Nobody Expects The Spanish Inquisition! Quiz

Answer: martyr

Taken from the Greek language, a martyr was one who was asked to witness (i.e. give evidence) in defence of his faith or belief. In early Christian times, it gradually came to mean those that suffered in the defence of their faith, up to and including death.

Answer: Saint Stephen

The Bible book, Acts of the Apostles, gives an account of Saint Stephen. He was a member of the Christian Church in Jerusalem who was accused of blasphemy, after preaching. Acts chapter 7 gives an account of the speech he made at his trial, where he was sentenced to death by stoning. His sentence was carried out under the eye of the man who would later come to be known as Saint Paul.

Answer: True

Suicide is strictly forbidden according to the Quran.

There are five ways to attain the title of Shahid, but it does not guarantee the recipient entry to Paradise. For that, the Shahid must willingly have left home in the service of Allah and subsequently died defending his faith.

Answer: William Wallace

Having sworn an oath of fealty (a religious as well as secular deed) to John Balliol, King John of Scotland, William Wallace was first tortured then hung, drawn and quartered. King John had been made to abdicate the throne of Scotland and forced to live in residencies of the Pope for the remainder of his life.

Answer: False

The opposite was the case. Tomás de Torquemada (1420 - 1498) was the first High Inquisitor. He used his position of confessor and confidant of Queen Isabella of Spain to further his fight against the Spanish Jews.

Answer: Selling Joseph into slavery

The traditional story is that is that Roman Emperor Hadrian chose ten rabbis to represent the ten brothers of Joseph who had sold him into slavery. Although the brothers had broken the Jewish law, there was no provision under that law to subject to an inquisition ten others two thousand years later.

Answer: Joan of Arc

As is often the case, the charge of heresy was brought for political reasons and the inquisitors returned the guilty charge. Some years after her death, a retrial was held and Joan of Arc (1412-1431) was exonerated. It was not until the twentieth century that she was formally made a saint.

Answer: St. Denis

St. Denis was guilty of converting too many pagans to Christianity during his time as bishop in Paris in the third century. He is just one of many cephalophoric saints (i.e., saints who reportedly picked up their own heads and continued to speak) throughout history. My personal favourite is St. Valerie of Limoges who, it is reported, was beheaded following her refusal to marry a pagan and carried her severed head to her confessor.

Answer: Auschwitz

Saint Maximilian Maria Kolbe (1894-1941) was a Franciscan friar who was made a saint by Pope John Paul ll. He was arrested at his friary near Warsaw, Poland for protecting around 2,000 Jews from the Gestapo. His final act was to take the place of a married man with children, sentenced to be starved to death as a deterrent to those attempting to escape from the Death Camp.

An interesting fact is that the monastery founded by Kolbe in Nagasaki, Japan survived the atomic bomb because it was built just outside the town, sheltered by a mountain.

Answer: Joseph Smith

Joseph Smith, Jr (1805-1844) published "The Book of Mormon" in 1830 after several annual visits by the angel Moroni. Unlike many others, Smith allowed people to read the words and make up their own minds. This policy worked well and he gained sufficient followers to create the new community of Nauvoo, Illinois.

Joseph and his brother Hyrum surrendered to the authorities on the charge of creating a riot, to prevent bloodshed. Once in jail, the charge was changed to treason, the jail was attacked and both brothers died. Although five arrests were made, ultimately there was no trial, so the murderers went free.