Christianity, as a dominant ideology, has gone through more than a thousand years, and this long span of time accounts for almost one-third of the history of Western civilization. This is indeed rare in the world's major civilization circles. To call this history a "dark Middle Ages" in general and to erase it would be too crude and simplistic. In fact, in the long Middle Ages, Westerners deeply explored the deep religious consciousness in their hearts, and greatly developed the transcendent spirit of dissatisfaction with reality and yearning for eternity. If the Greeks were outward-looking and courageous, and the Romans were extravagant and lascivious, then medieval Europeans seemed too restrained and too concerned about their belief in their future lives. Ignoring the earth on which their feet were, they raised their eyes to the heavens, stretched out their trembling hands, murmured prayers to God for mercy, and led them out of this wicked earthly world and ascended to the heavens of eternal bliss. For them, the interests of this life are conquered by the fears and superstitions of the afterlife. For millennia, the Christian Church, by the magic of immutable doctrines, united much of Europe, with such a widespread and non-force organization, unprecedented. As the Church insists, its unity depends on a common set of beliefs, and this belief is supported by the supernatural view of punishment that frightens people. At the same time, the church holds the absolute power over believers to "verify their true identity" and determine whether they are saved or not. Thus, strict doctrine and the Senran Church were like a heavy iron sheath that overshadowed the developing European thought of the Middle Ages.
In this inextricable condom, scholastic philosophy is powerlessly torn between faith and reason, writhing in inexplicable circles amid a multitude of indistinguishable assumptions and transcendental conclusions. In the 13th century, as the Arabs exported Greek culture to the forgotten Europeans, Aristotle's ideas and logic awakened and stimulated Christians, although the church at that time still had enough power, through Thomas Jefferson. Aquinas and the scholastic philosophers, dressing Aristotle as a medieval theologian, cleverly avoided the onslaught of the Greek spirit of reason on the Christian faith. However, what power can sustain the socio-economic and cultural conditions of a region as vast as Europe for a thousand years without change? Neither the fierce-hearted church nor the omnipotent God has such great power. History moves forward inexorably according to its own laws. By the second half of the 14th century, the productive forces of feudal society in Europe had been greatly enhanced, the production technology was improving day by day, science had begun its modernization process, and capitalist relations of production were being conceived and germinated from within feudal society. Abundant goods promoted the development of trade, treaty ports became prosperous cities, frequent crusades opened the way to the East, introduced a cultural current of extravagance and heresy, and dogmatism and asceticism were questioned. Expensive parchment was once the material basis for the monks to monopolize learning, but cheap paper from Egypt shattered this monopoly, and once Chinese printing was introduced, it provided favorable conditions for the popularization of mass media, stimulated the prosperity of popular literature and civic culture, and thus endangered the authority of orthodoxy. The compass armed brave navigators so that they could defy dangers, avoid wind and waves and reefs, sail straight into the realm of ignorance, and discover the "New World" one by one. With the help of telescopes and microscopes, the bold and careful observer sees the macroscopic celestial and microscopic phenomena that are contrary to the teachings, and can no longer calmly settle in the "status quo" in his heart. So, in universities, in monasteries, in the mountains and rivers where philosophers lived in seclusion, people stopped the meaningless metaphysical controversies and began to explore experiments. Alchemy, which had attempted to turn stones into gold, twisted and turned into chemistry; astrology, astrology of predicting fate, unconsciously evolved into observation-based astronomy; the allegory of talking animals suddenly became zoology... This is an era of hope, an era of achievements, an era of vigor and vitality, an era of new beginnings and new undertakings in every field. In such an era, decaying theology can no longer imprison people's free thoughts, the European self-consciousness began to awaken, and the iron curtain of religious ideology that remained immovable finally cracked a crack, and from it jumped a spiritual light that reflected the heavens and the earth, the sun and the moon - that is, the Renaissance movement that shook the european land in the fifteenth and sixth centuries.
"Revival" means the resurrection and regeneration of old things, the so-called "Renaissance", as the name suggests, is the revival of ancient culture. At that time, many advanced intellectuals, when engaged in cultural research and creation, extensively and deeply collected and utilized the cultural achievements of ancient Greece and Rome, and suddenly set off a trend of shanggu, which must be said to be a typical portrayal of the atmosphere at that time. However, cultural revival cannot be reduced simply to a cultural retro movement. In fact, it marked the decline of medieval religious culture and the birth of a new capitalist culture. Avant-garde thinkers brought out the ancients, not simply to worship, but to borrow the ancient irony, to borrow the spear of the ancients to strike the shield of theology, all with the purpose of promoting their new culture and criticizing the old theological culture of the church, they went to the treasure house of Greco-Roman thought to dig out classical culture, collate, translate, praise and even imitate, all in order to carry out ruthless criticism and struggle against religious theology, scholastic philosophy and all kinds of old traditional concepts in the fields of religion, philosophy, literature, art and natural sciences. And from it to expound and construct their own emerging culture, establish new ideological norms, and create a new academic atmosphere. So, the Renaissance movement was essentially a new bourgeois anti-feudal cultural movement of the new bourgeoisie. It first arose in Italy, before it gained popularity, and then spread to most of Europe. This movement led to a radical and tremendous spiritual shift in The Europeans: from God to Man and Nature, from religion to secularization, and seems to return to the carefree, courageous state of natural passion of the ancient Greeks.
More than a thousand years of theological dreams seem to be awakened in an instant, Europeans seem to have discovered for the first time the value of man himself and the natural world on which man depends for survival and development, the illusion of the kingdom of heaven has disappeared, and the ambitious man is determined to build a happy paradise on earth without relying on God's help. The Renaissance emerged with three major ideological currents: humanism, the Reformation, and experimental science. In line with this, a large number of advanced and talented geniuses have sprung up like mushrooms, cut through thorns on all fronts and in all fields, waged arduous ideological struggles and cultural constructions, and many have been persecuted and destroyed, and even sacrificed their lives for the pursuit of truth. As Engels said, this was an era of giants that needed and produced giants. In just one or two hundred years, the night sky of European culture has gathered stars and dazzlingly competed for glory, staging a chorus of ideological stars that is unique in history.
I. Man's Discovery: Humanist Thought
In the Middle Ages, when Christianity was dominant, Latin was the only official language, whether it was theology, philosophy, or literature, all of which were Latin under the world, and the dialect of the vernacular could not be put on the elegant hall and became a printed text. But the brave 14th-century Italian poet Dante (1265-1321) broke this forbidden spell with an immortal Divine Comedy. The Divine Comedy is a long poem with a complex structure and a large content, which in the form of a fantasy literature unique to the Middle Ages, recounts a strange "god journey" experience of the author Dante himself: just when Dante was halfway through his life at the age of 35, he once got lost in a dark forest, and he tried everything to get out of it. At dawn, he came to the foot of a hill, and the sun poured from the top of the mountain. Just as he was about to cross the mountain, suddenly three beasts appeared in front of him: a leopard, a lion, and a she-wolf. They were staring at him in the way. There were beasts of prey in front and valleys in the back, and Dante was momentarily caught in a dilemma, and in a hurry, he cried out for help. And so a humanoid object appeared, and that was the soul of the Roman poet Virgil. This ancient poet, who represented human reason, led Dante through the gates of "hell", through the center of the earth, through the sea opposite Jerusalem, and climbed to the mountain of the "Pure Realm", at the top of which was the "paradise on earth". Virgil disappeared here. Then, the angel Beatrizy, who symbolized the divine intellect of the apocalypse, came to take him to heaven and travel to heaven until he met God. The Divine Comedy is a long poem that depicts what Dante saw and heard on his way to hell, purgatory and heaven in a dreamlike, symbolic and allegorical way, and runs through the theme of how individuals and human beings have passed through pain and tests from error and confusion to the realm of truth and the supreme good in the age of alternating old and new. Although many of the ideas described in the poem are still medieval theological and philosophical concepts, the spirit of the poet's pursuit of the highest truth and the enthusiasm for caring for the fate of mankind do vaguely reveal the dawn of humanistic thought.
It is worth mentioning that the Divine Comedy completely abandoned the Latin language that was common at that time, and directly used the poet's mother tongue, Italian, which broke through the situation of Latin dominating the literary world in one fell swoop, making people deaf and deafening and refreshing, and also indicating that the modern nationalism led by language independence is about to emerge from the unified theocratic Europe. As a prophet of humanism, Dante also wrote a number of other works that attacked the darkness and corruption of the Church and the Pope, expressing the ideal of caring for the human person. This angered the Pope, who was banished from Italy and killed in a foreign country. Engels once praised Dante as "the last poet of the Middle Ages and at the same time the first poet of the New Age". This title is great Dante well deserved. After Dante, a second outstanding humanist emerged in Italy, petrarch (1304-1374), known as the "father of humanism". The "poet laureate" who had long served in the papal court did not sing praises for the Holy See, but turned his pen around, lashed out at its dark corruption, and called on people not to talk about the gods but to study man himself. He shouted out the earliest cry of humanism: "I am mortal, and I only ask for the happiness of mortals!" Mortals should care for mortal things, real life, love, honor and happiness, is the real goal that man should pursue, only by enjoying human happiness can he appreciate God's grace; do not know man himself, let alone know God? In order to meet people, Petrarch focused on the study of humanism, and he traveled all over Italy, collecting ancient texts and manuscripts. His ideas expressed reverence for classical culture, aversion to asceticism, and the quest for freedom of individuality. Petrarch's proud protégé Boccaccio (1313-1375) wrote a novel, Decameron, which satirized and ridiculed the absurdity and ignorance of the church monks and feudal nobles, affirming that the only purpose of life is to pursue and enjoy happiness.
As soon as this book came out, Luoyang was expensive and popular, and people praised it for the controversy. Even today, more than 600 years later, when we come to read this literary masterpiece, we still can't help but be amazed by the author's humor, and we are deeply impressed by the brilliance of humanitarian ideas emanating from the book. Some people refer to Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio as the three masters of Italian humanism. In fact, Italy, as the birthplace of the Renaissance and humanism, also produced many outstanding humanists. Here are the philosopher Peng Bonazi, who refuted the theory of soul immortality at the cost of his own life, Pico, who vigorously tried to save human dignity from the oppression of God and advocated that man decide his own destiny, Thereshao, who studied nature by experimental methods and propagated materialism, and da Blancio, who was more versatile and integrated with great painters and scientists. Finch...... In this golden age of talents, from the capital Rome to the central Florence, from the water city of Venice to the port city of Naples, the whole of Italy is full of humanistic surging ideas, stirring up the call for the era of human self-liberation. What exactly is humanism? In fact, humanism is not a rigorous school, but just a trend of thought with a certain common tendency, which has lasted for a long time, has a wide range of genres, and has many genres. In European languages, the three words "humanism", "humanitarianism" and "humanism" are all the same word, derived from the Latin word "Humanus", meaning "belonging to man". Chinese translate it into the above three different concepts, and "humanism" refers specifically to the cultural trend of the Renaissance. In the 15th century, a number of humanities disciplines that did not focus on God but were centered on people, and did not study the knowledge of God and explored secular issues, such as rhetoric and logic based on Greek and Latin, and ancient languages, literature, art, and philosophy that objected to man.
Humanistic scholars emphasize the natural attributes of man, oppose god-centered scholasticism with universal abstract humanity, put human problems and human values in the first place, advocate human reason, advocate human dignity and rights, pursue human liberation and personal freedom, and pay attention to human needs and material interests. This is not in line with the medieval view of man as a sinner and slave of God, and everything revolves around God. Humanists are called humanists because of this tendency to think. As soon as the humanist movement arose, it became popular everywhere and quickly spread and penetrated into all areas of cultural and social life. Humanists come from different backgrounds and have mixed ideas, some are radical and bold in their rhetoric; some are close to the lower classes and sympathetic to the people; while others tend to be conservative, inflammatory, and aristocratic, and even in and out of the court and the rich. At a time when humanism was in full swing, certain dignitaries and even individual popes were vassals of the humanists. We cannot speak of humanists without mentioning the iron-faced cold-blooded political scientist Machiavelli. Machiavelli (1469-1527), the son of a Florentine lawyer, had an early political career and was entrusted with various diplomatic missions, giving him numerous opportunities to directly study intricate political schemes. Later, he wrote these political experiences into a book called "On the Monarch", which was dedicated to the ruler of the time, Lorenzo Lopez. Medici, in exchange for an official position. Helplessly, people didn't buy his account at all. He slapped a horse's ass in vain, but he was never reused, depressed, and died early with the regret of not being appreciated, at the age of 58. "The Monarch" is a rare strange book in Western history, which has been published for more than 400 years, causing misinterpretation and misinterpretation, attracting criticism and attack everywhere, and the good people say that it is evil and immoral, and ambitious politicians regard it as a secret magic weapon for seizing power; the monks of the church call it a heretic against the divine right of monarchy, while the bourgeois political commentators praise it as the foundation of modern political science.
All in all, there are many opinions, there are different opinions, and a hundred people have a hundred opinions. In fact, the book is not large, the content is easy to understand, and the whole book runs through such a central idea: politics is the arena of power struggle, there is no natural victor, who has the strength, who can hold power. Therefore, in order to gain and retain power, the ruler must do whatever it takes, by any means, to exert your skills and schemes, ruthlessly defeat the enemy and achieve his goals. As long as the end is achieved, your means are justified. Anyone who wants to be a strong ruler can adopt a double standard of conduct, one set for himself and another for the masses, and the governor who sets the fire must forbid the people from lighting the lamp. A promising politician must be as cunning as a fox, good at recognizing the trap of a hunter, and as fierce as a lion, and a roar will scare his opponent into a stream of urine. In short, successful politicians are bound to be a big liar and hypocrite. Doesn't all this sound evil enough? It is no wonder that for centuries Machiavelli's name has been tainted with a sinister and derogatory connotation. However, this cannot be entirely blamed on him, because his book is only an empirical portrayal of the political reality of the time, fully reflecting the political practices that are commonplace in Italy. At that time, in the Italian political arena, the factions were complex, the situation was changing rapidly, politicians were fighting with each other, deceitful, turning their hands into clouds, overturning their hands into rain, so that some people joked: Every five minutes, there is a change of power! Machiavelli is too outspoken here, and people who always tell the truth are always offended. Of course, if Machiavelli were merely recording some of his machinations, he would be merely a scheming second-rate political commentator. In fact, his way of strategizing was based on a certain political philosophy, which made him the deserved father of modern political science. In addition to The Monarch, Machiavelli wrote a series of books on it. He opposed both Plato's utopian "Republic" and the Christian Church's "theocratic theory of monarchical power", advocating the strengthening of the monarch's power to achieve the unity of the state, advocating political freedom and abolishing the equality of all feudal privileges.
Although he regarded the individual as the object of the use of the state to exercise its rule, he warned the monarch not to infringe on the private property of the individual, otherwise it would provoke stubborn resistance and make it difficult to maintain the rule. Obviously, although the idea of protecting private property is based on practical political tactical considerations, it does mention an important principle in modern capitalist society, which conforms to the social needs of the emerging bourgeoisie, which is a precursor to the germination of the modern individualistic spirit in political theory. The absolute monarchy he preached aimed at eliminating feudal divisions, realizing the unification of the country, and removing obstacles to the development of the capitalist economy, which is of positive historical significance. The power tactics he professed are precisely some political strategies proposed to achieve this political goal. To this day, in Western texts, the word "Machiavelli" has taken on a bit of the meaning of "conspiracy and treachery, power play". However, on Machiavelli's tombstone is engraved such a magnificent inscription: "The name of this great man is enough to make any epitaph waste." Is history really so contradictory? Could It be that Machiavelli is indeed a "teacher of sin" of modern man? After a period of boiling in Italy, humanism gradually spread to the entire European continent and the British Isles, arousing repercussions and resonance everywhere, forming a magnificent ideological movement. In the Netherlands, Erasmus immediately launched the famous book "Ode to the Fool", which mocked the corrupt stupidity and violation of human nature of the pope, monks and nobles, attacked the hypocrisy and dogma of scholastic philosophy, and at the same time praised all kinds of daily life denounced by the church as "foolishness", and called for the liberation of human nature. His ideas shook Western Europe, and the book Ode to the Fool was even more sensational, and was reprinted 40 times during the light author's lifetime.
In France, the writer Montaigne used skepticism as a weapon, calling on people to learn to doubt and deny, as a way to criticize theological dogma and ecclesiastical authority. He also played happiness and individualism against asceticism and the theory of retribution in the afterlife. These ideas had an incalculable influence on later Cartesian philosophy and the Enlightenment ideas of 18th-century France. The Spaniard Microvis dared to stir up the earth on the head of the age and lash out at the Bible, which no one dared to touch. Although it was later banned by the church, its righteous deeds are still very admirable. Thomas More (1478-1535), who held high office in England, was popular against Henry VIII's Protestant Reformation, but his book Utopia made him famous. Through the mouth of a sailor returning from a long voyage, Maul painted an ideal picture of human society: equality between men and women, freedom of belief, public property, and democratic politics. Such an immature sketch of utopian socialism, inextricably linked to Plato's Republic, leaves the medieval ideological roots far behind; at the same time, like Machiavelli, it also lays the foundation for secular political science, providing an empirical, scientific way of thinking. Of course, the political views of the two men are almost opposite: Machiavelli calls for the preservation of private property, while More advocates public ownership. 100 years later, the Italian Campanella imitated Mohr and wrote a utopian socialist masterpiece called "Sun City". The humanist movement that began in Italy and swept through Europe for one or two hundred years was an epoch-making ideological emancipation movement in Western culture.
Under the confines of Christian theology that shrouded Europe for 10 centuries, the medieval people had only the supreme God in their hearts, they had long forgotten that they were natural people of flesh and blood, and they all put on heavy spiritual shackles for their passions and desires, and for the sake of the transcendence of the soul, they gave up the happiness of this life, and they crouched at the feet of God in battle, and let the absurd and hypocritical church slaughter them. The humanist movement caused Europeans to raise their heads for a thousand years, tore apart the iron coat of religion on their bodies, found themselves for the first time naked, living people, and dared to appeal to their own reason and effort to satisfy their natural needs. In the final analysis, the historical achievements of humanism can be summed up as: first, the affirmation of universal abstract humanity, and thus the proposal of human rights and humanitarian principles; second, the discovery of the individual in the vast sea of people, the establishment of the individual-oriented social ethics. In short, remember that not for the sake of supernatural Gods, not for some abstract social community, but for the sake of independent concrete individuals, for the sake of man's self-actualization and freedom, which is the main spirit of humanism.
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