I Bayle and “Half-Toleration” Men

While Baruch Spinoza offers a more measured view of toleration that demands dissenters engage in some degree of hypocritical conformity to safeguard stability and sovereignty, Pierre Bayle defends a much more radically tolerant view of liberty of conscience. In Philosophical Commentary, Bayle moves beyond a limited plea for the toleration of conscientious Protestant dissenters to a more inclusive view of toleration that extends to Jews, Muslims, and even atheists (although not Catholics). Indeed, Bayle argues that “Christian Princes cannot in justice expel the Mahometans out of Towns taken from the Turk, nor hinder their having Mosks, or assembling in their own House,” suggesting a robust view of toleration and liberty of conscience that protects many forms of religious expression and worship.Footnote ¹ Bayle’s striking defense of the toleration of such a wide range of religious sects is a marked difference between him and many of his early modern contemporaries, or as Bayle condescendingly calls them, “half-toleration men.” Many early modern figures, Bayle insists, fail to appreciate that all religious sects – not just one – should be tolerated.

Bayle’s condemnation of religious persecution and hypocritical conformity is hardly an intellectual exercise. Bayle was forced to flee his homeland for the Dutch Republic as the Edict of Nantes – a law granting unprecedented rights to Calvinist Huguenots in Catholic France – was growing more tenuous. Bayle’s brother, an ordained Calvinist minister, was imprisoned and would die in prison for his heterodox ministry. Despite his immediate experience with exile and imprisonment, Bayle concedes that many dissenters practice dissimulation to survive persecutory conditions. Of course, dissenters could flee their repressive homelands, as Bayle had done, or they could martyr themselves in death, but Bayle recognizes that most dissenters engage in hypocritical conformity. While critics of enforced conformity condemn dissimulation as a “despicable and damnable act of apostasy,” Bayle acknowledges the ubiquity of the practice to “defus[e] suspicion and deflec[t] persecution.”Footnote ² The practice of hypocritical conformity shaped “everyday life in early modern Europe,” from attendance at mandatory religious services to the omission of certain phrasing or bodily comportment. For example, dissenters would equivocate their compliance by reciting compulsory prayers in a muddled voice or refusing to remove their hats during a mandatory religious service.Footnote ³ Many dissenters responded “pragmatically and prudently to persecution,” struggling to evade violence without violating their conscience.Footnote ⁴ Unlike Spinoza, who concedes that some degree of hypocritical conformity is necessary, Bayle stresses the dangers of this widespread compliance, reasonable given the immense threat of persecution but damaging nonetheless.

Many commentators trace Bayle’s striking defense of the toleration of such a wide range of religious sects to his skepticism. Richard Popkin, the influential historian of skepticism, argues that the impossibility of certain divine knowledge assessed through reason, for the Pyrrhonian Bayle, undermines early modern justifications of persecution.Footnote ⁵ Given that we cannot “know or prove, through reason, the truth or falsity of any religion or the legitimacy or illegitimacy of any beliefs,” it follows that the state must tolerate all religions, even those it views as profane, heretical, and erroneous.Footnote ⁶ Jonathan Israel stresses that “no philosopher uses skeptical arguments more than Bayle,” emphasizing that his skepticism is grounded on “undercut[ting] grounds for belief.”Footnote ⁷ Rainer Forst also emphasizes skepticism in his account of Bayle’s defense of a proto-rationalist “reciprocity” view of toleration, suggesting that “any argument for a general duty of mutual toleration has to rest on normative grounds accessible to and valid to believers of quite different faiths (or of no faith).”Footnote ⁸ And finally, Chandran Kukathas argues that “at the heart of [Bayle’s] argument was the claim that the advocates of compulsion were mistaken in asserting that they were justified in enforcing conformity on the grounds of possession of the truth.”Footnote ⁹ For many influential commentators of early modern political thought and toleration, Bayle defends toleration by arguing that the state cannot attest to the truth of its religion.

This scholarly preoccupation with Bayle’s skepticism accounts well for Bayle’s more inclusive view of toleration. Given that there is “no way to tel[l] an erring conscience from a nonerring one,” defenders of Augustinian coercion cannot insist that they are justified in compelling dissenters to the one “true” religion (PC 89). While “each Sect looks on itself as the only true Religion, or at least much the truest,” allowing them to claim they do “great service to Truth” by attempting to compel others to their religion, Bayle argues that it is impossible to assess which religious tradition is the “true” one (PC 89). By situating Bayle in a broader intellectual tradition that recognizes the uncertainty of revealed truth, commentators showcase the powerful way that Bayle challenges the assertion of one “true” religion. Yet many proponents of persecution continue insisting on their “true” religion, and many dissenters are forced into conformity. To what extent does Bayle attend to the dangers inherent in this ubiquitous condition?

This chapter argues that Bayle attends to the psychological harm inflicted on the dissenter forced to conform. Bayle’s tormented conscience suggests that infringements on conscience are felt as deep violations by the dissenter, an experience of mental torture akin to conventional forms of corporeal punishment that injure the physical body. Building on scholarly accounts that showcase the futility of coercion and skepticism as the central psychological justification underlying early modern toleration, I draw attention to Bayle’s rich analysis of the broader psychological stakes in toleration and persecution. Not only does hypocritical conformity inflict mental torture on the dissenter forced to participate in a religious ceremony that violates his conscience, but persecution may even radicalize dissenters further. Demands for religious conformity do not convince dissenters of their error, as they are intended, but of their lack of zeal for their faith, rededicating them to their religion. By tracing Bayle’s view of the mental effects of disingenuous outward confession and the unanticipated backlash it incites against the state in Philosophical Commentary, I recover the psychological strain inflicted on dissenters, forced to choose between fleeing their country, martyrdom, and their conscience.

Bayle’s critique of religious persecution and its role in emboldening religiosity provides an alternative psychological intuition underlying early modern toleration and deepens our understanding of the mental dynamics at play in the politics of persecution. The central psychological intuition underlying early modern toleration is the futility of coercion to inspire genuine conversion. Commentators often frame Bayle’s influential defense of toleration as grounded on a similar recognition that persecution merely pressures dissenters into false confessions. For example, Benjamin Kaplan describes Bayle as “extending the age-old dictum that faith could not be forced and that coercion only produced hypocrisy.”Footnote ¹⁰ Yet Bayle points to alternative psychological intuitions motivating his critique of persecution that emphasizes the counterintuitive implications of persecution. By broadening our understanding of the psychological arguments in the early modern discourse on toleration and liberty of conscience, Bayle invites us to reflect on the counterintuitive implications of religious persecution, past and present.

By attending to the internal drama of the dissenter forced into conformity, Bayle urges us to consider the relationship between politics and the psychological well-being of the individuals in a political community. More repressive demands to obey the state, Bayle warns, may have counterintuitive consequences, emboldening dissenters to resist the state even more fervently. The dissonance between inward persuasion and outward behavior does not necessarily encourage the dissenter to change but may actually harden him in his views. Many advocates for conformity hope that exposure to certain ideas and practices and, in their more aggressive attempts, forced participation in these practices will slowly persuade dissenters of their heresy. However, Bayle warns that this response to religious sectarianism misrecognizes the enormous strain placed on the dissenter, forced to uncomfortably inhabit a false identity and perform disingenuous worship; moreover, this psychological torment is so unsettling that it actually encourages dissenters to cling more fervently to their beliefs. Bayle’s view of tormented conscience invites us to reflect on the challenge of integrating a diverse community and the ways that attempts to engage nonconformists may backfire in unanticipated ways. Before examining Bayle’s account of the psychological damage done by hypocritical conformity, it is helpful to begin with his account of defenses of persecution and his acknowledgment of the ubiquity of dissimulation in early modernity.

II Hypocritical Conformity and Tormented Conscience

Bayle’s influential work on religious toleration is structured as an intellectual dialogue with his opponents. He engages with prevailing defenses of persecution in early modern discourse to “cut off the Convertists from all of their Starting-holes,” especially the view that persecution is not harsh or reprehensible but a charitable effort to save dissenters from their damning heterodoxy (PC 140). Persecution is, its advocates insist, an act of Christian love and charity that brings dissenters closer to God and saves heretics from eternal damnation. Many early modern proponents of enforced conformity argue that religious persecution is a laudable tool to inspire conversion, a “bitter but efficacious medicine” intended to “cure and educate” heretics.Footnote ¹¹ It was intended to work as a technique of persuasion aimed at “eliminat[ing] diversity of [religious] opinion by subjecting the populace to weekly doses of indoctrination in Protestant theology,” thereby eroding religious heresy through exposure to the “true” religion.Footnote ¹² Religious heterodoxy would “eventually wither out of existence,” conformists insist, if dissenters were forced into consistent exposure to religious “truth.”Footnote ¹³ Initially, proponents of conformity enlist legitimate means of persuasion, but they remain open to using violence as the “necessary” means to “force” dissenters “to deliver themselves from their Prejudices” (PC 79). Rather than call these measures “Persecution,” they are treated as “Acts of Kindness, Equity, Justice, and right Reason” (PC 88). Measures of violence are, conformists argue, necessary to open dissenters to conversion. Bayle sets out to debunk the prevailing view that “Violence open[s] a Man’s eyes to see his Heresy,” suggesting rather that violence fails to accomplish this goal (PC 154). The consequences of persecution, Bayle argues, are “very far” from the desired conversion that persecutors hope to attain through measures of coercion (PC 140).

While Bayle argues that persecution does not achieve its intended goal of conversion, he concedes that it is very effective at encouraging outward behavior; even if it is futile, Bayle acknowledges that many dissenters conform to the state religion to avoid the very real threat of persecution. A “reasonable … Man,” Bayle acknowledges, is afraid of persecution, either of the “prospect of [his] Family ruin’d, exil’d, or encloister’d” or “of his own Person degraded and render’d incapable of all Honors and Preferments, and thrust into a loathsome Dungeon” (PC 139). Measures of persecution, or what he describes as “all the Crimes imaginable,” among which he names “Murder, Robbery, Banishment, and Rapes,” effectively compel outward conformity (PC 64). While violence or the threat of violence is “incapable … of convincing the Judgment, or of imprinting in the Heart the Fear or the Love of God,” it encourages dissenters to comply outwardly. Quite understandably, dissenters willingly engage in false professions and participate in disingenuous sacraments to escape the violent horrors that await them if they refuse. Given the very real risk of social ostracism, exile, or imprisonment, it is entirely sensible, Bayle argues, that dissenters conform to the state religion.

The severity of this violation hinges on the extent to which hypocritical conformity requires insincere outward behavior that violates conscience. Dissenters often engage in “some outward Signs void of all inward Sincerity,” or even more strikingly, perform “Signs perhaps of an interior Disposition most opposite to that which [they] really are” when confronted with persecution (PC 78). Not only are dissenters willing to feign false acquiescence that they do not believe in, but they may be willing to act contrary to their conscience, an even more severe act of hypocrisy. The false performance of sacramental rights, what he describes as “Hypocrisy” and the “sacrilegious Profanation of Sacraments,” harms the dissenter who violates his conscience to secure some degree of safety or standing in civil society (PC 64). Elsewhere, Bayle describes this conformity as “external Acts which are Hypocrisy and Imposture, or a downright Revolt against Conscience” (PC 64). Quickly thereafter, Bayle reiterates this language of revolution, suggesting that outward conformity is characterized by “Acts of Hypocrisy, and Falshood, or Impiety and Revolt against Conscience” (PC 77). Hypocritical conformity requires dissenters to commit a grave violation, acting directly at odds with their conscience.

While Bayle appreciates that persecution urges dissenters to engage in hypocritical conformity, he warns that this outward behavior inflicts psychological trauma on the compelled dissenter. His rich descriptions of revolt and violence stress the significant violation inflicted on dissenters, a kind of mental rather than corporeal injury. In his account of the religious dissenter forced to “adjure” outwardly “with [his] mouth,” Bayle suggests that the conscientious dissenter “sink[s] under the Violence of Pain and Torment” (PC 58). In particular, Bayle recognizes that it is “very difficult … for a body not to lye, when expos’d to the trial of the sharpest Sufferings,” highlighting the severe mental burden of hypocritical conformity (PC 58). Elsewhere, Bayle criticizes proponents of conformity for taking advantage of this significant mental burden, reaffirming the psychological repercussions of hypocrisy:

Defenders of conformity ask dissenters to choose between “abjur[ing]” outwardly or facing violent death, or as Bayle describes it, “slow and exquisite Torments” (PC 182). Again, it seems quite reasonable that dissenters engage in acts of “imposture” to avoid physical torture (PC 182). And yet Bayle warns of the unanticipated aftermath of this feigned conformity, “an oppression of Spirit, which disorders and at last drives ‘em to despair” (PC 182). The severe and deep anguish provoked by conformity is hardly benign but is its own form of torture similar to more conventionally violent forms of persecution. Bayle reaffirms the severity of this psychological torment, describing it as living perpetually “in Anxiety and Remorse” (PC 182). In the provocative and blunt final line of the passage, Bayle invites his reader to speculate on this violation: “What could be more cruel?” (PC 182). This invocation of cruelty points toward the conflation of physical and mental torture, both experienced viscerally by the dissenter. The recurring language of torment and suffering throughout Bayle’s examination of hypocritical conformity highlights the psychological distress experienced by the compelled believer, forced to choose between persecution and insincere profession, a continuous source of anguish even after the difficult decision has been made. Bayle does not merely defend toleration by suggesting that persecution presumes an impossible understanding of religious truth, but champions toleration as a way to end the psychological torture inherent in feigned conformity.

Bayle’s treatment of heresy further reveals his concern with hypocritical conformity and tormented conscience. Since heretics are already “damn’d,” there is no issue with forcing them to engage in hypocritical conformity (PC 540). Yet Bayle suggests that these proponents of persecution exacerbate the sin of the heretic. Conformists are not satisfied with allowing the heretic to “rest in his first sin,” the very heresy itself, but are determined to aggravate their sin by adding the additional crime of “Hypocrisy … a Sin against Conscience” to their iniquity (PC 540). The additional sin of hypocritical conformity, however, is not merely inconsequential but adds the burden of an “insupportable degree of Hell Torments,” far more severe “than simple Heresy coul’d have merited” (PC 540). Here, Bayle invokes the language of “torment” to describe the additional burden inflicted on heretics; the language of “insupportable,” moreover, emphasizes that this burden is deeply oppressive and overwhelming, verging on being insufferable.

The consequences of this psychological trauma can be severe, Bayle warns. Elsewhere, Bayle describes persecution as the “forcing” of “conscience” with “the most violent Temptations into Acts of Hypocrisy and deadly remorse,” associating conformity with deep regret and guilt (PC 194). The qualifier of “deadly,” moreover, implies the gravity of the burden of this remorse, so severe that it can be experienced as a kind of death. This gesture toward death is not merely intended to be hyperbolic but evokes practices of self-harm associated with early modern dissimulation. Dissenters experienced “very real distress” when forced to navigate the precarious position between the repressive demands of the sovereign and their consciences.Footnote ¹⁴ Indeed, some conformists suffered so greatly after their “agonizing” and “torment[ing]” acquiescence that they turned to suicide. They embraced death, “readily giv[ing] into the noose,” as they were “overcome by the Extremity of Pain” following their compliance (PC 58).Footnote ¹⁵ The widespread demand for hypocritical conformity resulted in self-harm among dissenters.

Recent revisionist historiography supports Bayle’s intuition that hypocritical conformity was deeply felt by dissenters and viewed by its perpetrators as a significant violation. Alexandra Walsham highlights that “oaths of allegiance and supremacy,” were “devised as … mechanisms for dividing true-hearted subjects from traitors,” based on what conformists took to be their severe psychological consequences.Footnote ¹⁶ Demands for mandatory sacramental rights and oaths of allegiance were not merely attempts to secure “holy” uniformity but were intended to expose heresy. Hypocritical conformity was viewed as imposing an immense psychological tax on dissenters such that they would disclose themselves, effectively operating as “mechanical lie-detectors to discover who hid their false opinions behind the cloak of conformity.”Footnote ¹⁷ Proponents of persecution, Bayle argues, recognize the severe impact of measures of coercion, noting that the very “Design of these Torments was only to make ‘em confess themselves” (PC 58). While many proponents of persecution insist that they were ambivalent about inward persuasion, as long as conformity was practiced outwardly, Bayle recognizes that conformists were relying on the psychological trauma of hypocritical conformity to pressure dissenters to expose themselves as such.

This account of the psychological damage of hypocritical conformity raises the broader question of the political implications of tormented conscience. Of course, we might read Bayle’s concern with the mental repercussions of religious persecution on the dissenter sincerely; he may have been genuinely concerned with the tortured dissenter forced into the “imposture” of hypocritical conformity. But we might also consider Bayle’s concern with tormented conscience in light of his broader suggestion that persecution, rather than toleration, incites political upheaval. Elsewhere in the Philosophical Commentary, Bayle suggests that attempts to secure “holy uniformity” incite political conflict; we only need to consult history to see that “all the Disturbances attending Innovations in Religion, proceed from People’s pursuing the first Innovators with Fire and Sword, and refusing ‘em a Liberty of Conscience” (PC 201). This somber assessment of the potential consequences of persecution resonates with Hobbes’s treatment of compulsion, in which he argues that attempts to coerce inward conviction exacerbate political conflict by provoking zealous dissenters. Religious dissenters might not merely suffer needlessly at the hands of hypocritical conformity but also react aggressively out of resentment against the enforcers of their mental torture. In this way, Bayle’s account of tormented conscience broadens up to a social critique of hypocritical conformity, parallel to Spinoza’s concern that hypocritical conformity corrodes one’s ability to assess if his neighbor is sincere or an imposter.

Like Spinoza, who recognizes the inevitability of the pluralism of “opinions” and the “variability” of “judgments” among individuals, Bayle views religious difference as inevitable. One might expect those who view difference as divisive to defend any attempt to ensure religious uniformity. While Bayle acknowledges that “Unity and Agreement,” especially “Agreement among Christians in the Profession of one and the same Faith,” would be an “invaluable Blessing,” uniformity is not possible in the first place (PC 208). Bayle acknowledges that unity would be desirable, but he suggests that the human condition is doomed to be characterized by pluralism, recognizing that a “difference in Opinions seems to be Man’s inseparable Infelicity” (PC 208). Difference is inevitable, reframing the debate from the most effective strategy to eliminate difference to a conversation on peaceful coexistence. Given the inevitability of diversity, toleration is a “smaller Evil, and less shameful to Christianity,” than the severe measures of persecution, such as “Massacres, Gibbets, Dragooning, and all the bloody Executions,” which the “Church of Rome has continually endeavor’d to maintain unity, without being able to encompass it” (PC 140; emphasis in original). Pluralism is unavoidable, even if unity would be preferred, and the violence used to overcome it will be considerably detrimental to our political communities.

Moreover, as is evident from the history of the Catholic Church, persecution has hardly been successful. Difference divides communities, Bayle acknowledges, but it is attempts to compel uniformity that pose the most critical threat to social stability. For Bayle, attempts to compel conscience with a sword incite ceaseless conflict. Unlike Hobbes, who is notoriously worried about the divisive consequences of religious sectarianism, Bayle argues that it is the very persecution of these differences that breeds the kind of civil disorder that so concerned Hobbes. It is not difference itself that incites conflict; attempts to thwart difference lead to the kind of violence that characterizes the Hobbesian state of nature. For Hobbes and many of his absolutist contemporaries, the “Multiplicity of Religions” places “Neighbor at variance with his Neighbor, Father against Son, Husbands against their Wives, and the Prince against his Subjects” (PC 199). Yet Bayle offers an alternative account of the source of division in society, suggesting that attempts to compel conformity breed civil disorder. We only need to consult history, Bayle suggests, to see that “all the Disturbances attending Innovations in Religion, proceed from People’s pursuing the first Innovators with Fire and Sword, and refusing ‘em a Liberty of Conscience” rather than “the new Sect’s attempting, from an inconsiderable Zeal, to destroy the Religion establish’d” (PC 201). Attempts to compel conscience are far more divisive than conscience itself. Liberty of conscience is not necessarily divisive, but attempts to coerce conscience are volatile. Conflict does not arise from pluralism itself but from attempts to “exercise a cruel Tyranny” over dissenters and “force Conscience” (PC 200). In short, “all the Mischief arises not from Toleration, but from the want of it” (PC 200). He continues to stress this point: “Nothing therefore but Toleration can put a stop to all those Evils; nothing but a Spirit of Persecution can foment’ em” (PC 201). Religious persecution and hypocritical conformity actually embolden religiosity by attempting to restrict it. Simply put, it is less contentious to allow dissenters to “serv[e] God according to the Light of their Consciences” rather than “murder and torment [them] by a thousand exquisite ways” (PC 63). Bayle echoes his account of tormented conscience, suggesting that it is a kind of torture akin to murder yet distinct from corporeal violence. Religious persecution inflicts a meaningful violation on dissenters, inciting more political upheaval than that inherent in religious sectarianism. For Spinoza and Bayle, the appropriate response to the realities of religious difference is to allow individuals to pursue their own views, as these differences only become salient politically when individuals try to compel others into submission.

III Conformity and Zealotry

Bayle’s tormented conscience suggests that infringements on conscience can be felt as deep violations by dissenters, forced to conform and live with the distressing consequences of hypocritical conformity long after the act of “imposture.” Religious persecution inflicts meaningful psychological violations on dissenters who inhabit this dissonance between inward conscience and outward behavior. Not only does persecution fail to accomplish the very goal that its proponents of persecution claim to pursue, but it also inspires dissenters to cling to their heterodox religion more fiercely. Like Hobbes who stresses the counterintuitive effects of persecution which “exasperate” dissenters, Bayle foregrounds the inevitable yet surprising outcome of persecution – resentment of the state and reinvigorated religious fanaticism.

Despite the significant threat to the mental and physical security of the religious dissenter, punishments “very rarely change Mens Opinions about the Worship of God” (PC 304). They actually have the opposite effect of “mak[ing] [dissenters] more zealous in their own Religion” (PC 304). The false performance of a religious sacrament, for example, does not urge dissenters to consider the “Falseness of [their] Religion,” but inspires them to ponder their “want of Zeal for it” (PC 304). The “Persecuted,” Bayle insists, are “drawn into … a wickeder … Imposture by outwardly renouncing a Religion, which in their Souls they were more firmly persuaded of than ever” (PC 106). The hypocrisy of insincere outward professions exacerbates their “wicked” heresy even further, moving them to be more “firmly persuaded” of their religion (PC 106). Hypocritical conformity is not inconsequential but convinces dissenters of their religion more fervently than they had been previously.

Elsewhere, Bayle reiterates the counterintuitive implications of measures of coercion intended to convert the souls and hearts of the unorthodox, suggesting that a dissenter is “more confirm’d in his own [Religion] … from the tyrannical methods [the state] employs against him” (PC 139). This invocation of “firmness” stresses the emboldening – rather than withering – of religious zeal. This potential for fervor is not unique to any specific religion but hinges on a psychological intuition about the aggravation of persecution. Catholics will “become more Popish than they were before,” and Muslims will “grow more zealous and obstinate in Mahometism,” if persecuted (PC 155). Hypocritical conformity, Bayle warns, has the precisely opposite effect of its intended goal.

Bayle offers up two examples of the counterintuitive effects of religious persecution. The former focuses on the state, and the latter foregrounds a religious leader. First, Bayle describes a hypothetical political state that closely resembles his homeland, France. He invites his reader to suppose that the state views Catholicism as the “true Church” and consider the “Consequences of Compulsion” (PC 155). What are the consequences of “threaten[ing] those who persis[t] in their Heresy with the roughest Treatment?” Bayle asks (PC 155). Dissenters, Bayle argues, “gr[ow] more zealous in their Religion than ever” (PC 154). Persecution does not ensure the religious uniformity of this imagined political society but radicalizes dissenters. This religious zeal manifests in austere measures of religious practice, such as “continual Fastings and extraordinary Humiliations,” demonstrating their heightened religiosity (PC 154). Dissenters view persecution as a providential sign that they should commit themselves even more fiercely to their religion.

Second, Bayle offers up a corresponding example of a religious leader who compels dissenters into false worship. He elaborates on an example of a pastor who is “sincerely zealous for the Salvation of his Flock,” even enlisting coercive measures to try to convince dissenters of his religion (PC 300). Yet Bayle reaffirms his warning that these kinds of measures of coercion do not invite dissenters in but ostracize them: “Men being much more apt to be embitter’d and confirm’d in their Opinions by harsh Treatment, than determin’d to change and forsake ‘em” (PC 300). For Bayle, persecution does not deliver on its presumed goal of inspiring dissenters to abandon their heterodoxy and embrace the one true, saving religion; rather, it estranges them from the state and intensifies their attachment to their religion.

Early modern historians have recovered this emboldening effect, suggesting that dissenters experienced the repression of the state as a divine sign of the need for religious zeal. Alexandra Walsham stresses that the early modern “social experience of diaspora and displacement often helped to strengthen the religious commitment of those who undertook it,” recognizing the significant impact of exile and ostracism on dissenters and refugees like Bayle.Footnote ¹⁸ Many measures of persecution “galvanized the faith” of religious dissenters.Footnote ¹⁹ Persecution does not convince dissenters of their heresy but “intensif[ied] and catalyz[ed] the conviction that one was a member of the predestinate elect.”Footnote ²⁰ For advocates of conformity, persecution is intended to convince dissenters that they are “afflicted [by] a false Religion” (PC 154). Yet persecution and the many “Evils” dissenters are forced to confront are attributed to their “want of Zeal for [their] Religion, to their Lukewarmness in its services” (PC 154). Persecution does not undermine religious heterodoxy but inspires dissenters to be even more fanatical in their religious practice and commit themselves more fully to religious rituals. Persecution implies this strange tension, which is both disturbing and energizing. Suffering is “at the same time immensely empowering,” not necessarily demoralizing dissenters but inspiring them to commit even more fiercely to their religion.Footnote ²¹ Bayle’s tormented conscience suggests that meaningful violations of conscience may not only distress dissenters but may vex them so deeply that they respond with fanaticism.

IV Conclusion

By showcasing the profound psychological implications of religious persecution, Bayle invites us to reflect on the cognitive harm done by hypocritical conformity. To what extent can dissenters conform without violating their conscience? Or does hypocritical conformity invade their conscience so intensely that it antagonizes them? Bayle’s tormented conscience suggests that hypocritical conformity does not merely demand negligible compliance with the state but inflicts meaningful psychological distress on the dissenter and emboldens him further. Early modern theories of toleration emphasize the futility of coercion to shape inward persuasion, but Bayle warns that attempts to convince others of their misjudgments may also backfire, an appeal that remains powerful even today.