The writer, after the manner of the papists, calls these people heretics, and their steadfast faith obstinacy; but how can anything good proceed from the mouth of the wicked? However, this must not offend us, since not only these, but even the ancient holy prophets, apostles, and servants of God, were stigmatized with many opprobrious names, yea, titles of the devil, by evil worldly men.
ABOUT ONE HUNDRED PERSONS CALLED WALDENSES, BURNT FOR THE FAITH, AT STRASBURG; THIRTY-NINE AT BINGEN; AND EIGHTEEN AT MENTZ, A. D. 1212.
A. D. 1212, the true doctrine of the Gospel began to manifest itself to a great extent in Alsace, among the Waldenses, who were one people and of the same faith with the Albigenses. But the prince of darkness, unable to endure this great light, exerted every means to extinguish it, so that in said year, in Strasburg alone, about a hundred persons, men as well as women, were burnt alive on the same day, for this confession, by the servants of antichrist, particularly through the bishop of that city.
Concerning this, the papistic writer H. Mutius writes: “A. D. 1212 a heresy arose in Alsace, by which noble and ignoble were led astray. They maintained that it was lawful to eat flesh every day throughout the whole year, and that there is as much excess in the immoderate eating of fish, as of any kind of flesh.” Again: “That they do very wrong who forbid marriage; since God has created all things, and everything may be used in a holy manner, with thanksgiving.”[170]
“This, their opinion,” he writes, “they maintained very firmly, and many believed them. Moreover, they did not hesitate (hear how the papists speak), to revile the most holy lord, the Pope, because he prohibited ecclesiastical persons from marrying, and bade them abstain on certain forbidden days from some kinds of food. The Pope of Rome therefore commanded that these people should be made away with and put to death. Hence, about a hundred were burnt together on the same day, by the bishop of Strasburg. H. Mut., Chron. lib. 19.
Bruschius, in his history of the Monasteries of Germany, relates, that at the same time, thirty-five, or, as others read, thirty-nine persons, inhabitants of Mentz, were brought to Bingen, and there burnt alive for the doctrine of the Waldenses; and at another time, by the same bishop of Mentz, eighteen others for the same confession. Also A. Mell., 2d book, fol. 457, col. 3; also P. J. Twisck, Chron., p. 526, col. 1, from Guil. Merulae Tijdt-thresoor, fol. 800.
CRUEL MODE OF INQUISITION OVER THE DOCTRINE OF THE WALDENSES, OR OF THOSE CALLED HERETICS, A. D. 1214.
In the year 1214, Conrad of Marpurg, a Dominican friar, was appointed by Pope Innocent III., grand inquisitor of the faith over all Germany, and sent by him closely to search out and examine such as were said to have strayed from the faith of the Roman church. This commission he carried out with such cruelty for full nineteen years, that an incredible number of persons, declared heretics by him, were put to death, partly by fire and partly with the sword.
Trithemius speaks of the manner of this inquisition, saying: “That this inquisitor, Conrad of Marpurg, used to try the heretics (the true Christians), by giving them a red-hot iron into their hands, and to deliver all those that were burnt by it as heretics unto the secular judge, to be sentenced to the fire.” Hence it came that only very few escaped, but that all who were once accused and brought to him for examination were, without mercy, condemned by him as heretics to be burned.
“There were some,” he writes, “who held that he condemned very many innocent persons, because the red-hot iron, finding none without sin, although they otherwise had never been tainted with any heresy, burned almost every one that took it.” Trithem. Chron. Hirsaug., A. D. 1214 and 1215. Also A. Mell., 2d book, fol. 459, col. 3; also fol. 466, col. 4.