If it may still be felt that there is some doubt regarding the personal feeling of Gregory IX about Frederick II’s action, there can be no doubt at all as to his successor, Innocent IV, who gave complete pontifical sanction to the Constitutions by inscribing them in extenso in a bull entitled Cum adversus haereticam pravitatem, issued in 1245.[323]
The Church did more than simply give its formal approval to secular legislation against heresy: it saw to it that the lay authority put its legislation into practice.
It was for the Church to seek out, arrest, examine and condemn the heretic; it was the function of the State to free the Church from the guilt of blood by arranging for the actual execution of the impenitents, the canon thus being reconciled with harsh necessity. Apportionment of its duties in the matter of heresy to the State by the Church was no new thing in the days of Gregory and Innocent. The resolutions of earlier councils had referred significantly to the danger of popular revolutions, did not the secular authority play its part, and had threatened that disobedient lords might find their lands and goods given away to others more zealous or more prudent.[324] The decree of Verona (1184) had claimed excommunication as the penalty for failure to execute the imperial laws (at that time those of Barbarossa) against heretics; and the Fourth Council of the Lateran, enjoining an oath upon all secular rulers that they will banish all heretics from their lands, declares their vassals to be absolved from fidelity in the case of non-compliance.[325]
Already, before the days of Innocent IV, it had been made perfectly plain that the Church not only desired and expected the execution by the secular authority of its own laws against heretics, but that it was prepared to use all available means to compel it to do so. Innocent IV placed the coping-stone upon this system by his famous bull issued to all the lay rulers of Italy in 1252, known as Ad extirpanda.[326] This bull is remarkable for the thorough and systematic nature of its provisions. To the end that the pest of heresy may be uprooted, all lay rulers are to swear to carry out the laws against heresy on pain of fine and of being held an infamous perjuror and fautor of heretics.[327] Every civil magistrate within three days of his entrance into office is to appoint twelve good Catholics, two notaries, two senators, two friars from the Prædicants, two from the Brothers Minor, whose duties are to search out heretics, seize their goods and hand them on to the bishop. These officials are to enjoy a variety of privileges and to be free from all interference in their work. The civil magistrate is to hand over all heretics within a fortnight of their capture either to the bishop or the inquisitors.[328] Those condemned are within five days of sentence to be dealt with by the secular arm in accordance with the Constitutions (of Frederick II). The secular authority is also required to inflict torture on those heretics who refused to confess or inculpate their confederates, to see to the exaction of fines and destruction of heretics’ houses, to keep lists of those defamed of heresy.[329] These statutes, and all others which might subsequently be added against heresy, are to be religiously preserved in the statute-books of every city, on pain of excommunication for any non-compliant official, of interdict for any recalcitrant city. No attempt must be made to alter these laws or to observe any other laws which may be found to be in contradiction to them.[330]
Various slight alterations and modifications were subsequently made in the terms of this all-important fulmination. But with only insignificant revisions it was reissued by Alexander IV in 1259, and in 1265 by Clement V, who, however, inserted the word ‘inquisitor’ in places where previously only bishops and friars had been designated. In the main the bull remained unaltered, a lasting monument both to the Church’s power in that age and of its attitude towards secular action with regard to heresy. It was for the Church to command where her interests were concerned; she expected to be obeyed and, in case of defiance, had the necessary force to compel obedience. Excommunication and interdict in those days were no empty words. To be placed outside the communion of the Church was even more than being outlawed from the Empire, equivalent to being placed outside civilization; it was to be deprived of all rights, made any man’s legitimate prey. And if excommunication was more injurious to the simple citizen than to the prince or noble, still the latter had much to fear. The ban of the Church relieved his vassals from their allegiance and was an invitation to his enemies to march to his despoil. In the eyes of the believer excommunication entailed something very much worse than even such material trouble and loss; it meant the exclusion from the greatest of means to salvation on earth, the imperilling of salvation in eternity.
There was, as a matter of fact, no reluctance on the part of the state to the task of persecuting heretics, as the secular legislation of Henry II of England, Barbarossa, Alfonso II and Pedro II of Aragon abundantly testifies. But few secular magistrates would be willing to incur so great a material and spiritual risk as excommunication merely for the sake of a few fanatical schismatics.
The argued justification of the now well-established system of persecution, of which Ad extirpanda is the coping-stone, we find in Thomas Aquinas. In the Church’s procedure in respect of heretics he sees proof of her deep mercy and charity. Her aim is the retrievement of the prodigal, his penitence and return to the fold. She aims not at punishment, but forgiveness. For the penitent all is well, only for the obdurate and those who have relapsed after reconciliation is there punishment. It is meet that these should suffer, for in her kindness to the individual the Church must not jeopardize the welfare of the whole community. Heresy is the most terrible of all offences. To corrupt the faith is a far worse crime than to corrupt the coinage.[331] The latter is an aid to our temporal existence, the former an absolute necessity for the eternal life of the soul. If then the coiner be deemed worthy of death, how much more the heretic! The argument of analogy is fortified by the text of Scripture. The methods of the Inquisition are found to be justified by Christ’s words: ‘If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered, and they shall gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burned.’ Thus the sayings of the Founder of Christianity were made to sanction a system of cruelty utterly abhorrent to the whole tenor of His teaching.[332]