The Skeptical Movement

The Sceptical Movement

An acute observer of events wrote in 1158: "The loss of religion in France cannot properly be attributed to the English philosophy, which has gained at Paris only a hundred philosophers, but to the hatred conceived toward the clergy which now runs to an excess. Scarcely can these ministers of religion show themselves on the streets without being hooted; and cell this comes from the bull Unigenitus, and from the disgrace of the Parliament."1 D'Argenson, Mémoires, viii. 35 The next year the same writer expressed himself in terms like these: "It is the priests who push from all sides into these troubles and this disorder, and so the minds of men are turned to discontent and disobedience, and everything is moving onward to a great revolution in religion as well as in government." 2 Ibid, viii. 242.

That this verdict of a contemporary has considerable plausibility cannot be denied. It is reasonable to suppose that the bull Unigenitus, violently enforced as it was, was provocative of skepticism. When an authority, claiming supreme and divine right over Christendom, condemned propositions which have an exact equivalent in the New Testament, and undertook to teach men that the fear of an unjust excommunication ought to hinder one from doing his duty, 3 All shuffling apart, no different meaning can be drawn from the condemnation of the following: Excommunicationis injustæ metus, nunquam debet nos impedire ab implendo debito nostro: nunquam eximus ab ecclesia, etiam quando hominum nequitiâ videmur ab ea expulsi, quando Deo, Jesu Christo, atque ipsi ecclesiæ per charitatem affixi sumus. it is not strange that various individuals, who had imperfectly learned the art of blind obedience, and did not wish to be put to shame by pagans, should think it time to look around for some system compatible with common sense and instinctive morality. Nor will it be strange if the like quest should yet be repeated in France and elsewhere, now that the action of the Vatican council has assigned to this specimen of papal wisdom an indubitable place in the moral code of the Romish Church. Still, it is not proper to burden a single cause with responsibility for results which have flowed from several causes. While the Unigenitus scandal had a baleful efficiency, it but added momentum to a current already started. Back of the sceptical movement of the eighteenth century in general lay the intolerant dogmatism which dominated so large a part of Europe through the seventeenth century. In France especially this dogmatism had taken on a hideous aspect from the time that Louis XIV. laid his hand to the task of extirpating Protestantism. While thus despotic intolerance provoked reaction, the moral levity and corruption which invaded the higher circles of French society in the first half of the eighteenth century favored laxity of belief. Men who lived practically as materialists and epicureans were not well braced against the materialistic and agnostic creed. An appreciable influence may also be attributed to the sensational philosophy and deistical school of England. The soil had been so well prepared in France that the types of thought which they presented could hardly fail to take root there.

An early work of Montesquieu, which achieved no little popularity, gives us a token of relaxed belief. In his "Persian Letters" (1721), we see, if not the same sparkle and piquancy which were put into the "Praise of Folly," a freedom in dealing with the affairs of the Church as bold as that which Erasmus had exhibited in his humorous critique. These Letters, assuming to be written by Persian visitors in France, make the Pope to figure as the head magician, who enforces belief in defiance of mathematics and the evidences of the senses, and who, in order to keep up the habit of belief in Christians, issues articles from time to time, a recent and much talked of constitution being an example. Remarks in a similar vein are passed upon various classes of ecclesiastics. A principal function of the bishops, it is said, is the granting of dispensations. It is characteristic of Christianity that it imposes an infinite number of practices, and inasmuch as it is esteemed more difficult to fulfill these practices than to support bishops to dispense from them, the latter alternative is chosen. This dispensing power reaches even to the canceling of a sworn engagement. Confessors are a kind of dervishes who do not suit the interests of heirs so well as the physicians. Casuists have a great function to perform in showing men how many sins they can commit without periling their salvation by a mortal fault. They are also very useful in taking away from sins their sinful quality by persuading the doer that they were not really sins, if being an acknowledged principle that it is not the act itself, but rather the conviction of the doer respecting the act, which determines its moral character. A commentator is one who searches the Bible to find there his own views, -- a method that is fruitful of variety; in fact, there are about as many points of dispute as there are lines in the Scriptures. A heretic does not fare the same in all regions. In France and Germany he will get clear by making a distinction; but in Spain and Portugal they do not care to listen to dogmatic refinements. A peculiar stroke of politeness has place in Spain. As a captain there will not beat a soldier without first asking his permission, so the Inquisition never burns a Jew without making excuses to him. The numerous stories told about the wrestling of the old monks with the devil indicate that they did not keep very good company. The monastic institute is at present a great check upon national progress. From this point of view, "it is certain that the religion of the Protestants gives them an infinite advantage over the Catholics. I venture to say that, in the condition in which Europe is now found, it is not possible for the Catholic religion to subsist five hundred years." 1 See Letters xxiv., xxix., xxv., lvii., Ixxviii.,lxxv., xciii., cxvii.,cxxiv.

The veil of humor is not so thick as to hide effectually the real opinions of the author of the "Lettres Persanes. " Their import, conjoined with other evidence, leaves no doubt that the papal system was to him a dead letter. His positive creed is not determined with quite the same certainty. Probably it affiliated with that type of deism which was outlined later in the century by Rousseau. He is said to have persevered in his way of thinking to the end. To the Jesuits, who approached him in his last sickness, and urged upon him the duty of retracting, he made only this answer:
"I have always respected religion; the morality of the gospel is the best gift that God could have made to mankind."

Montesquieu died in 1755. Voltaire was then at the middle point of his career. More than twenty-five years before, he had taken the pen of the author, and he was unceasingly occupied with literary tasks till his death in 1778.

In Voltaire more than in any other Frenchman, the sceptical revival of the eighteenth century found its impersonation. He supplied to it a more penetrative genius and a vaster industry than any one of his countrymen besides.1 The genius of the Genevese Rousseau was doubtless equally penetrating, but his literary activity was less extensive. In the latter respect, indeed, he has few equals in the annals of literature. He was as prodigiously busy in his way as was his contemporary, John Wesley, in a far different way.

As respects the native endowments of Voltaire, it is sufficiently obvious that he was a man of great swiftness and versatility of intellectual movement. With these gifts was associated another which made for them a well-nigh perfect vehicle. Voltaire was a great word artist. Never was language a more obedient subject to any one than was the French speech to him. The very clearness of his discourse was adapted to work conviction by giving an impression of mastery. Add to this a subtle wit, a unique gift for raillery, and one can see that this man was well prepared to impress powerfully that restless generation.

What has been said describes brilliancy rather than profundity. The latter, in fact, cannot be claimed for Voltaire. While in many relations he showed an admirable keenness of perception, he was not largely endowed with the philosophic faculty, and his impetuous temper was opposed to the prolonged and severe reflection which needs to be expended upon the deeper problems of human thinking. He had no aptitude or relish for anything transcendental. To the realm of grandeur and spiritual suggestiveness he was well-nigh a stranger, as appears from his estimate of the antique poets, of Shakespeare, and of others. 2 The following from Martin may be compared: "An essentially active and polemic genius, with little depth and immense surface, he rejected what was profound like what was obscure, what was abstract like what was subtle, and turned with instinctive repugnance from everything that was mysterious." (Histoire de France, tome xv., p 330 in Eng translation.) Dwelling always upon the surface of the earth in his emotions and affections, he was conspicuously lacking in the sense for the ideal and the infinite. A real awe for holiness seemed to be no part of his experience. Taste rather than principle was at the basis of such repugnance as he entertained for gross vices. Any great amount of moral fastidiousness certainly cannot be ascribed to the author of "La Pucelle."

Some of the biographers of Voltaire credit him with a fair measure of truthfulness. Probably he was truthful in the sense that he would not lie for the mere pleasure of the performance. But when occasion pressed he did not spare a falsehood, and his life was prolific in pressing occasions. The way in which he evaded responsibility for his books involved a continuous chain of deceitful innuendoes from the beginning to the end of his career. The expedients which he employed to gain admission to the French Academy justify the statement that he crawled to the coveted honor over a road paved with flatteries and falsehoods. His presentation of himself for the communion, and insistence upon his title to absolution as being a good Catholic, was an audacious stroke in mendacity, which might well have provoked the Father of Lies to envy. Voltaire, it is true, had his excuse; but the excuse when sifted down amounts simply to the conclusion that his personal comfort and safety were so precious as to justify any amount of crookedness. In the company of his friends, Voltaire himself was not far from putting the case in this form. Being asked one day by his secretary what he would have done if he had been born in Spain, he replied: "I would have gone to mass every day; I would have kissed the sleeve of the monks; and I would have tried to set fire to all their convents." This may have been the language of pleasantry; but in what different light did he figure when posing before a Romish altar as a good Catholic, while at the same time he was laboring with full energy to tear down the whole fabric of Roman Catholic faith and authority?

If the above shows the weakest and basest side of Voltaire in respect of feeling and conduct, his abhorrence of intolerance and his generous efforts in behalf of outraged Protestants and other victims of oppression present his best side. It cannot, indeed, be claimed that his habit of thought and feeling provided any complete basis for tolerance. There was in his mind too little respect for man as man. The pride of intellect which made him look with a species of contempt upon the masses, and allowed him to speak of them as canaille, was not intrinsically the best sort of foundation for a high type of tolerance. Still it would be niggardly not to credit Voltaire with an honest and intense abhorrence of intolerant bigotry. A long series of acts sustains his words on this subject, and makes credible his assertion that he felt a touch of fever on each returning anniversary of the Saint Bartholomew massacre. One will be the less tempted to see mere rhetoric in this declaration, when he remembers that still in Voltaire's time that stupendous crime was publicly celebrated as a great triumph of the Christian Church. 1 In the city of Toulouse the anniversary of the massacre was regularly celebrated as a two days' festival, under sanction of municipal law and e.papal bull. (Parton, Life of Voltaire, ii. 353.)

The intolerance practiced in the assumed interest of Christianity, if it did not create the infidel animosity in the heart of Voltaire, supplied it with fuel, and added to it many degrees of intensity. Ultimately, as is well known, a tolerably white heat was reached. In the private correspondence of Voltaire, during the last twenty years of his life, this intensified animosity glared forth in the formula Écrasez l' Infâme, "Crush the Monster."

What is the meaning of these sinister-looking words? Some have supposed them to refer to the Christian religion, or even to the central figure in that religion. That Voltaire had no faith in Christianity as a revealed religion, and would have been glad to see it displaced by a deistic creed, is entirely certain. But that he meant to apply this intolerant formula specifically and unqualifiedly to the Christian religion, admits of some doubt. A biographer who may be presumed to have looked carefully through the evidence draws this conclusion: "The 'Infâme' of Voltaire was not religion, nor the Christian religion, nor the Roman Catholic Church. It was religion claiming supernatural authority, and enforcing that authority by pains and penalties. This is the fairest answer to the question, taking his whole life into view."2 Parton, Life of Voltaire, ii. 286. Carlyle, who had no inconsiderable occasion to look into the views and schemes of the great sceptic, says: "Voltaire is deeply alive to the horrors and miseries which have issued on mankind from a Fanatic Popish Superstition, or Creed of Incredibilities,- which (except from the throat outwards, from the bewildered tongue outwards) the orthodox themselves cannot believe, but only pretend and struggle to believe. This, Voltaire calls ' The Infamous;' and this -- what name can any of us give it? The man who believes in falsities is very miserable. The man who cannot believe them, but only struggles and pretends to believe, and yet, being armed with the power of tile sword, industriously keeps menacing and slashing all round, to compel every neighbor to do like him, -- what is to be done with such a man ? Human Nature calls him a Social Nuisance; needing to be handcuffed, gagged, and abated. Human Nature, if it be in a terrified and imperiled state, with the sword of this fellow swashing around it calls him 'Infamous,' and a Monster of Chaos. He is indeed the select Monster of that region; the Patriarch of all the Monsters, little as he dreams of being such . . . More signal enemy to God, and friend of the Other Party, walks not the Earth in our day." (History of Frederick the Great, xiii. 6, 7.)

Not disputing this conclusion, we would still suggest that if the aggressive ecclesiasticism of the Romish Church was reckoned by Voltaire an inseparable characteristic, he certainly had an ardent desire for the destruction of that Church.

In writings designed for the public, ridicule, generally managed with sufficient skill to avoid the appearance of brusqueness, was Voltaire's favorite weapon of attack. Nor was this belligerent facetiousness wholly confined to words. His jesting ran over into deeds, when by feigning sickness he forced an unwilling priest to grant him absolution, or when he secured a friendly letter from the Pope, or when finally he obtained from Rome a piece of the hair shirt of Saint Francis, to serve as a relic in the church which he had built upon his estate at Ferney. The relic is said to have arrived on the same day as the portrait of Madame Pompadour, the potent mistress of the King,-- a circumstance which led Voltaire to remark that he was now very well both for this world and for the other.

The positive creed of Voltaire requires no prolix description, since it was neither extensive nor original. It was essentially the deistic creed of Bolingbroke, to whose tuition he was not a little indebted in his earlier years. While granting the existence of God, he had small confidence in the soul's immortality. It is thought, however, that near the close of life he became less doubtful upon the latter subject.

Opposition to the current faith was so much of a recommendation in the eyes of Voltaire, that the greater part of the radical unbelievers shared his regard, not-withstanding considerable divergence, in some instances, from his platform. The sceptical school -- if school it can be called exhibited in truth but moderate homogeneity. Buffon, the distinguished naturalist, the first three volumes of whose work were published in 1749, appears in peculiar contrast with Voltaire, inasmuch as he had a tolerably firm faith in immortality, and only a wavering belief in the existence of God. Among the chief authors of the 'L Encyclopedia " (1750-1765) D'Alembert gravitated toward universal scepticism, while Diderot embraced a sort of pantheistic naturalism. Positive atheism and materialism were represented by D'Holbach, Lamettrie, and Helvetius. As regards the tone of the "Encyclopedia," it should be noticed that a prudent regard to the peril of suppression dictated a measure of reserve and compromise. We find D'Alembert writing as follows, in answer to some strictures from Voltaire: "Doubtless we have some bad articles on theology and metaphysics; but with a theological censorship and an official privilege, I defy you to make them better. There are other articles, less conspicuous, in which all errors are corrected. Time will demonstrate the distinction between what we have thought and what we have said." 1 Quoted by Jervis, Church of France. ii. 335.

While the "Encyclopedia " was in process of publication, a work appeared (1762), which caused the sceptics to look askance. Not a few of them, Voltaire included, felt that there was an alien vein in the new production that boded no good to their cause. We refer to the treatise on education, "Émile, on De L'Éducation," by Jean Jacques Rousseau. In the midst of this treatise occurs the Savoyard Vicar's profession of faith. While this assumes to be simply a specimen of religious method, or of the manner in which a pupil may be led into the domain of pious belief, it is doubtless a compendium of Rousseau's own convictions. A glance into it will show that the sceptics of the era had reason to regard if with a jealous eye. It was not congenial to their negations. While it admitted grave objections to positive revelation, if recognized elements foreign to their system, since it gave a large significance to the innate religious sentiment of man, and eloquently portrayed the unique power of the Christian oracles to satisfy this sentiment. As compared with the writings of contemporary free-thinkers, that of Rousseau had somewhat of a constructive tendency. It was fitted to serve as a stepping-stone out of the blankness into which they were leading. That it exerted a far-reaching influence cannot properly be questioned.

Rousseau does not make his spokesman, the Savoyard Vicar, entirely to discard reasoning in favor of innate sentiment or spontaneous feeling. Arguments for theism are presented with a fair degree of cogency, and the truth is discreetly set forth that among possible hypotheses all of which are attended with difficulties, the one which best explains known facts is to be preferred. Grounds are also given for predicating the immateriality of the soul. Among these the weighty consideration is touched upon, that materialism, with its mechanical necessity, makes nugatory the distinction between truth and error, between correct and mistaken judgments. But interspersed with discussions of this kind, the opinion is expressed that philosophy has no plummet wherewith to sound these deep subjects, and fends rather to confusion than to enlightenment. "Never has the jargon of metaphysics," it is said, "discovered one single truth." Again it is remarked: "I perceive God in His works, I feel Him in myself, I see Him all around me; but as soon as I attempt to discover where He is, what He is, what is His substance, He escapes me, and my troubled spirit no longer perceives anything. ... The more I force myself to contemplate this infinite essence, the less I understand it; but it exists; that suffices me; the less I understand it, the more I adore, I humble myself before Him and say: Being of beings, I am because Thou art; it is to raise myself to my source that I meditate upon Thee without ceasing. The most worthy use of my reason is to annihilate itself before Thee: this is the rapture of my spirit, this the charm of my feebleness, to feel myself overwhelmed by Thy grandeur."

In determining the rules of conduct, as in searching for the knowledge of God, philosophy is a vain dependence. The law of right is expressed in the spontaneous convictions and emotions of the soul. " All which I feel to be good is good; all that which I feel to be evil is evil: the best of all casuists is the conscience, and it is only as a man begins to haggle with if that he has recourse to the subtleties of reasoning."

The fountain of religious and moral truth being thus within, an external revelation, it is concluded, cannot be strictly necessary. At least, to make eternal salvation depend upon the acceptance of a particular external revelation involves enormous difficulties. In that case every man would be under obligation to sift the evidence for and against different systems claiming to be revealed from Heaven. The study of their relative claims would be a life and death matter; no other task would be comparable with this in solemnity and import. From this tremendous labor not a single individual of the race could be excused. "If the son of a Christian does well to follow, without a profound and impartial examination, the religion of his father, why would it be evil for the son of a Turk to follow in like manner the religion of his father ? " It impeaches the benevolence of God thus to hang the immortal destiny of men upon a choice which in so many instances must be extremely difficult or even impossible. The expedient of the Romanist in asserting the authority of the Church provides no legitimate relief. To be told, "The Church decides that the Church has the right to decide," does not give a man any rational foundation. He is just as much bound to test this assumed right as he is to test the authority of the assumed revelation, and the former task is every whit as difficult as the latter.

This vigorous protest against a necessary dependence upon external revelation is not meant to be taken as an unequivocal denial of such a revelation. When it comes to the Christian oracles, Rousseau, without stopping to balance arguments, declares that there are proofs which he cannot combat, as well as objections which he cannot solve. It is in this connection that the spirited and oft-quoted passage occurs: "I confess that the majesty of the Scriptures astonishes me, the holiness of the gospel speaks to my heart. Behold the books of the philosophers, with all their pomp; how petty they are in comparison with those writings ! Is it possible that a book at once so sublime, and so simple, should be the work of men? Is it possible that he whose history it contains should have been himself only a man ? Is that the tone of an enthusiast or of an ambitious sectary? What mildness, what purity in his manners! what touching grace in his teachings! what elevation in his maxims ! what profound sagacity in his discourse ! what presence of mind, what skill, and what justice in his replies! what sovereignty over the passions! Where is the man, where is the sage, who knows how to act, to suffer, and to die without feebleness and without ostentation?... If the life and death of Socrates were those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus were those of a God. Will you tell me that the gospel history was invented at pleasure? My friend, it is not so that invention occurs; and the facts respecting Socrates, doubted by no one, are less perfectly attested than those respecting Jesus Christ. In reality this supposition only pushes back the difficulty without overcoming it; it would be more inconceivable that several men should have agreed in fabricating this book than it is that one alone should have furnished the subject. a company of Jewish writers could never have invented either the tone or the morals which are found here; and the gospel has marks of truth so great, so striking, so perfectly inimitable, that the inventor of them would be more astonishing than the hero. With all that, however, this same gospel is full of things incredible and repugnant to reason, and which it is impossible for any man of sense to conceive or to admit. What ought we to do in the midst of all these contradictions? To be always modest and circumspect; to respect in silence that which we are able neither to reject nor to comprehend, and to humble ourselves before the Great Being, who alone knows the truth."

It cannot be denied that Rousseau presented a needful offset to the dry intellectual schemes of the philosophers or would-be philosophers. Sentiment has a place as well as logic in the sanctuary of man's being, and it serves in no small degree to mirror to him the spiritual verities with which it is his high privilege to be conversant. But has not Rousseau exalted overmuch the function of mere sentiment, or unreasoned emotion? For our part, we do not hesitate to answer that some of his utterances savor of a misleading extreme. No doubt it may be urged that he is in orthodox company. It often happens that the pulpit responds to the strictures of rationalism with an appeal to sentiment very much in the style of Rousseau. It is well that the appeal should be made; but let the due restriction be applied. Sentiment must have a framework of rationality to grow upon, if it is to rise in beauty and healthfulness. Let go the demand for industrious thoughtfulness and genuine rationality, and there is no telling what superstitions will invade the religious realm, what vagaries, what puerilities, what fooleries with relics and the like, what grievous list of mere doll-baby attachments. As religion is properly the function of the whole man, so the safeguard of its purity lies in the exercise of all the faculties. In the right synthesis of history, reason, and emotion is provided the basis of a normal and healthy religious life.

Rousseau's sentimental deism, or semi-scepticism, may be regarded as the concluding phase of French free-thinking in the eighteenth century. The vulgar atheism which cropped out at the crisis of the Revolution was rather a phase of frenzy than of any kind of thinking.

To arrest an advancing scepticism, like that which has been described, was obviously no easy task. Its insinuating methods and unfixed character embarrassed the effort to bring it to close quarters. Even with the best management a speedy victory was not likely to be forthcoming. But the actual management of the subject was far from being well chosen and efficient. The feeble and inconsequent efforts of the authorities to suppress the offending writings sufficed for little else than to irritate the sceptics, and to inflame their zeal. While the appeal to force and authority was thus abortive, there was at the same time a dearth of fresh and effective argumentation. "Most of the replies were not above the rank of indigested balderdash." 1 De Pressensé, L'Église et la Révolution Française, p. 14. Orthodox intellect seemed to have become a missing article in France. A few writers, however, showed that complete sterility had not been reached. Duguet used his pen to good advantage in his Traité des Principes de la Foi Chrétienne." But the most trenchant apology was written by Antoine Guenée, under the title "Lettres de quelques, Juifs, Portugais, Allemands, et Polonais à M. de Voltaire." We know from the words of Voltaire himself that he was touched to the quick by Guenée's criticism, at once polite and deft.

The Thirty Years' War and the Peace of Westphalia

The Thirty Years War and the Peace of Westphalia

1. CAUSES AND FIRST STAGES OF THE WAR--
While political ambitions aggravated and prolonged the conflict, the main cause lay in religious antagonisms. No stable and satisfactory settlement of these had been effected. The peace of Augaburg afforded but an imperfect and temporary basis of agreement. It gave no guarantees to the Reformed as distinguished from the Lutherans. Its terms were such as Lutherans could accept only under protest, for Protestantism was left thereby at a disadvantage in a large part of Germany. Its rights were restricted in the ecclesiastical territories, or the bishoprics which were held immediately of the Empire. These were numerous, and some of them were large enough to constitute important principalities. According to the clause known as the Ecclesiastical Reservation, the heads of these territories were to vacate their sees with all their temporalities if they passed over to Protestantism. Moreover, Protestant subjects in these districts had, as security for the enjoyment of their religion, simply the imperial declaration, and not a definite provision in the treaty itself. Thus circumstanced, they could not of course be anxious to perpetuate a succession of Roman Catholic prelates, who perhaps would deny them any standing room in their domains. In short, the Ecclesiastical Reservation presumed upon an impracticable fixity. When the great mass of the people in the limits of a bilshopric of the Empire had become Protestant, it was next to inevitable that the bishop would not lose his prerogatives by embracing Protestantism. Nothing but the strong arm of power could install a pronounced foe of the dominant religion; and place the church property under his direction. In fact, but moderate respect was paid to the Ecclesiastical Reservation. As Northern Germany became almost wholly Protestant, the great bishoprics there passed under Protestant control. In the interpretation of the evangelical party, this was declared not to be contrary to the spirit of the treaty. The treaty, they said, was meant for a case in which a bishop, after having been elected by a Roman Catholic chapter, turned Protestant. In that event he was to resign. But where the chapter itself had become Protestant, it was not contemplated that a Protestant bishop should be excluded. This was certainly a rational adjustment of the matter. But the opposing party could plead against it the letter of the provision in the treaty. They had a show of legality on their side, though if must be confessed that it was a legality of a Shylock type which allowed a community that had been perchance substantinlly Protestant for more than half a century to be dispossessed of church property and threatened with exclusion from all rights of worship. An attempt to blot out three quarters of a century of history, and bring back a status which existed in the time of Charles V., was essentially a violent undertaking. There was room for the suspicion that the work of restoration, when once effected, would turn out to be an introduction to a project for the complete extermination of Protestantism in Germany.

A reactionary movement on this extended scale was undertaken by the house of Hapsburg, which held the imperial dignity, sided by its Roman Catholic allies in Germany, especially Bavaria, and also by Spain. Ferdinand II., who represented the Austrian house during the more important stages of the war, was in temper a religious devotee, a prince whom the Jesuits, who conducted his entire education, found little difficulty in moulding according to their intent. He was not a man of commanding force or robust personality. On the most important measures he often shirked responsibility, and left the decision to his counsellors. But in one direction he had a decided bent. He was resolved to use his power, wherever opportunity was offered, for the suppression of heresy and the restoration of Romish supremacy. While yet a young man, during a pilgrimage in Italy, as his confessor reports, he vowed at Loretto that he would spare no pains to root out the sects from his hereditary domains. This promise he faithfully fulfilled in the provinces which were first assigned to his rule, those of Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola. If in the broader field which afterwards came under his sceptre he found more obstacles to deal with, he exhibited there still the same disposition, the same intolerant zeal.

When it is said that Ferdinand II. and the associated princes undertook a reactionary project, which aimed, under a show of legality, to cut off the acquisitions which Protestantism had made in three quarters of a century, and indeed to endanger its existence in Germany, it is not meant that this project was distinctly conceived from the first. The project was not unfolded, perhaps not planned, until aggression from the Protestant side had supplied a pretext for sweeping measures.
The order of events was on this wise. First came Roman Catholic aggression. This called out a counter aggression, though not from the whole body of Protestants. It was in fact discountenanced by a large proportion of them. In the ensuing encounter the arms of the Romish party were victorious. The advantage thus gained was used in the most intemperate manner. Later successes mere improved with as little moderation, until at length a reactionary project as broad as that mentioned was openly proclaimed.

A portent of the darkened sky which was to shadow Germany appeared in a little cloud which arose in 1607. We refer to the affair of the free city Donauwerth in Southern Germany. Romanism had become a mere remnant in this place, when one of its representatives affronted the Protestant sentiment of the people by sending out a pompous procession. This led to some rudeness from the other side, though not to any destructive riot. The city, nevertheless, was put under the ban, robbed of its political privileges, placed ecclesiastically under Roman Catholic domination, and annexed to Bavaria. Such arbitrary action was naturally awakening. The next year a number of the Protestant princes, as a measure of defence against new enoroachments, formed the Evangelical Union. Christian of Anhalt was a leading spirit in the organization. He is credited with some bold and resolute opinions as to the need of curtailing the threatening power of Austria. But the Union did not embark upon any radical enterprise and appeared for the time being simply as a precautionary alliance. In 1609, the opposite party provided an offset in a Roman Catholic League.

The more direct occasion of the prolonged struggle great out of affairs in Bohemia. This country by the opening of the seventeenth century had in large part accepted the Reformation. So strong was the Protestant element that Rudolph, who was at once German Emperor and King of Bohemia, felt constrained in 1609 to give distinct recognition of its rights. In the Letter of Majesty, or Royal Charter, which was issued at that time, liberty of conscience was guaranteed to all.who should keep within the limits of certain creeds. As to the building and use of churches, that was left to the estates; in other words, the nobles and the towns had jurisdiction within their respective territories. In the special domains of the King, on the other hand, all tolerated parties could have their churches, or freedom of public worship, as well as liberty of conscience. The charter was given grudgingly. Rudolph showed forthwith an inclination to evade its provisions. Matthias, who became King of Bohemia in 1611, and Emperor the next year, soon manifested the same disposition. After 1617, when Ferdinand was crowned King of Bohemia, the causes of complaint were aggravated. Protestants on the royal domains were denied the rights of conscience, which had been assured to them. One of their churches was closed, and another was torn down. At length, in 1618, some of the high-spirited nobles resolved to take advantage of popular feeling, and to sever the connection between Bohemia and the Austrian crown. The revolution was started by an act of miscalculating outrage, and was not conducted with a discretion adequate to the emergency. The next year after the outbreak, Ferdinand was strengthened by an election to the imperial dignity. The Bohemians, who had taken their crown from Ferdinand and awarded it fo Frederic of the Palatinate, received far less sympathy from the German Protestants than they had expected. Frederic did not prove to be an efficient leader. The battle of White Hill, in November, 1620, proclaimed the uprising a failure.

The defeated now lay at the mercy of the conqueror. They were treated as though mercy had no place in the Christian vocabulary. Wholesale confiscations brought them down by the hundred thousand to the verge of beggary. "The woe under which the land groaned can be likened in compass and depth only to that which, in the time of the barbaric invasions, came upon the inhabitants of Gaul and Upper Italy through the conquering Franks .and Lombards." 1 Religion was spared still less than property. The Protestant ministers were banished. Their flocks fared no better after a brief respite. In 1627, commissioners went; through the country, with troops at their backs, offering to the worried and impoverished people choice between return to the Romish Church and exile. Moravia, which made common cause with Bohemia, was treated in like manner. Meanwhile the sword descended upon the Palatinate. The electoral dignity 1 Anton Gindeley, Geschichte des dreissigjährigen Kriegs, i, 257, Leipzig, 1882. was taken away from Frederic, and bestowed upon Maximilian of Bavaria. Much of the territory of the Palatinate was also given to Maximilian, and its Protestant inhabitants were subjected to the usual expedients for restoring Roman Catholic ascendency. From the Palatinate the course of the war was into the Lower Saxon circle, or the districts of Northern Germany. The movements in this quarter brought a new combatant into the lists, since Christian IV. of Denmark felt that the integrity of his own kingdom was being threatened. His active participation in the war was not, however, of long continuance. In l629, he availed himself of the peace of Lübeck to retire from the struggle.

Thus far the advantage had been decidedly on the side of the Roman Catholic forces. With the exception of the failure to take Stralsund (1628), they had received little check. Two considerations explain their relative success. They dealt with a divided foe. The relations between the Lutherans and the Reformed were far from being cordial. The evangelical princes were slow to unite upon any general policy. Some of them were conspicuously selfish and cautious. In planning and in executing, not one of them was the equal of Maximilian of Bavaria. Moreover, the ablest generals were in the service of the Emperor and the League. Tilly and Wallenstein were both notable commanders, though very widely contrasted. The former is easily classified. He was devout, conscientiously devoted to the will of his superiors, zealous for the interests of the Romish Church, in tactics a general of the old Spanish school. Wallenstein, on the other hand, defies classification. He stands by himself, one of the most singular figures which has crossed the political or military horizon of Europe. Without the glory of great victories to emblazon his fame, he still produced a profound impression as to his military capacity, and easily found recruits to join his standard whenever it was raised. With Oriental magnificence and enormous regard for his own interests he combined marks of a prudent statesmanship. Far from sharing in the spirit of intolerant propagandism which governed the imperial counsels, he looked upon it with ill-concealed dislike. A strong central government ruling on the basis of religious freedom was regarded by him as the great need of Germany. As to his personal creed, it can only be said that it was a mixture of Romanism, astrology, and egoism. He believed in God, in the Virgin, in the stars, in himself.

Emboldened by the successes of these great captains, Ferdinand II. at length, in March, 1629, ventured on the sweeping measure known as the Edict of Restitution. This was in effect a notification that all bishoprics held immediately of the Empire, which had passed into the possession of the Protestants since the year 1552 must be placed in the hands of Roman Catholic incumbents. Nor was this the whole meaning of the edict. The declaration of Ferdinand I., that the subjects of ecclesiastical rulers should have religious freedom, was left unnoticed. The plain inference therefore was, that hand in hand with the installation of Roman Catholic bishops would proceed the suppression of the opposing religion. The Edict of Restitution meant in fact that a large part of Germany should undergo the fate of Bohemia, being stripped bare by wholesale confiscations, and then scourged with whips, cutting into the very conscience and religious life of the people.

The manifesto of the Emperor, though gloried in by the zealots of his party, was far from being a stroke of practical wisdom. While if had its aspect of terror, it had also its aspect of encouragement. Far-seeing opponents readily understood that it was well adapted to call out the latent power of resistance in German Protestantism. For the time being, however, there was too little of union and confidence to summon forth the fitting defiance. The hand that was to grasp the Edict of Restitution and crumple it into a worthless and discarded parchment was the hand of a stronger hero than had been nurtured on German soil in that era.

2. THE PART OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS IN THE WAR.-- From the beginning of the struggle, the Swedish King, Gustavus Adolphus, had been a thoroughly alert spectator. At one time (1624, 1625) he had conferred with James I. of England and Christian IV. of Denmark in behalf of a combined movement against the Emperor and the League. But as those princes were not ready to contribute men and means on such a scale as he deemed necessary to success, he declined all connection with the enterprise. Meanwhile he kept his eye upon the field, and waited for his opportunity. Having secured his own realm by effecting a truce with Poland, and finding himself well supported by the national sentiment, he concluded, when the Edict of Restitution was issued, that the time to strike had come. He embarked depending upon his own resources. Negotiations with France had indeed been commenced, but had not yet been brought to a successful issue.

In the middle of the summer of 1630 Gustavus landed with thirteen thousand men upon an island at the mouth of the Oder. Three motives may be supposed to have urged him forward in this daring enterprise: (1) sympathy with his oppressed co-religionists; (2) a sense of the danger which would threaten his own kingdom, if the political and religious liberties of Northern Germany were extinguished; (3) a desire to secure for his country a more prominent place in European affairs. An unfriendly judgment would lay the chief stress upon the last motive. No doubt Gustavus was ready to secure as much political advantage from his enterprise as might fairly accrue to him; but there is no just cause for denying that he was profoundly moved by religious considerations. The morality and sobriety which he enforced in his army, and the whole bearing of the man, indicate that he possessed in a marked degree the elements of Christian zeal and heroism. He wrought under the impression of a great providential mission, and with a devotion which is well indicated by his words to the Swedish Senate: " I expect you to persevere in this great work, of which you and your children will see the happy issue, such as God, I hope, will accord to your prayers. For myself, I look henceforth for no more tranquillity before entering into eternal felicity." 1 John L. Stevens, History of Gustavus Adolphus, p. 263.

The attributes of a great commander are clearly discernible in Gustavus Adolphus. In a remarkable degree he blended self-restraint with energy and daring. He made important contributions to the art of war, substituting largely skill and rapidity of movement for mere weight and pressure of the mass. The first Napoleon assigned him a place among the eight greatest generals the world has seen. Few leaders have accomplished more, in so brief an interval, than was accomplished by him in his career of little more than two years in Germany. At the outset, however, he had great difficulties to contend with. If was a cold welcome which he received from some of the Protestant princes. Men of such influential and representative position as the Duke of Brandenburg and the Elector of Saxony stood aloof. Not till after the fall of Magdeburg, before the soldiers of Tilly, could these princes be constrained to give up their neutrality and render any hearty aid to the Swede. Even then they needed to be spurred on, the one by the stern threats of Gustavus, and the other by the spectacle of his own territories being overrun and pillaged, though the fate of Magdeburg by itself might have been sufficiently awakening. Fearful indeed was the ordeal which came upon the ill-fated city. Nothing was sacred to the infuriated soldiers as they rushed through the streets. Womanhood, age, and infancy appealed in vain for mercy. To increase the horror, a conflagration broke out which reduced nearly the whole city to ashes. Tilly himself declared that the downfall of Magdeburg could be likened to nothing else than the destruction of Troy and Jerusalem.

The invasion of Saxony followed close upon the fall of Magdeburg. Tilly established himself at Leipzig. Here he was confronted by the combined army of the Swedes and the Saxons (September, 1631). The result of the ensuing engagement was a complete breaking of the spell of imperial success. On the battle-field of Leipzig, or Breitenfeld, the generalship of Gustavus and the valor of the Swedes secured a glorious victory. Following up his success with great vigor, Gustavus pressed through Franconia and the Palatinate, capturing many cities for his Protestant allies. Tilly was mortally wounded while attempting to check his advance. Bavaria was invaded, and some of its chief cities passed into the hands of the victorious Swede. The "Snow King" did not melt away so suddenly under the southern sun as had been contemptuously prophesied at Vienna. Meanwhile, the Elector of Saxony invaded Bohemia.

The hard-pressed Imperialists saw now no hope save in restoring the command to Wallenstein. Shortly before the Swedish invasion, the princes of the League, taking offence at his exorbitant demands, and fearing that their own dignity would be abased before a military despotism if he were allowed to carry out his ambitious designs, had forced him to lay down the command. Assured that his star would again be in the ascendant, the proud general had retired to his estates in Bohemia to await the turn of events. The victories of Gustavua had been to him no cause of regret, but rather of rejoicing. He saw in them omens of good for himself. Being at last requested to resume his place at the head of the imperial forces, he put on a show of reluctance. He was determined to make of his restoration a great triumph. He haughtily refused any associate in command, blasphemously declaring, if report may be trusted, that he would not accept God Himself as a colleague. The powers which he claimed were really those of an irresponsible dictator. Nor was he unmindful of territorial aggrandizement. He must have a confirmed title to the duchy of Mecklenburg, or to some equivalent principality. Enormous as were the demands, the Emperor agreed to them.

After the imperial arms had gained some minor successes under the lead of Wallenstein, the opposing forces met in the bloody and hard-fought battle of Lützen (November; 1632). The Swedes were left in possession of the field; but the battle was virtually lost to them in that they lost their heroic commander. Gustavus Adolphus fell in the heat of the conflict.

3. CLOSING STAGES AND EFFECTS OF THE WAR.-- Notwithstanding the death of her King, Sweden was resolved to continue the war. But it was soon plain that the master spirit of the conflict was gone. The war progressed through wearisome alternations of fortune. Neither side could now claim generals of such prestige and reputation as had disputed the field during the campaigns of Gustavus. Wallenstein had but a brief career after the battle of Lützen. A growing cloud of suspicion gathered against him, till at length in its thick shadow his deposition was ordained and his assassination effected (February, 1634). He was accused of treasonable designs, and not without grounds. For he was ill-affected toward the policy of the Emperor, and though he may have formed no positive conclusion to enter the field against him, he was in all probability resolved so to do unless he could constrain him to terminate the conflict by a reasonable peace.1 Compare Ranke, Geschichte Wallensteins, pp. 421, 423; Gindeley, Geschichte des dreissigjährigen Kriegs, iii. 8-13; S. R. Gardiner, The Thirty Years' War,pp. 172-178.

During the further prosecution of the war French influence performed an important part. Of course the interest of France in the struggle was purely political. Richelieu and those who inherited his plans wished to limit the power of Austria and Spain and to acquire new territory for France.

The miseries caused by the protracted struggle were indescribable. No bounds were set to pillage. An evil example was early provided on the Protestant side by the unpaid marauding troops of Mansfeld and Christian of Brunswick, who undertook to uphold the cause of Frederic in the Palatinate. During the larger part of the conflict no regular governmental pay was afforded to the armies of either party. Even the Swedes, who had seemed at first like men of another world an account of their moderation and continence, yielded in the closing stages of the war to the corrupting example of other combatants. The country was so wasted that multitudes were made to feel the pangs of want, or even of starvation. Some districts were wellnigh depopulated. In a group of nineteen villages in Thuringia four fifths of the people had disappeared. The inhabitants of Augsburg were reduced from eighty thousand to eighteen thousand. The population of Bohemia sank from two millions to seven hundred thousand. Half of the houses in the Bohemian cities were left unoccupied, and half the fields in the country uncultivated. In Germany at large the percentage of waste rose near to this awful maximum. Half of the people and two thirds of the movable goods were swept sway. No man's threshold was secure from the shadow of violence or want. We can read the history of scarcely one of the eminent theologians of the time without discovering that he was burnt out of house and home, perhaps more than once. Naturally, the spoliation reached beyond mere estate to mind and morals. Education was interrupted. Many schools were attenuated into miserable remnants, or even into non-existence. The University of Heidelberg numbered but two students in 1626, and at Helmstedt the faculty was reduced at one time to a single professor.1 Karl Biedermann, Deutschlands trübste Zeit, p. 181. Where there was a better attendance the fruits of scholastic training were largely prevented by the wildness and insubordination of the students, who seemed to have imbibed a genius for barbarity from the example of ill-disciplined and plundering troops. In general, there was a loosening of moral bonds and a depression of national spirit. The extent to which their cause was taken into the hands of strangers tended to rob the German people of that confidence and self-reliance which are essential to national vigor and healthy growth.

4. THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA.-- Though some of the interested parties may have felt that their claims were not duly regarded, it was with no small satisfaction that the news was received, in October, 1648, that terms of peace had been ratified. These terms were favorable to the Protestants, at least more favorable than any which had previously been accorded. The Reformed were included in the stipulations on an equal footing with the Lutherans. A security was given for the just settlement of disputes, in that the Imperial Court in a case between Protestantism and Romanism was to be composed of an equal number of representatives of either side. As respects the disposition of property, the first day of the year 1624 was fixed upon as the deciding date. Whatever of church property was in the hands of Protestants at that time was to be accounted theirs. States which had granted the free use of religion in that year were to grant it still. Other states were not required to grant this privilege, and if was left to the prince to decide whether in them an asylum should be conceded to those of dissenting faith. This left room still for intolerance and despotic caprice, but the age was not ready for a broader policy. In its political aspects the more important features of the treaty were the confirmation of the electoral dignity to the Duke of Bavaria, the erection of the Lower Palatinate into an eighth electorate for the son of the dispossessed Frederic, the cession of Alsace to France, and the transfer of Western Pomerania, together with the bishoprics of Bremen and Verdun, to Sweden. In virtue of her acquisitions, Sweden obtained a voice in the German Diet.

The condemnation of the treaty by Innocent X. was an unimportant episode. States which had no scruple about driving Protestants by fire and sword into subjection to the papal headship were as ready as others to treat the papal instructions with blank indifference when they were not acceptable.

At the Peace of Westphalia we reach the close of the first great era in the history of Protestantism. That peace had the force of a definite proclamation that the religious revolution of the sixteenth century was to hold its ground. As ability to maintain itself is one of the justifications of attempted revolution, it may be said that Europe subscribed here a justification of Protestantism .

Other considerations must; of course enter into an adequate justification. These we cannot consider at length, since we are writing history rather than apology. We simply note a few of the cardinal points which cannot be ignored in any fair survey of the subject.

To justify the Reformation it is in no wise necessary to prove that it was free from faults and excrescences. As already remarked, no one but a romancer would look for an unblemished ideal in a work of such profound upheaval and extensive reconstruction. The justification of the Reformation is found in two facts: (I.) It inaugurated an all-important emancipation. A bogus infallibility claiming jurisdiction over belief, conscience, and conduct is an intolerable fraud. If carried out according to the letter of its assumptions, it becomes a dwarfing despotism. If practically discarded, while formally acknowledged, it strikes at the roots of sincerity, and tends to reduce religion to the low rank of fashion and conventionalism. In any case, it is a menace to all the higher interests of mankind. The Reformation must accordingly be credited with an immortal service, in that it loosed so large a portion of Europe from the trammels of Rome's pretended infallibility. (2.) In its work of reconstruction, the Reformation accomplished a beneficent task. It cast out, or greatly reduced, the elements of paganism and priestcraft which vitiated the old system, cleared the way for a direct dependence upon the source of grace, gave back to revelation its right of immediate impact upon the souls of men, and strongly asserted the most quickening truths of the apostolic teaching.

Service of this serf was so fundamental and invaluable that the freest exposure of defects in the reconstructive work of the Reformation leaves to it still an essential glory. It must be allowed that there was some one-sidedness and inconsistency in theory, and that practice too often followed the worse side of theory. In this way the more central principles and tendencies were in a measure temporarily obscured. No small amount of intolerance, for example, was exhibited on the side of the Reformation. In some cases the Reformafion seemed also to add directly to the royal prerogatives, and to increase the despotism of the crown. Such, it can hardly be denied, was the result, to some extent, in Germany. The abolition of papal control gave a wider sweep to princely control, that is, where the princes themselves espoused the Reformation; in Bavaria, Austria, and Bohemia, where the sovereigns were Roman Catholic, the Protestant movement, while it was in force, tended to limit the central power. Theoretically, the great doctrinal leaders of the German Reformation, as has been indicated, were not altogether in favor of this increase of prerogatives in the temporal prince. They would gladly have secured to the reconstructed Church a larger share in the management of its own affairs, had not the undisciplined condition of the people seemed to make the supervision of the civil government a necessity. As it was, the prince ruled to a large extent in the Church as well as in the State. In England, the increase of prerogatives accruing to the crown from the Reformation was, if possible, still more noticeable. Let all this be granted, and it still remains true that Protestantism is in its nature the friend of freedom, legitimate freedom of any kind, religious or political. It is logically the friend of religious freedom, since it denies the existence of any infallible human tribunal in matters of religion; and what but an infallible tribunal is authorized to set up a system of faith to which all men must assent ? It is logically, also, the friend of civil freedom, since the enjoyment of religious liberty naturally fosters the spirit in the citizen, the sense of manhood and independence, which will insist upon civil freedom. It lies in the reason of the case, that, as respects wellgrounded confidence and self-governing ability, a company of men trained by the free use of the Bible and the exercise of their own faculties must have an advantage over a community treated perpetually as children or miners in their religion, and trained to passive acquiescence in the prescriptions of a hierarchy. And what the logic of the system thus requires, Protestantism in recent times has almost universally asserted and illustrated. It only needed a sufficiently extended opportunity to work out the demonstration that it is the friend both of religious and civil liberty.

The charge of intellectual license, or immoderate freethinking, which has been urged against Protestantism, has doubtless some foundation in the facts of its early, as also of its later history. In a system of liberty some overstepping of normal bounds is inevitable. But what is the cure ? It certainly is not despotism or usurped authority. A double failure follows in the wake of despotism. While it may procure formal assent, it cannot generate real faith. Suppose that what it enforces is genuine orthodoxy, and not mere superstition. Even then there is no reason for glorying. An enforced orthodoxy is just about on a par with the motions of a dead body enforced by a galvanic battery. Moreover, except under very special conditions, despotic repression tends to provoke reaction to the opposite extreme. The Dragonnade is the natural forerunner of a French Revolution. A discredited claim to infallible authority is fuel for infidelity. Those who mail over the results of intellectual freedom, and ask for the reign of sheer authority, mistake the nature of the human mind. This Samson cannot be bound with their wisp of straw. Protestantism may not have been free from an undue spirit of schism, independence, and insubordination. It may not have been entirely successful in working out that most difficult of all problems, the reconciliation of legitimate freedom with legitimate authority. But it cannot assist the solution of the problem by forsaking its principles. On the contrary, in a wise fidelity to its principles lies the best contribution which it can make to religious order and unity. Freedom and intelligence mutually promoting each other, as it is their nature to do, will lead men toward a healthy and common faith as far as human nature permits.

The Inquisition

The Inquisition

I. ORIGIN.-- As was seen in the history of the mediæval Church, the ecclesiastical authorities near the close of the twelfth century began to take alarm at the encroachments of heresy. Fear stirred them to counsel and action. In devising remedies and safeguards against the threatening evil, they had not to invent new maxims. A temporal sword had not long been in the hand of the Church before it began to be used for the coercion of the heretic. Arguments and decisions in favor of repressive measures reach back to the days of Augustine and Leo the Great. In the rude civilization of the following centuries it was not natural that either theory or practice should be improved. What the leaders of the Church at the close of the twelfth and the dawn of the thirteenth century had to devise was little else than the machinery which should give effect to the principle of intolerance. The most important part of that machinery bears the name of the Inquisition. A substitute name of the institution, designed, we presume, to emphasize the sanctity of its function, is that of the Holy Office.

A definite advance toward the Inquisition appeared in the scheme for the prosecution of heretics which was published by Lucius III. through the Council of Verona in 1184.1 Mansi, tom.xxii. A still further advance was made in the plan of inquisitorial scrutiny which was issued by the Fourth Lateran Council, held under Innocent III. in 1215. 2 Ibid. The Council of Toulouse, presided over by the legates of Gregory IX., in 1229, came quite near to the pattern of the Inquisition, since it provided for a special commission to serve in the work of heresy-hunting 3 Ibid, tom. xxiii. One step more, however, was needed. The commission ordained by the Council of Toulouse was a local agency subordinate to the bishop. To reach the full-ordained institution of the Inquisition it was necessary to appoint inquisitors who should be co-ordinate with bishops, and enjoy a relative independence in the discharge of their functions. Such officials very soon appeared.

It is supposed that Gregory IX. appointed special inquisitors for Italy in 1231, for France in 1233, and for Aragon in 1237. The new tribunals were largely manned by the Dominicans, though a place therein was given to the Franciscans and others. Meanwhile the episcopate was not robbed of its inquisitorial prerogatives, and in some quarters continued to be the main instrument for extirpating heretical pravity.

The Inquisition, as a distinct institute, was in effective operation during the thirteenth century and the early part of the fourteenth. In the latter part of the fourteenth and through the fifteenth century it wrought less energetically in most fields. England and the Scandinavian countries remained beyond its range from the first. In Sicily it exhibited tokens of renewed vitality about the middle of the fifteenth century. A quarter of a century later if burst into terrible activity in Spain, where previously its sphere of operation had been somewhat limited, Castile and Leon having scarcely felt its benediction. It was at this time (1481) that the New Inquisition, as it is called, was established. The principles and methods of the new tribunal did not differ materially from those of the old, and the change consisted mainly in the provision of a more ample and efficient hoard of management. The notorious Torquemada was appointed (1483) the first inquisitor-general under the revised constitution. The New Inquisition was introduced into Portugal in 1531.

As already noted, a constitution was published, in 1642, for the establishment of a supreme Inquisition in Rome, and cardinals were appointed under the Pope as managers. It would appear, however, that this new tribunal did not interfere with the Spanish, the latter being exempted from the direct control of the Roman Congregation.

2. RESPONSIBILITY. --Any one who has read the decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council and of the Council of Toulouse, or has looked through the long train of epistles in which Innocent III., Gregory IX., Innocent IV., Alexander IV., and other Popes called for the extermination of heresy, can entertain no doubt that ecclesiastical authority took the lead in organizing the Inquisition, and in devising the whole scheme of merciless repression of which it was the instrument. It is true that a very severe code was published by Frederic II. (1220-1239). But this was largely based on decrees which had already been issued under papal authority, owed its primary draft to the papal curia, 1 Raynaldus, anno 1120, n. 19-24. was promulgated by successive Popes, and was ordered by them to be entered into the local statute-books of states and cities.

2 Directorium Inquisitorum Nicolai Eymerici, com Commentariis Francisci Pegnae Sacrae Theologiae ac Juris Utriusque Doctoris, Venetiis, 1590, Appendix; Potthast, Regesta Pontificum Romanorum, No. 14,575, 14,587, 14,607, 14,762, etc.

H. C. Lea, History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, i. 227, 322, 323.

While, therefore, Frederic II. is not to be excused, and the part which he took was especially disgraceful for a man of his free sentiments, the chief responsibility in devising and giving practical efficacy to his sanguinary code was with the Papacy.

Another element of responsibility appears in the fact that the Inquisition, after being organized, was treated by the supreme ecclesiastical authority as a favored child. Decree after decree was issued to remove obstacles out of the way, to prefect its agents, and to enlarge the scope of its operations. The inquisitors were armed with a plenary indulgence while in the discharge of their office.1 Eymerich, Directorium Inquisitorum, pp. 130, 131, 685. Compare Paramo, De Origine et Progressu Inquisitionis, lib. ii. tit, i, cap. iv. They were authorized to proclaim forty days' indulgence for any who should attend their sermon, and three years for any who should render them special service, if being understood in addition that one who chanced to die in this service should have plenary indulgence. 2 Directorium, pp. 130, 409. They were not to falter because of the opposition of local ecclesiastics, could not be touched by an excommunication without the sanction of the Roman see, and had power to absolve one another from ecclesiastical censures. 3 Ibid., pp. 136, 552, 553. On setting up their tribunal in any place, they could require the temporal magistrate to take oath to visit heretics with the canonical punishments, and in case the magistrate should refuse assistance to their pious designs, they could threaten him with excommunication and deposition on the express warrant of more than one papal edict.

4 Ibid., p. 393; Appendix, passim. A discovery of heresy in the magistrate himself was thought of course to justify a still more peremptory dealing. The fact of his heresy needed only to be officially announced in order to cancel at once all obligations to him. Eymerich, who wrote in the latter part of the fourteenth century, and his commentator, Pegna, who came two centuries later, state this in the most explicit terms. Pegna, writing as a doctor of law, and giving doubtless the accepted interpretation of the canons, says:--

 

"Ex hae quaestione unum colligitur axioma, videlicet, Omnes illos, qui aliquo obligationis genere aliquibus tenentur astricti, tunc liberantur penitus, com illi quibus obligati erant in haeresim inciderent manifeste.

 

"Multis modis hoc axioma verum est. Primum, quia com à die com missi criminis amittant dominium bonornm, Rursus, si haeretici, aliquos haberent obligatos, in eos agere possent.

 

"Haec poena de amisso jure obligationum multos parit effectus. Primum ergo is apud quem haereticus aliquid deposuit, non tenebitur post manifestum ejus haeresim, rem depositam haeretico restituere, sed fisco.

 

"Rursus, nec catholica uxor viro haeretico debitum reddere obligabitur, quia per haeresim viri ab hoc debito liberata est.

 

"His adde, quòd custodes arcium seu castrorum, aut populorum, vel civitatum, domino haeretico ea restituere non tenentur, neque ejus nomine custodire.

 

"Denique quicunque vassali omni obligatione etiam juramenti religione munita, qua dominis sui tenebantur obstricti, ipso jure liberantur." (pp. 675, 676.)

They were authorized and advised to conceal the names of the accusers from the accused, where the result might be harmful if they were divulged, or even to conceal them in any case.

1 A decree of Innocent IV. reads: " Sanè volumus, ut nomina tam accusantium pravitatem haereticam, quàm testificantium super ea, nullatenus publicentur propter scandalum vel periculum, quod ex publicatione hujusmodi sequi posset, et adhibeatur dictis hujusmodi testium nihilominus plena fides." (Directorium, p. 137.)

In fine, the inquisitors were shielded and helped to the utmost by the papal legislation, and their responsibility was well-nigh limited to the Pope alone. Their official position was defined as that of papal delegates. 2 Directorium, p. 536.

The fact that the Church did not directly assume the task of executing heretics, but turned them over, after conviction, to the secular arm, does very little towards qualifying its responsibility. For not only did it inculcate the general maxim, that in guarding the faith the temporal power must obey the spiritual, but, as has just been indicated, it required specitically, and under stress of the highest censures at its command, that the temporal power should diligently employ its exterminating sword against heresy.

By an ecumenical decree, that of the Fourth Lateran Council, it ordained that the temporal lord who, after fair warning, should delay to purge his land of heretical defilement, should be excommunicated and lose all claim to allegiance. In the person of several Popes it prescribed, in authoritative terms, the adoption of a code which sentenced obstinate heretics to death by fire,

1 The following, addressed to Italian inquisitors by Innocent IV. in 1252, may serve as a specimen: "Volumus et praesentium vobis tenore mandamus, quatenus potestates, consilia, et communitates civitatum, castrorum, et quorumlibet aliorum locoruna Lombardiae, Marchiae Taruisanae, et Romaniolae monere curetis, ac inducere diligenter, ut statuta nostra, et alia ecclesiastica et saecularia, et constitutiones etiam quondam Federici Romanorum Imperatoris, tune in devotione ecclesiae persistentis edita contra haereticos, fautores, receptatores, et defensores eorum, quae conscripta et bulla nostra munita transmittimus, conscribi in statuariis suis, eaque irrefragibiliter observari faciant, et observent. Si vero nostris in hoc, immo potius apostolicis acquiescere monitis non curaverint, ipsos ad id per censuram ecclesiasticam, appellatione remota, ogatis." (Directorium, Appendix, pp. 5, 6.) Other decrees of like tenor are given, and in the same connection the statutes of Frederic II., wherein is recorded such a prescription as this: "Mortem pati Patarenos, aliosque haereticos quocunque nomine censeantur, decernimus, quam affectant: ut vivi in conspectu hominum comburantur, flammarum commissi judicio." (Appendix, p. 15.)

and in various instances coerced the magistrate into accepting or applying the code. 2 Lea, History of the Inquisition, i. 322, 538, 539. In the face of these facts, the plea that the Church has never executed heretics may well be left to those who exculpate the directing mind and lay all the blame on the hand of the criminal.

The shallow meaning of the inquisitor's request that the magistrate, in whose hands he placed the condemned heretic, should spare the shedding of blood, has been commented on in another connection. Pegna shows clearly enough that it was mere form, designed to avoid the appearance of complicity in blood-shedding, which was deemed an irregularity in an ecclesiastic. The same writer adds, that the form could no longer be counted strictly necessary, in consideration of the immunities granted to inquisitors by Paul IV. and Pius V., though it was fitting that it should be retained in deference to old custom. 1 Directorium, p. 124.

It is doubtless true that the Inquisition had in some instances an intimate connection with the State. This was the case with the tribunal in Spain as reorganized at the close of the fifteenth century. There is room for the suspicion that Spanish sovereigns, like Ferdinand, Charles, and Philip II., prized the Inquisition as a means of overawing the people and subjecting them to political as well as religious despotism. Some attention is also due to the fact that certain Popes passed some direct or implied strictures upon the proceedings of the Spanish tribunal. But, on the other hand, it is entirely certain that in its main achievement the Inquisition in Spain simply fulfilled what the Popes for two centuries and a half had been commanding princes to do under pain of anathema. It is also certain that papal authority never undertook in real earnest to check the cruelties in Spain, and that such feeble strictures as some of its representatives passed were dictated in part by the desire to secure the papal prerogative in the matter of appeals, and were not meant in any case to save from the flames one who refused to submit conscience and faith to the authority of the Church. It is equally unquestionable that other representatives of the Papacy, so far from holding inquisitorial rage in check, sought rather to fan it to an intenser flame. Thus Paul IV., as we have already seen, authorized the Spanish inquisitors to condemn to death such penitent heretics as had never relapsed 1 See "Protestantism in Spain" and who that is acquainted with the administration of Pius V. does not know that its whole tendency was to breathe a fiercer energy into every agency of repression, whether in Spain or elsewhere ?

The compliment which the Papacy paid to the Inquisition, in 1867, by canonizing Pedro Arbues, an inquisitor of Aragon who was assassinated in 1485, may properly be regarded as a scandal. But Pius IX. played herein a more respectable part than those are fulfilling who stand up in the face of history and attempt to acquit spiritual authority of all serious responsibility in the atrocities which have been committed for the upholding of the faith. The stalwart Romanists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries would have laughed at such diluted moonshine. Observe the tone in which Baronius addressed Paul V.: "Blessed father, the ministry of Peter is twofold, -- to feed and to kill. For the Lord said to him, 'Feed my sheep'; and he also heard a voice from heaven, saying, 'Kill and eat.' To feed sheep is to take care of obedient, faithful Christians, who in meekness, humility, and piety show themselves to be sheep and lambs. But when he has no longer to do with sheep and lambs, but with lions, and other wild, refractory, and troublesome beasts, Peter is commanded to kill them; that is to say, to attack, fight, and slaughter them, until there be none such left."1 Quoted by W. R. Rule, History of the Inquisition, ii, 208. More specific, if not more suggestive, are the words of the distinguished Bellarmin, who says that Roman Catholics universally teach the propriety of delivering over incorrigible heretics for the purpose of being burned, and that an innumerable multitude has been burned by the authority and consent of the Church.

2 Speaking of Luther's view that capital punishment ought not to be indicted on heretics, he says: "Contrarium docent omnes Catholici ... Nos breviter ostendimus, haereticos incorrigibiles, ac praesertim relapsos, posse ac debere ab ecclesia rejici, et a secularibus potestatibus, temporalibus poenis, atque ipsa etiam morte mulctari. ... Quod haeretici sint saepe ab ecclesia combusti, ostendi potest, si adducamus pauca exempla de multis. Ut alios infinitos omittam, Joannes Huss et Hieronymus de Praga in Constantiniensi Concilio ab Imperatore Sigismundo exusti fuerunt." (De Membris Eccl. Mil., lib, iii. cap. 21, 22.)

What less could the resolute dogmatist say, at least as respects the propriety of burning heretics, when he had in mind the ex cathedra decision of Leo X.? 3 See "The Reformation in Germany".

3. METHODS. -- The Inquisition in general sought to awe the minds of the people by a combination of secrecy and display. In different countries, however, the element of display was unequal. In Spain it reached the maximum. "The courts of the Inquisition," says Prescott,"were distributed throughout the country, and were conducted with a solemn pomp that belonged to no civil tribunal. Spacious buildings were erected for their accommodation, and the gigantic prisons of the inquisition rose up, like impregnable fortresses, in the principal cities of the kingdom. A swarm of menials and officials waited to do its bidding. The proudest nobles of the land held it an honor to serve as familiars of the Holy Office. In the midst of this external pomp, the impenetrable veil thrown over its proceedings took strong hold of the imagination, investing the tribunal with a sort of supernatural terror. An individual disappeared from the busy scenes of life.

No one knew whither he had gone till he reappeared, clothed in the fatal garb of the san benito, to take part in the tragic spectacle of an auto de fé." 1 Philip the Second, i. 345, 346.

The methods which the Inquisition employed to secure conviction have been so fully outlined in the directory of Eymerich and the accompanying commentary by Pegna, not to mention other authorities, that there is no room for doubt on any important point. The general character of these methods is expressed in temperate terms when it is said, that never has judicial outrage been carried to greater perfection than in the Holy Office. The prisoner had no opportunity to confront those who witnessed against him; even their names were in most instances withheld.

2 Eymerich says that some pontiffs had decided in favor of withholding the names of witnesses in all cases; others, for withholding them only when harm would be likely to result if they were disclosed. (Directorium, p. 627.) Pegna evidently considered the former as the better direction, and also as the one dominating practice. He quotes this instruction from the Madrid office, given in 1561: "Quanquam in aliis tribunalibus soleant judices, ad veritatem delictorum indagandam conciliare testes com delinquentibus, in judicio Inquisitionis nec debet, nec solitum est fieri; quia praeterquam quòd ex hoc violatur secretum, quod circa testes praecipitur, experientia notum est, quod si quandoque id factum est, non est secutus inde bonus effectus, immo ex eo incommoda orta sunt." (p. 436.)

Any class of persons, criminals, perjurers, the excommunicate, could testify against the accused. Proof of mortal hatred in the witness was declared to be the only warrantable ground for his rejection.

1 Directorium, p. 446. "In favorem fidei, infames, conscii criminis ac participes necnon et excommunicati, et quibuscunque allis criminibus irretiti, in defectum praesertim aliarum probationum, ad testificandum in causa fidei admittuntur, immo etiam perjuri. Refellit igitur sola inimicitia, non quaecunque, sed capitalis."

Heretics and near relatives could testify against the reputed heretic, but never for him. 2 Directorium, p. 612. The inquisitor might entice the accused to witness against himself, by making to him vague promises of leniency; by hinting that he is about to depart, and during a long absence must leave him to the rigors of the prison; by artfully pretending that he already has the evidence which he wishes to extract; by authorizing a seeming friend to approach the prisoner and to feign sympathy with his opinions.

3 Among the expedients which Eymerich enumerates, the fourth and the ninth are especially striking: " Quarta cautela inquisitoris est: ut si videat Inquisitor haereticum vel delatum nolle detegere veritatem, et scit eum per testes non esse convictum, et secundum indicia videtur eidem esse verum, quod deponitur contra eum: quòd quando negat hoc vel illud, qnòd inquisitor accipiat processum, et revolvat eum, et post dicat ei: clarum est, quòd non dicis verum, et quòd ita fuit sicut dico ego; dicas ergo veritatem negotiì clarè: sic ut ille credat se convictum esse, et sic apparere in processu. Vel teneat in manu unam cedulam seu scripturam, et quando delatus seu haereticus interrogatus negabit hoc vel illud, inquisitor quasi admirans dicat ei; et quomodo tu potes negare, nonne clarum est mihi? et tune legat in cedula sua, et pervertat eam, at legat. Et post dicat: ego dicebam verum: dicas postquam vides me scire." (p. 434.)

 

"Nona cautela inquisitoris est: ut si videat haereticum nullatenus velle prodere veritatem, habeat inquisitor unum de complicibus suis, seu alium bene ad fidem conversum, et de qno inquisitor bene confidere possit, illi capto non ingratum, et permittat illum intrare, et faciat, quòd ille loquatur sibi, et si opus fuerit, fingat se de secta sua adhuc esse, sed metu abjurasse, vel veritatem inquisitori prodidisse, et, com haereticus captus confiderit in eo, intret quodam sero ad haereticum illum captum protrahendo locutiones com eodem, et tandem fingat nimis esse tardè pro recessu, et remaneat in carcere com eodem, et de nocte pariter colloquantur, ut dicant sibi mutuo, quae commiserunt, illo, qui superintravit, inducente ad hoc captum. Et tunc sit ordinatum, quòd stent extra carcerem in hoc loco congruo explorantes eos, anscultantes, et verbs colligentes, et si opus fuerit notarius com isdem." (p. 434.)

In case of notorious heresy, no advocate was allowed. In other cases the prisoner might be allowed an advocate, but the same was to be approved by the inquisitors, was to communicate with his client in their presence, and was to admonish him to confess his fault. 1 Ibid., p. 447. If the responses of the accused were unsatisfactory, he might be subjected to torture, and if he did not adhere to the confession made upon the rack, the torture might be repeated, or, in inquisitorial phrase, continued. 2 Ibid., pp. 481, 484, 593, 594. Pegna says: "Lando equidem consuetudinem torquendi reos, maxime his temporibus, quibus facinorosi vix ullis cruciatibus delicta commissa fatentur" (p. 594). If the doctor of law could write thus in his study, what must have been the practice when a stubborn prisoner fell into the hands of the most rigorous or passionate among the inquisitors?

In a question of faith there was no privileged order; persons of any rank could be subjected to the torture.3 Directorium, p. 483. Where proof was wanting, suspicion could in part take its place. Thus, one discharged for lack of evidence, but under grave suspicion, if he should afterwards be convicted, could be sentenced as a relapsed heretic.4 Ibid., p. 331. In short, everything was construed "in favor of the faith," and to the disadvantage of the defendant. Left in the dark as to his accusers, enfeebled in body and mind by torture or long imprisonment, and beset by artifice, there was scarcely a possibility for him to escape, if the inquisitors were heartily desirous of his conviction. As Bernard Délicieux testified before Philippe le Bel, a Saint Peter or a Saint Paul, prosecuted for heretical conduct, could find no effectual means of defence under the methods of the Inquisition.

1 Lea, i. 450. It is the opinion of this thorough investigator, that the harsher features which began in the later mediæval era to prevail in the secular jurisprudence were due largely to the recommendation that the Church had given them in its inquisitorial procedure. He says: " The whole judicial system of the European monarchies was undergoing reconstruction, and the happiness of future generations depended on the character of the new institutions. That in this reorganization the worst features of the imperial jurisprudence--the use of torture and the inquisitorial process should be eagerly, nay, almost exclusively adopted, should be divested of the safeguards which in Rome restricted their abuse, should be exaggerated in all their evil tendencies, and should, for five centuries, become the prominent characteristic of the criminal jurisprudence of Europe, may safely be ascribed to the fact that they received the sanction of the Church. Thus recommended, they penetrated everywhere along with the Inquisition; while most of the nations to whom the Holy Office was unknown maintained their ancestral customs, developing into various forms of criminal practice, harsh enough, indeed, to modern eyes, but wholly divested of the more hideous atrocities which characterized the habitual investigation into crime in other regions." (i. 559, 560.)

For obstinate heretics and the relapsed, the ordinary penalty was death by burning. In the case of the former it was generally deemed expedient to postpone the sentence for a considerable time, that the spirit of the prisoner might be broken down by the horrors of the prison intermingled with persuasions and seasons of milder treatment.

2 Speaking of those who seem ready for martyrdom, the Directory says that they are not hastily to be executed, "sed sunt diu, videlicet per medium annum, vel per unum in carcere detinendi duro, et obscuro bene compediti: nam vexatio frequenter aperit intellectum, et calamitas carceris: et sic sunt detinendi et frequentius admonendi, quòd in corpore, et anima cremabuntur, ac perpetuo damnabuntur, et similia. Et si videant episcopus et inquisitor, quòd nec propter praedictorum informationem, nec propter carceris calamitatem à suis erroribus voluerit resilere, tentent si com aliquibus consolatoriis possent eum reducere, ponendo eum in carcere minus malo, vel camera competenti, proviso tamen ne possit evadere; at lautius faciant sibi ministrari, et promittere quòd si à suis erroribus convertatur quòd se habebunt ad eum misericorditer; et si resiliat, benedicatur Deus. Si autem per aliquot dies, sic habitus, et tractatus noluerit resilere, permittant ad eum venire filios, si quos habet, praesertim parvulos, et uxorem, seu alios attinentes qui eum emolliant, et eidem in aliorum praesentia colloquantur." (p. 514.)

It was barely possible, even after pronouncing sentence, to commute the punishment to imprisonment for life, if there was an exhibition of penitence at that stage; but this indulgence was declared extremely impolitic.1 Directorium, p. 518. In the later practice of the tribunal, those who accepted the offices of the Church at the stake might be strangled before being burned. On the criminal code of the Inquisition, any penalty short of a capital infliction was counted a very moderate punishment for heresy. A Romish commentator on the tender mercies of the Church spoke as a faithful exponent of the Holy Office when he remarked: "The Church, who is the mother of mercy, and the fountain of charity, content with the imposition of penances, generously accords life to many who do not deserve it. Whilst those who persist obstinately in their errors, after being imprisoned on the testimony of trustworthy witnesses, she causes to be put to the torture and condemned to the flames. Many, again, who sincerely repent, she, notwithstanding the heinousness of their transgressions, merely sentences to perpetual imprisonment." 2 L. Marineo, quoted by Prescott, Ferdinand and Isabella, i. 349. Life-long imprisonment was the regular penalty for the penitent heretic, at least if he had not been very prompt to confess and renounce his error. l Directorium, p. 503 Sentence to the prison was accompanied by the confiscation of the property of the condemned. Confiscations, in fact, might be called the sinews of the war against heresy, as thence came both means and motive for carrying on the prosecutions with vigor. The treatment awarded for moderate faults in those who readily expressed their submission depended much on the temper of the inquisitors and the degree of panic which was felt by the authorities. He who escaped with anything less than life-long penance and disqualification for office might count himself fortunate.

4. WORK. --In the modern era, the Spanish Inquisition wrought with the most destructive energy. The Jews were the first to endure extreme inflictions; then Protestants and Moors came in for their share in exterminating severity. After the final expulsion of the Moors, in the early part of the seventeenth century, a large proportion of the victims continued to be of Jewish extraction.

Nothing could be more pitiable than the fate of the Jews. Many of them, driven by intolerable persecution, had been led during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to embrace the Christian faith. But their profession was held under suspicion, and, stigmatized as "New Christians," they were continually subject to inquisitorial scrutiny. In 1481 the wholesale sacrifice began. Not less than two thousand were burned during the administration of Torquemada, and a much larger number were subjected to lesser punishments."

2 Llorente puts the number of the burned at a much higher figure. (Histoire de l'Inquisition d'Espagne, i. 279, 280). Hefele, who complains that Llorente misquotes Mariana, says that this historian reports the number burned in the time of Torquemada as two thousand, which number was also given by Pulgar, a contemporary of the inquisitor-general (Der Cardinal Ximenes, pp. 267, 268).

The multitude of the victims at Seville caused the governor at this time to erect the Quemadero, or burning-place, that is, a large stone platform, set off with huge statues, which might be permanently serviceable for the burning of victims. l Llorente, i. 160. In 1492, as the crowning misery for the persecuted race, all the Jews who would not give up their Jewish faith were required to leave the kingdom. Indescribable suffering attended their exodus.2 It is not an immoderate estimate which places the number of the ex-patriated at 160,000, or 170,000 (Hefele, Der Card. Xim., p. 330). The officers of the Inquisition were the foremost advocates of this expulsion.

As before stated, the first grand auto de fé for the burning of Spanish Protestants took place in 1559, and by the year 1570 Protestantism was substantially exterminated in Spain.

The sum total of the victims of the Spanish Inquisition, from the time of Torquemada to the year 1809, is given by Llorente, ex-secretary of the Madrid office, as follows: burnt alive, 31,912; burnt in effigy, 17,659; otherwise punished, 291,450. 3 Histoire, iv. 271. It is possible that the first of these estimates is somewhat too large. A suspicion that such is the case can arise when it is considered that the inquisitors used every art to secure a recantation, and that a recantation, except of a relapsed person, ordinarily averted the capital sentence. Still when writers who had no motive to exaggerate report that two thousand were burned under the first inquisitor-general, or that more than four thousand were sent to the stake in Sevile alone befween 1480 and 1520, 1 Paramo, De Origine et Progressu Inquisitionis, lib. ii. tit. ii. cap. iii. it is manifest that the victims of the extreme penalty were not a small company. The greater measure of suffering, nevertheless, was not at the stake. The blasted lives and injured consciences of the vast multitude who were ground by the despotic machinery of the Inquisition, but escaped sentence of death, represent by far the larger total of misery.

Such an institution could but react with deadly effect upon the national life. The apologist can indeed point to the fact, that in certain lines there was no small measure of intellectual activity in Spain at the time when the Inquisition was most flourishing. But the explanation involves no compliment to that tribunal. In the epoch when the New Inquisition began its work, the Spanish was perhaps the most enterprising nation on the face of the earth. Its relations and its prospects were peculiarly stimulating. An impetus accordingly was felt by the Spanish mind which despotism itself could not suddenly stifle. It needed some generations to make manifest the natural result. That the blight came, and came largely in consequence of the shackles imposed by organized religious intolerance, no one can entertain a doubt who compares the splendid opportunities of the nation at the opening of the sixteenth century with its later history, and reflects duly on the benumbing effect of a continued and pervasive espionage.

The Inquisition in Portugal was less efficient than in Spain, but if anything more brutal. The dependencies of Portugal and Spain felt in a measure the tender mercies of the Holy Office, and some victims were numbered in India, South America, and Mexico.

In France, after the extinction of the Albigensian heresy, the Inquisition found a comparatively limited field. Independent, in spirit, an advocate of Gallican liberties, France preferred to slaughter heretics in her own way rather than by instruments of papal appointment. During the fifteenth century the University of Paris became in a measure a substitute for the Inquisition, the weight attached to its dogmatic decisions giving it somewhat the character of a tribunal of the faith. The exigencies of the Reformation era led to some attempts to introduce the Inquisition after the Spanish model; but the opposition was too strong to be overborne.

A previous section has indicated how vigorously the Inquisition wrought in Italy near the middle of the sixteenth century. Among the more noted victims, after the great onslaught against the Protestants, were Giordano Bruno, Galileo Galilei, and Miguel de Molinos.

The system of thought which Bruno advocated was undoubtedly anti-Christian as well as anti-Romish. Casting aside revelation, and putting in its place a speculative philosophy of the world, he ran into a pantheistic naturalism. The outcome of his thinking was not very different from that of Spinoza. After sojourning in different countries, he fell at length into the clutches of the Inquisition. Seven years of imprisonment failed to break his spirit, and he was burned at Rome, February 17, 1600.

The opinions of Galileo on the earth's motion first called forth the strictures of the authorities in 1616. At that time he was not formally censured, but was put under distinct injunction not to teach the Copernican theory as truth or probable hypothesis, though he was not prohibited from using it as a bare hypothesis or convenient fiction in astronomical reckoning.

1 The inference that the prohibition was not absolute rests on the conclusion that one item in the records at Rome is not genuine. This conclusion is strongly sustained by Karl von Gebler, in Galileo Galilei und die Römische Curie.

This injunction he endeavored to keep in the letter; but his scientific zeal did not allow him to keep it in the spirit. Accordingly, advocates of the old Ptolemaic theory began to stir up the authorities. In 1633 Galileo was brought before the Inquisition in Rome. He readily consented to renounce his theory, or rather declared that he had not held it since it had been censured in 1616. Nevertheless, he was obliged to undergo the humiliation of an abjuration, and, while he was not made a close prisoner, was put under restraint as to his place of abode during the remainder of his life.

The ground of the proceeding against Galileo was undoubtedly his scientific theory. The notion that he made himself obnoxious by going out of his proper domain, and meddling with questions of theology, is abundantly disproved. He was himself accused of contradicting Scripture before he brought his theory of the earth's motion into any comparison with Biblical teaching. In that comparison he resorted to no ultra or irreverent maxims, but stated principles of Scriptural interpretation which now are almost universally regarded as moderate and sound.1 See his letter to Castelli, and also his apology addressed to the Grand Duchess Christine, quoted by Gebler, i. 58-62, 81-88. Not a sentence of his is on record in which he disparaged the authority of the Bible or questioned one permanent feature of the Romish faith.

2 "Galileo," says Gebler, "was thoroughly a believer. His revolutionary discoveries never awakened in his mind a doubt about supernatural mysteries as they were taught in the Catholic Church. All his letters, even those to his most trusted friends, show this unmistakably." (i. 338.)

The friendly relations which he preserved with leading ecclesiastics up to the time of his trial, when he was already about seventy years of age, indicate that he was not a man of iconoclastic temper or manners, and was not so regarded. His fault was a too ready submission to arbitrary authority. The conclusion is hardly avoidable, that he yielded to ecclesiastical mandates at the expense of mental honesty.

The extent to which the scientific theory of Galileo was censured and condemned, is also ascertained with sufficient certainty. 3 See documents as given by Henri de 1'Epinois, Les Pièces du Procès de Galilèe; Karl von Gebler, Galileo Galilei. That theory was declared, in February, 1616, by the theologians who acted as qualificators for the Roman Inquisition to be philosophically absurd, formally heretical, and directly contradictory of many statements of Scripture.

4 The qualificators passed their verdict on two propositions: "Prima: sol est centrum et omnino immobilis motu locali. Censura: omnes dixerunt dictam propositionem esse stultam et absurdam in philosophia et formaliter hereticam, quatenus contradicit expresse sententiis sacrae Scripturae in multis locis, secundum proprietatem verborum et secundum expositionem et sensum SS, Patrum et theologorum doctorum. Secunda: terra non est centrum mundi nec immobilis, sed secundum se totam movetur etiam motu diurno. Censura: omnes dixerunt hanc propositionem recipere eandem censuram in philosophia et spectando veritatem theologicam ad minus esse in fide erroneam."

In the following month, the Congregation of the Index placed on the prohibited list three works that were most conspicuous for teaching the modern theory, namely, that of Copernicus on the revolutions of the heavenly bodies, that of Didacus a Stunica on Job, and that of Foscarini on the movement of the earth and the fixity of the sun.

1 Having characterized the theory of the mobility of the earth and the immobility of the sun as "falsam illam doctrinam Pythagoricam, Divinaeque Scripturae omnino adversantem," the sentence of the Congregation proceeds: "Ideo ne ulterius hujusmodi opinio, in perniciem Catholicae veritatis serpat, censuit dictos Nicolaum Copernicum de Revolntionibus Orbium, at Didacum Astunica in Job, suspendendos esse donec corrigantur, librum vero P. Pauli Antonii Foscarini Carmelitae omnino prohibendum, atque damnandum, aliosque omnes libros pariter idem docentes, prohibendos, prout praesenti decreto omnes respective prohibet, damnat atque suspendit."

The sentence which the Inquisition pronounced in 1633, besides quoting the verdict which had been given by the qualificators seventeen years before, describes the Copernican theory as contrary to Scripture and embracing grave and pernicious error.

2 "Judicamus et declaramus te Galilaeam supredictum ob ea, quae daducta sunt in processu scripturae, et quae tn confessus es ut supra, te ipsum reddidisse huic S. Officio vehementer suspectum de haeresi, hoc est, quod credideris et tenueris doctrinam falsam et contrariam Sacris ac Divinis Scripturis, Solem videlicet ease centrum orbis terrae, et eum non moveri ab Oriente ad Occidentem, et Terram moveri, nec esse centrum Mundi, et posse teneri ac defendi tanquam probabilem opinionem aliquam, postquam declarata ac definita fuerit contraria Sacrae Scripturae. ... Ne autem tuus iste gravis et perniciosus error ac transgressio remaneat omnino impunitus, et tu in posterum cautior evadas, et sis in exemplum aliis, ut abstineant ab hujusmodi delictis, decernimus ut per publicum edictum prohibeatur liber Dialogorum Galilaei Galilaei, te autem damnamus ad formalem carcerem hujus S. Officii ad tempus arbitrio nostro limitandum."

In the formula of abjuration which was prescribed to Galileo, the same theory is in like manner characterized as false and repugnant to Scripture. l "Falsam opinionem, doctrinam repugnantem Sacrae Scripturae." As a safeguard against the heresy which was punished in Galileo, notice of his sentence was officially communicated to the papal ambassadors in the different quarters of the Roman Catholic world, as also to the archbishops, bishops, and inquisitors in Italy. Nor was haste made to remove the restrictions which had been imposed. In fact, the Index still harbored its futile warning against the Copernican theory down to the year 1835. 2 Gebler, i. 380

In this condemnation of scientific theory the papal authority, as was natural in a matter conducted under the very shadow of the papal throne, was a leading factor. Bellarmin, in the paper which he drew up in 1616, certifying that Galileo had not been compelled during his stay in Rome to make any formal abjuration or to undergo penance, distinctly refers the censure of the Copernican theory which was then published to the Pope (Paul V.) as the primary source.

3 "Ma solo gli è stata denunziata la dichiarazione fatta da Nostro Signore e pubblicata dalla Sacra Congregazione dell' Indice, nella quale si ritiene, che la dottrina attribuita al Copernico, che la Terra si muova intorno al Sole e che il Sole stia nel centro del mondo senza muoversi da oriente ad occidente, sis contraria alle Sacre Scritture e però non si possa difendere nè tenere."

In the subsequent proceedings the Pope was undoubtedly the supreme director. In conversation with the Tuscan ambassador, who acted as intercessor for Galileo, Urban VIII. repeatedly expressed his consideration for the person of Galileo, but reprobated his teaching as heretical. 1 Gebler, passim. The preparation for the trial of 1633, and the trial itself, took place under the direct supervision of the Pope; so that the whole action against the accused proceeded by his order or with his approbation.

The Pope gave, moreover, an extra expression of orthodox zeal by punishing those who had so loosely exercised the office of censors as to allow the publication of the Dialogue of Galileo. In view of these and other facts, it is perfectly manifest that it was under the pressure of papal authority that the aged scientist humbled himself in Rome, and formally abjured as heresy the Copernican theory. If what is done in the sample is done in the mass, then papal authority placed every Roman Catholic under obligation to reject the Copernican theory as heresy. Such an historical passage is certainly not agreeable to the dogma of papal infallibility. One who is content with technicalities may perhaps find a way through the difficulty by practising on the phrase ex cathedra. But God is not a grandmaster of red tape, and if He gave infallibility at all, He meant if for practical guidance.

The responsible connection of the Papacy with the condemnatory sentence did not end with Urban VIII. In 1664 an Index was published, in which were contained the catalogues of prohibited books which had previously been issued, together with decrees relating to the prohibition of books up to that year, and among these decrees that of 1616 against the Copernican treatises. To this Index was affixed a bull, from the hand of Alexander VII., wherein each and every specification of the said Index was declared to be confirmed by apostolic authority.

1 "Indices Tridentinum et Clementinum una com suis appendicibus Indici huic generali adjiciendos curavimus, simulque omnia decreta ad haec usque tempora in hac materia post praedicti Clementis Praedecessoris Indicem emanata, ne quid omnino, quod curiosae fidelium diligentiae prodesse posset, omissum videretur. Quae omnia com juxta mentem nostram diligenter et accurate fuerint exequationi mandata, composite Indice generali hujusmodi, cui etiam Regulae Indicis Tridentini com observationibus et instructione memorato Indici Clementino adjectis appositae fuerunt: Nos de praedictorum Cardinalium consilio eundem Indicem generalem, sicut praemittitur jussu nostro compositum atque revisum, et typis Camerae nostrae Apostolicae jam impressum, et quem praesentibus nostris pro inserto haberi volumus, com omnibus et singulis in eo contentis auctoritate Apostolicâ, tenore praesentium confirmamus et approbamus, ac ab omnibus tam Universitatibus, quam singularibus Personis, ubicumque locorum existentibus inviolabiliter et inconcusse observari mandamus, et praecipimus." (The Pontifical Decrees against the Motion of the Earth, 2d edition, London, 1870, pp. 65, 66.)

It may properly be noticed here, that the Index referred to in this connection, that is, the one having central or papal authority, received its first draft in the year 1557, being then published under the authority of Paul IV. This was enlarged by Pius IV., and republished in 1564. It was accompanied, in the revised edition, by ten rules, which were to govern the practice of the Church in dealing with doubtful books. The fourth of these rules limits the use of the Scriptures in the vernacular to such persons as may obtain, on the recommendation of the parish priest, a written permit from bishop or inquisitor.

Molinos, a Spaniard by birth, after laboring for a time in his native country, betook himself to Rome. There he published, in 1675, his "Spiritual Guide," containing the precepts of his mystical theology. This little treatise met with remarkable favor, and was widely disseminated. Thousands of minds sighing for a better satisfaction than they had found in ceremonies and external practices looked to Molinos as the spiritual leader who had showed them the way to the land of promise. The authorities were not unfriendly; indeed, it is understood that Pope Innocent XI. entertained a genuine regard for Molinos.

There were those, however, who looked askance at the devout mystic. And such had not long to search for a ground of attack. For the system of Molinos, while in large part identical with that of mystics who have been honored with the badge of sainthood, contained an anti-Romish phase. His stress upon the inner life, and his doctrine of quietism, or complete passivity before the Divine will, paid little tribute to the characteristic ceremonialism and sacerdotalism of Roman Catholicism. On this side, in fact, the teaching of Molinos was open to some exception, even from an evangelical standpoint. While he probably stood himself high above affiliation with practical antinomianism, those of coarser fibre could bring forward the claim of passivity as a shield from proper responsibility in their actions.

The first attack upon Molinos showed how strongly he was entrenched at Rome. The attack was a complete failure, and the book in which it was embodied was condemned. But a well-devised expedient soon turned the scale. The opponents of Molinos had the ear of Louis XIV. The weight of his influence at the papal court reversed the conditions. In 1685 Molinos was arrested by the Inquisition. Two years later, he was sentenced to life-long imprisonment, and sixty-eight propositions, purporting to be extracted from his teaching, were condemned.

It had been the opinion of Galileo that the Jesuits were the instigators of the prosecution under which he suffered. That they were the main authors of the crusade against Molinos is well known.

An appropriate conclusion to the general subject of the section may be found in a suggestion of charity. It should be remembered that those who were sent to the prison or the stake, or were maimed in estate and reputation, were not the only victims. The agents of the Inquisition were themselves held in an unrelenting grasp. They were fettered and controlled in large part by the system of thought and feeling which dominated the age. Undoubtedly, in applying this system there was an element of selfishness, as there is in all despotism. But there was also much of honest conviction. It remains, indeed, to be proved that those who made the terrible record of inquisitorial cruelty and injustice transgressed any more grievously than do those who, in the face of the record, stand up and anathematize all denial of the infallibility of Pope and hierarchy.