Untitled - Shattering Denial

40
Eugenius
THE INQUISITION
III excommunicated him. He was executed
during the pontificate of Adrian IV, in 1 1 55. He was ar
rested in the city of Rome after a riot which was quelled
by the Emperor Frederic, now the ally of the Pope, and
condemned to be strangled by the prefect of the city.
His body was then burned, and his ashes thrown into the
Tiber, "for fear," says a writer of the time, "the people
would gather them up, and honor them as the ashes of a
1
martyr."
In 1 148, the Council of Reims judged the case of the
famous Eon de 1 Etoile (Eudo de Stella). This strange
individual had acquired a reputation for sanctity while
living a hermit s life. One day, struck by the words of the
liturgy, Per Bum qui venturus est judicare vivos et mortuos,
he conceived the idea that he was the Son of God. He
made some converts among the lowest classes, who, not
content with denying the faith, soon began to pillage the
churches. Eon was arrested for causing these disturb
ances, and was brought before Pope Eugenius III, then
presiding over the Council of Reims. He was judged
insane, and. in all kindness was placed under the charge
of Suger, the Abbot of St. Denis. He was confined to a
monastery,
where he died soon after. 2
1 Boso, Vita Hadriani, in Watterich, Romanorum pontificum Vita, vol. ii,
pp. 326 et 330; Otto Frising., Gesta Friderici, II, 21 and 23; Vincent de Prague,
in Watterich, vol. ii, p. 349, note; Geroch Reichersberg, De Investigation
Antichristi, lib. i, cap. xlii; cf. p. 50, note.
*Continuatio Gemblacensis, ad ann. 1146; Continuatio Pramonstratensis,