§ 27. KESTRICTTO^" OF KELIGIOUS FEEEDOM. 143
Treves in 385. This was the first sliedding of the Itlood of heretics by a Christian prince for religious opinions. The bisliops assembled at Treves, witb the exception of Theognistns, approved this act.
But the better feeling of tlie Christian church slirank from it with horror. The bishops Ambrose of Milan/ and Martin of Tours," raised a memorable protest against it, and broke off all communion with Ithacius and tlie other bishops who had approved tlie execution. Yet it should not be forgotten that these bisho23s, at least Ambrose, were committed against the death penalty in general, and in other respects had no indulgence for heathens and heretics.' The whole thing, too, was irregularly done ; on the one hand the bishops appeared as accusers in a criminal cause, and on the other a temporal judge admitted an appeal from the episcopal jurisdiction, and pronounced an opinion in a matter of faith, Subsorpiently the functions of the temporal and spiritual courts in the trial of heretics were more accurately distinguished.
The execution of the Priscillianists is the only instance of the hloody punishment of heretics in this period, as it is the first in the history of Christianity. But the propriety of violent measures against heresy was thenceforth vindicated even by the best fathers of the church. Chrysostom recom-
' Epist. xxiv. ad Valentin, (torn. ii. p. 891). He vrould have notliing to do with bishops, " qui aliquos, devios licet a fide, ad necem petebant."
' In Sulpic. Sever., Hist. Sacra, ii. 50 : " Namque turn Martinus apud Treveroa constitutus, non desinebat increpare Ithacium, iit ab accn.:>itione desisteret, Maximum orarc, ut sanguine infelicium absLineret : satis superque sufficere, nt cpiscopali sententia hajretici judicati ecclesiis pellerentur : novum esse ct inauditum nefas, ul causam ecelesite judex sasculi judicaret." Comp. Sulp. Sev., Dial. iii. c. 11-13, and his Vit. Mart. c. 20.
' Hence Gibbon, ch. xxvli., charges them, not quite groundlessly, with inconeistency : " It is with pleasure that avc can observe the human inconsi.'^tency of the most illustrious saints and bishops, Ambrose of Milan, and Martin of Tours, who, on this occasion, asserted the cause of toleration. They pitied the unhajjpy men who had been executed at Treves ; they refused to hold communion with their episcopal nurderers ; and if Martin deviated from that generous resolution, his motives were laudable, and his repentance was exemplary. The bishops of Tours and Milan pronounced, without hesitation, the eternal damnation of heretics ; but they were surprised and shocked by the bloody image of their temporal death, and the hone'jt feelings of nature resisted the artificial prejudices of theology."
144 THTED PERIOD. A.T). 311-590.
mends, indeed, Cliristian love toward heretics and lieatliens, and declares against their execution, but approved the prohibition of their assemblies and the confiscation of their churches ; and he acted accordingly against the Novatians and the Quartodecimanians, so that many considered his own subsequent misfortunes as condign punishment.' Jerome, appealing to Deut. xiii. 6-10, seems to justify even the penalty of death against religious errorists.^
Augustine, who himself belonged nine years to the Manichsean sect, and was wonderfully converted by the grace of God to the Catholic church, wdthout the slightest pressure from without, held at first the truly evangelical view, that heretics and schismatics should not be violently dealt with, but won by instruction and conviction ; but after the year 400 he turned and retracted this view, in consequence of his experience with the Donatists, whom he endeavored in vain to convert by disputation and writing, while many submitted to the imperial laws." Thenceforth he was led to advocate the persecution of heretics, partly by his doctrine of the Christian state, partly by the seditious excesses of the fanatical Circumcelliones, partly by the hope of a wholesome effect of temporal punishments, and partly by a fiJse interpretation of the Coq'de intra/re^ in the parable of the great supper, Luke xiv. 23.* " It is, indeed, better," says he, " that men should be brought to serve God ])y instruction than by fear of punishment
' Horn. xxix. and xWi. in Matt. Comp. Socrat. H. E. vi. 19. Elsewhere his principle was (in Phocam mart, ct c. hajr. torn. ii. p. '705) : 'Euol iho% tarl didiKfirha^ KuX MT? Sia'Kf '" ; that is, he himself would rather suffer injury than inflict injury.
^ Epist. xxxvii. (al. liii.) ad Riparium adv. Vigilantiura.
' Epist. 93, ad Vincent. § 17 : "Mca primitus sententia non erat, nijsi nemineni ad unitatem Christi esse coj^endum, verbo esse agendum, disputatione pugnandum, ratione vincendum, ne fictos catholicos haberemus, quos apertos h;rrcticos noveramus,
cif^d ^he continues — hrec opinio mea non contradiceiitium verbis, sed demonstran-
tium superabatur exemplis." Then ho adduces his experience with the Donatists. Comp. Retract, ii. 6.
* The directif n : " Compel them to come in," which has often since been abused in defence of coercive measures against heretics, must, of course, be interpreted in harmony with the whole spirit of the gospel, and is only a strong descriptive term in the parable, to signify the fervent zeal in the conversion of the heathen, such ofl St. Paul manifested without ever resorting to physical cocrciou.