CHAPTER 14

REBUKE THE DEVOURER
Malachi 3:11^*1

Ancient Words and More Modern Misdeeds
with the Glow of Long Enduring Courage for Christ

Inquisition on the Inquisition

Today, we are looking at some denigration. It was felt in one challenge that a statement cited in SMR p. 950 (the first on the page to which this hyperlink points) should be removed. It is this quotation which is so regarded. However, the matter evokes thought of a relatively modern example, and more modern ones are given below,  of Romanist intrigue such as has occurred over the ages. This is one sort that is certainly not intriguing; but the theme of the Inquisition needs to be exposed for three reasons here.

First, Christian Apologetics has in prophecy many statements indicative of the rise of Romanism, and its place in overall history  (as in I Timothy 4, and Revelation, as shown in detail in SMR pp. 946ff., 1041, and 729, 1031C, 922). It is important that the eventual career of this body, one prophetically highly significant as shown in the above references and in Biblical Blessings Ch. 2, should be realised; so that when it further develops, as it will, the clarity and adequacy of the scriptural warnings will be fruitful to the mind and the life.

Secondly, efforts to minimise what HAS been done (cf. SMR pp. 1032ff.), make more difficult the realisation of what is assuredly coming as Revelation so clearly attests (cf. SMR 946ff.). The exact mathematics of the Inquisition are neither known nor knowable till judgment reveals all; but the bombastic and grandiose statements of the papacy are well-known (e.g. SMR pp. 950ff., 913ff.); and the almost unending historical references to the atrocities of misused papal power are like a teeming acid rain upon the earth. We shall consider but a few in the interests of the above points.

Thirdly, of course, as I Timothy 4:1ff. tells, there was a heresy to come which had certain specificities which Romanism fulfils precisely, and this with the general burden of the defence of the faith, and its unsullied expression, requires that if one is to seek in obedience to his charter, to be "a good minister of Jesus Christ" (I Tim 4:6 cf. I Peter 3:21), one must set about presenting the matter faithfully, with the due warning and emphasis on essentials, through the grace of God and in His strength as He provides it.

The style of this chapter is cast as a reply to the 'difficulty' felt about the p. 950 quotation about millions of people suffering from the devouring mouth of Romanist persecution, and it is such as to deal with elements associated with  the communication received. The topic of such persecution is not popular; but neither was that mouth! It is rarely popular when you are being eaten; and the eater often seeks to diminish the clarity of his chewing. This is simply impermissible.

Below follows a presentation slightly revised for greater interest and help to readers, from the original reply; but its substance is close to that of the original and little is changed.
 
 

DEVOURING IS TOO STRONG ? FIGURES ARE TOO HIGH ?

Thank you for your letter.

You appear to object to a suggestion in one of our books, that the reader attend to a statement about millions being either 'devoured', killed, enduring suffering by torture,  or loss of possessions during the time specifiable as that of the Romanist Inquisition. The statement is made by an historian with whom you disagree, and whom you feel is not up to your mark.

So be it. The question however is simply whether the statement should be given attention. That after all is what is requested of the reader. For the reasons which follow, it seems certain that in this instance, the words cited deserve it. It is not the degree of precision of his estimates. He in fact merely claims that the records show it may be reasonable to estimate this. This appears quite so. It is difficult then to know why you seem so concerned that his statement be suppressed.

In fact, when one considers the work of E.H. Broadbent, so cordially recommended by Professor F.F. Bruce of the University of Manchester, and his methods of first hand investigation into his subjects, which took so many years, it is interesting to hear this statement (p. 88):
 

• "Pope Innocent III required of the Count of Toulouse, Raymond VI, who ruled in Provence, and of the other rulers and prelates in the South of France, that the heretics should be banished. This would have meant the ruin of the country. Raymond temporized, but was soon involved in a hopeless quarrel with the Pope (cf. *4 below), who in 1209 proclaimed a crusade against him and his people. Indulgences, such as had been given to the Crusaders who went at great risk to themselves to rescue the Holy Places in Palestine from the Mohammedan Saracens, were now offered to all who would take part in the easier work of destroying the most fruitful provinces of France.

"This and the prospect of booty and licence of every kind attracted hundreds of thousands of men... the most beautiful and cultivated part of Europe at that time was ravaged, became for twenty years the scene of unspeakable wickedness and cruelty and was reduced to desolation... "

Indeed, we find on the very next page, this jewel of mercy:

"When the town of Beziers was summoned to surrender, the Catholic inhabitants joined with the Dissenters in refusing, though warned that if the place were taken no soul should be left alive. The town was captured, and of the tens of thousands who had taken refuge there, none were spared."
 

§        Once again, this is a mere episode at one time in one place (cf. *4 below). Yet this, with all the other attested instances, mounts to the skies; and with the wars stirred, stimulated or provoked by this invasive and scurrilous pertinacity, together with the oppression of genuine heretics, of the Jews, of sparkling Christians and princes with their peoples, constitutes the sort of parallel phenomena which is all too agreeable with large scale estimates of total wrong. These deserve thought, and that is what is being invited. That would seem almost certainly too small, against which complaint has been directed, if taken in the whole scope of the evil exercises of inquisitorial dominion: spiritual, financial, commercial, domestic, national, prudential, in evil example, lustful arousals and vile desecrations of the human spirit, emotional structure, body, mind and societies.

§        Devouring has become a most profitable business, and that the evil attainments of these plunders have never been returned, their massive grabs of lawless violence too hot for any heart to retain, is one of those mysteries which cannot stand the light. Many have made some reparations to the Jews, relative to World War II, but the ceaseless predations of Romanism over the centuries seem unable to know return, except it be in the interest yielded on their acquisitions.

That any body calling itself the body of Christ should so defame HIM, whose name is thus wrongly and unscripturally used, is perhaps the most fateful folly of all. How many have been devoured in secondary and tertiary resultants of such a thing!
 

§        Did not even one local newspaper viciously attribute to the 'Christian Church' a failure at the level of peace, and talk of its own evils! And how is this possible with all the forbearances and sufferings as of the Presbyterians in Scotland, the Huguenots in France, the Puritans in England, the genuine missionaries of peaceful heart and clear conscience without grasping for power or gain, in many nations in century after century: and this, with what courage and what quietness!

§        How can such an attribution be made at all ?  It is because the world, seeing worldliness where its own futile principles under the prince of this world are operative, too well relates the testimony of Romanism to that of Christianity, so leading to confusion and mischief. And that ? How many have been turned aside by this defamation on the body of Christ, and how many devoured by this spiritual slander, how many millions, in how many centuries, already vulnerable, have been turned from the things of Christ, by this obvious deformity, their souls devoured by the perception of vice!

That God does not allow His own to be twisted does not alter the offence. "For offences must come," said Christ, "but woe to that man by whom the offence comes" (Luke 18:7). We do not dismiss what the Saviour includes, or ignore what He requires. Certainly the Romanist may return to the Lord, like any other astray; and he who repents and receives the Lord freely as LORD and not joint ruler, does well; but that repentance is not yet found, though many Romanist individuals come, including priests, just as many Jewish priests, separating themselves from the error of their own nation, came earlier to Christ in sincerity, in truth and obedience, as Lord without addition or parallel (Acts 6:7, 5:32).

The future of the Roman religious body itself, however, is as bleak alas, as for other dictatorial directors of human affairs who do not return from their idolatries and evils (cf. SMR pp. 946-956, 1061ff.). Far be it from us, who fear God as well as love Him, as one fears a wonderful fire as well as delighting in it, that we should fail to warn those whose body cannot be exculpated, its works rising to the very heavens, as we see in the above references. Thus its coming desolations will be quite as thorough as any which it has forged in the fires of aggression, against the whole human race in countless places, not only in Europe, but in South America, where its evil pontifications were addressed to other civilisations as if the world itself were its province.

That others in the name of nations so acted does not remove or even attenuate the folly of DARING to do such things in the very NAME of Christ, so making the more difficult the work of missionaries of the cross and gospel as in the Bible, free in Christ, the ONLY ruler of the hearts of men. This devouring also has spread to more nations, in the primary and secondary, yes and tertiary realms, as immediate rapacity went on to social devastation and spiritual subjugation. The mystery Babylon (Rev. 17:5) is broad and old; but its coming to the what we have termed the 'death mask' in Rome is all too clear (cf. SMR p. 729, Biblical Blessings Ch. 2, Barbs, Arrows and Balms 20, pp. 150ff.).

As to the torture, Hunt (op.cit. p. 251) notes Dufour's quotation from a 1552 book by Simancas and the quotation breathes as much of the malignant as might well be even imagined: "The inquisitors should be more inclined to the use of torture than regular judges because the crime of heresy is concealed and very difficult to prove." One cannot help noticing the purely technical pre-occupation, which never rises to the level of humanity.

It is further maintained there that the openly admitted point  or purpose of torture was to cause the "most intense pain to the prisoner", and that "the inquisitors exchanged recipes". It is like making cakes, except it is breaking cakes, and the humans involved, who seem to be rather forgotten in the cuisine, are not cakes, but people, made in the image of God. Two defacements accordingly appear: that of the tortured, and that of the word of God, whose name is daringly used in the profoundest contradiction of His word^*2 in John 18:36, in Proverbs 3:3,  in Matthew 5:7, Psalm 74:20, I Corinthians 5:11-15 as in Luke 9:54-56.

Later Broadbent states this:
 

• "When, at the Council of Toulouse (1229) it was made a permanent institution, the Bible, excepting only the Latin Psalter, was forbidden to the laity, and it was decreed that they might have no part of it translated into their own languages. The Inquisition finished what the crusade had left undone. Many of the brethren fled to the Balkan countries, others were scattered throughout the neighbouring lands, the civilization of Provence disappeared..."

Tens of thousands of violent, papally directed persons in the pursuit of slaughter, or possession of lands, or expropriation, or torture, and the decimation of a province is not a lengthy subject for the toils of arithmetic. This is ONE small part of the whole thing. Even this involves the subjugation of human conscience, a torture of the most inimitable kind, the oppression of many who, weak, fell to the lure of escape from the clerical ferocity; and the secondary torture of the young, if spared, deprived of parents, of these or others wandering homeless to other lands, bewildered, smitten, detested, arrested, condemned, this mounts like a volcano to heaven.

The anti-Biblical requirement itself was a torture of a directly spiritual kind. No Bibles, no generally readable ones! This would have affected many millions, alone. Further, the next generation of those spared, would have the torture of social denigration, economic deprivation or spiritual assassination, and this is not regarded ? The milk supply turned off, the blood flow turned on! Has humanity then ceased to exist ? Whole nations were in dread and fear in such chains of contempt, such calamities of conscience, in such domineering follies, directed even to the physical, to 'extermination' and depletion, while Rome robbed the money, and the recipients had squalid differences.

Thus it is not surprising that we find on p. 90 of the same work, this historical datum:

"The inquisitor Reinerius, who died in 1259, had left it on record:
 

• 'Concerning the sects of ancient heretics, observe, that there have been more than seventy: all of which, except the sects of the Manichaeans and the Arians and the Runcarians and the Leonists which have infected Germany, have through the favour of God, been destroyed.' "

 

The fact that so many sects are in view, that four constitute a mere exception, and that these were large enough to require 'attention' and to gain names, and to be official bureaucratic recipients of concerted efforts at the international level, makes it clear that the 'destruction' of all the rest of the condemned broods must have involved a very large number of initial victims, together with the subsidiary victims, if spared, relatives, dependants, children, with their futures in turn, all affected in unspeakable tortures of deprivation and humiliation.

This, indeed, with  all its ramifications:  it makes simply one more of the numerous complex cases which could be added. The Crusades themselves, replete with papal indulgences as Broadbent notes, are all therefore to be charged also to this account. Papal incitation was at a premium.

What of the papal incitement in the name of religion, the papal pronouncements and intimations of merit and virtue available, and deliverance for those who went on Crusade, where Christ, in conspicuous contrast, declared, "My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight..." (John 18:36)!

Christ’s Church has NO business in this. The pope however made it the business of his religious organisation. His therefore was the crime in so inciting; and if it was not the only crime, it was the paramount claim of the pope which made it the paramount crime, since it was pushed, as Unam Sanctam declares, as altogether necessary to salvation to be subject to this figure. That was the view of the Roman organisation. It thus is altogether responsible for making it seem so to many, and then enjoining upon them, in view of this claim, the horrible, unnecessary and sacrilegious wars of the Crusades where sanctioned in this way.

For the huge numbers who fought and were wounded, maimed, who left dependants in perils, who endured torture^*2A, the word of pope and council is thus eminently accountable. It is not exclusive; but it is in this paramount in the field of religion; for not only was this claim made, such that this is the very cause and virtue of life, but it was backed by horrendously cruel force, disregarding often age and weakness, childhood and futures of the dispossessed.

Where rulers were themselves under the subjection of the pope, or made to be, as with Raymond VI mentioned above, then the papal power and threats, physical or moral or spiritual, were inducements or requirements, and the civil power, claimed by Rome both in force and in word, becomes the civil arm indeed of the Roman organisation. Thus whole nations were deployed in this way and that, annoyed, intimidated, wrongly directed to war within, to war without, and yet we find concern at what appears a most modest estimate of the mayhem of the centuries, those sad, sick centuries of lordliness and blasphemy which were used to overpower conscience and make many men act in ways far worse than those of the beasts of the forest.

For shame!

THE VERBAL WITNESS FROM HISTORY FOR HISTORY

Indeed, in express terms on the always underlying papal responsibility in terms of their claims in Unam Sanctam, is an interesting example given by Hunt from the famed Will Durant in his Story of Civilization. It is in the spirit of the thing so often seen, intemperate, loud, extravagant, minatory. It is to the effect that in  1521 Pope Leo X decreed the bull Honestis, which "ordered the excommunication of any officials, and the suspension of religious services in any community, that refused to execute without examination or revision, the sentences of the inquisitors" (italics added).

Further drawn from Durant is this choice morsel, of Clement V in communication with King Edward II, which is reported as follows:
 

• "We hear that you forbid torture as contrary to the laws of your land. But no state law can override canon law, our law. Therefore I command you at once to submit those men to torture."

We have in SMR earlier noted Thomas Aquinas view, as representative of the utmost

"Though heretics must not be tolerated because they deserve it, we must bear with them till.. the second admonition ... But those who ... remain obstinate... must be delivered to the secular power to be exterminated."

There is DIRECTION and not mere sufferance of the political consequences, just as there was frequent intimidation towards such blatant cruelty and antithetical behaviour relative to the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name, all but amazingly, such things were perpetrated. Extermination in such ways is for vermin; and it does not suggest, with the lack fo feeling of tolerance, any more mercy than was in fact shown.

As to the attitude to those not agreeing with the papacy, what is said even of a King who presumes to diverge:
 

"How shall we assume to judge kings and princes, and not dare to proceed against a worm! Let them perish forever, that they may understand that the name of the Roman pontiff is known in all the earth that he alone is most high over princes."

This accords unpleasantly well with Innocent VIII's reference to the Albigenses as "venomous serpents" and the methods of extermination, as Aquinas advocated, seem well to have accorded in the grossest inhumanity conceivable, with the concepts they espoused. This consistency is mutually supportive, the reported words and the reported deeds, in churches, in ancient tradition, in books nearer the time, even in official statements, even from Romanists (cf. Hunt. op.cit. p.p. 245-246).

Since there is NONE to be COMPARED with the Lord (Psalm 89:6), in heaven or in earth, and there is NO OTHER NAME (cf. SMR pp. 1070ff. ) through which men must be saved, this arrogant and deluded pretension is a source of much of the denudation of mere humanity, in word and deed, which results from not having the heart of God, though using His name. With whatever arithmetic, this is a torture to the soul so bound (cf. Galatians 3 and 5), that is perhaps the most profound of all. It desolates without God, in the name of God; and of all torture, what is the equal of that!

It afflicts all whom it touches, misled or murderous.

The guilty are then afflicted by their own guilt, as the routine inexorably proceeds. All suffer; and all need deliverance, persecutors and persecuted. Christ even prayed continually, "Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing!" Love however requires reality, and pardon is preceded by repentance (Luke 13:1-3).
 
 

ORIENTATION TO LLORENTE
Its Nature and Its Relevance

But let us give a little attention to a point you raise, about Llorente. It appears from what you say that one may generalise that scholars who really know the specialised topic of the Inquisitorial assassinations and deprivations, realise that Llorente is wrong, has bad maths.  and bad estimation.

Presumably then someone has done the following research work, or maybe several people have done this. They have gained verified access to the records which Llorente purported to examine, have found just what mistakes he made with which records, have shown from his book the precise entries for the records since found from the originals to be false, have seen the originals, and have verified that they have not since been tampered with, or suppressed, or even lost; making sure that neither implicitly nor explicitly has he referred to what they do not now find, despite Schaff's word of warning in this field.

Such antics are so obvious that the process would have to be supervised of course, by neutral or composite observers.

This done, it would need to be shown where the purely mathematical side of the matter, erred, and extensive quotations, all duly found with discriminating care, to be referring to what it is alleged they referred to, would be given so that it might indeed be verified that the poor man had not much elementary school capacity when it came to mathematics, though he was deeply immersed in a work requiring at least grade 7 mathematics. That would not match well with his fast-track finishing of his studies and varied elevations to positions of administrative eminence, as we shall shortly confirm.

What scholars 'find' is not very interesting unless we can find the ground(s) of their findings, the integrity of their data, the checking carried out on them and so on. Of course, the same could be said of Llorente. If it is held that he purposely fabricated various records, perhaps this could simply be proved by the sort of process noted above.

However moods and fashions change in academia, and as seen in the field of evolution, and attested continually in Creation magazine, the follies which are perpetrated as ruling in academia, are almost beyond all plausibility to imagine, far less find, until one realises this power of cultural occlusion and political-ethical variability, together with the blindings of religious, anti-religious passion of which the world is full and brimming over. With such a testimony it is necessary to be scrupulous indeed before consigning some historian to the profundities of the academic pit, only later to find the confiner is now the one to be confined.

If then it is held, as you seem to state or imply, that Llorente merely was a fumbler, inaccurate, befuddled (what less, when it is so simple, involving no Einsteinian grandeur, just counting from records), then the evidence for this from his academic record and various other publications, activities would need to be presented: not just what this or that person thought, but the overwhelming testimony to discredit, just as is to be done for example in any assault on the good name of someone. Again, those partaking of these exposures need themselves to be exposure proof, false motivation proof, and to have exact indications available so that their generalisation and indications are above reproach, or indeed, even doubt.

From the way you speak, one would like to assume you have all this done, found and reviewed all such records, dispelled all doubts on the topic of comprehensiveness, or checked all the work of those who did in complete detail without solace until done, and that this is why the attack on Llorente is made; that all comparisons and records to which he had access, all research, public and verified, beyond question in validation has been exhibited, and this on the basis of testimonies immutable, immiscible with error of their own, established for all to see, nothing missing from the originals. One is always loth for some new fashion, obvious to all, like the Maginot line, like the enormities of method of Darwin for the eyes of many for 100 years, to come crushing in with protested credentials, especially where the evidence is unavailable^*3.
They fell like Autumn leaves so frequently; and then they need raking.

When therefore  one consults the Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, to start on our tour of duty, we find some rather disconcerting evidence, for any such a Llorente dismissal. Thus this gentleman - we refer to the same one ? - "became both doctor and priest before he had reached the canonical age" (it. added).  He was, we further read, "appointed a commissioner in 1785, and secretary general of the Inquisition in 1789. " Indeed, it proceeds, as his past capacities would suggest,
 

• "The opportunity that was thus presented for becoming acquainted with the functions and archives of those in authority was well utilized by Llorente. His endeavour to make the procedure public throughout was frustrated on the fall of his like-minded patrons..."

 

It adds, that one of his close associates 'fell' and that Llorente was 'subjected to prosecution'. He became with a change of government, a member of the Council of State. Then, thus equipped, with such a scholarly and active past, with such involvement and with such access, he "began to write the history of the Spanish Inquisition." So far we do not seem to be in the presence of a dunce, a man of incapacity, of inability, lacking in the due qualifications of his age, but rather with a man of considerable talent, both academic and practical. He appears for a considerable period to have been regarded with interest as remarkably installed to exhibit what many would want hidden, both then and now.

The encyclopedia confirms it was first published in French, then in Spanish, German and English.

Not surprisingly, he is stated to have been punished, by what is termed a 'reactionary government', and his 'ecclesiastical functions were annulled'. If his writings were not a boon to his past religious body, this too is scarcely surprising. At the University, we find that an order was issued forbidding him to give instruction in his mother tongue; and then he was banished. It would seem easier to discredit his writings by appeal to the records at the time, so that anyone with access could persuade him of his errors, in full view of the primary documents.
 

• "The value of his principal work lies," says Schaff Herzog, "in the fact that it supplies extracts from documents no longer accessible."

To confute, refute and render barren the work of this man, or any such man, to make its inepitude of the first order, would seem quite a task. One would need the original records in profusion, intact, verified as not the objects of tampering, the exact comparison with the data he gives, with such authenticated records, duly witnessed by neutral or composite witnesses, and reasons duly given; and then the exhibition that he miscopied, or omitted, or invented or whatever else may be held in mind. One would need to consider the nature of his claims, the totality of his protested and attested evidences, the exhaustive character of his protestations, as to base and so on.

Rushes of opinion are commonplace in such matters, to idolise or to debase, to rubbish on inadequate bases, either through misunderstanding, superficial coverage, misconstruction of the nature of the presentation, the definition of the terms and so on; and at times we go from one extreme to the other. It is best at such times to stick to the facts as attested and to minimise the extrapolations from some real or imagined error to assumed incompetence and so forth. When therefore, as in this case, we come to protestations on evidence as presented, manifestly far from capable of presenting the conclusion provided, we do not proceed in such a realm. It is neither profitable nor right.

There is this day such an almost compulsive endeavour to disestablish almost anything which has stature, that this work would require the utmost skill and conscientiousness, with an access to records which, if Schaff Herzog is not incorrect, is not available. Care in not misinterpreting Llorente would be required, just as it is being alleged that he misinterpreted. Translations do not seem much of an issue, to the relevant point, since we find the French came first, then the Spanish, then the German and then the English. One could, if necessary, seek the French, but it does not seem necessary, since even on the figures you yourself attribute to this gentleman, he held 33,912 executed and 325,362 total, punished (the latter including, as you say, the former), for what he found in Spain at his time.

Well, you would have quite a task to do the actual numerics and data exhibition, with full quotation from Llorente, and full authenticated access to the data which he used, with sufficient detail to ensure there is no question of what is not uncommon, the misinterpretation of what he says, just as you consider he misinterpreted other things. His later career of having "his ecclesiastical functions ... annulled" and in what Schaff Herzog deems a reactionary government, forbidding him to lecture in his native tongue, does not seem to suggest that he was in favour. The power of the Inquisition would not suggest that it would be likely that he would be. It is precisely this which casts doubt on endeavours to refute at a distance, without - as it might appear - the original data to which he had access, what he did.

The motivation is clearly strong in sectarian quarters where much of the evidence lay; and so the testing of each primary datum on the basis of which each attribution of error is made, would require all that is normal, and something more, when historical research is deemed invalid, hundreds of years later.
 
 

THE HITLER QUESTION HAS SOME ANSWERS:
ONLY GOD KNOWS ALL
But it both poses some fascinating queries,
and presents some stimulating parallels

You mention Hitler. As  to him, it seems best to note his fascinating play with Rome, in the interstices of his run^*3A for power, and the quite possible use each may have had for the other. Franco may indeed have been wrong in attributing to Hitler the post of Romanist; but then, in the midst of the intrigue and the fact that the Pope said so little on so much in the midst of the war, and Hitler did so much with so many so near, and of the Concordat, one has to find some reticence in knowing all on the topic.

People sometimes try to use each other; and what is true and what is false is not always easy to determine. What is true is this, that Hitler had a most eager Von Papen, at the outset, and made a Concordat. His reported statement that "as a Catholic, I never feel comfortable in the Evangelical Church" (SMR p. 920) fits well with Franco's characterisation of him; and how many are they who try to combine, as the papacy itself has combined, the doctrines of power with religion in this way or that. In such cases, as one tries to absorb the other, so the other, the one.

Indeed, the atheism of Buddhism (if you regard the founder himself as relevant) is such that the Pope could have a Buddhist figure put on the ALTAR in a Romanist Church, in a service in which he himself participated! (A Spiritual Potpourri Ch. 17, pp. 228 and 233). Such is the ingenuity of infidelity. Nor is it limited to popes.

However, this is merely for parallel instruction. Hitler's actual position is known only to God. It is of interest that Hitler's close ideological companion Alfred Rosenberg by 1930 had written "Myth of the Twentieth Century" while creating one, in a form that sold over one million copies by 1942, it is reported. Of him it is found that

"his writing was more mystical than Hitler's. He also attacked Christianity as an offshoot of Judaism, seeking to replace it with a new specifically Germanic religion, 'the religion of the blood'. He seized on the comment of the Frenchman Lagarde that 'races are God's thoughts', to construct a weird, mystical belief structure that somehow made the Aryan, Nordic or Germanic race (he did not distinguish between them ) something to be revered and worshipped." This interesting description is from Stewart Ross (in his World War Two, Racism in the Third Reich (1992, London),
p. 27.

Winston Churchill in his rather brilliant work, The Second World War (abridged) p. 35 declares that Hitler "had conjured up the fearful idol of an all-devouring Moloch of which he was the priest and incarnation."

With such latencies and associations, we cannot by any means be sure what Hitler might have done, or to what his thought and associations might have led; just as much seems to have been done with him earlier by potent and frustrated industrialists, and nationalists whom he in turn had served, and whose thoughts in no small measure he seems perhaps to have projected and polished, while providing a new base. Such bases are not far from deluded humanity, and the papal splendours are most susceptible to such associations, since all put things under one man whose 'faith' is in something far removed from the revelation of God, and directs men with a passion for their obedience which relates to himself, as virtual incarnation, daring to be called "God Almighty on earth", rather than merely a servant, brother and friend (I Peter 5, Matthew 23:8-10 cf. SMR pp. 915-916).

ABSOLUTE obedience, as for the Jesuit, but not for them alone, is a cornerstone of such racial or religious authoritarianism, wrought by men, over men. It fitted both religions, in the ultimate sense of the provision of ultimates: Rome's and Hitler's. Both instituted all but inconceivable cruelty; each had made a new god, whatever they said, vested largely in themselves, their system, their structure and their command. Each demanded penalties that were severe, and used controls largely secret, which abrasively entered into private lives, with all the security and pomposity of which presumption is capable. It is not hard to see, therefore, why it appears that Hitler so admired the Jesuit command structure (cf. SMR p. 912); for each had that mystic figure beyond, a man with an iron will, and whose use of iron was often wholly pitiless.

One was Führer, one Pope. Many died for both.

Christ however died for sinners, and killed none. As Philip Schaff points out, one would have thought the difference sufficiently plain! Speaking of  Pope Innocent VIII as he "set on foot a relentless crusade against a harmless people as his predecessor of the same name, Innocent III had set on foot the crusade against the Albigenses" -namely the Waldensians, Schaff makes an incisive statement. It is this:
 

• "His notorious bull of May 5, 1487, called upon the king of France, the duke of Savoy and other princes to proceed with armed expeditions against them and to crush them out as "venomous serpents"... It opened with the assertion that his Holiness was moved by a concern to extricate from the abyss of error those for whom the sovereign Creator had been pleased to endure sufferings. THE STRIKING DIFFERENCE SEEMS NOT TO HAVE OCCURRED TO THE PONTIFF THAT THE SAVIOUR, TO WHOSE SERVICES HE APPEALED, GAVE HIS OWN LIFE, WHILE HE HIMSELF, WITHOUT INCURRING ANY PERSONAL DANGER, WAS CONSIGNING OTHERS TO TORTURE AND DEATH" (emphasis added).

 

But let us leave this topic, fascinating as it is, in an arresting and poignant way, as part of the power politics of people rulers, and return to data and its usage.
 

GENERALS, GENERAL PRINCIPLES AND GENERALISATIONS

Now again, you seem to have worked out the figures on "the vast majority" of Spanish victims; but on what precise records, in the manner noted above, we are to prefer your distant reconstruction, or your use of other figures from those who used as much time and investigation as Llorente, or could, to some other, it is not known. Experts do not impress; it is the research procedure and the data available which is important.

Your endeavour to exculpate papal action in the inquisition, somewhat, in terms of unpleasant political persons does not really impress one (see *4 below). The papal bulls made the position clear enough; and whatever a Roman Catholic sovereign might do in executing the commission of the pope, or helping to administer it, in view of his subjection to that party, is scarcely an unknown, or an irrelevance.

Did the Pope ASK that there be NO torture ? did he object when there was known to be much ? Did he discipline (spiritually) monarchs who tolerated it, or even forwarded it ? Did he point out that it was an horrendous contradiction of Christ so to act, and that it involved a categorical clash with His words ? Did he annul the work rather than suffer it to proceed so ghoulishly ? Was he aghast, and did he call meetings of cardinals, or act ex cathedra, to remove any thought that such enormities could conceivably have anything to do with his
person ? Are to find ever new evidences of amazing character, contrary to the known
bulls ?

Is Bettenson then in error, when on p. 185 of his Documents of the Christian Church, he notes of the Decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council, this:
 

• "Convicted heretics, shall be handed over for due punishment to their secular superiors, or the latter's agents. If they are clerks, they shall first be degraded. The goods of the laymen thus convicted shall be confiscated; those of the clergy shall be applied to the churches from which they drew their stipends... If a temporal lord neglects to fulfil the demand of the Church that he shall purge his land of this contamination of heresy, he shall be excommunicate by the metropolitan and other bishops of the province. If he fails to make amends within a year, it shall be reported to the Supreme Pontiff, who shall pronounce his vassals absolved from fealty to him and offer his land to Catholics."

{That is, seize his economic and professional power base, and give him time to reflect on what it would cost: would he sell his place or his people ? WHAT a torture that was, papally inflicted! We shall return to this Lateran area in *4 below. }

The Decree continues, however: "The latter shall exterminate the heretics, possess the land without dispute and preserve it in the true faith." Actually, the State was regarded as a secular arm of the church, the pope claiming rule over princes as well as churches quite clearly in Unam Sanctam, 1302. It is written,
 

• "Both are in the power of the Church, the spiritual sword and the material. But the latter is to be used for the Church, the former by her; the former by the priest, the latter by kings and captains but at the will and by the permission of the priest. The one sword, then, should be under the other, and temporal authority subject to spiritual."

This is such a precise contradiction of Christ's injunction to Peter to put up his sword, and his principial statement to Pilate as to WHY His servants did not fight, that it has a certain metaphysically grisly character, as if we were dreaming. But then, such is likewise the whole concept of crucifying, instead of being crucified! It is a matrix of contradiction, which did not hesitate to contradict physical life in the persons of men, women and children.

As to English barbaric acts, were the works of James II those of a heretic from Rome, who was in castigation from his master in Rome, for his barbarism ? Did Rome noticeably denounce such actions ? Were there no Roman clergy in England at these times ? Did they not speak ? Did they not speak when Cranmer and Ridley, yes and Latimer were consigned to the flames ? Did they profess their outrage, or conduct the operation in due form, ecclesiastically, with due religious messages ? There is no more credibility in this, where the supreme power to direct lies in the papacy, and it does not do other, than in some kind of 'innocence' at St Bartholomew's day treachery, when the Pope was pleased to have a medal struck, rejoicing at the stricken land's demotion to the ranks of savagery (SMR p. 954). That, it is small disclaimer to work for the papal exculpation. It is rather like a crowd cheering when a public execution occurs.
 
 

THE NUMERICAL -

 HITLER AND WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN ?

What Hitler would have done if he had won the war is subject to consideration. As a politician, he might conceivably have made more concordats, if that had seemed good; and the pope might have reciprocated. We do not know more than this, what they did at the outset. Let us keep to the facts, then. Napoleon evidently found Egypt worth a pair of slippers, and others, religious and lay, have often made diplomacy a high art, in which their real intentions are disguised or moderated to secure some vital aim. It is not even remotely possible to assess what would have been if Hitler had won, or what concord would apply to his concordats and agreements with the papal authorities.

There certainly was amazing co-operation between Romanist authorities and Nazis (see *1 below), and the numbers involved, and removed with incredible butchery, by death squads and such as were determined, were great.

On numbers, in a little detail, for interest: if we take the Schaff Herzog concept of Inquisition, and deem it in an early form commenced in 1184, through the agreement of pope and emperor (which scarcely distances one from the other), then of course that which was "devoured", in terms of the quote to which you take exception, "during the awful years of the Inquisition", would include the "systematic war" which Innocent III statedly organised against the Manicheans, which employed the "episcopal inquisitions".

It would include the wars on the Waldensians in 1231, around 1260, in several countries, and in several more countries from around 1313, 1330. It was not, says Schaff Herzog, "until the third decade of the fifteenth century that the surviving associations again dared to make their presence known." We read of 160 of these burned on one occasion.

Surpassing, we read, all that went before, however a "crusade was now preached against them at the direction if Innocent VIII." This is some preaching, and certainly resembles that found in the newspaper noted in SMR p. 952 (see *1 below). The assault proceeded, it reports, in various named parts of France simultaneously. They were the object of the attentions of the "crusading army".

All papally incited wars, in which the pope advised or directed assault, come under this heading in this period. Where they may not be inquisitorial in structure, they are in its period and similar in style. War was also waged against "sects of every kind" we are told, in the Netherlands, and "from the exact information in Frederick's work, it appears that the extent of the bloody doings at Antwerp, Brussels, Ghent, Utrecht, and other cities" surpassed previous estimates.

This splendid phenomenon also,  we read, was directed against the Jews in Portugal, this ending in 1826. Indeed, has its actual office in substantial continuity, and power its ever been repealed ?

What bloodshed has been caused by the authorising or commending of sovereigns to attack other ones ? It would be impossible to put an accurate figure on it, but numbers put it in millions. It is well to reflect on such estimates, however difficult it may be to be entirely sure; and in view of the other elements noted on the site, this does not seem in the least unworthy of contemplation, but rather worthy of attention as suggested in the site indicated by you.

Indeed, such realisations can act almost as therapy in the present Age, almost haunted at times by bizarre and macabre materials from historical religious errors and political ones, and stirred to emulation. Failure to consider all the intimations realistically merely tends to inure to reality, instead of facilitating response with reason, and better with repentance of heart from any such things envisaged or subject of any form of participation.

Alas, when all the children who were left deprived, and their children if any, and the deprivations in families where some member was assassinated, some mother, some child of hope lost to parental aid, where contumely and contempt were spouted so often in such bitter harangues and unworthy jibes, who could estimate the devouring tongue of that fire, spreading in its dismemberment of families, impoverishment of individuals, torture of the heart and mind, as well as body, devastation of places of worship, aggregations, pastors and the rest!  It would reach millions in a short time, quite apart from papal incitations to war, which therefore bring the added encumbrance for the period of the inquisition, to further escalations.

Add Jews, sects and Christians to the tally; add the subjugations made easy by the awful folly of thousands massacred even to the provinces for St Bartholomew's Day affair, the intrusion and profusion of complicated affairs, the very marvel of bureaucracy, and the insistence on the mind arresting indoctrinations, the harassment of spirit, the removal of content, the emplacement of machinery of oppression, the turning of combined options into monolithic insistence, and where does the devouring end ? In Spain, few were the Protestants left, and it is merely an example. Hearts broken, homes dispersed, children left under the cruelty of the rapacity, even for the survivors, with many careers often excluded: these are only some of the ramifying horrors. It would seem therefore, that without even going into war assessments on the larger scale that is still relevant, we do not need to be too concerned at the various efforts to change the original data, as originally researched. They are but a part, and they are substantial.

What however of the seizing of scriptures -  Torquemada's burning of large numbers of Hebrew scriptures, the seizing and burning of all copies of the Scriptures in Spanish, Schaff notes (Vol. VI, p. 552) and "the ferocious law of 1558 ordered booksellers keeping or selling prohibited books punished with confiscation of goods and death" ! The devouring of the word of God in this way, when it was not easily obtained, and is to be meditated upon daily, was spread in many countries and its mere withholding affected millions. To devour and remove availability of antibiotics in the same way, would be far less of an operation of evil. See also references in SMR p. 1040. The tortures, sufferings, deprivations inflicted in these ways affected countless millions, teeming in their generations and in different countries.

Even directly however, the toll is high. Thus Schaff op.cit. p. 553, notes this, that  in 1524, an inscription was placed on the fortress of Triana, Seville, running: "In the year 1481, under the pontificate of Sixtus IV, and the rule of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Inquisition was begun here. Up to 1524, 20,000 heretics and more abjured their awful crime on this spot and nearly 1000 were burnt." Not bad for one spot, over a mere 43 years. That is one datum it would be hard to miscount. Dave Hunt in his "A Woman Rides the Beast" has presented, incidentally, in 1994, a work which being in the field of his specialisation, sects including Rome, provides a considerable source of documentation for those interested in data (e.g. pp. 242-262 with source notes added).

The references are numerous, and well worthy of attention. He writes of the Polish war (and wars DO involve devouring, alas), that Pope Martin V (1417-31) commanded the King of Poland in 1429 to remove the Hussites. Apparently, they had routed the papal army, so the Pope, as peace-maker, decided in the name of his religion, contrary to Christ's decree on the topic (John 18) to war on them. That NATIONAL war is only one of many in which papal power was deployed to increase war. For that matter, the papal advice about war in the days before World War I, to the Archduke of Austria, is a more recent example (cf. SMR p. 921), and the results of that estimation, incitation and worldly gamble are perhaps in the millions, alone.

It is not certain that the war would not have happened without this push from prelacy; but it is certain that it helped it start, and not demonstrable that it must have started otherwise. It is ludicrous to underestimate the result when the spiritual forces of restraint and moderation, care, concern and wisdom are replaced by the artifices of belligerence in the NAME of the Prince of Peace. It is impossible to disregard it when the combination of fear and sanction, and thrust and vainglory where it invades the kingdom with its glory, as here, works its wiles.
Thus presented with enormous assumptions of authority, often repeated codes of compulsion as such, it may easily erode wiser restraints.

Further, there is not just the extent of the follies and evils, the devourings of this kind and that; there is the nature of them all, their diversity and their dynamics, and their progressive results and retrospective foundations. Much was done for long to achieve such power as is here misdirected in misdirecting, as so often, the princes of this world as if they were puppets to pursue those tagged by the papal authority, for destruction. The papal language is repeatedly as intemperate in its intimations as the actions that followed, as is exemplified in SMR more than once.

It is not just a burning, or a torture; it is not just a fire; but it is fire to the just. It is not just a murdered leader; it is fire to his efforts to revive and comfort, to bring out to truth and to bring on to glory. Leaders are not easy to obtain. Each destruction of the body carries the devouring mode towards the flock. Each affront to justice, to equity, to grace, carried out systematically, wrought in a unified pattern, promulgated in terms of the bulls and determinations of pope and council, directly or in conformity to it in the presence of the national clergy of Rome, this was a devouring theme.

Even the councils became with the rise to vainglory of the papacy - itself simply a cancerously deformed exaltation of one man in one place in one bishopric with no one ground, but many bars and barriers to his folly from the word of God (cf. SMR pp. 1032-1088H): a scenario for sin. Here were the proud words promulgated which led to blood, and here was the evil, as at the Fourth Lateran Council, given the pomp of pretentious appearance, which led to looting with sanctity and murder with ceremony. Indeed, in our own day,  the World Council of Churches which also started out well, as did the early councils of the Church before Rome's exaltation, was likewise infiltrated with KGB and other meretricious additions, soon rendering its theology as ludicrous even for the most passing appraisal, as communism itself in many of its modes, from which as the Gorbachev glasnost era showed, much of the mutation arrived. KGB personnel were indeed masquerading as members^*3B. It was from another source that this message came; and so with Rome which carried the thing out grandly, and without hiding, brazenly unlike this more recent case.

Now we return to your interest in Llorente, who appears to you to be 'discredited' by some unknown process. It seems from what you write, which is not pellucid on the point, that a statement by Llorente about 50 to 68 millions who have been afflicted, or at least 'devoured' by the religious torment during the PERIOD of the Inquisition, is incompatible with a statement that 33,912 were executed and 325,362 punished in his record appraisal, for his time, for the Spanish Inquisition.

One might ask, does Llorente in his use of the most embracive possible phrasing about the many millions, address the same topic as in the numerically 'precise' statements on deaths ? Does he state that he is in the same respect, for the same breadth of history and in the same location or locations, asserting that 325,362 equals many millions ? If not, on what ground is he to be insulted by the making such an assumption! There is, one knows surely, where the rolls and data were available for detailed addition, one thing; and there is quite another where there was room only for large and very variable estimates, OBVIOUSLY of a totally different kind.  This is seen from the range involved, the plus or minus, to use modern terms, indicative of a different region of time or space, presumably much more comprehensive in mind and less available for computation.

One should have thought that rather obvious, unless the writer labours on the same page to show that many millions in the most approximate fashion is MEANT to equal several hundred thousand in the most particular and precise fashion. Mathematics does not go like that, nor does common sense; and it appears necessarily the case that such a broad approximation be not the ground from such a detailed arithmetical statement. It is simpler to assume either an error   in omission of qualification, or in interpretation of those who read. Not thus is a discrediting of a witness achieved. It is indeed the ludicrous character of the assumption in such a case as this, which merits its demise.

Your apparent failure to make the point justly in this instance, does not commend the method; and your disparagement and talk of discrediting is not acceptable on grounds of such a kind, which verge on the incredible, even to suggest!

Some other generalisations as made, a point noted above, lack entirely any justification, or any approach to it, and your view of historical trends in approach, appears merely culturally interesting and confirmatory of the general movement to avoiding the horrors of history in the ferment of social togetherness. When heads are separated from bodies, and parts slowly torn away, there is not too much togetherness, and the philosophy of diminution has no appeal. Each fact is inviolate, and where the primary records and most ancient statement have room for presentation, great is the care of them to be taken.

Actually, Philip Schaff, just to take one example who has certainly written within the last century, his works being published in 1910, and his record being that of a prodigiously careful historian, has this to say on the Llorente numbers. Having reviewed figures in some detail, he declares of the Spanish Inquisition ALONE: "In any case the numbers included thousands of victims burnt alive and tens of thousands subjected to other punishments." (See Volume VI, History of the Christian Church, p. 553, by Schaff. Various detailed figurers from Llorente are there cited, in his reference to the Spanish Inquisition in the relevant regard, in the Section pp. 533-558.)

Schaff simply notes of Llorente's primary statistics, this: that Dr Lea whom he is citing,  'calls in question, though with some hesitation, Llorente's figures and the figures given by an early secretary of the tribunal, Zurita..." Indeed, Schaff himself merely refers to "the historian, Llorente" and spends considerable space in itemising findings from this source, confining himself to noting one source who hesitantly called certain things into question. This is certainly far, in the case of this eminent authority, from regarding “Llorente's numbers as grossly overstated" or conceiving him as 'unreliable'. For that, much more than the extraordinary sort of assault you have uncovered, would be required.

We should be as careful of the name of the historian as of our own. Schaff-Herzog regards the 4 volume work of this historian, Histoire critique de l’Inquisition d’Espagne (Paris1817-1818), as “highly important” and notes the Spanish edition of 10 volumes a little later. His extracts from works no longer accessible after such important postings, is deemed highly significant.

Hunt (op.cit. p. 250) also is not unimpressed with such findings, averring that such operations as secrecy, presumption of guilt and torment were frequent, and indeed that "such was the fate of millions".

Alas, with or without the discrediting phenomenon, the case to answer is prodigious; and as to the former, itself becoming too reminiscent of the forcefulness of the Inquisition: there is evidence so superabundant, that this endeavour to reduce the horrors that shook entire nations, brought international performing military troupes together for invasion, incited invasion, slaughtered and evidently tortured with refined methods often compared, becomes like that of some, in their minimising school, towards the Jewish Holocaust. However, it does not really shift anything to make mounting generalisations when the particulars shout from every corner. The Japanese have likewise caused much offence to many in their thoughts of painting a rather different picture of World War II in their education procedures. This is not unknown in human circles, and the tendency to seek to banish the facts, whether realised as such or not, can only be deplored.

No, the statement deserves the attention it is given, and the reader must ponder it justly, for it stirs thoughts to a dimension by no means in principle unjustifiable, and makes merely the statement that the number may be reasonable to surmise. If it were anywhere near as small, when the total effects of mutilation of mind and conscience, body and property, family and heart, conscience and social fabric, economic prosperity and mutual regard be considered, this would appear very hard to reconcile with the facts!

As an estimate for consideration, it does not appear to need any adjustment whatsoever. In the judgment, the exact numbers will doubtless be uncovered. In the meantime, the ramification of evil are justly aroused to sight; and with so many with so much power for so long in the Romanist body, it is very important to give patient and reasoned attention to all records.

So does the ancient word of God, which spelled out the coming of Rome's mischiefs to the point in I Timothy 4:1ff., and Revelation 13, 17-18, as shown in the above references, come to the time when impenitence^*1 will be met by an imperviousness^*4 greater than its own, and the unforsaken virulences of what still remains, like a vast shadow over humanity, will be requited. Thus is the sentiment in Revelation 17-18, and thus is its end.

Just as, however, these ancient predictions of the tenor, trend and some of the details of Romanism have come to pass, so also they have been fulfilled with a fervour, as if effort were being made to qualify for the designations of Revelation 17-18, to take the place reliably and fully in the multi-phase Babylon, for its last face, in Rome; and this has proceeded even up to the arena of the last war.
 
 

BORN CRUCIFIED ? IF NOT, IT IS HIGH TIME
(cf. Tender Times for Timely Truths Chs.  3,  4)

Let us however forget ourselves, and being crucified with Christ, love Roman Catholics and Jews, Moslems and all whom we may, but depart speedily from all concert with them in their religions, if by any means some may be snatched from the flames; for without Christ, not a piece of bread but the living Lord who DECLINES to have any other master over  men but Himself, as the Son of God: there is only supreme, eternal, deserved and devastating judgment. And the devastation ? It need not have been.

Not the will or word of man, but that of God giving mercy, and life abundant in His own name. Creators can do that; men cannot. The Creator can do it for man; none else (Psalm 49, Isaiah 44:6). That He is love and filled with grace, incomparable and superb in understanding, this makes the denial the worse.

Truth has its own contempt; and when it is refused, the result is contemptible (Daniel 12:3), for in very truth, HE became desolate ("My God, My God why have You forsaken Me!"), that we might become friends of God. No pope ever did that, nor any man can (Psalm 49); for only God can redeem, and as to Him His redemption is without works, except ... HIS OWN (Romans 3, Ephesians 2 cf. SMR pp. 525ff. ).

Here is the prototype of Christianity, the Redeemer, as far removed as the north from the south from any of these unseemly, unspiritual and unsolicited debasements of man, both in the aggression and in the reception, in the evil attributable to the persecutor and that suffered by the persecuted. It is for both one must pray, as Christ prayed even for those who slew Him, so vainly and with such frustration. It is from the afflictions of Romanism on those who serve the idolatry, even on those who practice its oppressions, prisoners in spirit, that one should pray, if by any means some may be liberated (Isaiah 61:1-3). To ALL men one must do good, and bless even those who persecute one.

There is however in all the persecutions, one glowing and glorious reality: the winds of foul-breathed spiritual misadventure which blew like tornadoes of malignancy, were not able to conquer the hearts or reduce the spirits of their prey. The truth remained, remains, is unconquered, unconquerable, through evil report, defamation, slander, through robbery as in the Inquisition, through murder, through torture, through being made outcast, through blandishments of peace, followed by new opportunities of oppression, through false brothers within and politically peremptory powers without, through subtle deceit and through frank predation with force.

So the prey has escaped and the prayer of the elect is heard. The gates of hell have NOT prevailed against the cause of Christ, the true, living Christ who welcomed into heaven, is not to be found in this chamber or room, that place but only WHEN HE COMES like lightning, publicly witnessed as He said (Matthew 24:6,30). Their cause is not vanquished; their hearts who love the Lord, though they be cut from their bodies, live forever. What has prey ? It is wolves which are a biblical depiction, as in Paul's prediction to the Ephesians elders (Acts 20:29) and Christ's depiction to the people (Matthew 7:15) which led to His prediction (Matthew 24:24). II Peter 2:1ff. speaks of being sold as a valuable property by men who make use of you, abusing and misusing others, in spiritual works, simply for gain (of one kind or another).

Merchandise and fodder are the results of such predicted activities. They have figured enormously in the inquisition, a proposition so far at variance with righteousness, that were it but ten men, it would become cursed; but when its full works are reviewed, there is only the difficulty in knowing at which century, in which town, city, province, nation, international clash and conflict, with how many millions one could go, before the word is finally called, 'Halt!'

This only the Lord knows; but the evidences, carefully kept from nearer the times of action, and the reports which have been conveyed by those who studied them, felt them and noted them, make minimisation almost to give the impression of a decadent art form. Thus it is that Hosmer^*1declares at one point, "it would be impossible to draw a picture which would exaggerate its accumulated horrors."

Such is the nature of the answer.
 
 

  EPILOGUE

Quite apart from the answer to the challenge as given above, it should be noted that any body which said such things as Aquinas, to take but one, as cited above, enunciated, authorised in his role, in type, is in opposition to the word of God. This REFUSES permission to any to be teacher in authority over all, declaring CHRIST ONLY to have this role (Matthew 23:8-10). Christ, born of a virgin had no aspirations to be pope, even to be ruling even all the kingdoms without restraint, as the devil found out (Matthew 4), or to take any ultra-biblical teaching post, authority or position, far less one making prisoners,  turned into torture flags of His people in the uncivilised sanctions of opinions that destroy their testimonial power on this earth.  He died for them; did not kill them.

If a a theologian assessed the peculiar persecutions and did not abhor robberies of assets which came into view, and launched into the realm of the "State" for punishment, with whatever such horrors, his attitude to the believers who followed the word of God (as many stricken did) is one of antipathy, not fellowship.

¨      If such action is to be authorised, or endorsed in type (stripping flesh or life or belongings or anything at all to the point of death), then of whatever perpetrated this in word or deed -

¨      linked the name of Him who died, crucified, and crucified none, to such torture often, which being unleashed by Romanism,  in turn was often pursued with such abominable relish against the saints who often had loyally opposed the most notorious invasions and perversions, contradictions and dictatorial seizure of the words of the Bible -

¨      what then is to be found ?

Is this the work of those who as with Peter, are to put up their physical sword (Matthew 26) ? who often  realise with real relish the nature of the kingdom of heaven (John 18:36) as utterly contrary to such strife! Do torturers compare notes on the most severe trials to impose on victims, for Christ ? I think not.

Further, if such actions in their Roman realm, even at times went to the point suppressing the Bible's publication or burning along with that of the martyrs, the authoritarian body daring to burn the Book of the Lord (Isaiah 34:16), could be called Christian, then might more readily could a communist be called a lover of entrepreneurial freedom, and State minimisation!

The paths are not only contrary but contradictory. Take the case of Galileo, for here there has been even more recently than in this Chapter, a movement to ignore the fact that the Roman body charged him to deny his view, on pain of heresy. It matters little whether they were segmented, or had bodies in their own nominal church which had seized on this or that element of the matter from a scientific point of view at different times in ttheir past..

The point is this. When the question is this: Did the Roman imperium, the RC attacking and accusatory body MOVE to confrontation with Galileo on the basis of its own authority, and with non biblical basis did it insist, its vast powers in view, on conformity to whatever it wanted at that time, on the part of Galileo ?:  then the answer is yes. It did so. It notoriously did so, and to evade this issue is mere wandering from the point. Why then mitigate this aspect of the appalling horror of the record of this ancient heresy vested in the imperial city of Rome! How could the authority which exercised grabbing of cash and use of lash, to enforce its unbiblical views, in any sense be confused with  "the Church"! See *4 below and SMR pp. 1032 - 1088.

 

NOTES

*1 Although this scripture is addressed primarily to the people of Israel, it is relevant here to note from Monica Farrell in her "Ravening Wolves", p. 18, this statement: "Nearly 70,000, of the 80,000 Jews in the entire country were killed or forced to flee, their property being confiscated. 240,000 Serbs became Byzantine Rite Roman Catholics through forced conversions, on pain of death." Farrell examined many documents for her book, and "among the documents we examined were great numbers of official Roman Catholic newspapers and periodicals, frankly telling the story from month to month, of the Archbishop's collaboration with the Nazi forces. It seemed obvious that the reason for this candid recording of such collaboration was due to the conviction that Germany would win the war" (p. 12). Stepinac was later, after the slaughter was over, made a Cardinal (cf. SMR pp. 951-952). He had another distinction, being condemned as a war criminal. So it is joined together.

As Professor Loraine Boettner puts it on p. 436 of his Roman Catholicism, "Official records  and photographs show that Pavelich and archbishop Stepinac, were closely related in governmental, social, and ecclesiastical affairs. Stepinac was appointed supreme military apostolic vicar of the Ustashi army led by Pavelich. He was, therefore, in a position to know of the atrocities which were constantly taking place."

This is just one 'little' episode of the extended inquisition in which sermons are to be bullets (cf. SMR p. 952 and other data in that area). Let us hear this.

'Father' Petar Oajic, in the publication organ of the Archbishop of Sarajevo, Katolicki Tjednik,No.35, August 31, I941 has these 'Catholic' words to say from the place of power, where Romanist Adolf Hitler was using his force to help:

Until now God spoke through papal encyclicals, numerous sermons, catechisms, the Christian Press, through missions, through the heroic examples of the saints, and so on ... And ? They closed their ears. They were deaf. Now God has decided to use other methods. He will prepare missions. European missions. World missions. They will be upheld, not by priests, but by army commanders, led by Hitler. The sermons will be heard with the help of cannons, machine guns, tanks and bombers. The language of these sermons will be international. No one will be able to complain that he did not understand it, because all people know very well what death is, and what wounds, disease, hunger, fear, slavery and poverty are. (Bold italics added.)

To what extent is this vast Serbian slaughter the preliminary, precursor and partial CAUSE of the later militancy of that body of people, in the fearful 1990's ? It is not possible to exculpate what is wrong, or ignore what follows from it.

As to the Jews, how small a part of Romanist persecution is this 'little' event, but how vast an oppression does it constitute! and so much more is shown by the renowned Professor Hosmer who worked in Washington University St. Louis , and in his day wrote a book on The Story of the Jews. This classic shows in considerable and appalling detail the merciless plunder, intimidation, pogroms and the like, not a little endorsed by the papacy. Thus speaking of the Inquisition in Spain, he writes (p. 157):
 

"In the Inquisition there was a wholesale employment of all this nightmare machinery. The Inquisition was established in the first instance to terrify into faithfulness apostate Jews, the sincerity of whose conversion to Christianity was suspected, and in almost all cases, with good reason. Seated in some vast and frowning castle, or in some sunless cavern of the earth, its ministers chosen from the most influential men of the nation, its familiars in every disguise, in every corner of the land, its proceedings utterly secret, its decrees overriding every law, it would be impossible to draw a picture which would exaggerate its accumulated horrors. Men and women disappeared by hundreds, suddenly and completely as a breath annihilates the flame of a lamp, some gone forever without whisper as to their fate; some to reappear in after years halt through long tortures, pale and  insane through frightful incarceration. When in the cities the frequent processions wound through the streets, with their long files of victims on the way to the place of burning, children bereaved of father and mother flocked to see whether among the doomed they might not catch a last look of the face of the long-lost parent. The forms that were observed were such a mockery of justice! In the midst of the torture came the cold interrogation of the inquisitor. Fainting with terror and anguish, the sufferer uttered he knew not what, to be written down by waiting clerks, and made the basis of procedure."

Professor Hosmer continues to speak of the traditions which have come down through Jewish families, noting this, that "history confirms all they report".

He proceeds to Portugal, noting cases where not only were their children taken from them, as Jewish, but consigned to be brought up in the very infamy which so acted against their parents. Later, turning to Germany (p. 167), Hosmer notes that "the entire community at Strasbourg, 2,000 souls, was dragged upon an immense scaffold, which was set on fire." While this last was a case of an inflamed civil accusation about poisoning, it was simply an extension of the hatred bred in the adequately clear statement about Jews and apostates which could proceed from the papal or conciliar mouths (as above specified).

But hear, relative to our title's verse, what Hosmer reports from Isaac Srama, 'at the end of the 15th century':
 

• "In our time, the smoky column ascends to heaven in all the Spanish kingdoms and islands. A third of the new Christians (the nominally converted Jews) have perished by fire - a third wander as fugitives trying to hide, in continual fear of arrest. Beautiful Spain has become a flaming Tophet whose fiery tongue is all-devouring."

Devouring ? contemplating millions, in all Europe, in all the centuries, direct and indirect torture ? As mental disease statistics and staggering developments indicate, this region of oppression is certainly not the least of the torture mechanisms and devices. Surely the estimate seems modest, and certainly worthy of careful meditation, which is what was called for on p. 950 of SMR.

According the citation remains. This however is added. According the citation remains. This however is added. Rome is not to be feared, though her methods have themselves incorporated principles of the rankest heresy, as shown biblically in this chapter, as they arose in their bulls and decrees of pope and council; but Rome is to be displaced (as seen in SMR pp. 949 from 946).

Replaced ? Surely not worse in such degradation of man ? Such practices,  it would seem, COULD not be worse in inhumanity and severity, in disdain and pomp: but in some things at least it will be worse when the time comes. At the end of the Age, the perceptive eye and rank cruelty of the antichrist will be truly universal on earth (cf. Rev. 13), in its devious sway and incomparable evil. It will, assuredly,  be utterly destroyed like Rome as seen in the above references and clear for example in I Thessalonians 1 and II Thessalonians 2; but it will in the interim prior to judgment, final, irreversible and for ever, proceed to take also the commercial arm in its hand, thus seeking to remove once and for all the power to fight back. The economic development and the political unison thrust onto the earth, will permit a new echelon in the ranks of oppression.

In some ways, it is more of the same; in others, it is the final exhibition of the spirit of antichrist, the man of sin, the world admiring the beast, as many used to admire Rome, when its soldiers would march, its emperors would be directed, its kings humiliated like Henry, and its vassals increased as if men were but pieces of fish, to be battered and buttered, then eaten, goods confiscated, meaning degraded, future decreed.

There is often some wisdom in common proverbs, but this one has some bite: If you will not learn from history, you will repeat it. The world system refuses to learn; it does not even have too much pity - for all its words - for the Jews, hated and persecuted by so many for so long, and seeks to enable the Arabs to grab more of the ludicrously tiny contribution made for Israel, after such promises of yore (cf. Things Old and New Ch. 4, SMR Ch. 9, It Bubbles, It Howls... He Calls Chs. 1, 2, 3, 4, 7,10). That is the way of the world.

The way of God is entirely different. The world in its predicted course follows the divine exposures of coming events, and has always done so, like a lamb. However the things to happen, in such conformity to revelation, are rather more like a dragon; and indeed this is the nomenclature employed (cf. Revelation 13:11). And that ? It is 'only' the religious one, for as we have shown, there are two (cf. It Bubbles, It Howls ... He calls Ch. 13).

They have a good preliminary in Rome,
 

• and Hitler has shown, with Mao, some variants,
• so that the entire Babylon of misplaced power, misused religion, domination and confusion,
• which is "mystery Babylon" of Rev. 17: 5, should duly come to her fruition,
• proceeding before Rome

(as shown in SMR p. 729 - 1992 Edition as in the 2nd and 3rd,
with Biblical Blessings Ch. 2),

• and having its finale in Rome,
• before the very heart of the matter comes out into the open,
• and the antichrist, the devil's messiah, bears sway:
• if possible,  with a more profound impudence
• and more pervasive power than ''mystery Babylon' managed.

(Cf. Galloping Events, Epilogue, Benevolent Brightness or Brothy Bane 87, Little Things Chs.  9,  10.)

Let us not forget the Jews; let us not forget the sacrificial pyres of literally burnt Christians, and that there has been from Rome's dominion,  no incrimination with desolation of the monsters who perpetrated such things from papal palaces. Repentance is not limited for the virtually unlimited; and regret is not enough for some excrescences, when the nature, essence and unchanged source of the evil is a defamation of the name of God, an invasion of the soul of man, and the defilement of truth is the ground of aggression; whether or not it is realised, not in the least changing the case (cf. SMR pp. 1042-1088H; and see The Frantic Millenium and the Peace of Truth Ch. 6 with Galloping Events Ch. 7. p. 150).
 
 

*2

EXCURSION INTO DARK PLACES

It is a defamation of the word of God of the first order to do any such things as these in the name of Christ, while the Gospel is preached and He is the Prince of Life, having no part with the prince of this world, whose ways speak for themselves, yes, shout and proclaim with ardent vehemence, the follies of force and in results, attesting the futility of forcing 'faith' or assuming a judicial role in the very place of Him who said this:" The Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives but to save them" - Luke 9:56.

Now on what occasion was this statement made ? It came when the disciples, perhaps thinking of the very special case of Elijah (II Kings 1), thought it might be fitting to destroy, simply to wipe out, to 'exterminate', to use the Roman terminology we have noted in this Chapter, those who WOULD NOT receive Christ. In fact, in that case, the prophet Elijah had been showing the most profound mercy and the most spectacular testimony, in word and life and deed, in self-control and reduction, in patience and in persecution, in waiting on the Lord and in warning, to the nation. It had in turn for hundreds of years been rebellious, either killing or harming or ignoring the prophets in abundance, and though it had some great times, it was in arrest.

When God, having further work for the prophet to do, and in particular the further training of young Elisha, to become after this the new prophet to show the love and seek in mercy the deliverance of his people, heard the cry of menaced Elijah, there was action. The challenge was given from the son of wicked Ahab, the King who saw to the uttermost the divine power at Mt Carmel's profound testimony. With His servant in such a plight, with such a mission, at such a time,  what did the Lord  elect to do ?

He had allowed the fire from heaven which earlier had demonstrated His reality in contrast to the futile idolatry of Baal (I Kings 17ff.), a thing in some ways like mass in substituting things visible for things invisible, and worshipping as forbidden, what could not receive it (cf. SMR pp. 1042ff.)

Here then, in Elijah's case, faced with 50 soldiers from the king, what was the position ? If the certainty of these things, as we also by His grace show in our own way on this site, were to be rejected wilfully and willingly by the nation, and if there were to be a show of force simply to suppress truth, and remove the watchman of Israel from his post, so increasing the desolation of all, then the Lord would protect him in the way the prophet sought. In that day, fire consumed the forces of violence and viciousness seeking to substitute folly for truth by might and main, but not by right and repentance.

Christ's resurrection consummated the magnificence of mercy in the same power of the same God, who being in the flesh, here overcame without any loss of life to any, but rather with healing, by raising from the dead, and then through being raised Himself according to those scriptures which went before (cf. Joyful Jottings 25).

Christ, however, in the midst of His being the sacrificial victim HIMSELF, in a figure the slain animals which Elijah had on the altar, did not command fire on others. Rather, He took it on Himself, like a ship about to be sunk in naval exercises, receiving upon Himself all the awfulness of iniquity from all those who would come to Him, once and for all, His sacrifice being sufficient for all, adapted for all and effectual for those whose sins came upon Him, known to Him from before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4, Romans 8:29-32, John 6:37).

The very thought of sending fire on others in such a setting BECAUSE they would not BELIEVE was horrendous! It was so vicious and corrupt that Christ declared summarily to those who suggested it - but of that more in a moment -
 

• "You do not know what manner of spirit you are of. For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives but to save them."

In the face of this, the whole mentality of the inquisition -

not whether it used this force or that,

not the percentage of torture,
the fearsomeness of which has been multiply attested for centuries from the days of its occurrence,
as likewise the repugnance to all humanity and mercy,
exhibited in testimonials that are multiplied,

not the number of orphans,

nor the grinding poverty of those oppressed by those called christian but in fact anti-Christian in doctrine, in style, in ambition, in vanity, in viciousness:

but something far more essential is in focus, in view and in mind, in heart and in spirit.

Rather is it the spirit of the matter, the disobedience and rebellion of it, the fastidiousness pride and pomposity of ever even conceiving of, imagining or considering at all an earthly leader who would so magnify himself in the most direct contradiction of the testimony of Christ in Matthew 23:8-10, and in the most horrendous self-exaltation since Baal:  it is this which appals. That he having been so blasphemously installed, should so rebelliously act, merely makes of an extravaganza, an epic of evil.

It is indeed true, as Psalm 74:20 declares, that "the dark places of the earth are full of the haunts of cruelty", but that a body calling itself the body of CHRIST should become one of these, and invent many of them in dark haunts, devious modes, slaving servitudes, dispossessing robberies, and even multiply to thousands with papal acclamation, in one day, in senseless slaughter, this is the odyssey of ecclesiastical invention, and the ruin of all testimony. The product of disobedience in spirit and word from the first, the testimony of its corrupt and murderous idolatry and disclaimer of the Christ it named: that this should so serve is a disaster which only judgment can purge, unless they repent who so fictionalise the Christ in their follies.

HE is no fiction, but truth incarnate and well has He prophesied such deeds; but the use of His name in this way, that is indeed fictitious, and outrageous. So to defame one of such tenderness and mercy, whose word said this:
 

• "Let not mercy and truth forsake you,
• Bind them around your neck,
• Write them on the tablet of your heart,
• And so find favour and good understanding
• In the sight of God and man,"

 

this is a spoliation to leave in the pall of horror, all the rest.

Nor was St Bartholomew's day, 1573 the only case of thousands on one swoop, of immolation en masse, of robbery without pity, of dumping orphans in disgrace while murderers and pillagers massacred villages, destroyed provinces, as has been well enough attested here. The hateful and fateful embroilment of very nations is traceable not least to papal domineering over princes, accusing them of unfaithfulness, harassing them with penalties, threatening to remove their vassalages or means of life, to dismember their communities, unless they co-operating in criminal violence.

It is these things, and such debasements, clearly understood,  which indisputably have come to aspire with ease to millions, and just how many is a computation we all must leave to the judgment day. That they must run, because of such dimensions in a huge amount is the point; and that the combats and consequences as outlined, must surge to the uttermost is sure.

How it could be but a few is past all imagination!
 

The bodies involved, both in unit corporeal mangling and strangling
and in political insurgencies in many nations,
and even against nations,
readily accumulate;
and the whole concept of such domineering, worldly self-seeking
as is seen in Unam Sanctam
and its effect through the entirety of the Holy Roman Empire for centuries,
in many of its princes;
and its wars such as the 30 years war, and the rest,
are an accumulation of spirit and works
which require a consideration, if not a computation,
leading on towards the astronomical.

When we add the Crusades in the way noted in this Chapter,
and the civil war in France, as it virtually became as Huguenots were trifled with,
their lives pawned,
the Jews scourged and degraded,
lives made subsidiary to an evil power and a forlorn folly,
the captors suffering as depraved and themselves suffering ultimately in spirit
just as the captives were degraded financially, commercially, professionally,
at times forbidden even to work in this or that profession by this holy passion of impurity:

the results bring sobriety to the eager face of history. It is in this made vile, its evil effects ramifying into multiplied dimensions.

These persecutors, with power stolen wealth and self-appointed position,
contrary to the word of God,
defamed the vast wonders of Christ's wholly contrary work,
multiplying and manifesting a devouring in Europe
thrusting in this way or that, through the lives of millions in a day,
and many more decade by decade, century by century,
disaster by disaster.
Here writhed an imbroglio of evil,
dashing the spirit, the hopes and the example of man
to the level far below that of beasts,
giving examples for the future,
exemplars for the present,
inviting and inciting further evils,
passion for revenge,
wasting nations,
making war fruitlessly.

It appears not merely to have stimulated Hitler to see the wonders of secrecy and dominance, but thousands more in its heyday, in petty potencies and profound follies to exhibit the depravity of human nature, when Christ does not fill it. Thus could they give once and for all such a testimony for the eventual antichrist, that man of sin, that foolish is the world which would minimise its fell work, ignore its outreaches, dispel the ancient testimonies or whitewash in the slightest measure its disastrous effect on many nations, in many ages, countless ways.

What does it resemble ? It is like a pandemic that touches in spirit, the devastating weakness of man, or worse, an alleged cure,  calling itself an antibiotic, which kills and corrupts; and worse again, it fills both positions simultaneously, both constituting a disease condemned in the word of God, and offering a cure which is in vain.

It is not merely reasonable to consider the ruinous ramifications of this devouring invasion of millions, but necessary to ponder it. To such things therefore attention may justly be drawn. The devouring of nations and villages, groups and bodies, wealth and peace, purity and productivity, with littleness of heart and grandeurs of aspirations were in the work of this debased inquisition, only too like the others whose dictations made of the world, the apple for the worm.
 

If the (Holy Roman) Empire, under the thumb (although not without difficulty) of the papal pressures, had not illicitly sought to force 'faith'  onto others, in a spiritually subversive and forbidden manner, judging those who were 'outside' as forbidden by Paul,  then its repugnance would not have sparked the Protestant revolt in the way that it did at that time.  For this,  the intolerable seeming burdens of family desecration, orphan production and spoliation of resources to the point of destitution, had been fuel.

The impositions of forbidden rules in idolatrous misuse of Christ's name, in the inquisition's day,  was rather like sects of today, such as those that forbid blood transfusion: ruling and squandering resources, or bringing death where life offered. The whole blame for the inquisitorial effort,  not managing to deliver the young and vulnerable from such evil offices, but rather dispossessing them, or taking them into its misguided bosom which brought death to their parents: where does it rest ? Not least does it abide in that apparently mega-aspirational and virtually immeasurable pride of the papacy, erected by a fallen church, talking of opponents as worms and seeking to deploy power over princes when its Prince (in name) died before allowing such struggle on His own behalf (cf. Daniel 8:11, SMR pp. 915-917).

What has led to its debased manifestation: the very dynamic of the inqusitorial disposition, its laws, works, spirit, attitude and rebellion against the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Thus many wars like that one in Germany, sparked and started in this way, have arisen, and vast has been the expenditure of live, the spoliation of conscience, the ruin of spirit, in those who persecuted, themselves the victims, their victims the victorious.

*2A
By contrast, for divine judgment when a nation is used, see SMR pp. 1186Aff..

*3
On this, see SMR Ch. 2, TMR Chs.  1 and  8, Wake up World! Your Creator is Coming ... Chs. 4,  5,  6, Stepping out for Christ, Ch. 2  , and Chs. 7-10, A Spiritual Potpourri Chs. 1-9, Divine Agenda Ch. 1, Spiritual Refreshings for the Digital Millenium Ch. 13,  etc.. See indexes.

*3A
Fascinating indeed is the contortion and vexation associated with Adolf Hitler's Romanist relationship. Not only is the Von Papen flurry or efflorescence (depending on how you view it) a decisive indication of the nature of the alliance, but what followed became worse and was neither rescinded, nor retracted by any evidence to be seen. Von Papen, friend of future Pope Pius XII, and the negotiator of the Concordat between Rome and the Hitler related authorities, that of June 1933, declared: "The Third Reich is the first power which not only recognizes, but puts into practice the high principles of the Papacy."

For a Papal Knight and Vice-Chancellor of State, this was rather heady stuff. Was Von Papen indisposed on that day ? Did he have perhaps a temporary lapse of sanity, and did his party share it on that day, and perhaps none of them ever found their right minds again with which to note or at least notice the mistake! What are people expected to believe in matter, in order to make Watergate seem worse! (Cf. SMR p. 969.)

The CONCORDAT on the one hand, and the CONCORD on the other, the height of the hierarchy involved in that statement, and the depth of the Concordat itself, all this is well after the writing of Mein Kampf, written evidently in prison, in 1923, and of considerable fame. Bishop Berning after a long interview with Hitler, published a book stressing Nazism as the way for achievement of social ideas of Rome (Hunt, A Woman Rides the Beast, p. 59). University of Massachusetts Associate Professor of Government, Guenter Lewy, detailing a huge Roman vote for the election of Hitler, indicated that a joint pastoral letter from the German bishops in 1937 declared "the German bishops consider it their duty to support the head of the German Reich by all those means which the Church has at its disposal". and as Hunt further cites him (p. 61 op.cit), "We must mobilise the spiritual and moral forces of the Church in order to strengthen the confidence in the Fuehrer."

This was scarcely surprising in view of the termination of a possible, competitive Party, displayed in the formal statement of the German Center Party of July 5, 1933, "The German Center Party, therefore, immediately dissolves itself, in agreement with Chancellor Hitler." Wherefore therefore ? This Roman party evidently was to cease to exist in the interests of the Concordat so precious, which would allow this not unprecedented, certainly, but impressively potent-looking co-operation between European dictatorship and Roman Catholic interests. With opposition of this category removed, the new ruler sailed in to fulfil his destiny, Fuehrer of the German Reich, his proclaimed status in 1934.

WIth such accolades from Rome, such formally declared community of interest, and inspirational correlation, such political accord and concord, such mutual relish, there is a necessity to consider the relevance of NO condemnation from the Pope during the raging furnace of the war, NO formal rupture, no reproof for the death of millions of Jews, nor any severance from those moral, civic and spiritual bonds which had been woven with such care and enthusiasm. The moral guilt therefore of this centralised body stays precisely where it was put in the beginning of the war, long after Hitler's views were known in substance.

Indeed, in such a centralised and absolutist case as a papally ruled 'church', the ease of formal condemnation of Hitler and his ways, his ideology and his behaviour, was only equalled by its absence. In the wind-tunnel of trial, the position of the Church, author of many of the Jewish mass murders of the past, replete with condemnation and humiliation, in Europe, did not change. It was indeed in substantial accord, with the regime in its 'mandate', and had long pursued policies not in essence very different: cite, purge and persecute Jews, and act with absolutist power. Hosmer's Story of the Jews is like Ch. 1 with the Reich, Ch. 2 in this regard.

*3B
See With Heart and Soul, Mind and Strength  Ch. 6.

*4
Hunt presents in repetitively developed Romanist legislation (op.cit. p. 249), prima facie ex cathedra papal statements, tying that religious body by the misplaced and basically idolatrous concept of infallibility (not given to any one party per se, but Christ - John 14:6, 12:48-50, Isaiah 41:27-42:4, Matthew 23:8-10, Revelation 22:18ff. - it is the property of God), to its hideous past in this respect. (Cf. SMR pp. 1061ff., 1065ff., 1053ff., 98-99.)  What, after all, would people gifted with such power do, if not use it, while tens of thousands could be wiped out in a short space in a given region!

That, it is love ? It would be irresponsible and the very nadir of nature so to presume! Efforts to make what is allegedly divinely given infallibility, inapplicable to what is still human, as if civil change made God different, is one of the delightful spectacles of impossible writhing you see, this time not in the torture chamber, but in Romanism as its bluster is exposed.

Yet we do not need this. Did not the Fourth Lateran Council 1215 (Bettenson op.cit. pp. 185-6,  Mansi, xxii. 982sqq.)  make its notorious dicta, that 'convicted heretics shall be handed over for due punishment their to secular superiors, or the latter's agents. If they are clerks, they shall first be degraded. The goods of the laymen thus convicted shall be confiscated... If a temporal lord neglects to fulfil the demand of the Church that he shall purge his land of this contamination of heresy, he shall be excommunicated by the metropolitan and other bishops of the province...
Catholics who assume the cross and devote themselves to the extermination of heretics shall enjoy the same  indulgence and privilege as those who go to the Holy Land ...'

This Council, Schaff (op.cit. Vol. V, p. 466) points out, "used the figure of Samson's foxes, whose faces had different aspects, but whose tails were bound together for one and the same  fell purpose." That of course refers to Samson using them as a fire.

Indeed, as Schaff op.cit. p. 508, notes, "Councils, beginning with the synod of Toulouse, 1119, issued articles against heresy and called upon the secular power to punish it." Nor were popes at all behind in this proceeding.

Let us take one instance, involving Innocent III. In the South of France, there were exterminees. "The long conflict was fully opened when Innocent called upon Louis VII. to take the field, that 'it might be shown that the Lord had not given him the sword in vain,' and promised him the lands of nobles shielding heresy.' " Raymond VI did not like all this repression and was excommunicated by Innocent's legate, his lands put under interdict (made robbable). Innocent III further threatened him with pains in some invention within his mind, relative to the next world.

One would be sure that IF the popes had any infallibility, this prosecution would require its exercise, on pain of supreme negligence. If it were not given, then nothing could be done. If it were, then what was done was (by the vain doctrine itself) made 'infallible' in its teaching.

Meanwhile, from Schaff, we see the work of the pope. "The hand of the Lord," said he, "will descend upon thee more severely, and show thee that it is hard for one who seeks to flee from the face of His wrath which thou hast provoked."

Raymond, as circumstances developed, submitted, and then was made into a humiliated spectacle, naked to the waist, as he professed obedience to the papal command. Despite this (Schaff op.cit., 511) , the pope's armies invaded, and ...
 

• "nearly twenty thousand were put to the sword   ... "  while the "divine vengeance" allegedly raged "wonderfully against the city... The whole city was sacked, and the slaughter was very great"- according to the reports of the papal legates, Mil and Arnold.

Here you see several aspects: the arrogant determination of the papacy, the ways of humbling civil opposition, and in the Council itself, the sequential intimidation of the 'secular arm' which in effect would be cut off if it did not COMPLY with the clerical demands of the papal power!

Quite simply, a secular arm was to be created which did as its head in Rome desired.

As Schaff remarks (op.cit. pp. 516-517),

"The Church, after sitting in judgment, turned the heretics over to the civil authorities, knowing full well that as night follows day, the sentence of death would follow her sentence of excommunication. Yea, the Church, through popes and synodal decrees, again and again threatened, with her disfavor and fell spiritual punishments, princes and municipalities not punishing heresy... The Inquisition was a thoroughly papal institution, wrought out in all its details by the popes of the thirteenth century, beginning with Innocent III. and not ending with Boniface VIII." Further, he indicates that "The Third Lateran, 1179, extended the punishments to the defenders of heretics and their friends. It gave permission to princes to reduce heretics to slavery and shortened the time of penance by two years for those taking up arms against them."
 

• Not very exalted modes, methods and motivations!
• Very devouring however is such slavery,
• most merciless, uprooting at will,
• planting humans obsessively placed in arraignment,
• in no matter what cultural, geographical or political site:
• inhumane, hapless and horrid.

Nor is that all!

When you take up arms, the intention is not normally a mild rebuke, or a humane reminder! Of the Fourth Lateran Council (Schaff op.cit. p. 520), we read: "the Fourth Lateran gave formal and final expression to Innocent's views... It again enjoined princes to swear to protect the faith on pain of losing their lands." Indulgences were for those taking part in the extermination. There was no moral advance, only that of the armies, which was an assault on morality, an invasion of sanctity and an erosion of civil peace.

Indeed, as Schaff relays it (op.cit. p. 520):
 

"For more than a century after Innocent, the enforcement of the rules for the detection and punishment of heretics form the continual subject of bulls issued by the Apostolic see and of synodal action especially in Southern France and Spain. Innocent IV. and Alexander IV. alone issued more than one hundred such bulls."

Incidentally, extermination is not normally suggestive of clemency, kindness or restraint, the more especially when torture, imprisonment, degradation, robbery of funds and the like are in view.

As the above instance indicates, terror and intimidation were readily reinforcable by popes, who could urge sanctions in council and repeatedly fortified the results with passion and rigour.
 
 

FURTHER READING:

The reader may wish to turn to Beauty of Holiness Ch. 8 which dwells especially on Nazism and Romanism, Inquisition and the Beauty of Holiness in contrast. See also Ch. 4 op.cit., and The Pitter-Patter of Prophetic Feet Ch. 1.  Some may wish also to read at this site on the Inquisition's dealings: