Christian burning texts

 

(I am the vine, you are the branches [...] If anyone does not abide in me [meaning in him, i.e. in Jesus], he is cast out like a branch and dries up; and they gather them and throw them into the fire and they are burned) Jesus of Nazareth [John 15: 1-2 and 6]. The burning of Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kasasbeh by Islamic extremists has caused multiple reactions trying to understand the (textual) basis that justified this heinous act. In a conversation I had over dinner with some friends, brothers and sisters, a few days ago, the discussion was about (the religious practice of burning alive), and my share in the discussion was (the Christian practice). Below is an article whose first nucleus was what I presented a few days ago, with the necessary details added to that nucleus, along with the historical introduction, to make that first nucleus a complete article.

The subject of this article is to answer the question:
What are the sacred texts that the church used to justify burning dissidents alive?
And what is the theological justification that accompanied that doctrine?

In 1536 AD, the British William Tyndale was burned in a public place, after being strangled to death immediately before, on charges of "heresy". What is surprising here is that the charge against Tyndale that led to his being accused of heresy and apostasy from the Christian religion and then killed was: (translating the Bible into English without prior permission) (!). The canon law at that time, which was protected by the kings of Britain, was that anyone who possessed an unauthorized religious book was punishable by death. The ecclesiastical logic was that if someone possessed a book that the church did not first approve for circulation, even if he translated a book that the church had previously approved but did not give him permission to translate it into another language, there is no explanation for this act except that this person is opposed to the church and its beliefs, and therefore he is an infidel [heretic].

However, William Tyndale was in fact “one of the lucky few,” because he was first strangled and then burned in the public square, while “tens of thousands of others in Europe, and hundreds of thousands in South America” were quite different, because they were “burned alive” under the shadow of the cross. Contrary to the popular belief that the Church, through its men, carried out the Inquisition and burned its dissenters, the truth is that the Christian masses “ turned against each other with the encouragement of the Church ,” leading to the burning of innocents whose only crime was the “false piety” of the naive believers. This popular action, encouraged and supervised by the Church, led a priest in northern France, proud of what he saw as the burning of the living, to write a letter to Pope Innocent III in which he said: “ The piety of the people in this country is such that they are not only always ready to send to the place of burning [i.e. the place of burning alive heretics] only those whose heresy is proven, but they also send to the place of burning all those whom they think are lost .”

Although the persecution and killing of dissenters had begun centuries earlier in Christian history, it is noticeable that since Pope Paschal II (died 1118 AD) defined the term “heresy” as anything contrary to the “apostolic vision,” and then Pope Innocent III declared in 1199 AD that “heresy” is “high treason against God” and that positive law punishes the traitor to the king with death, so it is more appropriate that the punishment for the traitor to God should be the same, if not harsher and more severe, the matter developed rapidly and successively to the point that the church forced Frederick II (crowned emperor in 1220 AD) to adopt a law ( permitting the killing of heretics by burning them alive ). This law stated the following: “ Heretics shall be delivered into the hands of the worldly authority [meaning the rulers and governors] and burned alive. If they recant their error, they shall be saved from death and sentenced to life imprisonment. Then all their property shall be confiscated, their heirs shall be deprived of their inheritance, and their children shall be deprived of the right to choose any position of income and honor, unless they expiate the sin of their fathers by reporting other heretics. The houses of heretics shall be burned and never rebuilt .”

A few years later, in 1229 AD, Pope Gregory IX declared that it was the duty of every Catholic to “ persecute heretics ,” and the matter escalated to (savagery, in the name of Jesus Christ, which claimed millions of victims on several continents).

The kind reader will be surprised that the Inquisition ended (officially) in 1834 AD , and not before that. If we wanted to write a comparative history between Judaism and Islam together on the one hand and Christianity alone on the other hand about the stories of burning opponents (alive), a few pages would suffice for Judaism and Islam, together, while in Christianity we would need several volumes to list only brief biographies of those who were killed in this brutal way. Since ( the Christian Church has the worst human history ever, within the written history of all humanity, without exception, in burning and exterminating its opponents ), this is a fact that only a stubborn person would deny. In just one day, that is, on March 16, 1244 AD , a great fire was lit under the Château de Montségur, under the supervision and oversight of the Archbishop of Narbonne, and more than (200 people were burned alive at once) on charges of heresy . Then, in the same year, the ecclesiastical council met in Narbonne to decide that when judging heretics: “ A husband should not be spared because of his wife, nor a wife because of her husband, nor parents because of their children, nor should the sentence be mitigated because of illness or old age. Every sentence should include flagellation, even if the sentence is burning alive .” [See footnote 1]

The question that immediately arises now is:
(What is the sacred textual basis on which the Church relied to justify burning its opponents alive)?

The reader will be surprised to find the answer: ( It was Jesus who legislated the killing of opponents by burning them alive in the Gospel of John ).

This is what the Church based its theological justification for the atrocities of the Inquisition on. The whole thing revolves around (four pillars or foundations) only, in addition to (a fifth pillar for witches).

The first basis: (cursing the dissenter)

As in Paul’s letters: ( If we, or an angel from heaven, preach any gospel to you other than what we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so I say now again, if anyone preaches any gospel to you other than what you received, let him be accursed ) [Paul’s letter to the Galatians 1:8-9. As for the word ( anathema ) [the Arabic translation does not reflect the correct pronunciation. It is pronounced “anthema”], it is of Greek origin, and literally means: (something dedicated to evil is cursed). In the texts of the (New Testament), we find that Paul was the first to use it exclusively to describe his opponents in several places, then the writer of the book of (Acts of the Apostles) [23:14] used it in the story of the attempt to kill Paul by forty Jews, as the Arabic translator translates the text as follows: ( And they came to the chief priests and the elders and said: We have bound ourselves with a strict oath that we will not taste anything until we have killed Paul ). The translation is inaccurate, as the correct translation is: ( We have bound ourselves under a great curse) [made a vow of anathema]. So the above text means that anyone who opposes the teachings of Paul and his church is (cursed with a great curse). In addition to this text, Jesus said: ( If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin ) [John 15:22], meaning a complete refusal to accept the excuse of heresy, and a complete refusal to accept coexistence with the different. There is absolutely no (tolerance), according to Jesus’ words, for anyone outside the church.

The second basis: (burning the transgressor)

as mentioned in the Gospel of John on the tongue of Jesus: ( I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away [...] I am the vine, you are the branches [...] If anyone does not abide in me [meaning in him, that is, in his faith in Jesus] he is cast out like a branch and dries up; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned ) [John 15: 1-2, 5, 6]. The Church relied on (this specific text) in the words of Jesus to legislate the burning of those who transgress against it. And this (teaching attributed to Jesus) is (the origin of humanity’s suffering, through burning, killing, and extermination) at the hands of Christians, sometimes under the banners of the cross or other times under the shadow of the wooden cross.


The third basis: The necessity of (silencing the dissenter)

as stated in the First Epistle of Peter: ( For this is the will of God, that by doing good you may silence the ignorance of foolish men ) [1 Peter 2:15]


The fourth basis (the moral framework that the Christian believer must adopt with the dissenter)

is what was stated in the Book of Deuteronomy: ( If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying, ‘Let us go after other gods, which you have not known, and let us serve them’ [...] That prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death [...] So you shall put away the evil from among you. And if your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter, or the wife of your bosom, or your friend who is as yourself, entice you secretly, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which you and your fathers have not known [...] you shall not consent to him, nor listen to him; your eye shall not pity him, nor spare him, nor cover him; you shall surely kill him. Your hand shall be against him first to kill him, and then the hands of the All the people at last. You shall stone him to death [...] If you hear a report concerning one of your cities which the LORD your God is giving you to live in, ‘There have come out evil men from among you, who have driven out the inhabitants of their city, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods, which you have not known,’ [...] then you shall utterly smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, and you shall utterly destroy it and all that is in it, with the edge of the sword, and all the livestock thereof. You shall gather all the spoil of it into the middle of its open street, and you shall burn the city with all its spoil with fire, to the LORD your God; and it shall be a heap forever; it shall not be rebuilt again .’” (Deuteronomy 13:1-16)

If you put these four sacred foundations together, you have the ( general Christian ecclesiastical legislative foundation ) from which the (Catholic Inquisition was launched to burn its dissenters alive). And if you add to them this text: ( Do not let a witch live ) [Exodus 22:18], you have the fifth Christian ecclesiastical legislative foundation for killing witches by burning them alive.

As for the Christian jurisprudential justification, it is many and varied and extends over many centuries, but the most famous of them is what was written by Saint Thomas Aquinas (died 1274 AD) in his famous book (Summa Theologica). In this book, the affirmations and justifications for the necessity of killing dissenters are (repeated). Below are just two examples of what Aquinas said: ( The life of men with an epidemic influence [meaning intellectual and ideological] is an obstacle to the common good that is built on the harmony of human society. For this reason, some men must be removed from human society by killing ) Then Thomas Aquinas provided justification for this opinion from the letters of Paul: ( Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump ) [1 Corinthians 5:6-7] and ( But those who are outside, God judges. So remove the wicked from among you ) [1 Corinthians 5:13] and ( For he [meaning the ruler] is the minister of God for good, but if you do evil, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain, for he is the minister of God, an avenger to execute wrath on him who does evil ] [Romans 13:4]
As for more The most famous text of Thomas Aquinas in his book is this text: " Concerning heretics [infidels, heretics], we must be aware of two things. The first thing concerns them, and the second thing concerns the Church. [The first thing] concerning them is that there is a sin for which they deserve not only to be removed from the Church by excommunication, but they must be cut off from this world by death. For the corruption of faith that hastens to the soul is a much more serious matter than counterfeiting money with which to maintain life in this world. If counterfeiters of money and evildoers are condemned to death by the worldly ruling authority, it is all the more reason that heretics, when they are condemned to heresy, should not only be excommunicated and banished, but they should also be killed. [As for the second matter] concerning the Church [...] after admonishing them once and twice [meaning advising the infidel or heretic to return from his infidelity] as the Apostle [meaning Paul in his letter to Titus 3:10] commanded us, after this admonition, if he is still obstinate and stubborn, the Church no longer has hope for his conversion [to the correct doctrine], and therefore the Church must seek the salvation of others by excommunicating him and isolating him from the Church, in addition to handing him over to the ruling worldly authority for trial until he is exterminated [note the expression: “exterminated”] from this world by death. And therefore Jerome [meaning Saint Jerome, died in 420 AD], when interpreting the text (Galatians 5:9) (a little leaven leavens the whole lump), said: Cut off the rotten meat from you, drive the scabby sheep out of the fold, or else the whole house, the whole lump, the whole body, the whole flock, will burn up, will perish, will die.”[Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas, Vol. 3, The 2nd part of the 2nd part, p. 150].
I will give just one example of the (Christian ecclesiastical mentality) that (burned people alive) so that the reader may see (the latent Christian religious capacity for barbarity): an inquisitor and judge, and at the same time the commander of an army against the Cathars, Father Arnaud Amalric [called in Christian sources Papal Legate Arnaud], when asked before the massacre of the French city of Béziers how to differentiate within the city between the heretical Cathars and the Catholics who were supposed to follow the correct ecclesiastical doctrine from his point of view, he replied: ( Kill them all, for God knows them all and knows those who are His ).

After this massacre, Father Arnaud wrote a letter in August 1209 to Pope Innocent III, who declared a war of extermination against the Cathars, describing this massacre. The letter said: " Our men did not spare anyone, regardless of rank, sex, or age. We put twenty thousand (20,000) people to the sword. After this great massacre, the entire city was plundered and then burned ." Twenty thousand people, (20,000), were exterminated (in just one day) without distinguishing between man, woman, child, innocent or heretic. They killed them or burned them, and what was (for God, they made them go to him) and what was (for Satan, they made them go to him).

Is there any more savagery after this latent (barbarity)?! Have you read any "sadism" in the history of all humanity equal to what you read in this religious history?
Below are some of the (burning) texts mentioned in the (Bible), which have been used in various sources as (justification) texts within the Christian doctrine and its theologians for (burning the transgressors alive):

1- ( And about three months had passed, and it was told Judah, saying, Tamar your daughter-in-law has played the harlot, and behold, she is also with child from fornication. And Judah said, Bring her out, and let her be burned ) [Genesis 38:24]

2- ( And if a man takes a wife and her mother, it is wickedness. They shall burn him and them with fire, that there be no wickedness among you ) [Leviticus 20:14]

3- ( And if the daughter of a priest defiles herself by committing harlotry, she has defiled her father; she shall be burned with fire ) [Leviticus 21:9]

4- (And he who is taken by the forbidden thing shall be burned with fire, he and all that he has, because he has transgressed the covenant of the Lord, and because he has committed an abomination in Israel [...] So Joshua took Achan the son of Zerah, and the silver, and the garment And the tongue of gold, and his sons and his daughters, and his oxen and his donkeys and his flocks and his tent, and all that he had, and all Israel with him, and they brought them up to the valley of Achor. And Joshua said, How have you troubled us? May the Lord trouble you this day. And all Israel stoned him with stones, and burned them with fire, and stoned them with stones . [Joshua 7:15, 24-25]

5- ( Let coals fall on them, and let them fall into the fire, and into deep waters, that they may not rise . ) [Psalms 140:10]

6- [Jesus:] ( If anyone does not abide in me, he will be cast out like a branch, and will wither; and they will gather them and throw them into the fire, and they will be burned .) [John 15:6]

7- (When the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his powerful angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power.) [2 Thessalonians 1:7-9]

8- ( He also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without a word into the cup of his indignation, and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb, and the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever .) [Revelation 14:10-11]

9- ( But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and sexually immoral, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, will have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death .) [Revelation 21:8]

_____[*] Hassan Mohsen Ramadan, Al-Hewar Al-Mutamadin - Issue: 4714 - 2/8/2015.
1- The Inquisition of the Middle Ages, Henry Lea, Abridgement by Margaret Nicholson, New York, MacMillan, 1961, pp. 70.