He declares, elsewhere, that he had it reprinted for the instruction of inquisitors; that the work is as much to be admired as respected, and teaches with equal piety and learning the proper means of repressing and exterminating heretics. He acknowledges, however, that he is in possession of other useful and judicious methods, for which he refers to practice, which will instruct much more effectually than any lessons, and that he more readily thus silently refers to practice, as there are certain matters relating to the subject which it is of importance not to divulge, and which, at the same time, are generally well known to inquisitors. He cites a vast number of writers, all of whom have followed the doctrine of the "Directory"; and he even complains that many have availed themselves of it without ascribing any honor to Eymeric for the good things they have in fact stolen from him.
We will secure ourselves from any reproach of this description, by pointing out exactly what we mean to borrow both from the author and the editor. Eymeric says, in the fifty-eighth page, "Commiseration for the children of the criminal, who by the severity used towards him are reduced to beggary, should never be permitted to mitigate that severity, since both by divine and human laws children are punished for the faults of their fathers."
Page 123. "If a charge entered for prosecution were destitute of every appearance of truth, the inquisitor should not on that account expunge it from his register, because what at one period has not been discovered, may be so at another."
Page 291. "It is necessary for the inquisitor to oppose cunning and stratagem to those employed by heretics, that he may thus pay the offenders in their own coin, and be enabled to adopt the language of the apostle, 'Being crafty, I caught you with guile.'"
Page 296. "The information and depositions (procès-verbal) may be read over to the accused, completely suppressing the names of the accusers; and then it is for him to conjecture who the persons are that have brought against him any particular charges, to challenge them as incompetent witnesses, or to weaken their testimony by contrary evidence. This is the method generally used. The accused must not be permitted to imagine that challenges of witnesses will be easily allowed in cases of heresy, for it is of no consequence whether witnesses are respectable or infamous, accomplices in the prisoner's offence, excommunicated, heretical, or in any manner whatever guilty, or perjured, etc. This has been so ruled in favor of the faith."
Page 202. "The appeal which a prisoner makes from the Inquisition does not preclude that tribunal from trial and sentence of him upon other heads of accusation."
Page 313. "Although the form of the order for applying the torture may suppose variation in the answers of the accused, and also in addition sufficient presumptive evidence against him for putting him to the question; both these circumstances are not necessary, and either will be sufficient for the purpose without the other."
Pegna informs us, in the hundred and eighteenth scholium on the third book, that inquisitors generally employ only five kinds of torture when putting to the question, although Marsilius mentions fifteen kinds, and adds, that he has imagined others still—such, for example, as precluding the possibility of sleep, in which he is approved by Grillandus and Locatus.
Eymeric continues, page 319: "Care should be taken never to state in the form of absolution, that the prisoner is innocent, but merely that there was not sufficient evidence against him; a precaution necessary to prevent the prisoner, absolved in one case, from pleading that absolution in defence against any future charge that may be brought against him."
Page 324. "Sometimes abjuration and canonical purgation are prescribed together. This is done, when, to a bad reputation of an individual in point of doctrine are joined inconsiderable presumptions, which, were they a little stronger, would tend to convict him of having really said or done something injurious to the faith. The prisoner who stands in these circumstances is compelled to abjure all heresy in general; and after that, if he falls into any heresy of any description whatever, however different from those which may have constituted the matter of the present charge or suspicion against him, he is punished as a relapsed person, and delivered over to the secular arm."