Untitled - Shattering Denial

82 THE INQUISITION
us from an evil death, and bring us to a good end!" The
Perfected replied: "Receive God s blessing and ours;
may God bless you, preserve you from an evil death, and
bring you to a l
end." good If these heretics were asked
why they made others venerate them in this manner,
they replied that the Holy Spirit dwelling within them
gave them the right to such homage. 2 The Believers
were always required to pay this extraordinary mark of
respect. In fact it was a sine qua non of their being
admitted to the Convenen^a. 3
The Convenen^a was not merely an external bond,
uniting "the Believers" and "the Perfected," but it was
also an earnest of eternal salvation. It assured the
future destiny of "the Believers"; it gave them the right
to receive the consolamentum on their death-bed. 4
This
remitted all the sins of their life. Only one thing could
deprive them of "this good end"; viz., the absence of one
of the Perfected, who alone could lay hands upon them. 5
1
Dollinger, ibid., p. 4; cf. pp. 18, 19, 25, 30, 39; vol. i, pp. 237, 238.
2 Dollinger, vol. ii, pp. 4, 376.
3 Doat, vol. xxxii, fol. 170; cf. Dollinger, Beitrdge, vol. ii, pp. 27, 145,
182, 183, 187, 236, 249.
4
"Paciscens cum eis, ut si in articulo mortis esses, licet non haberes usum
linguae nihilominus te in suam sectam reciperent." Doat, Acta inquisitionis
Carcass., vol. i, fol. 317; cf. Dollinger, Beitrdge, vol. i, p. 213; vol. ii, pp. 4,
236.
6
Ordinarily, "mos hsereticorum existit, quod, ubi duo perfecti haeretici ad
haereticandum aliquem infirmum conveniunt, alter eorum solus et communiter
antiquior in haeresi infirmum haereticet." Dollinger, Beilrage, vol. ii, p. 39.
But in times of persecution only one of "the Perfected" was required to
confer the consolamentum.