I was invited to a group called "Five solas vs Catholic Church". I am a Catholic and thus against the collection five solas though not all of them equally. Here is the first one.
It is in a certain manner opposite to both Tradition as Infallible and Magisterium as Infallible.
It is therefore erroneous.
It is actually more opposed to Tradition as Infallible than to Magisterium.
The opposite of Magisterium as infallible and as compulsory is not so much Sola Scriptura as such as the Private Judgement on the Sola Scriptura.
The total and erroneous Protestant doctrine is therefore bipartite:
Error 1: Apostolic Christianity is generally accessible through Bible alone as opposed to Bible and Tradition.
Error 2: Individually we are responsible to the Sola Scriptura only through direct Private Judgement on its content. A man who is unlearned and leaves a point out from his individual Bible reading understanding is not excused for chosing as probable a wrong solution because he was feeling he had to submit to a Magisterium that was wrong, but he was instead in such a case wrong to take Magisterium as above himself in the manner God is and Bible are. Infallibility belongs only to God, is the claim, not to either man individually or any group of men together.
That the second is untrue is clear from the Bible. It says "The Church is the Pillar and Foundation of Truth". Christ is its head and as God and as sinless man infallible, which even Protestants admit, but if Christ alone in the Church were infallible on any point, then there would be a neck problem, the body not communicating properly with its head. So, we must say that the visible Church today - whereever it truly is - is infallible when speaking unitedly.
That the first is untrue is also clear from the Bible as well as from the Church.
One bit of a warning, to things like Modernist Catholics. Or semimodernist who think they must "obey" modern magisterium in accepting modern cosmology or deep space or deep time with evolution.
A Protestant would not agree that private judgement is an excuse for disagreeing with the Bible. A Catholic must therefore not agree that Magisterium (above his private judgement, when genuine and when his private judgement as bishop or Pope is not preceding the magisterial one on hitherto undecided questions), he must as said not agree that Magisterium is any kind of excuse for disagreeing either with Bible (72 books*, not just 66) or with Tradition.
Furthermore, on those particular matters, there seems to be no consensus about what is magisterium and, supposing CCC is such, whether CCC is sufficiently obliging. But insofar as Catechism of the Catholic Church endorses as "knowledge" things that contradict Bible or Tradition (specifically theories contradicting a young and "small" universe), it would be like a Protestant who in private judgement thought "this is my Body" or "whatever you bind on earth" as something the Bible did not clearly indicate what to believe about. Such a Protestant is no longer a Christian, and if any bishop or Pope puts full weight into certain modern theories included in certain paragraphs thereof, such a Magisterium is no longer Christian and therefore no longer magisterial either.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
BpI Georges Pompidou
Sunday after Sts Peter and Paul
30-VI-2013
72 if, as traditionally, the canonical book of Baruch is not counted as a separate book but as an appendix to Jeremiah (whose secretary Baruch was). Otherwise it is 73.
söndag 30 juni 2013
fredag 17 maj 2013
Popular on Apologetics Section
måndag 6 maj 2013
A Suspicious Testimony
Clear Gospel, Directory, Rev. Ronald R Shea, Esq.
Testimony called: No Infused Grace
http://cleargospel.org/directory/profile.php?id=112
Quotes with my answers and follow up questions:
OK, two questions:
1) were you ever taught that Christ's work for your salvation was handed to your personally profiting from it in Holy Mass?
2) were you ever taught to adress Christ on the Cross with the words "tantus labor non sit cassus" = may such a great work not be invalid/unprofitable (for myself) - or were you not?
Confessing a venial sin that you do not regret is dangerous, and if you only confess that one without real regret, your confession is worse than worthless, it is a sacrilege. Therefore, when confessing a venial sin you may also search for a sin in the past that you CERTAINLY regret, and your confession will not be a sacrilege. A venial sin can be erased by confession, by communion, by prayer, by anything done out of love for God, since its essence is laxness about the love of God.
A mortal sin is what the Bible calls "crucifying Jesus all over again".
The thing with venial sins is that though they must be erased before one enters heaven, they need not be erased before death. A mortal sin kept in the hour of death on your conscience is persisting in betraying your Lord. Is that too complex for you?
(And yes, previous paragraph means that everyone in Purgatory is headed for Heaven. Nobody in Hell is headed for Heaven, unless God raises him from the dead so once again alive he can repent before dying again. Which has happened a few times.)
Infused grace mean the life of God himself, the Holy Spirit, infused into your soul. It is not just a question of being a good boy, though dead souls will not even be able to do that in the long run.
The "complex system" is precisely those two. The actual graces are what enable you to be a good boy (whether you consciously receive them as graces from God or not), and the sanctifying or infused grace is the life of God becoming life of your soul. Obviously if you die without it, you go where the dead souls go, to the place of eternal death.
Oh, as for Indulgence Prayers, are you sure that Gloria Patri was Fifteen Years and Memorare was Forty-five? I am not quite sure about that. But even if it were true - I suspect it is not, either you lie or your memory fools you but I could be wrong - it could be explained by the fact that Gloria Patri should be prayed daily. There is actually no theological reason why you should not still pray it daily, unless your dissatisfaction with the "Sacramental System" has worn off to be a mistrust in Holy Trinity too.
She might either not have heard your question included the words "when they die" or she might even more probably have been replaced for teaching you wrong. Some people are said to have had all of their purgatory on earth. The Holy Martyrs, or St Thérèse of Lisieux who made in part Tuberculosis her martyrdom (contracted, I think while she was tending to the sick) and in part every little annoyance she could offer up to God by bearing it with a smile to the annoying person.
Your mental calculus about how many years you were spending in purgatory was pretty much misapplied mathematics, due to your superfluous question of where you were standing about avoiding Purgatory. Now, Luther in a dark moment, and he was condemned by Pope Leo X for saying it, stated that the souls in Purgatory love God so much they would hate to leave Purgatory without effecting all the penances, and therefore dislike having indulgences applied to them. That is wrong, they are of course satisfied if God lets them off earlier than supposed. But if you had instead of asking how much Purgatory you were escaping by ten minutes of Gloria Patri tried to use the ten minutes to Glorify actually the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, you might have made it to Heaven, after some stumbles, with pretty good ease (not meaning you would have died already, but meaning you would have already been secure of going to Heaven and not too afraid of going to Purgatory first).
It is not the passions, it is consenting to them, outside the hallowed ground of marriage, which would do that.
Have you not read "who looketh on his neighbours wife with carnal desire has already committed adultery with her in his heart" or "adulterers ... will not enter the Kingdom of God"?
What you needed (and what I for one need too) was marriage. Ask your wife if she wouldn't like to get along back to the Catholic Church with you, that is saving your soul.
Ouch, pretty much the kind of mistake I used to do pretty often when confessing in certain years after my conversion. Pretty certain attitude to ruin confession for you.
What exactly were you trying to do?
Going to Holy Mass is not doing a dead work, it is visiting Christ on Calvary, where he died for you. If you cannot go back in a time machine to the first Good Friday and see Him bleed for you, and if you cannot go to Narnia and be present at the stone table, you can go to Holy Mass. What is "dead works of the law" about that?
Did he die for Hitler and Stalin and were Stalin and Hitler saved? Or did Hitler and Stalin miss out on something they had to do, like not committing mortal sins that crucified Christ again and like visiting Christ in Holy Mass to renew their love for him? Are you saying that Hell is empty?
Oh, sorry: I saw you are single. But I also saw you with children on photos from a Christmas. Are you actually divorced?
Sorry again, I saw you are married to Ch. R., you will have to correct info on the directory:
If you had been told how to pray the Rosary - which can give you plenary indulgence (no time at all in Purgatory for sins committed and forgiven before it was gained), how come you did not try to use knots on a string or even rosary beads for the tally, so you could get your mind off keeping the tally?
Did they never teach you the Rosary?
I mean, testimonies like this look a bit like wilful forgetfulness about your Catholic past. Or, just possibly, with Chick Tract like "honesty" close to Avro Manhattan and Phelps, a lie.
If it were true, I would very much like to know who your bishop was back then, so his sinful negligence in catechism can be duly punished by the Roman Catholic Church.
[He posted his testimony on a FB Group that is Catholic and Sedisvacantist. I was added to it and posted quotes with my answers there first./HGL]
Oh, double sorry, I just saw that Mr R. is not at all the Ronald Shea that the testimony is about.
[So A posted testimony of B, and I confused them, apologioes made on group./HGL]
Testimony called: No Infused Grace
http://cleargospel.org/directory/profile.php?id=112
Quotes with my answers and follow up questions:
"As with so many other sects within Christendom, I was taught that my salvation was not contingent upon the work of the Savior, but dependent upon my obedience to the ten Commandments. Actually, the work of the Savior was unknown to me. Every 'good Friday' we would make the 'stations of the cross' reflecting on the torture and death of Jesus. But what was the significance of it? Basically, my theology was, 'look what those mean people are doing to Jesus. This is just TERRRIBLE!.' "
OK, two questions:
1) were you ever taught that Christ's work for your salvation was handed to your personally profiting from it in Holy Mass?
2) were you ever taught to adress Christ on the Cross with the words "tantus labor non sit cassus" = may such a great work not be invalid/unprofitable (for myself) - or were you not?
"But the removal of venial sins was much more complex. Confession absolved you of your sins, but you still faced Purgatory. So I never quite understood what advantageous confession held for venial sins. The only real advantage I could see was that, if some sin were “right on the line” between mortal and venial, it was probably best to confess it and get it erased."
Confessing a venial sin that you do not regret is dangerous, and if you only confess that one without real regret, your confession is worse than worthless, it is a sacrilege. Therefore, when confessing a venial sin you may also search for a sin in the past that you CERTAINLY regret, and your confession will not be a sacrilege. A venial sin can be erased by confession, by communion, by prayer, by anything done out of love for God, since its essence is laxness about the love of God.
A mortal sin is what the Bible calls "crucifying Jesus all over again".
The thing with venial sins is that though they must be erased before one enters heaven, they need not be erased before death. A mortal sin kept in the hour of death on your conscience is persisting in betraying your Lord. Is that too complex for you?
(And yes, previous paragraph means that everyone in Purgatory is headed for Heaven. Nobody in Hell is headed for Heaven, unless God raises him from the dead so once again alive he can repent before dying again. Which has happened a few times.)
"Receiving communion was supposed to 'infuse grace' into me. This mystical substance called 'grace' was supposed to empower me to live a good life, so I would sin less, and consequently, spend less time in purgatory (or—God forbid—hell!)."
Infused grace mean the life of God himself, the Holy Spirit, infused into your soul. It is not just a question of being a good boy, though dead souls will not even be able to do that in the long run.
"There was also a complex system of different kinds of graces. I can only remember two of them now, 'actual grace' and 'sanctifying grace.'"
The "complex system" is precisely those two. The actual graces are what enable you to be a good boy (whether you consciously receive them as graces from God or not), and the sanctifying or infused grace is the life of God becoming life of your soul. Obviously if you die without it, you go where the dead souls go, to the place of eternal death.
Oh, as for Indulgence Prayers, are you sure that Gloria Patri was Fifteen Years and Memorare was Forty-five? I am not quite sure about that. But even if it were true - I suspect it is not, either you lie or your memory fools you but I could be wrong - it could be explained by the fact that Gloria Patri should be prayed daily. There is actually no theological reason why you should not still pray it daily, unless your dissatisfaction with the "Sacramental System" has worn off to be a mistrust in Holy Trinity too.
"I raised my hand in class, and said, 'Sister Ruth Marie, some people won’t have to go to Purgatory when they die, right?' Without hesitation, she responded, 'No, everyone has to go to Purgatory.' "
She might either not have heard your question included the words "when they die" or she might even more probably have been replaced for teaching you wrong. Some people are said to have had all of their purgatory on earth. The Holy Martyrs, or St Thérèse of Lisieux who made in part Tuberculosis her martyrdom (contracted, I think while she was tending to the sick) and in part every little annoyance she could offer up to God by bearing it with a smile to the annoying person.
Your mental calculus about how many years you were spending in purgatory was pretty much misapplied mathematics, due to your superfluous question of where you were standing about avoiding Purgatory. Now, Luther in a dark moment, and he was condemned by Pope Leo X for saying it, stated that the souls in Purgatory love God so much they would hate to leave Purgatory without effecting all the penances, and therefore dislike having indulgences applied to them. That is wrong, they are of course satisfied if God lets them off earlier than supposed. But if you had instead of asking how much Purgatory you were escaping by ten minutes of Gloria Patri tried to use the ten minutes to Glorify actually the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, you might have made it to Heaven, after some stumbles, with pretty good ease (not meaning you would have died already, but meaning you would have already been secure of going to Heaven and not too afraid of going to Purgatory first).
"Still, I recognized that, within me lay the passions that could damn my eternal soul to hell!"
It is not the passions, it is consenting to them, outside the hallowed ground of marriage, which would do that.
Have you not read "who looketh on his neighbours wife with carnal desire has already committed adultery with her in his heart" or "adulterers ... will not enter the Kingdom of God"?
What you needed (and what I for one need too) was marriage. Ask your wife if she wouldn't like to get along back to the Catholic Church with you, that is saving your soul.
"I needed to cloak my question in some measure of piety."
Ouch, pretty much the kind of mistake I used to do pretty often when confessing in certain years after my conversion. Pretty certain attitude to ruin confession for you.
"And in choosing Christ, I needed to 'prove' to myself that I had trusted Christ alone, and not 'Christ plus works.' And this is consistent with Matthew 3:5-9. I not only needed to repent of my dead works, I needed to 'bring forth fruit of my repentance.' I needed to live my life in a way that confirmed I was trusting Christ alone."
What exactly were you trying to do?
Going to Holy Mass is not doing a dead work, it is visiting Christ on Calvary, where he died for you. If you cannot go back in a time machine to the first Good Friday and see Him bleed for you, and if you cannot go to Narnia and be present at the stone table, you can go to Holy Mass. What is "dead works of the law" about that?
"I need no other argument. I need no other plea. It is ENOUGH that Jesus died, and that he died for me."
Did he die for Hitler and Stalin and were Stalin and Hitler saved? Or did Hitler and Stalin miss out on something they had to do, like not committing mortal sins that crucified Christ again and like visiting Christ in Holy Mass to renew their love for him? Are you saying that Hell is empty?
Oh, sorry: I saw you are single. But I also saw you with children on photos from a Christmas. Are you actually divorced?
Sorry again, I saw you are married to Ch. R., you will have to correct info on the directory:
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"I recited the "Glory Be" for ten minutes straight. . . keeping a tally, of course, for the number of prayers I recited. I realized God could keep track of such things, and I had full confidence in his omniscience. But I also needed to know where I stood."
If you had been told how to pray the Rosary - which can give you plenary indulgence (no time at all in Purgatory for sins committed and forgiven before it was gained), how come you did not try to use knots on a string or even rosary beads for the tally, so you could get your mind off keeping the tally?
Did they never teach you the Rosary?
I mean, testimonies like this look a bit like wilful forgetfulness about your Catholic past. Or, just possibly, with Chick Tract like "honesty" close to Avro Manhattan and Phelps, a lie.
If it were true, I would very much like to know who your bishop was back then, so his sinful negligence in catechism can be duly punished by the Roman Catholic Church.
[He posted his testimony on a FB Group that is Catholic and Sedisvacantist. I was added to it and posted quotes with my answers there first./HGL]
Oh, double sorry, I just saw that Mr R. is not at all the Ronald Shea that the testimony is about.
[So A posted testimony of B, and I confused them, apologioes made on group./HGL]
torsdag 14 februari 2013
Makarios
Great Bishop of Geneva! : 1) Makarios · 2) Once Saved, Always Saved - True for Church, Not True for All Christians Individually · 3) Protestants - Not - Getting Around Matthew 28 Last Three Verses: John Calvin's Attempt · 4) Barnes NOT getting around Matthew 28:20 ... · 5) Since St Francis of Sales had Real Objections to Calvinism ... 6) Contra Sproul 7) Barnes on Jewish Tradition 8) If Constantine had Founded the Catholic Church ... 9) Salvation and Schrödinger's Cat Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : 10) ... on Apostolic Succession, both as to Reasons and Answering an Objection or Two (quora)
Romans 4:8
Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him.
Cross reference Psalms 32:1
Of David. A maskil. Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.
Catholic interpretation: a newly baptised person is such. Both the original sin and his own previous transgressions (in case he was baptised as an adult) are forgiven by baptism. Nothing which he committed before baptism will ever be counted against him again by the Lord. Such he remains as long as he commits no mortal sin.
If there is a new sin, it is not covered by a baptism that went before it. However, confession is open to him. If it is a small one, he can exercise the life which is in him through baptism, and it is enough to cover the small sin. If it is such a sin as to deprive him of the life that is within him through baptism, then he needs to confess, repent and resolve, get absolution. And then he is blessed again. The transgressions he committed after baptism are covered also, God will never remember them either against him.
As far as I know, the Greek Orthodox, the Monophysite, the Nestorian interpretations are exactly the same or closely similar. All of these Churches do have confession - though most Catholic theologians would argue it is not valid except in special cases. Like innocent ignorance of where the Church is (it may be common or not, but still special: the Church as such is not invisible), or for a Catholic the cases of either dying before confession unless confessing to one of those, or living long without confession unless confessing to one of those.
Blessed does not just refer to a juridic state of non-condemnation, nor to a subjective feeling of relief over not being condemned after doing something condemnable. It refers to the life that is in the newly and rightly baptised man, which is the same life that can continue past death, if it is there in that moment, and freed from mortal cares, either directly or after purgatory will make a man blessed without any reservation or dimming of the glory. It is the heavenly life. It is in Catholic Theology referred to as The State of Grace, and it is by Theologians defined as the Indwelling of the Blessed Trinity in the human soul concerned.
Protestant reply: but if God knows that a man who has just been justified will sin in the future, does not that mean he is not blessed unless God already decides not to count the future sins either?
No, is the Catholic answer to that reply. The blessedness is not the same thing as an unrevocable decision of God not to damn him ever whatever he may do in the future. God knows if the man's blessedness will last or not. The man does not. But St Paul tells him in this verse that his past sins are no more an impediment to his life in God or the life of God in him, as soon as his sins are covered either by baptism or, if committed after baptism, by the sacrament of confession. The blessedness as such is God's indwelling in the man's soul.
There may or probably even was a time, when Judas Ischariot was blessed, was in a state of grace. But probably even before the betrayal, he lost the blessedness, lost the state of grace, by greed and by stealing from God.
Now, check if my explanation is correctly in accordance with Haydock's Bible commentary of verses 6-9 of this chapter:
Ver. 6. As David, &c. That is, David accounted a man happy in being justified by God's grace, and not by his own works, when he said: Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven by the mercies of God, and whose sins are covered; that is, covered so as to be no more, even in the sight of God. (Witham)
Ver. 7. Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. That is, blessed are those who, by doing penance, have obtained pardon and remission of their sins, and also are covered; that is, newly clothed with the habit of grace, and vested with the stole of charity. (Challoner) --- When it is said that the sins of man are covered, we must not imagine that they still remain, but on account of the goodness of God will not be punished, as the Lutherans contend; for the justice of God could not suffer this: but by it we must understand that they are entirely blotted out, and neither exist, nor are considered any longer by God. Still, we must not conclude that man is blessed, as soon as sin is remitted; since the same psalmist, in another place, ascribes happiness to man when he walks in the law of the Lord, and when he keeps judgment and does justice. (Psalms i; cv; and cviii.) And our Saviour says, If you know these things, blessed shall you be if you do them. (St. John xiii.) (Estius) --- Moreover, if sins were never blotted out, but only covered, why did the royal prophet pray to the Almighty, saying: blot out all mine iniquities; and in different parts of the 50th psalm and psalm cviii, speaking of the egregious sinner, he says: let the sin of his mother not be blotted out; which would mean nothing at all, if sins were never blotted out? (Haydock)
Ver. 8. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord hath not imputed sin. That is, blessed is the man who hath retained his baptismal innocence, that no grievous sin can be imputed to him. And likewise, blessed is the man who, after falling into sin hath done penance, and leads a virtuous life by frequenting the sacraments necessary for obtaining the grace to prevent a relapse, that sin is no more imputed to him. (Challoner)
Ver. 9. This blessedness, by which a man's sins are forgiven, and his soul truly justified, was promised, and is given to the uncircumcised Gentiles, as well as to the circumcised Jews, by the faith and grace of Christ; as Abraham was justified, when he was in the state of uncircumcision. (Witham)
That's all I had to say on this one./HGL
Oh yes, one more: St Peter decided to baptise Cornelius, when through the visible signs of the Holy Ghost the Apostle knew that the uncircumcised Roman had this blessedness in him, already before baptism. For if we are bound to seek the Sacraments, God is not bound to deny grace to those that have not yet gone to them./HGL
fredag 8 februari 2013
Resurrection, Holy Eucharist, Holy Poverty (or, Why Was Wycliff Wrong)
The defense for the Resurrection is rather well put by the son of Craig Lampe, Ph.D.* Here, Joel Lampe on The Bible on Trial:
They did stay together a few years as collective episcopacy of the Church in Jerusalem. With St Peter as their head. So, based on merely that, there is a theoretical chance they could have concocted a story, at least they had the time if you go only by that.
One more quote from Joel Lampe:
Big trouble number one with that story: the question what happened to the Church between the Apostles (or possibly Saint Jerome) and John Wycliffe.
Bible says the Church cannot fail between Ascension and Return of Our Lord. Our Lord's words, end of Gospel of St Matthew.
Big trouble number two with it: his Father Dr Craig's* solution the Bible teaching was kept pure and alive by a "secret society called the Culdees".
Bible says the Church cannot be a secret society. "A city built on a mountain cannot be hidden". "No man lighteth a candle/lamp so as to place it under a bushel" - and would God who lit the beacon of Light for our souls, whose word is a lantern for our feet put his candle** under a bushel? Or allow it to be put under a bushel by evil men for any longer time?
Even in Russia, 1917-1990, lots of people knew the Gospels because they were known before, from the time of the Czars. And that obscuration was not even reducing the Church to a secret society, since Orthodox and in some parts Catholic priests were openly celebrating Mass and preaching the Resurrection on Easter.
Now, let us therefore look on Craig's story about Wycliff, from The Forbidden Book.
John Wycliff was a product of the chosing of that secret society...
As already stated, the Culdees were not a secret society, they were Monks of the Celtic discipline. Iona was founded by some spiritual grandson or greatgrandson of St Patrick (whose biography I am now reading). By the way, it is not Culdee that means a certain starnger, but Chaldaeus, Chaldean. And St Joseph was not a Chaldean, he was a Hebrew, a Hebraeus. Culdee is not Latin but Irish: "Caol Dé" = "Companion of God". Just as "Socius Jesu" (the Latin for Jesuit) = "Companion of Jesus." But as little as the Jesuits in Spain, as little were the Culdees in the British Isles a Secret Society.
It is possible that certain Culdees after the Norman Conquest ousted the Celtic Church Discipline (and yes, Celtic and Roman Church differred only on discipline) degenerated into a secret society, just as it is possible that Templars after the burning of Jacques Molay in 1313 degenerated into a secret society more than they had become already by then (I mean Jacques Molay was no true and faithful successor of Hugues de Payns, unless he fooled - as I think he did not - the Council of Troyes of 1129, because quite certainly Hugues de Payns was not forcing - and would not have been allowed to start the order if he had been thought to force - new recruits to the order to tread on a Crucifix, as Jacques Molay was condemned for: some say Templars surviving in Scotland became the deplorable Freemasons, by infiltrating what had previously been Lodges of simple builders, and it is just barely possible but not at all likely that such degeneration happened to some Culdees as well).
But it is normally so that the Culdees who were not allowed to continue in their older discipline after Norman Conquests of the Celtic fringes (as well as Monks of Ely after Norman Conquest in England) took the Benedictine or later possibly Cistercian discipline. And on what basis could you say there were exceptions living on as a secret society or that new Benedictines even were secretly disloyal to the new Church discipline but at same time highly organised? Contemporary documents? - Not that I know of.
Wyclef stated he belonged to a secret society? - Would have been dangerous. Not likely.
Secret societies later claimed they continued the Culdees whose man Wyclef was? - That is in my opinion the very likeliest basis, unless it is just hysteria about Catholicism making secret society like behaviour a necessity for true Christians and trying to identify the "secret society Christians", picking Culdees for a reason or another.
Some have stated that the whole Reformation (like Freemasonry, like Bolshevism) is after all the product of people acting sometimes after the fashion of secret societies. These would be Jews, the sect that much earlier had crucified Our Lord. I find it barely likelier Jews by hatred of Christianity (which was offering them a status of second class citizens, after all) would have misunderstood or otherwise attacked the Holy Eucharist, picked out a man who did not shun them too much, talked to him and so on ...
But at least as likely if not likelier that some persecuted Waldensians - for there were times when they were persecuted - approached him.
If we can discount that, we can say he was his own deluder.
Here prepared a little tract called the Wicket, and it was a denial of Transsubstantiation.
That much is nearly sure that he denied Transsubstantiation. Or at least attacked it. Has the tract been preserved or not? Has if there is one its genuine descent from the pen of Wycliff been duly established?
Because the Bible did not support the idea that there is some kind of illusion or som kind of hocus pocus
The "refutation" of Transsubstantiation based thereon was refuted itself by St Thomas Aquinas:***
Summa Theologiae, III P, Q 75
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/4075.htm
and
Summa Theologiae, III P, Q 77
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/4077.htm
From the latter, A 1:
In other words, it is the real lightness or whiteness of bread you experience by touch or sight even when there is no real bread there any longer. And because the real whiteness and lightness is still there, same lightness and whiteness as when they were those of bread not yet consecrated, there is no deceit. There is no illusion.
And they would serve the elements in a Cannibalistic way.
Not at all. Cannibalism means eating the body of a man dead, or possibly dying from the cannibalism, unless it is very limited as in modern perversions of ritual Vampyrism. It means taking away pieces or drops to eat by one man what would otherwise have been the life of another one.
But Christ is risen, and His Body and Blood are not there under their own dimensions. Each communicant takes into his mouth and swallows, under the dimensions of bread and wine, not a piece of Christ's body but all of it, not a drop of Christ's blood but all of it. It is not blood as being spilled, it is blood as running in the veins of the Risen Body. Communion is not Cannibalism, it is offering up one's body to be a place where Christ is in His Body and Blood. Cannibalism is eating someone else's death. Communion is eating God's life. Cannibalism is eating someone weaker than oneself, since already dead. Communion is eating someone stronger than oneself, since already risen and since the very Person of God the Son, of God Almighty.
However, if Wycliff himself made the charge - I am right now searching Wikipedia for "The Wicket Wycliffe Lollards" and I get: "Did you mean: The Cricket Wycliffe Lollards" because Wicket is also a term in the Cricket game - then he was basically agreeing with Jewish anti-Christian and earlier Roman Pagan anti-Christian polemics. The "Cannibal" charge against Christians was made due to the Holy Eucharist. The Cannibal charge made by Celsus.
While on search for The Wicket, I get to an Old Paths Publications where Wycliff is said to have "defended property rights against Rome." He did not, he attacked voluntary poverty, the state in which the Church of Jerusalem lived. He called people having sold all their property and given it to the poor and living as beggars "thieves" precisely as the Pharisees and Sadducees might have called the Church in Jerusalem.
Between St Jerome and the time of Wycliff, the Faith delivered to and through the Apostles was not kept alive by a secret society of Culdees emanating into Wycliff, but by the established Church - including the time when it condemned Wycliff.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Château d'Eau Library
Paris
St John of Matha, O. SS. Trin.
8-II-2013
* As per mail I received Craig Lampe is Ph. D. I am neither claiming nor denying it, he is claiming it. As to what University or what subject, I do not know. It is not Lund University's Faculty for History, nor for Classical Studies. I know a Historian there, I studied Latin there, such ignorance as his about the Latin Middle Ages is inconceivable there. At least if you are promoted to Ph.D. - as I was not but do not claim to have been.
** Probable reference not to the kind of candles or tapers of wax you seen in Church, but to oil lamps. These had wicks like candles, and I am quoting from memory.
*** His Summa Theologiae is available online, both Latin and English translation. It has five parts, of which he did the first four in context. Prima Pars (I P) is about God as Creator and about Creation in General. Secunda Pars is really two parts, it is about Human Actions and their principles and that means it is there you find definitions of Sin and Grace. Prima Secundae (I-II) deals with basic principles of human actions, there you find freewill and passions, law and grace and the charismata. Secunda Secundae (II-II) deals with diverse virtues and sins. There you can find definition of Faith, Hope and Charity - as well as of diverse sins against these. Tertia Pars (III P) deals with Incarnation, Redemption, Church and Sacraments. But III P is only the part he completed himself. It includes Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist, but the general outline of the work is followed up by his disciples in Tertiae Partis Supplementum (III Suppl.), which takes the rest of the Sacraments, and in context with Penance deals also with Indulgences. After the Sacraments it goes on to Eschatology. Its words are his, but taken together from earlier works done on other plans, basically. Each of these five parts - I, I-II, II-II, III, (III) Suppl - is divided into sections not marked in citation but these are subdivided into Quaestiones that are numbered all through such a part. After one quaestio dealing with Theology and Holy Writ you continue counting the Quaestiones about God, as such, as Trinity, as Creator, and after that the numbering continues unbroken for the Quaestiones about Creation (Q 70 is about "The Work of Fourth Day of Creation" for instance), and each Quaestio is subdivided into closely related aspects, known as Articles. Each Article begins with the "Objections" against truth, continues one authority for truth known as "Sed Contra", then comes St Thomas' explanation of the main point in the "In corpore" and then his answers to objections in the final parts known as "Ad 1, ad 2 ..." enumerating the responses to each of the objections in same order.
He also said he learned from his academic study of Jesus' disciples that, many of them experienced horrific deaths "and none even flinched."
"These were 11 guys who went 11 different directions (after the Ascension) and never saw each other again. They all told the same story and refused to deny what they saw. There had to be something to what they believed," he said.
They did stay together a few years as collective episcopacy of the Church in Jerusalem. With St Peter as their head. So, based on merely that, there is a theoretical chance they could have concocted a story, at least they had the time if you go only by that.
- However, the Church started out with a Story told on Pentecost day. If they had been reshaping the story after, they would have lost adherents. So, in fact they did not have more time than 52 days between Crucifixion and Pentecost.
- If they had agreed on it in spite of facts known by them (supposing there had been such as would have invalidated their story) they would not have died unflinching deaths under torture, or, as for St John, faced a naturally inevitable death under boiling oil and then survive miraculously.
Nor been in the mood for the show they did on Pentecost day. And the miracle of Languages would not have happened. God does not make miracles for liars.
- If they had been mad, they would not have been able to agree on a story and would not have been able to guide, in the open, a Church like that.
Even sane people have trouble making homeless shelters agreeable for all concerned, perhaps they do not want to but want people to look for work so as to get away from them - but the Church in Jerusalem was people sacrificing their carreers so as to be able to live together.
The Hippie Camps have tried to rival that recently - and mostly failed. And it started out 5000 men plus women and children. Not just Hippie camp, but Woodstock - and Altamont. As far as scale is concerned. But the Church had no Altamont. And even Altamont was not ran by madmen, it just went wrong anyway.
One more quote from Joel Lampe:
A couple of years later, he said, he began studying the lives of William Tyndale, John Rogers, Thomas Cranmer and John Wycliffe - biblical publishing pioneers who were persecuted or killed for challenging the authority of the Roman Catholic Church.
Big trouble number one with that story: the question what happened to the Church between the Apostles (or possibly Saint Jerome) and John Wycliffe.
Bible says the Church cannot fail between Ascension and Return of Our Lord. Our Lord's words, end of Gospel of St Matthew.
Big trouble number two with it: his Father Dr Craig's* solution the Bible teaching was kept pure and alive by a "secret society called the Culdees".
Bible says the Church cannot be a secret society. "A city built on a mountain cannot be hidden". "No man lighteth a candle/lamp so as to place it under a bushel" - and would God who lit the beacon of Light for our souls, whose word is a lantern for our feet put his candle** under a bushel? Or allow it to be put under a bushel by evil men for any longer time?
Even in Russia, 1917-1990, lots of people knew the Gospels because they were known before, from the time of the Czars. And that obscuration was not even reducing the Church to a secret society, since Orthodox and in some parts Catholic priests were openly celebrating Mass and preaching the Resurrection on Easter.
Now, let us therefore look on Craig's story about Wycliff, from The Forbidden Book.
John Wycliff was a product of the chosing of that secret society...
As already stated, the Culdees were not a secret society, they were Monks of the Celtic discipline. Iona was founded by some spiritual grandson or greatgrandson of St Patrick (whose biography I am now reading). By the way, it is not Culdee that means a certain starnger, but Chaldaeus, Chaldean. And St Joseph was not a Chaldean, he was a Hebrew, a Hebraeus. Culdee is not Latin but Irish: "Caol Dé" = "Companion of God". Just as "Socius Jesu" (the Latin for Jesuit) = "Companion of Jesus." But as little as the Jesuits in Spain, as little were the Culdees in the British Isles a Secret Society.
It is possible that certain Culdees after the Norman Conquest ousted the Celtic Church Discipline (and yes, Celtic and Roman Church differred only on discipline) degenerated into a secret society, just as it is possible that Templars after the burning of Jacques Molay in 1313 degenerated into a secret society more than they had become already by then (I mean Jacques Molay was no true and faithful successor of Hugues de Payns, unless he fooled - as I think he did not - the Council of Troyes of 1129, because quite certainly Hugues de Payns was not forcing - and would not have been allowed to start the order if he had been thought to force - new recruits to the order to tread on a Crucifix, as Jacques Molay was condemned for: some say Templars surviving in Scotland became the deplorable Freemasons, by infiltrating what had previously been Lodges of simple builders, and it is just barely possible but not at all likely that such degeneration happened to some Culdees as well).
But it is normally so that the Culdees who were not allowed to continue in their older discipline after Norman Conquests of the Celtic fringes (as well as Monks of Ely after Norman Conquest in England) took the Benedictine or later possibly Cistercian discipline. And on what basis could you say there were exceptions living on as a secret society or that new Benedictines even were secretly disloyal to the new Church discipline but at same time highly organised? Contemporary documents? - Not that I know of.
Wyclef stated he belonged to a secret society? - Would have been dangerous. Not likely.
Secret societies later claimed they continued the Culdees whose man Wyclef was? - That is in my opinion the very likeliest basis, unless it is just hysteria about Catholicism making secret society like behaviour a necessity for true Christians and trying to identify the "secret society Christians", picking Culdees for a reason or another.
Some have stated that the whole Reformation (like Freemasonry, like Bolshevism) is after all the product of people acting sometimes after the fashion of secret societies. These would be Jews, the sect that much earlier had crucified Our Lord. I find it barely likelier Jews by hatred of Christianity (which was offering them a status of second class citizens, after all) would have misunderstood or otherwise attacked the Holy Eucharist, picked out a man who did not shun them too much, talked to him and so on ...
But at least as likely if not likelier that some persecuted Waldensians - for there were times when they were persecuted - approached him.
If we can discount that, we can say he was his own deluder.
Here prepared a little tract called the Wicket, and it was a denial of Transsubstantiation.
That much is nearly sure that he denied Transsubstantiation. Or at least attacked it. Has the tract been preserved or not? Has if there is one its genuine descent from the pen of Wycliff been duly established?
Because the Bible did not support the idea that there is some kind of illusion or som kind of hocus pocus
The "refutation" of Transsubstantiation based thereon was refuted itself by St Thomas Aquinas:***
Summa Theologiae, III P, Q 75
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/4075.htm
and
Summa Theologiae, III P, Q 77
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/4077.htm
From the latter, A 1:
Objection 1. It seems that the accidents do not remain in this sacrament without a subject, because there ought not to be anything disorderly or deceitful in this sacrament of truth. But for accidents to be without a subject is contrary to the order which God established in nature; and furthermore it seems to savor of deceit, since accidents are naturally the signs of the nature of the subject. Therefore the accidents are not without a subject in this sacrament.
Reply to Objection 1. There is nothing to hinder the common law of nature from ordaining a thing, the contrary of which is nevertheless ordained by a special privilege of grace, as is evident in the raising of the dead, and in the restoring of sight to the blind: even thus in human affairs, to some individuals some things are granted by special privilege which are outside the common law. And so, even though it be according to the common law of nature for an accident to be in a subject, still for a special reason, according to the order of grace, the accidents exist in this sacrament without a subject, on account of the reasons given above (75, 5).
In other words, it is the real lightness or whiteness of bread you experience by touch or sight even when there is no real bread there any longer. And because the real whiteness and lightness is still there, same lightness and whiteness as when they were those of bread not yet consecrated, there is no deceit. There is no illusion.
And they would serve the elements in a Cannibalistic way.
Not at all. Cannibalism means eating the body of a man dead, or possibly dying from the cannibalism, unless it is very limited as in modern perversions of ritual Vampyrism. It means taking away pieces or drops to eat by one man what would otherwise have been the life of another one.
But Christ is risen, and His Body and Blood are not there under their own dimensions. Each communicant takes into his mouth and swallows, under the dimensions of bread and wine, not a piece of Christ's body but all of it, not a drop of Christ's blood but all of it. It is not blood as being spilled, it is blood as running in the veins of the Risen Body. Communion is not Cannibalism, it is offering up one's body to be a place where Christ is in His Body and Blood. Cannibalism is eating someone else's death. Communion is eating God's life. Cannibalism is eating someone weaker than oneself, since already dead. Communion is eating someone stronger than oneself, since already risen and since the very Person of God the Son, of God Almighty.
However, if Wycliff himself made the charge - I am right now searching Wikipedia for "The Wicket Wycliffe Lollards" and I get: "Did you mean: The Cricket Wycliffe Lollards" because Wicket is also a term in the Cricket game - then he was basically agreeing with Jewish anti-Christian and earlier Roman Pagan anti-Christian polemics. The "Cannibal" charge against Christians was made due to the Holy Eucharist. The Cannibal charge made by Celsus.
While on search for The Wicket, I get to an Old Paths Publications where Wycliff is said to have "defended property rights against Rome." He did not, he attacked voluntary poverty, the state in which the Church of Jerusalem lived. He called people having sold all their property and given it to the poor and living as beggars "thieves" precisely as the Pharisees and Sadducees might have called the Church in Jerusalem.
Between St Jerome and the time of Wycliff, the Faith delivered to and through the Apostles was not kept alive by a secret society of Culdees emanating into Wycliff, but by the established Church - including the time when it condemned Wycliff.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Château d'Eau Library
Paris
St John of Matha, O. SS. Trin.
8-II-2013
* As per mail I received Craig Lampe is Ph. D. I am neither claiming nor denying it, he is claiming it. As to what University or what subject, I do not know. It is not Lund University's Faculty for History, nor for Classical Studies. I know a Historian there, I studied Latin there, such ignorance as his about the Latin Middle Ages is inconceivable there. At least if you are promoted to Ph.D. - as I was not but do not claim to have been.
** Probable reference not to the kind of candles or tapers of wax you seen in Church, but to oil lamps. These had wicks like candles, and I am quoting from memory.
*** His Summa Theologiae is available online, both Latin and English translation. It has five parts, of which he did the first four in context. Prima Pars (I P) is about God as Creator and about Creation in General. Secunda Pars is really two parts, it is about Human Actions and their principles and that means it is there you find definitions of Sin and Grace. Prima Secundae (I-II) deals with basic principles of human actions, there you find freewill and passions, law and grace and the charismata. Secunda Secundae (II-II) deals with diverse virtues and sins. There you can find definition of Faith, Hope and Charity - as well as of diverse sins against these. Tertia Pars (III P) deals with Incarnation, Redemption, Church and Sacraments. But III P is only the part he completed himself. It includes Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist, but the general outline of the work is followed up by his disciples in Tertiae Partis Supplementum (III Suppl.), which takes the rest of the Sacraments, and in context with Penance deals also with Indulgences. After the Sacraments it goes on to Eschatology. Its words are his, but taken together from earlier works done on other plans, basically. Each of these five parts - I, I-II, II-II, III, (III) Suppl - is divided into sections not marked in citation but these are subdivided into Quaestiones that are numbered all through such a part. After one quaestio dealing with Theology and Holy Writ you continue counting the Quaestiones about God, as such, as Trinity, as Creator, and after that the numbering continues unbroken for the Quaestiones about Creation (Q 70 is about "The Work of Fourth Day of Creation" for instance), and each Quaestio is subdivided into closely related aspects, known as Articles. Each Article begins with the "Objections" against truth, continues one authority for truth known as "Sed Contra", then comes St Thomas' explanation of the main point in the "In corpore" and then his answers to objections in the final parts known as "Ad 1, ad 2 ..." enumerating the responses to each of the objections in same order.
tisdag 5 februari 2013
Good News about Protestants
Great Bishop of Geneva! Good News about Protestants · Correspondence of Hans Georg Lundahl : About the Late Craig Lampe, His Son, His Book
I received a mail from the author of The Forbidden Book:
Dear Sir, I received your research on The Forbidden Book. I will review it carefully. Thank you for sending it to us. Craig Lampe, Ph.D
Now, that is a change from the days of "bilious Bale". If mistaken, now they will at least look it up!/HGL
måndag 28 januari 2013
The Royal Inquisition, England, Compared to Others
"Discover how the Word was preserved through the 1,000 year period of the Dark and Middle Ages, when possession of scripture in any language other than Latin meant certain death at the hands of the organized church."
source of quote:
http://www.greatsite.com/featured-items-and-events/forbidden-book.html
It did not.
Possession in English might have meant death during the anti-Lollard Inquisition, decided by one law of the English Parliament, for about one hundred years.
This is what wikipedia states:
Footnote 1 links to full text of the Royal - not Papal! - decree, English version:
De Hæretico Comburendo (1401)
http://www.ric.edu/faculty/rpotter/heretico.html
Continued: While we are speaking about Lollards: they petitioned the parliament in 1395. It seems they wanted the Parliament to force their ways on the Catholic Church in England, which was at the time the only Church there, the Church of everyone, except, recently, these Lollards. Now, 1401 Henry IV decides they shall be burned. What happened? Did the Parliament listen to their demands, make a decision, that the Pope wanted the King to override, and did the King dissolve the Parliament in order to push this, in obedience to the Pope?
No, you will happen to recall that 1401 was during the period of 39 years when there were two Popes.
One was in the Holy Roman Empire of Germanic Nation (a part of it that was Roman enough to speak Provençal), namely in Avignon, close to the French border (it became Spanish briefly during Thirty Years War and was conquered by France under Louis XIV). Not in England. The other one was in Rome. Not in England either. It seems the English decision has something to do with English independence from either Pope rather than with Papal decisions.
It seems that the Parliament debated the Lollard petition and came to the conclusion that the Lollards were wicked and dangerous. They took the decision to persecute heresy in those particular ways (burning was staple rather than as elsewhere rare, inquiry was free rather than regulated - i e torture was elsewhere limited to maximum three days - and it was in the hand of a bishop rather than of Friars like Franciscans or Dominicans depending on the Pope). And Henry IV ratified it in 1401.
When John Foxe started writing his Booke of Martyrs, he was writing about that one, not about the French or Spanish or Italian Inquisitions. For some reason, maybe that Mary Tudor persecuted him out of England (under that English law, since Cardinal Reginald Pole had advised her not to burn any heretics, but she insisted), and he was given shelter on the continent, the heretics there saw an opportunity to achieve a book about their glorious past, as they mythologised it. And John Foxe widened the scope of his book.
Had anything like the English Inquisition gone on on the Continent? Yes. In France. In the parts where English King was recognised as the French one too. After 1401.
I will now turn to a better historian than John Foxe, and "as good an Inquisition hater as he", namely Henry Charles Lea. Since I read a French translation, I will backtranslate to English, beside the official French translation of the work. Histoire de l'Inquisition au Moyen-Age has been translated to French in 1900 and reedited in 1986, the text is by one Salomon Reinach. "American" original 1887. Page references are to original English (or "American") edition, which are given in the margin, this is 139 and Pope Martin V finds the Inquisition needs financing, it had no money to fulfill its functions any more:
Note that the assessment of Jewish innocence here is his, not mine. In religious matters they were quite offensive now and then. A bit more than Lollards, perhaps even. And I suspect H-C Lea to be more than a bit obtuse about that.
Compare Jews and Lollards, or the English Parliament from 1395 to 1401 with the burghers of Avignon in 1418, and compare Henry IV, King of England, with Martin V, Pope of Rome (he was, I recall, the first one Pope after the Schism).
Now, Dr. Craig Lampe pretended that Julius II and Leo X "began Holy Wars against the Jews" ... well, no. They succeeded a century after Martin V, and the habit of protecting Jews was strong with Papacy. Here, fortunately, I found a source not favourable to Popes or to Inquisition, who documents this.
Henry-Charles Lea however considered the presence of assessors a downfall of Inquisition. On the contrary, one brag of the Inquisition over centuries was being more fairminded than secular courts. In Spain people would commit some religious offense - not on burning-at-the-stake-level, but something like swearing, which was considered blasphemy (and to be fair, it was). The Inquisitor would hear their confession of the crime, hear their extenuating circumstances, and thereby give them a fair hearing in the case tha really concerned them. He would then give them a penance for swearing, which penance was a pilgrimage to Santiago - during which time of course the secular court could not pursue them. Besides, they could not pursue them because the Inquisition was a higher court, simple as that.
Why were the Lollards hated? Look here:
THE LOLLARD CONCLUSIONS, A. D. 1394.
http://www.scrollpublishing.com/store/Lollard-Conclusions.html
Unlike what you may think, until the times when the martyrdoms inflicted on them by the English Inquisition had given them a halo of sainthood, Lollards may have been thought of as creepy odd-balls.
Number four blasphemes the Blessed Sacrament, and number eight the Holy Cross and other relics. And that in the land of Glastonbury, proud of having, somewhere hidden, the relic which is as holy as cross and lance, namely chalice. Thanks to St Joseph of Arimathea.
But can even St Joan of Arc have been executed as suspect of being a Lollard? Look at nr 10 "That. manslaughter in war, or by pretended law of justice for a temporal cause, without spiritual revelation, is expressly contrary to the New Testament, which indeed is the law of grace and full of mercies." Now, St Joan had precisely a spiritual revelation about her war against the English in France. Did she believe such a one was necessary for a war not to be sinful? No, of course not. She was Catholic. As Catholic as any Protestant in the Spanish-American War, on that point. But the fact remains, the charge of heresy in context with a spiritual revelation about a war, as well as the fact that the proceedings were like Inquisitorial proceedings in England rather than the usual ones in France, makes my point. I have not yet read H-C Lea's account of Saint Joan of Arc's process./HGL
source of quote:
http://www.greatsite.com/featured-items-and-events/forbidden-book.html
It did not.
Possession in English might have meant death during the anti-Lollard Inquisition, decided by one law of the English Parliament, for about one hundred years.
This is what wikipedia states:
The De heretico comburendo (2 Hen.4 c.15) was a law passed by Parliament under King Henry IV of England in 1401, punishing heretics with burning at the stake. This law was one of the strictest religious censorship statutes ever enacted in England.
The statute declared there were "...divers false and perverse people of a certain new sect...they make and write books, they do wickedly instruct and inform people...and commit subversion of the said catholic faith".[1] The sect alluded to is the Lollards, followers of John Wycliffe.
De heretico comburendo urged "...that this wicked sect, preachings, doctrines, and opinions, should from henceforth cease and be utterly destroyed...", and declared "...that all and singular having such books or any writings of such wicked doctrine and opinions, shall really with effect deliver or cause to be delivered all such books and writings to the diocesan of the same place within forty days from the time of the proclamation of this ordinance and statute."[1]
"And if any person...such books in the form aforesaid do not deliver, then the diocesan of the same place in his diocese such person or persons in this behalf defamed or evidently suspected and every of them may by the authority of the said ordinance and statute cause to be arrested...". If they failed to abjure their "heretical" beliefs, or relapsed after an initial abjuration, they would "...be burnt, that such punishment may strike fear into the minds of others...".[1]
Section 6 of the Act of Supremacy (1 Eliz.1 c.1) (1559) repealed the statutes but it was not until March 1677 that a bill to take away the Crown's right to the writ was introduced in the House of Commons. It passed in that session.
Footnote 1 links to full text of the Royal - not Papal! - decree, English version:
De Hæretico Comburendo (1401)
http://www.ric.edu/faculty/rpotter/heretico.html
Continued: While we are speaking about Lollards: they petitioned the parliament in 1395. It seems they wanted the Parliament to force their ways on the Catholic Church in England, which was at the time the only Church there, the Church of everyone, except, recently, these Lollards. Now, 1401 Henry IV decides they shall be burned. What happened? Did the Parliament listen to their demands, make a decision, that the Pope wanted the King to override, and did the King dissolve the Parliament in order to push this, in obedience to the Pope?
No, you will happen to recall that 1401 was during the period of 39 years when there were two Popes.
One was in the Holy Roman Empire of Germanic Nation (a part of it that was Roman enough to speak Provençal), namely in Avignon, close to the French border (it became Spanish briefly during Thirty Years War and was conquered by France under Louis XIV). Not in England. The other one was in Rome. Not in England either. It seems the English decision has something to do with English independence from either Pope rather than with Papal decisions.
It seems that the Parliament debated the Lollard petition and came to the conclusion that the Lollards were wicked and dangerous. They took the decision to persecute heresy in those particular ways (burning was staple rather than as elsewhere rare, inquiry was free rather than regulated - i e torture was elsewhere limited to maximum three days - and it was in the hand of a bishop rather than of Friars like Franciscans or Dominicans depending on the Pope). And Henry IV ratified it in 1401.
When John Foxe started writing his Booke of Martyrs, he was writing about that one, not about the French or Spanish or Italian Inquisitions. For some reason, maybe that Mary Tudor persecuted him out of England (under that English law, since Cardinal Reginald Pole had advised her not to burn any heretics, but she insisted), and he was given shelter on the continent, the heretics there saw an opportunity to achieve a book about their glorious past, as they mythologised it. And John Foxe widened the scope of his book.
Had anything like the English Inquisition gone on on the Continent? Yes. In France. In the parts where English King was recognised as the French one too. After 1401.
I will now turn to a better historian than John Foxe, and "as good an Inquisition hater as he", namely Henry Charles Lea. Since I read a French translation, I will backtranslate to English, beside the official French translation of the work. Histoire de l'Inquisition au Moyen-Age has been translated to French in 1900 and reedited in 1986, the text is by one Salomon Reinach. "American" original 1887. Page references are to original English (or "American") edition, which are given in the margin, this is 139 and Pope Martin V finds the Inquisition needs financing, it had no money to fulfill its functions any more:
| Peut-être trouverait-on une réponse à cette question dans une pétition signée, en cette même année 1418, par les citoyens d'Avignon en faveur des Juifs. | Maybe one would find an answer to this question in a petition signed, this same year 1418, by the burghers of Avignon in favour of the Jews. | |
| La protection accordé par les papes avignonnais à la race proscrite avait fait de la ville un centre juif. | The protection accorded by the Popes of Avignon to the proscribed race had made the city a Jewish centre. | |
| Ils y rendaient des services que la population appréciait, mais ils étaient sans cesse molestés par les inquisiteurs, qui entamaient, contre eux des poursuites sans motifs, mais non, peut-être, sans profits. | They there rendered services appreciated by the population, but they were unceasingly molested by the Inquisitors, who began pursuits against them without any motive, but not, perhaps, without any gain. |
Note that the assessment of Jewish innocence here is his, not mine. In religious matters they were quite offensive now and then. A bit more than Lollards, perhaps even. And I suspect H-C Lea to be more than a bit obtuse about that.
| Martin écouta avec bienveillance la requête. | Martin heard the request favourably. | |
| Telle était la déchéance de l'Inquisition que le pape donna aux Juifs le droit de nommer un assesseur, chargé de siéger à côté de l'inquisiteur en toute affaire les concernant. | Such was the downfall of the Inquisition that the Pope gave the Jews the right to name an assessor, charged to sit beside the Inquisitor in every proceeding where they were concerned. |
Compare Jews and Lollards, or the English Parliament from 1395 to 1401 with the burghers of Avignon in 1418, and compare Henry IV, King of England, with Martin V, Pope of Rome (he was, I recall, the first one Pope after the Schism).
Now, Dr. Craig Lampe pretended that Julius II and Leo X "began Holy Wars against the Jews" ... well, no. They succeeded a century after Martin V, and the habit of protecting Jews was strong with Papacy. Here, fortunately, I found a source not favourable to Popes or to Inquisition, who documents this.
Henry-Charles Lea however considered the presence of assessors a downfall of Inquisition. On the contrary, one brag of the Inquisition over centuries was being more fairminded than secular courts. In Spain people would commit some religious offense - not on burning-at-the-stake-level, but something like swearing, which was considered blasphemy (and to be fair, it was). The Inquisitor would hear their confession of the crime, hear their extenuating circumstances, and thereby give them a fair hearing in the case tha really concerned them. He would then give them a penance for swearing, which penance was a pilgrimage to Santiago - during which time of course the secular court could not pursue them. Besides, they could not pursue them because the Inquisition was a higher court, simple as that.
Why were the Lollards hated? Look here:
THE LOLLARD CONCLUSIONS, A. D. 1394.
http://www.scrollpublishing.com/store/Lollard-Conclusions.html
Unlike what you may think, until the times when the martyrdoms inflicted on them by the English Inquisition had given them a halo of sainthood, Lollards may have been thought of as creepy odd-balls.
Number four blasphemes the Blessed Sacrament, and number eight the Holy Cross and other relics. And that in the land of Glastonbury, proud of having, somewhere hidden, the relic which is as holy as cross and lance, namely chalice. Thanks to St Joseph of Arimathea.
But can even St Joan of Arc have been executed as suspect of being a Lollard? Look at nr 10 "That. manslaughter in war, or by pretended law of justice for a temporal cause, without spiritual revelation, is expressly contrary to the New Testament, which indeed is the law of grace and full of mercies." Now, St Joan had precisely a spiritual revelation about her war against the English in France. Did she believe such a one was necessary for a war not to be sinful? No, of course not. She was Catholic. As Catholic as any Protestant in the Spanish-American War, on that point. But the fact remains, the charge of heresy in context with a spiritual revelation about a war, as well as the fact that the proceedings were like Inquisitorial proceedings in England rather than the usual ones in France, makes my point. I have not yet read H-C Lea's account of Saint Joan of Arc's process./HGL
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