Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/63

 OLIVI'S WORKS CONDEMNED. 47 On the other hand he was unquestionably the heresiarch of the Spirituals, both of France and Italy, regarded by them as the di- lect successor of Joachim and Francis. The Historia Tribidationum finds in the pseud o-Joachitic prophecies a clear account of all the events in his career. Enthusiastic Spirituals, who held the revolu- tionary doctrines of the Everlasting Gospel, testified before the Inquisition that the third age of the Church had its beginning in Olivi, who thus supplanted St. Francis himself. He was inspired of heaven ; his doctrine had been revealed to him in Paris, some said, while he was washing his hands ; others that the illumination came to him from Christ while in church, at the third hour of the day. Thus his utterances were of equal authority with those of St. Paul, and were to be obeyed by the Church without the change of a letter. It is no wonder that he was held account- able for the extravagances of those who regarded him with such veneration and recognized him as their leader and teacher.* When Olivi died, his former prosecutor, Giovanni di Murro, was general of the Order, and, strong as were his own ascetic convictions, he lost no time in completing the work which he had previously failed to accomplish. Olivi's memory was condemned as that of a heretic, and an order was issued for the surrender of all his writings, which was enforced with unsparing rigor, and continued by his successor, Gonsalvo de Balboa. Pons Botugati, a friar eminent for piety and eloquence, refused to surrender for burning some of the prohibited tracts, and was chained closely to the wall in a damp and fetid dungeon, where bread and water were sparingly flung to him, and where he soon rotted to death in filth, so that when his body was hastily thrust into an uncon- secrated grave it was found that already the flesh was burrowed through by worms. A number of other recalcitrants were also imprisoned with almost equal harshness, and in the next general chapter the reading of all of Olivi's works was formally prohibited. That much iucendiary matter was in circulation, attributed direct- ly or indirectly to him, is shown by a catalogue of Olivist tracts, treating of such dangerous questions as the power of the pope to ment, any member of the Order from possessing any of Olivi's writings. — Franz Ehrle (ubi sup. 1887, pp. 457-8). Sententt. Inq. Tolos. pp. 306, 308. — Bernard. Guidon. Practica P. T.
 * Hist. Tribulat. (loc. cit. p t S88-9).— Coll. Doat, XXVII. fol. 7 sqq.— Lib.