Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/98

 g2 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS. The heights of exaltation reached in their religious delirium are illustrated by the career of Xaprous Boneta, who was rever- enced in the sect as an inspired prophetess. As early as 1315 she had fallen into the hands of the Inquisition at Hontpellier, and had been thrown into prison, to be subsequently released. She and her sister Alissette were warmly interested in the persecuted Spirituals, and gave refuge to many fugitives in their house. As persecution grew hotter, her exaltation increased. In 1320 she commenced to have visions and ecstasies, in which she was carried to heaven and had interviews with Christ. Finally, on Holy Thursday, 1321, Christ communicated to her the Divine Spirit as completely as it had been given to the Virgin, saying, " The Blessed Virgin Mary was the giver of the Son of God : thou shalt be the giver of the Holy Ghost." Thus the promises of the Everlasting Gospel were on the point of fulfilment, and the Third Age was about to dawn. Elijah, she said, was St. Francis, and Enoch was Olivi ; the power granted to Christ lasted until God gave the Holy Spirit to Olivi, and invested him with as much glory as had been granted to the humanity of Christ. The papacy has ceased to exist, the sacra- ments of the altar and of confession are superseded, but that of matrimony remains. That of penitence, indeed, still exists, but it is purely internal, for heartfelt contrition works forgiveness of sins without sacerdotal intercession or the imposition of penance. One remark, which she casually made when before her judges, is noteworthy as manifesting the boundless love and charity of these poor souls. The Spirituals and lepers, she said, who had been burned were like the innocents massacred by Herod — it was Satan who procured the burning of the Spirituals and lepers. This alludes to the hideous cruelties which, as we have seen, were perpetrated on the lepers in 1321 and 1322, when the whole of France went mad with terror over a rumored poisoning of the wells by these outcasts, and when, it seems, the Spirituals were wise enough and humane enough to sympathize with them and condemn their mur- der. Naprous, at length, was brought before Henri de Chamay, 1887, p. 29.— Guillel. Nangiac. Contin. ann. 1330.— Wadding, ann. 1341, No. 21, 23. A subdivision of the Italian Fraticelli took the name of Brethren of Fray Felipe de Mallorca (Tocco, Archivio Storico Napoletano, 1887, Fasc. 1).