Any person infringing these laws and regulations will be subject to the penalties and fines imposed by the Holy Office. And that no one may plead ignorance of their existence, it is hereby ordered that a copy of the present Edict be published, and fixed up in the synagogue, which shall be deemed equivalent to serving it personally on every separate Jewish individual, as well on those in Ancona, as on such as may reside in other places belonging to the same Ghetto.
Given at Ancona, from the Holy Office,
this 24th day of June, 1843.
Fº. Fr. Vin. Salva, Inquisitor General.
The above Edict, published in the year 1843, and authorized by Rome, is a sufficient answer to those who pretend that the Inquisition is no longer what it was three centuries ago. We have here the decree of the very essence of the Roman Court, composing the Holy Office—fifteen Cardinals, thirty Councillors, &c. &c., with the Pope at their head.
We are returned to those delightful times in which the Neapolitan, Caraffa, better known as Paul IV., and Michael Ghisler, called Pius V., lighted their funeral piles, and inflicted their tortures; and when, not to be behindhand with his predecessors, the monk Felice Peretti, called Sixtus V., proclaimed a crusade against the poor Israelites. O glorious days, when the holy indignation of Rome was responded to by the ferocious bigotry of Spain, the religious fury of France, and the papal fanatics throughout Italy!
Who is there that would not delight to see those good old times restored, when Christian men enjoyed the pleasing spectacle of the public burning of fifty thousand Moors, by Ferdinand and Isabella of pious memory, and as many Jews consigned to the flames alive, through the various countries of Europe? Who would not wish to act over again the famous day of St. Bartholomew, and a hundred other deeds more or less celebrated, but all testifying the zeal of the holy Roman Inquisition?
And what is the reason why these spectacles, so creditable to the human race, are no longer to be witnessed in these days? Is it that the people are no longer instigated by that species of devotion which rendered the burning of their fellow-creatures alive, on account of their difference in religious opinions, a matter of such consolation and enjoyment? The zeal of the Romish Church remains the same, and our popes have not lost their holy desire for the conversion of the whole world by fire and sword to their sacred doctrines. How is it then that these glorious days do not return?
Let us, however, confine our remarks to the present Edict, in which the Inquisitor equally shows his profound knowledge of jurisprudence and of morality. The Jews are spoken of as being under his jurisdiction; but I cannot understand whether this jurisdiction be political or religious. The first he has nothing to do with, as his authority is purely ecclesiastical; and as to the second, I would ask, what right has he to exercise it upon persons of a different religion? It is idle to say that the Pope has conferred it upon him, since he himself has no right over such as are not baptized. To usurp any authority whatsoever, is a crime, in the eye of the law of every nation. The Inquisitor is consequently either extremely ignorant, or most daringly presumptuous thus to defy a principle acknowledged and submitted to by all civilized people.
He says that he has hitherto in vain implored that the laws of discipline relative to the Jews should be maintained in full force, and therefore takes occasion to issue anew a mandatory Edict. Surely those who call themselves Masters in Theology, ought at least to understand common honesty. Could laws be considered as conscientiously binding which were the result of sheer hatred towards an unoffending community? And were not the subjects of it justified in evading them as much as possible?