Trinitarian murderers?

[david]

What a ruler wants is UNITY.

Unity of religion is included in that. The more divisions in a country, the more difficult things can become.

Constantine (like all rulers) wanted unity.

The difference between today and back then is, CONSTANTINE COULD KILL YOU IF YOU DISAGREE WITH HIM!

Constantine blessed the trinity as official doctrine. He presided over and actively guided the discussion.

Encyclopedia Britannica:
“The Council of Nicaea met on May 20, 325. Constantine himself presiding, actively guiding the discussion, and personally proposed the crucial formula expressing the relation of Christ to God in the creed issued by the council. 'of one substance with the father.' Over-awed by the emperor, the bishops, with two exceptions only, signed the creed, many of them against their inclination. Constantine regarded the decision of Nicaea as divinely inspired. As long as he lived no one dared openly to challenge the creed of Nicaea.” (1968)

While it may be wrong to say he “developed” it, he sanctioned and put his stamp or blessing on it, and essentially made that belief LAW.

Obviously, the trinity doctrine was a gradual work in progess, (otherwise, why the need for the council), and so you can't really say anyone 'DEVELOPED' it, since it was developed over an extended time.

What you can say was CONSTANTINE MADE IT ILLEGAL TO NOT ACCEPT THE TRINITY. And what Constantine doesn't like, Constantine murders.

What he most likely did concoct was the idea that his empire should be united in belief.

[Is 1:18]

David,
By applying the same logic you would impugn medicine on account of the acts of Jack Kevorkian. A rationale mind is able to divorce a proponent of a doctrine from it's veracity. Think about it.

[Is 1:18]

Quote (kerwin @ June 07 2011,21:14)

I see you are putting Mike on the Hot Seat.  There is actually a forum for that.

Kerwin, you are correct. T8 – can you shift this thread to the “Hot Seat” forum please?

[terraricca]

Quote (Is 1:18 @ June 09 2011,01:21)

David, By applying the same logic you would impugn medicine on account of the acts of Jack Kevorkian. A rationale mind is able to divorce a proponent of a doctrine from it's veracity. Think about it.

Is 1.8

you are compering apples with oranges ,Kevorkian is not was not a RULER

so his feelings are totally different and so are his reasons to act as he did,

if you feel there is a connection please explain

Pierre

[terraricca]

this is one name that was murder for not believing in the trinity;

Imprisonment and execution

On 16 February 1553, Servetus, while in Vienne, was denounced as a heretic by Guillaume Trie, a rich merchant who had taken refuge in Geneva— a very good friend of Calvin,[16]—in a letter sent to a cousin, Antoine Arneys, who was living in Lyon. On behalf of the French inquisitor Matthieu Ory, Servetus as well as Arnollet, the printer of Christianismi Restitutio, were questioned, but they denied all charges and were released for lack of evidence. Arneys was asked by Ory to write back to Trie, demanding proof. On 26 March 1553, the letters sent by Servetus to Calvin and some manuscript pages of Christianismi Restitutio were forwarded to Lyon by Trie. On 4 April 1553 Servetus was arrested by Roman Catholic authorities, and imprisoned in Vienne. He escaped from prison three days later. On 17 June, he was convicted of heresy by the French Inquisition, “thanks to the 17 letters sent by Jehan Calvin, preacher in Geneva”[17] and sentenced to be burned with his books. An effigy and his books were burned in his absence.

Meaning to flee to Italy, Servetus inexplicably stopped in at Geneva, where Calvin and his Reformers had denounced him. On 13 August, he attended a sermon by Calvin at Geneva. He was immediately recognized and arrested after the service[18] and was again imprisoned. All his property was confiscated. French Inquisitors asked that Servetus be extradited to them for execution. Calvin wanted to show himself as firm in defense of Christian orthodoxy as his usual opponents. “He was forced to push the condemnation of Servetus with all the means at his command.”[18] Calvin's delicate health meant he did not personally appear against Servetus.[19] Nicholas de la Fontaine played the more active role in Servetus's prosecution and the listing of points that condemned him.

At his trial, Servetus was condemned on two counts, for spreading and preaching Nontrinitarianism and anti-paedobaptism (anti-infant baptism).[20] Of paedobaptism Servetus had said, “It is an invention of the devil, an infernal falsity for the destruction of all Christianity.”[21] In the case the procureur général (chief public prosecutor) added some curious sounding accusations in the form of inquiries—the most odd sounding perhaps being, “whether he has married, and if he answers that he has not, he shall be asked why, in consideration of his age, he could refrain so long from marriage.” To this oblique

Constantine is believed to have exiled those who refused to accept the Nicean creed—Arius himself, the deacon Euzoios, and the Libyan bishops Theonas of Marmarica and Secundus of Ptolemais—and also the bishops who signed the creed but refused to join in condemnation of Arius, Eusebius of Nicomedia and Theognis of Nicaea. The Emperor also ordered all copies of the Thalia, the book in which Arius had expressed his teachings, to be burned. However, there is no evidence that his son and ultimate successor, Constantius II, who was an Arian Christian, was exiled.

Theological influence

Because of his rejection of the Trinity and eventual execution by burning for heresy, Unitarians often regard Servetus as the first (modern) Unitarian martyr – though he was not a Unitarian either in the 17thC sense nor the modern one. Other non-trinitarian groups, such as Jehovah's Witnesses,[30] and Oneness Pentecostalism,[31] also claim Servetus as a spiritual ancestor. Oneness Pentecostalism particularly identifies with Servetus' teaching on the divinity of Jesus Christ and his insistence on the oneness of God, rather than a Trinity of three distinct persons: “And because His Spirit was wholly God He is called God, just as from His flesh He is called man.” [32]

Swedenborg wrote a systematic theology that had many similarities to the theology of Servetus.[33][34][verification needed][dubious – discuss]

More recently Servetus' name has been given prominence by the originally anonymous author “Servetus the Evangelical”.

there are more ,history during the inquisition years

you know you do not answer my quote or questions should you be put on the HOT SEAT ?

Pierre

[terraricca]

Is;1;8

some more;

History

All major medieval inquisitions were decentralized. Authority rested with local officials based on guidelines from the Holy See, but there was no central top-down authority running the inquisitions, as would be the case in post-medieval inquisitions. Thus there were many different types of inquisitions depending on the location and methods; historians have generally classified them into the episcopal inquisition and the papal inquisition. For example, The Papal Inquisition of 1633 condemned Galileo for stating that the sun, not the earth, is the center of the universe.

The first medieval inquisition, the episcopal inquisition, was established in the year 1184 by a papal bull entitled Ad abolendam, “For the purpose of doing away with.” The inquisition was in response to the growing Catharist heresy in southern France. It is called “episcopal” because it was administered by local bishops, which in Latin is episcopus.

In the 1230s, Pope Gregory IX[2] responded to the failures of the episcopal inquisition with a series of papal bulls which became the papal inquisition. The papal inquisition was staffed by professionals, trained specifically for the job. Individuals were chosen from different orders and secular clergy, but primarily they came from the Dominican Order. The Dominicans were favored for their history of anti-heresy. As mendicants, they were accustomed to travel. Unlike the haphazard episcopal methods, the papal inquisition was thorough and systematic, keeping detailed records. Some documents from the Middle Ages involving first-person speech by medieval peasants come from papal inquisition records.

In northern Europe the Inquisition was somewhat more benign: in the Scandinavian countries it had hardly any impact until the Spanish Inquisition when the Spanish Kings used this to kill many who did not agree with the Spanish crown.[citation needed] The Inquisition existed in the kingdom of Aragon during this period, but not elsewhere in the Iberian peninsula. It was never formally instituted in England (which instead relied on more discreet individual figures, like the “Witch-Finder General”, to lead raids such as the East Anglia mass witch-hunt of 1644).[3] Christopher Columbus carried the Inquisition with him to the New World.[citation needed]

[edit] Inquisitions against heretic movements

The spread of heretic movements from the 12th century, can be seen at least in part as a reaction to the increasing moral corruption of the clergy, which included illegal marriages and the possession of extreme wealth. In the Middle Ages, the Inquisition's main focus was to eradicate these new sects. Thus its range of action was predominantly set in Italy and France, where such sects had settled. The two main heretic movements of the period were the Cathars and the Waldensians.

The former were mostly in the South of France, in cities like Toulouse. They appear to have been originally founded by some soldiers from the Second Crusade, who, on their way back, were converted by a Bulgarian sect, the Bogomils. Cathars' main heresy was their belief in dualism: the evil God created the materialistic world and the good God created the spiritual world. Therefore, Cathars preached poverty, chastity, modesty and all those values which in their view helped people to detach themselves from materialism.

The Waldensians were mostly in Germany and North Italy. In contrast with the Cathars and in line with the Church, they believed in only one God, but they did not recognize priesthood nor the veneration (not synonymous with worship) of saints and martyrs, which were part of the Church's orthodoxy. The complaints of the two main preaching orders of the period, the Dominicans and the Franciscans, against the moral corruption of the Church, to some extent echoed those of the heretical movements, but they were doctrinally conventional, and were enlisted by Pope Innocent III in the fight against heresy. As a result, many Franciscans and Dominicans became inquisitors. For example, Robert le Bougre, the “Hammer of Heretics” (Malleus Haereticorum), was a Dominican friar who became an inquisitor known for his cruelty and violence. Another example was the case of the province of Venice, which was handed to the Franciscan inquisitors, who quickly became notorious for their frauds against the Church, by enriching themselves with confiscated property from the heretics and the selling of absolutions. Because of their corruption, they were eventually forced by the Pope to suspend their activities in 1302.

At the beginning of the fourteenth century, two other movements attracted the attention of the Inquisition, the Knights Templars and the Beguines.

It is not clear if the process against the Templars was initiated by the Inquisition on the basis of suspected heresy or if the Inquisition itself was exploited by the king of France, Philip the Fair, who wanted the knights' wealth. In the search for Templars, two inquisitors were also sent to the British Isles. This is the only instance of inquisitorial action in the British Isles and not a successful one, mainly because the inquisitors could not instigate false confessions through torture, as its use was forbidden by common law.

The Beguines were mainly a women's movement and had previously been recognized by the Church since their foundation in the thirteenth century as mystics. However, with the Council of Vienne in the fourteenth century, they were proclaimed heretics and persecuted, with large numbers being burned at the stake in Narbonne, Toulouse and other French cities. They were also attacked in Germany, the first attempt of the Inquisition to operate in the area. A possible explanation of this shift is that, after the successful extirpation of the Cathars, the Inquisition needed new heresies to fight against and new revenues to sustain itself. Thus it directed its attention to pseudo-heretic movements. Another aspect of the medieval Inquisition is that little attention was paid to sorcery. In fact several Popes were suspected of having a strong interest or practicing alchemy and it was only with Pope John XXII, who was himself suspected of being a magician, that sorcery became another form of heresy and thus liable of persecution by the Inquisition.[citation needed]

[edit] Persecutions against individuals

[edit] Joan of Arc

In 1430 Pierre Cauchon, the bishop of Beauvais, promoted a trial against Joan of Arc, also known as the “Maid of Orleans”, a woman who, since her involvement in 1429 had subverted in fifteen months the course of the war between the English and the French, by liberating Orléans and defeating the English invaders on several occasions.

The reasons behind this process were politically motivated. Cauchon aspired to become cardinal, but to obtain this and further recognitions, he needed the support of the King of England and the Duke of Bedford, who in turn needed to rid themselves of Joan. Furthermore, giving to her victories a diabolic origin would have been a conceivable way to alleviate their men's morale. Thus the decision to involve the Inquisition, which therefore did not instigate the trial and in fact showed a reluctance throughout its duration. Seventy charges were brought against her, including accusations of witchcraft and dressing as a male. Joan was first condemned to life imprisonment and the deputy-inquisitor, Jean Le Maitre, obtained from her assurances of relinquishing her male clothes. However, after four days, in which she was allegedly tortured by English soldiers and possibly raped, she refused again to wear female clothes, which was seen as a sign of her return to heresy. She was therefore burnt at the stake two days later, on 30 May 1431.

In 1455, by the order of King Charles VII of France, who Joan had publicly supported, a rehabilitation trial was opened in the Notre Dame de Paris to investigate the dubious circumstances which led to Joan&#3
9;s execution. The Inquisitor-General of France, was put in charge of the trial. After a careful analysis of all the proceedings, including Joan's answers to the allegations, he pronounced null her condemnation. Joan of Arc was eventually canonized in 1920. The rehabilitation of Joan of Arc was also unprecedented in the previous history of the Inquisition, reflecting a clear signal in the decline of the medieval Inquisition in France.

[edit] Inquisition procedure

The papal inquisition developed a number of procedures to discover and prosecute heretics.

[edit] Investigation

When a papal inquisition arrived at a town it had a set of procedures and rules to identify likely heretics. First, the townspeople would be gathered in a public place. Although attendance was voluntary, those who failed to show would automatically be suspect, so most would come. The inquisitors would provide an opportunity for anyone to step forward and denounce themselves in exchange for easy punishment. As part of this bargain they would need to inform on other heretics. In addition, the inquisitors could simply force people to be interrogated. Once information had been gathered, an inquisitorial trial could begin.

[edit] Trial

The inquisitorial trial generally favored the prosecution (the Church). Confessing 'in full' was the best hope of receiving a lighter punishment – but with little hope of escaping at least some punishment. And a 'full' confession was one which implicated others, including other family members. It was acceptable to take testimony from criminals, persons of bad reputation, excommunicated people, and convicted heretics. The inquisitor could keep a defendant in prison for years before the trial to obtain new information, and could return them to prison if he felt that the witness had not fully confessed.

Despite the seeming unfairness of the procedures, the inquisitors did provide some rights to the defendant. At the beginning of the trial, defendants were invited to name those who had “mortal hatred” against them. If the accusers were among those named, the defendant was set free and the charges dismissed; the accusers would face life imprisonment. This option was meant to keep the inquisition from becoming involved in local grudges. A confession under torture was not admissible in court, although the inquisitor could threaten the accused with torture during the proceedings. Early legal consultations on conducting inquisition stress that it is better that the guilty go free than that the innocent be punished; though in practice, inquisitors had quite a wide sense of what constituted guilt, making innocence a rare commodity.

[edit] Torture

Torture could be used after 1252. On May 15, Pope Innocent IV issued a papal bull entitled Ad exstirpanda, which authorized the use of torture by inquisitors. Torture was undoubtedly used in the trial of the Templars, but is in fact not much found in heresy trials until the later fourteenth century. Torture methods that resulted in bloodshed, mutilation or death were forbidden. Also, torture could be performed only once. However, it was common practice to consider a second torture session to be a “continuation” of the first. Torture methods included hanging by the wrists, with weights suspended from the ankles.

[edit] Punishment

Among the possible punishments were prayer, pilgrimage, wearing a yellow cross for life, banishment, public recantation, or, occasionally, long-term imprisonment. The unrepentant and apostates could be “relaxed” to secular authority, however, opening the convicted to the possibility of various corporal punishments, up to and including being burned at the stake. Execution was neither performed by the Church, nor was it a sentence available to the officials involved in the inquisition, who, as clerics, were forbidden to kill. The accused also faced the possibility that his or her property might be confiscated. In some cases, accusers may have been motivated by a desire to take the property of the accused, though this is a difficult assertion to prove in the majority of areas where the inquisition was active, as the inquisition had several layers of oversight built into its framework in a specific attempt to limit prosecutorial misconduct.

The inquisitors generally preferred not to hand over heretics to the secular arm for execution if they could persuade the heretic to repent: Ecclesia non novit sanguinem. For example, Bernard Gui, a famous inquisitor working in the area of Carcassonne (in modern France), executed 42 people out of over 900 guilty verdicts in fifteen years of office. Execution was to admit defeat, that the Church was unable to save a soul from heresy, which was the goal of the inquisition.

[edit] Legacy

The inquisitions in combination with the brutal Albigensian Crusade were fairly successful in eliminating mass heresy. When they started, the heretical sects were quite strong and growing, but by the 14th century the Waldensians had been driven underground and the Cathars had been slaughtered en masse or forced to recant. Some residents of the Pays Cathare identify themselves as Cathars even today. They claim to be descended from the Cathars of the Middle Ages. However, the delivering of the consolamentum, on which historical Catharism was based, required a linear succession by a bon homme in good standing. It is believed that one of the last known bons hommes, Guillaume Belibaste, was burned in 1321.

[edit] See also

Pierre

there still more

[Pastry]

Yes, Pierre, and more were killed by the hands of the Catholic Church after Constantine. If you didn't like the doctrine, and made a Statement to that effect, you got your head chopped off….

[terraricca]

Quote (Pastry @ June 09 2011,16:46)

Yes, Pierre, and more were killed by the hands of the Catholic Church after Constantine.  If you didn't like the doctrine, and made a Statement to that effect, you got your head chopped off….

Hi Irene

i hope all is better for you and Georg and the rest of your family

yes there is more I only start this and this is only the 13 century still to come 1600,and Italien and Spanish inquisition

Pierre

[terraricca]

Is,1;8

here some more;

Roman Inquisition

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Roman Inquisition was a system of tribunals developed by the Holy See during the second half of the 16th century, responsible for prosecuting individuals accused of a wide array of crimes related to heresy, including sorcery, immorality, blasphemy, Judaizing and witchcraft, as well for censorship of printed literature. The tribunals covered most of the Italian peninsula as well as Malta and also existed in isolated pockets of papal jurisdiction in other parts of Europe, including Avignon, in France. The Congregation of the Holy Office, one of the original 15 congregations of the Roman Curia created by Pope Sixtus V in 1588, presided over the activity of the local tribunals. While the Roman Inquisition was originally designed to combat the spread of Protestantism in Italy, the institution outlived its original purpose, and the system of tribunals lasted until the mid 18th century, when the Italian states began to suppress the local inquisitions, effectively eliminating the power of the church to prosecute heretical crimes.

The pope appointed one cardinal to preside over the meetings. There were usually ten other cardinals who were members of the Congregation, as well as a prelate and two assistants all chosen from the Dominican Order. The Holy Office also had an international group of consultants, experienced scholars of theology and canon law, who advised it on specific questions. In 1616 these consultants gave their assessment of the propositions that the Sun is immobile and at the center of the universe and that the Earth moves around it, judging both to be “foolish and absurd in philosophy,” and the first to be “formally heretical” and the second “at least erroneous in faith” in theology. This assessment led to Copernicus's De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium to be placed on the Index of Forbidden Books, until revised and Galileo Galilei to be admonished about his heliocentrism. It was this same body in 1633 that tried Galileo, and found him “vehemently suspected of heresy[1] ” and banned Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems [2].

Among the subjects of this Inquisition were Francesco Patrizi, Giordano Bruno, Tommaso Campanella, Girolamo Cardano, Cesare Cremonini, and Galileo Galilei. Of these, only Bruno was executed; Galileo died under house arrest, and Campanella was imprisoned for twenty-seven years. The miller Domenico Scandella was also put to the stake on the orders of Pope Clement VIII in 1599 for his belief that God was created from chaos.[3]

The Inquisition also concerned itself with the Benandanti in the Friuli region, but considered them a lesser danger than the Reformation and only handed out light sentences.

The Inquisition in Malta (1561 to 1798) is generally considered to have been gentler than the Spanish Inquisition.[4]

Italian historian Andrea Del Col estimates that out of 51.000—75.000 cases judged by Inquisition in Italy after 1542 around 1250 ended with death sentence.[5]

The last notable action of the Roman Inquisition occurred in 1858, in Bologna, when Inquisition agents kidnapped a 6-year-old Jewish boy, Edgardo Mortara, separating him from his family.[6] The local inquisitor had learned that the boy was secretly baptised by his nursemaid. Pope Pius IX raised the boy as a Catholic in Rome. The boy's father, Momolo Mortara, spent years seeking help in all quarters, including internationally, to try to reclaim his son. The case received international attention and fueled the anti-papal sentiments that helped the Italian nationalism movement.[7]

[edit] References

1.^ Finnocchiaro, Maurice (1989). The Galileo Affair. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press. pp. 291.
2.^ Finnocchiaro, Maurice (1989). The Galileo Affair. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press. pp. 291.
3.^ Ginzburg, Carlo (1980) The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth Century Miller, (translated by John and Anne Tedeschi) Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, ISBN 0-8018-4387-1; First published in Italian as Ginzburg, Carlo (1976) Il formaggio e I vermi: il cosmo di un mugnaio del '500 Einaudi, Turin, Italy
4.^ http://www.hmml.org/centers/malta/cathedral/aim.html
5.^ Andrea Del Col: L'Inquisizione in Italia. Milano: Oscar Mondadori, 2010, pp. 779-780. ISBN 978-88-04-53433-4.
6.^ Kertzer, David I. (1997). The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara. Knopf. ISBN 0679450319.
7.^ “The End of the Inquisition”. David Rabinovitch, producer, director. Secret Files of the Inquisition. PBS. May 2007.

[edit] See also
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, current name of the former Inquisition
Medieval Inquisition
Hague tribunal
Inquisition
Counter-Reformation
Protestant Reformation
Pomponio Algerio, attracted attention of the Inquisition and finally executed by civil authorities
Sébastien Bourdon (1616–1671), a French Protestant painter forced to flee Italy
Diego de Enzinas, Protestant burnt to the stake in 1547
Francesco Barberini (1597–1679), secretary of the Inquisition 1633-79
Pietro Ottoboni (1667–1740), secretary of the Inquisition 1726-40
Tommaso Crudeli, freemason imprisoned by the Inquisition
Cornelio Da Montalcino, (a Franciscan friar who had embraced Judaism, and was burned alive on the Campo dei Fiori)
Ecclesia non novit sanguinem

this is a resume of it ;

Pierre

[terraricca]

Is;1.8

these I hope will help you ;Spanish inquisition

Previous Inquisitions

The Inquisition was created through papal bull, Ad Abolendam, issued at the end of the 12th century by Pope Lucius III as a way to combat the Albigensian heresy in southern France. There were a huge number of tribunals of the Papal Inquisition in various European kingdoms during the Middle Ages. In the Kingdom of Aragon, a tribunal of the Papal Inquisition was established by the statute of Excommunicamus of Pope Gregory IX, in 1232, during the era of the Albigensian heresy. Its principal representative was Ramon de Penyafort. With time, its importance was diluted, and, by the middle of the 15th century, it was almost forgotten although still there according to the law.

There was never a tribunal of the Papal Inquisition in Castile. Members of the episcopate were charged with surveillance of the faithful and punishment of transgressors. During the Middle Ages, in Castile, little attention was paid to heresy by the Catholic ruling class. Jews and Muslims were tolerated and generally allowed to follow their traditional laws and customs in domestic matters. However, by law, they were considered inferior to Catholics and were subject to discriminatory legislation.

The Spanish Inquisition can be seen as an answer to the multi-religious nature of Spanish society following the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula from the Muslim Moors. For almost 600 years, much of the Iberian Peninsula was dominated by the Moors following their invasion of the peninsula in 711 until the early 13th century. Following the Christian victory at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa (1212), and the fall of Cordoba (1236) and Seville (1248), Christian rule was re-established for most of the peninsula. Only the small region of Granada remained under Muslim rule which also ended with a final Christian victory in 1492. However, the Reconquista did not result in the total expulsion of Muslims from Spain, since they, along with Jews, were tolerated by the ruling Catholic elite. Large cities, especially Seville, Valladolid and Barcelona, had significant Jewish populations centered in Juderia, but in the coming years the Muslims were increasingly subjugated by alienation and torture. The Jews on the other had who thrived under Muslim rule now suffered similar maltreatment. The discrimination was understandably more against Muslims, naturally since they were the ones defeated by the new rulers of Spain.

Post-reconquest medieval Spain has been characterized by Americo Castro and some other Iberianists as a society of “convivencia,” that is relatively peaceful co-existence, albeit punctuated by occasional conflict among the ruling Catholics and the Jews and Muslims. However, as Henry Kamen notes, “so-called convivencia was always a relationship between unequals.”[1] Despite their legal inequality, there was a long tradition of Jewish service to the crown of Aragon and Jews occupied many important posts, both religious and political. Castile itself had an unofficial rabbi. Ferdinand's father John II named the Jewish Abiathar Crescas to be Court Astronomer.

Nevertheless, in some parts of Spain towards the end of the 14th century, there was a wave of violent anti-Judaism, encouraged by the preaching of Ferrant Martinez, Archdeacon of Ecija. The pogroms of June 1391 were especially bloody: in Seville, hundreds of Jews were killed, and the synagogue was completely destroyed. The number of people killed was also high in other cities, such as Córdoba, Valencia and Barcelona.[2]

One of the consequences of these programs was the mass conversion of Jews. Forced baptism was contrary to the law of the Catholic Church, and theoretically anybody who had been forcibly baptized could legally return to Judaism; this however was very narrowly interpreted. Legal definitions of the time theoretically acknowledged that a forced baptism was not a valid sacrament, but confined this to cases where it was literally administered by physical force: a person who had consented to baptism under threat of death or serious injury was still regarded as a voluntary convert, and accordingly forbidden to revert to Judaism.[3] After the public violence, many of the converted “felt it safer to remain in their new religion.”[4] Thus after 1391 a new social group appeared and were referred to as conversos or New Christians. Many conversos, now freed from the antisemitic restrictions imposed on Jewish employment, attained important positions in 15th century Spain, including positions in the government and in the Church. Among many others, physicians Andrés Laguna and Francisco Lopez Villalobos (Ferdinand's court physician), writers Juan del Enzina, Juan de Mena, Diego de Valera and Alonso de Palencia, and bankers Luis de Santangel and Gabriel Sanchez (who financed the voyage of Christopher Columbus) were all conversos. Conversos – not without opposition – managed to attain high positions in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, at times becoming severe detractors of Judaism.[5] Some even received titles of nobility, and as a result, during the following century some works attempted to demonstrate that virtually all of the nobles of Spain were descended from Israelites.[6]

[edit] Activity of the Inquisition

[edit] The start of the Inquisition

Alonso de Hojeda, a Dominican friar from Seville, convinced Queen Isabel of the existence of Crypto-Judaism among Andalusian conversos during her stay in Seville between 1477 and 1478.[7] A report, produced by Pedro González de Mendoza, Archbishop of Seville, and by the Segovian Dominican Tomás de Torquemada, corroborated this assertion.

The monarchs decided to introduce the Inquisition to Castile to discover and punish crypto-Jews, and requested the Pope's assent. Ferdinand II of Aragon pressured Pope Sixtus IV to agree to an Inquisition controlled by the monarchy by threatening to withdraw military support at a time when the Turks were a threat to Rome. The Pope issued a bull to stop the Inquisition but was pressured into withdrawing it. On November 1, 1478, Pope Sixtus IV published the Papal bull, Exigit Sinceras Devotionis Affectus, through which he gave the monarchs exclusive authority to name the inquisitors in their kingdoms. The first two inquisitors, Miguel de Morillo and Juan de San Martín were not named, however, until two years later, on September 27, 1480 in Medina del Campo.

The first auto-da-fé was held in Seville on February 6, 1481: six people were burned alive. From there, the Inquisition grew rapidly in the Kingdom of Castile. By 1492, tribunals existed in eight Castilian cities: Ávila, Córdoba, Jaén, Medina del Campo, Segovia, Sigüenza, Toledo, and Valladolid.

Sixtus IV promulgated a new bull categorically prohibiting the Inquisition's extension to Aragon, affirming that,

many true and faithful Christians, because of the testimony of enemies, rivals, slaves and other low people—and still less appropriate—without tests of any kind, have been locked up in secular prisons, tortured and condemned like relapsed heretics, deprived of their goods and properties, and given over to the secular arm to be executed, at great danger to their souls, giving a pernicious example and causing scandal to many.[8]

In 1483, Jews were expelled from all of Andalusia. Ferdinand pressured the Pope[9] to promulgate a new bull. He did so on October 17, 1483, naming Tomás de Torquemada Inquisidor General of Aragón, Valencia and Catalonia. Torquemada quickly established procedures for the Inquisition. A new court would be announced with a thirty day grace period for confessions and the gathering of accusations by neighbors. Evidence that was used to identify a crypto-Jew included the absence of chimney smoke on Saturdays (a sign the family might secretly be honoring the Sabbath) or the buying of many vegetables before Passover or the purchase of meat from a converted butcher. The court employed physical torture to
extract confessions. Crypto-Jews were allowed to confess and do penance, although those who relapsed were burned at the stake.[10]

In 1484 Pope Innocent VIII attempted to allow appeals to Rome against the Inquisition, but Ferdinand in December 1484 and again in 1509 decreed death and confiscation for anyone trying to make use of such procedures without royal permission.[11] With this, the Inquisition became the only institution that held authority across all the realms of the Spanish monarchy, and, in all of them, a useful mechanism at the service of the crown. However, the cities of Aragón continued resisting, and even saw revolt, as in Teruel from 1484 to 1485. However, the murder of Inquisidor Pedro Arbués in Zaragoza on September 15, 1485, caused public opinion to turn against the conversos and in favour of the Inquisition. In Aragón, the Inquisitorial courts were focused specifically on members of the powerful converso minority, ending their influence in the Aragonese administration.

The Inquisition was extremely active between 1480 and 1530. Different sources give different estimates of the number of trials and executions in this period; Henry Kamen estimates about 2,000 executed, based on the documentation of the autos-da-fé, the great majority being conversos of Jewish origin. He offers striking statistics: 91.6% of those judged in Valencia between 1484 and 1530 and 99.3% of those judged in Barcelona between 1484 and 1505 were of Jewish origin.[12] “In 1498 the pope was still trying to…gain acceptance for his own attitude towards the New Christians, which was generally more moderate than that of the Inquisition and the local rulers.”[13]

[edit] Expulsion of Jews and repression of conversos

The Spanish Inquisition had been set up in part to prevent conversos from engaging in Jewish practices, which, as Christians, they were supposed to have given up. However this remedy for securing the orthodoxy of conversos' religion was eventually deemed inadequate, since the main justification the monarchy gave for formally expelling all Jews from Spain was the “great harm suffered by Christians (i.e. conversos) from the contact, intercourse and communication which they have with the Jews, who always attempt in various ways to seduce faithful Christians from our Holy Catholic Faith”.[14] The Alhambra Decree, which ordered the expulsion, was issued in January 1492. The number of Jews who left Spain is not even approximately known. Historians of the period give extremely high figures: Juan de Mariana speaks of 800,000 people, and Don Isaac Abravanel of 300,000. Modern estimates are much lower: Henry Kamen estimates that, of a population of approximately 80,000 Jews, about one half or 40,000 chose emigration.[15] The Jews of the kingdom of Castile emigrated mainly to Portugal (from where they were expelled in 1497) and to North Africa. However, according to Henry Kamen, the Jews of the kingdom of Aragon, went “to adjacent Christian lands, mainly to Italy,” rather than to Muslim lands as is often assumed.[16] The Sefardim or Anusim descendants of Spanish Jews gradually migrated throughout Europe and North Africa, where they established communities in many cities. They also went to New Spain, the Ottoman Empire and North America (the American Southwest), Central and South America.

Tens of thousands of Jews were baptised in the three months before the deadline for expulsion, some 40,000 if one accepts the totals given by Kamen: most of these undoubtedly to avoid expulsion, rather than as a sincere change of faith. These conversos were the principal concern of the Inquisition; being suspected of continuing to practice Judaism put them at risk of denunciation and trial.

The most intense period of persecution of conversos lasted until 1530. From 1531 to 1560, however, the percentage of conversos among the Inquisition trials dropped to 3% of the total. There was a rebound of persecutions when a group of crypto-Jews was discovered in Quintanar de la Orden in 1588; and there was a rise in denunciations of conversos in the last decade of the 16th century. At the beginning of the 17th century, some conversos who had fled to Portugal began to return to Spain, fleeing the persecution of the Portuguese Inquisition, founded in 1532. This led to a rapid increase in the trials of crypto-Jews, among them a number of important financiers. In 1691, during a number of autos-da-fé in Majorca, 36 chuetas, or conversos of Majorca, were burned.

During the 18th century the number of conversos accused by the Inquisition decreased significantly. Manuel Santiago Vivar, tried in Cordoba in 1818, was the last person tried for being a crypto-Jew.

The generally accepted number burnt at the stake by the Inquisition (including all categories such as Protestants, blasphemers, bigamists and crypto-Jews) is below 5,000 (see below).

[edit] Repression of Moriscos

The Inquisition not only hunted for Protestants and false converts from Judaism, the conversos but also searched for false or relapsed converts among the Moriscos, forced converts from Islam. The Moriscos were mostly concentrated in the recently conquered kingdom of Granada, in Aragon, and in Valencia. Officially, all Muslims in the Crown of Castile had been forcefully converted to Christianity in 1502. Muslims in the Crown of Aragon were obliged to convert by Charles I's decree of 1526, as most had been forcibly baptized during the Revolt of the Brotherhoods (1519–1523) and these baptisms were declared to be valid.

Many Moriscos were suspected of practising Islam in secret, and the jealousy with which they guarded the privacy of their domestic life prevented the verification of this suspicion.[17] Initially they were not severely persecuted by the Inquisition, but experienced a policy of evangelization without torture,[clarification needed] a policy not followed with those conversos who were suspected of being crypto-Jews. There were various reasons for this. Most importantly, in the kingdoms of Valencia and Aragon a large number of the Moriscos were under the jurisdiction of the nobility, and persecution would have been viewed as a frontal assault on the economic interests of this powerful social class.[18] Still, fears ran high among the population that the Moriscos were traitorous, especially in Granada. The coast was regularly raided by Barbary pirates backed by Spain's enemy the Ottoman Empire, and the Moriscos were suspected of aiding them.

In the second half of the century, late in the reign of Philip II, conditions worsened between Old Christians and Moriscos. The 1568–1570 Morisco Revolt in Granada was harshly suppressed, and the Inquisition intensified its attention to the Moriscos. From 1570 Morisco cases became predominant in the tribunals of Zaragoza, Valencia and Granada; in the tribunal of Granada, between 1560 and 1571, 82% of those accused were Moriscos.[19] Still, according to Kamen, the Moriscos did not experience the same harshness as judaizing conversos and Protestants, and the number of capital punishments was proportionally less.[20]

In 1609 King Philip III, upon the advice of his financial adviser the Duke of Lerma and Archbishop of Valencia Juan de Ribera, decreed the Expulsion of the Moriscos. Hundreds of thousands of Moriscos were expelled, some of them probably sincere Christians. This was further fueled by the religious intolerance of Archbishop Ribera who quoted the Old Testament texts ordering the enemies of God to be slain without mercy and setting forth the duties of kings to extirpate them.[21] The edict required: 'The Moriscos to depart, under the pain of death and confiscation, without trial or sentence… to take with them no money, bullion, jewels or bills of exchange…. just what they could carry.'[22] So successful was the enterprise, in the space of months, Spain was emptied of its Moriscos. Expelled were the Moriscos of Aragon, Murcia, Catalonia, Castile, Mancha and Extremadura. As for the Moriscos of Granada, such as the Herrador family who held po
sitions in the Church and magistracy, they still had to struggle against exile and confiscation.[23]

An indeterminate number of Moriscos remained in Spain and, during the 17th century, the Inquisition pursued some trials against them of minor importance: according to Kamen, between 1615 and 1700, cases against Moriscos constituted only 9 percent of those judged by the Inquisition.

[edit] Demographic consequences

In December 2008, a genetic study of the current population of the Iberian Peninsula, published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, estimated that about 10% have North African ancestors and 20% have Sephardi Jews as ancestors. Since there is no direct link between genetic makeup and religious affiliation, however, it is difficult to draw direct conclusions between their findings and forced or voluntary conversion.[24] Nevertheless, the Sephardic result is in contradiction[25][26][27][28][29] or not replicated in all the body of genetic studies done in Iberia and has been later questioned by the authors themselves[30][31][32][33] and by Stephen Oppenheimer who estimates that much earlier migrations, 5000 to 10,000 years ago from the Eastern Mediterranean might also have accounted for the Sephardic estimates: “They are really assuming that they are looking at his migration of Jewish immigrants, but the same lineages could have been introduced in the Neolithic”.[34] The rest of genetic studies done in Spain estimate the Moorish contribution ranging from 2.5/3.4%[35] to 7.7%.[36]

[edit] Control of Protestants

Despite much popular myth about the Inquisition relating to Protestants, it dealt with very few cases involving actual Protestants, as there were so few in Spain. The first of the trials against those labeled by the Inquisition as “Lutheran” were those against the sect of mystics known as the “Alumbrados” of Guadalajara and Valladolid. The trials were long, and ended with prison sentences of differing lengths, though none of the sect were executed. Nevertheless, the subject of the “Alumbrados” put the Inquisition on the trail of many intellectuals and clerics who, interested in Erasmian ideas, had strayed from orthodoxy (which is striking because both Charles I and Philip II of Spain were confessed admirers of Erasmus). Such was the case with the humanist Juan de Valdés, who was forced to flee to Italy to escape the process that had been begun against him, and the preacher, Juan de Ávila, who spent close to a year in prison.

The first trials against Lutheran groups, as such, took place between 1558 and 1562, at the beginning of the reign of Philip II, against two communities of Protestants from the cities of Valladolid and Seville numbering about 120.[37] The trials signaled a notable intensification of the Inquisition's activities. A number of autos-da-fé were held, some of them presided over by members of the royal family and around 100 executions took place.[38] The autos-da-fé of the mid-century virtually put an end to Spanish Protestantism which was, throughout, a small phenomenon to begin with.

After 1562, though the trials continued, the repression was much reduced, According to Kamen, only about 200 Spaniards were accused of being Protestants in the last decades of the 16th century. “Most of them were in no sense Protestants…Irreligious sentiments, drunken mockery, anticlerical expressions, were all captiously classified by the inquisitors (or by those who denounced the cases) as ‘Lutheran.’ Disrespect to church images, and eating meat on forbidden days, were taken as signs of heresy”[39] and it is estimated that a dozen Spaniards were burned alive.[40]

[edit] Censorship

As one manifestation of the Counter-Reformation, the Spanish Inquisition worked actively to impede the diffusion of heretical ideas in Spain by producing “Indexes” of prohibited books. Such lists of prohibited books were common in Europe a decade before the Inquisition published its first. The first Index published in Spain in 1551 was, in reality, a reprinting of the Index published by the University of Louvain in 1550, with an appendix dedicated to Spanish texts. Subsequent Indexes were published in 1559, 1583, 1612, 1632, and 1640. The Indexes included an enormous number of books of all types, though special attention was dedicated to religious works, and, particularly, vernacular translations of the Bible.

Included in the Indexes, at one point, were many of the great works of Spanish literature. Also, a number of religious writers who are today considered saints by the Catholic Church saw their works appear in the Indexes. At first, this might seem counter-intuitive or even nonsensical—how were these Spanish authors published in the first place if their texts were then prohibited by the Inquisition and placed in the Index? The answer lies in the process of publication and censorship in Early Modern Spain. Books in Early Modern Spain faced prepublication licensing and approval (which could include modification) by both secular and religious authorities. However, once approved and published, the circulating text also faced the possibility of post-hoc censorship by being denounced to the Inquisition—sometimes decades later. Likewise, as Catholic theology evolved, once-prohibited texts might be removed from the Index.

At first, inclusion in the Index meant total prohibition of a text; however, this proved not only impractical and unworkable, but also contrary to the goals of having a literate and well-educated clergy. Works with one line of suspect dogma would be prohibited in their entirety, despite the remainder of the text's sound dogma. In time, a compromise solution was adopted in which trusted Inquisition officials blotted out words, lines or whole passages of otherwise acceptable texts, thus allowing these expurgated editions to circulate. Although in theory the Indexes imposed enormous restrictions on the diffusion of culture in Spain, some historians, such as Henry Kamen, argue that such strict control was impossible in practice and that there was much more liberty in this respect than is often believed. And Irving Leonard has conclusively demonstrated that, despite repeated royal prohibitions, romances of chivalry, such as Amadis of Gaul, found their way to the New World with the blessing of the Inquisition. Moreover, with the coming of the Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century, increasing numbers of licenses to possess and read prohibited texts were granted.

Despite repeated publication of the Indexes and a large bureaucracy of censors, the activities of the Inquisition did not impede the flowering of Spanish literature's “Siglo de Oro,” although almost all of its major authors crossed paths with the Holy Office at one point or another. Among the Spanish authors included in the Index are: Bartolomé Torres Naharro, Juan del Enzina, Jorge de Montemayor, Juan de Valdés and Lope de Vega, as well as the anonymous Lazarillo de Tormes and the Cancionero General by Hernando del Castillo. La Celestina, which was not included in the Indexes of the 16th century, was expurgated in 1632 and prohibited in its entirety in 1790. Among the non-Spanish authors prohibited were Ovid, Dante, Rabelais, Ariosto, Machiavelli, Erasmus, Jean Bodin, Valentine Naibod and Thomas More (known in Spain as Tomás Moro). One of the most outstanding and best-known cases in which the Inquisition directly confronted literary activity is that of Fray Luis de León, noted humanist and religious writer of converso origin, who was imprisoned for four years (from 1572 to 1576) for having translated the Song of Songs directly from Hebrew.

Some scholars indicate that one of the main effects of the inquisition was to end free thought and scientific thought in Spain. As one contemporary Spanish in exile put it: “Our country is a land of … barbarism; down there one cannot produce any culture without being suspected of heresy, error and Judaism. Thus silence was imposed on the learned.” For the next few centuries, while the rest of Europe was
slowly awakened by the influence of the Enlightenment, Spain stagnated.[41] However, this conclusion is contested. The censorship of books was actually very ineffective, and prohibited books circulated in Spain without significant problems. The Spanish Inquisition never persecuted scientists, and relatively few scientific books were placed on the Index. On the other hand, Spain was a state with more political freedom than in other absolute monarchies in the 16th to 18th centuries. The backwardness of Spain in economy and science can hardly be attributed to the Inquisition.[42]

[edit] Other offenses

Although the Inquisition was created to suppress heresy, it also occupied itself with a wide variety of offences that only indirectly could be related to religious heterodoxy. Of a total of 49,092 trials from the period 1560–1700 registered in the archive of the Suprema, appear the following: judaizantes (5,007); moriscos (11,311); Lutherans (3,499); alumbrados (149); superstitions (3,750); heretical propositions (14,319); bigamy (2,790); solicitation (1,241); offences against the Holy Office of the Inquisition (3,954); miscellaneous (2,575).[citation needed]

These data demonstrate that not only New Christians (conversos of Jewish or Islamic descent) and Protestants faced investigation, but also Old Christians could be targeted for various reasons as well.

[edit] Witchcraft

The category “superstitions” includes trials related to witchcraft. The witch-hunt in Spain had much less intensity than in other European countries (particularly France, Scotland, and Germany). One remarkable case was that of Logroño, in which the witches of Zugarramurdi in Navarre were persecuted. During the auto-da-fé that took place in Logroño on November 7 and November 8, 1610, 6 people were burned and another 5 burned in effigy.[43] In general, nevertheless, the Inquisition maintained a sceptical attitude towards cases of witchcraft, considering it as a mere superstition without any basis. Alonso de Salazar Frías, who, after the trials of Logroño took the Edict of Faith to various parts of Navarre, noted in his report to the Suprema that, “There were neither witches nor bewitched in a village until they were talked and written about”.[44]

[edit] Blasphemy

Included under the rubric of heretical propositions were verbal offences, from outright blasphemy to questionable statements regarding religious beliefs, from issues of sexual morality, to misbehaviour of the clergy. Many were brought to trial for affirming that simple fornication (sex between unmarried persons) was not a sin or for putting in doubt different aspects of Christian faith such as Transubstantiation or the virginity of Mary. Also, members of the clergy itself were occasionally accused of heretical propositions. These offences rarely lead to severe penalties.

[edit] Bigamy

The Inquisition also pursued offences against morals, at times in open conflict with the jurisdictions of civil tribunals. In particular, there were numerous trials for bigamy, a relatively frequent offence in a society that only permitted divorce under the most extreme circumstances. In the case of men, the penalty was five years in the galley (tantamount to a death sentence). Women too were accused of bigamy. Also, many cases of solicitation during confession were adjudicated, indicating a strict vigilance over the clergy.

[edit] Sodomy

Inquisitorial repression of the sexual offence of sodomy, considered, according to Canon Law, as a crime against nature, merits separate attention. This included cases of incidences of heterosexual and homosexual anal sex, rape, and separately bestiality. Civil authorities at times executed those convicted.

In 1506 at Seville the Inquisition made a special investigation into sodomy, causing many arrests and many fugitives and burning 12 persons, but in 1509 the Suprema in Castile declared that crime not within the jurisdiction of the Inquisition deciding that cases of sodomy could not be adjudicated, unless related to heresy. Alleging that sodomy had been introduced to Spain by the Moors, in 1524 the Spanish Ambassador to Rome obtained a special commission from Clement VII for the Holy Office to curb its spread by investigating laymen and clergy in the territories of Aragon, whether or not it was related to heresy; and proceeding according to local, municipal law in spite of the resistance by local bishops to this usurpation of their authority.

The tribunal of Zaragoza distinguished itself for its severity in judging these offences: between 1571—1579, 101 men accused of sodomy were processed and at least 35 were executed. In total, between 1570 and 1630 there were 534 trials (incl. 187 for homosexuality, 245 for bestiality, and 111 with unknown specification of the charges) with 102 executions (incl. 27 for homosexuality, 64 for bestiality and 11 uncertain cases).

The first sodomite was burned by the Inquisition in Valencia in 1572, and those accused included 19% clergy, 6% nobles, 37% workers, 19% servants, and 18% soldiers and sailors.[45] A growing reluctance to convict those who, unlike heretics, could not escape by confession and penance led after 1630 to greater leniency. Torture decreased: in Valencia 21% of sodomites were tortured prior to 1630, but only 4% afterwards. The last execution in persona for sodomy by the Inquisition took place in Zaragoza in April 1633. In total, out of about 1,000 convicted of sodomy – 170 were actually burnt at the stake, including 84 condemned for bestiality and 75 for homosexuality, with 11 cases where the exact character of the charges is not known.

Nearly all of almost 500 cases of sodomy between persons concerned the relationship between an older man and an adolescent, often by coercion; with only a few cases where the couple were consenting homosexual adults. About 100 of the total involved allegations of child abuse. Adolescents were generally punished more leniently than adults, but only when they were very young (under ca. 12 years) or when the case clearly concerned rape, did they have a chance to avoid punishment altogether. As a rule, the Inquisition condemned to death only those “sodomites” over the age of 25 years. As about half of those tried were under this age, it explains the relatively small percent of death sentences.[46]

[edit] Freemasonry

In 1815, Francisco Xavier de Mier y Campillo, the Inquisitor General of the Spanish Inquisition and the Bishop of Almería, suppressed Freemasonry and denounced the lodges as “societies which lead to atheism, to sedition and to all errors and crimes.”[47] He then instituted a purge during which Spaniards could be arrested on the charge of being “suspected of Freemasonry”.[47]

[edit] Organization

Beyond its role in religious affairs, the Inquisition was also an institution at the service of the monarchy. The Inquisitor General, in charge of the Holy Office, was designated by the crown. The Inquisitor General was the only public office whose authority stretched to all the kingdoms of Spain (including the American viceroyalties), except for a brief period (1507–1518) during which there were two Inquisitors General, one in the kingdom of Castile, and the other in Aragon.

The Inquisitor General presided over the Council of the Supreme and General Inquisition (generally abbreviated as “Council of the Suprema”), created in 1483, which was made up of six members named directly by the crown (the number of members of the Suprema varied over the course of the Inquisition's history, but it was never more than 10). Over time, the authority of the Suprema grew at the expense of the power of the Inquisitor General.

The Suprema met every morning, save for holidays, and for two hours in the afternoon on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. The morning sessions were devoted to questions of faith, while the afternoons were reserved for “minor heresies”[48] cases of perceived unacceptable sexual behavior, bigamy, witchcraft, etc.[49]
Below the Suprema were the different tribunals of the Inquisition, which were, in their origins, itinerant, installing themselves where they were necessary to combat heresy, but later being established in fixed locations. In the first phase, numerous tribunals were established, but the period after 1495 saw a marked tendency towards centralization.

Auto-da-fé, Plaza Mayor in Lima, Viceroyalty of Peru, 17th century
In the kingdom of Castile, the following permanent tribunals of the Inquisition were established:
1482 In Seville and in Cordoba.
1485 In Toledo and in Llerena.
1488 In Valladolid and in Murcia.
1489 In Cuenca.
1505 In Las Palmas (Canary Islands).
1512 In Logroño.
1526 In Granada.
1574 In Santiago de Compostela.

There were only four tribunals in the kingdom of Aragon: Zaragoza and Valencia (1482), Barcelona (1484), and Majorca (1488).[50] Ferdinand the Catholic also established the Spanish Inquisition in Sicily (1513), housed in Palermo and Sardinia, in the town of Sassari.[51] In the Americas, tribunals were established in Lima and in Mexico City (1569) and, in 1610, in Cartagena de Indias (present day Colombia).

[edit] Composition of the tribunals

Initially, each of the tribunals included two inquisitors, a calificador, an alguacil (bailiff) and a fiscal (prosecutor); new positions were added as the institution matured.

The inquisitors were preferably jurists more than theologians, and, in 1608, Philip III even stipulated that all the inquisitors must have a background in law. The inquisitors did not typically remain in the position for a long time: for the Court of Valencia, for example, the average tenure in the position was about two years.[52] Most of the inquisitors belonged to the secular clergy (priests who were not members of religious orders), and had a university education.

The fiscal was in charge of presenting the accusation, investigating the denunciations and interrogating the witnesses by the use of physical and mental torture. The calificadores were generally theologians; it fell to them to determine if the defendant's conduct added up to a crime against the faith. Consultants were expert jurists who advised the court in questions of procedure. The court had, in addition, three secretaries: the notario de secuestros (Notary of Property), who registered the goods of the accused at the moment of his detention; the notario del secreto (Notary of the Secret), who recorded the testimony of the defendant and the witnesses; and the escribano general (General Notary), secretary of the court.

The alguacil was the executive arm of the court: he was responsible for detaining, jailing, and physically torturing the defendant. Other civil employees were the nuncio, ordered to spread official notices of the court, and the alcaide, jailer in charge of feeding the prisoners.

In addition to the members of the court, two auxiliary figures existed that collaborated with the Holy Office: the familiares and the comissarios (commissioners). Familiares were lay collaborators of the Inquisition, who had to be permanently at the service of the Holy Office. To become a familiar was considered an honour, since it was a public recognition of limpieza de sangre — Old Christian status — and brought with it certain additional privileges. Although many nobles held the position, most of the familiares many came from the ranks of commoners. The commissioners, on the other hand, were members of the religious orders who collaborated occasionally with the Holy Office.

One of the most striking aspects of the organization of the Inquisition was its form of financing: devoid of its own budget, the Inquisition depended exclusively on the confiscation of the goods of the denounced. It is not surprising, therefore, that many of those prosecuted were rich men. That the situation was open to abuse is evident, as stands out in the memorial that a converso from Toledo directed to Charles I:

“Your Majesty must provide, before all else, that the expenses of the Holy Office do not come from the properties of the condemned, because if that is the case, if they do not burn they do not eat.”[53]

[edit] Functioning of the inquisition

Near the outset of the Inquisition, in a letter of April 14, 1482, Pope Sixtus IV instructed the Spanish to ensure due process, allow legal counsel and appeal to Rome.[54] King Ferdinand defiantly rejected Papal control, the Inquistion becoming thereafter a tool of the the monarchy, rather than the church..[55] In 1483, Ferdinand made Torquemada the Inquisitor General of most areas of Spain.[56] Its procedures were set out in various Instrucciones issued by the successive Inquisitors General, Torquemada, Deza, and Valdés.

[edit] Accusation

When the Inquisition arrived in a city, the first step was the Edict of Grace. Following the Sunday mass, the Inquisitor would proceed to read the edict; it explained possible heresies and encouraged all the congregation to come to the tribunals of the Inquisition to “relieve their consciences”. They were called Edicts of Grace because all of the self-incriminated who presented themselves within a period of grace (usually ranging from thirty to forty days) were offered the possibility of reconciliation with the Church without severe punishment.[57] The promise of benevolence was effective, and many voluntarily presented themselves to the Inquisition and were often encouraged to denounce others who had also committed offenses, informants being the Inquisition's primary source of information. After about 1500, the Edicts of Grace were replaced by the Edicts of Faith, which left out the grace period and instead encouraged the denunciation of those guilty.[58]

Diego Mateo López Zapata in his cell before its trial by the Inquisition Court of Cuenca.
The denunciations were anonymous, and the defendants had no way of knowing the identities of their accusers.[59] This was one of the points most criticized by those who opposed the Inquisition (for example, the Cortes of Castile, in 1518). In practice, false denunciations were frequent. Denunciations were made for a variety of reasons, from genuine concern, to rivalries and personal jealousies.

[edit] Detention

After a denunciation, the case was examined by the calificadores (qualifiers), who had to determine if there was heresy involved, followed by detention of the accused. In practice, however, many were detained in preventive custody, and many cases of lengthy incarcerations occurred, lasting up to two years, before the calificadores examined the case.[60]

Detention of the accused entailed the preventive sequestration of their property by the Inquisition. The property of the prisoner was used to pay for procedural expenses and the accused's own maintenance and costs. Often the relatives of the defendant found themselves in outright misery. This situation was only remedied following instructions written in 1561.

The entire process was undertaken with the utmost secrecy, as much for the public as for the accused, who were not informed about the accusations that were levied against them. Months, or even years could pass without the accused being informed about why they were imprisoned. The prisoners remained isolated, and, during this time, the prisoners were not allowed to attend Mass nor receive the sacraments. The jails of the Inquisition were no worse than those of secular authorities, and there are even certain testimonies that occasionally they were much better.[61]

[edit] The trial

The inquisitorial process consisted of a series of hearings, in which both the denouncers and the defendant gave testimony. A defense counsel was assigned to the defendant, a member of the tribunal itself, whose role was simply to advise the defendant and to encourage them to speak the truth. The prosecution was directed by the fiscal. Interrogation of the defendant was done in the presence of the Notary of the
Secreto, who meticulously wrote down the words of the accused. The archives of the Inquisition, in comparison to those of other judicial systems of the era, are striking in the completeness of their documentation. In order to defend themselves, the accused had two possibilities: abonos (to find favourable witnesses, akin to “substantive” evidence/testimony in Anglo-American law) or tachas (to demonstrate that the witnesses of accusers were not trustworthy, akin to Anglo-American “impeachment” evidence/testimony).

In order to interrogate the accused, the Inquisition made use of torture, but not in a systematic way. It was applied mainly against those suspected of Judaism and Protestantism, beginning in the 16th century. For example, Lea estimates that between 1575 and 1610 the court of Toledo tortured approximately a third of those processed for heresy.[62] In other periods, the proportions varied remarkably. Torture was always a means to obtain the confession of the accused, not a punishment itself. Torture was also applied without distinction of sex or age, including children and the aged.

[edit] Torture

Inquisition torture chamber. Mémoires Historiques (1716)
As with all European tribunals of the time, torture was employed.[63] The Spanish inquisition, however, engaged in it far less often than other courts.[64] Modern scholars have determined that torture was used in only two percent of the cases, for no more than 15 minutes, and in only one percent of the cases was it used a second time, never more than that.[65]

Although the Inquisition was technically forbidden from permanently harming or drawing blood, this still allowed for methods of torture. The methods most used were garrucha, toca and the potro. The application of the garrucha, also known as the strappado, consisted of suspending the victim from the ceiling by the wrists, which are tied behind the back. Sometimes weights were tied to the ankles, with a series of lifts and drops, during which the arms and legs suffered violent pulls and were sometimes dislocated.[66] The toca, also called interrogatorio mejorado del agua, consisted of introducing a cloth into the mouth of the victim, and forcing them to ingest water spilled from a jar so that they had the impression of drowning (see: waterboarding).[67] The potro, the rack, was the instrument of torture used most frequently.[68]

The assertion that “confessionem esse veram, non factam vi tormentorum” (literally: ((a person's)) confession is truth, not made by way of torture.) sometimes follows a description of how, after torture had ended, the subject freely confessed to the offenses.[69] Thus, all confession acquired by means of torture were considered completely valid as they were supposedly made of the confessor's own free will.

Once the process concluded, the inquisidores met with a representative of the bishop and with the consultores, experts in theology or Canon Law, which was called the consulta de fe. The case was voted and sentence pronounced, which had to be unanimous. In case of discrepancies, the Suprema had to be informed.

According to authorities within the Eastern Orthodox Church, there was at least one casualty tortured by those Jesuits who administered the Spanish Inquisition in North America: St. Peter the Aleut.

[edit] Sentencing

The results of the trial could be the following:
1.Although quite rare in actual practice, the defendant could be acquitted.
2.The trial, itself, could be suspended, in which case the defendant, although under suspicion, went free (with the threat that the process could be continued at any time) or was held in long-term imprisonment until a trial commenced. When set free after a suspended trial it was considered a form of acquittal without specifying that the accusation had been erroneous.
3.The defendant could be penanced. Since they were considered guilty, they had to publicly abjure their crimes (de levi if it was a misdemeanor, and de vehementi if the crime were serious), and accept a public punishment. Among these were sanbenito, exile, fines or even sentencing to the galleys.
4.The defendant could be reconciled. In addition to the public ceremony in which the condemned was reconciled with the Catholic Church, more severe punishments were used, among them long sentences to jail or the galleys, plus the confiscation of all property. Physical punishments, such as whipping, were also used.
5.The most serious punishment was relaxation to the secular arm for burning at the stake—the Church did not itself kill. This penalty was frequently applied to impenitent heretics and those who had relapsed. Execution was public. If the condemned repented, they were shown mercy by being garroted before burning; if not, they were burned alive.

Frequently, cases were judged in absentia, and when the accused died before the trial finished, the condemned were burned in effigy.

The distribution of the punishments varied considerably over time. It is believed that sentences of death were enforced in the first stages within the long history of the Inquisition. According to García Cárcel, the court of Valencia employed the death penalty in 40% of the processings before 1530, but later that percentage dropped to 3%).[70]

Auto-da-fé, Plaza Mayor in Madrid, 1683
[edit] The autos-da-fé

For more details on this topic, see Auto-da-fé.

If the sentence was condemnatory, this implied that the condemned had to participate in the ceremony of an auto de fe (more commonly known in English as an auto-da-fé), that solemnized their return to the Church (in most cases), or punishment as an impenitent heretic. The autos-da-fé could be private (auto particular) or public (auto publico or auto general).

Although initially the public autos did not have any special solemnity nor sought a large attendance of spectators, with time they became solemn ceremonies, celebrated with large public crowds, amidst a festive atmosphere. The auto-da-fé eventually became a baroque spectacle, with staging meticulously calculated to cause the greatest effect among the spectators.

The autos were conducted in a large public space (in the largest plaza of the city, frequently), generally on holidays. The rituals related to the auto began the previous night (the “procession of the Green Cross”) and sometimes lasted the whole day. The auto-da-fé frequently was taken to the canvas by painters: one of the better known examples is the painting by Francesco Rizzi held by the Prado Museum in Madrid and which represents the auto celebrated in the Plaza Mayor of Madrid on June 30, 1680. The last public auto-da-fé took place in 1691.

The auto-da-fé involved: a Catholic Mass; prayer; a public procession of those found guilty; and a reading of their sentences (Peters 1988: 93-94). They took place in public squares or esplanades and lasted several hours: ecclesiastical and civil authorities attended. Artistic representations of the auto-da-fé usually depict torture and the burning at the stake. However, this type of activity never took place during an auto-da-fé, which was in essence a religious act. Torture was not administered after a trial concluded, and executions were always held after and separate from the auto-da-fé (Kamen 1997: 192-213), though in the minds and experiences of observers and those undergoing the confession and execution, the separation of the two might be experienced as merely a technicality.

The first recorded auto-da-fé was held in Paris in 1242, during the reign of Louis IX.[71] However, the first Spanish auto-da-fé did not take place until Seville in 1481; six of the men and women subjected to this first religious ritual were later executed. The Inquisition had limited power in Portugal, having been established in 1536 and officially lasting until 1821, although its influence was much weakened with the government of the Marquis of Pombal in the second half of the 18th century. Autos-da-fé also took p
lace in Mexico, Brazil and Peru: contemporary historians of the Conquistadors such as Bernal Díaz del Castillo record them. They also took place in the Portuguese colony of Goa, India, following the establishment of Inquisition there in 1562-1563.

The arrival of the Enlightenment in Spain slowed inquisitorial activity. In the first half of the 18th century, 111 were condemned to be burned in person, and 117 in effigy, most of them for judaizing. In the reign of Philip V, there were 125 autos-da-fé, while in the reigns of Charles III and Charles IV only 44.

During the 18th century, the Inquisition changed: Enlightenment ideas were the closest threat that had to be fought. The main figures of the Spanish Enlightenment were in favour of the abolition of the Inquisition, and many were processed by the Holy Office, among them Olavide, in 1776; Iriarte, in 1779; and Jovellanos, in 1796; Jovellanos sent a report to Charles IV in which he indicated the inefficiency of the Inquisition's courts and the ignorance of those who operated them:

friars who take [the position] only to obtain gossip and exemption from choir; who are ignorant of foreign languages, who only know a little scholastic theology…[72]

In its new role, the Inquisition tried to accentuate its function of censoring publications, but found that Charles III had secularized censorship procedures and, on many occasions, the authorization of the Council of Castile hit the more intransigent position of the Inquisition. Since the Inquisition itself was an arm of the state, being within the Council of Castile, civil, rather than ecclesiastical, censorship usually prevailed. This loss of influence can also be explained because the foreign Enlightenment texts entered the peninsula through prominent members of the nobility or government,[73] influential people with whom it was very difficult to interfere. Thus, for example, Diderot's Encyclopedia entered Spain thanks to special licenses granted by the king.

However, after the French Revolution the Council of Castile, fearing that revolutionary ideas would penetrate Spain's borders, decided to reactivate the Holy Office that was directly charged with the persecution of French works. An Inquisition edict of December 1789, that received the full approval of Charles IV and Floridablanca, stated that:

having news that several books have been scattered and promoted in these kingdoms… that, without being contented with the simple narration events of a seditious nature… seem to form a theoretical and practical code of independence from the legitimate powers…. destroying in this way the political and social order… the reading of thirty and nine French works is prohibited, under fine…[74]

However, inquisitorial activity was impossible in the face of the information avalanche that crossed the border; in 1792

the multitude of seditious papers… does not allow formalizing the files against those who introduce them…

The fight from within against the Inquisition was almost always clandestine. The first texts that questioned the Inquisition and praised the ideas of Voltaire or Montesquieu appeared in 1759. After the suspension of pre-publication censorship on the part of the Council of Castile in 1785, the newspaper El Censor began the publication of protests against the activities of the Holy Office by means of a rationalist critique and, even, Valentin de Foronda published Espíritu de los Mejores Diarios, a plea in favour of freedom of expression that was avidly read in the salons. Also, Manuel de Aguirre, in the same vein, wrote, On Toleration in El Censor, El Correo de los Ciegos and El Diario de Madrid.[75]

[edit] End of the Inquisition

During the reign of Charles IV of Spain, in spite of the fears that the French Revolution provoked, several events took place that accelerated the decline of the Inquisition. In the first place, the state stopped being a mere social organizer and began to worry about the well-being of the public. As a result, they considered the land-holding power of the Church, in the señoríos and, more generally, in the accumulated wealth that had prevented social progress.[76] On the other hand, the perennial struggle between the power of the throne and the power of the Church, inclined more and more to the former, under which, Enlightenment thinkers found better protection for their ideas. Manuel Godoy and Antonio Alcalá Galiano were openly hostile to an institution whose only role had been reduced to censorship and was the very embodiment of the Spanish Black Legend, internationally, and was not suitable to the political interests of the moment:

The Inquisition? Its old power no longer exists: the horrible authority that this bloodthirsty court had exerted in other times was reduced… the Holy Office had come to be a species of commission for book censorship, nothing more…[77]

In fact, prohibited works circulated freely in the public bookstores of Seville, Salamanca or Valladolid.

The Inquisition was abolished during the domination of Napoleon and the reign of Joseph Bonaparte (1808–1812). In 1813, the liberal deputies of the Cortes of Cádiz also obtained its abolition,[78] largely as a result of the Holy Office's condemnation of the popular revolt against French invasion. But the Inquisition was reconstituted when Ferdinand VII recovered the throne on July 1, 1814. It was again abolished during the three year Liberal interlude known as the Trienio liberal. Later, during the period known as the Ominous Decade, the Inquisition was not formally re-established,[79] although, de facto, it returned under the so-called Meetings of Faith, tolerated in the dioceses by King Ferdinand. These had the dubious honour of executing the last heretic condemned, the school teacher Cayetano Ripoll, garroted in Valencia on July 26, 1826 (presumably for having taught deist principles), all amongst a European-wide scandal at the despotic attitude still prevailing in Spain. Juan Antonio Llorente, who had been the Inquisition's general secretary in 1789, became a Bonapartist and published a critical history in 1817 from his French exile, based on his privileged access to its archives.

The Inquisition was definitively abolished on July 15, 1834, by a Royal Decree signed by regent Maria Christina of the Two Sicilies, Ferdinand VII's liberal widow, during the minority of Isabella II and with the approval of the President of the Cabinet Francisco Martínez de la Rosa. (It is possible that something similar to the Inquisition acted during the 1833-1839 First Carlist War, in the zones dominated by the Carlists, since one of the government measures praised by Conde de Molina Carlos Maria Isidro de Borbon was the re-implementation of the Inquisition to protect the Church). During the Carlist Wars it was the conservatives who fought the progressists who wanted to reduce the Church's power, amongst other reforms to liberalise the economy.

[edit] Outcomes

[edit] Confiscations

It is unknown exactly how much wealth was confiscated from converted Jews and others tried by the Inquisition. Wealth confiscated in one year of persecution in the small town of Guadaloupe paid the costs of building a royal residence.[80] There are numerous records of the opinion of ordinary Spaniards of the time that “the Inquisition was devised simply to rob people. “They were burnt only for the money they had,’ a resident of Cuenca averred. “They burn only the well-off,” said another. In 1504 an accused stated, “only the rich were burnt.” …In 1484…Catalina de Zamora was accused of asserting that “this Inquisition that the fathers are carrying out is as much for taking property from the conversos as for defending the faith. “It is the goods that are the heretics.” This saying passed into common usage in Spain. In 1524 a treasurer informed Charles V that his predessor had received ten million ducats from the conversos, but the figure is unverified. In 1592 an
inquisitor admitted that most of the fifty women he arrested were rich. In 1676, the Suprema claimed it had confiscated over 700,000 ducats for the royal treasury (which was paid money only after the Inquisition's own budget, amounting in one known case to only 5%). The property on Mallorca alone in 1678 was worth ‘well over 2,500,000 ducats.”[81]

[edit] Death tolls

García Cárcel estimates that the total number processed by the Inquisition throughout its history was approximately 150,000; applying the percentages of executions that appeared in the trials of 1560–1700 — about 2% — the approximate total would be about 3,000 put to death. Nevertheless, very probably this total should be raised keeping in mind the data provided by Dedieu and García Cárcel for the tribunals of Toledo and Valencia, respectively. It is likely that the total would be between 3,000 and 5,000 executed.

However, it is impossible to determine the precision of this total, and owing to the gaps in documentation, it is unlikely that the exact number will ever be known.

Modern historians have begun to study the documentary records of the Inquisition. The archives of the Suprema, today held by the National Historical Archive of Spain (Archivo Histórico Nacional), conserves the annual relations of all processes between 1540 and 1700. This material provides information on about 44,674 judgements, the latter studied by Gustav Henningsen and Jaime Contreras. These 44,674 cases include 826 executions in persona and 778 in effigie. This material, however, is far from being complete — for example, the tribunal of Cuenca is entirely omitted, because no relaciones de causas from this tribunal has been found, and significant gaps concern some other tribunals (e.g. Valladolid). Many more cases not reported to Suprema are known from the other sources (e.g. no relaciones de causas from Cuenca has been found, but its original records has been preserved), but were not included in Contreras-Hennigsen's statistics for the methodological reasons.[82] William Monter estimates 1000 executions between 1530–1630 and 250 between 1630–1730.[83]

The archives of the Suprema only provide information surrounding the processes prior to 1560. To study the processes themselves, it is necessary to examine the archives of the local tribunals; however, the majority have been lost to the devastation of war, the ravages of time or other events. Pierre Dedieu has studied those of Toledo, where 12,000 were judged for offences related to heresy.[84] Ricardo García Cárcel has analyzed those of the tribunal of Valencia.[85] These authors' investigations find that the Inquisition was most active in the period between 1480 and 1530, and that during this period the percentage condemned to death was much more significant than in the years studied by Henningsen and Contreras. Henry Kamen gives the number of about 2,000 executions in persona in the whole Spain up to 1530.[86]

[edit] Henningsen-Contreras statistics for the period 1540–1699

Tribunal

Number of preserved relaciones de causas from the period 1540–1699[87]

Number of cases reported in the preserved relaciones de causas[88]

Estimated number of all cases in the period 1540–1699[89]

Executions in persona reported in the preserved relaciones de causas[88]

The actual number of executions in persona in the period 1540–1699[90]

Barcelona

94

3047

~5000

37

53[91]

Navarre

130

4296

~5200

85

90[91]

Majorca

96

1260

~2100

37

38[92]

Sardinia

49

767

~2700

8

8

Zaragoza

126

5967

~7600

200

250[91]

Sicily

101

3188

~6400

25

52[91]

Valencia

128

4540

~5700

78

93[91]

Cartagena (established 1610)

62

699

[mikeboll64]

Quote (Is 1:18 @ June 07 2011,23:42)

Quote (mikeboll64 @ June 08 2011,15:02) If you are serious, I'll make it a point sometime to find some names for you. That'd be good, thanks. Quote But I seriously don't have the time for this right now.  I have a hard time keeping up with my current correspondence on this site as it is.  Perhaps someone with more time will help you Google the bloody history of the Trinity Doctrine before then?  (Hint:  Google “Trinity Doctrine + Bloody + Murder”.  There are many sites to go on to from there.) A WORD OF ADVICE – If you don't have time to defend your generalised assertions, don't make them.

You should lead by example Paul.  I remember you starting and bailing on a Heb 1 discussion………not once, but twice………….because of YOUR lack of available time.

Don't put rules on me that you yourself are immune to.

John Calvin.  There, that's one of the names you've asked for.  He's the dude that had Michael Servetus burned at the stake……….for not believing in the trinity.

Give me a day or two, and IF I find or make the time, I'll get you another, okay?

[Worshipping Jesus]

Quote (Is 1:18 @ June 05 2011,21:41)

Which I have now done. So I invite Michael to produce a list of names of murderous trinitarians along with the attendant proof of their pernicious deeds. Bear in mind that this list is to be of subjects who “concocted and developed” the trinity doctrine. Michael, the floor is yours.

Hi All

Does anyone understand what Paul is asking here, because none of you have provided a name as Paul is asking?

There was enough killing and murdering on both the Arian and the Trinitarian side.

That is not what Paul is refering to.

“Paul is making the case that it is not the Trinity doctrine that leads to violence” but it is the wicked hearts of both the Arians and the Trinitarians who obviously fell from the truth.

In other words because one may be an Arian or a Trintarian does not mean they are or will be violent!

Why can't people read the Opening post  of a thread and respond accordingly?  

This is why there are so many threads that are off topic and full of a bunch of mumbo jumbo that doesn't relate to the topic.

WJ

[terraricca]

Quote (WorshippingJesus @ June 10 2011,08:59)

Quote (Is 1:18 @ June 05 2011,21:41) Which I have now done. So I invite Michael to produce a list of names of murderous trinitarians along with the attendant proof of their pernicious deeds. Bear in mind that this list is to be of subjects who “concocted and developed” the trinity doctrine. Michael, the floor is yours. Hi All Does anyone understand what Paul is asking here, because none of you have provided a name as Paul is asking? There was enough killing and murdering on both the Arian and the Trinitarian side. That is not what Paul is refering to. “Paul is making the case that it is not the Trinity doctrine that leads to violence” but it is the wicked hearts of both the Arians and the Trinitarians who obviously fell from the truth. In other words because one may be an Arian or a Trintarian does not mean they are or will be violent! Why can't people read the Opening post  of a thread and respond accordingly?   This is why there are so many threads that are off topic and full of a bunch of mumbo jumbo that doesn't relate to the topic. WJ

WJ

could you show some names of Arians in 3 o4 century that where killing there opponent trinitarians?

what happen in the 13,16,17 century it is the oppression of the trinitarian lies that finally bust open.

Pierre

[Worshipping Jesus]

Hi Pierre

Check your history, Arians were also guilty of torturing and murdering Trinitarians. Millions of Trinitarians died because of there faith and are still dieing because of their faith to this very day.

Hence, after Constantine's death in 337, open dispute resumed again. Constantine's son Constantius II, who had become Emperor of the eastern part of the Empire, actually encouraged the Arians and set out to reverse the Nicene creed. His advisor in these affairs was Eusebius of Nicomedia, who had already at the Council of Nicea been the head of the Arian party, who also was made bishop of Constantinople.

Constantius used his power to exile bishops adhering to the Nicene creed, especially Athanasius of Alexandria, who fled to Rome. In 355 Constantius became the sole Emperor and extended his pro-Arian policy toward the western provinces, frequently using force to push through his creed, even exiling Pope Liberius and installing Antipope Felix II. Source

“Interestingly Constantine's son sided with the Arians and exiled Athanansius for his beliefs in the Trinity…. eventually the northern Germanic tribes, also Arians, sacked Rome and persecuted trinitarians until they eventually became trinitarians themselves….. “Constantius was pro-Arian in his leanings and took an active part in the affairs of the Christian church — convening one council at Rimini and its twin at Seleuca, which met in 359 and 360.” Wikpedia

Whenever the Arians were dominant, they persecuted the Trinitarians; and when their fortunes were reversed, the Trinitarians persecuted them. The eventual result was not so much the outcome of rational debate and pious scholarship as of power politics and shedding of blood. By the start of the eighth century, Arianism was externally suppressed.* for the Trinitarians proved to be more efficient in killing the Arians than the latter were in killing them. Thus was orthodoxy established. And the most avid defender of holy tradition cannot deny that, had the Arians been militarily successful, their position would have become the standard of orthodoxy instead of that of their opponents. Source

WJ

[Is 1:18]

Quote (WorshippingJesus @ June 10 2011,01:59)

Hi All Does anyone understand what Paul is asking here, because none of you have provided a name as Paul is asking?

You're right Keith, I have not been given one single name yet, nor do I expect to. I wonder when Michael is going to retract his ridiculous statement?

[terraricca]

WJ

Somes here;
Questionable Historical Development of the Doctrine of the Trinity
Michael F. Blume
——————————————————————————–

The series of events and people who brought about the Trinity doctrine as it appears today is as follows. We find in the New Testament that the early church preached nothing about a trinity of three eternal persons. The Old Testament was based upon the Oneness of the Godhead as clearly revealed in Old Testament writings. The apostles believed in the fulness of Godhead as dwelling in Jesus Christ bodily.

After the Apostolic age, the Post-Apostolic Age (AD 90-140) arrived. The writers Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp and Hermas were the only writers of the age whose studies are intact today. In their writings, these men said nothing about a Trinity of three eternal persons. Calvin Beisner, the evangelical author, wrote in his book, God in Three Persons, that the earliest times exhibited no clear statements about any Trinity whatsoever and that the first two centuries promoted monotheism as the main thought. The post-apostolic writers simply stressed the One God concept as found in the Old Testament.

Then the Greek Apologists came along, writing studies that gave the name to the Age as the Greek Apologists from AD 130-180. In this Age the first clear changeover from biblical Oneness towards the trinitarian concept occurred. The main reason that changeover occurred was due to their idea of what the term “LOGOS”, found in John 1:1, meant. The Greek philosophers of prechristian days taught the existence of a LOGOS. These Apologists entered Christianity in the second century and promoted this pagan idea in the church. They claimed that John meant for his readers to understand that Jesus was the same LOGOS that the prechristian Greeks believed in, although these Greeks knew nothing about the true God nor of Jesus Christ. They believed the LOGOS was a second divine person who was subservient to the Father. This is not believed today by trinitarians, as they feel the Son and the Father are equal, even though the ORIGIN of the idea of two persons comes from these Apologists.

The first roots of Trinity belief came in this age. There was a definite modification of the baptismal formula. They began baptising in the titles Father, Son and Holy Ghost, rather than invoke the name Jesus as we find it in Acts 2:38; 8:16; 10:48 and 19:5. They denied the absolute deity of Jesus Christ. The points that these philosophers held to that are in agreement with modern-day trinitarianism are:

1) the LOGOS being a second divine person
2) the idea that the LOGOS was begotten before creation at a certain point of time
3) the LOGOS is the Son of God
4) a baptismal formula that consisted of a three-fold invocation
5) and the idea that the Spirit somehow linked the Father and the Son together.
They attempted to deal with the “plurality” issue of God. Trinity doctrine was not as yet invented as a solution.

The next age occurred between AD 170 and 325, and is called the Old Catholic Age. The process had already started towards a threesome of persons comprising One God in the previous Age. In the latter half of the fourth century, an orthodox Trinitarian doctrine was finally established.

Many writers of this Age commented about the Oneness doctrine, revealing that Oneness was the dominant doctrine held by believers in the first part of the Old Catholic Age. These writers gave evidence that proves that Jesus' Name baptism was carried on widely despite the new, growing popularity of a “Trinity” doctrine of God. Trinitarianism first came with the idea that Jesus was a separate person from the Father and a deity who was inferior to the Father. The *original* founders of the Trinity never departed from that belief. Only until the time of the fourth century did trinitarians begin changing this flaw of thinking. At that time they began saying that the three eternal persons were coeternal, coequal and cosubstantial.

It is notable that early trinitarians rejected the idea that Jesus is God.

Men continued rejecting a trinity of persons. Irenaeus wrote in the beginning of the Old Catholic Age and stated that God is One, and that Jesus is God. He believed that The WORD is the mind and expression of the Father and that the Son is the invisible Father's visible revelation. He said the name of Jesus reveals the Father and belongs to the Father. Although he did not fully teach a trinity of persons, he was partway there in believing a trinity since he looked at the LOGOS as originally being in God and that it somehow, later, became distinct from the Father.

TERTULLIAN
It was in this Age that the first man to coin the word “Trinity” came along, named Tertullian (150 – 225 AD) and the first who said that God was Three persons in one substance about the year 200. Never before Tertullian had anyone heard of the word “Trinity”. This man was originally “Binitarian” – having believed in two persons. He believed that the Holy Ghost was more of a “thing” and not God, Himself. But the “Montanists” taught him to believe in the Paraclete as being more personal than what he formerly felt. Thus the Holy Spirit became the third eternal person in his later thinking.

In his book Against Hermogenes, Tertullian believed God was originally alone and not yet, therefore, a Father. The Son was created at a certain point, making God into a Father. He wrote, “The Trinity, flowing down from the Father, does not at all disturb the Monarchy [one sovereign God], whilst at the same time guards the state of the Economy [three persons],” in his book Against Praxeas, a book which taught against Modalism or Oneness. He said that the Father and the Son are like the Sun and its light rays.

The light rays and the Sun are one, but yet they are two different things. He taught a new concept saying that the Son is merely “a portion of the whole Godhead”.

He did not believe the three persons were eternal, as do the Trinitarians today.

ORIGEN
After Tertullian, came Origen (185 AD – 254 AD). This man derived much of his thoughts from pagan philosophy of the Greeks. He believed that souls pre-existed conception and that even Satan would eventually be saved. He believed Jesus was born of the Father before all other creatures, and that “the Holy Spirit was associated in honour and dignity with the Father and the Son. But in His case it is not clearly distinguished whether He is to be regarded as born or innate, or also as a Son of God or not,” according to his book, On the Principles.

Origen was the first who clearly taught that there were three persons who were eternal. He taught that the Son eternally was being generated from the Father. (1:2:2; 1:2:4).

Towards the end of this Age, more and more writers began expressing their beliefs about God in trinitarian terms. Yet they still saw the Son and the Spirit as inferior to the Father. Only two men seemed to write in what is agreeable to the modern trinitarian doctrine. These men were Gregory Thaumaturgus and Dionysius of Rome.

Most of the Fourth Century passed before the orthodox Trinitarian doctrine was created. Please note that Trinitarianism was originated by people who did not believe in the absolute deity of Jesus Christ. Modern day Trinitarians do not even agree with what the originators of the Trinity believed!

By the end of the fourth century there was a great controversy between those who believed that Jesus was another being separate from God and inferior to God, and those who believed that Jesus was a coeternal person beside the Father making up one God. Athanasius led the group who believed in three persons while Arius led the other group.

In 325 AD, Athanasius' view won the day at the Nicean council. But the idea of a Trinity was not completely declared until the Council at Constantinople in 381 where they declared God to be three eterna
l persons. At this latter council they declared the Holy Spirit was a third eternal person. The Athanasian Creed is the declaration held by Roman Catholics and most Protestants today. It was created in the fifth century. Modern orthodox trinitarianism stands on this creed.

In order to accept the doctrine of the Trinity one must believe what the Roman Catholic Church teaches in their doctrine of Tradition and Magisterium. This doctrine declares that the Apostles did not have all the truths of God and that the “Church” formulated doctrines AFTER the Bible was written which are to be reckoned to be as important as the truths explicitly taught in the Bible. Since Trinity was not taught in the Bible, but formulated in the fourth century, it nevertheless must be believed since the “Church” said it was true.

God did NOT intend us to think we could add to the words of the Bible by formulating doctrines which were not taught in Scripture. In fact, God placed a curse upon all who add to the Word of God (Rev. 22:18). Hence, the Trinity doctrine, since it was not even formulated until the end of the fourth century, must be referred to as the “word of man” rather than the “Word of God.” And since it is the Word of Man, it must not be elevated as truth.

Jesus said, “thy Word is truth,” – not “man's word is truth.” John 17:17

Rev. MF Blume

[terraricca]

WJ

Quote

“Paul is making the case that it is not the Trinity doctrine that leads to violence” but it is the wicked hearts of both the Arians and the Trinitarians who obviously fell from the truth.

this is only true to an extend,wicket people need a reason just like all men to do something unless he is deranged in the head,

this was the case with Paul in the assembly were they start to separate who is from Peter,Paul and others ,today nothing is changed

in that sense you are right.but people also can do wicket things without being wicket in the heart just look at Paul Saul of tarsus,misguided

but the actions are wicket.

Pierre

[terraricca]

WJ

now what i have said previously Satan never killed anyone with his own hands so to speak,and yet Christ call him a murderer since the beginning ,how is that ? this is because by his persuasion and deceit he have kill the first human couple with us in it,and so took us away from God blessings ,this is also true of anyone using deceit and lies to take people away from the truth of God,and in this way all the people involved in the trinity doctrine are guilty of murder because of taking those souls away from Christ and God,this is what Jesus meant when he says to the pharisees “you do not enter the kingdom but you prevent other also to enter”

well this is my view on it

Pierre

[mikeboll64]

Quote (Is 1:18 @ June 09 2011,15:09)

Quote (WorshippingJesus @ June 10 2011,01:59) Hi All Does anyone understand what Paul is asking here, because none of you have provided a name as Paul is asking? You're right Keith, I have not been given one single name yet, nor do I expect to. I wonder when Michael is going to retract his ridiculous statement?

The present day Christian church touts Constantine as the first Christian emperor, however, his 'Christianity' was politically motivated. Whether he personally accepted Christian doctrine is highly doubtful. He had one of his sons murdered in addition to a nephew, his brother in law and possibly one of his wives. He continued to retain his title of high priest in a pagan religion until his death. He was not baptized until he was on his deathbed.

There is your second name: Constantine. Concoctor/developer of the trinity doctrine and murderer.

The other I mentioned in my last post: John Calvin, developer of the trinity doctrine and murderer; the one who gave the order to have Michael Servetus burned at the stake for not believing in the trinity.

Have I satisfied my requirements?

[Author]

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