scription of the Jewish herder of small cattle who, even at the time of the Talmud, belonged to the past, that we have to do with superannuated ordinances which merely record old remembrances.

It is important to know the attitude of the Canonical Law towards persons in danger. There it says:

All those who dare seize Roman or other Christians who, in commercial pursuits or for other honourable reasons, go to sea, or who rob them of their property, are liable to excommunication. Those also who rob shipwrecked Christians (to help whom they are bound according to the ordinances of the faith) of their property in damnable greed, shall know that they are liable to excommunication if they do not restore what they have robbed. Corpus Juris Canonici Decretales Gregorii liber V, titulus XVII, cap. 3.

According to this sentence Christian duty demands only that Christians be rescued from the sea, and the most severe ecclesiastical punishment is inflicted on those who rob Christians. Following the logic of Rohling, one might complete the sentence in the following way: "All this is permitted against nonChristians". His disciples do not hesitate to reason along these lines.

It is in our conduct towards the helpless and weak that the nature of civilization, the result of the educational influence of religion on the individual is revealed. On the 25th of December 1909, there happened in Uhersko, Bohemia, a terrible railway tragedy in which 13 people were killed and many seriously wounded. The "Prager Tagblatt" reported as follows:

"The slightly injured post-office employee Makowsky was robbed of six rings as well as of his watch. The injured persons [all non-Jews] complain that the peassants who, after the disaster had happened, hurried to the place of accident did not assist them. One of the injured who had his leg broken, and was lying in the mud of the railway embankment entreated those standing around to give him shelter from the pouring rain. But the peasants turned their backs on him without assisting him." According to the reports of eye-witnesses, the inhabitants of Uhersko stood around not only unconcernedly, but laughing derisively when the wounded who were bathed in blood asked

for relief from their pain. They demanded payment, before lending a hand, cash for the safe rescue of human lives. But the most remarkable feature of it was as verified by the papers

that the people had just been coming from church where the divine service had been solemnized, and where they had just heard the sermon of their pastor.

This occurrence confirmed again the deep wisdom of the admonition of our sages:

He who acts deceitfully and uncharitably towards those of another religion will soon come to practise deceit and uncharitableness towards those of his own religion. Yalkut II, 837, p. 583a; N. and W. 49.

This is most remarkable in the light of the speech which Myslivec, a Bohemian member of Parliament, delivered in the Austrian Parliament a few days before the railway accident mentioned above. He said among other things:

The ordinances of the Talmud say that the entire money of the world belongs to the Jews, and that it is their business to appropriate all this money to themselves. That is why the Jews sometimes are not very scrupulous, if they now and again are able to put this money into their pockets with little trouble.

But the Christians have very rigorous ordinances in their conscience which do not permit them to manage things as the Talmud allows. In Inzersdorf, near Vienna, a clergyman, in 1896, told the following story of an action which he recommended as a good example to his flock: A captain, who had committed many sins, saved himself in a boat as the only survivor of a shipwreck. Presently, a man who was on the point of being drowned caught at the boat and asked him for God's sake to take him in as he had a wife and children at home who were dependent upon him. The captain asked the man: "Are you a Jew or a Christian?" And when he made known that he was a Jew, the captain pushed him into the waves. A short time thereafter, the captain fell ill, and as he felt death drawing near he confessed his sins and also the occurence mentioned above, which weighed on his conscience. The confessor replied: "For the sake of this one good deed your sins be forgiven". (Österreichische Wochenschrift 1896, p. 690.)

V. The Church and the Heretics.

It is well known that, within the Church, heresy was the most odious vice, and had to be exterminated. Jerome was quoted (Epist. 37 ad Riparium adversus Vigilantium) and St. Augustine (Epist. c. CLVIII, CLIX, CLX - Contra Gaudentium lib. I, c. XIX; Contra epistolam Parmeniani lib. I, c. VIII), and the fact is mentioned that at the time of St. Augustine the death sentence was pronounced on everybody who was convicted of having followed a pagan custom. The code of law, Codex Theodosianus, compiled in the reign of Theodosius the Younger, contains no less than 66 provisions against heretics, besides many others against pagans, Jews, apostates and sorcerers.

The old theologians held the view that the excommunication which exposed man to eternal damnation was an infinitely severer punishment than death, and that, as the church has the right to excommunicate, it may inflict the temporal capital punishment as well.

Irenaeus did not consider it murder to kill a man of another belief. According to Corp. iur. can. Sext. Decretum Grat. II, pars causa 22 questio V, cap. XLVII he who, from zeal for Mother Church, kills an excommunicated member is not considered a murderer.

Well known is the edict of Innocent IV., in which he publishes the text of the laws issued by the Emperor Frederic "against the heretical wickedness" and urges their observance! The Emperor Frederic decreed that all the heretics (who are also called a generation of vipers, cankers, and villains), after being condemned by the Church, are to be punished by the secular arm: those who abjure heresy "according to the canonical provisions" by imprisonment for life, and those persevering in heresy by "shameful death". But he takes away from "the heirs and descendants of these same heretics as well as from their protectors, patrons and attorneys to the second degree, all their temporal possessions, public and honorary offices, in order that they may perish in mourning, in remembrance of the crime of the father, knowing well that God is severe, and takes his revenge for the sins of the father on the sons".

Corpus Juris Canonici decrees expressly (Decretales Gregorii lib. V, tit. VII, cap. X) that the confiscation of property takes place also if the children are innocent, a provision which Paramo justifies on the ground that the crime is so great that some of its sordidness clings to all the relatives as well, and that the Almighty (whom he calls the first great-inquisitor) banished not only Adam but also his descendants from the garden of Eden. (Paramo, De Orig. et Progressu Sanctae Inquisitionis. Madrid 1598, p. 588.) This accounts for trials instituted against dead heretics.

In a Bull of Innocent III. the confiscation of heretic property is justified by the declaration of God that the children are often punished for the sins of their fathers. For the justification of Alexander IV., see Emericus, Directorium Inquisitorum. Romae 1578, p. 58; 59; 64.

Innocent III. asked the abbots and prelates in the dioceses of Narbonne, Beziers, Toulouse and Alby not to restore the property entrusted to their care by the heretics, but to declare them to be confiscated. (Stephani Baluzii epistolarum Innocentii III. libri XI Tom. II. Parisiis 1682 apud Franciscanum Minquet, epistola 126, p. 382.)

In contrast to this, Aron of Barcelona (1274—1310) explains in Sefer Hachinukh number 229 (N. and W. 65):

In the Gemarah they (the rabbis) of blessed memory have said: Even such people whom it is permitted to destroy, for instance, heretics, even such it is not permitted to cheat, rob, or strip of their money. And they have said it in this sense (on the grounds): Perhaps there springs a worthy seed (worthy progeny) from them, and the money will go to them.

Nöldeke and Wünsche add:

He who injures the property of a heretic deserving death, injures his descendants who perhaps are believers.

The well-known law of Frederic also has some regard to innocent children, only it puts their innocence to a doubtful test. It adds immediately after the sentence quoted above, in which the crime is to be revenged on the offspring to the second degree, the following: "Still we find it proper to exclude (nobody) from the gate of mercy in order that the innocent children

should not incur the punishment mentioned above, in case they do not follow the heresy of their fathers, and reveal the secret faithlessness of their fathers, whatever the punishments may have been which have been inflicted upon them." A prize, then, for those children who by their information bring their fathers to the stake!

Jacobi Simancae Pacensis Episcopi De Catholicis Institutionibus Liber was published with the permission of his superiors in Rome (the 3rd edition in 1575). In the preface addressed to Gregory XIII. Bishop Simancas thanks the Holy Father who repeatedly encouraged him in preparing newly improved editions. In this book it is ordained that heretics are to be thrown into the fire, but with the distinction that only the stubborn ones should be burned alive, the others strangled before they were burnt.

In the executive rules laid down in writing by the Pontifical Inquisition it says:

If there existed a more cruel punishment than death by fire, it would have to be inflicted on the heretics in order that they and their crimes might vanish from the memory of mankind as quickly as possible.

At the execution of backsliding or unrepentant heretics care is to be taken that they be gagged, lest they give offence by their words to those standing round.

In Rome those who remained obstinate were burned alive, not from hardness of heart, but in the hope of "cooking their stubbornness out of them" (Spe excoquendae ipsorum pertinaciae), and in order to move them by the enormity of the punishment to the avowal of the right creed. (Carena, Tractat. de officio s. Inquisitionis, Anteludia p. 4; 70; 348; 357. Guidonis, Practica Inquisitionis Ed. Donais Paris 1886, p. 217; 218). This is how the proceedings were carried out: under appeal to God, the hand upon the holy Gospels, amidst prayers and ceremonies, the sentence was pronounced; the solemn procession, with the cross and the church banners in front, went to the place of execution; bishops, monks, priests accompanied the condemned, and were standing round the stake on which the heretic breathed his last.

In the year 1285, there were burnt alive in Krems 16, in St. Pölten II, in Vienna 102 heretics (Pertz, Monumenta Germaniae IX,