The Hammer of Witches

Bernhard’s gloss original: "Bernhardi glo."; likely referring to Bernard of Botone, a famous 13th-century canon lawyer on the chapter "We Excommunicate" original: "c. excommunicamus"; a fundamental legal decree regarding the punishment of heretics, specifically on the word "publicly caught." The chapter "Regarding Certain Things" original: "c. super quibusdam" in the section on "The Signification of Words" also points to this same idea. Let the reader look at that chapter, and they will find the truth. But on the other hand, this seems perhaps too harsh, both because of the attached penalty noted in the chapter "To Abolish" original: "c. ad abolendam"; a key decree by Pope Lucius III against heresy in the section on heretics—where it prescribes that a cleric is to be degraded stripped of his holy orders and status and left to the judgment of the secular power to be punished with the "due penalty" a euphemism for the death penalty used by church courts—and also because of the ignorance and the sheer number of those who are found to be at fault in such an error. Indeed, when there is such a great multitude, the rigor of justice should be tempered, as found in Distinction 40, "That it should be established."

Our response is this: Since our intention is to excuse these preachers from the vice of this kind of heresy as much as possible, rather than to accuse them—as the law states in the section on "Presumptions," in the chapter "Letters," where it says: "Inasmuch as we do not wish a person to be condemned for so grave a crime based only on suspicion, however vehement"—the gloss on "condemned" says: One can proceed against a person who is so vehemently suspected, but they ought not be condemned unless "violent suspicion" is present, as declared there. Nevertheless, we cannot entirely exclude suspicion, specifically because of their frivolous assertions against the truth of the faith.

And since there are three types of suspicion—light, vehement, and violent—as discussed in the chapters "The Accused" and "With Contumacy" in the Sixth Book of Decretals original: "li. vi."; a collection of canon law under the title "On Heretics," and as noted by the Archdeacon Guido de Baysio, a prominent canonist and Johannes Andreae on the word "vehement" in the chapter "The Accused" and in "Letters" on presumptions. The canon in Distinction 34, "Of Certain Persons," also speaks of violent suspicion. Therefore, one must ask what kind of suspicion such a preacher lies under. For indeed, since those teaching such dogmas are not all known to hold these errors in the same way—some doing so out of simple ignorance of divine law, while others, even when sufficiently informed, still waver and hesitate and refuse to fully assent—and since an error in the mind does not make a heretic unless there is pertinacity of the will a stubborn, conscious refusal to be corrected, it follows that they are not all held equally in suspicion or in the crime of heresy. Yet, because they think they can escape through ignorance,

let them pay attention for a moment to how gravely those who offend through this kind of ignorance actually sin. For although ignorance is manifold, in a rector of souls a priest or official in charge of a parish, no ignorance can be called "invincible" or "particular ignorance" (which philosophers and theologians call "ignorance of fact"). Instead, it is judged in them as "universal ignorance," which is ignorance of divine law; for it concerns those things which one is bound by law to know from the divine law itself.

As Pope Nicholas says: "The dispensation of the heavenly seed has been enjoined upon us. Woe to us if we do not scatter it, and woe if we remain silent." For they are bound to possess knowledge of the Sacred Scripture, as shown throughout Distinction 36. And for the purpose of informing the souls of their subjects, see the same Distinction, chapter 2, and the sections "Behold" and "If anyone wishes." Although, according to Raymond, Hostiensis, and Thomas Raymond of Penyafort, Hostiensis, and Thomas Aquinas, it is not required that they have "eminent" knowledge, they must have "competent" knowledge—that is, enough to carry out their office.

However, for their partial consolation—provided they henceforth compensate for previous losses with future gains—they should note that this ignorance of the law, although sometimes called "affected," "crass," or "supine," is called affected (that is, voluntary) in two ways. First, when it is done with the knowledge of the intention. Second, when it is done with ignorance of the intention. The first does not excuse at all but condemns; of this, the Prophet said: "He refused to understand in order to do good." The second, however, just as it diminishes the voluntariness, so it also diminishes the sin. This occurs when someone is bound to know something, but does not know that they are bound. This was the case with Paul in 1 Timothy 1: "I obtained mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief."

However, it is called "indirectly affected" when, because of other occupations, a person neglects to learn those things they are bound to know, and does not wish to labor in study to know them. This excuses not from the whole, but from a portion of the guilt. And as Ambrose St. Ambrose, 4th-century Bishop of Milan says on Romans 2, "Are you ignorant that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?": "You sin most gravely if you are ignorant." "Most gravely" here means "very dangerously." Therefore, especially in these times, to help souls in danger, let us repel all ignorance, and let us always keep before our eyes that most harsh judgment which hangs over us regarding the strict accounting of the talents referring to the biblical Parable of the Talents, where servants are judged on how they used what was entrusted to them credited to us...