The definite starting-point of the Inquisition has been attributed to many dates. One enthusiast went as far back as Creation, finding the first inquisitor in the Almighty Himself, and successors to Him in Jacob, Saul, David, Eli, Jesus Christ, John the Baptist and St. Peter among others.[297] Less ambitious authorities, content to go no further back than the Middle Ages, have discovered the starting-point in the legatine commission entrusted by Innocent III to Pierre de Castelnau, Arnaud of Citeaux and their colleagues.[298] Whether they, with their lieutenant St. Dominic, were inquisitors or not turns on the interpretation of the word.[299] In the loose general sense of searchers out, certainly they were—as others had been before them. The plain fact is, there were inquisitors before the Inquisition existed. But in the strict technical sense of officers of a tribunal specifically set apart for jurisdiction over heresy, they clearly were not.[300] The tribunal of the Inquisition was not in existence in the pontificate of Innocent III. On the other hand, we have by this time advanced a considerable distance on the road to the formation of a new tribunal. Heresy has been recognized as so dangerous as to justify the organization of a crusade against it. The bishops’ courts have been found so defective in dealing with heresy that the device has been adopted of sending special commissioners to try to do what they have failed to do. The method of judicial procedure by _inquisitio_ in place of _accusatio_ has been officially approved. It wants but one other step to bring us to the foundation of the permanent delegacy for the prosecution of heretical pravity, which is the Inquisition.