Untitled - Shattering Denial

2i 4
THE INQUISITION
showed themselves just as intolerant as the theologians
of the Middle Ages.
"Plato," writes Gaston Boissier, "in his ideal Republic,
denies toleration to the impious, i.e. to those who did
not accept the State religion. Even if they remained
quiet and peaceful, and carried on no propaganda, they
seemed to him dangerous by the bad example they gave.
He condemned them to be shut up in a house where they
might learn wisdom (sophronisteria) by this pleasant
euphemism he meant a prison and for five years they
were to listen to a discourse every day. The impious who
caused disturbance and tried to corrupt others were to
be imprisoned for life in a terrible dungeon, and after
death were to be denied burial/ 1
Apart
from the
stake, was not this the Inquisition to the life? In coun
tries where religion and patriotism went hand in hand,
we can readily conceive this intolerance. Sovereigns were
naturally
inclined to believe that those who interfered
with the public worship unsettled the State, and their
conviction became all the stronger when the State re
ceived from heaven a sort of special investiture. This
was the case with the Christian empire. Constantine, to
wards the end of his career, thought himself ordained by
God, "a bishop in externals/ 2 and his successors strove
1 La fin du paganism, vol. i, pp. 47, 48. Cf. Plato s Republic,
Book II; Laws, Book X.
2 "Ego vero in eis quae extra (Ecclesiam) geruntur episcopus
constitutus" Eusebius, Vita Constantini, lib iv, cap. xxiv.
a Deo sum