Real heresy on Safehold?

Was there any real heresy on Safehold before Merlin drop in?

After all, we have the Inquisition, which function is to fight heresy - even with armed forces, if neccesary. It seems doubtful that Inquisition could remain in force for a hundreds of years, if there were no real since the War Against the Fallen! The WAF was finished more than half of millenia ago, after all; if the Inquisition haven't anything to do for a five hundred years, it would probably degraded to the purely symbolic organisation, clearly incapable of absorbing the Order of Jwo-jeng (who actually HAVE a continious function, after all!)

So. Was there any real heresy in Safehold history before Merlin? Of course, not on the nation-wide scale; but, probably, some sort of communites that divert too far from the Holy Writ? Or, probably, even the geniune Shain-Wei worshippers? The Inquisition seems pretty competent in theri work - definitely not "a-a-a-a-a, the real heretic! The real heretic! What should we do?! What should we do?!!!" type.

Dilandu wrote:Was there any real heresy on Safehold before Merlin drop in?

After all, we have the Inquisition, which function is to fight heresy - even with armed forces, if neccesary. It seems doubtful that Inquisition could remain in force for a hundreds of years, if there were no real since the War Against the Fallen! The WAF was finished more than half of millenia ago, after all; if the Inquisition haven't anything to do for a five hundred years, it would probably degraded to the purely symbolic organisation, clearly incapable of absorbing the Order of Jwo-jeng (who actually HAVE a continious function, after all!)

So. Was there any real heresy in Safehold history before Merlin? Of course, not on the nation-wide scale; but, probably, some sort of communites that divert too far from the Holy Writ? Or, probably, even the geniune Shain-Wei worshippers? The Inquisition seems pretty competent in theri work - definitely not "a-a-a-a-a, the real heretic! The real heretic! What should we do?! What should we do?!!!" type.

I doubt there have been large scale, public, serious heresies - the Writ's too well-established to leave a door open for them, and the Church has been too powerful to allow them to grow that far.

But the Inquisition has been the internal police force for a priesthood that includes a large portion of the populace. It's been responsible for monitoring nearly all the teaching that goes on on Safehold - and in practice, keeping a beady, suspicious eye on the small remainder for which it is not formally responsible for monitoring. It's had to vet every single invention or new process the world over for compliance with the Proscriptions. That's quite a lot for it to do, and all of it can be seen as nipping potential heresy in the bud before it gets sufficiently out of hand for there to be clear, obvious, armed and organized heretics.

JeffEngel wrote:I doubt there have been large scale, public, serious heresies - the Writ's too well-established to leave a door open for them, and the Church has been too powerful to allow them to grow that far.

Definitely not the large scale. Localised events, i think. Probably some "profets", who organised small religious communites.

But the Inquisition has been the internal police force for a priesthood that includes a large portion of the populace.

Yes, but without real heresy to work with, it should experience at least a large decline in zeal.

Dilandu wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:But the Inquisition has been the internal police force for a priesthood that includes a large portion of the populace.

Yes, but without real heresy to work with, it should experience at least a large decline in zeal.

I think it's managed to keep a fair bit of zeal by re-defining the mission so there's always a likely enemy about. Recently - in the professional lifetimes of senior vicars, say - there have been three enemies:
1 - Corruption inside the Church, real or perceived.
2 - Threats to the authority of the Church, real, perceived, or potential.
3 - The Church of Charis, most recently.

(1) and (2) have been a source of tension within the Inquisition. If you were Zhaspyr Clyntahn, you'd regard corruption within the Church as several things: a source of blackmail material; a job perk; an element of secular, material power the Church needs in this fallen world; and inevitable, given total depravity. You're not going to regard it, honestly, as a big problem - it may even be a distraction from the real concerns of the Inquisition. If you're a Wylsynn, you really, really will. You'll be quite zealous about rooting it out.

Similarly, if you're a Wylsynn, you won't be worried about insufficient deference from Siddarmark or Charis toward the Church. Tithes are paid, the Proscriptions are kept, it's all good. If you're Clyntahn, you cannot trust anyone who is not afraid of you and showing it. You'll be quite zealous monitoring them for "heretical" attitudes and inclinations, and you're likely to find them - or attribute not finding them to conspiracies to hide them.

Between those, there wasn't much room for too much of the Inquisition just to relax and draw their paychecks. And then a clear, actual rejection of Temple authority popped up and cleared the oceans of every other major navy.

JeffEngel wrote:I think it's managed to keep a fair bit of zeal by re-defining the mission so there's always a likely enemy about. Recently - in the professional lifetimes of senior vicars, say - there have been three enemies:
1 - Corruption inside the Church, real or perceived.
2 - Threats to the authority of the Church, real, perceived, or potential.
3 - The Church of Charis, most recently.

(1) and (2) have been a source of tension within the Inquisition. If you were Zhaspyr Clyntahn, you'd regard corruption within the Church as several things: a source of blackmail material; a job perk; an element of secular, material power the Church needs in this fallen world; and inevitable, given total depravity. You're not going to regard it, honestly, as a big problem - it may even be a distraction from the real concerns of the Inquisition. If you're a Wylsynn, you really, really will. You'll be quite zealous about rooting it out.

Similarly, if you're a Wylsynn, you won't be worried about insufficient deference from Siddarmark or Charis toward the Church. Tithes are paid, the Proscriptions are kept, it's all good. If you're Clyntahn, you cannot trust anyone who is not afraid of you and showing it. You'll be quite zealous monitoring them for "heretical" attitudes and inclinations, and you're likely to find them - or attribute not finding them to conspiracies to hide them.

Between those, there wasn't much room for too much of the Inquisition just to relax and draw their paychecks. And then a clear, actual rejection of Temple authority popped up and cleared the oceans of every other major navy.

RFC has mentioned that the church was always designed to be a planet-wide government, whose primary mission was the suppression of advanced technology and the scientifically inquisitive attitudes that led to them. But for a non-industrial society to pull that off, there had to be basis for enforcing "God's laws" ingrained in the minds of all (or at least an overwhelming majority of) Safeholdians. And the Inquisition was intended as a planetary police force, much like any federal police force on Earth today - Limited in the scope of their authority (enforcement of Church law and suppression of heresy) but which can call upon local police forces to address more serious threats. Yet this model depends in large part upon the secular realms to assist in the enforcement and in the people accepting the laws being enforced.

I would guess though that while "heresy" and "Shan-wei Worship" are rather broad terms (which have, in practice, become little more than what an accusation of witchcraft was in Salem), few people have ever been both capable of heretical thoughts and smart enough to not broadcast them or at least important enough that the church would allow it to slide if enough palms were greased. As such, true heresy would likely have been a rare thing that remained hidden - much like the Brethren of Saint Zherneu. And without the real threat of heresy, such a large organization would look for something else to police. They had the Church itself covered (in as far as church corruption was viewed as a problem - which is to say not at all) and so they turned their attention outward to the people of Safehold.

But the real problem has been just that - The church willing to simply accept corruption as a given and look the other way or simply ask for a cut of the action in turn. Charis benefited from this attitude as well simply by seizing every innovation that was permitted by the Church somewhere else. And the Inquisition in turn, responded by becoming far more concerned with the wealth and power of those nations whose power structure could not be as easily co-opted by the church (specifically the non-feudal regimes) and erring on the side of conservatism where the source of the innovation was suspect. At this point of the Inquisition's evolution though, heresy is what Clyntahn says it is.

There has probably been a long history of correcting minor doctrinal errors with a velvet glove, with the iron fist being kept in reserve.

Expert snuggler wrote:There has probably been a long history of correcting minor doctrinal errors with a velvet glove, with the iron fist being kept in reserve.

Just as Michael Stayner was after his sermon on understanding God's plan for you.

Edited to correct autocorrect error.

Being the Internal Affairs department for the Church would have been a steady source of work for centuries, and weren't there hints that Inquisitors ran the department as a protection racket? "Picking your nose on Wednesday was a blasphemy, but your sin can be overlooked once in view of your pious contribution to the Inquisitor's Welfare Fund". That would have kept them busy looking for even the most minor problems of doctrine or practice.

If there is an Inquisition, then there is heresy. If there isn't any big one on the horizon at the moment, then look for smaller ones and then smaller still.

If I recall correctly because "heretics" property was seized the Spanish Inquisition actually turned a profit. If Chihiro and/or Schueler carried that over with all of the other historical practices then considering how corrupt the Church on Safehold is I imagine that would provide enough motive for the inquisition to find something to consider heresy.