Porphyry

“ We are none of us secure. Have you led, sir, an honorable, an upright life? Thank your Heavenly Father that the temptations have not been too strong for you. Have you, sir, never been guilty of heinous crime? Is it your strength of character or is it your fortune that you have been able to resist what has been brought against you? Mr. Foreman, let me not be misunderstood. Not for one moment would I urge that because a man or a woman has led an upright and devout life that therefore there should be any reason for suspecting him or her of a crime. ”

“ The general adversary of all mankind was first and beyond all things most ferociously Porphyro's adversary. Unhappy Porphyro, who had already given seisin to hell, Porphyro with one half of him already in the living devil's clutch, who never slept but he dreamed of the tortures his poor shadow suffered at the hands of those that lovingly work evil! ”

“ Regicide, and parricide, and sacrilege, are but fictions of superstition, corrupting jurisprudence by destroying its simplicity. The murder of a king, or a queen, or a bishop, or a father, are only common homicide,—and if the people are by any chance or in any way gainers by it, a sort of homicide much the most pardonable, and into which we ought not to make too severe a scrutiny. ”

“ For if it is incumbent upon us to sit in judgment upon the actions which from time to time are committed by men toward their neighbours, and to adjudge and to name the just and the unjust action, we should find that nothing is more precious to a man than his life. And if any barbarian who has slain his kinsman expects to find indulgence in his trial on the ground that he was drunk, in all fairness he makes the charge so much the worse by reason of the very circumstance by which, as he alleges, his guilt is removed. ”

“ Trembling at the severity of her aspect my strength scarce sufficed me to obey her. I drew near, but my limbs were unable to support their burthen. I sank upon my knees; I clasped my hands, and lifted them up to her for mercy, but had no power to articulate a syllable.
She gazed upon me with angry eyes.
“Do I see a Penitent, or a Criminal?” She said at length; “Are those hands raised in contrition for your crimes, or in fear of meeting their punishment? Do those tears acknowledge the justice of your doom, or only solicit mitigation of your sufferings? I fear me, ’tis the latter!” ”

“ Sins unrepented of, mercy slighted, and the day of grace ending.—They look forward, and nothing presents itself but the righteous Judge, the dreadful tribunal, and a most solemn reckoning.———They roll around their arighted eyes on attending friends. If accomplices in debauchery, it sharpens their anguish, to consider this further aggravation of their guilt that they have not finned alone, but drawn others into the snare. ”

“ Think of the hopeless clinging to life to the last, and the wild despair, far exceeding in anguish the felon’s death itself, by which they have heard the certainty of their speedy transmission to another world, with all their crimes upon their heads, rung into their ears by the officiating clergyman!
At one time—and at no distant period either—the coffins of the men about to be executed, were placed in that pew, upon the seat by their side, during the whole service. It may seem incredible, but it is true. ”

“ Think not that we are powerless because forbearing. We have a decree—though it rests among our archives like a sword in its scabbard—a decree by which thy life would be made to pay the forfeit of thy crimes. And, should I order thee to be instantly seized and put to death, I make just doubt whether all good men would not think it done rather too late, than any man too cruelly. ”

“ Let my criminal remains be purified, if it is possible, but being close to the innocent bodies of those who have been buried here. If Heaven is just, in compensation for the troubles I have had, may it deign to pardon those I have caused. ”

“ He that has committed murder, though he flees for his life, shall be continually haunted with terrors, shall himself flee to the pit, betray himself, and torment himself, like Cain, who, when he had killed his brother, became a fugitive and a vagabond, and trembled continually. 2. The duty of the avenger of blood, whether the magistrate or the next of kin, or whoever are concerned in making inquisition for blood, let them be close and vigorous in the prosecution, and let it not be bought off. Those that acquit the murderer, or do any thing to help him off, come in sharers in the guilt of blood ”

“ Offences against the law of God were declared to be worthy of death, both of the offender and those who connived at them, and were defined to be, among the people, fornication, banqueting, theft, homicide, perjury, lying, arts superfluous, deceitful, and superstitious, avarice, usury, etc.: among the clergy, simoniacal exactions, such as fees for administering the sacraments, for preaching, burying, bell-ringing, consecration of churches and altars, as well as the sale of preferment ”

“ A cruelty consecrated among most nations by custom is the torture of the accused during his trial, on the pretext of compelling him to confess his crime, of clearing up contradictions in his statements, of discovering his accomplices, of purging him in some metaphysical and incomprehensible way from infamy, or finally of finding out other crimes of which he may possibly be guilty, but of which he is not accused. ”

“ But mark me well—though it concerns not you— If there's a sin more deeply black than others, Distinguish'd from the list of common crimes, A legion in itself, and doubly dear To the dark prince of hell, it is—hypocrisy. ”

“ Woe to them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed; [112] 2 To turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless! 3 And what will ye do in the day of punishment, and in the desolation which shall come from far? to whom will ye flee for help? and where will ye leave your glory? 4 Without me they shall bow down under the prisoners, and they shall fall under the slain. ”

“ A narrow court, a dead child or husband awaiting dusk for secret removal, shuddering excited women, hysterical from lack of food, listening to the denunciations of officiating priests and mullahs, looking at their dead, at their living--round whose wrists the amulet had been perhaps an hour before--and remembering that though half the evil in the future lay with God, Who was beyond coercion, the other half lay with men who were! ”

“ The inquisitors had power to apprehend people even suspected of heresy, and, on the testimony of two witnesses, could condemn them to torture, imprisonment, and death. Resistance was vain; complaint was ruin. Arrests took place suddenly and secretly. Nor had the prisoner a knowledge of his accusers, or of the crimes of which he was accused. The most delicate maidens, as well as men of hoary hairs and known integrity, were subjected to every outrage that human nature could bear, or satanic ingenuity inflict. ”

“ Punishment retained enough of the character of penance to justify the theologian in treating its non-performance as a proof that repentance had been feigned, and that the offender had relapsed into heresy, the penalty for which, under the canons, was death by fire without trial. ”

“ It has come about, therefore, that the ability of a prefect is measured by the skill he shows in gauging the patience of the people and keeping the finger on the public pulse, like the inquisitors, in order to judge when the torture has reached a point where the endurance of the victim is exhausted. ”

“ I was myself beginning to feel a sentiment of pleasure, and to picture to my mind the unfortunate felon, converted, by a few words of counsel, and still fewer dollars of charity, into an honest and worthy member of society, when—oh horror of horrors!—the repenting convict suddenly snatched up a brand from the fire, and discharged it, with a violence that would have felled an ox, full upon the head of his patron. ”

“ Sir, it is an heinous and crying sin: And truly, Sir, if any man will ask us what Punishment is due to a Murderer, let God's Law, let man's law speak. Sir, I will presume that you are so well read in Scripture, as to know what God himself hath said concerning the shedding of man's blood: Gen. ix., Numb. xxxv. will tell you what the punishment is: And which this Court, in behalf of the whole kingdom, are sensible of, of that innocent blood that has been shed, [Pg 114] whereby indeed the land stands still defiled with that blood ”

“ Hegel: “Penalty is the other half of crime.” R. W. Emerson: “Punishment not follows, but accompanies, crime.”Sagebeer, The Bible in Court, 59—“Corruption is destruction, and the sinner is a suicide; penalty corresponds with transgression and is the outcome of it; sin is death in the making; death is sin in the final infliction.” ”

“ The different punishments for offences are these, increasing with the enormity of the crime:—Fines, the stocks, imprisonment, labour in chains, flogging, branding, maiming, pagoda slavery, and death. The last, which seldom occurs but for murder and treason, is inflicted by decapitation, drowning, or crucifixion. ”

“ She too well remembered the Emperor's caution to explain the offence, though the resentment of a suffering mother could not be entirely repressed. She cast down her indignant eyes, and with petrifying coldness replied:
"Your offence is of no moment. The shadow of an eclipse, which leaves no stain on the fair disk it would have darkened! But your father! He cannot start from his sphere, without troubling [146] nations, and quenching his own rays, which should have shone to eternity!" ”

“ Horror seizes on the crowd. The officers—sweat and shame on their brows—pale, panting, terrified, despairing—despairing with I know not what horrible despair—shrinking under that public reprobation which ought to have visited the penalty, and spared the passive instrument, the executioner—the officers strive savagely. ”

“ The whole town is very quiet: instead of running for arms we run to our prayers, and make vows for the health and welfare of the new king. The fury of the people, contrary to the expectation and intent of the wicked, is turned upon the infamous parricide and his accomplices, seeking only to ensue vengeance and to have it. ”

“ In referring the detection of the perjured to the judgment of God, the doom pronounced upon the convicted,—in vindication of the just and holy laws instituted by the gracious clemency of our holy father,—it hath been adjudged that the respondents be awarded the benefit of knight champions, who for the love and sustenance of truth, in devotion to the holy mother church, shall offer, in willing submission, their bodies with arms for the decision of the question at issue, using their utmost exertion in skillful encounter, that the perjured may suffer merited punishment. ”

“ If the inquisitor be considered as a confessor, the accused as a penitent paternally exhorted, lovingly urged to reconciliation, pardon being assured for the truly repentant, what possible need can there be for an advocate?397 The tribunal gave every facility for the escape of the prisoner from all the possible unhappy consequences of his defamation, down one avenue—confession, penance, reinstatement. ”

“ And we order that, on the day of the auto, an effigy representing his person shall be placed on the scaffold, with a mitre of condemnation and a sanbenito bearing on one side the insignia of the condemned and on the other a placard with his name, which effigy, after the reading of this our sentence, shall be delivered to the secular arm and justice, and his bones shall be disinterred, if they can be distinguished from those of faithful Christians, and be delivered to the said justice to be publicly burnt, in detestation of such great and grievous crimes. ”

“ When found out disgrace the name of man;
Let those who steal, repent and sin no more,
Ere Law decrees, it’s vengeance on them pour:
From trifling things, we greater ills pursue,
Till the Law’s fangs are brought within our view ”

“ In Homer, the word ποινή is used to denote a variety of ideas ranging from ‘punishment in general,’ such as death inflicted in vengeance, to ‘compensation for injury’: thus in Iliad xvi. 398 Patroclus, having slain many foemen in battle, is said to have thus exacted vengeance (or payment) for many Greeks who had fallen:
κτεῖνε μεταΐσσων, πολέων δ’ ἀπετίνυτο ποινήν. ”

“ The general instructions given in public are applied to the individual soul by the confessor in the tribunal of penance, as the judge of guilty and the physician of diseased and wounded consciences. Sin and guilt are washed away by sacramental absolution from all who are sincerely penitent ”

“ The exceptional treatment of hanging and then burning the body of the criminal was owing to the crime being, over and above that of murder, the particularly heinous one, in the eye of the old laws, of petit treason, the murdered person being the master of, and person in authority over, the assassin. ”

“ Verily, thou deservest present death at our hands; but the ancients say, 'Clemency is of the attributes of nobility.' Know that our delay in answering arose not from helplessness on our part, but from our much business and lack of leisure to look into thine affair and write a reply to thy King.' Then call for the scroll and read it again and laugh loud and long and say to the courier, 'Hast thou a letter other than this? ”

“ We have libelled no man's character, we have invaded no man's person or property. This crime is a constructed crime, originally manufactured by priests in the interest of their own order to put down dissent and heresy. It now lingers amongst us as a legacy utterly alien to the spirit of our age, which unfortunately we have not resolution enough to cast among those absurdities which Time holds in his wallet of oblivion."
My peroration is the only other part of the defence which I shall extract. ”