49 - Inquisition Witches and Mystics

So other than after trying to remember where we got to that day

I was sick What did you what did you have before the ontological argument the rise of universities?

Great Man So you didn't take notes

Wow, man total disappointment total disappointment and Sadly, you're the only person

I can ask because George isn't here. So No one else Yeah Yeah We did scholasticism we did we did through Aquinas We talked about Women as misbegotten men.

I do remember that but I was sick that day I was sitting down and Yeah, I don't remember doing the rise of universities, but we can just be really brief on that anyways and Then I think

I think I said we were gonna get into the Inquisition. I'm not sure Okay No one expects the

Spanish Inquisition Spanish Inquisition, they expect the French Inquisition But because I can smell them coming but because the food

Said I caught I said the food, you know, they make very nice food Very very great pastries

I don't remember what day was Yeah, and that's it's past that it's past that It was a day.

I was sick and we had our we had we had We had already gotten into Scholasticism and we had gone through scholasticism.

So we'll start here and and this will be this will be this weekend I'm pretty certain.

I do remember talking about the rise of universities I think

I remember mentioning For faculty areas the arts which would be a general education theology law and medicine

I Don't remember if I mentioned the students apply between 14 and 18 years of age. We That's not really how things work anymore, thanks to video games so that wouldn't be good a

University of Paris I mentioned around 80 1200 by 1400 there about 75 universities and and I I think

I finished off by saying that was gonna be extremely important to the rise of the Reformation and Then said next time we get together when

I'm feeling better the Inquisition. Well instead last week we did the ontological argument everyone

Everybody who was here last week would feel comfortable if I gave you a pop quiz right now ask you to stand up In front of us all and explain the ontological argument

Yeah, I didn't think so. Well the brother Callahan brother Callahan has has But how many times have you explained the ontological argument over the years?

Yeah more more than once more than once. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so We got we got one person that can do the ontological

I don't know that I would want to try to do the ontological argument, honestly It's that that you know during that course the week you live life and and so it just all leaks out

Okay, the Inquisition. Well, let me tell you there are And for those of you might be visiting we're doing church history.

We have been for what? What are we up to 50 something 40 49? We're getting close.

Yeah 49 lessons in church history. We're up to The medieval period

Middle Ages and getting toward the Reformation eventually here Last time

I did this back in the 90s We did it in only 52 sessions and it's gonna take about twice that for this run through so Not that anything new happened

Time period just discovered new things or something. I'm just getting slower with old age,

I guess There Are numerous books out on the

Inquisition and Unfortunately it like many other controversial issues of the past tends to prompt a

Wide range of Analysis and it's difficult to really

Rummage through all of that and come to the truth. I mean the the numbers for example that I have heard of the number of people executed or imprisoned by the

Inquisition and Independence of a type of the Spanish Inquisition or the Inquisition as a whole or in what century?

have differed on an on a magnitude of Of 1 ,000 to 10 million.

So I mean that's that's many magnitudes of order and The truth is somewhere in between the two obviously, but it does make you wonder a little bit when you have such a massive breadth of Perspective and obviously

After the Reformation Rome has lots of reasons to minimize the extent and character of the

Inquisition and Certainly at the time of the Reformation Protestants had a lot of reason to maximize so Where do you go?

Well, there are certain things that that are fairly agreed upon in regards to the

Inquisition in 1199 Innocent the third you may recall him as one of the most powerful of the medieval

Popes equated heresy with treason in a papal bowl Which makes sense

In a sacral system when you have a system of the church state church

Heresy is a rebellion not only against God ordained truth, but therefore against the lesser authorities of government as well and it's well known that once the

Inquisition was in full swing the the explanation was that the religious authorities would

Analyze someone to see if they were a heretic or not, but the church Itself would never bring

The final punishment to bear they would always be turned over to the civil magistrate.

Well, of course civil magistrate had Was nothing more than the instrument

The civil magistrate couldn't go. I don't think it's all serious not to worry about because now it's the civil magistrate you find yourself under the scrutiny of the

Inquisition and That's not a good thing. So but the idea was to in a quite honestly fictional manner maintain the distinction between the secular arm and the ecclesiastical arm

In general and obviously this would would change in general what you had in the

Inquisition was a mobile court a mobile court that would move from place to place and It had certain officers in this mobile court

You had the Inquisitor himself and of course the term To you know, it's to inquire it's to make

Inquiry into something is to look into something and so normally the

Inquisitor was a monk well educated literate

With you know certain level of legal knowledge as well you would have examiners which

Depending on the situation Would be more or less the torturers

Eventually the idea was you know, there there were there was the use of such things as the rack and other

Forms the thumbscrew was exceptionally Effective at exposing heresy and if you have ever whacked your thumb with a with a hammer

You know why that is Of course you only whacked it once and and that was it but the thumbscrew is a continuous

Pressure upon the end of that bone. It's extremely excruciating And if you're tied down with that thing, you're gonna do anything you can to stop that that agony

This was used for example During the Black Plague the Black Death or as they we mentioned before what they called the

Great Mortality and Be used on Jews to get them to confess that they had poisoned wells and things like that which resulted in the destruction of Jewish communities but These examiners

Were not always like that it wasn't always that situation there were actually some people that would just simply make meaningful inquiry, but as things as it became more of a political tool

You have less and less of the humans involved and more of the others You have a socius who is a personal advisor to the

Inquisitor You had the guards and then you had a scribe and that's why we know as much as we do about the

Inquisition is They kept records and obviously not all those records to survive to our day but some have and one might

Profitably speculate as to Sort of historical editing in the sense of which records have come down to our day and which ones didn't

And maybe there's some still not generally in public view who knows but there was a

Literary record kept and to be honest with you. This is some sometimes. This is the only source of information we have

About some of the most obscure groups during the period of the Inquisition When you taught we've all heard well most of us have heard of the

Waldensians followers of Peter Waldo And the Albigensians and and a number of different groups

Smaller groups primarily in the region of the Alps there in Europe where you could sort of hide away

Most of our knowledge Of those groups and their beliefs do not come to us from their own writings none of their writings have survived to this day

They come to us through the mediation of these scribes Writing down what was said in the examination of these heretics

Now as you can imagine if you know put yourself in that situation. Let's say you were

Living in that day, and you were Arrested it strikes me very often as pretty astounding how people can hear what

I say and if they have a Fundamental bias against my position. It's a it's just amazing

How twisted it is what they hear? It's it's like I can say three sentences they hear two of them ignore two of them and misinterpret one of the other two and so It's it's different.

That's what makes it difficult to with accuracy really determine

Exactly what these groups believed because there's this Unpleasant bias in the recording of much of this this material

But basically what you have is is you would have the Inquisition coming into a town and Eventually it became a time of of terror for everyone because of the way it was put together you could have a general

Inquisition where These groups would simply go from place to place and they've been tasked with Protecting the purity of the faith, and then you can have a special Inquisition summoned a summons is sent to a suspected heretic and he is

Is demanded that he appear before? The Inquisition because that person's been named well.

You know when the general Inquisition comes town what what you're concerned about is You know might that neighbor that has been having a dispute with me

Accused me of something this happens today for example in Afghanistan in Pakistan The Christians there live in in constant terror

Because there it is well known in light of the presumption of their guilt under Islamic law that they can easily be accused of having torn out pages from a

Quran or something like that and Hence are are accused and and just assumed to be in in the wrong and The very setup of the

Inquisitory Court was such that it was closed in private It was very easy to convict because the

Inquisitor had complete control Over all the proceedings the accused had no right to face or examine any accusers that might exist for consistency for being able to say well that guy stole my cow last year, and he's mad because The local magistrate forced him to give me my cow back, and so he's just Attacking me because of that you don't even know who's made the the the accusation

Thank you very much. I guess let's see here there. We oh sound effects all the way up Oh, that's right.

You this is the same one We were listening to Jason Lyle on so you had to be able to hear him speaking otherwise he would have been Signed signing to us there on Sunday night anyway

There was no defense lawyer You you basically represented yourself

As I said you often had the thumbscrew being used and things like that and You know if you confessed

It was not an absolute given that automatically you're going to be executed or something like that There could be penances there there.

You know it depended on the Inquisitor it depend upon the infraction So on and so forth but if you absolutely refused

To acknowledge the accusations against you and yet the Inquisitor Determined that you were guilty then there would be the option of execution normally by burning and that of course in of itself was

Partly The you know we might say what what a horrific way to execute well that the problem is

This was a mechanism that had a religious overtone to it. It was a purifying of the society it was a removal of A Pollution within the society and it also

Sort of got rid of the one of the problems of What do you do with the body if you just simply run somebody through the sword you?

You can't allow them to be buried in holy ground for example but if they're burned to ashes and that doesn't really matter a whole lot at that particular point in time and so Even unfortunately at that point there would be

Mankind came up with various ways of doing things There were fast burnings, and there were slow burnings

You could and unfortunately the Inquisition knew about these things if you wished to be merciful to someone

You would not only make sure that you had dry wood But you would place a sack of gunpowder around their neck

So that once the flames got that high the gunpowder go off and kill them

Another way of course you'll see some of the execution poles had holes drilled through them and you would put a leather thong through it and once you tied the person to it you would use the leather thong to choke them and You would literally kill them

That way and so they wouldn't feel the pain of the burning But you would still burn the body so that There wouldn't be relics or there wouldn't be the issue of the burial and and and everything like that Unfortunately the

Inquisition Rarely had that level of mercy and recognized that green wood would burn much more slowly and once Once there was you think back to Rome you think back to the

Colosseum There is a there's a bloodthirstiness amongst crowds

And you might say I can't believe people were like that back then why do you think people watch

NASCAR? What are you watching for when you're watching NASCAR? You're waiting for the next wreck because you know there's gonna be one

It's not quite the same It's all high -tech now But there is a part of that that you know if you get a if you get a whole race through all on the on the green no wrecks are like Yeah Who won

I who cares you know I didn't get to see the exciting part you know and so The Inquisition would make it to where they would put people above the fire and literally roast them over the course of hours and it was a horrific

Sight and a horrific of course from the Inquisition's perspective that also provided an even greater

Application of the fear in people's hearts, you know you don't want to go that way That's that's the worst possible way in the world to go

Connected with the Inquisition is the medieval subject of witchcraft And it's not just a medieval period because you know that this

You know continues into even American history In regards to the

Salem witch trials and things like that so this is something that extends over many centuries and Again the numbers hard to really

Track down when I was the seminary you know my my church history professor was not some wild -eyed

Jack chicken type guy by any stretch the imagination But even he said that in the course of His his best estimate was that between twelve hundred and seventeen hundred about 1 million women

Died as witches over that 500 years Now that's 500 years a long time, but you know do the math it's still a fair a fair number of people each each year and The ratio of men to women accused and convicted was one to twenty

So it was almost all women who were accused of this and Why was that well it was believed that Satan was a male spirit hence

Since witchcraft was closely related to sexuality women were accused much more often than men were

Well of course in the men were in charge of the Inquisition too. I suppose that had something to do with it

The Inquisition against which is primarily centered in France Germany Scotland England and Italy So primarily a very much

European concept The Popes were big into this there's there's

Much papal writing on the subject of the Inquisition against witches

Gregory the ninth in the 13th century decided that Satan had shifted his strategy to a frontal attack against the church via witchcraft and So in 1223

Gregory gave papal credence to many popular concepts he said Satan had recently appeared in Germany as a toad a

Black cat and a ghost Satan and inhibits production and animals plants and men so if there is a downturn in crop production

If your goats aren't having enough kids milk production whatever else might be

This is probably due to a witch in your area, and so you start looking especially at the odd women

Maybe the odd unmarried women in your area and They're probably casting hexes on your on your animals and things like that And then when the

Pope is saying yeah, this is mmm. You got it that obviously gives great credence

Boniface the eighth and his physician Arnold Villanova in 1294 Made a quasi -scientific study of witchcraft and sexuality and then innocent the eighth in 1484 issued the sumas desider on tests this would be a official papal

Statement in regards to witchcraft and two years later Heinrich Kramer and Jakob Springer This is very important 1486

Heinrich Kramer Jakob Springer published and my wife's not here, so I don't have to write anything down anymore published

Malleus Maleficarum, I suppose I should write that down because this one is sort of sort of important This had a huge huge impact in in Europe Malleus how many how many?

I Malleus Maleficarum, I think that's about right

Malleus Maleficarum a hammer against female witches a hammer against female witches

They toured all over Christendom investigating and executing witches and the book was a codification of popular witch theory based upon their

Inquisition and their interviews and their experiences as they traveled around Europe must have been quite the interesting experience some of the

Popular theories codified by Malleus Maleficarum, which was just taken as a You know this was the book this was

Referred to and believed by pretty much everybody and To be honest with you the

Reformation The Reformation laid the seeds of moving away from this, but the

Reformers wouldn't have really thought of rejecting most of this You know we talked about Erasmus and the fact that he honestly believed that the mosquitoes which plagued him during the summers and in the warm weather were demons

And Luther made reference to a certain lake High up in the mountains if you threw a rock into it a tempest would come up because that lake was the abode of demons

And so there was a very strong belief in in that type of thing and so You to even question something like the

Malleus Maleficarum probably meant You're a witch Some of us think back to the the witch trial in a certain

British comedy Where there's there's no way out of the accusations and what that was reflecting was that's sort of how it was

There was no way out of the of the accusations if you even dared to question the validity of the questions

That meant you were a witch to you know it was just that you know you're stuck one way or the other and so Some of the concepts that were codified in the book that there was a pact made with the devil

That The there was something called the witches sabbat the midnight meeting of of witches that they would have

There was the incubi and succubi that is a male and female demons the powers of flight

And who believes that today when was last time you saw a rerun of bewitched Goes all the way back where'd that come from Malleus Maleficarum and you're sitting here going come on 1960s and wiggling you know yeah, yeah, yeah

Malleus Maleficarum goes all the way back now You know where it came from it was you can now amaze your friends by knowing the latin title of the book from which that stuff

Came from the powers of flight the powers to inhibit reproduction Midwives were very much under suspicions

Yes 1486 Now I realize 1486 is right before the

Reformation, so this is the very same time time period Powers of flight powers inhibit reproduction midwives

There was a drop in the number of midwives just simply because people were afraid to you know Which led to even more infant mortality as a result obviously?

the idea of love potions And the casting of hexes

Hexa is the groom word for which so the casting of hexes

And so it was it was just so easy if all of a sudden You know something happened to your crops, which might just be blight it might be

Yeah, you know all you you didn't sow your seeds right or did the wrong period of time There's just a million different reasons.

It could be it was Easiest thing to do is to blame it on you know your next -door neighbor and their weird daughter

That's is so strange or something along those lines and so Malleus Maleficarum widely read and I honestly don't know when in history

Someone finally you know just stood up and said I Don't think so No, no biblical basis for this stuff.

I mean this particular Codification of things I don't know when that eventually happened, but obviously

Today most people never even heard of it even though almost everything. I just mentioned you have heard of and it was primarily made a part of cultural

Identity and understanding through Malleus Maleficarum The scholastics believed sorry ladies

I hate to break this to you, but the scholastics believed that women were weaker both mentally and physically and so You all know

This term right right feminine normally, that's a that's a nice term

Unless you are a feminist Which many today actually want to try to get along in life without men that doesn't work for very long

I learned about one generation and at the end of that, but Where does that come from it comes from Faye Minous what's

Minous? Minus what's Faye faith lesser faith lesser faith

I I See looks on ladies in the room right now.

I Did not make this up. Okay. I I hate to be the bearer of this this information for you, but yes feminine comes from Faye Minous, which means a lesser faith and that was literally lacking in faith and So this was the scholastic

Understanding and it becomes so much apart becomes attached to the very gender language that is used there

They also believe now. This is primary keep this in mind. This is primarily monks. I Think that has something to do with all this to be honest with you

They also believe that women were deceptive by nature Just as Satan tempted

Eve so he tempts women they also believe that women had an insatiable lust as well again these were monks

That were coming up with these these concepts. I get some projection ideas here, but this was scholastic theology

Now upon being charged and unfortunately, I would like to be able to say this was only prior to the

Reformation But this is pretty much up through 1700 and pretty much across the board whether in Protestant lands eventually or in Roman Catholic lands upon being charged all were pretty much guilty until proven innocent and Given the nature of the accusation how in the world do you prove?

innocence Obviously you can see that the problem

It was extremely dangerous to say anything in defense of an accused which so the idea of even trying to find a defense attorney or someone like that, they're just as liable to the

Inquisition or okay, the technical term wouldn't be Inquisition, but In Protestant lands there were purges of witches and things like that just didn't use the term

Inquisition It would just be the local magistrate and working with the city council and things like that and the ministers

Very very dangerous anything defensive accused which Because then you would be accused of being involved as well they would

Remove all bodily hair, so they'd shave their heads So no charms or imps could hide there it

We haven't gotten there yet, but when when Luther was debating in Leipzig he had a vase of flowers on his desk and his

Opponents that he would sniff once in a while his opponent said that the demons were hiding in the flowers and then that's why he had it on the on the table and so Similar concept here some way of hiding these spirits

And Torture was the norm The thumbscrew which was not just used momentarily, but was simply left on Locked in place until the hands became useless and infected

Hanging by the arms and being allowed to drop to the ground Causing tremendous pain of course putting joints out of out of place etc.

Etc and the rack was usually the last to be used, but it would be used and These were incredibly

Painful things that would very often get the You know the resulting confession from individuals

Obviously most were burned in light of the nature of the crime later in the 1600s

Especially after the Reformation they were hanged as well But there was a you know and that happened in the history of the colonies in the

United States as as well, so you have that going on at this at this time period and Certainly would result in a tremendous amount of fear in in the society

Especially if you are one of those that didn't quite fit the the bell curve norm. You know if you're one of those odd people

That whole idea of being able to face your accusers not a bad idea and guess what?

That's biblical Hmm sure hope that's the neighbors and not someone's car right outside Not sure you can see through those windows, but It might be good for at least one person just to just to check that's that door is locked you'll want to go out the back one there

So there there we there we go all right Oh sure yeah, yeah you bet

Anybody outside the outside the norm would But definitely experience experience all that yes the

Sun is hitting the back wall And I'm feeling the heat coming our direction.

I don't think we're gonna have winter this year unfortunately All right, let's introduce yes, sir

It's late medieval period Yeah, probably in the in the backwoods or places like that Germany and planes that things like that sure yeah,

I would assume that there was I've never done much of a study of the history of the survivors of paganism in medieval

Europe, but Given that it continues this day. I don't know that's just a revival.

I think there was probably always some of that there. Yeah Now the subject of mysticism is is is a large one.

We won't finish it this morning by any stretch of imagination And it's interesting to me that mysticism exists in every religion.

I've ever encountered It doesn't matter what religion it is I'm glad to see you come back brother good figured if you were gone another five minutes.

We'd send a rescue party after It doesn't matter what religion

I've studied Given enough time within a few generations of its start

There's going to be some type of mystical group that is going to develop within its midst that views the mainline as to dogmatic or cold or Cerebral or Orthodox creedal whatever terms you want to use but And they're looking for more of an experiential

Aspect of that particular faith and so there is mysticism within Islam Buddhism Hinduism There are

Mormon mystics the only group Yeah, the only group that I would say is an exception.

I've never met a mystical Jehovah's Witness. No, they they are excommunicated instantaneously

Just automatic do not pass go do not collect $200. Yeah, it doesn't work for a lot of people anymore

Yes, you know How many young people do they have any idea what you're talking about when you say do not pass go do not collect $200 in that sad

It's just it's just so sad they're looking at you like what are these old people talking about there's speaking in code

Well, you got it. You got to listen to us listening to you talking about speaking in code We're sitting there going what language are they talking about?

anyway So, you know you have the Sufis amongst the the the

Muslims looking for that mystical experience and You have the

Christian mystics But mysticism is normally associated with this medieval late medieval time period and Many of these people sought ecstasy a

Direct connection with God that mystical experience and vision of God Scholasticism Can you you know after after working through the ontological argument last week

Can you can you sort of see how some people would not find that to be the most? soul

Fulfilling type of thing you know what I mean you want want something a little bit more than you know thinking through these ontological categories and stuff like that and and So you put together

Scholasticism And then you put together the corruption of the church Yes, sir.

Now when you say east and west you mean Orthodox versus They develop in parallel ways.

I think it's earlier well You can you can find some elements of mysticism all the way back with the

Desert Fathers in a sense You know normally the term is being used here of Catherine of Siena Meister Eckhart people like that Specifically in reaction to scholasticism, so there there's always been

You know every generation has its mystics, I suppose

This was just simply a real Explosion of it in light of scholasticism the corruption of the church things like that, but the east the east not only had it as a

Addendum, but it in many ways it became mainstream. I mean when you think of The Eastern Orthodox emphasis upon Energia the energies that's a very mystical concept and Eastern Orthodox Eschewing of dogma

It's the experience. It's the liturgy As the central authority.

Yeah, it's mainstreamed mysticism in some sense But then again if you look at most of the

Western cathedrals today Lords Fatima, there's strong mystical elements to those too, so Yeah, it's it's it's everywhere

You have the Babylonian captivity the church you have the the papacy leaving Rome and going to Avignon All these things left a vacuum into which mysticism

You know moved or found a Breeding ground,

I guess you might say more than it had been in previous centuries by by a good bit

We'll just try to cover one real quickly here. That's Catherine of Siena 1347 to 1380 you put those numbers together.

That's 33 She first joined the black mantles an ascetic group that flagellated themselves whip themselves daily

She devoted herself to prayer the life of an ascetic Minister to the sick supposedly

Christ appeared to her and asked her to be his bride. He gave her a ring She then asked for the stigmata

How many of you know how many of you honestly know what the stigmata are

One two Three four a few of you that's the stigmata are the marks of the crucifixion and so a many of the

Roman Catholic Saints Allegedly Manifested the stigmata which would mean bleeding from well what's interesting to me is many of them bled from the palms their hands

That's not where Jesus would have been nailed. It was popular popular Folklore But you can't nail someone to a cross in the palms of their hands they will not stay there

There's nothing to hold you there Nailing to a cross beam would be in the wrist

Because then you have bones to hold you in place But interestingly enough these stigmata wouldn't be in the rest.

They'd be in the palms of the hands which Can tell you something there I suppose but the how many of you have heard of Padre Pio And anyone heard of Padre Pio just just one person not too many former

Roman Catholics in our group here I see are you former Roman Catholic there you go If this was if we were in New York if we were in New York on Long Island Everybody in the room would know all about Padre Pio Night I think he died what?

Less than a century ago maybe I Forget what his days were but anyways extremely popular stigmata

Had that you know always have his hands bandaged because they're bleeding His feet would bleed his side would bleed had you know these were these were signs of close

Communion with Christ and so this is something that Catherine of Siena requested for herself

Would be to possess the the stigmata Unfortunately, there's more to go about the explanation the stigmata kept us from finishing up so Make a note in case

I forget We're sort of halfway through Catherine of Siena and talking about the mystics as we ran out of time all right

Let's close the word of prayer Father once again, we thank you for the opportunity of looking back and even though we often see things that are troubling to us

We just ask that you would help us to have proper understanding see how we have been influenced even by Errors in the past in our modern day so we might properly have a vantage point to look at ourselves with some

Some level of objectivity, but Lord and all these things may be reminded that your word is always the touchstone

It's always the standard and when your people forget that Bad things can happen so with that in mind

Lord We ask that you would bless the preaching of your word in the next hour may we hear and may you be glorified we pray