With this volume1 the Home University Library of Modern Knowledge arrives at No. 158. Its steady progress indicates that the books are filling the demand for authoritative information on serious subjects. Prof. Turberville’s work is typical of the Library. It contains 238 pp. of well printed matter, with nearly five pages of bibliography, and six of index. It is not a mere summary or a digest of other works, but an entirely new and live work, which will serve either to satisfy a moderate appetite for knowledge or help the hungry one to obtain more.
It is difficult to be restrained and moderate when writing about the Spanish Inquisition, but that has been achieved by Prof. Turberville. He shows us the dreadful side of its history but he reveals also its pathos and tragedy. He has adopted “an historical approach” to his subject and tried “to appreciate points of view which are at all events strange and possibly even repugnant.”
Although the notoriety of the Spanish Inquisition during the close of the fifteenth century has eclipsed the reports of the activities of the Inquisition in other countries, it must be remembered that the Inquisition existed long before the fifteenth century. It arose in the twelfth century “as an effective means of coping with the problem of heresy.” In the middle ages it was assumed that the Christian state and the Catholic Church existed side by side founded upon the rock of Christianity. Since discipline is necessary in the former for criminals, so also it is necessary in the latter for heretics. When the ecclesiastical power had sought out, tried and condemned the heretic, then the secular power carried out the sentence. Co-operation between the two powers was as a rule cordial and very ready. The Inquisition came into being when it was realised that the bishops were incapable of dealing with heresy. “Indeed the bishops are described as oppressed by ‘a whirlwind of cares’ and Overwhelming anxieties’ in a most important letter of Pope Gregory IX of April 1233, in which he explains that in view of these distractions he has decided to send the Dominicans or Preaching Friars to do battle with the; heretics of France. In so far as it is legitimate to ascribe the origin of such an institution to any one man and to a particular date, the origin of the Inquisition may be assigned to Gregory IX and to this year 1233.” Here then is a fact that the Roman Catholic Church can never disown. It is in vain to point to the corresponding practices in Protestant countries, which have made no pretensions to infallibility. They can repudiate their unsavoury past and show that it is not of the essence of Protestantism; but it is impossible for Roman Catholicism so to do. The Inquisition was sponsored by a Pope, and flourished under Papal encouragement, and, in fact, exists to-day in a modified form. These facts should not be forgotten, for as has been well said, our attitude to the Roman Catholic Church will depend ultimately on whether we agree with religious assassination or not.
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Author: J. Sutcliffe
Keywords: Spanish Inquisition, Buy or sell, Mark of the beast, Spanish inquisitor, Inquisition, Jewish persecution, persecution, Jewish converts, Heresy, Heretic, Religious intolerance, Spain
Bible reference(s): Matthew 10:17-19, Mat 23:34, Mark 13:9, Mark 13:11, Luke 12:11-14
Source: “The Spanish Inquisition,” The Testimony, Vol. 2, No. 19, July 1932, pp. 210-2.
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