19 Schröckh, K.G. seit der Reformation, ii. 512, 588 seq. 20 E. Coke, Instit. iii. 5. 21 Spondan. a. 1581, n. 15. 22 Ranke, Päpste, ii. p. 160; Eng. trans. b. v. p. 114. 23 Chebus, Die Dissenters in England (Niedner's Zeitschrift f. Histor. Theol. 1848, i. pp. 87-96). 24 Buckle, 1.c. i. chap. v. p. 264, note 30. 25 Schröckh, 1.c. vol. v. pp. 163, 164. 26 Joh. Gerard. de Magistr. polit. n. 316, p. 1046. 27 Kirche und Kirchen, p. 68; Eng. trans. p. 65. 28 The English Calvinists who in the reign of Queen Mary fled to Denmark not only received no welcome from the Lutherans there, but were even rejected by them in the harshest and most inhuman manner. Menzel, vol. v. p. 119. $16. To judge the Inquisition rightly, the principle must be distinguished from its application. It cannot be denied that in the latter there were grave and lamentable defects, although the question has been much obscured by falsehood. For example, confession of mere sins of thought, from which any confessor could absolve, was never extorted from an accused person, neither was an appeal refused. Even men like Guizot, Villemain,3 and St.-Simon have acknowledged that the Inquisition kept the sincere conversion of the delinquent well in view. Abuses practised by individual inquisitors were always condemned, and the Inquisition itself is not responsible for them.5 The principle that formal heresy is the most grievous crime is a natural consequence of the acceptance of the Christian religion. In every ordered commonwealth the first law is that which provides for the safety and welfare of all. In the Church, purity of faith and morals is regarded as an essential condition of salvation, and must therefore be provided for accordingly. Christian society could not feel obliged to acquiesce in the external propagation and dissemination of false doctrines because those who held them might entertain a conviction of their truth; otherwise the adulterer, forger, or murderer should be unpunished if his ill-regulated conscience acquitted him of guilt. The Church holds that open formal heresy deserves punishment, and therefore when it has been punished this has been rightly done; the application of the penalty in individual instances may have been faulty, for this is an action not of the teaching office but of the judicial authority; it is regulated principally by the criminal laws of the age in question, and by the notions of the time with regard to the treatment of criminals, which the Church adopts in foro externo. In many countries the punishments for poaching, burglary, sodomy, and false coining were more severe than those of the Inquisition. The Inquisition is not a product of the Papal doctrine of faith and morals," but a form of applying a positive principle of law-an external means for the execution of the law. ' Devoti, Instit. Jur. Can. t. iv. tit. 8, § 14, pp. 116, 117, who refers to S. Thom. Sum. 1, 2, q. 91, a. 4, q. 100, a. 9; and Bened. XIV. Syn. Dioec. 1. ix. c. iv. n. 4. 2 Hist. de la Civil. leçon vi. p. 56. 3 Cours de Littérat. Bruxelles, 1838, p. 27. 4 Doctrine de St.-Simon, 1828, p. 313. 5 Cf. Censura Facult. Theol. Paris. in Erasmum, tit. de Poenis Haeret. prop. 3, 8; Du Plessis d'Argentré, t. ii. P. i. pp. 70, 71. Cf. Beidtel, Das canonische Recht, pp. 563-569. Balmez, Protestantism and Catholicity, chaps. xxxiv. xxxvi. Cf. also c. 35, c. xxiii. q. 4: 'Nec omnino liberabis hominem, nisi eum persecutus fueris peccatorem.' Alan. ab Insulis, de Arte praedicat. c. xviii. (Migne, ccx. p. 148): Reddat charitas compassionem homini, puniat aequitas enormitatem vitii.' ' Devoti, Jus Can. t. iv. 1. iv. tit. 8, § 1, p. 102. Balmez, chap. xxxv. A. Z. June 19, 1870; Schulte, i. pp. 47-49. He makes a very confused collection of laws against heretics in proof of his twelfth proposition, The Pope can deprive excommunicated persons of all their social rights, and in particular can dissolve their marriages.' The proceedings of Urban V. against Barnabò Visconti of Milan are especially cited (p. 50) in proof of this. But the text of the Bull is not given; we only find ourselves referred to the statement of H. Spondanus, ad a. 1363, n. 1. The text, apud Raynald. h.a. n. 2, has, on the contrary, nothing about the dissolution of the marriage bond. There is no sense in regarding a mere judicial sentence as definitio ex cathedrâ, neither in bringing a definition of the Council of Trent to bear upon an event which occurred two hundred years before. Vide Fessler, Infallibility, Eng. trans. pp. 95 seq. 63 seq.; Archiv £ Kath. Kirchenrecht, vol. xxv. p. 122, n. 10. $ 17. Inquisitors had to proceed not only against heretics, but against Catholics who apostatised to Judaism or Mahometanism; the Councils also punished this apostasy like heresy." There were many Jews in Spain who feigned conversion and were baptised, and succeeded in attaining even to bishoprics.4 VOL. II. Z The Spanish Inquisition was directed especially against Jews and Moors, and as a purely State institution it sought to withdraw itself from Papal control, which opposed its severity.7 Sixtus IV. had in 1478 confirmed the institution, but as early as 1482 he had cause to complain of its practice; and in 1483 appeals were accepted in Rome against the Spanish inquisitors, of whom, in 1519, some were even excommunicated. The grand inquisitors Thomas Torquemada (1483-1498) and Didacus Deza (1498-1506) relied chiefly upon the authority of the State, which was in continual danger from the new Christians.' The Inquisition was by no means unpopular, and the State found it an efficient safeguard. The Holy See afforded protection to many victims of the persecution, and took measures for the maintenance of justice, especially by proceedings against false witnesses and false accusers.9 Paul III. reorganised the Inquisition to meet the danger threatened by Protestantism; it had been established in Portugal under Clement VII. in 1527,10 and was intrusted to the charge of cardinals chosen for their fitness for the office, and invested with wide authority." Paul IV., who, without regard for persons, even for cardinals, strictly maintained the purity of the Faith, was favourable to the Inquisition, which was approved in Italy. In 1551, Julius III. expressly ordained that, except bishops, no one beyond the persons bearing the commission of the Inquisition should interfere in its operations; he wished to prevent the encroachments of State officials.12 Pius IV. still further amended the existing regulations;13 and Pius V., who had been an inquisitor, and as such had often incurred risk of his life,14 insisted upon greater care in the proceedings of the tribunal.15 The Inquisition in Rome was, upon the whole, very lenient ;16 far more so than the Spanish Inquisition, though this has been very often described with enormous exaggeration.17 Not half as many Spanish subjects lost their lives by the Inquisition as in our century by civil wars, by wholesale political executions, by the massacres in Cuba and in the East Indies. It often happens that those who complain most loudly of the cruelty of bygone days are the last to notice the crimes of the age in which we live. 1 Clem. IV. Const. 14, Turbato corde, 1267. Petra, t. iii. p. 248 seq. Boniface VIII. c. 13, Contra, v. 2, de Haer. in 6. Cf. Greg. X. Const. 3, a. 1273; Nicol. IV. Const. 4, a. 1288; Petra, 1.c. pp. 253 seq. 266 seq.; Paul IV. 1566, ib. p. 251. 2 Gregor. XI. Const. 2, Admodum, 3 August 1372. Petra, t. iv. p. 153. 3 Council of Mainz, 1310, c. 125. Hefele, vi. p. 446. Hefele, iii. p. 323. 4 Conc. Tolet. xvii. 694, c. 8. Balmez, 1.c. chap. xxxvi. 8 Balmez, 1.c. Cf. also Ranke, Päpste, i. p. 242 seq.; Leo X. Const. 32, Intelleximus, a. 1518, Bull. Rom. iii. p. 465. 10 Phillips, K.R. vi. p. 586. 11 Paul III. Const. Licet ab initio, 1542, Bull. Rom. vi. ed. Taur. vi. p. 344. 12 Jul. III. Const. 11, Licet a diversis, Bull. ed. cit. p. 431. 1.c. § 322, p. 587. 13 Phillips, 1.c. p. 588. 14 Gabutius, Vita Pii, v. 1. i. c. ii. pp. 10-12. Phillips, 15 Phillips, 1.c. p. 589. Huber, p. 49, considers him the embodiment of intolerance.' 16 Bened. XIV. de Syn. Dioec. 1. vi. c. xi. n. 8, 12. Phillips, 1.c. p. 597 seq. When the Roman Republic under Mazzini, on Feb. 28, 1849, decreed the abolition of the S. Uffizio, they first of all caused skeletons, bones, and suchlike to be introduced into the building, and then incited the people to burn it down; but the Carabineers who were quartered there, and who knew of the deception, offered a firm resistance. La Rivoluzione Romana, Firenze, 1850, 1. ii. c. xiv. p. 336. 17 Such are to be found, for instance, in a work that appeared in 1811: La Inquisicion sin máscara, by Nathanael Jomtob. It is full of the most burning hatred against everything Spanish. Balmez, 1.c. As the danger of the introduction of Protestantism into Spain diminished, and as the spirit of the criminal code became more lenient, in the same measure did the Inquisition lessen its severity. Ib. $18. The Inquisition is also charged with directing its operations towards mere delusions, viz. so-called magic, devil-worship, and witchcraft, and of increasing the number of trials for witchcraft after the introduction of torture. But at its commencemert the Inquisition had very little to do with these. Alexander IV. forbade inquisitors to punish persons accused of witchcraft,1 and John XXII. only permitted their interference when heresy was joined to witchcraft in the accusation.2 Sorcerers were in general sentenced by the Church only to excommunication ;3 but the civil power was far more severe.4 After the thirteenth century trials for witchcraft instituted by the States became at last a sort of epidemic, and a verdict of guilt was followed by the burning of the accused. This penalty together with torture was also employed in the East at an earlier period. There is no trace of popular superstitions being fostered by the medieval Popes.9 The Bull of Innocent VIII., called the Witchcraft Bull, was issued in the year 1484.10 Its object was, by making sorcery a matter for spiritual jurisdiction alone, to put a stop to the panic and disorder created by the operations of the civil tribunals." This object was accomplished for a certain period. The belief in sorcery long prevailed, and was common to Catholics and Protestants. In 1560, John Wein of Grave-onthe-Maas, physician to the Duke of Cleves, wrote against the burning of witches. In 1565, the Protestant legal faculty of Marburg condemned his work, and the author barely escaped a severe persecution, such as overtook Cornelius Loos. Also the Jesuit Adam Tanner, Chancellor of the University of Prague, was most violently opposed in his endeavour to check the evil. Frederick von Spee, also a Jesuit, was the author of a work which marks an epoch in the struggle. 12 It shows the immense difficulties attending even so able a resistance of the predominant belief.13 No witches were burnt in Rome, and an instruction14 which issued thence in 1657 effected much towards bringing legal proceedings more into accord with justice and truth. It called in the aid not merely of theologians and can-onists, but even more imperatively of lawyers and physicians. Time alone could afford a complete remedy. The last witch was burnt at Glarus in 1783,15 not, as has been said, at Seville in 1781. It is very doubtful whether, as Huber says, Protestantism merely accepted the belief in witches as a legacy bequeathed to it by the Middle Ages. Carpzov's vehement opposition to Spee does not look like it; neither do the facts of the Protestant persecutions for witchcraft16 nor Luther's expressions about the devil.17 Certainly on this point Luther's judgment was not formed upon the example of St. Thomas Aquinas,' whom besides he hated bitterly. |