The devil, even
if he is a fact, has been an indulgence;… while he exists, there is always
something to which we can be superior.
One might think
that the phrase of Lord Acton (that “it cannot really be held that in Rome
sixteen centuries after Christ men did not know that murder was wrong”) might
be held to apply [to the Inquisition]; it cannot be that men did not think such
methods doubtfully holy. It was not so. Deep, deeper than we believe, lie the
roots of sin; it is in the good that they exist; it is in the good that they
thrive and send up sap and produce the black fruits of hell. The peacock fans
of holy and austere popes drove the ashes of burning men over Christendom.
Charles Williams
'The Descent of the Dove'
Longmans, Green
and Co (1939)
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