heresy, protected by the tyrannical Ezzelin (who died 1259), maintained the upper hand. The Dominicans, sorely grieved, were desirous of abandoning the post of inquisitors, and besought that it might be taken from them; but the Pope refused to relieve them of it, and endeavoured to animate their courage. It was in vain that Innocent IV. published Constitutions enforcing earlier laws; the magnitude of the evil called for special measures. The coöperation of the civil power was imperatively required on behalf of the inquisitors. Statutes hindering or retarding their operations were declared invalid;5 sentences passed by the inquisitors were to be executed by the civil power," and the inquisitors were empowered to enforce this by threats of censure.7 The lay judges could indeed in causis mixti fori (cases which fell under the cognisance of the lay as well as of the spiritual courts) demand the acts of the ecclesiastical process, but they could not take cognisance of matters of heresy, which was a purely ecclesiastical offence, and thus could not in cases of heresy demand the acts to be laid before them. The podestàs of the towns and villages of Italy were in 1265 required, under pain of interdict and excommunication, to incorporate in their capitularies the constitutions of Innocent IV. and Alexander VI. against heretics, which contained also the imperial laws. 10 Such measures, indeed, appear intolerable to the spirit of the nineteenth century. It is too much for modern enlightenment to recognise the Church as an independent power, to allow her the entire cognisance of heresy, the greatest ecclesiastical crime, to claim no placet and appel d'abus, and no control over her judicial proceedings, to lower the State authority to the position of 'jailer and hangman to the Church." But Popes and Councils maintained their right to call in the aid of the civil power against heretics; and Charles IV. in 1359 issued a severe declaration against the usurpations and innovations which civil princes permitted themselves towards the ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The energetic conduct of Popes succeeded shortly after 1300 in greatly reducing the number of the sectaries in Italy, and the adherents of older or later heresies became very few.12 1 Hist. de Languedoc, iii. pp. 431, 446. Raynald. a. 1251, n. 32; a. 1252, n. 11; 1254, n. 35 seq. 40. Raumer, Gesch. der Hohenst. vi. p. 300. 3 Const. Cum fratres Perugia, 11 May 1252; Const. 9, Ad exstirpanda, eod. a.; Const. 10, Cum venerabilis, 1253. Card. Vinc. Petra, Com. in Const. Ap. t. iii. p. 45 seq. Alex. IV. Const. 15, Exortis, 1258, to the authorities and bishops in the territory of Spoleto (Petra, iii. p. 140 seq.), with the addition: 'In iis tantum quae ad eorum munus pertinent.' • Council of Albi, 1254, c. 22. Alex. IV. 1257, Const. 10, Implacida, to the Bishop of Modena (Petra, t. iii. p. 124 seq.); to Innoc. IV. Const. 9, § 38. Likewise Urban IV. 1263, c. 9, Statutum, h.t. in 6. Eymeric, Direct. P. iii. q. 34. Alexander IV. declared (c. 6, de Haer. in 6) Superiors who are under excommunication, or whose jurisdiction is merely de facto, not de jure, should and must render the assistance of the temporal arm against heresy when required by the bishops or inquisitors, if these cannot apply to the higher powers.' : Alex. IV. Const. 17, Ad audientiam, 1260; Petra, t. iii. p. 146 seq. Cf. Leo X. Const. 43, Honestis, § 3, ib. p. 149. 8 Petra, l.c. p. 148, n. 12 seq. 9 Boniface VIII. c. 18, Ut inquisitionis, h.t. in 6, where also mention is made of the laws of Frederick II. 10 Clem. IV. Const. 6, Ad exstirpanda, 1265; Const. 8, 1266. Petra, t. iii. pp. 229 seq. 234 seq. 11 Huber, p. 24. 12 Muratori, Antiquit. Ital. dissert. 60. 1 § 9. The conciliar and Papal legislation of the thirteenth century exhibits throughout the most numerous and most severe decrees against heretics. This circumstance plainly indicates what was in fact the case, that heresy was most dangerous at this time. 'The sects of the Gnostics, the Cathari and Albigenses, against whom it was necessary to wage a sanguinary war,' writes Döllinger, and who especially elicited the severe and inexorable legislation of the Middle Ages against heresy, were the socialists and communists of that time. They attacked marriage, the family, and property; had they triumphed, the consequences would have been general ruin, a return to barbarism and heathen licentiousness.' Huber, on the contrary, adopts the cause of these sects, which may be fittingly compared with the Internationalists' of our day. He considers that their antagonism to civil order is highly questionable. He particu larly lays down these propositions: that the reports of the crimes of the Albigenses are untrue; that in any case the Church had no right to instigate bloody persecutions against them, for that the wheat and the cockle should both be suffered to grow until the harvest (Matt. xiii. 30); and that there is no excuse for the maintenance and increased severity of the Inquisition over less dangerous sects. Let us examine more minutely these asser tions. 1 Döllinger, Kirche und Kirchen, p. 51; Eng. trans. p. 54. § 10. The likeness which Huber1 seeks to point out between the ascetic doctrines of the Albigenses and the orthodox monastic system is disproved by the absolute contrast they present both in principles and results. In Gnostic and Manichæan sects both extremes are met with; on the one hand excessive severity, on the other terrible licentiousness.3 There was immorality and there was danger to civil authority in their doctrine of the free propagation of the species; in their approval of suicide; in their hatred of the wealth of the clergy and the adornment of churches, which was not merely theoretical but led them into sanguinary excesses; in the dissimulation and falsehood, destructive of social honesty, by which they feigned outward submission to the Catholic Church, and declared it lawful to conceal their heretical -doctrines.6 It was quite natural that the acts of the Inquisition should record the errors but not the excesses of the Albigenses; in discovering whether a certain person was or was not tainted with heresy the criterion would be, not immoral conduct, of which a true believer might equally be guilty, but false doctrine. Heresy was a crime by itself, without needing any other. Fundamental dogmas of Christianity were involved. These heretics denied that Christ was true God and true man; they denied the resurrection of the body, personal immortality, and that the creation was the work of God; they despised the Old Testament, and attributed it to the devil.10 These doctrines excited among the Christian peoples a deep and most reasonable horror and aversion. Contemporary testimony to the moral conduct of the sectaries applies only to particular localities; and this apparent morality was often merely hypocritical. As Hefele11 justly remarks: The saying of Innocent III., that the Cathari were worse than Saracens, is certainly true; for their principles were totally un-Christian, and the results they deduced therefrom, in spite, nay on account of the veil of Christianity in which they were enveloped, were more dangerous to Christian society and Christian life than the Koran.'12 If some of the charges brought against the Albigenses appear absurd, and if similar charges were brought against the early Christians, let us remember that we may learn from the history of the Church that however absurd a thing may be it has its parallel and precedent somewhere; in the primitive ages of Christianity Gnostics were guilty of many crimes which heathens laid to the charge of the true Christians. These heretics were essentially of one accord with the ancient Gnostics and Manichæans, and their deceitfulness was in striking contrast to the truthfulness of the early Christians. Huber, p. 19. 2 Neander, K.G. ii. p. 642 seq. 3d ed. 3 Natal. Alex. H. E. saec. 13 et 14, c. iii. a. 1, § 2, t. xv. p. 135 seq. Ekbert von Schönau, apud Du Plessis d'Argentré, t. i. P. i. p. 45. Council of Rheims, 1157 (Hefele, v. p. 500). Bishop Roger of Châlons to Wazo of Liége; Gesta Episc. Leod. c. lix. Martene et Durand. iv. 898 seq. Vincent of Beauvais, Specul. Hist. 1. xxix. c. xxvi. Raumer, Gesch. der Hohenst. vol. iii. pp. 74, 273. Raumer, 1.c. pp. 274, 283. Neander, 1.c. p. 644. Hurter, Innoc. III. vol. ii. p. 220. Raumer, iii. 292; vi. 290. Hurter, 1.c. p. 217 seq. Cf. Guill. Armoricus, de Gest. Phil. Aug. (Duchesne, v. 72; Du Plessis, l.c. p. 58), on the Ruptarii.' Neander, p. 647. Alanus ab Insulis, c. Haeret. 1. i. c. xix. seq. c. xxxii. seq. (Migne, ccx. p. 321 seq.). Rainer, c. Wald. c. vi. (Bibl. PP. Lugd. xxv. 266). Moneta, adv. Cath. et Wald. 1. i. Bonacurs, ap. Du Plessis, Coll. Jud. t. i. P. i. p. 43. * Alanus, l.c. c. xxv. seq. p. 326 seq. Alanus, l.c. 1. i. c. ii-viii. p. 308 seq. p. 48. Moneta, f. 357, 362. 10 Alanus, l.c. c. xxxv. seq. p. 337 seq. Moneta, f. 111, 199. 11 Hefele, l.c. p. 741. : 12 Alanus ab Insulis, Prolog. ad Libr. contra Haereticos (Migne, ccx. p. 307) Nostris temporibus novi haeretici, imo veteres et inveterati, veterantes dogmata, ex diversis haeresibus unam generalem haeresim compingunt, et quasi ex diversis idolis unum idolum, ex diversis monstris unum monstrum, et quasi ex diversis venenatis herbis unum toxicum commune conficiunt.' $11. Though proceedings against heretics were often set on foot by the civil power, the Church always regarded it as one of her most sacred duties to resist them, and to employ her penal authority for this purpose.1 The Cathari appealed to the parable of the cockle and the wheat.2 They were told in reply,3 that Christ did not desire that the cockle should be spared but only the wheat; that when the cockle plainly threatened the destruction of the wheat, and when the wheat could be saved by no other means, the cockle should be rooted up. Christ taught that evil should be suffered with the good so long only as the removal of the evil would entail greater harm, so long only as the good would be in danger of being rooted up together with the evil. Moreover, the parable if thus used would prove too much; it would forbid government the use of the sword, would put a stop to excommunication, and would abolish all discipline; the cockle signifies not merely false doctrine but all manner of wickedness.5 1 Cyprian, ad Florent. de Exhort. Martyr. c. v. (Migne, iv. p. 638). Cf. Phillips, K.R. vi. § 322, p. 584. 2 Moneta, 1. v. c. xiii. f. 519. 3 By William of Paris, de Leg. c. i. Cf. Neander, 1.c. p. 648. Moreover, individuals cannot always decide with certainty whether this or that one is of the cockle. Hieron. Com. in Matt. xiii. 25: Inter triticum et zizania, quod nos appellamus lolium, quamdiu herba est et nondum culmus venit ad spicam, grandis similitudo est et in discernendo aut nulla aut perdifficilis distantia. Praemonet ergo Dominus ne ubi quid ambiguum est, cito sententiam proferamus, sed Deo judici terminum reservemus, ut cum dies judicii venerit, ille non suspicionem criminis, sed manifestum reatum de sanctorum coetu ejiciat.' 5 So also Calvin, in the refutation of the errors of Servetus, apud Natal. Alex. diss. cit. t. xvi. p. 32. § 12. Less dangerous sects, especially the Waldenses, were also persecuted; but in course of time, and as a result of their obstinate defiance of the Church, the Waldenses adopted many |