of the Saxon people. -A Germanic god Irmin, like Wodan (Odin)... Charlemagne ordering the destruction of the chief seat of their religion. (Teutoburg Forest, the original name meant “Holy Wood”)... In the 13th century, the destruction of Irminsul by Charlemagne was recorded as having still been commemorated at Hildesheim (by the Cannons)...
*Religious nature of War. “What the contrary mind and perverse soul refuse to do with persuasion, let them leap to accomplish when compelled by fear.” -In 785 AD he issues the Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniae which asserted “If any one of the race of the Saxons hereafter concealed among them shall have wished to hide himself unbaptized, and shall have scorned to come to baptism and shall have wished to remain a pagan, let him be punished by death.”
|
*
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.