The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (1093 page)

BOOK: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions
6.25Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
Inner Deity Hygiene school
:
see
TAOISM
.
Inner elixir
(in Taoism)
:
Inner light
.
In
Quaker
vocabulary, the inward revelation of
Christ's
will and presence. After years of intense searching,
Fox
and his followers came to rely spiritually on ‘the inner light of the living Christ’ rather than external ceremonies, religious traditions, or even the
Bible
itself. In second-generation Quakerism the term occasionally becomes synonymous with ‘conscience’.
Innocent III
(1161–1216).
Pope
from 8 Jan. 1198. Innocent's pontificate is often held to be the zenith of papal power, and certainly the pope's training as a lawyer made him much in demand as arbitrator or judge. In 1208 Innocent put England under an
interdict
, and four years later
excommunicated
John, absolved his subjects from their allegiance, and handed the kingdom to the king of France. John capitulated. He made England a fief of the papacy, after which Innocent supported John, even against Langton over the Magna Carta. Innocent gave approval to the
Franciscan
rule and summoned the fourth
Lateran council
, but he also launched the campaign against the
Albigensians
, and the disastrous fourth
crusade
.
Inquisition
.
A Roman Catholic tribunal for the suppression of
heresy
and punishment of heretics. Strictly speaking, one should speak of ‘inquisitions’, since there was no single institution. The Inquisition came into being under Pope Gregory IX in 1232, with papal inquisitors selected chiefly from among
Dominicans
and
Franciscans
because of their (theoretical) detachment from the world. In 1542 the Congregation of the Holy Office was established, being reorganized in 1587 into the Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition to supervise faith and morals in the entire church. After a further reorganization in 1908, in 1965 it became the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and its role in censuring wrong belief has again become prominent.
The ‘Spanish Inquisition’ was a separate national institution, set up in 1478 (endorsed by Sixtus IV in 1483) against the
Marranos
and
Moriscos
but later directed against Protestants. The number of persons burnt under the first Grand Inquisitor,
Torquemada
, was
c.
2,000. It was finally abolished in Portugal in 1821 and in Spain in 1834.
Inquisition
(Islam)
:
see
MI
NA
.

Other books

Rebekah by Jill Eileen Smith
The Phobos Maneuver by Felix R. Savage
Weapons of War by M. R. Forbes
AwayFromtheSun by Austina Love
A Question of Motive by Roderic Jeffries
Trinity Falls by Regina Hart