The opening of I. HERESY
The Inquisition was organized for the eradication of heresy and the enforcement of uniformity of belief. We shall have occasion to see hereafter how elastic became the definition of heresy, and we have seen how far afield its extinction led the operations of the Holy Office but, to the last, the suppression of unorthodox belief remained the ostensible object of its existence.
It is not easy at the present day, for those accustomed to universal toleration, to realize the importance attached by statesmen in the past to unity of belief, or the popular abhorrence for any deviation from the standard of dogma. These convictions were part of the mental and moral fibre of the community and were the outcome of the assiduous teachings of the Church for centuries, until it was classed with the primal truths that it was the highest duty of the sovereign to crush out dissidence at whatever cost, and that hatred of the heretic was enjoined on every Christian by both divine and human law. The heretic was a venomous reptile, spreading contagion with his very breath and the safety of the land required his extermination as a source of pestilence.[1]