Who built Thebes with seven gates? A priest history professor, in the Kyeongyang magazine, begins his article using the words of the German playwriter Bertolt Brecht in one of his poems: A Worker Reads History— "The books are filled with names of kings. Was it the kings who hauled the craggy blocks of stone?"
History only remembers the kings who ordered the building of the great cities and not those who did the work. That's the reason they say history is written by the victors. However, this is not exactly the case.
At the end of the 20th century, some historians are leaving the big events of history and picking out small, insignificant incidents, unknown individuals living ordinary lives as their concern. Carlo Ginzburg is a well-known leader in this field of 'micro-history'.
In the article, the professor gives a summary of Ginzburg's famous work: The Cheese and the Worms. It's a story of a 16th-century miller known by his nickname Menocchio, who lived in Northern Italy and in 1584 was imprisoned for heresy, released and returned to prison repeatedly and in 1599 again charged for heresy and burnt at the stake. In the book, Ginzburg follows the miller up to his death in great detail: the inquisition (questioning), trial, and comments in the society of that time.
As the subtitle of the 16th-century mill owner's view of the universe suggests, cheese and worms are one of the metaphors Menocchio used to express his own understanding and thinking about how the universe was created and operated. At that time most of the village could not read or write. Menocchio could both read and write, and with a great intellectual curiosity trying to explain his thoughts to the illiterate villagers was the reason for these figures of speech.
He did not believe in the creationism taught by the church. The universe, he believed, arose out of primordial chaos, as milk curdled into cheese and worms, rather than voluntarily created by any personality. The Holy Spirit, Son of Man, and even God were born that way. It was a kind of animism and pantheism, built on materialism.
For those of us who have left behind the 'writing down culture,' we are once again surprised by the thoroughness of Europeans who meticulously left a list of books read by ordinary villagers hundreds of years ago.
It is noteworthy that the Bible, which was expensive and written in a language only a few could decipher, was also in his possession. No way to know how faithfully the original source was copied but the miller is now reading the Bible on his own and making up his own theology not following the teachings of priests.
Menocchio did not only have problems with creation but also with the church and especially with the priesthood. In his view, priests lived off the peasants... Of course, at a time when very few people knew how to write, Menocchio, who belonged to the 'literate class' in his own way, was not a good example of the culture of this new literati. But what is clear, a new class of opposition arose because of the printed word bringing many out of their darkness and helping them to see the world in a different light. With the start of Protestantism and Luther the Church was no longer helped by the culture—obediently following its teaching.
What is surprising is the church's attitude toward the free-spirited thoughts of a villager who made a living as a miller. The questioning of Menocchio lasted for 15 years. The number of preliminary interrogations was many, and the number of documents produced in the process was enormous. However, what we find here is not just the persistence of church power exerted on a powerless individual.
Menocchio is an ambiguous figure who alternated between the oral battles of the medieval lower classes and the culture of the ruling class. However, the attitude of the interrogators who patiently listened to the story reveals the breadth of tolerance embraced by the medieval world.
We know the Middle Ages as an age full of gods de-mythologized into Christianity, but a very rigid world with dramatic images of witch trials and burnings at the stake. However, it was a pretty generous time.
At that time, the church, drew its sword to correct the chaos and disorder that began with Luther. It was around this time that the Inquisition which had been operating for a long time but only in Spain and part of the American colonies, actually started functioning at the center of the church (1532), and the list of banned books was issued (1559).
It was clear where the sword of the church was headed. It was the will of the Council of Trent (1545-1563), aimed at both the upper classes (Giordano Bruno) and the lower classes (Menocchio) to crack down on the disruption caused by the Protestant Reformation.
We all are familiar with the calling of the Second Vatican Council by Pope John XXIII. After receiving the items for discussion from those in the Vatican he sent them back and asked all the different churches for the topics; 2,000 different items were collected.
The Second Vatican Council was very different from the two Councils that preceded. When they were discussing infallibility, Pope Pius 9 was present during the discussion. After the start of the II Vatican Council Pope John left the assembly. Pope Paul VI abolished the Index of Forbidden Books in 1966. Things were changing.
A half-century ago this is what the church fathers considered the new vision. A church cannot be established only with rules, systems, and rigid authority. Rather, it is woven from the situation of the majority or the few: the micro-historical attitude of listening to countless, varied experiences and thoughts.
The ideal of our present Synod Journey is to 'listen to the various experiences and crises faced by individual churches first and then identify the path to be taken. In this sense, listening is another name for the tolerance that the church lost for a while, the ultimate way of being.
The election here is over, we have a new president. Hopefully, he will not be interested only in specific groups but will listen to the small and unknown people in our society.
