Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/660

 644 CONCLUSION. and when Cardinal Borgia, the vice-chancellor, was reproached with this, he piously replied that God did not desire the death of the sinner, but that he should pay and live. A census of the pub- lic women showed them to number sixty-eight hundred, and when the vicar of the city issued a decree ordering 1 all ecclesiastics to dismiss their concubines, Innocent sent for him and ordered its withdrawal, saving that all priests and members of the curia kept them, and that it was no sin.* This was the outcome of the theocracy whose foundation had been laid by Hildebrand in the honest belief that it would realize the reign of Christ on earth. Power such as was claimed and ex- ercised by the Church could only be wielded by superhuman wis- dom. Human nature was too imperfect not to convert it into an instrumentality for the gratification of worldly passions and am- bition, and its inevitable result was to plunge society deeper and deeper into corruption, as unity of faith was enforced by per- secution. In this enforcement, as I have said, faith became the only object of supreme importance, and morals were completely subordinated, tending naturally to the creation of a perfectly arti- ficial and arbitrary standard of conduct. If, to win the favor of Satan, a man trampled on the Eucharist believing it to be the body of Christ, he was not liable to the pains of heresy ; but if he did so out of disbelief, he was a heretic. If he took interest for money believing it to be wrong, he was comparatively safe ; if be- lieving it to be right, he was condemned. It was not the act, but the mental process, that was of primary importance, and wil- ful wrong-doing was treated more tenderly than ignorant consci- entiousness. Thus the divine law on which the Church professed to be founded was superseded by human law administered by those who profited by its abuse. As Cardinal d'Ailly tells us, the doctors of civil law regarded the imperial jurisprudence as more binding than the commands of God, while the professors of canon law taught that the papal decretals were of greater weight Lib. xiii. ann. 1379. — Religieux de S. Denvs, Hist, de Charles VI. Liv. xyi. ch. 10 ; Liv. xxxv. cb. 8. — Wadding, ann. 1405, No. 7. — iEn. Sylvii opp. inedd. (Atti della Accad. dei Lincei, 1883, pp. 558-9).— Stepb. Infessurae Diar. (Eccard. IL 1988, 1996-7).
 * Alvar. Pelag. de Planctu Eccles. Lib. it. Art. i., ii. — Meyeri Annal. Flandrise