Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/190

 ■^^^ THE SPANISH PENINSULA. to- offend them, so he postponed the decision. Mutterings of dis- cussion, without open quarrel, have since then occasionaUy oc- curred between the Orders, but the popes have never seen tit to issue a definite decision on the subject, and the momentous ques- tion started by EoseUi remains still unsettled— a pitfall for un- wary feet.* In 1856 Eoselli was created Cardinal of S. Sisto, and was suc- ceeded after a short interval by Nicolas Ejonerich, the most note- worthy man of whom the Aragonese Inquisition can boast, al- though after more than thirty years of service he ended his days in diso-race and exile. Trained in varied learning, and mcessant in industry, of his numerous works but one has had the honors of print— his "Directorium Inquisitorum," in which, for the first time he systematized the procedure of his beloved institution, giv- ing the principles and details which should guide the mqmsitor in^all his acts. The book remained an authority to the last, and formed the basis of. almost all subsequent compilations. Eyme- rich's conception of the model inquisitor was lofty. He must be fuUy acquainted with all the intricacies of doctrine, and with all the aberrations of heresy-not only those which are current among the common people, but the recondite speculations of the schools, Averrhoism and Aristotehan errors, and the beliefs of Saracen and Tartar. At a time when the Inquisition was declimng and fallin- into contempt, he boldly insisted on its most extreme pre- rogatives as an imprescriptible privilege. If he assumed that the heretic had but one right-that of choosing between submission and the stak^he was in this but the conscientious exponent ot his age, and his writings are instinct with the conviction that the work of the inquisitor is the salvation of souls. From Eymerich's lament over the difiiculty of providing for the expenses of an institution so necessary to the Church, it is evi- dent that the kings of Aragon had not felt it their duty to sup- port the Holy Office, while the bishops, he tells us, were as firm as their brethren in other lands in evading the responsibility . Eymeric. Direct. I^^r7^^2ZKv;^.ir^ni^^^n. 90. -Wadding, ann. 1851, No. 16, 18, 21 ; anu. 1462, No. 1-18; 1463, No. 1-5 ; 1464, No. 1-6.-D Ar- eentrg I i 372; ii. 250, 254. - Gradonici Pontif. Brixianorum Series, BnxifC, 1755, pp.' 348-51.-^n. Sylvii Comment. Lib. xi. ; Ejusd. Lib. de Contentione Di- vini Sanguinis.