Many people assume humanism began with the Enlightenment. But sceptical, rational, human-centred ideas have a much longer history. This episode travels back to the centuries before the so-called Age of Reason to meet the freethinkers, doubters, and proto-humanists who challenged religious orthodoxy when doing so could mean prison, exile, or death, and asks what their courage tells us about the slow erosion of religious certainty.
Professor Michael Hunter, Emeritus Professor of History at Birkbeck, University of London, Fellow of the British Academy, and author of Atheists and Atheism Before the Enlightenment: The English and Scottish Experience.
Dr Patrick McGhee, Honorary Research Fellow at Durham University.
Humanism, Freethought, Blasphemy, Heresy, Death penalty, Doubt, Puritanism, Enlightenment
Thomas Aikenhead (1676–1697) A student at the University of Edinburgh and the last person in Great Britain to be executed for blasphemy. Aikenhead developed heterodox views after reading Spinoza and Thomas Hobbes, famously describing the Bible as ‘Ezra’s fables.’ Read more about Thomas Aikenhead.
Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593) The Elizabethan playwright and poet whose ‘true atheism’ was documented in the Baines Note. He was investigated by authorities for claims that were considered even more offensive than Aikenhead’s a century later. Read more about Christopher Marlowe.
Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) The influential philosopher and author of Leviathan. His works were among the ‘dangerous’ books that influenced Aikenhead and led to a parliamentary investigation into Hobbes’ own supposed atheism. Read more about Thomas Hobbes.
John Toland (1670–1722) An Irish-born deist and freethinker whose work Christianity not Mysterious argued that religious doctrines should be judged by reason alone. Read more about John Toland.
Archibald Pitcairn (1652–1713) An Edinburgh physician who authored Pitcairneana, a fully atheistic tract that remained unpublished for centuries. While a public Episcopalian, his private writings offered an articulate defense of a godless, eternal world. Read more about Archibald Pitcairn via the Cambridge Historical Journal.
Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) The Dutch philosopher who asserted that god and nature were one and the same. His rejection of miracles and the efficacy of prayer made him a foundational figure for later freethinkers.
Lucilio Vanini (1585–1619) An Italian freethinker burned as a heretic in Toulouse. His execution serves as a continental parallel to Aikenhead, marking him as an early ‘martyr’ for atheism.
Jean-François Lefebvre de la Barre (1745–1766) A young French nobleman executed for blasphemy. His cause was championed by Voltaire and he is now commemorated by monuments in Paris and Abbeville.
Domenico Scandella (“Menocchio”) (1532–1599) An Italian miller who developed a unique, non-religious cosmology involving ‘cheese and worms,’ eventually leading to his prosecution by the Inquisition.
Jean Meslier (1664–1729) A French Catholic priest who, upon his death, left behind a 1,000-page ‘testament’ forcefully arguing against the existence of God.
Thomas Shepard (1605–1649) & Samuel Rogers (fl. 1630s) Puritan ministers whose private diaries record their struggles with ‘unbelief’ and ‘atheism’ as a physical and spiritual affliction—a ‘secret wound’ they sought to overcome.
Hugh Pryse (fl. 1609–1610) A settler in Jamestown who, during the ‘Starving Time,’ publicly challenged the existence of a god who would allow such suffering before disappearing into the woods. See: ‘“Doubtfull beginnings”: Confronting Heterodoxy in Early Colonial Virginia, c.1607–1624‘ by Patrick McGhee.
Atheism, Unbelief, and Protestantism in Early Modern England by Patrick McGhee
The Cheese and the Worms by Carlo Ginzburg
The Birth of Modern Belief by Ethan H. Shagan