Untitled - Shattering Denial

THE INQUISITION 163
Superstition was also classed under the heading of
heresy. The canonist, Zanchino Ugolini tells us that he
was present at the condemnation of an immoral priest,
who was punished by the Inquisitors not for his licentious
ness, but because he said mass every day in a state of sin,
and urged in excuse that he considered himself pardoned
on the sacred vestments. 1
by the mere fact of putting
The Jews, as such, were never regarded as heretics.
But the usury they so widely practiced evidenced an
unorthodox doctrine on thievery, which made them
liable to be suspected of heresy. Indeed we find several
Popes upbraiding them for maintaining that usury is
not a sin." Some Christians also fell into the same error,
and thereby became subject to the Inquisition. Pope
Martin V, in his bull of November 6, 1419, authorizes the
Inquisitors to prosecute
these usurers. 2
Sorcery and magic were also put on a par with heresy.
Pope Alexander IV had decided that divination and
sorcery did not fall under the jurisdiction of the Inquisi
tion, unless there was manifest heresy involved. 3 But
i Tractat, de Haret., cap. ii; cf. Lea, ibid., p- 400- Sentences of this kind
were rather rare; cf. Tanon, op. cit., pp. 249, 250, notes.
2"Demum etiam quidam Christiani et Judaei non verentur asserere quod
usura non sit peccatum, aut recipere decem pro centum mutuo datis seu
quicquam ultra sortem; in his et similibus atque in nonnullis aliis spiritualibus
et gravibus praceptis multipliciter excedunt. Nos igitur discretioni tuae
committimus quatenus ad extirpationem omnium hujusmodi pravitatum et
errorum vigilanter insistas." Bull Inter catera, sent to the Inquisitor Pons
Feugeyron. Cf. Tanon, cit., pp. 243, 245.
s Bull of December 9, 1257, in Boat, xxxi, fol. 244-249 .analyzed by Douais,