crimes so horrible that no mystery accorded expiation for them. Nero,
for all that he was emperor, could not get himself initiated into the
mysteries of Ceres. Constantine, on the Report of Zosimus, could not
obtain pardon for his crimes: he was stained with the blood of his wife,
his son and all his kindred. It was in the interest of the human race
that such great transgressions should remain without expiation, in order
that absolution should not invite their committal, and that universal
horror might sometimes stop the villains.

The Roman Catholics have expiations which are called "penitences."

By the laws of the barbarians who destroyed the Roman Empire, crimes
were expiated with money. That was called _compounding_, _componat cum
decem, viginti, triginta solidis_. It cost two hundred sous of that time
to kill a priest, and four hundred for killing a bishop; so that a
bishop was worth precisely two priests.

Having thus compounded with men, one compounded with God, when
confession was generally established. Finally, Pope John XXII., who made
money out of everything, prepared a tariff of sins.

The absolution of an incest, four turonenses for a layman; _ab incestu
pro laico in foro conscientiæ turonenses quatuor_. For the man and the
woman who have committed incest, eighteen turonenses four ducats and
nine carlins. That is not just; if one person pays only four turonenses,
the two owed only eight turonenses.

Sodomy and bestiality are put at the same rate, with the inhibitory
clause to title XLIII: that amounts to ninety turonenses twelve ducats
and six carlins: _cum inhibitione turonenses 90, ducatos 12, carlinos