Why are always only the others blamed? If "hell is other people" is a universally true sentence, it means that it is true when uttered by anyone, and as such, that it refers equally to everyone. Even to the one saying it. So if there is any hell, it is (at least potentially) in all of us.
That is an interesting debate on a philosophical level, but the way I see it, especially the people who want to demonize, expell or even kill other people for their "heretic" beliefs are the ones who create the "hell", so to speak. Now those people may say: the heretics are the ones who create the hell for me, because they are unbelievers and "threaten my way of life". But I think those are nonsense arguments, and yes, indeed I make the moral observation that in my personal opinion people who feel they are threatened by others living their life in a different way (and especially if they act violently on that sentiment), are a worse influence than vice versa.
And it may be true that the hell, as you put it, is "potentially" in all of us, but what does that even mean? Indeed, that is a pretty speculative discussion. I mean, some people terrorize (or even harm/kill) other people who live or think 'differently', and some people (most people) don't. So to call people who don't do such terrible things "potentially guilty" is a pretty hollow debate. That's like saying: "Maybe you didn't do the terrible things I did, but you *might* as well have done them!" Uh yeah, but I didn't. That's the difference. ;)
Also, maybe I don't know enough about the (protestant) Reformation and (catholic) Counter-Reformation, but I always thought that it was mainly Catholics (Inquisition) who hunted for "witches", rather than vice versa.
By the way, when you say witch hunts didn't happen during the Renaissance, I think this depends on how you define Renaissance. Wikipedia says 14th-17th century (starting first in Italy and later in other places), and indeed what Wikipedia describes as the witch trials in the "early modern period in Europe" is placed in the 15th-18th centuries, so I'd say there is a good deal of overlap there.
But in any case I think my argument applies to all kinds of conflicts, all over the world and in different ages.
Indeed, when you read
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch-hunt you can see that witch hunts have happened on different occasions.
I think some of the 'infamous' ones in the western world that have 'survived' to great notoriety until this day (and in popular culture) are:
- The witch hunts during the English Civil War, including Matthew Hopkins, the self acclaimed "Witchfinder General" (somewhere halfway the 17th century)
- The Salem witch-trials in Massachussets (end of the 17th century)
- Spanish Inquisition (early 17th century), although their association with witch hunting is greatly exaggerated in the popular memory of history.
- Probably the climax, at least in actual numbers, was the end of 16th and beginning of the 17th century with several larger instances in Germany and Scotland.
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hylozoic
10 years ago
On this topic generally, did anyone notice the ending of the movie? It featured a still shot of a cross, which then morphed into a triangular cross (cross with diagonal beams from each end to the top). This triangular cross is what the witch was tied to when she was executed. It seemed to me Dreyer was making a powerful symbolic statement about the perversion and misuse of the ideals of Christianity to perpetuate inhuman and basically evil acts by the religious establishment in the movie. I thought it was a stunning scene and in one image summed up the movie perfectly.
Does anyone know if this triangular cross has any historical use or meaning? I sort of had the impression it might be a symbol of satanism but couldn't confirm that.
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Satantangoandcash
10 years ago
I agree with your interpretation of the meaning of transformation of the cross at the end. There were a number of the same wooden crosses with a triangle on top placed in the ground in the enclosed area where Herlofs Marte was burned. They looked like they might have been grave markers. She was not tied to one of them, and she was not really burned on a stake like Jeanne d'Arc, she was tied to something that looked like a long ladder that was raised up then pushed over so she fell face first onto a pile of burning wood. There was a large cross with a triangle on top to the left of the burning pile.
Interestingly, however, if you search Google for images of "cross with a triangle on top," the result is a lot of pictures of young women wearing bikinis. I have no idea why that is, but I admit I was bewitched for a moment.
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thomaskreuz
9 years ago
Just search for "cross with a triangle" without the word "top" and you won't find many women wearing bikinis
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