catechumens were called _initiates_ only when they were
baptised.

It is undoubted that in these mysteries one was washed of one's faults
only by the oath to be virtuous; that is so true that the hierophant in
all the Greek mysteries, in sending away the assembly, pronounced these
two Egyptian words--"_Koth_, _ompheth_, watch, be pure"; which is a
proof at once that the mysteries came originally from Egypt, and that
they were invented only to make men better.

The sages in all times did what they could, therefore, to inspire
virtue, and not to reduce human frailty to despair; but also there are
crimes so horrible that no mystery accorded expiation for them. Nero,
for all that he was emperor, could not get himself initiated into the
mysteries of Ceres. Constantine, on the Report of Zosimus, could not
obtain pardon for his crimes: he was stained with the blood of his wife,
his son and all his kindred. It was in the interest of the human race
that such great transgressions should remain without expiation, in order
that absolution should not invite their committal, and that universal
horror might sometimes stop the villains.

The Roman Catholics have expiations which are called "penitences."

By the laws of the barbarians who destroyed the Roman Empire, crimes
were expiated with money. That was called _compounding_, _componat cum
decem, viginti, triginta solidis_. It cost two hundred sous of that time
to kill a priest, and four hundred for killing a bishop; so that a
bishop was worth precisely two priests.

Having thus compounded with men, one compounded with God, when
confession was generally established. Finally, Pope John XXII., who made
money out of everything, prepared a tariff of sins.

The absolution of an incest, four turonenses for a layman; _ab incestu
pro laico in foro conscientiae turonenses quatuor_. For the man and the
woman who have committed incest, eighteen turonenses four ducats and
nine carlins. That is not just; if one person pays only four turonenses,
the two owed only eight turonenses.

Sodomy and bestiality are put at the same rate, with the inhibitory
clause to title XLIII: that amounts to ninety turonenses twelve ducats
and six carlins: _cum inhibitione turonenses 90, ducatos 12, carlinos
6_, _etc._

It is very difficult to believe that Leo X. was so imprudent as to have
this impost printed in 1514, as is asserted; but it must be considered
that no spark appeared at that time of the conflag