CHAPTER X CRITICISM OF THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF THE INQUISITION.

Development of the Theory on the Coercive Power of the Church

Intolerance of the People Intolerance of Sovereigns The Church and

Intolerance The Theologians and Intolerance Appeal to the Old

Testament England and the Suppression of Heresy The Calvinists and

the Suppression of Heresy Cruelty of the Criminal Code in the Middle

Ages The Spirit of the Age Explains the Cruelty of the Inquisition

Defects in the Procedure Abuses of Antecedent Imprisonment and

Torture Heretics who were also Criminals Heresy Punished as Such

Should the Death Penalty Be Inflicted upon Heretics? The

Responsibility of the Church Abuses of the Penalties of Confiscation

and Exile The Penitential Character of Imprisonment The Syllabus and

the Coercive Power of the Church

THE INQUISITION

CHAPTER 1

FIRST PERIOD

I-IV CENTURY

THE EPOCH OF THE PERSECUTIONS

ST. PAUL was the first to pronounce 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 . Tit. 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 passage 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 passages

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 assuredly 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: "God 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 circumcision of the flesh was yet in force;

but now that circumcision has begun to be of the spirit among God'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 Ecclesiæ_, 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 _Divinæ Institutiones_ 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.

[2] _Divin. Institut_., lib. v, cap. xx.

An era of official toleration began a few years later, when

Constantine published the Edict of Milan (313), which placed

Christianity and Paganism on practically the same footing. But the

Emperor did not always observe this law of toleration, whereby he

hoped to restore the peace of the Empire. A convert to Christian

views and policy, he thought it his duty to interfere in the

doctrinal and ecclesiastical quarrels of the day; and he claimed the

title and assumed the functions of a Bishop in externals. "You are

Bishops," he said one day, addressing a number of them, "whose

jurisdiction is within the Church; I also am a Bishop, ordained by

God to oversee whatever is external to the church."[1] This

assumption of power frequently worked positive harm to the Church,

although Constantine always pretended to further her interests.

[1] Eusebius, _Vita Constantini_, lib. iv, cap. xxiv.

When Arianism began to make converts of the Christian emperors, they

became very bitter toward the Catholic bishops. We are not at all

astonished, therefore, that one of the victims of this new

persecution, St. Hilary, of Poitiers, expressly repudiated and

condemned this regime of violence. He also proclaimed, in the name of

ecclesiastical tradition, the principle of religious toleration. He

deplored the fact that men in his day believed that they could defend

the rights of God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ by worldly intrigue.

He writes: "I ask you Bishops to tell me, whose favor did the

Apostles seek in preaching the Gospel, and on whose power did they

rely to preach Jesus Christ? To-day, alas! while the power of the

State enforces divine faith, men say that Christ is powerless. The

Church threatens exile and imprisonment; she in whom men formerly

believed while in exile and prison, now wishes to make men believe

her by force.... She is now exiling the very priests who once spread

her gospel. What a striking contrast between the Church of the past

and the Church of to-day."[1]

[1] _Liber contra Auxentium_, cap. iv.

This protest is the outcry of a man who had suffered from the

intolerance of the civil power, and who had learned by experience how

even a Christian State may hamper the liberty of the Church, and

hinder the true progress of the Gospel.

To sum up: As late as the middle of the fourth century and even

later, all the Fathers and ecclesiastical writers who discuss the

question of toleration are opposed to the use of force. To a man they

reject absolutely the death penalty, and enunciate that principle

which was to prevail in the Church down the centuries, i.e.,

_Ecclesia abhorret a sanguine_[1] (the Church has a horror of

bloodshed); and they declare faith must be absolutely free, and

conscience a domain wherein violence must never enter.[2]

[1] _Canons of Hippolytus_, in the third or fourth century, no.

74-75; Duchesne, _Les origines du culte chrétien_, 2e ed., p. 309;

Lactantius, _Divin. Institut_., lib. vi, cap. xx.

[2] Lactantius, _Divin. Institut_., lib. v, cap. xx.

The stern laws of the Old Testament have been abolished by the New.

CHAPTER II

SECOND PERIOD

FROM VALENTINIAN I To THEODOSIUS II

THE CHURCH AND THE CRIMINAL CODE OF THE CHRISTIAN EMPERORS AGAINST

HERESY

CONSTANTINE considered himself a bishop in externals. His Christian

successors inherited this title, and acted in accordance with it. One

of them, Theodosius II, voiced their mind when he said that "the

first duty of the imperial majesty was to protect the true religion,

whose worship was intimately connected with the prosperity of human

undertakings."[1]

[1] Theodosii II, _Novellæ_, tit. iii. (438).

This concept of the State implied the vigorous prosecution of heresy.

We therefore see the Christian emperors severely punishing all those

who denied the orthodox faith, or rather their own faith, which they

considered, rightly or wrongly, the faith of the Church. From the

reign of Valentinian I, and especially from the reign of Theodosius

I, the laws against heretics continued to increase with surprising

regularity. As many as sixty-eight were enacted in fifty-seven years.

They punished every form of heresy, whether it merely differed from

the orthodox faith in some minor detail, or whether it resulted in a

social upheaval. The penalties differed in severity; i.e., exile,

confiscation, the inability to transmit property. There were

different degrees of exile; from Rome, from the cities, from the

Empire. The legislators seemed to think that some sects would die out

completely, if they were limited solely to country places. But the

severer penalties, like the death penalty, were reserved for those

heretics who were disturbers of the public peace, e.g., the

Manicheans and the Donatists. The Manicheans, with their dualistic

theories, and their condemnation of marriage and its consequences,

were regarded as enemies of the State; a law of 428 treated them as

criminals "who had reached the highest degree of rascality."

The Donatists, who in Africa had incited the mob of Circumcelliones

to destroy the Catholic churches, had thrown that part of the Empire

into the utmost disorder. The State could not regard with

indifference such an armed revolution. Several laws were passed,

putting the Donatists on a par with the Manicheans, and in one

instance both were declared guilty of the terrible crime of treason.

But the death penalty was chiefly confined to certain sects of the

Manichcans. This law did not affect private opinions (except in the

case of the Encratites, the Saccophori, and the Hydroparastatæ), but

only those who openly practiced this heretical cult. The State did

not claim the right of entering the secret recesses of a man's

conscience. This law is all the more worthy of remark, inasmuch as

Diocletian had legislated more severely against the Manicheans in his

Edict of 287: "We thus decree," he writes Julianus, "against those

men, whose doctrines and whose magical arts you have made known to

us: the leaders are to be burned with their books, their followers

are to be put to death, or sent to the mines." In comparison with

such a decree, the legislation of the Christian Emperors was rather

moderate.

It is somewhat difficult to ascertain how far these laws were

enforced by the various Emperors. Besides, we are only concerned with

the spirit which inspired them. The State considered itself the

protector of the Church, and in this capacity placed its sword at the

service of the orthodox faith. It is our purpose to find out what the

churchman of the day thought of this attitude of the State.

The religious troubles caused chiefly by three heresies, Manicheism,

Donatism, and Priscillianism, gave them ample opportunity of

expressing their opinions.

. . . . . . . .

The Manicheans, driven from Rome and Milan, took refuge in Africa. It

must be admitted that many of them by their depravity merited the

full severity of the law. The initiated, or the elect, as they were

called, gave themselves up to unspeakable crimes. A number of them on

being arrested at Carthage confessed immoral practices that would not

bear repetition, and this debauchery was not peculiar to a few wicked

followers, but was merely the carrying out of the Manichean ritual,

which other heretics likewise admitted.[1]

[1] Augustine, _De hæresibus_, Hæres, 46.

The Church in Africa was not at all severe in its general treatment

of the sect. St. Augustine, especially, never called upon the civil

power to suppress it. For he could not forget that he himself had for

nine years (373-382), belonged to this sect, whose doctrines and

practices he now denounced. He writes the Manicheans: "Let those who

have never known the troubles of a mind in search of the truth

proceed against you with vigor. It is impossible for me to do so,

because for years I was cruelly tossed about by your false doctrines,

which I advocated and defended to the best of my ability. I ought to

bear with you now, as men bore with me when I blindly accepted your

doctrines."[1] All he did was to hold public conferences with their

leaders, whose arguments he had no difficulty in refuting.[2]

[1] _Contra epistolam Manichæi quam vocant Fundamenti_, n. 2, 3.

[2] Cf. Dom Leclerc, _L'Afrique Chrétienne_, Paris, 1904, vol. ii,

pp. 113-122.

The conversions obtained in this way were rather numerous, even if

all were not equally sincere. All converts from the sect were

required, like their successors, the Cathari of the Middle Ages, to

denounce their brethren by name, under the threat of being refused

the pardon which their formal retraction merited. This denunciation

was what we would call to-day "a service for the public good." We,

however, know of no case in which the Church made use of this

information to punish the one who had been denounced.

. . . . . . . .

Donatism (from Donatus, the Bishop of Casæ Nigræ in Numidia) for a

time caused more trouble to the Church than Manicheism. It was more

of a schism than a heresy. The election to the see of Carthage of the

deacon Caecilian, who was accused of having handed over the

Scriptures to the Roman officials during the persecution of

Diocletian, was the occasion of the schism. Donatus and his followers

wished this nomination annulled, while their opponents defended its

validity. Accordingly, two councils were held to decide the question,

one at Rome (313), the other at Arles (314). Both decided against the

Donatists; they at once appealed to the Emperor, who confirmed the

decrees of the two councils (316). The schismatics in their anger

rose in rebellion, and a number of them known as Circumcelliones went

about stirring the people to revolt. But neither Constantine nor his

successors were inclined to allow armed rebellion to go unchallenged.

The Donatists were punished to the full extent of the law. They had

been the first, remarks St. Augustine, to invoke the aid of the

secular arm. "They met with the same fate as the accusers of Daniel;

the lions turned against them."[1]

[1] _Ep._ clxxxv, n. 7.

We need not linger over the details of this conflict, in which crimes

were committed on both sides. The Donatists, bitterly prosecuted by

the State, declared its action cruel and unjust. St. Optatus thus

answers them: "Will you tell me that it is not lawful to defend the

rights of God by the death penalty? ... If killing is an evil, the

guilty ones are themselves the cause of it."[1] "It is impossible,"

you say, "for the State to inflict the death penalty in the name of

God,"--But was it not in God's name that Moses,[2] Phinees,[3] and

Elias[4] put to death the worshippers of the golden calf, and the

apostates of the Old Law?--"These times are altogether different,"

you reply; "the New Law must not be confounded with the Old. Did not

Christ forbid St. Peter to use the sword?"[5] Yes, undoubtedly, but

Christ came to suffer, not to defend Himself.[6] The lot of

Christians is different from that of Christ.

[1] _De Schismate Donatistarum_, lib. iii. cap. vi.

[2] Exod. xxxii. 28.

[3] Numb. xxv. 7-9.

[4] 3 Kings xviii. 40.

[5] John xviii. 11.

[6] _De Schismate Don_., cap. vii.

It is in virtue, therefore, of the Old Law that St. Optatus defends

the State's interference in religious questions, and its infliction

of the death penalty upon heretics. This is evidently a different

teaching from the doctrine of toleration held by the Fathers of the

preceding age. But the other bishops of Africa did not share his

views.

In his dealings with the Donatists, St. Augustine was at first

absolutely tolerant, as he had been with the Manicheans. He thought

he could rely upon their good faith, and conquer their prejudices by

an honest discussion. "We have no intention," he writes to a Donatist

bishop, "of forcing men to enter our communion against their will. I

am desirous that the State cease its bitter persecution, but you in

turn ought to cease terrorizing us by your band of Circumcelliones. .

. . Let us discuss our differences from the standpoint of reason and

the sacred Scriptures."[1]

[1] Ep. xxiii, n. 7.

In one of his works, now lost, _Contra partem Donati_, he maintains

that it is wrong for the State to force schismatics to come back to

the Church.[1] At the most, he was ready to admit the justice of the

law of Theodosius, which imposed a fine of ten gold pieces upon those

schismatics who had committed open acts of violence. But no man was

to be punished by the state for private heretical opinions.[2]

[1] Retract. lib. II, cap. v.

[2] Ep. clxxxv, n. 25.

The imperial laws were carried out in some cities of North Africa,

because many of St. Augustine's colleagues did not share his views.

Many Donatists were brought back to the fold by these vigorous

measures. St. Augustine, seeing that in some cases the use of force

proved more beneficial than his policy of absolute toleration,

changed his views, and formulated his theory of moderate persecution:

_temperata severitas_.[1]

[1] Ep. xciii, n. 10.

Heretics and schismatics, he maintained, were to be regarded as sheep

who had gone astray. It is the shepherd's duty to run after them, and

bring them back to the fold by using, if occasion require it, the

whip and the goad.[1] There is no need of using cruel tortures like

the rack, the iron pincers, or sending them to the stake; flogging is

sufficient. Besides his mode of punishment is not at all cruel, for

it is used by schoolmasters, parents, and even by bishops while

presiding as judges in their tribunals.[2]

[1] Ep. clxxxv, n. 23.

[2] Ep. cxxxxiii, n. 2.

In his opinion, the severest penalty that ought to be inflicted upon

the Donatists is exile for their bishops and priests, and fines for

their followers. He strongly denounced the death penalty as contrary

to Christian charity.[1]

[1] Ep. clxxxv, n. 26; Ep. xciii, n. 10.

Both the imperial officers and the Donatists themselves objected to

this theory.

The officers of the Emperor wished to apply the law in all its rigor,

and to sentence the schismatics to death, when they deemed it proper.

St. Augustine adjures them, in the name of "Christian and Catholic

meekness,"[1] not to go to this extreme, no matter how great the

crimes of the Donatists had been. "You have penalties enough," he

writes, "exile, for instance, without torturing their bodies or

putting them to death."[2]

[1] Ep. clxxxv, n. 26; Ep. cxxxix, n. 2.

[2] Ep. cxxxiii, n. 1.

And when the proconsul Apringius quoted St. Paul to justify the use

of the sword, St. Augustine replied: "The apostle has well said, 'for

he beareth not the sword in vain.'[1] But we must carefully

distinguish between temporal and spiritual affairs."[2] "Because it

is just to inflict the death penalty for crimes against the common

law, it does not follow that it is right to put heretics and

schismatics to death." "Punish the guilty ones, but do not put them

to death." "For," he writes another proconsul, "if you decide upon

putting them to death, you will thereby prevent our denouncing them

before your tribunal. They will then rise up against us with greater

boldness. And if you tell us that we must either denounce them or

risk death at their hands, we will not hesitate a moment, but will

choose death ourselves."[3]

[1] Rom. xiii. 4.

[2] Ep. cxxxiv, n. 3.

[3] Ep. c, n. 2; cf. Ep. cxxxix, n. 2.

Despite these impassioned appeals for mercy, some Donatists were put

to death. This prompted the schismatics everywhere to deny that the

State had any right to inflict the death penalty or any other penalty

upon them.[1]

[1] _Contra Epistolam Parmeniani_, lib. i. cap. xvi.

St. Augustine at once undertook to defend the rights of the State. He

declared that the death penalty, which on principle he disapproved,

might in some instances be lawfully inflicted. Did not the crimes of

some of these rebellious schismatics merit the most extreme penalty

of the law? "They kill the souls of men, and the State merely

tortures their bodies; they cause eternal death, and then complain

when the State makes them suffer temporal death."[1]

[1] _In Joann. Tractat_. xi, cap. xv.

But this is only an argument _ad hominem_. St. Augustine means to say

that, even if the Donatists were put to death, they had no reason to

complain. He does not admit, in fact, that they had been cruelly

treated. The victims they allege are false martyrs or suicides.[1] He

denounces those Catholics who, outside of cases of self-defense, had

murdered their opponents.[2]

[1] Ibid.

[2] Ep. lxxxvii, n. 8.

The State also has the perfect right to impose the lesser penalties

of flogging, fines, and exile. "For he (the prince) beareth not the

sword in vain," says the Apostle. "For he is God's minister; an

avenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil."[1] It is not true

to claim that St. Paul here meant merely the spiritual sword of

excommunication.[2] The context proves clearly that he was speaking

of the material sword. Schism and heresy are crimes which, like

poisoning, are punishable by the State.[3] Princes must render an

account to God for the way they govern. It is natural that they

should desire the peace of the Church, their mother, who gave them

spiritual life.[4]

[1] Rom. xiii. 4; Augustine, _Contra litteras Petiliani_, lib. ii,

cap. lxxxiii-lxxxiv; _Contra Epist. Parmeniani_, lib. i, cap. xvi.

[2] _Contra Epist. Parmeniani_, ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] _In Joann. Tractatus_ xi, cap. xiv.

The State, therefore, has the right to suppress heresy, because the

public tranquillity is disturbed by religious dissensions.[1] Her

intervention also works for the good of individuals. For, on the one

hand, there are some sincere but timid souls who are prevented by

their environment from abandoning their schism; they are encouraged

to return to the fold by the civil power, which frees them from a

most humiliating bondage.[2]

[1] Ep. lxxxii, n. 8.

[2] Ep. clxxxv, n. 13.

On the other hand, there are many schismatics in good faith who would

never attain the truth unless they were forced to enter into

themselves and examine their false position. The civil power

admonishes such souls to abandon their errors; it does not punish

them for any crime.[1] The Church's rebellious children are not

forced to believe, but are induced by a salutary fear to listen to

the true doctrine.[2]

[1] Ep. xciii, n. 10.

[2] _Contra litteras Petiliani_, lib. ii. cap. lxxxiii; Ep. clxxxv,

n. 21; Ep. xciii, n. 4.

Conversions obtained in this way are none the less sincere.

Undoubtedly, absolute toleration is best in theory, but in practice a

certain amount of coercion is more helpful to souls. We must judge

both methods by their fruits.

In a word, St. Augustine was at first, by temperament, an advocate of

absolute toleration, but later on experience led him to prefer a

mitigated form of coercion. When his opponents objected--using words

similar to those of St. Hilary and the early Fathers--that "the true

Church suffered persecution, but did not persecute," he quoted Sara's

persecution of Agar.[1] He was wrong to quote the Old Testament as

his authority. But we ought at least be thankful that he did not cite

other instances more incompatible with the charity of the Gospel. His

instinctive Christian horror of the death penalty kept him from

making this mistake.

[1] Ep. clxxxv, n. 10.

. . . . . . . .

Priscillianism brought out clearly the views current in the fourth

century regarding the punishment due to heresy. Very little was known

of Priscillian until lately; and despite the publication of several

of his works in 1889, he still remains an enigmatical personality.[1]

His erudition and critical spirit were, however, so remarkable, that

an historian of weight declares that henceforth we must rank him with

St. Jerome.[2] But his writings were, in all probability, far from

orthodox. We can easily find in them traces of Gnosticism and

Manicheism. He was accused of Manicheism although he anathematized

Manes. He was likewise accused of magic. He denied the charge, and

declared that every magician deserved death, according to Exodus:

"Wizards thou shalt not suffer to live."[3] He little dreamt when he

wrote these words that he was pronouncing his own death sentence.

[1] On Priscillian and his work, cf. Dom Leclerc, _L'Espagne

Chrétienne_, Paris, 1906, ch. iii; Friedrich Paret, _Priscillianus_,

Würzburg, 1891; Kuenstle, _Antipriscilliana_, Freiburg, 1905.

[2] Cf. Leclerc, p. 164.

[3] Exod. xxii. 18.

Although condemned by the council of Saragossa (380), he nevertheless

became bishop of Abila. Later on, he went to Rome to plead his cause

before Pope Damasus, but was refused a hearing. He next turned to St.

Ambrose, who likewise would not hearken to his defense.[1] In 385 a

council was assembled at Bordeaux to consider his case anew. He at

once appealed to the Emperor, "so as not to be judged by the

bishops," as Sulpicius Severus tells us, a fatal mistake which cost

him his life.

[1] Cf. Sulp. Sev. _Chronicon_, ii. P.L., vol. xx, col. 155-159;

_Dialogi_, iii. 11-23, ibid., col. 217-219.

He was then conducted to the Emperor at Treves, where he was tried

before a secular court, bishops Idacius and Ithacius appearing as his

accusers. St. Martin, who was in Treves at the time, was scandalized

that a purely ecclesiastical matter should be tried before a secular

judge. His biographer, Sulpicius Severus, tells us "that he kept

urging Ithacius to withdraw his accusation." He also entreated

Maximus not to shed the blood of these unfortunates, for the bishops

could meet the difficulty by driving the heretics from the churches.

He asserted that to make the State judge in a matter of doctrine was

a cruel, unheard-of violation of the divine law.

As long as St. Martin remained in Treves, the trial was put off, and

before he left the city, he made Maximus promise not to shed the

blood of Priscillian and his companions. But soon after St. Martin's

departure, the Emperor, instigated by the relentless bishops Rufus

and Magnus, forgot his promise of mercy, and entrusted the case to

the prefect Evodius, a cruel and hard-hearted official. Priscillian

appeared before him twice, _and was convicted of the crime of magic_.

He was made to confess under torture that he had given himself up to

magical arts, and that he had prayed naked before women in midnight

assemblies. Evodius declared him guilty, and placed him under guard

until the evidence had been presented to the Emperor. After reading

the records of the trial, Maximus declared that Priscillian and his

companions deserved death. Ithacius, perceiving how unpopular he

would make himself with his fellow-bishops, if he continued to play

the part of prosecutor in a capital case, withdrew. A new trial was

therefore ordered. This subterfuge of the Bishop did not change

matters at all, because by this time the case had been practically

settled. Patricius, the imperial treasurer, presided at the second

trial. On his findings, Priscillian and some of his followers were

condemned to death. Others of the sect were exiled.

This deplorable trial is often brought forward as an argument against

the Church. It is important, therefore, for us to ascertain its

precise character, and to discover who was to blame for it.

The real cause of Priscillian's condemnation was the accusation of

heresy made by a Catholic bishop. Technically, he was tried in the

secular courts for the crime of magic, but the State could not

condemn him to death on any other charge, once Ithacius had ceased to

appear against him.

It is right, therefore, to attribute Priscillian's death to the

action of an individual bishop, but it is altogether unjust to hold

the Church responsible.[1]

[1] Bernays, _Ueber die Chronik des Sulp. Sev_., Berlin, 1861, p. 13,

was the first to point out that Priscillian was condemned not for

heresy, but for the crime of magic. This is the commonly received

view to-day.

In this way contemporary writers viewed the matter. The Christians of

the fourth century were all but unanimous, says an historian,[1] in

denouncing the penalty inflicted in this famous trial. Sulpicius

Severus, despite his horror of the Priscillianists, repeats over and

over again that their condemnation was a deplorable example; he even

stigmatizes it as a crime. St. Ambrose speaks just as strongly.[2] We

know how vehemently St. Martin disapproved of the attitude of

Ithacius and the Emperor Maximus; he refused for a long time to hold

communion with the bishops who had in any way taken part in the

condemnation of Priscillian.[3] Even in Spain, where public opinion

was so divided, Ithacius was everywhere denounced. At first some

defended him on the plea of the public good, and on account of the

high authority of those who judged the case. But after a time he

became so generally hated that, despite his excuse that he merely

followed the advice of others, he was driven from his bishopric.[4]

This outburst of popular indignation proves conclusively that, if the

Church did call upon the aid of the secular arm in religious

questions, she did not authorize it to use the sword against

heretics.

[1] Puéch, _Journal des Savants_, May 1891, p. 250.

[2] Cf. Gams, _Kirchengeschichte von Spanien_, vol. ii. p. 382.

[3] Sulpicius Severus, _Dialogi_ iii, 11-13.

[4] Sulp. Sev., _Chronicon_, loc. cit.

The blood of Priscillian was the seed of Priscillianism. But his

disciples certainly went further than their master; they became

thoroughgoing Manicheans. This explains St. Jerome's[1] and St.

Augustine's[2] strong denunciations of the Spanish heresy. The gross

errors of the Priscillianists in the fifth century attracted in 447

the attention of Pope St. Leo. He reproaches them for breaking the

bonds of marriage, rejecting all idea of chastity, and contravening

all rights, human and divine. He evidently held Priscillian

responsible for all these teachings. That is why he rejoices in the

fact that "the secular princes, horrified at this sacrilegious folly,

executed the author of these errors with several of his followers."

He even declares that this action of the State is helpful to the

Church. He writes: "the Church, in the spirit of Christ, ought to

denounce heretics, but should never put them to death; still the

severe laws of Christian princes redound to her good, for some

heretics, through fear of punishment, are won back to the true

faith."[3] St. Leo in this passage is rather severe. "While he does

not yet require the death penalty for heresy, he accepts it in the

name of the public good. It is greatly to be feared that the

churchmen of the future will go a great deal further."

[1] _De Viris illustribus_, 121-123.

[2] _De hæresibus_, cap. 70.

[3] Ep. xv, _ad Turribium_, P.L., vol. liv, col. 679-680.

The Church is endeavoring to state her position accurately on the

suppression of heresy. She declares that nothing will justify her

shedding of human blood. This is evident from the conduct and

writings of St. Augustine, St. Martin, St. Ambrose, St. Leo

(_cruentas refugit ultiones_), and Ithacius himself. But to what

extent should she accept the aid of the civil power, when it

undertakes to defend her teachings by force?

Some writers, like St. Optatus of Mileve, and Priscillian, later on

the victim of his own teaching, believed that the Christian State

ought to use the sword against heretics guilty of crimes against the

public welfare; and, strangely enough, they quote the Old Testament

as their authority. Without giving his approval to this theory, St.

Leo the Great did not condemn the practical application of it in the

case of the Priscillianists. The Church, according to him, while

assuming no responsibility for them, reaped the benefit of the

rigorous measures taken by the State.

But most of the Bishops absolutely condemned the infliction of the

death penalty for heresy, even if the heresy was incidentally the

cause of social disturbances. Such was the view of St. Augustine,[1]

St. Martin, St. Ambrose, many Spanish bishops, and a bishop of Gaul

named Theognitus;[2] in a word, of all who disapproved of the

condemnation of Priscillian. As a rule, they protested in the name of

Christian charity; they voiced the new spirit of the Gospel of

Christ. At the other extremity of the Catholic world, St. John

Chrysostom re-echoes their teaching. "To put a heretic to death," he

says, "is an unpardonable crime."[3]

[1] Ep. c., n. 1.

[2] Cf. Sulpicius Severus, _Dialogi_, iii, 12, loc. cit., col. 218.

[3] _Homilia_ xlvi, in Matthæum, cap. 1.

But in view of the advantage to the Church, either from the

maintenance of the public peace, or from the conversion of

individuals, the State may employ a certain amount of force against

heretics.

"God forbids us to put them to death," continues St. Chrysostom,

"just as he forbade the servants to gather up the cockle,"[1] because

he regards their conversion as possible; but he does not forbid us

doing all in our power to prevent their public meetings, and their

preaching of false doctrine. St. Augustine adds that they may be

punished by fine and exile. To this extent the churchmen of the day

accepted the aid of the secular arm. Nor were they content with

merely accepting it. They declared that the State had not only the

right to help the Church in suppressing heresy, but that she was in

duty bound to do so. In the seventh century, St. Isidore of Seville

discusses this question in practically this same terms as St.

Augustine.[2]

[1] Ibid., cap. ii.

[2] We think it important to give Lea's resume of this period. It

will show how a writer, although trying to be impartial, may distort

the facts: "It was only sixty-two years after the slaughter of

Priscillian and his followers had excited so much horror, that Leo I,

when the heresy seemed to be reviving, in 447, not only justified the

act, but declared that _if the followers of heresy so damnable were

allowed to live_, there would be an end to human and divine law. The

final step had been taken, and _the Church was definitely pledged to

the suppression of heresy at whatever cost_. It is impossible not to

attribute to ecclesiastical influence the successive Edicts by which,

from the time of Theodosius the Great, persistence in heresy was

punished by death. A powerful impulse to this development is to be

found in the responsibility which grew upon the Church from its

connection with the State. When it could influence the monarch and

procure from him Edicts condemning heretics to exile, to the mines,

_and even to death_, it felt that God had put into its hands powers

to be exercised and not to be neglected" (vol. i, p. 215). If we read

carefully the words of St. Leo (p. 27, note 1), we shall see that the

Emperors are responsible for the words that Lea ascribes to the Pope.

It is hard to understand how he can assert that the imperial Edicts

decreeing the death penalty are due to ecclesiastical influence, when

we notice that nearly all the churchmen of the day protested against

such a penalty.

CHAPTER III

THIRD PERIOD

FROM 1100 TO 1250

THE REVIVAL OF THE MANICHEAN HERESIES IN THE MIDDLE AGES

FROM the sixth to the eleventh century, heretics, with the exception

of certain Manichean sects, were hardly ever persecuted.[1] In the

sixth century, for instance, the Arians lived side by side with the

Catholics, under the protection of the State, in a great many Italian

cities, especially in Ravenna and Pavia.[2]

[1] In 556, Manicheans were put to death in Ravenna, in accordance

with the laws of Justinian.

[2] We may still visit at Ravenna the Arian and Catholic baptisteries

of the sixth century. Cf. Gregorii Magni _Dialogi_, iii, cap. xxii,

_Mon. Germ_., ibid., pp. 534-535.

During the Carlovingian period, we come across a few heretics, but

they gave little trouble.

The _Adoptianism_ of Elipandus, Archbishop of Toledo, and Felix,

Bishop of Urgel, was abandoned by its authors, after it had been

condemned by Pope Adrian I, and several provincial councils.[1]

[1] Einhard: _Annales_, ann. 792, in the _Mon. Germ. SS_., vol. 1, p.

179.

A more important heresy arose in the ninth century. Godescalcus, a

monk of Orbais, in the diocese of Soissons, taught that Jesus Christ

did not die for all men. His errors on predestination were condemned

as heretical by the Council of Mainz (848); and Quierzy (849); and he

himself was sentenced to be flogged and then imprisoned for life in

the monastery of Hautvilliers.[1] But this punishment of flogging was

a purely ecclesiastical penalty. Archbishop Hincmar, in ordering it,

declared that he was acting in accordance with the rule of St.

Benedict, and a canon of the Council of Agde.

[1] "In nostra parochia ... monasteriali costudiæ mancipatus est."

Hincmar's letter to Pope Nicholas I, _Hincmari Opera_, ed. Sirmond,

Paris, 1645, vol. ii, p. 262.

The imprisonment to which Godescalcus was subjected was likewise a

monastic punishment. Practically, it did not imply much more than the

confinement strictly required by the rules of his convent. It is

interesting to note that imprisonment for crime is of purely

ecclesiastical origin. The Roman law knew nothing of it. It was at

first a penalty peculiar to monks and clerics, although later on

laymen also were subjected to it.

About the year 1000, the Manicheans, under various names, came from

Bulgaria, and spread over western Europe.[1] We meet them about this

time in Italy, Spain, France, and Germany. Public sentiment soon

became bitter against them, and they became the victims of a general,

though intermittent, persecution. Orléans, Arras, Cambrai, Châlons,

Goslai, Liège, Soissons, Ravenna, Monteforte, Asti, and Toulouse

became the field of their propaganda, and often the place of their

execution. Several heretics like Peter of Bruys, Henry of Lausanne,

Arnold of Brescia, and Éon de l'Étoile (Eudo de Stella), likewise

troubled the Church, who to stop their bold propaganda used force

herself, or permitted the State or the people to use it.

[1] Cf. C. Schmidt, _Histoire et doctrine de la secte des Cathares_,

vol. 1, pp. 16-54, 82.

It was at Orleans in 1022 that Catholics for the first time during

this period treated heretics with cruelty. An historian of the time

assures us that this cruelty was due to both king and people: _regis

jussu et universæ plebis consensu_.[1] King Robert, dreading the

disastrous effects of heresy upon his kingdom, and the consequent

loss of souls, sent thirteen of the principal clerics and laymen of

the town to the stake. It has been pointed out that this penalty was

something unheard-of at the time. "Robert was therefore the

originator of the punishment which he decreed."[2] It might be said,

however, that this penalty originated with the people, and that the

king merely followed out the popular will.

[1] Raoul Gleber, _Hist_., lib. iii, cap. viii, _Hist. des Gaules_,

vol. x, p. 38. For other authorities consult Julien Havet, _L'hérésie

et le bras séculier au moyen âge_, in his _OEuvres_, Paris, 1896,

vol. ii, pp. 128-130.

[2] Julien Havet, op. cit., pp. 128, 129.

For, as an old chronicler tells us, this execution at Orleans, was

not an isolated fact; in other places the populace hunted out

heretics, and burned them outside the city walls.[1]

[1] _Cartulaire de l'abbaye de Saint-Père de Chartres_, ed. Guérard,

vol. i, p. 108 and seq.; cf. _Hist. des Gaules_, vol. x, p. 539.

Several years later, the heretics who swarmed into the diocese of

Châlons attracted the attention of the Bishop of the city, who was

puzzled how to deal with them. He consulted Wazo, the Bishop of

Liège, who tells us that the French were "infuriated" against

heretics. These words would seem to prove that the heretics of the

day were prosecuted more vigorously than the documents we possess go

to show. It is probable that the Bishop of Châlons detested the

"fury" of the persecutors. We will see later on the answer that Wazo

sent him.

During the Christmas holidays of 1051 and 1052, a number of

Manicheans or Cathari, as they were called, were executed at Goslar,

after they had refused to renounce their errors. Instead of being

burned, as in France, "they were hanged."

These heretics were executed by the orders of Henry III, and in his

presence. But the chronicler of the event remarks that every one

applauded the Emperor's action, because he had prevented the spread

of the leprosy of heresy, and thus saved many souls.[1]

[1] Heriman, Aug. _Chronicon_, ann. 1052, _Mon. Germ, SS_., vol. v.

p. 130. Cf. Lamberti, _Annales_, 1053, ibid., p. 155.

Twenty-five years later, in 1076 or 1077, a Catharan of the district

of Cambrai appeared before the Bishop of Cambrai and his clerics, and

was condemned as a heretic. The Bishop's officers and the crowd at

once seized him, led him outside the city's gates, and while he knelt

and calmly prayed, they burned him at the stake.[1]

[1] Chronicon S. Andreæ Camerac, iii, 3, in the _Mon. Germ. SS_.,

vol. vii, p. 540. We have a letter of Gregory VII in which he

denounces the irregular character of this execution. Ibid., p. 540,

n. 31.

A little while before this the Archbishop of Ravenna accused a man

named Vilgard of heresy, but what the result of the trial was, we

cannot discover. But we do know that during this period other persons

were prosecuted for heresy, and that they were beheaded or sent to

the stake.

At Monteforte near Asti, the Cathari had, about 1034, an important

settlement. The Marquis Mainfroi, his brother, the Bishop of Asti,

and several noblemen of the city, united to attack the castrum; they

captured a number of heretics, and on their refusing to return to the

orthodox faith, they sent them to the stake.

Other followers of the sect were arrested by the officers of

Eriberto, the Archbishop of Milan, who endeavored to win them back to

the Catholic faith. Instead of being converted, they tried to spread

their heresy throughout the city. The civil magistrates, realizing

their corrupting influence, had a stake erected in the public square

with a cross in front of it; and in spite of the Archbishop's

protest, they required the heretics either to reverence the cross

they had blasphemed, or to enter the flaming pile. Some were

converted, but the majority of them, covering their faces with their

hands, threw themselves into the flames, and were soon burned to

ashes.

Few details have come down to us concerning the fate of the

Manicheans arrested at this time in Sardinia and in Spain;

_exterminati sunt_, says a chronicler.[1]

[1] "Exterminati sunt," says Raoul Glaber, _Hist_., lib. ii, cap.

xii, _Hist. des Gaules_, vol. x, p. 23. _Exterminati_ may mean

banished as well as put to death. The context, however, seems to

refer to the death penalty.

The Cathari of Toulouse were also arrested, and executed. A few years

later, in 1114, the Bishop of Soissons arrested a number of heretics

and cast them into prison until he could make up his mind how to deal

with them. While he was absent at Beauvais, asking the advice of his

fellow-bishops assembled there in council, the populace, fearing the

weakness of the clergy, attacked the prison, dragged forth the

heretics, and burned them at the stake. Guibert de Nogent does not

blame them in the least. He simply calls attention to "the just zeal"

shown on this occasion by "the people of God," to stop the spread of

heresy.

In 1144 the Bishop of Liège, Adalbero II, compelled a number of

Cathari to confess their heresy; "he hoped," he said, "with the grace

of God, to lead them to repent." But the populace, less

kindly-hearted, rushed upon them, and proceeded to burn them at the

stake; the Bishop had the greatest difficulty to save the majority of

them. He then wrote to Pope Lucius II asking him what was the proper

penalty for heresy.[1] We do not know what answer he received.

[1] Letter of the church of Liège to Pope Lucius II, in Martène,

_Amplissima collectio_, vol. i, col. 776-777.

About the same time a similar dispute arose between the Archbishop

and the people of Cologne regarding two or three heretics who had

been arrested and condemned. The clergy asked them to return to the

Church. But the people, "moved by an excess of zeal," says an

historian of the time, seized them, and despite the Archbishop and

his clerics led them to the stake. "And marvelous to relate,"

continues the chronicler, "they suffered their tortures at the stake,

not only with patience, but with joy."[2]

[1] Letter of Evervin, provost of Steinfeld to St. Bernard, cap. ii,

in _Bernardi Opera_, Migne, P.L., vol. clxxxii, col. 677.

One of the most famous heretics of the twelfth century was Peter of

Bruys. His hostility toward the clergy helped his propaganda in

Gascony. To show his contempt for the Catholic religion, he burned a

great number of crosses one Good Friday, and roasted meat in the

flames. This angered the people against him. He was seized and burned

at St. Giles about the year 1126.[1]

Henry of Lausanne was his most illustrious disciple. We have told the

story of his life elsewhere.[1] St. Bernard opposed him vigorously,

and succeeded in driving him from the chief cities of Toulouse and

the Albigeois, where he carried on his harmful propaganda. He was

arrested a short time afterwards (1145 or 1146), and sentenced to

life imprisonment, either in one of the prisons of the Archbishop, or

in some monastery of Toulouse.

[1] _Vie de Saint Bernard_, 1st edit., Paris, 1895, vol. ii, pp.

218-233.

Arnold of Brescia busied himself more with questions of discipline

than with dogma; the only reforms he advocated were social

reforms.[1] He taught that the clergy should not hold temporal

possessions, and he endeavored to drive the papacy frown Rome. In

this conflict, which involved the property of ecclesiastics and the

temporal power of the Church, he was, although successful for a time,

finally vanquished.[2] St. Bernard invoked the aid of the secular arm

to rid France of him. Later on Pope Eugenius III excommunicated him.

He was executed during the pontificate of Adrian IV, in 1155. He was

arrested in the city of Rome after a riot which was quelled by the

Emperor Frederic, now the ally of the Pope, and condemned to be

strangled by the prefect of the city. His body was then burned, and

his ashes thrown into the Tiber, "for fear," says a writer of the

time, "the people would gather them up, and honor them as the ashes

of a martyr."[3]

[1] For details concerning Arnold of Brescia, cf. Vacandard, _Vie de

Saint Bernard_, vol. ii, pp. 235-258, 465-469.

[2] Otto Frising, _Gesta Friderici_, lib. ii. cap. xx. Cf. _Historia

Pontificalis_, in the _Mon. Germ. SS_., vol. xx, p. 538.

[3] Boso, _Vita Hadriani_, in Watterich, _Romanorum pontificum Vitæ_,

vol. ii. pp. 326, 330.

In 1148, the Council of Rheims judged the case of the famous Éon de

l'Etoile (Eudo de Stella). This strange individual had acquired a

reputation for sanctity while living a hermit's life. One day, struck

by the words of the liturgy, _Per Eum qui venturus est judicare vivos

et mortuos_, he conceived the idea that he was the Son of God. He

made some converts among the lowest classes, who, not content with

denying the faith, soon began to pillage the churches. Éon was

arrested for causing these disturbances, and was brought before Pope

Eugenius III, then presiding over the Council of Rheims. He was

judged insane, and in all kindness was placed under the charge of

Suger, the Abbot of St. Denis. He was confined to a monastery, where

he died soon after.

Strangely enough, some of his disciples persisted in believing in

him; "they preferred to die rather than renounce their belief," says

an historian of the time. They were handed over to the secular arm

and perished at the stake. In decreeing this penalty, the civil power

was undoubtedly influenced by the example of Robert the Pious.

It is easy to determine the responsibility of the Church, i.e., her

bishops and priests, in this series of executions (1020 to 1150). At

Orleans, the populace and the king put the heretics to death; the

historians of the time tell us plainly that the clergy merely

declared the orthodox doctrine. It was the same at Goslar. At Asti,

the Bishop's name appears with the names of the other nobles who had

the Cathari executed, but it seems certain that he exercised no

special authority in the case. At Milan, the civil magistrates

themselves, against the Archbishop's protest, gave the heretics the

choice between reverencing the cross, and the stake.

At Soissons, the populace, feeling certain that the clergy would not

resort to extreme measures, profited by the Bishop's absence to burn

the heretics they detested. At Liège, the Bishop managed to save a

few heretics from the violence of the angry mob. At Cologne, the

Archbishop was not so successful; the people rose in their anger and

burned the heretics before they could be tried. Peter of Bruys and

the Manichean at Cambrai were both put to death by the people. Arnold

of Brescia, deserted by fortune, fell a victim to his political

adversaries; the prefect of Rome was responsible for his

execution.[1]

[1] The case of Arnold, however, is not so clear. The _Annales

Augustani minores_ (_Mon. Germ. SS_., vol. x, p. 8) declare that the

Pope hanged the rebel. Another anonymous writer (cf. Tanon, _Hist.

des tribunaux de l'Inq. en France_, p. 456, n. 2) says with more

probability, that Adrian merely degraded him. According to Otto of

Freisingen (_Mon. Germ. SS_., vol. xx, p. 404), Arnold _principis

examini reservatus est, ad ultimum a præfecto Urbis ligno adactus_.

Finally, Geroch de Reichersberg tells us (_De investigatione

Antichristi_, lib. i, cap. xiii, ed. Scheibelberger, 1875, pp. 88-89)

that Arnold was taken from the ecclesiastical prison and put to death

by the servants of the Roman prefect. In any case, politics rather

than religion was the cause of his death.

In a word, in all these executions, the Church either kept aloof, or

plainly manifested her disapproval.

During this period, we know of only one bishop, Théodwin of Liège,

who called upon the secular arm to punish heretics. This is all the

more remarkable because his predecessor, Wazo, and his successor,

Adalbero II, both protested in word and deed against the cruelty of

both sovereign and people.

Wazo, his biographer tells us, strongly condemned the execution of

heretics at Goslar, and, had he been there, would have acted as St.

Martin of Tours in the case of Priscillian.[1] His reply to the

letter of the Bishop of Châlons reveals his inmost thoughts on the

subject. "To use the sword of the civil authority," he says, "against

the Manicheans,[2] is contrary to the spirit of the Church, and the

teaching of her Divine Founder. The Saviour ordered us to let the

cockle grow with the good grain until the harvest time, lest in

uprooting the cockle we uproot also the wheat with it.[3] Moreover,

continues Wazo, those who are cockle to-day may be converted

to-morrow, and be garnered in as wheat at the harvest time.

Therefore, they should be allowed to live. The only penalty we should

use against them is excommunication."[4]

The Bishop of Liège, quoting this parable of Christ which St.

Chrysostom had quoted before him, interprets it in a more liberal

fashion than the Bishop of Constantinople. For he not only condemns

the death penalty, but all recourse to the secular arm.

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

753.

[2] Ibid., col. 752.

[3] Matt. xiii. 29-30.

[4] _Vita Vasonis_, loc. cit., col. 753.

Peter Cantor, one of the best minds of northern France in the twelfth

century, also protested against the infliction of the death penalty

for heresy, "Whether," he says, "the Cathari are proved guilty of

heresy, or whether they freely admit their guilt, they ought not to

be put to death, unless they attack the Church in armed rebellion."

For the Apostle said, "A man that is a heretic, after the first and

second admonition, avoid;" he did not say: "Kill him." "Imprison

heretics if you will, but do not put them to death."[1]

[1] _Verbum abbreviatum_, cap. lxxviii, Migne, P.L., vol. ccv, col.

231.

Geroch of Reichersberg, a famous German of the same period, a

disciple and friend of St. Bernard, speaks in a similar strain of the

execution of Arnold of Brescia. He was most anxious that the Church,

and especially the Roman curia, should not be held responsible for

his death. "The priesthood," he says, "ought to refrain from the

shedding of blood." There is no doubt whatever that this heretic

taught a wicked doctrine, but banishment, imprisonment, or some

similar penalty would leave been ample punishment for his

wrong-doing, without sentencing him to death.

St. Bernard had also asked that Arnold be banished. The execution of

heretics at Cologne gave him a chance to state his views on the

suppression of heresy. The courage with which these fanatics met

death rather disconcerted Evervin, the provost of Steinfeld, who

wrote the Abbot of Clairvaux for an explanation.[1]

[1] Evervin's letter in Migne, P.L., vol. clxxxii, col. 676 and seq.

"Their courage," he replies, "arose from mere stubbornness; the devil

inspired them with this constancy you speak of, just as he prompted

Judas to hang himself. These heretics are not real but counterfeit

martyrs (_perfidiæ martyres_). But while I may approve the zeal of

the people for the faith, I cannot at all approve their excessive

cruelty; for faith is a matter of persuasion, not of force: _fides

suadenda est, non imponenda_."[1]

[1] In Cantica, Sermo lxiv, n. 12.

On principle, the Abbot of Clairvaux blames the bishops and even the

secular princes, who through indifference or less worthy reasons fail

to hunt for the foxes who are ravaging the vineyards of the Savior.

But once the guilty ones have been discovered, he declares that only

kindness should be used to win them back. "Let us capture them by

arguments and not by force,"[1] i.e., let us first refute their

errors, and if possible bring them back into the fold of the Catholic

Church.

[1] Ibid., n. 8.

If they stubbornly refuse to be converted, let the bishop

excommunicate them, to prevent their doing further injury; if

occasion require it, let the civil power arrest them and put them in

prison. Imprisonment is a severe enough penalty, because it prevents

their dangerous propaganda:[1] _aut corrigendi sunt, ne pereant; aut,

ne perimant, coercendi_.[2] St. Bernard was always faithful to his

own teaching, as we learn from his mission in Languedoc.[3]

[1] _De Consideratione_, lib. iii, cap. i, n. 3.

[2] Ibid.; cf. Ep. 241 and 242. For more details, cf. Vacandard, _Vie

de Saint Bernard_, vol. ii, pp. 211-216, 461-462.

[3] Cf. Vacandard, op. cit., vol. ii, pp. 217-234.

Having ascertained the views of individual churchmen, we now turn to

the councils of the period, and find them voicing the self-same

teaching. In 1049, the Council held at Rheims by Pope Leo IX declared

all heretics excommunicated, but said nothing of any temporal

penalty, nor did it empower the secular princes to aid in the

suppression of heresy.[1]

[1] Cf. Labbe, _Concilia_, vol. ix, col. 1042.

The Council of Toulouse in 1119, presided over by Calixtus II, and

the General Council of the Lateran, in 1139, were a little more

severe; they not only issued a solemn bull of excommunication against

heretics, but ordered the civil power to prosecute them: _per

potentates exteras coerceri præcipimus._[1] This order was,

undoubtedly an answer to St. Bernard's request of Louis VII to banish

Arnold from his kingdom. The only penalty referred to by both these

councils was imprisonment.

[1] Council of Toulouse, can. 3, Labbe, vol. x, col. 857; Council of

Lateran, can. 23, ibid., col. 1008.

The Council of Rheims in 1148, presided over by Eugenius III, did not

even speak of this penalty, but simply forbade secular princes to

give support or asylum to heretics.[1] We know, moreover, that at

this council Éon de l'Etoile was merely sentenced to the seclusion of

a monastery.

[1] Can. 18, Labbe, _Concilia_, vol. x, col. 1113.

In fact, the execution of heretics which occurred during the eleventh

and twelfth centuries were due to the impulse of the moment. As an

historian has remarked: "These heretics were not punished for a crime

against the law; for there was no legal crime of heresy and no

penalty prescribed. But the men of the day adopted what they

considered a measure of public safety, to put an end to a public

danger."[1]

[1] Julien Havet, _L'hérésie et le bras seculier au moyen âge_, in

his OEuvres, vol. ii, p. 134.

Far from encouraging the people and the princes in their attitude,

the Church through her bishops, teachers, and councils continued to

declare that she had a horror of bloodshed: _A domo sacerdotis

sanguinis questio remota sit_, writes Geroch of Reichersberg.[1]

Peter Cantor also insists on the same idea. "Even if they are proved

guilty by the judgment of God," he writes, "the Cathari ought not to

be sentenced to death, because this sentence is in a way

ecclesiastical, being made always in the presence of a priest. If

then they are executed, the priest is responsible for their death,

for he by whose authority a thing is done is responsible

therefor."[2]

[1] _De investigatione Antichristi_, lib. i, cap. xlii, 1oc. cit., pp.

88, 89.

[2] _Verbum abbreviatum_, cap. lxxviii, Migne, P.L., vol. ccv, col.

231.

Was excommunication to be the only penalty for heresy? Yes, answered

Wazo, Leo IX, and the Council of Reims in the middle of the eleventh

century. But later on the growth of the evil induced the churchmen of

the time to call upon the aid of the civil power. They thought that

the Church's excommunication required a temporal sanction. They

therefore called upon the princes to banish heretics from their

dominions, and to imprison those who refused to be converted. Such

was the theory of the twelfth century.

We must not forget, however, that the penalty of imprisonment, which

was at first a monastic punishment, had two objects in view: to

prevent heretics from spreading their doctrines, and to give them an

opportunity of atoning for their sins. In the minds of the

ecclesiastical judges, it possessed a penitential, almost a

sacramental character. In a period when all Europe was Catholic, it

could well supplant exile and banishment, which were the severest

civil penalties after the death penalty.

CHAPTER IV

FOURTH PERIOD

FROM GRATIAN TO INNOCENT III

THE INFLUENCE OF THE CANON LAW, AND THE REVIVAL OF THE ROMAN LAW

THE development of the Canon law and the revival of the Roman law

could not but exercise a great influence upon the minds of princes

and churchmen with regard to the suppression of heresy; in fact, they

were the cause of a legislation of persecution, which was adopted by

every country of Christendom.

In the beginning of this period, which we date from Gratian,[1] the

prosecution of heresy was still carried on, in a more or less

irregular and arbitrary fashion, according to the caprice of the

reigning sovereign, or the hasty violence of the populace. But from

this time forward we shall see it carried on in the name of both the

canon and the civil law: _secundum canonicas et legitimas

sanctiones_, as a Council of Avignon puts it.[2]

[1] The Decree of Gratian was written about 1140.

[2] This council was held in 1209, d'Achery, _Spicilegium_, in-fol.,

vol. i, p. 704, col. 1.

In Germany and France, especially in northern France, the usual

punishment was the stake. We need not say much of England, for heresy

seems to have made but one visit there in 1166. In 1160, a German

prince, whose name is unknown, had several Cathari beheaded. Others

were burned at Cologne in 1163. The execution of the heretics

condemned at Vezelai by the Abbot of Vezelai and several bishops,

forms quite a dramatic picture.

When the heretics had been condemned, the Abbot, addressing the

crowd, said "My brethren, what punishment should be inflicted upon

those who refuse to be converted?" All replied: "Burn them." "Burn

them." Their wishes were carried out. Two abjured their heresy, and

were pardoned, the other seven perished at the stake.[1]

[1] _Hugo Pictav., _Historia Vezeliacensis monasterii, lib. iv, ad.

finem, _Hist. des Gaules_, vol. xii, pp. 343-344.

Philip, Count of Flanders, was particularly cruel in prosecuting

heretics.[1] He had an able auxiliary also in the Archbishop of

Rheims, Guillaume aux Blanches-Mains. The chronicle of Anchin tells

us that they sent to the stake a great many nobles and people,

clerics, knights, peasants, young girls, married women, and widows,

whose property they confiscated and shared between them.[2] This

occurred in 1183. Some years before, Archbishop Guillaume and his

council had sent two heretical women to the stake.[3]

[1] Raoul de Coggeshall, in _Rerum Britann. medii ævi Scriptores_,

ed. Stevenson, p. 122.

[2] Sigeberti, _Continuatio Aquicinctina_, ad. ann. 1183, in the

_Mon. Germ. SS_., vol. vi, p. 421.

[3] Raoul de Coggeshall, loc. cit.; _Hist. des Gaules_, vol. xviii,

p. 92.

Hugh, Bishop of Auxerre (1183-1206), prosecuted the neo-Manicheans

with equal severity; he confiscated the property of some, banished

others, and sent several to the stake.

The reign of Philip Augustus was marked by many executions. Eight

Cathari were sent to the stake at Troyes in 1200, one at Nevers in

1201, and several others at Braisne-sur-Vesle in 1204. A most famous

case was the condemnation of the followers of the heretic, Amaury de

Beynes. "Priests, clerics, men and women belonging to the sect, were

brought before a council at Paris; they were condemned and handed

over to the secular court of King Philip." The king was absent at the

time. On his return he had them all burned outside the walls of the

city.

In 1163 a council of Tours enacted a decree fixing the punishment of

heresy. Of course it had in view chiefly the Cathari of Toulouse and

Gascony: "If these wretches are captured," it says, "the Catholic

princes are to imprison them and confiscate their property."[1]

[1] Can. 4, Labbe, _Concilia_, vol. x, col. 1419.

This canon was applied probably for the first time at Toulouse in

1178. The Bishop began proceedings against several heretics, among

them a rich noble named Pierre Mauran, who was summoned before his

tribunal, and condemned to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. His

property was confiscated, although later on when he professed

repentance it was restored to him, on condition that he dismantle the

towers of his castles, and pay the Count of Toulouse a fine of five

hundred pounds of silver.

In this meantime the Cathari increased with alarming rapidity

throughout this region. Count Raymond V (1148-1194), wishing to

strike terror into them, enacted a law which decreed the confiscation

of their property, and death. The people of Toulouse quoted this law

later on in a letter to King Pedro of Aragon to justify their sending

heretics to the stake, and when the followers of Simon de Montfort

arrived in southern France, in 1209, they followed the example of

Count Raymond by sending heretics to the stake everywhere they went.

The authenticity of this law has been questioned, on account of its

unheard-of severity. But Pedro II, King of Aragon and Count of

Barcelona, enacted a law in 1197 which was just as terrible. He

banished the Waldenses and all other heretics from his dominions,

ordering them to depart before Passion Sunday of the following year

(March 23, 1198). After that day, every heretic found in the kingdom

or the county was to be sent to the stake, and his property

confiscated. It is worthy of remark, that in the king's mind the

stake was merely a subsidiary penalty.

In enacting this severe law, Pedro of Aragon declared that he was

moved by zeal for the public welfare, and "had simply obeyed the

canons of the Holy Roman Church." With the exception of the death

penalty by the stake, his reference to the canon law is perfectly

accurate. Pope Alexander III, who had been present at the Council of

Tours in 1163, renewed, at the Lateran Council in 1179, the decrees

already enacted against the heretics of central France. He considered

the Cathari, the Brabançons, etc., disturbers of the public welfare,

and therefore called upon the princes to protect by force of arms

their Christian subjects against the outrages of these heretics. The

princes were to imprison all heretics and confiscate their property.

The Pope granted indulgences to all who carried on this pious work.

In 1184, Pope Lucius III, in union with the Emperor Frederic

Barbarossa, adopted at Verona still more vigorous measures. Heretics

were to be excommunicated, and then handed over to the secular arm,

which was to inflict upon them the punishment they deserved

(_animadversio debita_).[1] The Emperor decreed the imperial ban

against them.

[1] Canon 27, inserted in the Decretals of Gregory IX, lib. v, tit.

vii, _De Hæreticis_, cap. ix.

This imperial ban was, as Ficker has pointed out, a very severe

penalty in Italy; for it comprised banishment, the confiscation of

the property, and the destruction of the houses of the condemned,

public infamy, the inability to hold public office, etc. This is

beyond question the penalty the King of Aragon alluded to in his

enactment. The penalty of the stake which he added, although in

conformity with the Roman law, was an innovation.

The pontificate of Innocent III, which began in 1198, marks a pause

in the development of the Church's penal legislation against heresy.

Despite his prodigious activity, this Pope never dreamt of enacting

new laws, but did his best to enforce the laws then in vogue, and to

stimulate the zeal of both princes and magistrates in the suppression

of heresy.

Hardly had he ascended the pontifical throne when he sent legates to

southern France, and wrote urgent letters full of apostolic zeal to

the Archbishops of Auch and Aix, the Bishop of Narbonne, and the King

of France. These letters, as well as his instructions to the legates,

are similar in tone: "Use against heretics the spiritual sword of

excommunication, and if this does not prove effective, use the

material sword. The civil laws decree banishment and confiscation;

see that they are carried out."[1]

[1] Letters of Innocent III in Migne, P.L., vol. ccxiv-ccxvi.

At this time the Cathari were living not only in the cities of

Languedoc and Provence, but some had even entered the papal States,

e.g., at Orvieto and Viterbo. The Pope himself went to these cities

to combat the evil, and at once saw the necessity of enacting special

laws against them. They may be read in his letters of March 25, 1199,

and September 22, 1207, which form a special code for the use of the

princes and the podestà. Heretics were to be branded with infamy;

they were forbidden to be electors, to hold public office, to be

members of the city councils, to appear in court or testify, to make

a will or to receive an inheritance; if officials, all their acts

were declared null and void; and finally their property was to be

confiscated.

"In the territories subject to our temporal jurisdiction," adds the

Pope, "we declare their property confiscated; in other places we

order the podestà and the secular princes to do the same, and we

desire and command this law enforced under penalty of ecclesiastical

censures."[1]

[1] Letter of March 25, 1199, to the magistrates and people of

Viterbo; constitution of September 23, 1207, Ep. x, 130.

We are not at all surprised at such drastic measures, when we

consider the agreement made by Lucius III with Frederic Barbarossa,

at Verona. But we wish to call attention to the reasons that Innocent

III adduced to justify his severity, on account of the serious

consequences they entailed. "The civil law," says the Pope, "punishes

traitors with confiscation of their property and death; it is only

out of kindness that the lives of their children are spared. All the

more then should we excommunicate and confiscate the property of

those who are traitors to the faith of Jesus Christ; for it is an

infinitely greater sin to offend the Divine Majesty than to attack

the majesty of the sovereign."[1]

[1] Letter of March 25, 1199, to the magistrates of Viterbo, Ep. ii,

1.

Whether this comparison be justified or not, it is certainly most

striking. Later on Frederic II and others will quote it to justify

their severity.

The Lateran Council in 1215 made the laws of Innocent III canons of

the universal Church; it declared all heretics excommunicated, and

delivered them over to the State to receive due punishment. This

_animadversio debita_ entailed banishment with all its consequences

and confiscation. The council also legislated against the abettors of

heresy, even if they were princes, and ordered the despoiling of all

rulers who neglected to enforce the ecclesiastical law in their

domains.[1]

[1] Labbe, _Concilia_, vol. xi, col. 148-150; _Decretales_, cap.

xiii, _De hæreticis_, lib. v, tit. vii.

In practice, Innocent III, although very severe towards obdurate

heretics, was extremely kind to the ignorant and heretics in good

faith. While he banished the Patarins from Viterbo,[1] and razed

their houses to the ground, he at the same time protected, against

the tyranny of an archpriest of Verona, a society of mystics, the

Humiliati, whose orthodoxy was rather doubtful. When, after the

massacre of the Albigenses, Pope Innocent was called upon to apply

the canon law in the case of Raymond, Count of Toulouse, and to

transfer the patrimony of his father to Simon de Montfort, he was the

first to draw back from such injustice. Although a framer of severe

laws against heresy, he was ready to grant dispensations, when

occasion arose.

[1] _Gesta Innocentii_, cap. cxxiii, Migne, P.L., vol. ccxiv, col.

clxi.

We must remember also that the laws he enacted were not at all

excessive compared with the strict Roman law, or even with the

practice then in vogue in France and Germany. It has been justly

said: "The laws and letters of Innocent III never once mention the

death penalty for heresy. He merely decrees against them banishment,

and the confiscation of their property. When he speaks of having

recourse to the secular arm, he means simply the force required to

carry out the laws of banishment enacted by his penal code. This

code, which seems so pitiless to us, was in reality at that time a

great improvement in the treatment of heretics. For its special laws

prevented the frequent outbreaks of popular vengeance, which punished

not only confessed heretics, but also mere suspects."[1]

[1] Luchaire, Innocent III, _et la croisade des Albigeois_, pp. 57,

58. Julien Havet also says: "We must in justice say of Innocent III

that, if he did bitterly prosecute heretics, and everywhere put them

under the ban, he never demanded the infliction of the death penalty.

Ficker has brought this out very clearly." _L'hérésie et le bras

séculier_, p. 165, n. 3. For Ficker's view, cf. op. cit., pp.

189-192.

In fact, the development in the methods of suppressing heresy from

the eleventh century, ends with Innocent III in a code that was far

more kindly than the cruel customs in vogue at the time.

The death penalty of the stake was common in France in the twelfth

century, and in the beginning of the thirteenth. Most of the

executions were due to the passions of the mob, although the Roman

law was in part responsible. Anselm of Lucca and the author of the

_Panormia_ (Ivo of Chartres?) had copied word for word the fifth law

of the title _De Hæreticis_ of the Justinian code, under the rubric:

_De edicto imperatorum in damnationem hæreticorum_.[1] This law which

decreed the death penalty against the Manicheans, seemed strictly

applicable to the Cathari, who were regarded at the time as the

direct heirs of Manicheism. Gratian, in his Decree, maintained the

views of St. Augustine on the penalties of heresy, viz., fine and

banishment.[2] But some of his commentators, especially Rufinus,

Johannes, Teutonicus, and an anonymous writer whose work is inserted

in Huguccio's great _Summa_ of the Decree, declared that impenitent

heretics might and even ought to be put to death.

[1] Tanon, op. cit., pp. 453-454.

[2] Decretum, 2 Pars, Causa xxiii, quest. 4, 6, 7.

These different works appeared before the Lateran Council of 1215.[1]

They are a good indication of the mind of the time. We may well ask

whether the Archbishop of Rheims, the Count of Flanders, Philip

Augustus, Raymond of Toulouse, and Pedro of Aragon, who authorized

the use of the stake for heretics, did not think they were following

the example of the first Christian emperors. We must, however, admit

that there is no direct allusion to the early imperial legislation

either in their acts or their writings. Probably they were more

influenced by the customs of the time than by the written law.

[1] The collection of Anselm of Lucca is prior to 1080. The

_Panormia_ was written about the beginning of the twelfth century;

the Decree about 1140; the three commentaries were written a little

before 1215.

As a matter of fact, Gratian, who with St. Augustine mentioned only

fine and banishment as the penalties for heresy, was followed for

some time. We learn from Benencasa's _Summa_ of the Decree that

heretics were punished not by death, but by banishment and

confiscation of their property.[1]

[1] _Biblioth. Nation_., Ms. 3892, _Summa_ of Benencasa: 41, cap. 23,

q. 4, _Non invenitur_.

The Councils of Tours and Lateran also decreed confiscation, but for

banishment they substituted imprisonment, a penalty unknown to the

Roman law. The Council of Lateran appealed to the authority of St.

Leo the Great, to compel Christian princes to prosecute heresy.[1]

[1] Canon 27, Labbe, _Concilia_, vol. x, col. 1522; Leonis, Epist.

xv, ad Turribium, Migne, _Pat. Lat_., vol. liv, col. 679-680.

From the time of Lucius III, owing to the influence of the lawyers,

the two penalties of banishment and confiscation prevailed. Innocent

III extended them to the universal Church.

This was undoubtedly a severer penal legislation than that of the

preceding age. But, on the other hand, it was an effective barrier

against the infliction of the death penalty, which had become so

common in many parts of Christendom.

Besides, during this period, the Church used vigorous measures only

against obdurate heretics, who were also disturbers of the public

peace.[1] They alone were handed over to the secular arm; if they

abjured their heresy, they were at once pardoned, provided they

freely accepted the penance imposed upon them.[2] This kind

treatment, it was true, was not to last. It, however, deserves

special notice, for the honor of those who preached and practiced it.

[1] Innocent III merely condemned to prison in a monastery the

heretical abbot of Nevers; cf. letter of June 19, 1199, to a cardinal

and a bishop of Paris. Ep. ii, 99.

[2] Cf. Canon 27 of the Lateran Council (1179), which we have quoted

above, and which is inserted in the Decretals of Gregory x, cap. ix,

_De hæreticis_, lib. v, tit. vii.

CHAPTER V

THE CATHARAN OR ALBIGENSIAN HERESY--ITS ANTI-CATHOLIC AND

ANTI-SOCIAL CHARACTER

WHILE Popes Alexander III, Lucius III, and Innocent III, were

adopting such vigorous measures, the Catharan heresy by its rapid

increase caused widespread alarm throughout Christendom. Let us

endeavor to obtain some insight into its character, before we

describe the Inquisition, which was destined to destroy it.

The dominant heresy of the period was the Albigensian or Catharan

heresy;[1] it was related to Oriental Manicheism[2] through the

Paulicians and the Bogomiles, who professed a dualistic theory on the

origin of the world.

[1] The heretics called themselves "_Cathari_," or "_the Pure_." They

wished thereby to denote especially their horror of all sexual

relations, says the monk Egbert: _Sermones contra Catharos_, in

Migne, P.L., cxcv, col. 13.

[2] On the origin of the Manichean heresy, cf. Duchesne, _Histoire

ancienne de l'Eglise_, pp. 555, 556.

In the tenth century, the Empress Theodora, who detested the

Paulicians, had one hundred thousand of them massacred; the Emperor

Alexis Commenus (about 1118), persecuted the Bogomiles in like

manner. Many, therefore, of both sects went to western Europe, where

they finally settled, and began to spread.

As early as 1167, they held a council at St. Felix de Caraman, near

Toulouse, under the presidency of one of their leaders, Pope or

perhaps only Bishop Niketas (Niquinta) of Constantinople. Other

bishops of the sect were present: Mark, who had charge of all the

churches of Lombardy, Tuscany, and the Marches of Treviso; Robert de

Sperone, who governed a church in the north, and Sicard Cellerier,

Bishop of the Church of Albi. They appointed Bernard Raymond, Bishop

of Toulouse, Guiraud Mercier, Bishop of Carcassonne, and Raymond of

Casalis, Bishop of Val d'Aran, in the diocese of Comminges. Such an

organization certainly indicates the extraordinary development of the

heresy about the middle of the twelfth century.

About the year 1200 its progress was still more alarming. Bonacursus,

a Catharan bishop converted to Catholicism, writes about 1190:

"Behold the cities, towns and homes filled with these false

prophets."[1] Cessarius, of Heisterbach, tells us that a few years

later there were Cathari in about one thousand cities,[2] especially

in Lombardy and Languedoc.

[1] _Manifestatio hæresis Catharorum_, in Migne, P.L., vol. cciv col.

778.

[2] _Dialogi_, Antwerp, 1604, p. 289.

There were at least seven to eight hundred of "the Perfected" in

Languedoc alone; and to obtain approximately the total number of the

sect, we must multiply this number by twenty or even more.[1]

[1] This is Döllinger's estimate, _Beiträge_, vol. i, pp. 212, 213.

Of course, perfect unity did not exist among the Cathari. The

different names by which they were known clearly indicate certain

differences of doctrine among them. Some, like the Cathari of Alba

and Desenzano, taught with the Paulicians an absolute dualism,

affirming that all things created came from two principles, the one

essentially good, and the other essentially bad. Two other groups,

the Concorrezenses and the Bagolenses, like the ancient Gnostics,

held a modified form of dualism; they pretended that the evil spirit

had so marred the Creator's work, that matter had become the

instrument of evil in the world. Still they agreed with the

pronounced dualists in nearly all their doctrines and observances;

their few theoretical differences were scarcely appreciable in

practice.[1]

[1] On the Catharan doctrines, cf. Dõllinger's _Beiträge_.

Still, contemporary writers called them by different names. In Italy

they were confounded with the orthodox Patarins and Arnaldists of

Milan; which explains the frequent use of the word Patareni in the

constitutions of Frederic II, and other documents.

The Arnaldists or Arnoldists and the Speronistæ, were the disciples

of Arnold of Brescia, and the heretical Bishop Sperone. Although the

chief center of the Cathari in France was Toulouse and not Albi, they

were called _Albigeois_ (Albigenses), and _Tisserands_ (Texerants),

because many were weavers by trade; _Arians_, because of their denial

of Christ's divinity; _Paulicians_, which was corrupted into

_Poplicani, Publicani, Piphes_ and _Piples_ (Flanders); _Bulgarians_

(_Bulgari_), from their origin, which became in the mouths of the

people of _Bugari, Bulgri_, and _Bugres_. In fact about 1200, nearly

all the heretics of western Europe were considered Cathari.

Catharism was chiefly a negative heresy; it denied the doctrines,

hierarchy and worship of the Catholic Church, as well as the

essential rights of the State.

These neo-Manicheans denied that the Roman Church represented the

Church of Christ. The Popes were not the successors of St. Peter, but

rather the successors of Constantine. St. Peter never came to Rome.

The relics which were venerated in the Constantinian basilica, were

the bones of someone who died in the third century; they were not

relics of the Prince of the Apostles. Constantine unfortunately

sanctioned this fraud, by conferring upon the Roman pontiff an

immense domain, together with the prestige that accompanies temporal

authority.[1] How could anyone recognize under the insignia, the

purple mantle, and the crown of the successors of St. Sylvester, a

disciple of Jesus Christ? Christ had no place where to lay His head,

whereas the Popes lived in a palace! Christ rebuked worldly dominion,

while the Popes claimed it! What had the Roman curia with its thirst

for riches and honors in common with the gospel of Christ? What were

these archbishops, primates, cardinals, archdeacons, monks, canons,

Dominicans, and Friars Minor but the Pharisees of old! The priests

placed heavy burdens upon the faithful people, and they themselves

did not touch them with the tips of their fingers; they received

tithes from the fields and flocks; they ran after the heritage of

widows; all practices which Christ condemned in the Pharisees.

[1] The Middle Ages believed firmly in the donation of Constantine.

It was, however questioned by Wetzel, a disciple of Arnold of

Brescia, in 1152, in a letter to Frederic Barbarossa, Martène and

Durand, _Veterum scriptorunt ... amplissima collectio_, Paris, 1724,

vol. ii, col. 554-557.

And yet, withal, they dared persecute humble souls who, by their pure

life, tried to realize the perfect ideal proposed by Christ! These

persecutors were not the true disciples of Jesus. The Roman Church

was the woman of the apocalypse,[1] drunk with the blood of the

Saints, and the Pope was Antichrist.

[1] Apoc. vii, 3, 18.

The sacraments of the Church were a mere figment of the imagination.

The Cathari made one sacrament out of Baptism, Confirmation, Penance

and Eucharist, which they called the _consolamentum_; they denied the

real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, and they repudiated

marriage.

Baptism of water was to them an empty ceremony, as valueless as the

baptism of John. Christ had undoubtedly said: "Unless a man be born

again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the Kingdom

of God."[1] But the acts of the Apostles proved that baptism was a

mere ceremony, for they declared that the Samaritans, although

baptized, had not thereby received the Holy Spirit, by Whom alone the

soul is purified from sin.[2]

[1] John iii, 5.

[2] Acts i. 5; viii. 14-17.

The Catholic Church also erred greatly in teaching infant baptism. As

their faculties were undeveloped, infants could not receive the Holy

Spirit. The Cathari--at least to the middle of the thirteenth

century--did not confer the _consolamentum_ upon newly born infants.

According to them, the Church could only abandon these little ones to

their unhappy destiny. If they died, they were either forever lost,

or, as others taught, condemned to undergo successive incarnations,

until they received the _consolamentum_, which classed them with "the

Perfected."

It was preposterous to imagine that Christ wished to change bread and

wine into His Body in the Eucharist. The Cathari considered

transubstantiation as the worst of abominations, since matter, in

every form, was the work of the Evil Spirit. They interpreted the

Gospel texts in a figurative sense: at "This is My Body," they said,

simply means: "This represents My Body," thus anticipating the

teaching of Carlstadt and Zwingli. They all agreed in denouncing

Catholics for daring to claim that they really partook of the Body of

Christ, as if Christ could enter a man's stomach, to say nothing

worse; or as if Christ would expose Himself to be devoured by rats

and mice.

The Cathari, defying the real presence of Jesus Christ in the

Eucharist, rejected the sacrifice of the Mass. God, according to

them, repudiated all sacrifices. Did He not teach us through His

prophet Osee: "I desire mercy and not sacrifice."[1]

[1] Osee vi. 6.

The Lord's Supper which the Apostles ate so often was something

altogether different from the Roman Mass. They knew nothing of

sacerdotal vestments, stone altars with shining candelabra, incense,

hymns, and chantings. They did not worship in an immense building

called a church--a word which should be applied exclusively to the

assembly of the saints.

The Cathari, in their hatred of Catholic piety, railed in the most

abusive language against the veneration of images, and especially of

the cross. The images and statues of the saints were to them nothing

but idols, which ought to be destroyed. The cross on which Jesus died

should be hated rather than reverenced. Some of them, moreover,

denied that Jesus had been really crucified; they held that a demon

died, or feigned to die in His stead. Even those who believed in the

reality of the Saviour's crucifixion made this very belief a reason

for condemning the veneration of the cross. What man is there, they

said, who could see a loved one, for example a father, die upon a

cross, and not feel ever after a deep hatred of this instrument of

torture? The cross, therefore, should not be reverenced, but

despised, insulted and spat upon. One of them even said: "I would

gladly hew the cross to pieces with an axe, and throw it into the

fire to make the pot boil."

Not only were the Cathari hostile to the Church and her divine

worship, but they were also in open revolt against the State, and its

rights.

The feudal society rested entirely upon the oath of fealty

(_jusjurandum_), which was the bond of its strength and solidity.

According to the Cathari, Christ taught that it was sinful to take an

oath, and that the speech of every Christian should be yes, yes; no,

no.[1] Nothing, therefore, could induce them to take an oath.

[1] Matt. v. 37; James v. 12.

The authority of the State, even when Christian, appeared to them, in

certain respects, very doubtful. Had not Christ questioned Peter,

saying: "What is thy opinion, Simon? The kings of the earth, of whom

do they receive tribute or custody? of their own children, or of

strangers?" Peter replied: "Of strangers." Jesus saith to him: "Then

are the children free (of every obligation)."[1]

[1] Matt. xvii. 24, 25.

The Cathari quoted these words to justify their refusal of allegiance

to princes. Were they not disciples of Christ, whom the truth had

made free? Some of them not only disputed the lawfulness of taxation,

but went so far as to condone stealing, provided the thief had done

no injury to "Believers."[1]

[1] Contrary to the Catholic teaching, the Cathari absolved those who

stole from "non-believers," without obliging them to make

restitution. Döllinger, _Beiträge_, vol. ii, pp. 248, 249, cf. pp.

245, 246.

Some of the Cathari admitted the authority of the State, but denied

its right to inflict capital punishment. "It is not God's will," said

Pierre Garsias, "that human justice condemn any one to death;" and

when one of the Cathari became consul of Toulouse, he wrote to remind

him of this absolute law. But the _Summa contra hæreticos_ asserts:

"all the Catharan sects taught that the public prosecution of crime

was unjust, and that no man had a right to administer justice;"[1] a

teaching which denied the State's right to punish.

[1] _Summa contra hæreticos_, ed. Douais, p. 133, Moneta, op. cit.,

p. 513.

The Cathari interpreted literally the words of Christ to Peter: "All

that take the sword shall perish with the sword,"[1] and applied the

commandment _Non occides_ absolutely. "In no instance," they said,

"has one the right to kill another;"[2] neither the internal welfare

of a country, nor its external interests can justify murder. War is

never lawful. The soldier defending his country is just as much a

murderer as the most common criminal. It was not any special aversion

to the crusades, but their horror of war in general, that made the

Cathari declare the preachers of the crusades murderers.

[1] Matt. xxvi. 52.

[2] Cf. Döllinger, _Beiträge_, vol. ii, p. 199.

These anti-Catholic, anti-patriotic, and anti-social theories were

only the negative side of Catharism. Let us now ascertain what they

substituted for the Catholic doctrines they denied.

Catharism, as we have already hinted, was a hodgepodge of pagan

dualism and Gospel teaching, given to the world as a sort of reformed

Christianity.

Human souls, spirits fallen from heaven into a material body which is

the work of the Evil Spirit, were subject on this earth to a

probation, which was ended by Christ, or rather by the Holy Spirit.

They were set free by the imposition of hands, the secret of which

had been committed to the true Church by the disciples of Jesus.

This Church had its rulers, the Bishops, and its members who are

called "the Perfected," "the Consoled," and "the Believers."

We need not dwell upon the episcopate of the Catharan hierarchy.

Suffice it to say that the Bishop was always surrounded by three

dignitaries, the _Filius Major_, the _Filius Minor_, and the Deacon.

The Bishop had charge of the most important religious ceremonies: the

imposition of hands for the initiation or _consolamentum_, the

breaking of bread which replaced the Eucharist, and the liturgical

prayers such as the recitation of the Lord's Prayer. When he was

absent, the _Filius Major_, the _Filius Minor_, or the Deacon took

his place. It was seldom, however, that these dignitaries traveled

alone; the Bishop was always accompanied by his Deacon, who served as

his _socius_.

One joined the Church by promising (the _Convenenza_) to renounce the

Catholic faith, and to receive the Catharan initiation (the

_consolamentum_), at least at the hour of death. This was the first

step on the road to perfection. Those who agreed to make it were

called "the Believers." Their obligations were few. They were not

bound to observe the severe Catharan fasts, which we will mention

later on. They could live in the world like other mortals, and were

even allowed to eat meat and to marry. Their chief duty was "to

venerate" "the Perfected," each time they entered their presence.

They genuflected, and prostrated themselves three times, saying each

time as they rose, "Give us your blessing;" the third time they

added: "Good Christians, give us God's blessing and yours; pray God

that He preserve us from an evil death, and bring us to a good end!"

The Perfected replied: "Receive God's blessing and ours; may God

bless you, preserve you from an evil death, and bring you to a good

end." If these heretics were asked why they made others venerate them

in this manner, they replied that the Holy Spirit dwelling within

them gave them the right to such homage. The Believers were always

required to pay this extraordinary mark of respect. In fact it was a

_sine qua non_ of their being admitted to the _Convenenza._

The _Convenenza_ was not merely an external bond, uniting "the

Believers" and "the Perfected," but it was also an earnest of eternal

salvation. It assured the future destiny of "the Believers;" it gave

them the right to receive the _consolamentum_ on their death-bed.

This remitted all the sins of their life. Only one thing could

deprive them of "this good end," viz., the absence of one of the

Perfected, who alone could lay hands upon them.

Those who died without the Catharan _consolamentum_ were either

eternally lost, or condemned to begin life anew with another chance

of becoming one of "the good men." These transmigrations of the soul

were rather numerous. The human soul did not always pass directly

from the body of a man into the body of another man. It occasionally

entered into the bodies of animals, like the ox and the ass. The

Cathari were wont to tell the story of "a good Christian," one of

"the Perfected," who remembered, in a previous existence as a horse,

having lost his shoe in a certain place between two stones, as he was

running swiftly under his master's spur. When he became a man he was

curious enough to hunt for it, and he found it, in the self-same

spot. Such humiliating transmigrations were undoubtedly rather rare.

A woman named Sybil, "a Believer" and later on one of "the

Perfected," remembered having been a queen in a prior existence.

What the _Convenenza_ promised, the Catharan initiation or

_consolamentum_ gave; the first made "Believers," and predisposed

souls to sanctity; the second made "the Perfected," and conferred

sanctity with all its rights and prerogatives.

The _consolamentum_ required a preparation which we may rightly

compare with the catechumenate of the early Christians.

This probation usually lasted one year. It consisted in an honest

attempt to lead the life of "the Perfected," and chiefly in keeping

their three "lents," abstaining from meat, milk-food and eggs. It was

therefore called the time of abstinence (_abstinentia_). One of "the

Perfected" was appointed by the Church to report upon the life of the

postulant, who daily had to venerate his superior, according to the

Catharan rite.

After this probation, came the ceremony of "the delivery"

(_traditio_) of the Lord's Prayer. A number of "the Perfected" were

always present. The highest dignitary, the Bishop or "the Ancient,"

made the candidate a lengthy speech, which has come down to us:

"Understand," he said, "that when you appear before the Church of God

you are in the presence of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,

as the Scriptures prove," etc. Then, having repeated the Lord's

Prayer to "the Believer" word for word, and having explained its

meaning, he continued: "We deliver to you this holy prayer, that you

may receive it from us, from God, and from the Church, that you may

have the right to say it all your life, day and night, alone and in

company, and that you may never eat or drink without first saying it.

If you omit it, you must do penance." The Believer replied "I receive

it from you and from the Church."[1]

[1] Clédat, _Rituel Cathare_, pp. xi-xv.

After these words came the _Abrenuntiatio_. At the Catholic baptism,

the catechumen renounced Satan, with his works and pomps. According

to the Catharan ritual, the Catholic Church was Satan.

"The Perfected" said to the Believer: "Friend, if you wish to be one

of us, you must renounce all the doctrines of the Church of Rome,"

and he replied: "I do renounce them."

--Do you renounce that cross made with chrism upon your breast, head,

and shoulders?

--I do renounce it.

--Do you believe that the water of Baptism is efficacious for

salvation?

--No, I do not believe it.