What was the Inquisition?

[Mannyfit75]

Any non catholic sources?

I did, I used Wikipedia, and gave you the same numbers. I wouldn’t care look at a Protestant site because those cites have false statistics, which are not reliable.

The numbers I cited are estimate base on the source from Wikipedia and the Catholic sources.

 

[Mannyfit75]

Actually, it is the exact same standard used by you. You’ve yet to name a single reputable historical source that backs up your most ridiculous assertions.

– Mark L. Chance.

Yes, he didn’t. the stats that 50 million died during the Inquistion are false statistics.

I even cited Wikipedia.

 

[Contarini]

In most cases, they were suspected of being heretics because they were known to have burned down/vandalized churches, monasteries, and other sacred buildings, and killing (sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose) innocent persons such as nuns and orphans.
.

That’s simply not true. It’s sheer whitewashing. All you needed to do to be executed as a heretic was to express opinions contrary to Catholic teaching and refuse to recant those opinions (or fall back into them after having recanted). Of course if you had also committed acts of violence, that was an additional point against you. But most of the people I can think of who were executed as heretics–Hus, Tyndale, Frith, Bilney, Barnes, just to name a vew of the names that come to mind–had committed no acts of violence that I know of.

If Luther had fallen into the hands of the Holy Roman Emperor or another Catholic ruler, he would certainly have been executed as a heretic. He was considered one of the worst of all heretics. You ought not to defend the Catholic Church by making up arguments (that Luther was “insufficiently violent”) with no shred of basis in the historical evidence. The Catholic Church doesn’t need that kind of defense.

Edwin

 

[Mannyfit75]

newbie, if you wanna to play the number game it isn’t worth it. I’m going to give another citation of the Inquisitions from the Jewish source.

Spanish Inquistion

First, they arrested Conversos and notable figures in Seville; in Seville more than 700 Conversos were burned at the stake and 5,000 repented. Tribunals were also opened in Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia. An Inquisition Tribunal was set up in Ciudad Real, where 100 Conversos were condemned, and it was moved to Toledo in 1485. Between 1486-1492, 25 auto-da-fes were held in Toledo, 467 people were burned at the stake and others were imprisoned. The Inquisition finally made its way to Barcelona, where it was resisted at first because of the important place of Spanish Conversos in the economy and society.

The next phase of the Inquisition began around 1531, when Pope Leo X extended the Inquisition to Portugal. Thousands of Jews came to Portugal after the 1492 expulsion. A Spanish style Inquisition was constituted and tribunals were set up in Lisbon and other cities. Among the Jews who died at the hands of the Inquisition were well-known figures of the period such as Isaac de Castro Tartas, Antonio Serrao de Castro and Antonio Jose da Silva. The Inquisition never stopped in Spain and continued until the late 18th century.

By the second half of the 18th century, the Inquisition abated, due to the spread of enlightened ideas and lack of resources. The last auto-da-fe in Portugal took place on October 27, 1765. Not until 1808, during the brief reign of Joseph Bonaparte, was the Inquisition abolished in Spain. An estimated 31,912 heretics were burned at the stake, 17,659 were burned in effigy and 291,450 made reconciliations in the Spanish Inquisition. In Portugal, about 40,000 cases were tried, although only 1,800 were burned, the rest made penance.

The Inquisition was not limited to Europe; it also spread to Spanish and Portugese colonies in the New World and Asia. Many Jews and Conversos fled from Portugal and Spain to the New World seeking greater security and economic opportunities. Branches of the Portugese Inquisition were set up in Goa and Brazil. Spanish tribunals and auto-da-fes were set up in Mexico, the Philippine Islands, Guatemala, Peru, New Granada and the Canary Islands. By the late 18th century, most of these were dissolved.

jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Inquisition.html

 

[Contarini]

Compare, if you will, the ‘reformers’ who, in a much shorter period of time, a century or less, killed as many in England and Ireland alone purely for espousing what to the Protestant Church were heretical–meaning Catholic–beliefs in that period as died in the entire Inquisition.

That’s another made-up figure. I don’t know of a single Catholic ever executed by a Protestant government for heresy. Heresy was a specific crime with a specific punishment. It would be easy to point to just one, yet I’ve made that challenge before and no one has taken me up on it. The Catholics who were executed were executed for treason, which is a separate charge. I am not denying that this was religious persecution, but it was not *simply *for holding heretical beliefs. In fact Protestant governments did not classify Catholicism as heresy. They persecuted Catholics, but not as heretics.

And that’s just ‘one’ group.

Empty rhetoric. You cite it because the British Isles are the only place where Catholics were viciously persecuted in significant numbers by the Protestants.

Add in the many Scots Catholics persecuted by the “Covenanters” and shot dead just for not showing up at a Covenant meeting in the 19th century.

I’d like to see some specifics on that one. I’ve never heard of it before and it sounds fishy. The Covenanters were a tiny sect by the 19th century and I’m pretty sure they were no longer killing anyone. In the 17th century they may well have killed some Catholics, but I’d like to know the circumstances.

. .the German Catholics, the Scandinavian Catholics, the Slavic Catholics, etc. killed by their Protestant brethren,

Easy to rattle off, hard to substantiate

the history of hundreds of years of persecution by Protestants against Catholics in countries like Great Britain and (yes) even the U.S.;

Very true, though in the U.S. this didn’t involve execution and was relatively mild as persecutions go.

the shameful history of the Protestants who slaughtered fellow Protestants (ask the people in the Society of Friends)

Yes, some Quakers were executed–the examples I know about were in New England and there were only a couple as far as I recall. Mostly Quakers were punished in other ways, though still quite harshly–they were imprisoned, beaten, enslaved, sometimes mutilated. . . it’s certainly not a pretty story!

Edwin

 

[VociMike]

Not that two or three thousand people executed for their religious beliefs is a good thing.

The thinking was not “we’re killing these people because of their religious beliefs” but rather “we’re killing these people because their ideas and actions pose a grave danger to the society at large” Which is to say, these people were felt (rightly or wrongly, but sincerely) to be dangerous.

The historical reality is that people used to be killed for all sorts of reasons that we can barely comprehend today, much less condone.

(As late as the 1700’s in Britain, there were 222 different capital crimes, including cutting down a tree, stealing, and robbing a rabbit warren)
teacher.deathpenaltyinfo.msu.edu/c/about/history/history.PDF

 

[Mannyfit75]

With all these talk about the Inquistions, who were executed?

We know the Moors, the Jews, the Chathars, the Spiritual Franciscans,

 

[Contarini]

The papal bulls exist.
The torture devices exist.
Whether there were ten thousand tortured and killed or ten million doesn’t really matter…

Then why try to make an argument for an absurd figure that you can’t defend? You discredited yourself from the start.

Should the Church have continued its earlier policy of trying to restrain governments from using the death penalty against heretics? Sure. The Church’s policy during the later Middle Ages and early modern period can’t be defended, but it can be explained. But you don’t appear to care about historical accuracy–you are just here to throw dirt.

Truth always matters.

Let me give you an example of a case where arguably heresy laws would be a good thing (though not the death penalty). A pastor in London is allegedly accusing children in his congregation of witchcraft, with the result that their parents are beating and sometimes even killing them. The pastor allegedly has prayed for these children to die. I heard about this on the BBC, which was very upset (in fairness, the pastor denies these allegations, but the BBC claims that they have recordings of his statements). Assuming that these allegations are true, how is the government to deal with them? The BBC reporters were frustrated because the pastor can’t be shown to have violated any law. There’s no evidence that he told people to hurt these children physically. His offence is a religious one, and secular governments have no way of evaluating whether he is right or not. This is where a state church (which ironically England has, of course) with the power to hand heretics over the secular government might actually be a good thing. A society needs some standard by which to decide what is harmful and what isn’t. We have operated for a long time on the assumption that we can have a purely secular standard, but this is an illusion based on the existence up to now of a fairly broad societal consensus on morality. As that crumbles, the emptiness of a secular definition of good and evil becomes more and more apparent.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

All inquisitions were united by the papacy.

That’s just as intellectually lazy as the silly Catholic argument that they are united and the Orthodox arent because the 23 Catholic sui juris churches are united by the papacy.

The Inquisitions were separate courts and in many cases–most notably the Spanish Inquisition–were not under the direct control of the papacy. There are papal remonstrances on record protesting against the excessive rigor of the Spanish Inquisition–in fact the papacy opposed the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition and only gave in under serious pressure from the Spanish government.

The Roman Inquisition, which was under the direct control of the papacy, was the most restrained of the various Inquisitions I know about, although it did torture and execute people so I’m not saying it was benign!

You are working with a fantasy picture of Catholicism as this totally monolithic structure under the absolute control of the papacy.

Edwin

 

[newbie1234]

Then why try to make an argument for an absurd figure that you can’t defend? You discredited yourself from the start.

Should the Church have continued its earlier policy of trying to restrain governments from using the death penalty against heretics? Sure. The Church’s policy during the later Middle Ages and early modern period can’t be defended, but it can be explained. But you don’t appear to care about historical accuracy–you are just here to throw dirt.

Truth always matters.

Let me give you an example of a case where arguably heresy laws would be a good thing (though not the death penalty). A pastor in London is allegedly accusing children in his congregation of witchcraft, with the result that their parents are beating and sometimes even killing them. The pastor allegedly has prayed for these children to die. I heard about this on the BBC, which was very upset (in fairness, the pastor denies these allegations, but the BBC claims that they have recordings of his statements). Assuming that these allegations are true, how is the government to deal with them? The BBC reporters were frustrated because the pastor can’t be shown to have violated any law. There’s no evidence that he told people to hurt these children physically. His offence is a religious one, and secular governments have no way of evaluating whether he is right or not. This is where a state church (which ironically England has, of course) with the power to hand heretics over the secular government might actually be a good thing. A society needs some standard by which to decide what is harmful and what isn’t. We have operated for a long time on the assumption that we can have a purely secular standard, but this is an illusion based on the existence up to now of a fairly broad societal consensus on morality. As that crumbles, the emptiness of a secular definition of good and evil becomes more and more apparent.

Edwin

Here are some book quotes:

50 million martyrs died in the dark ages.
Bunch, Taylor,‘Book of Daniel’ 1950, p185
50 million died for thier faith,
Montana, Walter M, ‘Behind the Purple Curtain’ Cowan Publishers 1950 p91

Two Million Waldensian Martyrs from 1160-1560
Clarks Martyrology

Papal Rome shed the blood of 50 million
Brownlee,W.C. ‘The Roman Catholic Religion Viewed in Light of Prophecy and History’ N.Y. CK Moore Pub. 1843 p87

All references taken from David A Plaisted. in his paper
“Estimates of the number killed by the Papacy in the Middle ages and Later” David A Plaisted,2006

 

[Mannyfit75]

Here are some book quotes:

50 million martyrs died in the dark ages.
Bunch, Taylor,‘Book of Daniel’ 1950, p185
50 million died for thier faith,
Montana, Walter M, ‘Behind the Purple Curtain’ Cowan Publishers 1950 p91

Two Million Waldensian Martyrs from 1160-1560
Clarks Martyrology

Papal Rome shed the blood of 50 million
Brownlee,W.C. ‘The Roman Catholic Religion Viewed in Light of Prophecy and History’ N.Y. CK Moore Pub. 1843 p87

All references taken from David A Plaisted. in his paper
“Estimates of the number killed by the Papacy in the Middle ages and Later” David A Plaisted,2006

Those are Anti-Catholic Sources which is not very reliable. No 50 million people were killed in the Inquistion. The reasonable account of the people killed was probably around 2,000.

 

[Mannyfit75]

The source seems to come from jesusislord website… The cite owner claims that 50 million died…

oh please…

this is refuted by

50 Million? I would like to see were the “Jesus is Lord” site came up with this number. The 1994 “Almanac of the Christian World”[Pg, 502] tells us that about 40,725,000 Christian’s have died for their faith since 33 AD. Of these forty million martyrs, 32,900,00 were put to death by non-Christians [Secular governments, Atheists, Muslims, Hindus, Pagans]. According to this Protestant publication, of these forty million Christian martyrs since 33 AD. 16,301,250 were Catholics and Orthodox, only 2,694,700 Protestants.

 

[Mannyfit75]

http://www.catholicapologetics.net/images/Martyrdom.gif

 

[newbie1234]

Those are Anti-Catholic Sources which is not very reliable. No 50 million people were killed in the Inquistion. The reasonable account of the people killed was probably around 2,000.

My Halleys Bible commentary states:
“Later on the inquisition was the main agency in the papacy’s effort to crush the Reformation. It is stated that in the 30 years between 1540 and 1570 no fewer than 900,000 Protestants were put to death in the popes war for the extermination of the Waldenses”

Halleys Bible Handbook Zondervan 1965, Mich. pg777

Or is this more anti-catholic propaganda?

 

[Mannyfit75]

My Halleys Bible commentary states:
"Later on the inquisition was the main agency in the papacy’s effort to crush the Reformation. It is stated that in the
Halleys Bible Handbook Zondervan 1965, Mich. pg777

Or is this more anti-catholic propaganda?

You are falling into false historical proofs.

Your claims;

Later on the Inquisition was the main agency in Papacy’s effort to Crush the Reformation. It is stated that in the 30 years between 1540 and 1570 NO fewer than 900,000 Protestants were put to death in the Pope’s war for the Extermination of the Waldenses. Think the Monks and Priests, in holy garments, directing, with heartless Cruelty and Inhuman Brutality, the work of Torturing and Burning alive Innocent Men and Women, and doing in the Name of Christ, by the direct order of the " Vicar of Christ." The Inquisition was the Most Infamous and Devilish thing in Human History. It was devised by Popes, and used by them for 500 years, to maintain their Power.

Refuted:

This is nothing more than a sophomoric plea to the reader’s emotions. It does not take into consideration the historical or cultural context, hoping instead to inflame the passions without providing proof. In the Middle Ages, heresy was considered a crime worse than murder; murder only kills the body, but heresy can kill the soul. Therefore, a heretical view was considered not only a heinous crime punishable by death, but also it was considered a crime against the state, to which the entire state should respond. This in no way justifies what may have happened. This in no way justifies what may have happened, but see the article on the Waldenses and the Albigenses.

angelfire.com/ok3/apologia/waldenses.html -Waldness

angelfire.com/ok3/apologia/albigenses.html -Albigenses

 

[rr1213]

We execute people for violating our most important laws.

One of the reasons that we no longer execute people for their religious beliefs is that society at large no longer considers religion to be a very important subject.

We execute people for theft and murder on a large scale, because what is important to us today is our physical life and our property.

But our souls are quite secondary, so heresy is not only no longer a capital crime, it’s not even a misdemeanor.

Are you advocating that we make heresy a crime and execute people for it?

 

[Mannyfit75]

The Waldness;

1. The Waldenses originated in medieval Europe from an earthly founder Peter Waldo, not the 1st Century from Jesus.
2. Waldense theology was originally too Catholic to be considered a 2x2 precursor, and later became too Calvinistic to be considered a 2x2 development.
3. The fact that Baptists, Mennonites, Seventh Day Adventists, Plymouth Brethren, evangelicals, and even modern-day Waldenses claim a heritage from this medieval sect in and of itself demonstrates the futility and inaccuracy of such a position.

 

[Mannyfit75]

In the early Middle Ages, a group developed and flourished in southern France near the town called Albi, which is how the name Albigenses was derived. They were also known as Cathars because their beliefs were a renewal of the Cathari - the name comes from the Greek katharos, meaning “pure”. The label of Cathars was not unique to the Albigenses; it had been used as early as the 3rd Century to describe the Novatians, then the Manicheans, but it is usually applied to medieval dualistic sects. Interestingly, once the Albigensian theology is examined, it becomes clear that they were a grossly heretical sect who could actually be considered to even be non-Christian.

Albigensian Beliefs
The Albigensian/Cathar world view was dualistic, that is, they believed in a good deity and an evil deity. The evil deity is the one who produced the material world, and therefore all physical things were evil. Dominican scholar Bernard Gui wrote that they were guilty of:
“affirming that the creation of all visible and material things was not the work of God the Heavenly Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, but of the devil and Satan, the evil deity, whom you [Peter Auterius, and Albigense] call the God of this world, the Creator and Prince of this world” (2)
Pierre des Vaux de Cernay affirmed the Cathar belief in:
“two creators: viz., one of invisible things, whom they call the benevolent god, and another of visible things, whom they named the malevolent god. The New Testament they attributed to the benevolent god, but the Old Testament to the malevolent god, and rejected it altogether, except certain authorities which are inserted in the New Testament from the Old, which, out of reverence to the New Testament, they esteemed worthy of reception. . . They also call him [the Old Testament god] a homicide because he burned up Sodom and Gomorrah and destroyed the world by the waters of the deluge . . . They also affirmed that all the fathers of the Old Testament were damned, that John the Baptist was one of the greater demons.” (3)
Because they believed all matter was evil, they denied Christ’s Incarnation and subsequent death and Resurrection (4). Jesus was an angel, not God, and as a human man was merely an illusion (5). All marriage and sexual intercourse was evil because it could potentially generate another body which “trapped” the soul until it could be “liberated” by death; even those foods associated with sexual reproduction were forbidden, like meat, milk, eggs, and other animal produce (6).

There is one similarity with 2x2s, in that there were two types of members - the “perfect” (perfecti) and the “believers” (credentes). The perfecti traveled in pairs, observed the strict moral law described above, somewhat akin to the 2x2 workers. This is where the similarity ends, however. The means of salvation was to receive an initiation rite performed at the hands of one of the perfecti, called the consolamentum. It was usually performed on one’s deathbed (7), and if one did not die immediately, they were known to hasten the dying process by smothering the person or starving him to death, known as the endura. They denied the existence of hell or purgatory, believing instead that every Albigense soul was saved, if only by a continuous reincarnation into a new body until purified (8).

"First it is to be known that the heretics held that there are two Creators; viz. one of invisible things, whom they called the benevolent God, and another of visible things, whom they named the malevolent God. The New Testament they attributed to the benevolent God; but the Old Testament to the malevolent God, and rejected it altogether, except certain authorities which are inserted in the New Testament from the Old; which, out of reverence to the New Testament, they esteemed worthy of reception. They charged the author of the Old Testament with falsehood, because the Creator said, “In the day that ye eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil ye shall die;” nor (as they say) after eating did they die; when, in fact, after the eating the forbidden fruit they were subjected to the misery of death. They also call him a homicide, as well because he burned up Sodom and Gomorrah, and destroyed the world by the waters of the deluge, as because he overwhelmed Pharaoh, and the Egyptians, in the sea. They affirmed also, that all the fathers of the Old Testament were damned; that John the Baptist was one of the greater demons. They said also, in their secret doctrine, (in secreto suo) that that Christ who was born in the visible, and terrestrial Bethlehem, and crucified in Jerusalem, was a bad man, and that Mary Magdalene was his concubine; and that she was the woman taken in adultery, of whom we read in the gospel. For the good Christ, as they said, never ate, nor drank, nor took upon him true flesh, nor ever was in this world, except spiritually in the body of Paul…

 

[Mannyfit75]

Final Comparison of Albigenses and 2x2
Beliefs 2x2’s Albigenses
Origin late 19th Century 11th Century
God One God 1 good God, 1 evil God
Matter good evil
Marriage approved sinful
Reincarnation no yes
Baptism necessary evil
Incarnation generally accepted denied
Crucifixion accepted denied
Resurrection accepted denied
Jesus’ Humanity accepted an illusion
Salvation through worker’s gospel via initiation rite
Christian? yes NO!

 

[rr1213]

The thinking was not “we’re killing these people because of their religious beliefs” but rather “we’re killing these people because their ideas and actions pose a grave danger to the society at large” Which is to say, these people were felt (rightly or wrongly, but sincerely) to be dangerous.

The historical reality is that people used to be killed for all sorts of reasons that we can barely comprehend today, much less condone.

(As late as the 1700’s in Britain, there were 222 different capital crimes, including cutting down a tree, stealing, and robbing a rabbit warren)
teacher.deathpenaltyinfo.msu.edu/c/about/history/history.PDF

I understand the distinction. Moreover, I think we have to be careful in applying the moral standards of today to judge people from a different era.

Nonetheless, I am doing just that in this case because there is no legitimate justification for executing or persecuting people based soley on their religious beliefs. Yes, it’s a moral judgment and one that I am perfectly comfortable standing on. I know that God has given us the freedom to accept him or to reject him (unless you’re a Calvinist I suppose ) and God has made us in his own image. As such, religious persecution is wrong no matter who is doing the persecution-- Catholic, Protestant, Buddist, Secular Humanist or whatever you may call yourself. What is truly fascinating is the number of people in this very thread–mainly but not totally Catholic–who apparently cannot bring themselves to agree on this basic principle of human rights.