Untitled - Shattering Denial

228 THE INQUISITION
judge of Joan of Arc, or other cruel Inquisitors who
like him used their authority to punish unjustly sus
pects brought
before their tribunal. From this stand
point, it is probable that many of the sentences of the
need revision.
Inquisition
But can we rightly consider this institution "a sublime
spectacle of social perfection," and "a model of *
?
justice"
To call the Inquisition a model of justice is a manifest
exaggeration, as every fair student of its history must
admit.
The Inquisitorial procedure was, in itself, inferior to the
accusatio, in which the accuser assumed the burden of
publicly proving his charges. That it was difficult to ob
serve this method of procedure in heresy trials can readily
be understood; for the pcena talionis awaiting the accuser
who failed to substantiate his charges was calculated to
cool the ardor of many Catholics, who otherwise would
have been eager to prosecute heretics. But we must
grant that the accusatio in criminal law allowed a greater
chance for justice to be done than the inquisitio. Be
sides, if the ecclesiastical inquisitio had proceeded like
the civil inquisitio, the possibility of judicial errors might
have been far less. "In the inquisitio of the civil law,
the secrecy for which the Inquisition has been justly
criticised, did not exist; the suspect was cited, and a
1
"Uno sublime spectacolo di perfezione sociale," says the author of an
article in the Cimlta Cattolica, 1853, vol. i, p. 595 seq., cited by Dollinger,
La papaute, 1904, p. 384, n. 684.