This church office is officially called the strengthener of faith. But more often it is called a much more sinister: the devil's advocate. Where did it come from and why did the Catholic Church need people who professionally defend the enemy of the human race?
In 1585, Cardinal Felice Peretti took the Catholic throne under the name of Sixtus V. He was a fairly reasonable church leader. And he did not hesitate to use the most harsh or even cruel measures. For example, he declared war on the robbers from the high road - under him every bandit caught was executed without trial and investigation, and their heads were put on public display. He also reorganized the Roman curia, in which the main institutions, congregations, which exist to this day, appeared. And in 1587, the institute of devil's advocates appeared.
Word versus word
The cult of local saints has always been extremely important in Catholicism. Often they were venerated almost more than Jesus Christ himself or the Mother of God. If it happened that some city and region did not have its own saint, they urgently tried to find a suitable candidate and "push through" canonization. So, sometimes extremely strange people with, to put it mildly, ambiguous biography and reputation fell into the saints.
In the Vatican, the question of the canonization of new saints was one of the most acute. Since there was a constant struggle for power between the highest church hierarchs, each tried to push his candidate for sainthood on the list, at the same time looking for the negative in the biography of the rival candidate.
It was then, in order to streamline this important process, by order of the pontiff, the positions of church lawyers appeared. They were divided into devil's advocates and God's advocates. The former collected dirt on the candidate for the saint and questioned every fact, the latter had to defend his honest name and seek excuses. And then a performance began under the name of a meeting of the commission on canonization, at which each of the opponents defended their opinion with foam at the mouth.
These legal battles have continued for centuries. Christopher Columbus probably would have turned over in his grave more than once, having learned that in 1886 the American bishops decided to achieve his canonization. During the debate, God's lawyer emphasized that thanks to the navigator who went to the land of the pagans, the Gentiles were eventually converted to the Christian faith. The devil's advocate did not deny such an obvious fact, but, having rummaged in the “dirty laundry” of the discoverer of the New World, he declared: he was not worthy to be saints, because he often cheated on his wife, and also pathologically loved money. The devil's advocate confirmed his words with documentary evidence, and Columbus was refused canonization.
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Witch-hunt
The second duty of the devil's advocates was, on the instructions of the Grand Inquisitor, to figure out: is this or that identified person a sorcerer or a witch? The first at risk were healers who treated the mostly poor part of the population with herbal tinctures taken internally, and various ointments based on very strange components like cat feces with the addition of bone meal from human remains.
Today it seems to be nonsense, but in those days the devil's advocates had a very serious task: to prove or disprove that the prescription for this or that drug was written in the underworld. One of the most famous experts in these matters was the Spaniard Alonso Salazar de Frias. He was born in 1564 into the family of a professional lawyer. Following in his father's footsteps, after graduating from the theological faculty of the University of Sigüenza, he was ordained and began his career as a vicar and judge. In 1600 he became attorney general of the Castilian Church.
And then the moment came in his life when he was appointed as the devil's advocate. I must say that in those days, the composition of the drug included narcotic components like opiates or belladonna, there were frequent poisoning with ergot rye, the actual analogue of the modern drug LSD. Therefore, women who abused drugs often received hallucinations as a side effect. And the popular theme of witchcraft directed the minds of the unfortunate in this direction.
The first trial for Alonso was the trial of the case of Maria de Ximildega, who confessed to her friends that she had attended the night witches' Sabbath. Word of this quickly spread throughout the area and reached the ears of the local priest. As a result, the lady appeared before the court of the inquisitors, to whom she told that four more friends took part in the sabbath, and they also confessed to their sins.
Alonso insisted that the accused be interrogated under torture, but the judges found that everything was clear. As a result, two "witches" were burned, and two went to prison. The budding devil's advocate drew the right conclusions and subsequently chose a different line of defense. For example, he arranged cross-examination, during which he asked the accused how they flew to the place of the Sabbath, what potions they used, where the owner of hell was sitting, and so on.
Very often he gave such conclusions: “The devil is misleading those who think they were at his coven. I have not found a single proof, not even the slightest indication, from which it follows that even one act of witchcraft took place. Evidence that is not supported by facts cannot be taken as the basis for an accusation. " The merit of de Frias lies not only in the fact that he saved about 15 thousand women from being burned at the stake, but also in the fact that, after consulting with the Vatican, he compiled a list of "godly plants" for doctors. Homebrew homeopaths in Europe began to use it as a guide.
For his deeds, Alonso Salazar even received the nickname "the witch's advocate." However, the inquisitors realized that they were gradually losing their jobs, and the too zealous defender was first removed from office, and then exiled as the abbot to a distant monastery.
Animals suspected
But not only people found themselves under the gun of the Inquisition. Devil's advocates also had to intercede for animals accused of having ties to the underworld. So, Jacques Ferret, a lawyer from Basel, Switzerland, tried in 1474 to justify a rooster … who laid an egg. In those days, it was believed that such an incident was possible only with the assistance of the messenger of hell. As a result, a snake appears from the egg, which turns into a basilisk, which with its gaze turns people to stone.
The accused did not manage to escape execution - he was publicly burned. And only 30 years ago, the Basel court acquitted the unfortunate bird, since scientists established that the rooster could change sex due to an infectious disease.
An even more comical process took place in 1503 in the Burgundy city of Autun. The rats, which multiplied in great numbers, methodically destroyed the grain reserves, and therefore were declared the messengers of the unclean. The bailiffs drove around all the barns of the city and loudly read the court's order on the appearance of the tailed beasts at the hearing.
The protection of the rats was entrusted to lawyer Bartolomeo Chassen. It is clear that the defendants ignored the order. Chassen, however, first said that it was necessary to bring to justice not only the rats of Autin, but the entire province. Therefore, it is necessary to post flyers about the turnout in all the surrounding villages. The result, of course, was the same.
Then Chassen declared about the right of the client not to appear in court if there is a threat to his life. Therefore, all rats must be issued a letter of protection, and the owners of cats must be given written obligations that their pets will not touch the rats on their way to court. So stupidity won out over stupidity - on reflection, the court officials sent the case to the archive.
In general, the practical work of the devil's advocates continued until 1983, when Pope John Paul II finally did not put an end to this position. It is significant that from that moment on the number of canonized saints began to slowly but surely grow.
Sergey Uranov