Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/339

Rh is shown by the fact that in 1215 the great Council of Lateran still deemed it necessary to utter a formal condemnation of the doctrines of Amauri, which it stigmatized as crazy rather than heretical.

We know little of the faith originally professed by the Brethren of the Free Spirit, as the followers of Ortlieb called themselves. The principal account we have of their doctrines in the thirteenth century concerns itself much more with the results in denying the efficacy of sacerdotal observances than with the principles which led to those results; but there are indications of pantheism in the assertion of the eternity of the uncreated universe, in the promise of eternal life to all, while denying the resurrection of the flesh, and in the mystic representation of the Trinity by three mem- bers of the sect. No immorality is attributed to them; nay, the severest continence was prescribed by them, even in marriage; the only generation of children permitted was spiritual, through con- version, while homicide, lying, and oaths were strictly forbidden. It is quite probable that in Alsace the prevalence of Waldensian- ism and the sympathies born of common proscription may have considerably modified the opinions of the disciples of Ortlieb. They were by no means exterminated in the persecutions of 1212, and we hear of further pursuit against them in 1216, extending as far as Thurgau, in Switzerland. About the middle of the cen- tury they are described as prevailing in Suabia, especially in the neighborhood of Nördlingen and Oettingen, and Albertus Magnus thought them of sufficient importance to draw up an elaborate list of their errors.

It was not long before another consequence, especially shock- ing to the faithful, was drawn from the fruitful premises of pan- theism. If God was the essence of all creatures, Satan himself could not be excepted; if all were to be eventually reunited in God, Satan and his angels could not be condemned to eternal per-