54 ORIENTATION.
the Christian dispensation, in spite of the teaching and example of Christ and his Apostles. The Christian emperors after Constantine persecuted the heathen religion and heretical sects, as their heathen predecessors had persecuted the Christians as enemies of the national gods. The Justinian code, which extended its influence over the whole Continent of Europe, declares Christian heretics and schismatics, as well as Pagans and Jews, incapable of holding civil or military offices, forbids their public assemblies and ecclesiastical acts, and orders their books to be burned.
The leading divines of the church gave sanction to this theory. St. Augustin, who had himself been a heretic for nine years, was at first in favor of toleration.’ But during the Donatist controversy, he came to the conclusion that the correction and coércion of heretics and schismatics was in some cases necessary and wholesome. His tract on the Correction of the Donatists was written about 417, to show that the schismatical and fanatical Donatists . should be subjected to the punishment of the imperial laws. He admits that it is better that men should be led to worship God by teaching than be driven to it by fear of punishment or pain; but he reasons that more men are corrected by fear. He derives the proof from the Old Testament. The only passages from the New Testament which he is able to quote, would teach a com-
1He begins his anti-Manichean work, Adv. Epistolam Manichei quam vocant fundamenti, written in 397, with these noble Christian sentiments: “ My prayer to the one true, almighty God, of whom and by whom and in whom are all things, has been and is now, that in opposing and refuting the heresy of you Manichzans, as you may after all be heretics more from thoughtlessness than from malice, He would give me a calm and composed mind, aiming at your recovery rather than your discomfiture. For, while the Lord by his servants overthrows the kingdoms of error, his will concerning erring men, as far as they are men, is that they should be restored rather than destroyed. And in every case where, previous to the final judgment, God inflicts punishment ... Wwe must believe that the designed effect is the recovery of men, and not their ruin; while there is a preparation for the final doom in the case of those who reject the means of recovery.” And in ch. 3 he says to the Manichezans, remembering his own former connection with them: “I can on no account treat you angrily ; for I must bear with you now as formerly I had to bear with my-
self, and I must be as patient with you as my associates were with me, when J went madly and blindly astray in your beliefs.”
§ 11. PROTESTANTISM AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 55
pulsory salvation rather than punishment, but are really not to the point. He refers to Paul’s conversion as a case of compulsion by Christ himself, and misapplies the word of our Lord in the parable of the Supper: ‘“Constrain them to come in.”* Yet he
professed, on the other hand, the correct principle that “no man
can believe against his will. And he expressly discouraged
the infliction of the death-penalty on heretics.’
Thomas Aquinas, next to Augustin, the highest authority among the canonized doctors of the Latin church, went a step further. He proved, to the satisfaction of the Middle Ages, that the rites of idolaters, Jews, and infidels ought not to be tolerated,* and that heretics or corruptors of the Christian faith, being worse criminals than debasers of money, ought (after due admonition) not only to be excommunicated by the church, but also be put to death by the state.” He does not quote a Bible passage in favor of the
1 De Correct. Donatist, c.6, ἢ 24: “The Lord himself (Luke 14: 23) bids the guests in the first instance to be invited to His great supper, and afterwards to be compelled.” He understands the highways and hedges of the parable to mean heresies and schisms, and the Supper of the Lord to mean the unity of the body of Christ in the sacrament of the altar and the bond of peace. He says (ch. 7, @ 25) that when the imperial laws against heresy first were sent to Africa, he with certain brethren opposed their execution, but afterwards justified them as a measure of catholic self-defense against the fanatical violence of the Donatists. The result was, that both Catholics and Donatists were overwhelmed in ruin by the Vandal conquerors, who were Arian heretics.
*“ Credere non potest homo nisi volens.” See his Tract. XX VI. in Joan. c. 2, where he says: “A man can come to church unwillingly, can approach the altar unwillingly, partake of the sacrament unwillingly ; but he can not believe unless he is willing. If we believed with the body, men might be made to believe against their will. But believing is not a thing done with the body.” I am pleased to find an approving reference to this sentence in the Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII. of Nov. 1, 1885.
*In a letter to Proconsul Donatus (Ep. C.) he adjured him by Jesus Christ, not to repay the Donatists in kind, and says: “ Corrigi eos cupimus, non necart.”
* Summa Theol. Secunda Secunde, Quest. x., Art. 11.
5 Ibid. Quest. xi., Art. 3, where he says of heretics: “ Meruerunt non solum ab ecclesia per excommunicationem seperart, sed etiam per mortem a mundo excludi .. . Si falsarit pecunie vel alii malefactores statim per sceculares principes juste morti traduntur, multo magis heretici statim ex quo de herisi convincuntur, possunt non solum excommunicart, sed et juste occidt.”