Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/611

 THE BEATIFIC VISION. 595 Benedict XII., who was elected December 20, was a zealous defender of the faith who had manifested his determination to extirpate all forms of heresy when, as Bishop of Pamiers, he had personally conducted for years a very active episcopal Inquisition in co-operation with the labors of Jean de Beaune and Bernard Gui. Such a man was not likely to underrate the importance of his predecessor's error, and in fact he lost no time in correcting it. On the 22d a significant threat to Gerard Odo to beware, for he would tolerate no heresy, was a notice to all who had yielded to John's imperiousness. On February 2, 1335, he preached a sermon on the text, " Behold, the bridegroom cometh," in which he clearly enunciated the doctrine that the saints have a distinct vision of the Divine Essence. Two days later he summoned be- fore the consistory all who had given in their adhesion to the opinion of John and demanded a statement of their motives, by way, we may presume, of admitting them back into the fold as easily as possible. A twelvemonth later, January 29, 1336, he held a public consistory in which he published decisively that the saints enjoy the Beatific Vision, and decreed that all holding the contrary opinion should be punished as heretics. Benedict had earned the reputation of a ruthless upholder of orthodoxy and persecutor of dissent, and no victims were necessary to enforce the reception of the new article of faith. So thoroughly was it received that it passed into the formulas of the Inquisition as one of the points on which all suspected heretics were interrogated ; and when, at the Council of Florence, in 1439, a nominal union was patched up with the Greek Church, one of the articles enun- ciated for the acceptance of the latter asserts that souls which after baptism incur no sin, or after sinning have been duly purged, are received at once into heaven and enjoy the sight of the Triune God. Thus a new dogma was adopted by the Church in spite of the opposition of one of the most arbitrary and headstrong of the successors of St. Peter.* Chron. Glassberger ami. 1834 — Benedict. XII. Vit. Tert. arm. 1335-6 (Muratori S. R. I. III. ii. 539-41).— Ejusd. Vit. Prim. arm. 1338 (Ibid. p. 534).— Eymeric. p. 421.— Concil. Florent. ami. 1439 P. n. Union. Decret. (Hardnin. IX. 986). A remark of ^Eneas Svlvius in 1453 shows that, notwithstanding these au-
 * Molinier, Etudes sur quelques MSS. des Bibliotheques dTtalie, p. 116.—