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 INQUISITION

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INQUISITION

tively little known. On the other hand, the Inquisi- tion, whether because of the particularly perilous sectarianism there prevalent or of the gi-eater .severity of ecclesiastical and civil rulers, weighed heavily on Italy (especially Lombardy), on Southern France (in particular the county of Toulouse and on Langue- doc), and finally on the Kingdom of Aragon and on Germany. Honorius IV (1285-7) introduced it into Sardinia, and in the fifteenth century it displayed excessive zeal in Flanders and Bohemia. The in- quisitors were, as a rule, irreproachable, not merely in personal conduct, but in the administration of their office. Some, however, like Robert le Bougre, a Bul- garian (Catharist) convert to Christianity and subse- (juently a Dominican, seem to have yielded to a blind fanaticism and deliberately to have provoked execu- tions en masse. On 29 May, 12.39, at Montwimer in Champagne, Robert consigned to the flames at one time about a hundred and eighty persons, whose trial had begun and ended within one week. Later, when Rome found that the complaints against him were justified, he was first deposed and then incarcerated for life.

(4) How are we to explain the Inquisition in the light of its own period? — For the true office of the historian is not to defend facts and conditions, but to study and understand them in their natural course and connexion. — It is indisputable that in the past scarcely any community or nation vouch- safed perfect toleration to those who set up a creed different from that of the generality. A kind of iron law w'ould seem to dispose mankind to reli- gious intolerance. Even long before the Roman State tried to check with violence the rapid encroach- ments of Christianity, Plato had declarefl it one of the supreme duties of the governmental authority in his ideal State to show no toleration towards the " god- less " — that is, towards those who denied the state religion — even though they were content to live quietly and without proselytizing; their very example, he said, would be dangerous. They were to be kept in custody " in a place where one gi'ew wise " (iru^powo-- Ti)piov), as the place of incarceration was euphemisti- cally called; they should be relegated thither for five years, and during this time listen to religious instruc- tion every day. The more active and proselytizing opponents of the state religion were to be imprisoned for life in dreadful dungeons, and after death to be deprived of burial. It is thus evident what little jus- tification there is for regarding intolerance as a product of the Middle Ages. Everywhere and always in the past men believed that nothing disturbed the common weal and puhhc peace so much as religious dissensions and coiitiicts, and that, on the other hand, a uniform public faith was the surest guarantee for the State's stability and prosperity. The more thoroughly re- ligion had become part of the national life, and the stronger the general conviction of its inviolability and Divine origin, the more disposed would men be to con- sider every attack on it as an intolerable crime against the Deity and a highly criminal menace to the public peace. The first Christian emperors believed that one of the chief duties of an imperial ruler was to place his sword at the service of the Church and orthodoxy, especially as their titles of " Pontifex Maximus" and "Bishop of the Exterior" seemed to argue in them Divinely appointed agents of Heaven.

Nevertheless, the principal teachers of the Church held back for centuries from accepting in these mat- ters the practice of the civil rulers; they shrank partic- ularly from such stern measures against heresy as torture and capital punishment, both of which they deemed inconsistent with the spirit of Christianity. But, in the Middle Ages, the Catholic Faith became alone dominant, and the welfare of the Commonwealth came to be closely bound up with the cause of religious unity. King Peter of Aragon, therefore, but voiced the

universal conviction when he said : " The enemies of the Cross of Christ and violators of the Christian law are likewise our enemies and the enemies of our kingdom, and ought therefore to be dealt with as such." Em- peror Freflerick II emphasized this view more vigor- ously than any other prince, and enforced it in his Draconian enactments against heretics. The repre- sentatives of the Church were also children of tlieir own time, and in their conflict with heresy accepted the help that their age freely offered them, and indeed often forced upon them. Theologians and canonists, the highest and the saintliest, stood by the code of their day, and sought to explain and to justify it. The learned and holy Raymund of Pennafort, highly es- teemed by Gregory IX, was content with the penal- ties that dated from Innocent III, viz., the ban of the empire, confiscation of property, confinement in prison, etc. But before the end of the century, St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theol., II-II, Q. xi, aa. 3, 4) already advocated capital punishment for heresy, though it cannot be said that his arguments alto- gether compel conviction. The Angelic Doctor, how- ever speaks only in a general way of punishment by death, and does not specify more nearly the manner of its infliction. This the jurists did in a positive way that was truly terrible. The celebrated Henry of Se- gusia (Susa), named Hostiensis after his episcopal See of Ostia (d. 1271), and the no less eminent Joannes Andrea? (d. 1348), when interpreting the Decree "Ad abolendam" of Lucius III, take ililnta animadversio (due punishment) as synoiiymcnis with ignis cremalio (death by fire), a meaning which certainly did not at- tach to the original cxim'ssion of 1184. Theologians and jurists basctl their attituile to some extent on the similarity between heresy and high treason {crimen IcEscc maiestatis), a suggestion that they owed to the Law of Ancient Rome. They argued, moreover, that if the death penalty could be rightly inflicted on thieves and forgers, who rob us only of worldly goods, how much more righteously on those who cheat us out of supernatural goods — out of faith, the sacra- ments, the life of the soul. In the severe legislation of the Old Testament (Deut., xiii, 6-9; xvii, 1-6) they found another argument. And lest some should urge that those ordinances were abrogated by Christianity, the words of Christ were recalled: "I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil" (Matt., v. 17); also His other saying (John, xv, 6): "If any one abide not in me, he shall be cast forth as a branch, and shall wither, and they shall gather him up, and cast him into the fire, and he burneth" (in ignem mittent, et ardet).

It is well known that belief in the justice of punish- ing heresy with death was so common among the six- teenth century reformers — Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and their adherents — that we may say their toleration began where their power ended [N. Paulus, " Die Strassburger Reformatoren und die Gewissensfrei- heit" (Freiburg, 1895); "Luther und die Gewissens- freiheit "(Munich, 1905) ; " Ketzerinquisition im luther- ischen Sachsen", supplement to "Germania" (1907), nos. IS and 19; "1st die Toleranz auf Luther zuriick zufiihren? " ibid. (1909), no. 12; " Luther's These uber die Ketzerverbrennung ", in " Histor.-polit. Blatter", CXL (1907), no. 5; " Calvin als Handlanger der papst- lichen Inquisition", ibid., CXLIII (1909), no. 5; "Zwingli und die Glaubensfreiheit ", ibid., CXLIII (1909), no. 9]. The Reformed theologian, Hierony- mus Zanchi, declared in a lecture delivered at the University of Heidelberg: " We do not now ask if the authorities may pronounce sentence of death upon her- etics; of that there can be no doubt, and all learned and right-minded men acknowledge it. The only question is whether the authorities are bound to per- form this duty." And Zanchi answers this second question in the affirmative, especially on the authority of " all pious and learned men who have written on the subject in our day" [Hi.storisch-politische Blatter,