A Short History of the Inquisition
Introduction
Page 2
Moreover, Christianity is
not merely a creed, and that a narrow creed, exclusive and intolerant in its
very terms and in its spirit, but it is a stupendous fact in human history.
Viewed as a fact, we see, judged by its fruits, its career, having been one
of hate and wholesale bloodshed, that the tree was evil and this whether the
germ was or was not in the teaching of the Old Testament and of Jesus and Paul.
So long as its adherents believed without doubt that is was divine in origin
and mission, so long it was a factor of discord and persecution wherever the
original Roman tree or any scion of it took root. Not only was it a factor of
discord and persecution, but it is a factor of discord and persecution. But
so much of the strength of the old tree has gone to the numerous nurslings that,
while the ancient poison is still in root and trunk and branch and still exhales
from every leaf, it is more or less diluted, and so life is becoming tolerable
where its shade is not too dense.
It must not be forgotten that
general and vague expressions in favour of love and peace and justice are of
little worth when accompanied by specific commands to destroy those who think
differently. It is so easy to love one’s neighbor and so easy to tie him to
the stake when one has convinced himself that said neighbor is the enemy of
one’s god. It is so easy to say that one will turn the other cheek when the
first is smitten and so easy to burn the heretic alive “for his soul’s health,”
as Kingdom Clifford aptly said. It is so easy to talk of universal love and
so easy to manifest individual hate in the name of one’s god. Morillon quotes
the Duke of Alva as saying that his sanguinary master, Philip II, had replied
to a plea for mercy for Count Egmont, with the declaration that he could forgive
offenses against himself, “but the crimes committed against God were unpardonable.”
When the obsequies for Charles
V took place at Brussels, by order of his son, Philip II, in December, 1558,
the most conspicuous object in the procession was “a ship floating apparently
upon the waves.” Her crew were three allegorical personages, Faith, Hope and
Charity. These, says Motley, “were thought the most appropriate symbols for
the man who had invented the edicts, introduced the inquisition, and whose last
words, inscribed by a hand already trembling with death, had adjured his son,
by his love, allegiance, and hope of salvation, to deal to all heretics the
extreme rigor of the law, ‘without respect of persons and without regard to
any plea in their favour.’” (Rise of the Dutch Republic, I., 177).
All the commands to return good
for evil and not to kill weigh less than nothing in the scales against one text,
“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” Not smooth professions but deeds are
the fruits of the tree that show the nature of the tree. Take, to illustrate,
the cause of the death of the first wife of Philip II: “The Duchess of Alva,
and other ladies who had charge of her during her confinement, deserted her
chamber in order to obtain absolution by witnessing an auto-da-fe of heretics.
During their absence the princess partook voraciously of a melon, and forfeited
her life in consequence.” (Motley). Such was the atmosphere created by unadulterated
Christianity that these cultured ladies of the court as naturally went to watch
the slow burning to death of men and women whose only offense was unbelief or
suspected unbelief as they went to their meals, only in the first instance they
expected a greater reward, absolution for the sins that god would pardon - he
would not have pardoned an intercession in behalf of the poor heretics. That
would have been a crime as great as that against the Holy Ghost, which the Bible
says in unforgivable, here and hereafter.
The idea of equal religious
liberty is a plant of slow and painful growth. All sectarists who are oppressed
think they are in favour of liberty, but generally as soon as they obtain a
little power they discover that it is to God’s interest to oppress some other
sort of sectarists. They are incredibly stupid, for it is impossible to make
them see the force of the plain, simple, and unanswerable proposition that if
they are not willing to respect the liberty of others there is nowhere a valid
basis for their demand for liberty themselves. This stupidity was one of the
most obstinate of obstacles in the way of the Prince of Orange in his attempts
to unite the Netherlands in their struggle with Spain and the Papacy. “Statesman,
rather than religionist, at this epoch, he was not disposed to affect a more
complete conversion than the one which he had experienced. He was, in truth,
not for a new doctrine, but for liberty of conscience. His mind was already
expanding beyond any dogmas of the age. The man whom his enemies stigmatized
as Atheist and renegade, was really in favour of toleration, and, therefore,
the most deeply criminal in the eyes of all religious parties” (Motley, “Rise
of the Dutch Republic,” Burt’s ed., I., 623). Notice how irreducible this stupidity
is in the case of Philip de Marnix, Lord of Sainte Aldegonde, who had been the
close friend and helper of Orange almost from the beginning. “Was he (Orange)
not himself the mark of obloquy among the Reformers because of his leniency
to Catholics? Nay, more, was not his intimate councilor, the accomplished Sainte
Aldegonde, in despair because the prince refused to exclude the Anabaptists
of Holland from the rights of citizenship? At the very moment when William was
straining every nerve to unite warring sects, and to persuade men’s hearts into
a system by which their consciences were to be laid open to God alone - at the
moment when it was most necessary for the very existence of the fatherland that
Catholic and Protestant should mingle their social and political relations,
it was indeed a bitter disappointment for him to see wise statesmen of his own
creed unable to rise to the idea of toleration. ‘The affair of the Anapatists,’
writes Sainte Aldegonde, ‘has been renewed. The prince objects to exclude them
from citizenship. He answered me sharply that their yea was equal to our oath,
and that we should not press this matter, unless we were willing to confess
that is was just for the papists to compel us to a divine service which was
against our conscience.’ It seems hardly credible that this sentence, containing
so sublime a tribute to the character of the prince, should have been indited
as a bitter censure, and that, too, by an enlightened and accomplished Protestant.
‘In short,’ continued Sainte Aldegonde, with increasing vexation, ‘I don’t see
how we can accomplish our wish in this matter. The prince has uttered reproaches
to me that our clergy are striving to obtain a mastery over consciences. He
praised lately the saying of a monk who was not long ago here, that our pot
had not gone to the fire as often as that of our antagonists, but that when
the time came it would be black enough. In short, the prince fears that after
a few centuries the clerical tyranny on both sides will stand in this respect
on the same footing’” (ibid., ii., 394).
Hopelessly stupid Sainte Aldegonde!
Sagacious monk! Wise and prophetic William of Orange! If only they could look
down over the centuries and see our Sunday law tyrants, our God-in-the-constitution
fanatics, our press gaggers, our children-stealers, and all the rest of the
rout of meddlers and persecutors who think they are doing their god a service
by making their fellow men and women miserable! But while William of Orange
was far in advance of his co-religionists and also of a large proportion of
more modern Christians, his expressed thoughts were not always wholly clear,
and no doubt it would be too much to expect that they should have been considering
his antecedents and his environments. It would seem, however, that his logical
mind should have been saved from making one mistake that the theocrats of to-day
continually make. Asked, in term, “to suppress the exercise of the Roman religion,”
he insisted upon substituting for “Roman religion” the words, “religion at variance
with the gospel.” Mr. Motley thinks that this rebuked bigotry, and “left the
door open for a general religious toleration.” There does not seem to be any
good ground for this optimistic opinion. Did not the question occur to the astute
mind of Orange, “By what right may I determine for another that any given religion
is ‘at variance with the gospel’?” And this other question: “If it be universally
admitted that a certain religion is ‘at variance with the gospel,’ how can its
suppression be made to harmonize with the principle of equal liberty in matters
of belief for all the people of Holland?” The introduction of such a standard
must lead to endless wrangling, confusion, and the persecution of every sect
whose creed is determined by a majority to be “at variance with the gospel.”
This position so mistakenly taken by Orange (although it may have been the most
advanced that he could then take and maintain any religious liberty) is substantially
the position of the theocrats of our own time and country, who expect the courts
under their regime to decide in all disputes as to the Bible-regularity of a
creed, or form of worship, or non-religious service.
While quoting from the historian
Motley, it may be well to use him as another example in showing how difficult
it is to get even such exceptionally well informed and liberal men as he to
take a sufficiently broad view of the question of freedom in matters of belief.
Referring to the conditions prevailing in Holland at this time, he says: “Neither
the people nor their leaders could learn that not a new doctrine, but a wise
toleration of all Christian doctrines was wanted” (ii., 277). But if no doctrine
was wanted, why put in the word “Christian”? Would it not need definition as
much as “Catholic”, or “Calvinist”, or “Lutheran”? And would not the old wrangling
continue, and the same mad fight to get on top so as to suppress the non-Christian
sects? And did Mr. Motley think that at that time it would have been all right
to murder Muhammadans and Jews?
No one could call in question
the religiousness of John Lothrop Motley, and yet even he gives evidence occasionally
that “this sorry scheme of things” puzzled him somewhat. Once he says: “The
history of Alva’s administration in the Netherlands is one of those pictures
which strike us almost dumb with wonder. Why has the Almighty suffered such
crimes to be perpetrated in his sacred name? Was it necessary that many generations
should wade through this blood in order to acquire for their descendants the
blessings of civil and religious freedom? Was it necessary that an Alva should
ravage a peaceful nation with sword and flame - that desolation should be spread
over a happy land, in order that the pure and heroic character of William of
Orange should stand forth more conspicuously, like an antique statue of spotless
marble against a stormy sky?” (ii., 89). It must indeed be startling to a sincere
Theist to find his god appearing to such poor advantage beside a mere man. But
Alva’s career in the Netherlands was only a brief incident in the terrible “martyrdom
of man,” a martyrdom which has been going on from the beginning of man’s life,
in spite of or by the decree of Mr. Motley’s God. Which?
There is safety only in the
individual decision of all question of religion and morals. This is the lesson
of the ages, the lesson written on every blood-stained and flame-scorched page
of human history. The safety and progress of mankind depend upon the repudiation
of all priesthoods, the assertion of the right to individually pass upon every
question affecting the individual who makes the examination in affairs of this
life or of any other which may be assumed or thought possible.
We cannot do better than close
this Introduction with a part of a paragraph found in John Lothrop Motely’s
“Rise of the Dutch Republic”: “It is not without reluctance, but still with
a stern determination, that the historian should faithfully record these transactions.
To extenuate would be base, to exaggerate impossible....there have been tongues
and pens enough to narrate the excesses of the people, bursting from time to
time out of slavery into madness. It is good, too, that those crimes should
be remembered, and freshly pondered; but it is equally wholesome to study the
opposite picture. Tyranny, every young and ever old, constantly reproducing
herself with the same stony features, with the same imposing mask which she
has worn through the ages, can never be too minutely examined, especially when
she paints her own portrait, and when the secret history of her guilt is furnished
by the confession of her lovers. The perusal of her traits will not make us
love popular liberty the less.”
Doomed!
Fear not that the tyrants shall rule forever,
Or the priests of the bloody faith;
They stand on the brink of the mighty river,
Whose waves they have tainted with death:
It is fed from the depths of a thousand dells,
Around them it foams, and rages, and swells,
And their swords and their scepters I floating see,
Like wrecks on the surge of eternity.
- Shelley
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