Mediæval Heresy & the Inquisition

by Arthur Stanley Turberville

But the chief potential source of trouble in the intellectual ferment of scholasticism lay in the fact that it inevitably placed side by side two different authorities, the objective authority of the Church as enshrined in Scripture, tradition, papal and other lawful ecclesiastical dicta, and, on the other hand, the subjective authority of the human reason. All discussion, all argument is necessarily an appeal largely to this second authority. While the great majority of the scholastics only used reason in order to justify revealed truth and never questioned the superiority of the infallible, the divine authority of the Church over the fallible authority of man’s intellect, there were others, such as Eriugena and Abelard, who placed reason first. Finally, there came a scholastic in Wycliffe, whose realism led him into dangerous errors, not only subversive of the cardinal doctrine of transubstantiation, but also threatening the whole status and mediatorial character of the priesthood.

It is most important to remember that the scholastic philosophers were in all cases clerics, representative of, and not antagonistic to, Catholic theology; that even the Averrhoïsts were also clerics, having no desire to break with the Church. On the other hand, the freedom of thought which the universities stood for and dialectic fostered, and which the Church not only did not repress, but even encouraged, had a tendency to produce heresy. Realism evolved pantheism; nominalism unitarianism. The intellectual influences of university life brought forth Gerson, D’Ailly and the other whole-hearted reformers who made the great effort at revival of the Church from within which failed at Constance and Basel; but it also brought forth Wycliffe and Hus, whom those Councils condemned. It was never absolutely clear where the dividing line between orthodoxy and heresy would rest. However much they might be reconciled or confused, the ideals and methods of theology and philosophy cannot be the same. The postulates of the one are not those of the other; and the more the scientific spirit is developed, the fewer the postulates of any sort that it is ready to accept. The Averrhoïsts at least saw this, only saving their position by the equivocation of the double truth.

Which was really the more dangerous to Catholic doctrine—the organized heresies, as a rule ignorant, perverted, having the seeds of their own destruction in their very rottenness, which the Church did systematically persecute; or the philosophical speculations of the universities, with their temptations to rationalism which the Church in the main tolerated?[478] Each produced a force not wholly transient—a force operative in the breaking up of the mediæval system. The first was anti-sacerdotalism; the second a habit of independent thought and criticism. It is true that the anti-sacerdotalism of Luther and the secular spirit of Renaissance humanism, with its entire indifference to religion, were the decisive factors in breaking up the fabric of mediævalism, and the movements of Lutheranism and humanism were largely new creations. Yet Luther owed much to Hus, and Hus everything to Wycliffe, the scholastic, and the detached attitude of the Italian humanist was only one step in advance of that of the Latin Averrhoïst. Neither the wandering sectaries, in part suggesting, in part merely articulating, an antisacerdotal sentiment, nor the philosophers with their speculations concerning universals and the ultimate cause of being, were without influence in bringing about the collapse of the mediæval structure.

It is of no use studying the question of the attitude of the mediæval Church towards heresy unless one is prepared to use imagination enough to envisage heresy from the mediæval point of view. Men’s mental outlook is governed by the intellectual conditions of their own day. A few individuals may be, as the phrase goes, ‘in advance of their time’; but at the best they form only a small minority. To consider abstractly the rights and wrongs, the advantages and disadvantages of institutions and systems is the function of the philosopher. But the historian, while not ignoring the abstract question, has specifically the function of ascertaining what, in point of fact, people’s opinions have been and why they formed them. Much that has been written on the subject of religious toleration is of only limited validity because it simply denounces, and does not attempt to explain or to appreciate, the psychology of intolerance.[479] Thus, for example, Locke’s ‘Letters on Toleration’ have little argumentative value, because they are based on a complete ignoratio elenchi. Religious toleration is a great principle, but many modern dithyrambs on the inalienable right of liberty of thought and conscience fall rather wide of the mark, can convince only the already converted. It is not very profitable to bring forward the theory of the indefeasible right of free thought in condemnation of mediæval society—to the whole of which, and by no means to its clerical elements only, the conception of such a right was entirely foreign. After all, even to-day the belief in an absolute toleration is held by only a very few, and even these anarchists will usually be found to hold it with certain reservations.[480] Organized society cannot tolerate the forces which are subversive of it. It does not tolerate the criminal. ‘A universal and absolute toleration of everything and everybody would lead to a general chaos as certainly as a universal and absolute intolerance.’[481] It is undoubtedly true that a certain measure of ‘intolerance is essential to all that is, or moves, or lives, for tolerance of destructive elements within the organism amounts to suicide.’[482] The individual possesses rights in so far as they are not prejudicial to the welfare of his fellows and the interests of the entire community. And the recognition that the maintenance of social order was perfectly compatible with the acknowledgment of the right of individual opinion and the permission of diversity of views, this in the Middle Ages ‘was a discovery to be made, not a truth to be proved.’[483]

For the Middle Ages religion was not divorced from the secular life. The Respublica Christiana was an unity and a potent reality. The common faith was the panoply of the State. Devotion to it was an integral part of patriotism, and the counterpart of loyalty to the secular prince and of obedience to his laws. The man, therefore, who assailed the faith assailed society; in cutting himself off from the Church he outlawed himself from the State. Acknowledgment of the sacred truths of Christianity was the foundation of all morality. The mediæval mind could not conceive of morality apart from religion. Hence respect for the divine law, as revealed in the Scripture and the Church, was regarded as the sole guarantee for the security of ordered society. Heresy was considered as essentially anti-social, anarchic; was conceived of as analogous to false coining or treason. Only to falsify truth was more heinous than to falsify the coin and treason against God than treason against man. The exposition of the nature of heresy in Ludovico à Paramo is most logical. The character of a state depends on its religion; the faith is the foundation of the state.[484] Heretics cannot dwell in harmony with Catholics: for if difference of language severs, how much more difference of belief?[485] Heresy is productive of all manner of vice and immorality, which are antagonistic to order and government.[486]

To the Church all this was self-evident. How could she stand neutral as between truth and falsehood, and treat them as if on an equality? She found all the strong walls and bastions, defences of the theocratic city, of which she was the appointed warden, being attacked by an insidious enemy within the gates. She had the power to defend; how could she be justified if she held her hand? The heretic questioned her credentials, turned her claims to ridicule, threatened to bring down the whole structure of the Christian polity to the ground. Both in self-defence and in common loyalty to her mission she must strike. All the intensity of religious conviction inspired to persecution. Tolerance, argues de Maistre, only indicates religious indifference.[487] Moreover, the mediæval churchman was inevitably much influenced by the injunctions of the Old Testament. The Church succeeded to the heritage of the synagogue.[488]

But it was not the Church only that was persuaded of the essentially dangerous and anti-social character of heresy. Partly, no doubt, as the result of the Church’s teaching through many generations, but certainly of their own accord and not as the result of any direct instruction, both secular rulers and the ordinary laity were equally convinced.[489] They all lived in a thoroughly theocratic atmosphere. The prince sincerely saw in the heretic an enemy of all authority, and therefore of his own.[490] Secular legislation was just as unequivocal in its treatment of heresy as was Canon law. To the ordinary layman the heretic appeared as a thoroughly cross-grained, cantankerous, dangerous person, certainly of some immoral propensities and perhaps sexually perverted.[491]

Such was the mediæval point of view; and, once granted the necessary premises, it is extremely logical and exceedingly hard to combat. Now-a-days we do not accept those premises; but in the Middle Ages we should probably not have dreamed of questioning them. On the extraordinarily interesting and important question of the causes of this change of attitude authorities do, and are likely to, differ, though many students will agree in combining their conclusions. To those who, like John Stuart Mill and Lecky for instance, attribute religious persecution almost entirely to the doctrine of exclusive salvation, the causes of the growth of tolerance will appear to be the extension of the sceptical spirit and the process of the secularization of politics.[492] Others, such as Bishop Creighton (who will not agree that persecution is to be explained by the doctrine of exclusive salvation at all),[493] or as Sir F. Pollock (who classifies different types of intolerance—tribal, political, social), insist strongly upon the simple factor of experience. ‘It is not the demonstration of abstract rights, but the experience of inutility, that has made governments leave off persecuting.’[494] After all, the great justification of liberty of thought lies not in the attempted demonstration of a natural right, but in the records of the painful process whereby toleration has been achieved.[495] It would have saved an infinity of bloodshed and misery, would have freed the palimpsest of history of some of its most terrible blots, could the principle of toleration have been established without that awful struggle. But none of the great triumphs of mankind have been achieved save after centuries of effort, loss and failure.

To the moral judgment of our own day no instrument of persecution seems more odious than the Inquisition. Protestants have persecuted just as whole-heartedly as Catholics, and with far less excuse; but the Inquisition stands by itself, as a regular specialized tribunal for persecution, immensely efficient, with an existence of centuries to its record.[496] We have seen the way in which the Inquisition came into being. Both the circumstances of its origin and the intentions of its various founders gave the tribunal a character only semi-judicial. Indeed, if we object that the Inquisition was a bad court of justice, its originators could retort with truth that it was not intended to be a simple court of justice. The Inquisition was created to deal with erring children, not criminals; not merely to pronounce a verdict, but to produce reconciliation and amendment; not to punish, but to penance. The Church, through the Inquisition, was dealing in the spirit of a parent with her own children, over whom she had all a parent’s rights of discipline and chastisement, but also evincing a parent’s deep desire for something more than justice and punishment, for the ending of estrangement and the restoration of loving union in the family. Such was the pure theory of the Inquisition, a much more benignant conception than that of the ordinary law-court. In the latter, the mere fact of repentance would not avail; in the former, if it were sincere, it availed everything. So de Maistre, defending the Spanish Inquisition, declared it to be the most lenient, the most merciful tribunal in the world.

But we have to consider the point of view, not only of the judge, but of the defendant. Whatever the real nature of the tribunal, the man brought before it was on his trial. The tribunal did pronounce a verdict, and upon that verdict his reputation, perhaps his freedom or his life, depended. He wanted justice, not mercy: and the Inquisition might be lenient, but it was not fair. It was radically unfair. It gave no facilities whatever for the plea of Not Guilty. It cared nought for the reputation of the accused. He had already lost his reputation by being before the court at all. The very fact of defamation, of being ‘suspect’ inferred guilt. To leave the court of the Inquisition without a stain upon one’s character was virtually impossible. In all manner of ways the accused was at a disadvantage—in the suppression of the names of witnesses and of evidence, in the refusal of legal assistance, in the use of torture, and above all in the fact that the judge was also the prosecutor, who regarded it as perfectly legitimate to browbeat and confuse the defendant, if he was so misguided and unfilial as to endeavour to defend himself. Inquisitorial procedure was a miserable travesty of justice; and its mercifulness was forthcoming only on its own terms. To all save the meekly submissive the Inquisition typified not mercy and love, but remorselessness and cruelty.