Page:Readings in European History Vol 1.djvu/421

 Heresy and the Friars 385 means division, they would destroy the unity of that same indivisible faith. They would withdraw the sheep from Peter's guardianship, to which they were intrusted by the Good Shepherd. They are ravening wolves within, but feign a love for the flock, until they shall have crept into the Lord's fold. They are bad angels, sons of perversity, ap- pointed by the father of lies and deception to mislead the simple-minded. They are serpents who deceive the doves. Like serpents they creep stealthily abroad; with honeyed sweetness they vomit forth their virus. While they pretend to offer life-giving food they strike with their tail, and prepare a deadly draught, as with some dire poison. These sects do not assume the old names lest they should be recognized, but, what is perhaps more heinous, not con- tent like the Arians, who took their name from Arius, or the Nestorians, from Nestorius, and others of the same class, they must imitate the example of the martyrs who suffered death for the Catholic faith. They call themselves Patarins, as if they, too, were sufferers. 1 These same wretched Patarins, who refuse to accept the holy belief in the eternal Trinity, combine three offenses in their wickedness. They offend God, their neighbor, and themselves, God, since they refuse to place their faith in him or recognize his Son ; their fellow-men, since they deceive them by offering them the seductions of a perverse heresy under the form of spiritual nurture. Against them- selves they rage even more fiercely, for, prodigal of life and careless of death, in addition to the sacrifice of their souls, they involve their bodies in the toils of a horrible end, which they might avoid by acknowledging the truth and adhering to the true faith. What is worst of all, the survivors are not terrified by such examples. Against these, who offend alike against God, themselves, and their fellow-men, we cannot restrain ourselves, and must draw forth the sword of merited retribution. We pursue 1 The name Patarin, which seems here to be derived from the Latin word patior, to suffer, appears to have been given to the Cathari of Milan because they lived among the ragpickers (f atari). 153. Con- cerning heretics. (From the laws issued by Frederick II of Hohen- staufen, for Sicily, about 1235.)