Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Speech

Sebastian Castellio
1515-1563

In the current debates over freedom of religion, I’ve been reminded of two statements by two great men, one known as an advocate of freedom of religion and the other as an advocate of freedom of the press.

In Perez Zagorin’s very important new work, How the Idea of Religious Toleration Came to the West, I was introduced to the life and ideas of Sebastian Castellio. One of his comments was especially striking. It was occasioned by the execution by fire of Michael Servetus in Geneva on October 27, 1553 (at the instigation of John Calvin):

“To kill a man is not to defend a doctrine, it is to kill a man. When the Genevans killed Servetus, they did not defend a doctrine, they killed a man.”

The debate over the anger felt by some Muslims about caricatures of the founder of their religion calls to mind the statement of John Milton in his great plea of 1644 against licensing of the press, Areopagitica:

“[H]ere the great art lies, to discern in what the law is to bid restraint and punishment, and in what things persuasion only is to work.”

John Milton
1608-1674