The Inquisition Part 1

The Inquisition.

by E. Vacandard.

PREFACE

THERE are very few Catholic apologists who feel inclined to boast of the annals of the Inquisition. The boldest of them defend this inst.i.tution against the attacks of modern liberalism, as if they distrusted the force of their own arguments. Indeed they have hardly answered the first objection of their opponents, when they instantly endeavor to prove that the Protestant and Rationalistic critics of the Inquisition have themselves been guilty of heinous crimes. "Why,"

they ask, "do you denounce our Inquisition, when you are responsible for Inquisitions of your own?"

No good can be accomplished by such a false method of reasoning. It seems practically to admit that the cause of the Church cannot be defended. The accusation of wrongdoing made against the enemies they are trying to reduce to silence comes back with equal force against the friends they are trying to defend.

It does not follow that because the Inquisition of Calvin and the French Revolutionists merits the reprobation of mankind, the Inquisition of the Catholic Church must needs escape all censure. On the contrary, the unfortunate comparison made between them naturally leads one to think that both deserve equal blame. To our mind, there is only one way of defending the att.i.tude of the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages toward the Inquisition. We must examine and judge this inst.i.tution objectively, from the standpoint of morality, justice, and religion, instead of comparing its excesses with the blameworthy actions of other tribunals.

No historian worthy of the name has as yet undertaken to treat the Inquisition from this objective standpoint. In the seventeenth century, a scholarly priest, Jacques Marsollier, canon of the Uzes, published at Cologne (Paris), in 1693, a _Histoire de l'Inquisition et de son Origine_. But his work, as a critic has pointed out, is "not so much a history of the Inquisition, as a thesis written with a strong Gallican bias, which details with evident delight the cruelties of the Holy Office." The ill.u.s.trations are taken from Philip Limborch's _Historia Inquisitionis_.[1]

[1] Paul Fredericq, _Historiographie de l'Inquisition_, p. xiv.

Introduction to the French translation of Lea's book on the Inquisition.

Henry Charles Lea, already known by his other works on religious history, published in New York, in 1888, three large volumes ent.i.tled _A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages._ This work has received as a rule a most flattering reception at the hands of the European press, and has been translated into French.[1] One can say without exaggeration that it is "the most extensive, the most profound, and the most thorough history of the Inquisition that we possess."[2]

[1] _Histoire de l'Inquisition au moyen age_, Solomon Reinach. Paris, Fischbacher, 1900-1903.

[2] Paul Fredericq, loc. cit., p. xxiv.

It is far, however, from being the last word of historical criticism.

And I am not speaking here of the changes in detail that may result from the discovery of new doc.u.ments. We have plenty of material at hand to enable us to form an accurate notion of the inst.i.tution itself. Lea's judgment, despite evident signs of intellectual honesty, is not to be trusted. Honest he may be, but impartial never.

His pen too often gives way to his prejudices and his hatred of the Catholic Church. His critical judgment is sometimes gravely at fault.[1]

[1] The reader may gather our estimate of this work from the various criticisms we will pa.s.s upon it in the course of this study.

Tanon, the president of the Court of Ca.s.sation, has proved far more impartial in his _Histoire des Tribunaux de l'Inquisition en France._[1] This is evidently the work of a scholar, who possesses a very wide and accurate grasp of ecclesiastical legislation. He is deeply versed in the secrets of both the canon and the civil law.

However, we must remember that his scope is limited. He has of set purpose omitted everything that happened outside of France. Besides he is more concerned with the legal than with the theological aspect of the Inquisition.

[1] Paris, 1893.

On the whole, the history of the Inquisition is still to be written.

It is not our purpose to attempt it; our ambition is more modest. But we wish to picture this inst.i.tution in its historical setting, to show how it originated, and especially to indicate its relation to the Church's notion of the coercive power prevalent in the Middle Ages. For, as Lea himself says: "The Inquisition was not an organization arbitrarily devised and imposed upon the judicial system of Christendom by the ambition or fanaticism of the Church. It was rather a natural--one may almost say an inevitable--evolution of the forces at work in the thirteenth century, and no one can rightly appreciate the process of its development and the results of its activity, without a somewhat minute consideration of the factors controlling the minds and souls of men during the ages which laid the foundation of modern civilization."[1]

[1] Preface, p. iii.

We must also go back further than the thirteenth century and ascertain how the coercive power which the Church finally confided to the Inquisition developed from the beginning. Such is the purpose of the present work. It is both a critical and an historical study. We intend to record first everything that relates to the suppression of heresy, from the origin of Christianity up to the Renaissance; then we will see whether the att.i.tude of the Church toward heretics can not only be explained, but defended.

We undertake this study in a spirit of absolute honesty and sincerity. The subject is undoubtedly a most delicate one. But no consideration whatever should prevent our studying it from every possible viewpoint. Cardinal Newman, in his Historical Sketches, speaks of "that endemic perennial fidget which possesses certain historians about giving scandal. Facts are omitted in great histories, or glosses are put upon memorable acts, because they are thought not edifying, whereas of all scandals such omissions, such glosses, are the greatest."[1]

[1] Vol. ii, p. 231.

A Catholic apologist fails in his duty to-day if he writes merely to edify the faithful. Granting that the history of the Inquisition will reveal things we never dreamed of, our prejudices must not prevent an honest facing of the facts. We ought to dread nothing more than the reproach that we are afraid of the truth. "We can understand," says Yves Le Querdec,[1] "why our forefathers did not wish to disturb men's minds by placing before them certain questions. I believe they were wrong, for all questions that can be presented will necessarily be presented some day or other. If they are not presented fairly by those who possess the true solution, or who honestly look for it, they will be by their enemies. For this reason we think that not only honesty but good policy require us to tell the world all the facts.... Everything has been said, or will be said some day.... What the friends of the Church will not mention will be spread broadcast by her enemies. And they will make such an outcry over their discovery, that their words will reach the most remote corners and penetrate the deafest ears. We ought not to be afraid to-day of the light of truth; but fear rather the darkness of lies and errors."

[1] _Univers_, June 2, 1906.

In a word, the best method of apologetics is to tell the whole truth.

In our mind, apologetics and history are two sisters, with the same device: "_Ne quid falsi audeat, ne quid veri non audeat historia_."[1]

[1] Cicero, De Oratore ii, 15.

THE INQUISITION

CHAPTER 1

FIRST PERIOD I-IV CENTURY THE EPOCH OF THE PERSECUTIONS

ST. PAUL was the first to p.r.o.nounce a sentence of condemnation upon heretics. In his Epistle to Timothy, he writes: "Of whom is Hymeneus and Alexander, whom I have delivered up to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme."[1] The Apostle is evidently influenced in his action by the Gospel. The one-time Pharisee no longer dreams of punishing the guilty with the severity of the Mosaic Law. The death penalty of stoning, which apostates merited under the old dispensation,[2] has been changed into a purely spiritual penalty: excommunication.

[1] 1) Tim. i. 20. Cf . t.i.t. iii. 10-11. "A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, avoid, knowing that he, that is such an one, is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned by his own judgment."

[2] Deut. xiii. 6-9) ; xvii. 1-6.

During the first three centuries, as long as the era of persecution lasted, the early Christians never thought of using any force save the force of argument to win back their dissident brethren. This is the meaning of that obscure pa.s.sage in the _Adversus Gnosticos_ of Tertullian, in which he speaks of "driving heretics (i.e., by argument), to their duty, instead of trying to win them, for obstinacy must be conquered, not coaxed."[1] In this work he is trying to convince the Gnostics of their errors from various pa.s.sages in the Old Testament. But he never invokes the death penalty against them. On the contrary, he declares that no practical Christian can be an executioner or jailer. He even goes so far as to deny the right of any disciple of Christ to serve in the army, at least as an officer, "because the duty of a military commander comprises the right to sit in judgment upon a man's life, to condemn, to put in chains, to imprison and to torture."[2]

[1] _Adversus Gnosticos Scorpiace_, cap. ii, Migne, P.L., vol. 11, col. 125.

[2] _De Idololatria_, cap. xvii, P.L., vol. i, col. 687.

If a Christian has no right to use physical force, even in the name of the State, he is all the more bound not to use it against his dissenting brethren in the name of the Gospel, which is a law of gentleness. Tertullian was a Montanist when he wrote this. But although he wrote most bitterly against the Gnostics whom he detested, he always protested against the use of brute force in the matter of religion. "It is a fundamental human right," he says, "a privilege of nature, that every man should worship according to his convictions. It is a.s.suredly no part of religion to compel religion.

It must be embraced freely, and not forced."[1] These words prove that Tertullian was a strong advocate of absolute toleration.

[1] _Liber ad Scapulam_, cap. ii, P.L., vol. i, col. 699

Origen likewise never granted Christians the right to punish those who denied the Gospel. In answering Celsus, who had brought forward certain texts of the Old Testament that decreed the death penalty for apostasy, he says: "If we must refer briefly to the difference between the law given to the Jews of old by Moses, and the law laid down by Christ for Christians, we would state that it is impossible to harmonize the legislation of Moses, taken literally, with the calling of the Gentiles.... For Christians cannot slay their enemies, or condemn, as Moses commanded, the contemners of the law to be put to death by burning or stoning."[1]

[1] _Contra Celsum_, lib. vii, cap. xxvi.

St. Cyprian also repudiates in the name of the Gospel the laws of the Old Testament on this point. He writes as follows: "G.o.d commanded that those who did not obey his priests or hearken to his judges,[1]

appointed for the time, should be slain. Then indeed they were slain with the sword, while the circ.u.mcision of the flesh was yet in force; but now that circ.u.mcision has begun to be of the spirit among G.o.d's faithful servants, the proud and contumacious are slain with the sword of the spirit by being cast out of the Church."[2]

[1] Deut. xvii. 12.

[2] Ep. lxii, _ad Pomponium_, n. 4, P.L., vol. iii. col. 371. Cf. _De unitate Ecclesiae_, n. 17 seq.; _ibid.,_ col. 513 seq.

The Bishop of Carthage, who was greatly troubled by stubborn schismatics, and men who violated every moral principle of the Gospel, felt that the greatest punishment he could inflict was excommunication.

When Lactantius wrote his _Divinae Inst.i.tutiones_ in 308, he was too greatly impressed by the outrages of the pagan persecutions not to protest most strongly against the use of force in matters of conscience. He writes: "There is no justification for violence and injury, for religion cannot be imposed by force. It is a matter of the will, which must be influenced by words, not by blows.... Why then do they rage, and increase, instead of lessening, their folly?

Torture and piety have nothing in common; there is no union possible between truth and violence, justice and cruelty.[1] ... For they (the persecutors) are aware that there is nothing among men more excellent than religion, and that it ought to be defended with all one's might.

But as they are deceived in the matter of religion itself, so also are they in the manner of its defence. For religion is to be defended, not by putting to death, but by dying; not by cruelty but by patient endurance; not by crime but by faith.... If you wish to defend religion by bloodshed, by tortures and by crime, you no longer defend it, but pollute and profane it. For nothing is so much a matter of free will as religion."[2]

[1] Cf. Pascal, _Lettre provinciale_, xii.