Richard Landes wrote:
in the middle ages there were important people, ones who had a powerful
impact on what was written and preserved, who were capable of convincing
themselves that
>there was no difference <between love and violence>. to assume that
everyone else, including the objects of their affections, did not know is a
conjectural step i am not willing to take.
>
>rlandes
>
Dear Richard Landes
It is probably not fair to the Middle Ages (neither to Riley-Smith as far as
I remember his article) to claim that people did not distinguish between
love and violence. All violence was evil if it was used with an evil
intention and was then fundamentally opposed to love. But violence could
also be a necessary instrument to stop evil and if it was used for this aim,
violence could be acceptable, good, even an act of love, not in itself but
because of the intention behind it. It was an act of love not only towards
those who were protected against evil but also towards the evildoers
themselves who effectively were helped to change their sinful life.
The only possible way to argue against this distinction between two
kind of violences would be to claim that one should never fight back against
evil but simply sit down and wait for God to come and sort things out. That
violence is wrong and should never be used is an attitude that has always
existed, it might have been more widely accepted in this century than
before, but it has always been the impossible dream of a minority. To most
people, both political leaders, theologians and all those who never wrote
about their beliefs, it has been evident that evil must be stopped if it is
a danger to faith/civilization/society. And this immediately raises the
problem of knowing, who the evils are, which is a point in which there is a
difference between the Middle Ages and today. The objects of our loving
violence has changed but not the argumentation.
If the necessity of fighting evil has been and to a large extent
still is accepted in Christian societies, there is no need to invent a
conspiracy of the Medieval writing elite. Why should the use of 'good'
violence not have been accepted as necessary by all? Also by those living in
borderareas with mixed populations and also by heretics, although they would
define the others as the evils and not themselves. Why should "common"
people be better - or more naive - than theologians?
Kurt Villads Jensen
dept. of History
Odense University
Campusvej 55
DK-5230 Odense M
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