from the evil results which flowed from the presumption of impeccability. In their austere stoicism they condemned all sexual indulgence save that of which the sole object was the procurement of offspring. They taught that a woman in marrying should deeply deplore the loss of her virginity, and that no one was perfect in whom promiscuous nakedness could awaken either shame or passion. That tests of this kind were not infrequent, the history of ill-regulated enthusiasm, from the time of the early Christians, will not permit us to doubt, and the Beghards succeeded so well in subduing the senses that a hostile controversialist can only suggest Satanic influence, well known to demonologists for its refrigerating power, as an explanation of their wonderful self-control under such temptation. Yet this rare exaltation of austerity was not possible to all natures. It was easy for him who had not risen superior to the allurements of the senses to imagine himself perfected, impeccable, and entitled to gratify his passions. St. Paul, in arguing against the bondage of the Old Law, had furnished texts which, when cited apart from their contexts, could be and were alleged in justification: "For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death" (Rom. vIII. 2)-" The law is not made for a righteous man" (1 Tim. 1. 9)—“ But if ye be led of the Spirit ye are not under the law" (Galat. v. 18)—and the Brethren of the Free Spirit claimed freedom from all the trammels of the law. Such a doctrine was attractive to those who desired excuse and opportunity for license, and the evidence is too abundant and confirmatory for us to doubt that, at least in some cases, the sectaries abandoned themselves to the grossest sensuality. It is noteworthy that, in order to describe the divine internal light which they enjoyed, they invented for themselves the term Illuminism, which for more than three centuries continued to be of most serious import.[1]
As a branch of the sect may be reckoned the Luciferans, who have been repeatedly alluded to above. Pantheism, of course, in-
- ↑ Nider. Formicar. III. vi.-Concil. Colon. ann. 1306 c. 1 (Hartzheim IV. 101). -Trithem. Chron. Hirsaug. ann. 1356. Poggio states that in his time a number of ecclesiastics in Venice corruptedmany women with this theory of impeccability and of nakedness as an evidence of a state of grace.-Poggii Dial. contra Hypocrisim.
