Leo x’s brief Cum nuper, which authorised Cardinal Cajetan to put Luther on trial but did not restrict debate between them, was sent not on 11 September 1518, as has been generally believed, but on 2 November. It referred to a lost brief countermanding the order of 23 August for Luther's arrest: this brief instead offered a safe conduct to Rome. However, Luther's abrupt departure from Augsburg prevented this offer from being made. Exsurge Domine (1520), which convicted Luther without trial on inflated charges of heresy, made the false claim that he had rejected an invitation to Rome.

The article surveys early references to the story of Adam and Eve, which are surprisingly few in number, beginning only around 200 bce, with the Book of Tobit. The common notion that Adam was punished by death for his sin is verified neither in Genesis 2–3 itself (and the surrounding chapters) nor in any pre-Pauline texts. Paul's focus on Adam's sin was out of the ordinary, and his conclusion that he was punished by some kind of death does not resemble interpretations in any other contemporary source, including Philo. The equally common idea that the Devil was assumed to participate in causing Adam's sin does not occur in early texts (for instance, Wisdom or the books of the New Testament), being first found in Justin Martyr. Therefore, assessments of biblical theology that depend on these concepts should be emended.

Church historians have thought that the ancient and medieval Church disallowed torture in court proceedings. This view draws on Gratian's Decretum (c. 1140), but Gratian cites canons that permit judicial torture. Deutero-Gratian (c. 1150) added canons from Roman civil law; Huguccio (c. 1190) and the Ordinary Gloss to the Decretum (1215 and later) also adopted Roman criteria but stipulated that the clergy could not apply coercion involving serious injury or bloodshed. Heresy inquisitors added a twist to this practice well before Galileo's trial in 1633: a defendant admitting a heterodox deed but denying evil intent must be examined under torture.

This article examines Galileo's confrontations with the Holy Office of the Roman Inquisition in light of the rules and technicalities of inquisitorial procedure as set forth in theCorpus juris canonici, officially issued in 1582 under the auspices of Pope Gregory XIII. The primary decretal governing inquisition comes from the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, which also established the regulations of sacramental confession and the seal of secrecy. Inquisition was intended for the prosecution of public crimes, but when it was adapted to pursuing heresy, the rights of suspects were regularly disregarded, and, rather than being charged with public crimes, they were forced to incriminate themselves, even on secret deeds and previously unuttered beliefs. When first summoned in 1616, Galileo was not questioned, but merely warned not to espouse heliocentrism. In 1632, Holy Office investigations resulted in a summons, and when he appeared in April 1633, he was interrogated without being charged. His formal trial took place on May 10, and his guilty plea of favoring heliocentrism without heretical intention triggered an automatic examination of his private beliefs under torture (in his case, threat of torture), a new procedure adopted by the Holy Office around the turn of the seventeenth century.

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