ife,
from the faithful in general." Those who refused to be disciplined and
to conform were to be abandoned to the secular arm for fitting
punishment. All civil officers were to swear to enforce laws against
heretics. Here we find the fundamental notions of the later Inquisition,
but zealous executioners were wanting. If the decretal had been "obeyed
strictly and energetically, it would have established an episcopal
instead of a papal Inquisition."

+245. Definition of heretic.+ The definition of a heretic just quoted
occurs often and is the only one which could be formulated. A person was
as liable to be charged with heresy if better than the crowd as if
worse. "In fact, amid the license of the Middle Ages ascetic virtue was
apt to be regarded as a sign of heresy. About 1220 a clerk of Spire,
whose austerity subsequently led him to join the Franciscans, was only
saved by the interposition of Conrad, afterwards Bishop of Hildesheim,
from being burned as a heretic, because his preaching led certain women
to lay aside their vanities of apparel and behave with humility.... I
have met with a case, in 1320, in which a poor old woman at Pamiers
submitted to the dreadful sentence for heresy simply because she would
not take an oath. She answered all interrogations on points of faith in
orthodox fashion, but though offered her life if she would swear on the
gospels, she refused to burden her soul with the sin, and for this she
was condemned as a heretic."[555] "Heretics who were admitted to be
patterns of virtue were ruthlessly exterminated in the name of Christ,
while in the same holy name the orthodox could purchase absolution for
the vilest of crimes for a few coins."[556] There could be no definition
of a heretic but one who differed in life and conversation from the
masses around him. This might mean strange language, dress, manners, or
greater restraint in conduct. Pallor of countenance was a mark of a
heretic from the fourth century to the twelfth.[557] In the thirteenth
century Franciscans were preeminently orthodox, but when John XXII
stigmatized as heretical the assertion that Christ and his Apostles
never had any property, they became criminals whom civil officers were
bound to send to the stake.[558] John was himself a heretic as to the
"beatific vision." He thought that the dead would not enter the presence
of God until the judgment day.[559] The Franciscans held that the blood
shed by Christ in the Passion lost it