listened to the dialectics with which the Comte Joseph de Maistre proves that it is an error to suppose, and much more to assert, that Catholic priests can in any manner be instrumental in compassing the death of a fellow-creature.[1]
Not only were all Christians thus made to feel that it was their highest duty to aid in the extermination of heretics, but they were taught that they must denounce them to the authorities regardless of all considerations, human or divine. No tie of kindred served as an excuse for concealing heresy. The son must denounce the father, and the husband was guilty if he did not deliver his wife to a frightful death. Every human bond was severed by the guilt of heresy; children were taught to desert their parents, and even the sacrament of matrimony could not unite an orthodox wife to a misbelieving husband. No pledge was to remain unbroken. It was an old rule that faith was not to be kept with heretics - as Innocent III. emphatically phrased it, "according to the canons, faith is not to be kept with him who keeps not faith with God." No oath of secrecy, therefore, was binding in a matter of heresy, for if one is faithful to a heretic he is unfaithful to
- ↑ Post. Const. 4, Cod. Lib, I, Tit. v.- Post. Tibb. Feudoruin.- Lib. Juris
Civilis Yeron e. 156.-Schwabenspiegel, Ed. Senckenb, cap. 351 Ed, Schilteri
c. 308.-Potthast Regesta No. 6593.-Innoc. PP. IV. Bull, Cum adversus, 5 Jun
1252; Bull. Ad aures, 2 Apr. 1253; 81 Oct. 1248 7 Julii 1254.-Bull Cum
fratres, Maii 1252.-Urbani. IV. Bull. Licet cx omnilus, 1262 § 12.-Wadding
Anna, Minor ann. 1258, No. 7; ann. 1280, No. 1; ann. 1261, No. 3.-c, 6 Sexto v. 2
c, 1, 2 in Septimo v. 8.-Von der Hardt, T. IV. p. 1519.-Canpana, Vita di San
Piero Martire, p. 124.-De Maistre, Letires à un Gentilhomme Russe sur l'In
quisition Espagnole, Ed. 1864, pp. 17-18, 28, 34
A thirteenth-century writer argued the matter more directly than De Maistre Papa noster non occidit, nec procipit aliquem occidi, sed lex occidit quos papa permittit occidi, et ipsi se occidunt qui ea faciunt unde debeant occidi." -Gregor. Fanens, Disput. Cathol, et Patar. (artene Thesaur. V. 1741).
More historically true is the assertion of an enthusiastic Dominican in 1782, who, after quoting Deut. xut. 6-10, declares that its command to slay without mercy all who entice the faithful from the truc religion is almost literally the law of the holy Inquisition; and who proceeds to prove from Scripture that fire is the peculiar delight of God, and the proper mcans of purifying the wheat from the tares.-Lob u. Ehrenrede auf dic heilige Inquisition, Wien, 1782, pp. 19-21.
The hypocritical plea for mercy was commenced in good faith by Innocent III. in the case of clerks guilty of forgery who werc degradcd and delivered to the secular courts-c. 27 Extra v. 40
