Cases of Conscience

The history of religious dissent has usually been written from the point of view of the martyr for his faith. Elliot Rose's aim in this book is to look at the religious troubles of the Elizabethan age from the point of view of those who sympathized with ardent Catholics or Puritans but were not anxious to be martyrs. Two questions arise: What options other than martyrdom were open to them in practice? And what did their religion tell them about the morality of evasion or half-compliance? Answers to these would help to answer the larger question of how groups survive under conditions of permanent and official repression. Mr Rose does not attempt to measure persecution by statistics. He has examined the casuistic writings of the period for their teachings on resistance and evasion of law, and shows how little 'casuistry' deserves its reputation.