CHAP. V.

Concerning the divisions and heresies that troubled the Church during this century.

I.

1. W

CENT.
XIII.

PART II.

E have no account of any new sects that arose among the Greeks during thi century. Those of the Nestorians and Jacobites, which were settled in the remoter regions of the and Jaco

Nestorians

east, bites. CHAIS, whose Lettres Historiques et Dogmatiques sur les Jubilés, et des indulgences, were published at the Hague in three volumes 8vo. in the year 1751.

These letters of Mr CHAIS (minister of the French church at the Hague, and well known in the republic of letters) contain the most full and accurate account that has been ever given of the institution of the jubilee, and of the rise, progress, abuses, and enormities of the infamous traffic of indulgences. This account is judiciously collected from the best authors of antiquity, and from several curious records that have escaped the researches of other writers; it is also interspersed with curious, and sometimes ludicrous anecdotes, that render the work equally productive of entertainment and instruction. In the first volume of these letters, the learned author lays open the nature and origin of the institution of the jubilee; he proves it to have been a human invention, which owed its rise to the avarice and ambition of the popes, and its credit to the ignorance and superstition of the people, and whose celebration was absolutely unknown before the thirteenth century, which is the true date of its origin. He takes notice of the various changes it underwent with respect to the time of its celebration, the various changes it underwent with respect to the time of its celebration, the various colours with which the ambitious pontifs covered it in order to render it respectable and alluring in the eyes of the multitude; and exposes these illusions by many convincing arguments, whose gravity is seasoned with an agreeable and temperate mixture of decent raillery. He proves, with the utmost evidence, that the papal jubilee is an imitation of the Secular Games, that were celebrated with such pomp pagan Rome. He points out the gross contradictions that reign in the bulls of the different popes, with respect to the nature of this institution and the time of its celebration. does he pass over in silence the infamous traffic of indulgences, the worldly pomp and splendor, the crimes, debaucheries, and disorders of every kind, that were observable at the return of each jubilee year. He lays also before the reader an historical

in

Nor

view

XIII.

CENT.east and who equalled the Greeks in their aver PART II. sion to the rites and jurisdiction of the Latin church, were frequently solicited, by the ministry of Franciscan and Dominican missionaries sent among them by the popes, to receive the Roman yoke. In the year 1246, INNOCENT IV. used his utmost efforts to bring both these sects under his dominion; and in the year 1278, terms of accommodation were proposed by NICOLAS IV. to the Nestorians, and particularly to that branch of the sect which resided in the northern parts of Asia [y]. The leading men both among the Nestorians and Jacobites seemed to give ear to the proposals that were made to them, and were by no means averse to a reconciliation with the church of Rome; but the prospect of peace soon vanished, and a variety of causes concurred to prolong the rupture.

The con

Roman

with vari

ous sects,

II. During the whole course of this century, tests of the the Roman pontifs carried on the most barbarous pontifs and inhuman persecution against those whom they branded with the denomination of heretics; i. e. whom they against all those who called their pretended audiscrimi thority and jurisdiction in question, or taught nately with doctrines different from those which were adopted the name and propagated by the church of Rome. For the

branded in

of Heretics.

sects

view of all the jubilees that were celebrated from the pontificatę of BONIFACE VIII. in the year 1300, to that of BENEDICT XIV. in 1750, with an entertaining account of the most remarkable adventures that happened among the pilgrims who repaired to Rome on these occasions. The second and third volumes of these interesting Letters treat of the indulgences that are administered in the church of Rome. The reader will find here their nature and origin explained, the doctrine of the Roman catholic divine relating to them stated and refuted, the history of this impious traffic accurately laid down, and its enormities and pernicious effects circumstantially exposed with learning, perspicuity and candour.

[y]ODOR. RENALDUS, Annal. Eccles. tom. xiii. ad A. 1247. sect. xxxii. & tom. xv. ad A. 1303. sect. xxii. & ad A. 1304. sect. xxiii.-MATTH. PARIS, Hist. Major. p. 372.

XIII.

sects of the Catharists, Waldenses, Petrobrussians, C E N T. &c. gathered strength from day to day, spread pART IIimperceptibly throughout all Europe, assembled numerous congregations in Italy, France, Spain, and Germany, and formed by degrees such a powerful party as rendered them formidable to the Roman pontifs, and menaced the papal jurisdiction with a fatal revolution. To the ancient sects new factions were added, which, though they differed from each other in various respects, were all unanimously agreed in this one point, viz. "That the public and established religion "was a motley system of errors and superstition; "and that the dominion which the popes had "usurped over Christians, as also the authority "they exercised in religious matters, were un"lawful and tyrannical." Such were the notions propagated by the sectaries, who refuted the su perstitions and impostures of the times by arguments drawn from the holy scriptures, and whose declamations against the power, the opulence, and the vices of the pontifs and clergy were extremely agreeable to many princes and civil ma gistrates, who groaned under the usurpations of the sacred order. The pontifs, therefore, considered themselves as obliged to have recourse to new and extraordinary methods of defeating and subduing enemies, who, both by their number and their rank, were every way proper to fill them with terror.

Gaul.

III. The number of these dissenters from the The rise of the inquisichurch of Rome was no where greater than in Nar- tion in bonne Gaul [x], and the countries adjacent, where Narbonne they were received and protected, in a singular manner, by RAYMOND VI. earl of Tholouse, and other persons of the highest distinction; and where

[x] That part of France which in ancient times, comprehended the provinces of Savoy, Dauphiné, Provence, Languedoc.

CEN T. where the bishops, either through humanity or PART II indolence, were so negligent and remiss in the

XIII.

prosecution of heretics, that the latter, laying
aside all their fears, formed settlements, and mul-
tiplied prodigiously from day to day. INNOCENT
III. was soon informed of all these proceedings;
and about the commencement of this century sent
legates extraordinary into the southern provinces
of France to do what the bishops had left undone,
and to extirpate heresy, in all its various forms
and modifications, without being at all scrupulous
in using such methods as might be necessary to
effect this salutary purpose. The persons charged
with this ghostly commission were RAINIER [a],
a Cistertian monk, PIERRE DE CASTELNAU [b],
archdeacon of Maguelonne, who became also af-
terwards a Cistertian friar. These eminent mis-
sionaries were followed by several others, among
whom was the
the famous Spaniard DOMINIC,
founder of the order of preachers, who, re-
turning from Rome in the year 1206, fell in
with these delegates, embarked in their cause,
and laboured both by his exhortations and actions
in the extirpation of heresy. These spiritual
champions, who engaged in this expedition upon
the sole authority of the pope, without either
asking the advice or demanding the succours of
the bishops, and who inflicted capital punishment
upon such of the heretics as they could not con-
vert by reason and argument, were distinguished
in common discourse by the title of Inquisitors,
and from them the formidable and odious tribu-
nal called the Inquisition derived its original.

IV.

KP [4] Instead of RAINIER, other historians mention one RAOUL, or RALPH, as the associate of PIERRE DE CASTELNAu. See FLEURY, Histoire Eccles. livr. lxxvi. sect. xii.

[b] The greatest part of the Roman writers consider PIERRE DE CASTELNAU as the first inquisitor. It will appear hereafter in what sense this assertion may be admitted. For an account of this legate, see the Acta Sanctor. tom. i. Martii, p. 411.

XIII. PART II.

The form

IV. When this new set of heresy-hunters [c]CENT. had executed their commission, and purged the provinces to which they were sent of the greatest part of the enemies of the Roman faith, the pon- of the inquitifs were so sensible of their excellent services, sition setthat they established missionaries of a like nature,' tled. or, in other words, placed Inquisitors in almost every city whose inhabitants had the misfortune to be suspected of heresy, notwithstanding the reluctance which the people shewed to this new institution, and the violence with which they frequently expelled, and sometimes massacred, these bloody officers of the popish hierarchy. The council held at Tholouse, in the year 1229, by ROMANUS, cardinal of St Angelo, and pope's legate, went still farther, and erected in every city a council of inquisitors consisting of one priest and three laymen [d]. This institution was, however, superseded, in the year 1233, by GREGORY IX. who intrusted the Dominicans, or preaching friars, with the important commission of discovering and bringing to judgment the heretics that were lurking in France, and in a formal epistle discharged the bishops from the burthen of that painful office [e]. Immediately after this, the bishop of Tournay, who was the pope's legate in France, began to execute this new resolution, by appointing PIERRE CELLAN, and GUILLAUME ARNAUD,

[c] The term of Heresy-hunters, for which the translator is responsible, will not seem absurd, when it is known, that the missionaries, who were sent into the provinces of France to ex tirpate heresy, and the inquisitors who succeeded them, were bound by an oath, not only to seek for the heretics in towns, houses, cellars, and other lurking-places, but also in woods, caves, fields, c.

[d] See HARDUINI Concilia, tom. vii, p. 175.

[e] BERNHARD GUIDONIS in Chronico Pontif. MS. ap Jac. ECHARDUM Scriptor. Prædicator. tom. i. p. 88.- PERCINI Historia Inquisit. Tholosane, subjoined to his Historia Conventus FF. Prædicat. Tholosane, 1693, in 8vo.-Histaire Generale de Languedoc, tom. iii. p. 394, 395.