Lasst Beides Wachsen bis zur Ernte’: Toleranz in der Geschichte des Christentums by Arnold Angenendt (review)

The book title is taken from Mt 13:30: “Let them grow together until harvest,” which is part of Jesus’ parable of the weed and the wheat. Its thesis is: The biblical command, Mt 13:30, is the Leitmotiv (p. 16) that dominates the concept and the historical development of religious tolerance. This Scripture verse is the most significant contribution that Christianity has made to the coming into existence of religious tolerance. This verse is “Jesus’ words of tolerance” (p. 16). As far as I can see, no scholar before Angenendt has ever traced the use of Mt 13:30 through the centuries. The book does not provide any biographical information about its author. He was born in 1934, a priest of the Catholic Church in Germany, a church historian, professor emeritus of the University of Münster. He shows the impact of Mt 13:30 up to the Second Vatican Council with its Declaration on Religious Liberty of 1965 (without, however, providing the exact source reference, which would be no. 11).

Early examples of dealing with heresies show the use of Mt 13:30 by Irenaeus of Lyon (ca. 200), Cyprian (died 258), Tertullian (ca. 220), Origen (died ca. 253). In the Christian East, the verse was consistently utilized for non-violence and for the prohibition of killing heretics, i.e. especially by John Chrysostom (died 407). In the West, Augustine (died 430), too, worked with this verse in order to object to the killing of heretics. In the Middle Ages, the verse still had its lasting impact in terms of “do not pull up” (Mt 13:28–29)—during the time of the church-political struggles between popes and emperors. Major figures are Anselm of Luttich (died ca. 1056), Sigebert de Gembloux (died 1112), John of Salisbury (died 1180), Gerhoch von Reichersberg (died 1169), Peter Abelard (died 1142), and Anselm von Havelberg (died 1158). Even Gratian’s Decretum (the foundation of medieval church law; ca. 1130) incorporates Mt 13:30 in favor of patience and tolerance. “The outrageous change” (Der unerhörte Umbruch, p. 99) in favor of killing heretics occurred with Pope Gregory IX (died 1241) and Thomas Aquinas (died 1274) who advocated the “pulling up” of the weed in order to justify the killing of heretics for the “spiritual common good” (geistliches Allgemeinwohl, p. 101). The Protestant Reformation with its main figures Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin is tackled all too briefly. The elder Luther’s long sermon on Mt 13 (of 1545, Weimarer Ausgabe vol. 52: 828–839) is overlooked. In it Luther pointed out that the Lord commanded that Christians shall not eradicate heretics. There is one other, major lacuna in the display of the Wirkungsgeschichte of Mt 13:30: Johann Reuchlin. As I indicated in my book, Johann Reuchlin (1455–1522) (Berlin/Boston, 2015), Reuchlin advised obedience to the devise of Mt 13:30 that one should not pull up one with the other (see his Expert Opinion for the emperor of 1510, Recommendation Whether to Confiscate, Destroy and Burn All Jewish Books). In the Age of Enlightenment, Mt 13:30 was used by Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Pierre Bayle, Voltaire, Immanuel Kant—each in his own way. Chapter VI covers the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Modern Religious Liberty). Flaws are found in the index of names where the given pages usually are removed by two page numbers. Unfortunately, there is no list of abbreviations that were used. Nevertheless, Angenendt’s study is to be highly recommended. Endnotes are copious and comprise pages 185–212. The list of source material is given on nine pages (pp. 213–221). The bibliography is gigantic (pp. 222–240). Instead of “Marin Bucer” it should read Martin Bucer (p. 218). This book demonstrates that church history is essentially the history of Bible interpretation.