Here are the characteristic figures that indicate the shift in the interests of the inquisitors and who they considered their opponent in the era of the scientific revolution: "About 80% of the Venetian Inquisition trials dating back to the period before 1580 were associated with accusations of Lutheranism and related forms of crypto-Protestantism. The 130 sentences reported to Rome between 1580 and 1581 from all parts of northern Italy show the Inquisition's constant attention to Protestantism. However, the various branches of the Roman Inquisition did not change their focus until 1600, when attention to heretics was supplanted by an obsession with eradicating magic and other superstitions. In Friuli, up to 10% of the trials (out of 390) held before 1595 involved magic, and for the next fifteen years half of the cases (558) fell under this heading. Elsewhere, the shift was less pronounced and more rapid; in Naples, magic was the only accusation that gave rise to a significant number of Inquisition trials in the 1570s, and remained so for decades, until the 1720s. In Venice the transition from heresy to magic was as abrupt as in Friuli, but it occurred twelve years earlier. During the seventeenth century, all forms of magic, from witchcraft to divination, became the subject of concern of the Roman Inquisition: in each tribunal, about 40 percent of the cases tried during that century could be classified as persecutions of superstition and magic."67

Among the other cases before the Inquisition, up to 15 percent were cases involving accusations of sexual harassment of priests, plus bigamy, homosexuality, and the like.

The Inquisition was born twice: in the 13th century in France (after a century-long discussion about the permissibility of the execution of heretics) and again at the end of the 15th century.

The French Inquisition of the 13th century was not looking for witches or free-thinking scientists. She fought against the Albigensian heresy. The Cathar-Albigensian doctrine by no means bears traces of scientific thought and deep philosophical work. Nor were they the bearers of higher morality: the pope declared an anti-Albigensian crusade in response to the assassination of the papal ambassador by the Cathars (1208). The Cathars taught about the evil demon as the creator of the material world. From this, conclusions were drawn about the undesirability of marriage and childbirth.68

Well, from the point of view of science studies, such a view of the world, with its triumph, would just exclude the birth of scientific natural science. Among the axioms, the dominance of which in society and in the minds of scientists, in order for the newborn science to acquire a high social status, and, therefore, funding, there must be an anti-Gnostic axiom. From the point of view of the Gnostics, Manichaeans, and their later successors, the Cathars (Albigenses) and the Bogomils, matter is an extreme degree of degradation of the spirit. The Albigensians said that carrying the body, staying on earth, is the hell with which the Scriptures frighten. Man's vocation is to get rid of corporeality.69

Whoever devotes his life to the study of matter will jeopardize his religious salvation: for if the world is the antipode of God, and you have fixed your gaze on the world, then you have turned away from God. In Christianity, the world was created by God and bears the trace of the Divine Plan. In Gnosticism and among the Cathars, God and the world are hostile. The world has an evil creator (demon). And devoting your life to studying the product of an evil author is somehow strange... So if the Albigenses had won, and science would have had to postpone its birth. But the Inquisition won. And people again gained the right to rejoice in the world and study it.

The Spanish Inquisition of the 13th century had a different field of study. The policy of state pressure on the Jewish population of Spain led to the fact that thousands of Jews were baptized. In many cases, this appeal was not sincere. But in the Jewish tradition, it is customary to value the life of a Jew above all, sometimes even above the Jewish faith itself (for the essence of this faith is in the special status of the Jew's soul and his mission in the world). And therefore, when "the Jews of Morocco, forced to renounce their faith and accept Islam, turned to Maimonides with the question: what to do? He advised them, in case of extreme danger, to repeat the words that the Muslims demanded of them. Maimonides explained that these words would be meaningless if their hearts remained faithful to Judaism."70

Similar principles, remembered during the pressure exerted by Christians, led to the emergence in Spain of a community of many thousands of Jews who publicly professed Christianity, and in their home, internal life followed their national and religious traditions.

But here they stumbled upon a principle inherent in the law of all Abrahamic religions. In the Old Testament Jewish state, as long as it existed, and in the Muslim world and in the laws of Christian states, the boundary of tolerance was drawn very clearly: do not touch your neighbor who simply professes another faith, but do not allow the faithful to convert to heresy. Accordingly, the Spanish Inquisition was created to suppress such hypocrisy. Interestingly, among the signs by which one can find a marrano (a Jew who converted to Christianity, but secretly continues to follow the religious traditions of Judaism) was mentioned the following: "if women do not attend churches within 40 days after childbirth"71 (today in Russia, on the contrary, this is considered a sign of orthodoxy, which is why the mother is not allowed to be present at the baptism of a baby).

The moral assessment of such an investigation, and even more so of the measures taken as a result of it, is obvious. But is there any reason to say that the struggle between Christians and Jews in Spain in the 13th and 14th centuries retarded the development of scientific thought?

For the history of science, another, "second" Inquisition is much more important. Those Inquisitions were local (Southern France and Spain).

Now it is becoming ubiquitous. In Spain, the Inquisition was revived in 1478. Torquemada became Grand Inquisitor in 1483. The Portuguese Inquisition was born in 1540. The Roman Empire in 1542.72 So the Inquisition became a pan-European institution only in the middle of the 16th century. Accordingly, the first index of banned books was published by the Pope in 1559 (and it is interesting that in Spain the royal power forbade the publication of this index and it was simply ignored). The Congregation of the Index of Forbidden Books began its work in 1571.

It turns out that the time of the birth of European science was the time of the formation and flourishing of the pan-European Inquisition.

Before talking about the fruits of the Inquisition's activities, let's look at its methods. First of all, it is worth remembering that the word inquisitio means research, and the Inquisition as a social institution is a court. This is a public and open trial, which involves the procedure of deliberation of the parties, and requires the prosecutor to provide evidence.