finally more diverse kind came to be asked when certainty in most kinds of traditions came to be shaken. What this study, however, cannot answer properly is why modern research to such a great extent and determination is repeating the interpretations of the Enlightenment, and so often do this seemingly not understanding how it is being influenced. These crimes and therefore similar questions and problems seem to have occurred in the areas of all confessions in Western Europe, in the old church of the west. Among the confessional differences we can note that it seems like Catholics seeking to be executed often emphasised their own lack of holiness, for example by threats to their chastity, while Lutheranswere more concerned by the risk that they would not be in a state of grace when the time came for them to meet their Creator.947 Were these differences, if they might be proven through more cases and found to be of some real difference, the result of stresses in spirituality, teaching, and preaching on holiness and ethics versus conversion and seeking salvation in the two main confessions in Western Europe, Catholics and Lutherans? The greater theological differences are, however, to be found inside the particular churches and confessions, especially where the conflict even in the theological discourse was between execution and pastoral care. In several areas a difference between theory and practice has been displayed. Often those further away from the realities of despair, fear, and pain of the condemned easier argued harshness and cruelty. Ideas in theory of legal and philosophical dogma and doctrine and in theology have confronted quite different ideas prevailing in most pastoral care. Rarely does anybody seem to have noticed the conflict. 947 See Lake and Questier 2002 p 282 sq on the connection between martyrdom and virginity concerning Catholic martyrs in sixteenth and seventeenth century England. 274
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