Digging Out the Embedded Church - The Maranatha Community

politicised: „When Frisian and Saxon peasants refused to pay church tithes in 1234 large
numbers were condemned as heretics.‟ 42
The inquisitions brought many heretics to „repentance‟ by recanting their views, no matter
what they thought privately, and some unrepentant heretics were burned to death, but these
cases seem generally to have been rare.
By the 16 th Century the Italian Inquisition had rooted out incipient Protestantism from their
land. The last case of burning a heretic was in Seville in 1781. The great Dominican teacher,
Thomas Aquinas, justified the inquisitions by stating that heresy was more serious than, say,
forgery, for heresy was a corruption of faith and as forgers are put to death by the State, so
should heretics be taken off the world for the safety of others. He said that heretics should be
given two admonitions to recant, out of mercy, but a stubborn heretic was a danger to others
and would infect them if allowed to live. 43
Two notorious Inquisitors must be named, Torquemada of Spain and Conrad of Marburg,
Germany.
Tomas Torquemada (1420-1498), a Dominican, was created the first Inquisitor General of
the newly established Spanish Inquisition in 1482. His Inquisition was independent of the
Papal Inquisition, and was thorough and effective, especially against Jewish „converts‟
(Marranos) and Muslim „converts‟ (Moriscos) who had lapsed from their professed faith in
the Catholic Church. It is estimated that 2,000 executions by burning occurred under
Torquemada in Spain.
In Germany Conrad of Marburg (c.1180-1233) was a fanatical Papal Inquisitor appointed
by Gregory IX to root out Cathari and Waldensians. He was responsible for the deaths of
many „heretics‟ and his excesses of persecutions were denounced by a court of bishops at
Mainz. Later he was assassinated.
Two groups, the Lollards and Waldensians, were regarded by the Church as dangerous sects.
But they were not at all like the main threat to the Church, the Cathari-like sects, whose basic
world-view was a Gnosticism that rejected most of the tenets of the Christian faith.
„Lollards‟ was the nickname for those preachers in England who followed the main teachings
of John Wycliffe (c.1330-1384). The word „lollard‟ probably came from a derogatory view
of popular preachers (Dutch word lollen, to sing, to chant) who purveyed Wycliffe‟s ideas
across the country; it could be later used of anyone critical of the Church.
Their views would later be embraced by mainstream Protestantism. They included rejection
of the institution of the Papacy; the right of an individual to interpret the Scriptures, which
were regarded as the sole authority for faith; and the rejection of a celibate priestly class, of
transubstantiation and of confession. They also rejected the many appurtenances to the
Christian faith which they felt had been added by the Church, such as indulgences, the need
for pilgrimage and so on.
42 Brown, Harold, O J, Heresies, Hendrickson, 1988, p 277.
43 Bettenson, Henry, Documents of the Christian Church, OUP, Second Ed, 1963, pp 132-135.
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