The medieval Inquisition: A study in religious persecution

THE MEDIEVAL INQUISITION
A STUDY IN RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION BY CHARLES T. GORHAM, Author of “The Spanish Inquisition,� etc. ISSUED FOR THE NATIONALIST ASSOCIATION, LIMITED London: WATTS & CO., 17 JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C.4 1918



Although it has been said of human nature that the more it changes the more it is the same thing, it is yet true that at different epochs it is actuated by widely different ideas. The underlying passions are the same, but the forces evoking them vary so greatly that sometimes, as in considering the history of the Middle Ages, we seem to be concerned with beings from another planet. One of the most powerful of these forces is religion; and, though religion in the abstract is assumed to bring out all that is best in human nature, it has in the past only too frequently appealed to and stimulated its baser elements. The evil is due partly to erroneous religious teaching, but probably still more to the obstinate imperfection of the material on which religion has to work. The vast majority of human beings are even now incapable of appreciating and practising an absolutely pure religion, and probably no such religion has ever yet had a fair trial. Dogmatic systems there have been in abundance, but these are not to be identified with religion. It has been one of the most serious drawbacks to the claims of historic Christianity that, disregarding the spirit of its own moral precepts, it has treated religion as a mere system of belief and ceremonial observance, which has defeated the object it was intended to promote.
In two respects organized Christianity has been a huge mistake. It has misunderstood the nature of the salvation it proffered, representing it as rescue from endless physical torment in another state of existence instead of moral victory in this. It has made an assumed correctness of intellectual belief instead of right conduct the condition of this salvation, with the inevitable consequence that ceremony has usurped the place of virtue, and religion has become a matter of externals. And its claim to Divine inspiration and support led naturally to a demand for obedience so complete that no room was left for liberty of opinion and mental expansion. The claim to Divine inspiration involved the existence of a spiritual hierarchy with ever-growing demands and ever-increasing power. Refusal to obey these demands necessarily implied disbelief in the doctrines underlying them, of which doctrines the hierarchy was the sole expositor. Thus every opinion which deviated from the authorized view became heretical, and, heresy being an impious opposition to the Divine will and to all that was good and true, deserved the severest repression. From this dogmatic standard, which the ignorant were unable to question, arose that terrible system of religious persecution which has covered organized Christianity with indelible shame. The present inquiry is not concerned with the truth or falsehood of the Church’s theological basis, but only with its effects. The general conditions of the Middle Ages being what they were, those effects were in a sense inevitable, and the moral condemnation which must be visited upon the medieval Church applies less to individuals than to the system which produced them—a system which was incompatible not only with the rights of individuals, but with the progress of humanity in civilization and happiness.