With the exception of imprisonment, which we will speak of later on, these penalties originated with the State. It is important, therefore, to know what crimes they punished. As a general rule, it must be admitted that they were only inflicted upon those heretics who seriously disturbed the social order. If the death penalty could be justly meted out to such rioters, with still greater reason could the lesser penalties be inflicted.
The penalty of confiscation was especially cruel, inasmuch as it affected the posterity of the condemned heretics. According to the old Roman law, the property of heretics could be inherited by their orthodox sons, and even by their agnates and cognates.[1] The laws of the Middle Ages declared confiscation absolute; on the plea that heresy should be classed with treason, orthodox children could not inherit the property of their heretical father.[2] There was but one exception to this law. Frederic II and Innocent IV both decreed that children could inherit their father's property, if they denounced him for heresy.[3] It is needless to insist upon the odious character of such a law. We cannot understand to-day how Gregory IX could rejoice on learning that fathers did not scruple to denounce their children, children their parents, a wife her husband or a mother her children.[4]
[1] 4 and 19, cap De hæreticis, iv, 5, Manichæos and Cognovimus.
[2] Decretal Vergentis of Innocent III. Decretals, cap. x, De Hæreticis, lib. v, tit. vii.
[3] Mon. Germ., Leges, vol. ii, sect. iv, p. 197; Ripoll, Bullarium ordinis Prædicat., vol. i, p. 126.
[4] Bull Gaudemus, of April 12, 1233, in Ripoll, vol. i, p. 56.
Granting that banishment and confiscation were just penalties for heretics who were also State criminals, was it right for the Church to employ this penal system for the suppression of heresy alone?
It is certain that the early Christians would have strongly denounced such laws as too much like the pagan laws under which they were persecuted. St. Hilary voiced their mind when he said: "The Church threatens exile and imprisonment; she in whom men formerly believed while in exile and prison, now wishes to make men believe her by force."[1] St. Augustine was of the same mind. He thus addressed the Manicheans, the most hated sect of his time: "Let those who have never known the troubles of a mind in search for the truth, proceed against you with rigor. It is impossible for me to do so, for I for years was cruelly tossed about by your false doctrines, which I advocated and defended to the best of my ability. I ought to bear with you now, as men bore with me, when I blindly accepted your doctrines."[2] Wazo, Bishop of Liège, wrote in a similar strain in the eleventh century.[3]
[1] Liber contra Auxentium, cap. iv; cf. supra, p. 6.
[2] Contra epistolam Manichæi, quam vocant Fundamenti, n. 2 and 3, supra, p. 12.