Publications, Newspaper Cuttings, Photographs and Correspondence about Persia and the Persian Gulf [‎184r] (368/879)

May 27, 1910.
JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS.
655
parallelism grows closer. From the twelfth
century a change appeared in the universal
acceptance by the Christian nations of the
orthodox faith of Rome. In that age there
broke upon the Church a flood of heresy which
no persecution was able thoroughly to stem till
it finally overspread half the surface of Europe.
Men openly began to think for themselves in
religious matters, to reject particular teachings
of the Papacy, and to protest against the
despotism of the clergy. The Waldenses in
Lombardy, Germany, Flanders, Spain, France,
and England, set up the Bible as their sole rule
of faith, and renounced entirely the arbitrary
usages and traditions of ecclesiasticism. Like
the Albigenses, they suffered, but the fire of
rebellion was now too big to be extinguished,
though for a time it could no more than
smoulder. John Huss in Bohemia, following
the teachings of Wycliffe in England, set him
self to restore the purity and simplicity of scrip
tural Christianity, and was excommunicated
by the Pope. When, under a safe conduct, he
went to the Council of Constance to defend his
opinions before the clergy of all the nations, he
was seized, ordered to recant, and, refusing,
burnt to death. Similarly, in the twelfth
century of the Muhammadan era a change
appeared in the universal acceptance by the
Moslem nations of the Orthodoxy of Mecca
and of Kerbela. Similarly, there broke upon
the Mussulman Church a flood of heresy
which no persecution was able thoroughly
to stem. Similarly, the Bab, defying the
fanaticism of the Shiah hierarchy, shook by
his fiery eloquence the supports of what may
be called the Papacy of Islam, in seeking to
restore the simplicity of Quranic Muham
madanism ; and in like manner was excom
municated. Thereafter, beguiled by perfidious
pledges of safety, he delivered himself into the
hands of his enemies, believing that he would
be permitted to justify his opinions in open
controversy, and, as no threat could move him
during his imprisonment to retract, he was
executed.
John Huss and the Bab, each in his turn,
were but the voices crying in the wilderness.
It was not until the sixteenth century that the
wave of popular feeling against absolutism in
the Roman Church broke all bounds. Erasmus
started a school of Free-thought. Free-thought
has to-day become widely prevalent among the
intellectual classes in Persia, and was, indeed,
one of the first phenomena to kindle the pro
phetic fire of Baha Ullah. The Christian
populaces in Europe were influenced by the
diffusion of satirical epigrams and allegories,
directed against the heads of the Church and
against the monks. Last summer, when I was
in Isfahan, the bazaar was excited by the
secret circulation of a lampoon representing
Agha Nejefi (one of the most powerful Mujta-
hids in the Shiah clergy and the supreme
religious head in Central Persia) standing
crestfallen before the Throne of Judgement,
while Allah poured scorn and wrath upon him.
Anti-clerical pamphleteering of this sort is
now common in many Persian cities, though
it is still timid and furtive. Christian protests
in 1508 were particularly loud against the use
of the Latin tongue in the services of the
Church. The religious reformers in Persia
are now beginning to make a corresponding
grievance of the use of Arabic in the mosques.
But it was Martin Luther who gave co
herence, energy and permanence to the
scattered forces of Christian Protestantism.
And—so far as the movement yet extends—it
is Baha Ullah who has wrought the same
wonder for Muhammadan Protestantism.
Martin Luther began the campaign by assert
ing the rights of human reason. The same
was the first plank in Baha Ullah’s spiritual
platform. Indeed Bahaism deliberately uses
the weapon against itself by insisting that its
own teaching shall be subjected by every
individual to his private judgment. Luther’s
first collision with the Pope arose out of the
sale of “ indulgences.” The theory of indul
gences in the Roman Catholic system, it will
be remembered, was that many saints and
pious men had done more good works and
borne more suffering than was required for the
remission of their sins : the surplus consti
tuted a treasure for the Church, which the
Pope was authorised to distribute in exchange
for pious gifts. In the minds of the ignorant
an indulgence became equal to a licence for
sin. One of the most pernicious religious
abuses in Persia arises from the pretensions of
some of the priests to sell to the people
places in Heaven ; indeed there are priests
who go the incredible length of issuing
tickets or passes for Paradise in the manner
of the booking-Office of a theatre. I know of
one case, in the city of Qum, where such a
ticket was declared transferable. Baha Ullah
attacked this scandal fiercely, and thereby
threw down the gauntlet. Luther next pro
ceeded to assail the authority of the Pope and
the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church in a
succession of printed pamphlets and sermons,
which all Europe showed itself eager to read.

Publications, Newspaper Cuttings, Photographs and Correspondence about Persia and the Persian Gulf [‎184r] (368/879)

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Publications, Newspaper Cuttings, Photographs and Correspondence about Persia and the Persian Gulf [‎184r] (368/879)

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