THE BEGINNINGS OF THE INQUISITION
Originally jurisdiction over heresy belonged to the ordinary
ecclesiastical courts, heresy being classed with such other offences
as adultery and breach of contract, which came under ecclesiastical
purview.[283] The special tribunal of the Inquisition came into being
because these courts proved defective for the trial of heresy. In the
first place, the new offence became so frequent that the ordinary
courts were unable to support the large additional burden without
impairing their efficiency in the performance of their original duties.
How, then, did it happen that whereas heresy had become a formidable
danger in the twelfth century, the institution of the special tribunal
did not take place until the thirteenth? The suggestion appears
plausible that there must have been some other cause besides the mere
spread of heresy to account for the birth of the Inquisition at that
date.[284] The answer is that it took time for heresy to be recognized
as sufficiently serious to warrant the creation of an entirely new
organization, and before the magnitude of the task of repressing
religious error was fully apprehended.[285] In the second place, the
papacy during this period was much preoccupied with more pressing
concerns, particularly the investiture question, which involved the
supreme issue as to the pre-eminence of secular or spiritual authority
in Christendom.
When once attention had been thoroughly arrested by the problem, the
deficiencies of the existing spiritual courts for the new work became
apparent. Overwork was by no means the only drawback. The character
of the judges was at fault. Even after the Hildebrandine reforms,
bishops still remained feudal barons with many inevitable secular
distractions; archdeacons and other lesser officials were often venal
and incapable.[286] In any case the very nature of diocesan authority
militated against success. It was too purely local to be effective
against offenders who could easily migrate from one part of the country
to another. Even more serious was the lack on the part of the existing
officials of special training and knowledge, especially in theology,
which were found necessary, since heretics often evinced diabolical
familiarity with the text of Scripture.[287] Lacking such special
equipment and being badly pressed for time on a diocesan visitation,
the bishop was apt to come to a hurried and arbitrary judgment,
frequently falling back upon the device of the ordeal when the
defendant pleaded ‘not guilty.’ Both the Councils of Rheims of 1157 and
of Verona of 1184 ordered that suspects of heresy should be submitted
to this test. But the method was never felt to be satisfactory, was
strongly condemned by Ivo of Chartres and Alexander III, and so
emphatically denounced by the Fourth Council of the Lateran in 1215
that it disappeared from the practice of lay as well as spiritual
courts.
Another disadvantage under which the episcopal courts laboured in
dealing with heresy was their procedure, that of Roman Law. There were
two systems—those of _denuntiatio_ and _accusatio_. In the former some
person in authority—in ecclesiastical cases the archdeacon—brought
forward a charge founded upon his own personal knowledge. In the latter
the charge was based on information tendered by a private individual
to the authorities. Owing to the fact that the archdeacon was a very
busy man, the Church was largely dependent on the second method in the
prosecution of heresy. But the average person had no inducement to
lodge a charge. He was in danger of private vengeance if he did so;
equally important, by Roman Law he was expected to prove his case,
being in the event of failure liable to the same penalty which he had
himself alleged against the accused. Seeing that, should he prove
his case, he was entitled to the property of the prisoner either in
whole or in part, this stipulation was a salutary and indeed necessary
check, not only on malice but cupidity.[288] This mode of procedure,
which though indicative of its origin in the rudimentary idea of
private justice was certainly equitable, did not commend itself to
the Church, once it had become determined upon the extirpation of
heresy. The difficulty of obtaining convictions greatly increased when,
instead of small isolated communities, the Church was faced by a great
organization like Catharism, widespread and secret in its movements.
It was clear that episcopal jurisdiction must be strengthened. The
Edict of Verona was an attempt in this direction. It was resolved to
make use for prosecution of common report, the public opinion of the
locality. Archbishops and bishops were to visit in person, or through
their archdeacons, once or even twice a year every parish in which
heresy was supposed to exist, and were to compel men whom they thought
of trustworthy character or, if they thought fit, all the inhabitants
of the neighbourhood, to denounce those whose manner of living differed
from that of good Catholics. Such bad characters were to purge
themselves by a solemn oath on the gospels before the bishop (_purgatio
canonica_); if they refused—and Cathari were likely to be unwilling
owing to their views regarding oaths—their refusal was to be construed
as tantamount to a confession of heresy.[289]
We have here a method of enforced delation, the bishop proceeding upon
the evidence so obtained (_diffamatio_) without the formalities of
the _accusatio_. In other words the bishops are to make an _inquest_,
so that from this date, 1184, we have in existence an episcopal
inquisition.[290] The decree does not appear to have been very
effective, and after the Albigensian Crusades—it being necessary to
follow that success by the institution of systematic prosecution of
heresy for fear of the recurrence of trouble[291]—similar regulations
were made by Councils, sitting at Avignon in 1209 and at Montpellier
in 1215, also in the Fourth Council of the Lateran of the latter year.
There was a new feature in the introduction of a priest in addition to
a trustworthy layman as informer against heretics.[292] The Council of
Narbonne (1227) went a step further in ordering the bishops to appoint
in each parish _testes synodales_, to make diligent enquiry concerning
heresy and other matters and give information to their bishops.[293]
The phrase ‘synodal witness’ is new, though it may easily designate the
same persons as those nominated by the previous councils. However this
may be, the ‘synodal witnesses’ are entrusted with a new duty. They
are not merely to inform, but to search out. This advance was to be
anticipated; the informer easily blossoms out into the detective. Here
we have a system of local Inquisition, which is enjoined again by a
Council sitting at Toulouse two years later, which requires the synodal
witnesses to visit all suspected houses and hiding-places.[294]
It is doubtful whether the orders of these two Councils were ever
acted upon. In any case, not even the most well-intentioned reform of
their procedure could make the episcopal courts satisfactory for the
trial of heresy. The bishops are repeatedly urged to bestir themselves
even on pain of deprivation.[295] The fact was that some special
machinery had to be devised. On the other hand, the authorization
of the system of Inquisition was of the utmost importance. It was
fully recognized by Innocent III, who in his Decretals carefully
distinguished it from the two other judicial methods of _accusatio_ and
_denuntiatio_.[296] Innocent was not thinking only, or perhaps mainly,
of heresy in introducing a new judicial method—but of clerical reform.
Even when the offence of a prelate was a matter of common notoriety
it was difficult to bring the crime home to him when the system of
_accusatio_ required the concurrence of seventy-two witnesses. That
system sheltered the high in office; and it was therefore, from the
reformer’s point of view, defective. The greatest of the popes had
given his imprimatur to a system, which beginning in the ecclesiastical
courts, was, owing to its manifest advantages, destined to make a
triumphal progress in the temporal courts also, eventually supplanting
the system of _accusatio_ altogether.
The definite starting-point of the Inquisition has been attributed to
many dates. One enthusiast went as far back as Creation, finding the
first inquisitor in the Almighty Himself, and successors to Him in
Jacob, Saul, David, Eli, Jesus Christ, John the Baptist and St. Peter
among others.[297] Less ambitious authorities, content to go no further
back than the Middle Ages, have discovered the starting-point in the
legatine commission entrusted by Innocent III to Pierre de Castelnau,
Arnaud of Citeaux and their colleagues.[298] Whether they, with their
lieutenant St. Dominic, were inquisitors or not turns on the
interpretation of the word.[299] In the loose general sense of
searchers out, certainly they were—as others had been before them.
The plain fact is, there were inquisitors before the Inquisition
existed. But in the strict technical sense of officers of a tribunal
specifically set apart for jurisdiction over heresy, they clearly were
not.[300] The tribunal of the Inquisition was not in existence in the
pontificate of Innocent III. On the other hand, we have by this time
advanced a considerable distance on the road to the formation of a new
tribunal. Heresy has been recognized as so dangerous as to justify the
organization of a crusade against it. The bishops’ courts have been
found so defective in dealing with heresy that the device has been
adopted of sending special commissioners to try to do what they have
failed to do. The method of judicial procedure by _inquisitio_ in place
of _accusatio_ has been officially approved. It wants but one other
step to bring us to the foundation of the permanent delegacy for the
prosecution of heretical pravity, which is the Inquisition.
This step was taken by Pope Gregory IX, who may therefore legitimately
be said to have founded the Inquisition. Both the episcopal courts
and the experiment of the occasional legate had been insufficient.
Gregory made use of a powerful weapon which came readily to hand
in the two great Mendicant Orders. Recognizing their potential
utility, Gregory, herein followed by Innocent IV, showered upon
them all manner of special privileges and exemptions and bound them
by this means peculiarly to the service of the papacy. They were
pre-eminently fitted, as it happened, for the special service of
prosecuting heresy. They were still young in the first white heat of
a new enthusiasm, while their zeal and their purity made them both
influential and popular. They were also often endowed—especially
the Dominicans—with high intellectual gifts and early acquired a
great reputation as subtle and learned theologians. Thus while their
poverty, their single-mindedness and their good works were an answer to
anti-sacerdotal attacks, their theological attainments enabled them to
combat the dialectical arguments of the heterodox. The uniformity and
permanence of inquisitorial practice came largely from the selection
of the two orders of the Friars to undertake the jurisdiction over
heresy. In so far, therefore, as the choice of a particular date or
incident for the commencement of an institution can be otherwise than
arbitrary, it is legitimate to fix upon the delegation by Gregory
IX of jurisdictional powers almost exclusively to the members of
the Franciscan and Dominican orders as marking the beginning of the
Inquisition as an organized tribunal.
Actually the first delegation made by Pope Gregory in regard to
heresy was made neither to a Franciscan nor a Dominican, but to a
man notorious for his extraordinary relations with Saint Elizabeth
of Hungary, namely Conrad of Marburg. Whatever his status to begin
with, he certainly became a delegate possessed of very wide powers
eventually. He was in fact an inquisitor in precisely the same sense as
Pierre de Castelnau and Arnaud of Citeaux had been inquisitors; and the
question of his precise authority has exactly the same bearing on the
question of the beginnings of the tribunal of the Inquisition as the
question of _their_ authority—no more.[301]
Eight days after the bestowal of the commission upon Conrad, namely on
June 20, 1227, Gregory entrusted another inquisitorial commission to
a Dominican. This, however, is not the significant date. The decisive
event is the addressing of two bulls to France in April 1233, the
first to the bishops, the second to the Preaching Friars. The first
explains that owing to ‘the whirlwind of cares’ and ‘the presence of
overwhelming anxieties,’ under which the bishops labour, the Pope
has thought it well to divide their burdens and has decided to send
the Preaching Friars against the heretics of France. The bishops are
earnestly exhorted to treat the Brothers kindly and lend them all
assistance in the fulfilment of their office. The second, and by far
the more important bull, addressed to the Friars, empowers them ‘to
deprive clerks of their benefices for ever, and to proceed against them
and all others without appeal, calling in the aid of the secular arm if
necessary, and coercing opposition, if needful, with the censures of
the Church, without appeal.’[302] Some have detected in these bulls an
apologetic tone indicating uncertainty on Gregory’s part as to whether
the bishops would acquiesce in this invasion of their powers, and it is
also no doubt true that ‘the character of his instructions proves that
he had no conception of what the invasion was to lead to.’[303] On the
other hand, there is here the clear evidence of a matured conception,
based upon the experience of the multiplication of special commissions
to individual legates, of a permanent delegation.[304] By 1235 this
system had penetrated not only through France, Toulouse and Burgundy,
but also Lombardy, Sicily, Aragon, Brabant, Germany.[305]
The inquisitorial commissions entrusted to the Friars, it is important
to note, did not involve the extinction of episcopal jurisdiction in
matters of heresy. In 1234 Gregory is found threatening the bishops
of the province of Narbonne, if they do not show due energy against
heretics, and making no mention of the new authority.[306] As yet the
friars-inquisitor are regarded only as a more efficient supplement to
the ordinary ecclesiastical tribunals. Gregory intended that bishops
and inquisitors should work together, and bishops had to concur in the
friars’ sentences. Plainly there was not unnatural antagonism, bishops
wishing to treat inquisitors simply as expert advisers, inquisitors
aiming at becoming the real judges. In 1247 Innocent IV treats the
bishops as the real judges: yet in the numerous sentences of the
celebrated inquisitor, Bernard de Caux, recorded between 1246 and 1248,
there is no trace of episcopal concurrence.[307] In 1248 the Council of
Valence had to bring pressure upon bishops to observe the sentences of
inquisitors.[308] Between 1250 and 1254 the director of the proceedings
of the Carcassonne Inquisition who makes the interrogations and imposes
the sentences is a bishop: but it is not certain whether he was
acting in his episcopal capacity or as a special papal commissioner.
Such commissions were rarely given to bishops, as the popes much
preferred, as a rule, to use the friars. The root fact was that to
perform his special duties efficiently an inquisitor needed to devote
his entire time and attention to them: and thus, as it became more and
more apparent that heresy was no mere ephemeral menace which could be
stamped out once for all, but a lasting trouble which had constantly
to be met, so the Inquisition, first regarded as a temporary expedient
to deal with an emergency, developed into a permanent institution. So
also the efforts of the bishops, either to retain the jurisdiction over
heresy in their own ordinary courts or to superimpose their authority
over the inquisitor in his extraordinary court, were alike doomed to
failure. As a matter of fact, probably the average bishop was too
much immersed in other cares and interests to trouble to secure his
prerogative in the matter of heresy.[309] Thus it was that before
the end of the thirteenth century the Inquisition had come to be an
intrinsic part of the judicial organization of the Church.
The pontificate of Gregory IX is in more ways than one a critical
period in the history of the repression of heresy. It saw the first
clear authorization of the death penalty for the obdurate heretic.
Capital punishment had at times been shown to be the popular remedy for
heresy; it had sometimes been adopted by the secular arm, sometimes
approved by the clergy. But it had not been legalized in the empire,
formally sanctioned by the temporal law of the world, as the general
rule of Christendom. The first public law of Europe enjoining it was
the work of the Emperor Frederick II. That the most extraordinary
member of the house of Hohenstaufen, being a man who despite a curious
strain of superstition in him was a rationalist and a sceptic, should
have been responsible for this legislation may at first sight appear
astonishing. An Italian, not a German, brought up among the half
Greek, half Saracen influences of Sicily, drawing his inspiration
rather from Averrhoës and Arab free-thought than from any Christian
source, amazingly versatile, poet, lover of learning, statesman,
diplomatist, his outlook upon the world was altogether individual, his
intellect powerful and singular, untrammelled by convention. He was a
medley of strange contradictions: he protected Jews and Mussulmans; he
persecuted heretics. The Averrhoïst heretics from Islam interested him,
the heretics from Catholicism not at all.
On November 22, 1220, Frederick produced his first constitution for
Lombardy.[310] This repealed the penalties of Frederick Barbarossa in
his edict of 1184, confiscation of property and outlawry, penalties
severe enough, because outlawry in the Middle Ages was a terrible
punishment, putting the culprit at any man’s mercy. This first
constitution appears to have been inspired by Honorius III.[311] A
second constitution of March 1224, published at Catania for the whole
of Lombardy, first introduced the death penalty—death at the stake;
but at the discretion of the judge, the loss of the tongue might be
substituted.[312] In 1231 in the Constitutions of Melfi, which applied
indeed only to Sicily, this element of choice was no longer included,
and the penalty was made absolutely death by fire. In 1238 this
regulation was extended to the empire, being afterwards introduced into
the Sachenspiegel and Schwabenspiegel of Germany.[313] Thus death by
fire became the recognized punishment for heresy in the empire. In 1226
Louis IX issued ordinances prescribing severe punishments for heretics;
but at the time the use of the stake was general in France, and it was
formally accepted as the legal punishment in the _Etablissements_ of
Louis IX in 1270.[314]
In view of what Frederick II did in his Constitutions, some historians
have placed upon his shoulders the full responsibility for the horrors
of the stake. This is both unfair and unhistorical. The blame attaches
to no single man. The fact of first giving sanction in civil law
to death by burning is certainly important, but the importance can
easily be exaggerated. Frederick was only giving legal recognition to
the actual practice of France and Germany; only introducing what was
customary elsewhere into Italy, where tolerance had on the whole been
general. Some importance should also be attached to the revival of the
study of Roman Law, which showed that Manichæans had suffered death in
days before Constantine. In the part played by Frederick II we shall be
wise to recognize not something catastrophic but rather a link among
very many in a lengthy chain of development.[315] Nor must we forget
the significance of the order that burnings are to take place ‘in
conspectu populi.’ This is surely an answer to a popular demand that
the execution of heretics should be made a public example, a salutary
spectacle? The examination of the force of public opinion is almost
always more fruitful than that of the motives of individuals, however
powerful.
What was the attitude of the Church in its crusade against heresy
towards the action of Frederick? Being crucial, the question is
exceedingly controversial. There have been apologists for the Church
who have argued that the whole blame for the burning of heretics
rests with the secular power, that Gregory IX had a positive aversion
to the idea, that Frederick II’s laws against heretics are to be
regarded as an attempt to humiliate the Pope and wrest from the Church
jurisdiction which properly belonged to it. This argument makes the
establishment of the Inquisition a measure of self-defence, a strategic
blow delivered in the great war between the secular and ecclesiastical
authorities.[316]
This ingenious theory will not stand close examination. There is in the
first place the _prima facie_ probability that an unorthodox emperor,
anxious to utilize the question of heresy in a conflict with the
papacy, would rather protect than prosecute it. In the second place,
there is really no evidence for discovering in Frederick’s action an
elaborate Machiavellian device; while we have sufficient evidence
that Gregory did approve the burning of heretics.[317] There seems
clearly to have been clerical influence behind the constitutions. The
constitution of 1224 has been ascribed to the influence of a certain
German prelate, Albert, Archbishop of Magdeburg, imperial legate in
Italy, who wanted to see heretics treated in Italy as they were in
his own country, and who therefore induced the emperor to give legal
sanction to the death penalty.[318] Even more significant would appear
to have been the part played by the Spanish Dominicans, Guala and
Raymond of Peñaforte. Guala was Bishop of Brescia in 1230, and Brescia
was the first town to place among its municipal laws the Lombard
Constitution of 1224. The Bishop was in constant communication with
Gregory, and when Rome followed the example of Brescia, it is surmised,
though it cannot be proved, that Guala was responsible for this, as
also for the Constitution of 1231.[319] This is conjecture, and so is
the alternative theory which attributes the legal establishment of the
death sentence not so much to Guala as to Raymond.[320] Whatever may
be the truth concerning clerical influence prior to the promulgation
of the Constitutions, the question of the subsequent attitude of the
Church towards them is not a matter of conjecture.
In his bull, _Excommunicamus_, Gregory orders that heretics, condemned
by the Church, shall be handed over to the secular arm and punished
by the merited penalty (‘puniantur animadversione debita’). What this
punishment is, is not expressly mentioned, but inasmuch as all other
possible penalties are mentioned by name—imprisonment, excommunication,
infamy, deprivation of civil rights etc., we are left by a process
of elimination with the death penalty as the only conceivable end
for the obdurate heretic abandoned to the secular arm.[321] Only
wilful blindness can misinterpret the phrase ‘animadversione debita,’
especially as its meaning seems to be forcibly illustrated by the
practice of the Senator Annibaldi who ruled Rome in Gregory’s name. In
1231 he issued a decree, introducing the imperial constitution into the
city and establishing that each senator, on admission into office, must
pronounce the ban of the city against all heretics in it, seize upon
all who are pointed out as heretics by the inquisitors and punish them
within eight days from the passing of sentence. Here Annibaldi used the
Pope’s euphemism, ‘merited penalty.’ The same year several heretics
were seized in Rome, some imprisoned, but the obdurate burnt.[322]
If it may still be felt that there is some doubt regarding the
personal feeling of Gregory IX about Frederick II’s action, there
can be no doubt at all as to his successor, Innocent IV, who gave
complete pontifical sanction to the Constitutions by inscribing them
_in extenso_ in a bull entitled _Cum adversus haereticam pravitatem_,
issued in 1245.[323]
The Church did more than simply give its formal approval to secular
legislation against heresy: it saw to it that the lay authority put its
legislation into practice.
It was for the Church to seek out, arrest, examine and condemn the
heretic; it was the function of the State to free the Church from
the guilt of blood by arranging for the actual execution of the
impenitents, the canon thus being reconciled with harsh necessity.
Apportionment of its duties in the matter of heresy to the State by
the Church was no new thing in the days of Gregory and Innocent. The
resolutions of earlier councils had referred significantly to the
danger of popular revolutions, did not the secular authority play its
part, and had threatened that disobedient lords might find their lands
and goods given away to others more zealous or more prudent.[324] The
decree of Verona (1184) had claimed excommunication as the penalty for
failure to execute the imperial laws (at that time those of Barbarossa)
against heretics; and the Fourth Council of the Lateran, enjoining an
oath upon all secular rulers that they will banish all heretics from
their lands, declares their vassals to be absolved from fidelity in the
case of non-compliance.[325]
Already, before the days of Innocent IV, it had been made perfectly
plain that the Church not only desired and expected the execution by
the secular authority of its own laws against heretics, but that it was
prepared to use all available means to compel it to do so. Innocent IV
placed the coping-stone upon this system by his famous bull issued to
all the lay rulers of Italy in 1252, known as _Ad extirpanda_.[326]
This bull is remarkable for the thorough and systematic nature of
its provisions. To the end that the pest of heresy may be uprooted,
all lay rulers are to swear to carry out the laws against heresy on
pain of fine and of being held an infamous perjuror and fautor of
heretics.[327] Every civil magistrate within three days of his entrance
into office is to appoint twelve good Catholics, two notaries, two
senators, two friars from the Prædicants, two from the Brothers Minor,
whose duties are to search out heretics, seize their goods and hand
them on to the bishop. These officials are to enjoy a variety of
privileges and to be free from all interference in their work. The
civil magistrate is to hand over all heretics within a fortnight of
their capture either to the bishop or the inquisitors.[328] Those
condemned are within five days of sentence to be dealt with by the
secular arm in accordance with the Constitutions (of Frederick II).
The secular authority is also required to inflict torture on those
heretics who refused to confess or inculpate their confederates, to
see to the exaction of fines and destruction of heretics’ houses, to
keep lists of those defamed of heresy.[329] These statutes, and all
others which might subsequently be added against heresy, are to be
religiously preserved in the statute-books of every city, on pain of
excommunication for any non-compliant official, of interdict for any
recalcitrant city. No attempt must be made to alter these laws or to
observe any other laws which may be found to be in contradiction to
them.[330]
Various slight alterations and modifications were subsequently
made in the terms of this all-important fulmination. But with only
insignificant revisions it was reissued by Alexander IV in 1259, and
in 1265 by Clement V, who, however, inserted the word ‘inquisitor’ in
places where previously only bishops and friars had been designated.
In the main the bull remained unaltered, a lasting monument both to
the Church’s power in that age and of its attitude towards secular
action with regard to heresy. It was for the Church to command where
her interests were concerned; she expected to be obeyed and, in case of
defiance, had the necessary force to compel obedience. Excommunication
and interdict in those days were no empty words. To be placed outside
the communion of the Church was even more than being outlawed from
the Empire, equivalent to being placed outside civilization; it was
to be deprived of all rights, made any man’s legitimate prey. And if
excommunication was more injurious to the simple citizen than to the
prince or noble, still the latter had much to fear. The ban of the
Church relieved his vassals from their allegiance and was an invitation
to his enemies to march to his despoil. In the eyes of the believer
excommunication entailed something very much worse than even such
material trouble and loss; it meant the exclusion from the greatest of
means to salvation on earth, the imperilling of salvation in eternity.
There was, as a matter of fact, no reluctance on the part of the state
to the task of persecuting heretics, as the secular legislation of
Henry II of England, Barbarossa, Alfonso II and Pedro II of Aragon
abundantly testifies. But few secular magistrates would be willing to
incur so great a material and spiritual risk as excommunication merely
for the sake of a few fanatical schismatics.
The argued justification of the now well-established system of
persecution, of which _Ad extirpanda_ is the coping-stone, we find in
Thomas Aquinas. In the Church’s procedure in respect of heretics he
sees proof of her deep mercy and charity. Her aim is the retrievement
of the prodigal, his penitence and return to the fold. She aims not at
punishment, but forgiveness. For the penitent all is well, only for
the obdurate and those who have relapsed after reconciliation is there
punishment. It is meet that these should suffer, for in her kindness to
the individual the Church must not jeopardize the welfare of the whole
community. Heresy is the most terrible of all offences. To corrupt the
faith is a far worse crime than to corrupt the coinage.[331] The latter
is an aid to our temporal existence, the former an absolute necessity
for the eternal life of the soul. If then the coiner be deemed worthy
of death, how much more the heretic! The argument of analogy is
fortified by the text of Scripture. The methods of the Inquisition are
found to be justified by Christ’s words: ‘If a man abide not in me, he
is cast forth as a branch, and is withered, and they shall gather them
and cast them into the fire and they are burned.’ Thus the sayings of
the Founder of Christianity were made to sanction a system of cruelty
utterly abhorrent to the whole tenor of His teaching.[332]