Amos

That depends on your definition of a witch and if you go by mine there are millions of them in N.America alone.

Bede

1) The whole point of this thread was that the Inquisition did not have much to do with witch trials (NOGO, please learn to read). Witch trials mostly were an abuse of legal process but this tended to be in secular courts.

2) The first inquisitors were sent out in the late 13th century. Nothing to do with Charlemagne in the 9th (Dr Rick, please stop posting crap).

3) The Inquisition greatly restricted when torture could be used and used it very rarely. They did not introduce it into European law although they did occasionally use it and this was sanctioned by the papacy. Secular courts used torture far, far more than the Inquisition.

4) To repeat: inquisitors did not use trial by ordeal. They were officers of the church and the church banned it before the inquisition existed. Secular jurisdictions did not immediately follow the lead of the church but this has nothing to do with the inquisition.

5) I will no longer try and reply to the distortions and myths posted by the headbangers on this thread. Readers should not assume that means they have actually got anything right. My FAQ is accurate.

Yours

Bede

PS: 'headbanger' means what Sojourner calls an atheist fundamentalist. This means someone who cannot be reached by rational debate, will distort facts to fit their warped view of the world, won't accept facts that conflict with their personal mythology and are simply not worth any intelligent person bothering with. They know who they are.

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Dr Rick

I was in error: what I meant to post was that the judicial system, per inquisitionem which was used during the Inquisitions was put in place by Emperor Charlemagne in the 9th century.

Quote:

The Inquisition greatly restricted when torture could be used and used it very rarely. Secular courts used torture far, far more than the Inquisition.

The Ku Klux Klan greatly restricted when lynching could be used and used it very rarely. Secular courts used hangings far, far more than the KKK.

Rick

NOGO

In typical fashion you try to defuse the issue by plitting hair. The point that you raise here has been covered by others and I did not feel like repeating it.

Witch trials were an abuse of legal process inspired by religious zeal.

Dr Rick

...are readily refuted:

"...we are asked to believe that "the people and rulers" did these horrible things, while the gentle Church tried to restrain them. That is an insult to our intelligence. No ruler or people ever moved against heretics without the impulsion of the Church, and at the period we are discussing the Papacy complained every decade that it could not get rulers to apply its own "rigorous measures": exile, infamy, confiscation, and destruction of the heretics home. Innocent III, who, as we shall see in a moment, demanded the death-sentence, launched his ghastly crusade of murder and theft precisely because he could not get "people and rulers" to proceed otherwise.

And the meanest thing of all is that most of your modern Catholic apologists, raise over the bones of those hundreds of thousands of murdered men, women, and children the smug and lying inscription that they were "dangerous to society..."

Heresy was a crime in European law. Exactly, say some of the apologists; it was in those days thought to be a crime against the State and was punished accordingly. What miserable juggling with words! The Church made rulers and peoples regard it as a crime; and what was happening in the thirteenth century, the great age of heresy before the Reformation, shows this very clearly.

The Lateran Council of 1139 violently urged the secular powers to proceed against heresy; and they would not, to any extent. The Lateran Council of 1179 repeated the cry, pleading for the use of force and holding out tempting baits to those who murdered heretics. Pope Lucius II in 1184 made a new departure. He laid down the penalties as exile, confiscation, and infamy (loss of civil rights): threatened unwilling secular rulers with excommunication and interdict; and enacted that whereas under current law a bishop was to try a heretic in open court when a man was charged, the bishop must now seek out heretics. In Latin the search for a thing is an Inquisitio. Still very few secular rulers did more than shrug their shoulders. Heresy did not concern them.

Then came Innocent III, who had a perfect arsenal of anathemas, and who, when a prince ducked with a grin at the hurled anathema, set armies in motion and drenched the man's kingdom with blood (as Gregory VII had done). Innocent formulated the new principle of "persuasion" of heretics. There was a Papal seat at Viterbo, and the Pope was horrified to learn that not only the consuls (magistrates) of the town, but the chamberlain of his own were Cathari! He soon altered that, and he laid down this grim principle:

According to civil law criminals convicted of treason are punished with death and their goods are confiscated. With how much more reason then should they who offend Jesus, Son of the Lord God, by deserting their faith, be cut off from the Christian communion and stripped of their goods.
It is Canon Vacandard who gives us that quotation: a perfectly clear demand that heretics shall be put to death! It was, therefore, not "people and rulers," but the great Pope, who, when there seemed to be some doubt amongst the jurists how far the old law against heresy was still in force, demanded death. St. Bloody would not be a bad title for Innocent III, "the greatest of the Popes."

Moreover Innocent -- what an ironic name! -- Completed the foundations of the Inquisition by reaffirming, with heavier emphasis, that the bishops were not to wait for charges of heresy, but were to seek out heresy, or make an inquisitio, They were to have special officials, or "inquisitors," for this purpose. Innocent drew up explicit instructions for the procedure, and between 1204 and 1213 he issued four decretals ordering such searches in various places.

In 1224 the Constitution of Lombardy formally enacted sentence of death for heresy, and the next Pope, Gregory IX, endorsed this penalty and founded what is commonly called the Inquisition. Heretics were to be handed over to the secular arm for "adequate punishment" -- of which we find the definition in the words I quoted from Innocent III -- and, as bishops had shown themselves very remiss in the nasty work of seeking out heretics, the Pope took the job from them and entrusted it to the tender mercies of the newly founded Dominican and Franciscan friars, who took to it like blood-hounds to a scent. Among the wits of the time the Dominicans were known as the Domini canes, "the hounds of the Lord," a very neat Latin pun on their name.

Thus the Inquisition, which meant originally a search for heretics conducted by the bishops, became a separate institution under the direct control of the Papacy. This was not done at one stroke. Its birth is variously put by historians in 1229, 1231, and 1232. By the latter year, at all events, the Inquisition was established, and the hounds of the Lord felt the bloody rag at their nostrils.

Rome had discovered the solution of its dilemma. It did not want to stain its own fair robes with bloodshed, but it certainly did not want to leave the detection of heretics to secular powers, or few would be detected. Moreover, if heretics were tried by civil law, the law would not move until a charge was laid before it, and there would be a comparatively fair trial, the accuser facing the accused in open court; and again few would be condemned. In fine,these "confiscations" which Innocent III had recommended were becoming a very profitable source of revenue, and the Papacy wanted its share. The sordid scramble for gold amongst the bones of the dead had already begun.

Hence the Inquisition. These monastic agents of the Pope were to have independent courts, of the most monstrous description, and to ensure the condemnation of secret heretics; and they were then to hand them over to the secular arm and keep a sharp eye on any secular prince or official who failed to do his bloody work.

All this modern talk about heresy as "a crime against the State" is loathsome. There were in the thirteenth century few countries in Europe which the Popes did not claim to be fiefs of the Papacy, and few princes who were not held to be, in the literal political sense, vassals of the Pope. Gregory VII and Innocent III and their successors asserted that they were actually the feudal sovereigns of England, France, Spain, and other countries. A crime against the State was what they chose to call a crime against the State. The great majority of the secular rulers hated and thwarted the Inquisition -- it was never admitted to England -- and it was only priest-ridden rulers like Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain or those whose greed was interested, who would carry out the Pope's orders. Christianity was forcibly thrust upon Europe for the second time, as it had been in the fourth century."

Former Franciscan Monk Joseph McCabe

Bede

To use anti-Christian polemicists like McCabe in a historical discussion is the intellectual equivalent to using the Answers in Genesis web site to refute neo-Darwinism. I have no more interest in wasting time on McCabe than I do with any other kind of fundie. As I have previously said, those actually interested in the subject of the Inquisition should read some modern scholarship by the likes of Edward Peters or Henry Kamen. People who quote crap like McCabe are clearly only interested in perpetuating their own hate filled myths.

B

beyelzu

bede,

kettle?

is it black?


I would like to see a point by point rebuttal of McCabe. Also, since most of us live in a Christian society, how do we have hate filled myths? Where did we get them from?

Also, you keep callingpeople names. You began with an attempt at reasoned arguments and now you have sunk to a fit of yelling,"Liar! Liar!" and claiming that people disagree with you because they hate the church. While there is no love lost between any church and myself, I do like logical arguments and I had alot more respect for you before you decided to start whining and bitching and name calling.


So do you intend to make a point by point rebuttal?

Bede

No.

It would be pointless. Look at the reaction to what you yourself called my trying to have a reasonable discussion and ask if it would be worth it. Look at the heading of Dr Rick's last post and ask yourself if any reasonable discussion is possible with people like him. Even his fellow atheist, Sojourner, has decided he is not worth bothering with. The same is true of NOGO.

Yes, I call them head bangers (I never accused them of lying - that is what they have said of me without any justification).

Sorry, but I really cannot be bothered anymore. All that would happen is I would get more and more frustrated and the headbangers more and more gleeful.

My FAQ is accurate and based on modern scholarship. McCabe is out of date crap. No more needs to be said.

Finally, for you to attack me when I am out numbered on hostile territory and by your own admission I tried to be reasonable is cowardice. If you like logical debate, you would see a lot a more of it if you join Sojourner in calling off headbangers who try to prevent Christians from debating by their taunts and refusal to use modern sources. I'll look out for your next posts and see if you are brave enough not just to pick on the easy targets.

B

brighid

Of course not! None can be made.

Brighid

Dr Rick

...oh yes, and after Bede was so polite and reasonable.

You are lying , Bede, and you are rude. After posting your whiny complaint following 6 pages of your drivel and insults, we can also add hypocritical

You are the one that has been calling names and insulting everyone that disagrees with you.

That Sojourner, who noted that "Bede makes an artificial distinction between secular authorities and Church authorities regarding persecuting heretics -- because there was often a UNDERSTOOD PARTNERSHIP with one institution supporting the other," later joined you in your ad hominems and added various strawmen does not make your argument any more convincing or rational.

You have been rude, dishonest, and uninformative.

Your name calling and insults are not reasonable.

You don't appear to know much about scholarship.
Rick