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 IKQUISITION

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INQUISITION

In his " History of the Inquisition in the Middle Ages" (New York, 1SS8, I, 215), he closes this period with the words: "It was only sixty-two years after the slaughter of Priscillian and his followers had excited so much horror, that Leo I, when the heresy seemed to be reviving in 447, not only justified the act, but de- clared that, if the followers of a heresy so damnable were allowed to Uve, there would be an end of human and Divine law. The final step had been taken and the Church was definitely pledged to the suppression of heresy at whatever cost. It is impossible not to attribute to ecclesiastical influence the successive edicts by which, from the time of Theodosius the Great, persistence in heresy was punished with death." In these lines Lea has transferred to the pope words employed by the emperor. Moreover, it is simply the exact opposite of historical truth to assert that the imperial edicts pimishing heresy with death were due to ecclesiastical influence, since we have shown that in this period the more influential ecclesiastical authori- ties declared that the death penalty was contrary to the spirit of the Gospel, and themselves opposed its execution. For centuries this was the ecclesiastical attitude both in theory and in practice. Thus, in keeping with the civil law, some Manicha>ans were executed at Ravenna in 5.56. On the other hand, Elipandus of Toledo and Felix of Urgel, the chiefs of Adoptionism and Prede.stinationism, were condemned by pope and councils, but were otherwise left unmo- lested. We may note, however, that the monk Gothe- scalch, after the condemnation of his false doctrine that Christ had not died for all mankind, was by the Synods of Mainz in S48 and Quiercy in S49 sentenced to flogging and imprisonment, punishments then com- mon in monasteries for various infractions of the rule. (3) About the year 1000 Manichseans from Bul- garia, under various names, spread over Western Europe. They were numerous in Italy, Spain, Gaul and Germany. Christian popular sentiment soon showed itself adverse to these dangerous sectaries, and resulted in occasional local persecutions, natu- rally in forms expressive of the spirit of the age. In 1122 King Robert the Pious (regis iussu et universa" plebis consensu), "because he feared for the safety of the kingdom and the salvation of souls", had thirteen distinguished citizens, ecclesiastic and lay, burnt alive at Orleans. Elsewhere similar acts were due to popular outbursts. A few years later the Bishop of Chalons observed that the sect was spread- ing in his diocese, and asked of Wazo, Bishop of Liege, advice as to the >ise of force: "An terrena; potestatis gladio in eos sit animadvertendum necne " ("Vita Wasonis", cc. x.xv, xxvi, in P. L., CXLII, 752; "Wazo ad Roger. II, episc. Catalaunens ", and "Anselmi Gesta episc. Leod." in "Mon. Germ. SS.", VII, 227 sq.). Wazo replied that this was contrary to the spirit of the Church and the words of its Founder, Who ordained that the tares should be al- lowed to grow with the wheat until the day of the harvest, lest the wheat be uprooted with the tares; tho.se who to-day were tares might to-morrow te converted, and turn into wheat; let them therefore live,and let mere excommunication suffice. St.Chiys- ostom, as we have seen, had taught similar doctrine. This principle could not lie always followed. Thus at Goslar, in the Christmas season of 1051, and in 1052, several heretics were hanged because Emperor Henry III wanted to prevent the further spread of "the he- retical lepro.sy ". A few years later, in 107G or 1077, a Catharist was condemned to the stake by the Bishop of Cambrai and his chapter. Other Catharists, in spite of the archbishop's intervention, were given their choice by the magistrates of Milan between do- ing honiagc to the Cross and mounting the pyre. By far tlic frrcalcr numbercho.se the latter. In 1114 the Bishop of .^oissons kept sundry heretics in durance in his episcopal city. But while he was gone to

Beauvais, to ask advice of the bishops assembled there for a synod, the "beUeving folk, fearing the habitual soft-heartedness of ecclesiastics" (clericalem vereii^ mollitiem), stormed the prison, took the ac- cused outside the town, and burned them.

The people dishked wliat to them was the extreme dilatoriness of the clergy in pursuing heretics. In 1 144 Adalbero II of Liege hoped to bring some im- prisoned Catharists to better knowledge through the grace of God, but the people, less indulgent, assailed the unhappy creatures, and only with the greatest trouble did the bishop succeed in rescuing some of them from death by fire. A like drama was enacted about the same time at Cologne. While the arch- bishop and the priests earnestly sought to lead the misguided back into the Church, the latter were vio- lently taken by the mob (a populis nimio zelo abreptis) from the custody of the clergy and burned at the stake. The best-known heresiarchs of that time, Peter of Bruys and Arnold of Brescia, met a similar fate — the first on the pyre as a victim of popular fury, and the latter imder the headsman's axe as a victim of his political enemies. In short, no blame attaches to the Church for her behaviour towards heresy in those rude days. Among all the bishops of the period, so far as can be ascertained, Theodwin of Liege, successor of the aforesaid Wazo and prede- cessor of Adalbero II, alone appealed to the civil power for the pimishment of heretics, and even he did not call for the death-penalty, which was rejected by all. Who were more highly respected in the twelfth century than Peter Cantor, the most learned man of liis time, and St. Bernard of Clairvaux? The former says ("Verbum al)breviatum", c. Ixxviii, in P. L., CCV, 2.31): "Whether they be convicted of error, or freely confess their guilt, Catharists are not to be put to death, at least not when they refrain from armed assaults upon the Church. For although the Apostle said, 'A man that is a heretic after the third admonition, avoid ', he certainly did not say, 'Kill him '. Throw them into prison, if you will, but do not put them to death " (cf. Geroch von Reichers- berg, "De investigatione Antichristi", III, 42). So far was St. Bernard from agreeing with the methods of the people of Cologne, that he laid down the axiom: Fides suadi'nda, noj) iwponcnda (By per- suasion, not by violence, are men to be won to the Faith). And if he censures the carelessness of the princes, who were to blame because little foxes devastated the vineyard, yet he adds that the latter must not be captured by force but by arguments {capianlur non armis, sed argumcnlis); the obstinate were to be excommunicated, and if necessary kept in confinement for the safety of others (aut corrigendi sunt ne pereant, aid, tie pertmant, coercendi). (See Vacandard, 1. c, 53 sqq.) The synods of the period employ substantially the same terms, e. g. the synod at Reims in 1049 inider Leo IX, that at Toulouse in 1119, at which Callistus II presided, and finally the Lateran Council of 1139.

Hence, the occasional executions of heretics dur- ing this period must be ascribed partly to the arbi- trary action of individual rulers, partly to the fa- natic outbreaks of the overzealous populace, and in no wise to ecclesiastical law or the ecclesiastical authorities. There were already, it is true, canon- ists who conceded to the Church the right to pronounce sentence of death on heretics; but the fiuestion was treated as a purely academic one, and the theory exercised virtually no influence on real life. Excomminiication, proscription, imprison- ment, etc., were indeed inflicted, being intended rather as forms of atonement than of real punish- ment, but never the cu))ilal .sentence. The maxim of Peli'r Cantor was still adhered to: "Catharists, even though Divinely convicted in an ordeal, must not be punished by death." In the second half of