Such a defence of the Inquisition is not borne out by the facts. It is true, of course, that in the Middle Ages there was hardly a heresy which had not some connection with an anti-social sect. For this reason any one who denied a dogma of the faith was at once suspected, rightly or wrongly, or being an anarchist. But, as a matter of fact, the Inquisition did not condemn merely those heresies which caused social upheaval, but all heresies as such: "We decree," says Frederic II, "that the crime of heresy, no matter what the name of the sect, be classed as a public crime.... and that every one who denies the Catholic faith, even in one article, shall be liable to the law; _si inventi fuerint a fide catholica saltem in articulo deviare_."[1] This was also the view of the theologians and the canonists. St. Thomas Aquinas, for instance, who speaks for the whole _schola_, did not make any distinction between the Catharan heresy and any other purely speculative heresy; he put them all on one level; every obdurate or relapsed heretic deserved death.[2] The Inquisitors were so fully persuaded of this truth that they prosecuted heretics whose heresy was not discovered until ten or twenty years after their death, when surely they were no longer able to cause any injury to society.[3] [1] Constitution _Inconsutilem tunicam_. [2] _Summa_ IIa, IIae, q. x, art. 8; q. xi, art. 3 and 4. [3] Cf. Tanon, op. cit., pp. 407-412. We need not wonder at these views and practices, for they were fully in accord with the notion of justice current at the time. The rulers in Church and State felt it their duty not only to defend the social order, but to safeguard the interests of God in the world. They deemed themselves in all sincerity the representatives of divine authority here below. God's interests were their interests; it was their duty, therefore, to punish all crimes against His law. Heresy, therefore, a purely theological crime, became amenable to their tribunal. In punishing it, they believed that they were merely fulfilling one of the duties of their office. We have now to examine and judge the penalties indicted upon heresy as such. The first in order of importance was the death penalty of the stake, inflicted upon all obdurate and relapsed heretics. Relapsed heretics, when repentant, did not at first incur the death penalty. Imprisonment was considered an adequate punishment, for it gave them a chance to expiate their fault. The death penalty inflicted later on placed the judges in a false position. On the one hand, by granting absolution and giving communion to the prisoner, they professed to believe in the sincerity of his repentance and conversion, and yet by sending him to the stake for fear of a relapse, they acted contrary to their convictions. To condemn a man to death who was considered worthy of receiving the Holy Eucharist, on the plea that he might one day commit the sin of heresy again, appears to us a crying injustice.