Testament call for the infliction of the death penalty
upon heretics. The interpretation of St. John xv. 6: _Si quis in me
non manserit, in ignem mittent et ardet_, made by the medieval
canonists, is not worth discussing. It was an abuse of the
accommodated sense which bordered upon the ridiculous, although its
consequences were terrible.

. . . . . . . .

Modern apologists have clearly recognized this. For that reason they
have tried their best to show that the execution of heretics was
solely the work of the civil power, and that the Church was in no way
responsible. "When we argue about the Inquisition," says Joseph de
Maistre, "let us separate and distinguish very carefully the role of
the Church and the role of the State. All that is terrible and cruel
about this tribunal, especially its death penalty, is due to the
State; that was its business, and it alone must be held to an
accounting. All the clemency, on the contrary, which plays so large a
part in the tribunal of the Inquisition must be ascribed to the
Church, which interfered in its punishments only to suppress and
mitigate them."[1] "The Church," says another grave historian, "took
no part in the corporal punishment of heretics. Those executed were
simply punished for their crimes, and were condemned by judges acting
under the royal seal."[2] "This," says Lea, "is a typical instance in
which history is written to order.... It is altogether a modern
perversion of history to assume, as apologists do, that the request
for mercy was sincere, and that the secular magistrate and not the
Inquisition was responsible for the death of the heretic. We can
imagine the smile of amused surprise with which Gregory IX and
Gregory XI would have listened to the dialectics with which Count
Joseph de Maistre proves that it is an error to suppose, and much
more to assert, that a Catholic priest can in any manner be
instrumental in compassing the death of a fellow creature."[3]

[1] _Lettres a un gentilhomme russe sur l'Inquisition espagnole_, ed.
1864, pp. 17, 18, 28, 34.

[2] Rodrigo, _Historia verdadera de la Inquisicion_, 1876, vol. i, p.
170.

[3] Lea, op. cit., vol. i, pp. 540, 227.

The real share of the Inquisition in a condemnation involving the
death penalty is indeed a very difficult question to determine.
According to the letter of the papal and imperial Constitutions of
1231 and 1232, the civil and not the ecclesiastical tribunals assumed
all responsibilit