554
ESSAYS ON LIBERTY
which shows the tribunal in full action under Honorius III. : "Sub nostrae indignationis fulmine praesenti edicto dis- trictius praecipiendo mandamus, quatenus inquisitoribus haereticae pravitatis, ut suum libere officium prosequi et exercere valeant, prout decet, omne quod potestis im- pendatis auxilium JJ (Franchina, Il1quisizione di Sicilia, 1774, 8). This document may be a forgery of the fifteenth century; but the whole of the Dominican version is dismissed by Mr. Lea with contempt. He has heard that their founder once rescued a heretic from the flames; "but Dominic's project only looked to their peaceful con- version, and to performing the duties of instruction and exhortation." Nothing is better authenticated in the life of the saint than the fact that he condemned heretics and exercised the right of deciding which of them should suffer and which should be spared. "Contigit quosdam haereticos captos et per eum convictos, cum redire nollent ad fidem catholicam, tradi judicio saeculari. Cumque essent incendio deputati, aspiciens inter alios quemdam Raymundum de Grossi nomine, ac si aliquem eo divinae praedestinationis radium fuisset intuitus, istum, inquit officialibus curiae, reservate, nec aliquo modo cum caeteris comburatur JJ (Constantinus, Vita S. D01Jzinici; Echard, Scriptores O. P., 1. 33). The transaction is melTIorable in Dominican annals as the one link distinctly connecting Saint Dominic with the system of executions, and the only security possessed by the order that the most conspicuous of its actions is sanctioned by the spirit and example of the founder. The original authorities record it, and it is commemorated by Bzovius and Malvenda, by Fontana and Percin, by Echard and Mamachi, as well as in the Acta San ctOYU 11l. Those are exactly the authors to whom in the first instance a man betakes himself who desires to understand the incep- tion and early growth of the Inquisition. I cannot re- member that anyone of them appears in Mr. Lea's notes. He says indeed that Saint Dominic's inquisitorial activity "is affirmed by all the historians of the order," and he is a workman who knows his tools so well that we may hesitate to impute this grave omission to inacquaintance
