英國宗教改革前後宗教政治化的情形：以舊教告白為例

The Politicization of Auricular Confession in England until James I

In 1604, Shakespeare staged before his royal patron James I a play Measure for Measure, where a ruler is dressed as a friar in order to confess his people and submit them to legal correction. The same year, James I ruled that ministers should help with the combat of crime by reporting the sins they heard in confession to the government. Exactly in the same year, confession was regarded as a helpful tool for maintaining social order by both Shakespeare's fictional ruler and historical ruler. My article tries to describe how confession became politicized and favored as a political instrument in Shakespeare's England. I argue that the religious institution was politicized largely because the Tudor family constantly changed their religious policy concerning religious practices. The constant change can lead English people to regard confession as simply one of the human practices, whose function needed to be addressed, defended or rejected.1604年，莎士比亞在他的贊助人詹姆斯王一世面前推出了ㄧ齣戲《惡有惡報》，劇中的公爵喬裝成修士，聽取人民告解以治其罪，同年，詹姆斯王規定神職人員必須把人民告知的罪報告給政府知道，來幫國家防治犯罪，就在同一年，天主教的告解被莎士比亞虛構或真正的君主視為治安工具。我的論文試著解釋告解如何在英國從宗教實踐變為政治實踐，成為受王室青睞的治理工具；本文認為英國都鐸王朝時期瞬息萬變的宗教政策，很可能讓英國人民認為，包括告解在內的許多宗教實踐都只不過是凡人所立下的，而告解究竟可以有什麼樣的功能，也在當時引起各種議論。