Excommunication Quotes
While Aquinas brought much wisdom and good to the Church, this statement and others laid a foundation for murdering non-believers and organizing the Inquisition.
Manava Dharma Shastra. The punishment for male adultery was not capital as in the Ancient Jewish and early Christian and Muslim law (Sharia) even today. However, if the adulterer had relations with the wife of a higher cast man, then the punishment was death. Even intercourse with an unmarried woman of a higher caste was punishable by death, but not so for relations with a woman of the same or lower caste. This text is a part of the Hindu Holy Texts. Hindus believe that Manu was a prophet whose text is revealed or inspired.
Spinoza’s ideas were considered so radical and dangerous to the establishment that he was the only man in history who was excommunicated by the Catholics, the Jews and the Muslims. Today we regard him as a great philosopher who laid the foundation for much of scientific thought.
At the time Islam was quite conflicted about the role of innovation, science and reform. Innovators were to many theologians as dangerous to society as heretics and had to be refuted. Al-Ashari’s school of thought has prevailed in much of the Muslim world to this day.
The pope attempted a boycott of weapons against the Ottomans who were threatening Crete, then controlled by Christian Venice. The French and others did not respect the boycott. As in modern times, boycotts were easily broken by those wishing to profit from trade. Crete fell. The Catholic boycott had actually started in the 16th Century with minimal effectiveness, but Clement IX made a vain effort to enforce it.
Like Protestantism, there are different sects of Judaism but not so many. The Reform Jews are the most modern Jewish religious group. Reform Judaism originated in France and developed in America in the 19th century, and most American Jews belong to this branch of Judaism. In Israel, the Reform Jews are a minority like the ultra-Orthodox of which this Rabbi was a leader. He was the head of the ultra-Orthodox Shas political party which often has substantial political power when the two major parties do not have enough votes to make a majority and they need Shas as a coalition partner. This minor party often has a great deal of political influence. Religiously however, Shas speaks for a small minority of Israelis. However, they and some other ultra-Orthodox have been able to control or be very influential with the Israeli Ministry of Religion and they have used this power to not give Reform Judaism any official recognition. Reform Rabbis—which include women—are not officially recognized in Israel and so far as this Rabbi and many of his followers are concerned, Reform Judaism is a great danger to Jews and Israel. The hatred, as in this quotation, for the Reform Jews, is greater than any animosity for the Arabs. In actuality, this rabbi and his followers, are culturally and religiously very much like the Muslims. As Sephardic Jews, they have grown up in the Middle East and before Israel’s founding, they lived in Islamic counties and absorbed much of their culture. Like ultra-orthodox Muslims, they believe in theocracy and oppose democracy. They oppose religious freedom, and oppose civil law and civil courts in favor of religious law and Rabbinical courts. See {637098} for their hostility to the Supreme Court. The friction between the secular, Reform and most Jews in Israel and the ultra-Orthodox simmers just below the surface and breaks out every so often, but the pressure to refrain from major political strife is great lest there not be enough of a united front to protect the Jewish people from the extremists in the Middle East who want to nullify the Israeli state by force and would threaten the very lives of Jewish people.
King Henry VIII had left the Roman Catholic church and taken England and Ireland out also. He replaced the Pope as the head of the English and Irish churches. There was much opposition in Ireland and the priests were the most assertive opponents to the change and were still loyal to the Pope. Queen Elizabeth continued to have problems with the Priests. James I, Elizabeth’s successor, became fed up by the Roman Catholic Priests and therefor issued this Proclamation.
Spinoza’s ideas were considered so radical and dangerous that he was the only man in history who was excommunicated by the Catholics, the Jews and the Muslims.
The King had earlier replaced the Pope as the head of the English church. The references to money referred to a then common corruption of the Church whereby people could buy indulgences—religious papal pardons of past or future sins. This was a major revenue source for the Vatican and a major issue for Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformers some of who saw the pope as the Devil incarnate See {623153}. For Martin Luther’s view pf the practice and {626720}, {595195}, and {639436} for other contemporary views.
The King, a religious exremist fanatic, was a great supporter of the Inquisition whose excesses were horrible during his reign.
