Thomas Aikenhead

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thomas Aikenhead (baptized March 28, 1676 in Edinburgh , † January 8, 1697 ibid) was a Scottish medical student who was sentenced to death for his criticism of Christianity as a "blasphemer". His execution was the last in Britain for blasphemy .

Life

Aikenhead was the son of the surgeon and pharmacist James Aikenhead († 1683), who had once been prosecuted for the sale of allegedly harmful aphrodisiacs , and Helen Ramsey († 1685), the daughter of Pastor Thomas Ramsey from Foulden, Berwickshire. Orphaned at the age of nine, Aikenhead enrolled at the University of Edinburgh in 1693 at the age of 17 to study medicine. There he came into contact with books by "atheist writers" like Servet , Descartes , Spinoza and Hobbes .

Trial and Execution

In November 1696, Aikenhead was charged with blasphemy. Five former "friends" and fellow students testified against him as witnesses. They reported that Aikenhead made the following statements, among others:

  • Theology is a rhapsody of badly invented nonsense;
  • God, the world and nature are one and the same (literally: " are but one thing "), and the world has existed for eternity;
  • Christianity soon disappeared completely, probably as early as 1800;
  • He calls the Old Testament "Ezra's Fables", alluding to Aesop's fables and the fact that Ezra invented the Old Testament;
  • Jesus was a deceiver-Messiah (literally: " impostor Christ ") and, with the magic he learned in Egypt, he had duped his disciples, actually irresponsible fishermen;
  • the Trinity is unbelievable and not worth refuting;
  • the belief in a simultaneously divine and human nature of Jesus is as absurd as the belief in a round square or in a " hircus cervus ", an animal that is half billy goat, half deer;
  • the Bible contains as many contradictions as there are pages.

With some of these views, Aikenhead shows himself to be influenced by Spinoza, for example by his assumption of a God immanent in the world who is identical with nature (“ Deus sive Natura ”: Spinoza, Ethica IV, praefatio); the view that Ezra wrote large parts of the Old Testament goes back to Spinoza ( Tractatus theologico-politicus , Chapter 8).

During the trial, Aikenhead was repentant and retracted what he had said, but was sentenced to death on December 24, 1696. The judgment was legally controversial and was only made possible by applying a statute of 1661 to Aikenhead that declared the "cursing of God or other persons of the Trinity" a capital crime .

Aikenhead submitted two pardons to the Scottish Secret Council. The council made a pardon dependent on the Scottish Church speaking out for Aikenhead. A General Assembly of the Church of Scotland , which was just in Edinburgh, demanded on January 6, 1697 the "vigorous execution" of the death sentence in order to "curb the prevalence of godlessness and blasphemy in this country". Aikenhead was hanged on January 8, 1697 on the road from Edinburgh to Leith and then buried under the gallows.

A few days before his death he had written a "letter to his friends" in which he stated that he had been looking for God since he was ten years old, but that no one could really give him sufficient reasons for believing, while those for the opposite easy to find. At the same time he forgave his fellow student Mungo Craig, who not only had made the most incriminating statements against him during the trial, but also ridiculed him in a printed satire.

The trial against Aikenhead caused a sensation at the time and is still remembered today. The philosopher John Locke was appalled at the conviction of Aikenhead, who had not been given a lawyer to defend him, and viewed it as a perversion of the law ; Locke's estate contained the largest collection of materials on the case. Today a “Thomas Aikenhead Society” looks after his memory.

Scottish historian Thomas Macaulay wrote of Aikenhead's death that the priests who were the poor boy's murderers crowded around him on the gallows and insulted the heavens with prayers more blasphemous than anything he had said.

literature

  • TB Howell: The proceedings against Thomas Aikenhead , in: Ders., A complete collection of State Trials , Vol. XIII, London 1816, pp. 918-938. Digitized at Google Books .
  • Leslie Stephen :  Aikenhead, Thomas . In: Leslie Stephen (Ed.): Dictionary of National Biography . Volume 1:  Abbadie - Anne. , MacMillan & Co, Smith, Elder & Co., New York City / London 1885, pp. 183 - 184 (English).
  • Michael Hunter: Aikenhead the atheist: the context and consequences of articulate irreligion in the late 17th century , in: Ders., Science and the shape of orthodoxy: intellectual change in late seventeenth-century Britain , The Boydell Press: Woodbridge 1995, p. 308-332.
  • Michael Hunter: Aikenhead, Thomas (bap. 1676, d. 1697). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of 2004

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Howell, Proceedings, Col. 918
  2. ↑ Howell, Proceedings, Col. 919ff.
  3. ↑ Stephen, Thomas Aikenhead, p. 183; Hunter, Thomas Aikenhead, online (see literature).
  4. ↑ T. Pitcairn et al. (Ed.): Acts of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland 1638–1842 , Edinburgh 1843, p. 258.
  5. ↑ Howell, Proceedings, Col. 931-933. See Mungo Craig: A Satyr against Atheistical Deism with the Genuine Character of a Deist. To which is prefixt, an account of Mr. Aikinhead's notions, who is now in prison for the same damnable apostacy . Robert Hutchinson: Edinburgh 1696. Digitized . Munro Craig did not even accept that he was criticized by Aikenhead, who was about to die, but, seven days after his execution, on January 15, 1697, brought another pamphlet against Aikenhead to print: Mungo Craig: A lye is no scandal . Or a vindication of Mr. Mungo Craig from a ridiculous calumny cast upon him by TA who was executed for apostacy at Edinburgh, the 8 of January, 1697 . Edinburgh 1697. Digitized .
  6. ↑ See Stephen, Thomas Aikenhead, p. 184; Hunter, Thomas Aikenhead, online (see literature).
  7. ^ Website of the Thomas Aikenhead Society
  8. ^ Thomas Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay : The history of England from accession of James II. , P. 544.
personal data
SURNAME Aikenhead, Thomas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Scottish student executed for blasphemy
DATE OF BIRTH baptized March 28, 1676
PLACE OF BIRTH Edinburgh
DATE OF DEATH January 8, 1697
Place of death Edinburgh