The Inquisition Part 18

But can we rightly consider this inst.i.tution "a sublime spectacle of social perfection," and "a model of justice?"[1]

[1] The _Civilta Cattolica_, 1853, vol. i. p. 595 seq.

To call the Inquisition a model of justice is a manifest exaggeration, as every fair student of its history must admit.

The Inquisitorial procedure was, in itself, inferior to the _accusatio_, in which the accuser a.s.sumed the burden of publicly proving his charges. That it was difficult to observe this method of procedure in heresy trials can readily be understood; for the _poena talionis_ awaiting the accuser who failed to substantiate his charges was calculated to cool the ardor of many Catholics, who otherwise would have been eager to prosecute heretics. But we must grant that the _accusatio_ in criminal law allowed a greater chance for justice to be done than the _inquisitio_. Besides, if the ecclesiastical _inquisitio_ had proceeded like the civil _inquisitio_, the possibility of judicial errors might have been far less. "In the _inquisitio_ of the civil law, the secrecy for which the Inquisition has been justly criticized, did not exist; the suspect was cited, and a copy of the _capitula_ or _articuli_ containing the charges was given to him. When questioned, he could either confess or deny these charges. The names of the witnesses who were to appear against him, and a copy of their testimony, were also supplied, so that he could carry on his defence either by objecting to the character of his accusers, or the tenor of their charges. Women, minors aged fourteen, serfs, enemies of the prisoner, criminals, excommunicates, heretics, and those branded with infamy were not allowed to testify. All testimony was received in writing. The prisoner and his lawyers then appeared before the judge to rebut the evidence and the charges."[1]

[1] Tanon, op. cit., pp. 287, 288.

In the ecclesiastical procedure, on the contrary, the names of the witnesses were withheld, save in very exceptional cases; any one could testify, even if he were a heretic; the prisoner had the right to reject all whom he considered his mortal enemies, but even then he had to guess at their names in order to invalidate their testimony; he was not allowed a lawyer, but had to defend himself in secret.

Only the most prejudiced minds can consider such a procedure the ideal of justice. On the contrary, it is unjust in every detail wherein it differs from the _inquisitio_ of the civil law.

Certain reasons may be adduced to explain the att.i.tude of the Popes, who wished to make the procedure of the Inquisition as secret and as comprehensive as possible. They were well aware of the danger that witnesses would incur, if their names were indiscreetly revealed.

They knew that the publicity of the pleadings would certainly hinder the efficiency of heresy trials. But such considerations do not change the character of the inst.i.tution itself; the Inquisition in leaving too great a margin to the arbitrary conduct of individual judges, at once fell below the standard of strict justice.

All that can and ought to be said in the defence and to the honor of the Roman pontiffs is that they endeavored to remedy the abuses of the Inquisition. With this in view, Innocent IV and Alexander IV obliged the Inquisitors to consult a number of _boni viri_ and _periti_; Clement V forbade them to render any grave decision without first consulting the bishops, the natural judges of the faith;[1] and Boniface VIII recommended them to reveal the names of the witnesses to the prisoners if they thought that this revelation would not be prejudicial to any one.[2] In a word, they wished the laws of justice to be scrupulously observed, and at times mitigated.[3] But, examined in detail, these laws were far from being perfect.

[1] Clementinae, _De Haereticis_, Decretal _Multorum Querela_, cap. i, sect. i.

[2] s.e.xto, _De Haereticis_, cap. xx; cf. Tanon, op. cit., p. 391.

[3] Dollinger is very unjust when he says: "From 1200 to 1500 there is a long uninterrupted series of papal decrees on the Inquisition; these decrees increase continually in severity and cruelty." _La Papaute_, p. 102. Tanon (op. cit, p. 138) writes more impartially: "Clement V, instead of increasing the powers of the Holy Office, tried rather to suppress its abuses."

Antecedent imprisonment and torture, which played so important a part in the procedure of the Inquisition, were undoubtedly very barbarous methods of judicial prosecution. Antecedent imprisonment may be justified in certain cases; but the manner in which the Inquisitors conceived it was far from just. No one would dare defend to-day the punishment known as the _carcer durus_, whereby the Inquisitors tried to extort confessions from their prisoners. They rendered it, moreover, all the more odious by arbitrarily prolonging its horrors and its cruelty.

It is harder still to reconcile the use of torture with any idea of justice. If the Inquisitors had stopped at flogging, which according to St. Augustine was administered at home, in school, and even in the episcopal tribunals of the early ages, and is mentioned by the Council of Agde, in 506, and the Benedictine rule, no one would have been greatly scandalized. We might perhaps have considered this domestic and paternal custom a little severe, but perfectly consistent with the ideas men then had of goodness. But the rack, the _strappado_, and the stake were peculiarly inhuman inventions.[1]

When the pagans used them against the Christians of the first centuries, all agreed in stigmatizing them as the extreme of barbarism, or as inventions of the devil. Their character did not change when the Inquisition began to use them against heretics. To our shame we are forced to admit that, notwithstanding Innocent IV's appeal for moderation,[2] the brutality of the ecclesiastical tribunals was often on a par with the tribunals of the pagan persecutors. Pope Nicholas I thus denounced the use of torture as a means of judical inquiry: "Such proceedings," he says, "are contrary to the law of G.o.d and of man, for a confession ought to be spontaneous, not forced; it ought to be free, and not the result of violence. A prisoner may endure all the torments you inflict upon him without confessing anything. Is not that a disgrace to the judge, and an evident proof of his inhumanity! If, on the contrary, a prisoner, under stress of torture, acknowledges himself guilty of a crime he never committed, is not the one who forced him to lie, guilty of a heinous crime?"[3]

[1] This was the view of St. Augustine, Ep. cx.x.xiii, 2.

[2] Bull _Ad Extirpanda_, in Eymeric, _Directorium inquisitorum_, Appendix, p. 8.

[3] _Responsa ad consulta Bulgarorum_, cap. lx.x.xvi; Labbe, _Concilia_, vol. viii, col. 544.

The penalties which the tribunals of the Inquisition inflicted upon heretics are harder to judge. Let us observe, first of all, that the majority of the heretics abandoned to the secular arm merited the most severe punishment for their crimes. It would surely have been unjust for criminals against the common law to escape punishment under cover of their religious belief. Crimes committed in the name of religion are always crimes, and the man who has his property stolen or is a.s.saulted cares little whether he has to deal with a religious fanatic or an ordinary criminal. In such instances, the State is not defending a particular dogmatic teaching, but her own most vital interests. Heretics, therefore, who were criminals against the civil law were justly punished. An anti-social sect like the Cathari, which shrouded itself in mystery and perverted the people so generally, by the very fact of its existence and propaganda called for the vengeance of society and the sword of the State.

"However much," says Lea, "we may deprecate the means used for its suppression, and commiserate those who suffered for conscience' sake, we cannot but admit that the cause of orthodoxy was in this case the cause of progress and civilization. Had Catharism become dominant, or even had it been allowed to exist on equal terms, its influence could not have failed to prove disastrous. Its asceticism with regard to commerce between the s.e.xes, if strictly enforced, could only have led to the extinction of the race.... Its condemnation of the visible universe, and of matter in general as the work of Satan rendered sinful all striving after material improvement, and the conscientious belief in such a creed could only lead man back, in time, to his original condition of savagism. It was not only a revolt against the Church, but a renunciation of man's domination over nature."[1] Its growth had to be arrested at any price. Society, in proceeding against it without mercy, was only defending herself against the working of an essentially destructive force. It was a struggle for existence.

We must, therefore, deduct from the number of those who are commonly styled the victims of ecclesiastical intolerance, the majority of the heretics executed by the State; for nearly all that were imprisoned or sent to the stake, especially in northern Italy and southern France, were Cathari.[1]

[1] Jean Guiraud has proved that the Waldenses, Fraticelli, Hussites, Lollards, etc., attacked society, which acted in self-defense when she put them to death. _La repression de l'heresie au moyen age_, in the _Questions d'histoire et d'archeologie Chretienne_, p. 24 and seq.

This important observation has so impressed certain historians, that they have been led to think the Inquisition dealt only with criminals of this sort. "History," says Rodrigo, "has preserved the record of the outrages committed by the heretics of Bulgaria, the Gnostics, and the Manicheans; the death sentence was inflicted only upon criminals who confessed their murders, robberies, and acts of violence. The Albigenses were treated with kindness. The Catholic Church deplores all acts of vengeance, however strong the provocation given by these factious mobs."[1]

[1] _Historia verdadera de la Inquisicion_, Madrid, 1876, vol. i, p.

176, 177.

Such a defence of the Inquisition is not borne out by the facts. It is true, of course, that in the Middle Ages there was hardly a heresy which had not some connection with an anti-social sect. For this reason any one who denied a dogma of the faith was at once suspected, rightly or wrongly, or being an anarchist. But, as a matter of fact, the Inquisition did not condemn merely those heresies which caused social upheaval, but all heresies as such: "We decree," says Frederic II, "that the crime of heresy, no matter what the name of the sect, be cla.s.sed as a public crime.... and that every one who denies the Catholic faith, even in one article, shall be liable to the law; _si inventi fuerint a fide catholica saltem in articulo deviare_."[1] This was also the view of the theologians and the canonists. St. Thomas Aquinas, for instance, who speaks for the whole _schola_, did not make any distinction between the Catharan heresy and any other purely speculative heresy; he put them all on one level; every obdurate or relapsed heretic deserved death.[2] The Inquisitors were so fully persuaded of this truth that they prosecuted heretics whose heresy was not discovered until ten or twenty years after their death, when surely they were no longer able to cause any injury to society.[3]

[1] Const.i.tution _Inconsutilem tunicam_.

[2] _Summa_ IIa, IIae, q. x, art. 8; q. xi, art. 3 and 4.

[3] Cf. Tanon, op. cit., pp. 407-412.

We need not wonder at these views and practices, for they were fully in accord with the notion of justice current at the time. The rulers in Church and State felt it their duty not only to defend the social order, but to safeguard the interests of G.o.d in the world. They deemed themselves in all sincerity the representatives of divine authority here below. G.o.d's interests were their interests; it was their duty, therefore, to punish all crimes against His law. Heresy, therefore, a purely theological crime, became amenable to their tribunal. In punishing it, they believed that they were merely fulfilling one of the duties of their office. We have now to examine and judge the penalties indicted upon heresy as such.

The first in order of importance was the death penalty of the stake, inflicted upon all obdurate and relapsed heretics.

Relapsed heretics, when repentant, did not at first incur the death penalty. Imprisonment was considered an adequate punishment, for it gave them a chance to expiate their fault. The death penalty inflicted later on placed the judges in a false position. On the one hand, by granting absolution and giving communion to the prisoner, they professed to believe in the sincerity of his repentance and conversion, and yet by sending him to the stake for fear of a relapse, they acted contrary to their convictions. To condemn a man to death who was considered worthy of receiving the Holy Eucharist, on the plea that he might one day commit the sin of heresy again, appears to us a crying injustice.

But should even unrepentant heretics be put to death? No, taught St.

Augustine, and most of the early Fathers, who invoked in favor of the guilty ones the higher law of "charity and Christian gentleness."

Their doctrine certainly accorded perfectly with our Saviour's teaching, in the parable of the c.o.c.kle and the good grain. As Wazo, Bishop of Liege said: "May not those who are to-day c.o.c.kle become wheat to-morrow?"[1] But in decreeing the death of these sinners, the Inquisitors at once did away with the possibility of their conversion. Certainly this was not in accordance with Christian charity. Such severity can only be defended by the authority of the Old Law, whose severity, according to the early Fathers, had been abolished by the law of Christ.[2]

[1] _Vita Vasonis_, cap. xxv, in Migne, P.L., vol. cxlii, col. 753.

[2] St. Optatus (_De Schismate Donatistarum_, lib. iii, cap. vi and vii) was one of the first of the Fathers to quote the Old Testament as his authority for the infliction of the death penalty upon heretics. But in this he was not followed either by his contemporaries or his immediate successors. Before him, Origen and St. Cyprian had protested against this appeal to the Mosaic law.

Advocates of the death penalty, like Frederic II and St. Thomas, tried to defend their view by arguments from reason. Criminals guilty of treason, and counterfeiters are condemned to death. Therefore, heretics who are traitors and falsifiers merit the same penalty. But a comparison of this kind is not necessarily a valid argument. The criminals in question were a grave menace to the social order. But we cannot say as much for each and every heresy in itself. It was unjust to place a crime against society and a sin against G.o.d on an equal footing. Such reasoning would prove that all sins were crimes of treason against G.o.d, and therefore merited death.[1] Is not a sacrilegious communion the worst possible insult to the divine majesty? Must we argue, therefore, that every unworthy communicant, if unrepentant, must be sent to the stake?

[1] Mgr. Bonomelli, Bishop of Cremona, writes: "In the Middle Ages, they reasoned thus: If rebellion against the prince deserves death, _a fortiori_ does rebellion against G.o.d. Singular logic! It is not very hard to put one's finger upon the utter absurdity of such reasoning. For every sinner is a rebel against G.o.d's law. It follows then that we ought to condemn all men to death, beginning with the kings and the legislators;" quoted by Morlais in the _Revue du Clerge Francais_, August 1, 1905, p. 457.

It is evident, therefore, that neither reason, Christian tradition nor the New Testament call for the infliction of the death penalty upon heretics. The interpretation of St. John xv. 6: _Si quis in me non manserit, in ignem mittent et ardet_, made by the medieval canonists, is not worth discussing. It was an abuse of the accommodated sense which bordered upon the ridiculous, although its consequences were terrible.

Modern apologists have clearly recognized this. For that reason they have tried their best to show that the execution of heretics was solely the work of the civil power, and that the Church was in no way responsible. "When we argue about the Inquisition," says Joseph de Maistre, "let us separate and distinguish very carefully the role of the Church and the role of the State. All that is terrible and cruel about this tribunal, especially its death penalty, is due to the State; that was its business, and it alone must be held to an accounting. All the clemency, on the contrary, which plays so large a part in the tribunal of the Inquisition must be ascribed to the Church, which interfered in its punishments only to suppress and mitigate them."[1] "The Church," says another grave historian, "took no part in the corporal punishment of heretics. Those executed were simply punished for their crimes, and were condemned by judges acting under the royal seal."[2] "This," says Lea, "is a typical instance in which history is written to order.... It is altogether a modern perversion of history to a.s.sume, as apologists do, that the request for mercy was sincere, and that the secular magistrate and not the Inquisition was responsible for the death of the heretic. We can imagine the smile of amused surprise with which Gregory IX and Gregory XI would have listened to the dialectics with which Count Joseph de Maistre proves that it is an error to suppose, and much more to a.s.sert, that a Catholic priest can in any manner be instrumental in compa.s.sing the death of a fellow creature."[3]

[1] _Lettres a un gentilhomme russe sur l'Inquisition espagnole_, ed.

1864, pp. 17, 18, 28, 34.

[2] Rodrigo, _Historia verdadera de la Inquisicion_, 1876, vol. i, p.

170.

[3] Lea, op. cit., vol. i, pp. 540, 227.

The real share of the Inquisition in a condemnation involving the death penalty is indeed a very difficult question to determine.

According to the letter of the papal and imperial Const.i.tutions of 1231 and 1232, the civil and not the ecclesiastical tribunals a.s.sumed all responsibility for the death sentence;[1] the Inquisition merely decided upon the question of doctrine, leaving the rest to the secular Court. It is this legislation that the above-named apologists have in mind, and the text of these laws is on their side.

[1] Decretals, cap. xv, _De Haereticis_, lib. v, t.i.t. vii. _Mon.

Germ., Leges_, sect. iv, vol. ii, p. 196.

But when we consider how these laws were carried out in practice, we must admit that the Church did have some share in the death sentence.

We have already seen that the Church excommunicated those princes who refused to burn the heretics which the Inquisition handed over to them. The princes were not really judges in this case; the right to consider questions of heresy was formally denied them.[1] It was their duty simply to register the decree of the Church, and to enforce it it according to the civil law. In every execution, therefore, a twofold authority came into play: the civil power which carried out its own laws, and the spiritual power which forced the State to carry them out. That is why Peter Cantor declared that the Cathari ought not to be put to death after an ecclesiastical trial, lest the Church be compromised: "_Illud ab eo fit, cujus auctoritate fit_," he said, to justify his recommendation.[2]