Disputation — Bontempi, Palladium Theologicum V · from Schola Thomistica
Disputation III: On Heresy
As among the Turks (as is commonly noted) that man is the most bitter enemy of the Christian name who, born of Christian parents, is enrolled into a Mahometan family: so among infidels none more cruelly assaults the Church than he who, having been for some time nourished in it itself, and formed by the Sacrament of faith, pertinaciously adheres to his error, and is thrust the deeper into darkness the more the ray of truth shines around him, willingly blinding himself. This heresy works, building for itself, after the likeness of an Ape, a Synagogue, which it strives to dignify with a counterfeit title of religion; of its nature, state, and condition something must be said here as the subject matter requires.
De Haeresi.
Ut Inter Turcas (ut vulgo notatur) ille Christiani nominis infensissimus est hostis, qui Christianis natus parentibus, in Mahumetanam familiam adsciscitur: Ita inter infideles nullus atrocius in Ecclesiam grassatur, quam qui in ipsa aliquantisper nutritus, et fidei Sacramento formatus, pertinaciter suo errori adhaerescit, eoque crassiores in tenebras protruditur, quo circumlucente veritatis radio libens excaecatur. Haec operatur haeresis, ad Simiae instar Synagogam sibi struens, quam ementito religionis titulo honestare contendit; de eius natura, statu, et conditione hic pro subiecta materia agendum est.
Within this disputation
- Question I: What heresy is
- Question II: Whether one who doubts about the articles of faith is a heretic
- Question III: Whether one who gives merely opinionative assent to an article of faith is a heretic
- Question IV: Whether ignorance excuses from heresy, and what ignorance
- Question V: What pertinacity is required for heresy
- Question VI: Whether, for one to be deemed a heretic, it is necessary that he have been baptized and one of the faithful
- Question VII: Whether the Church can compel heretics to receive the Catholic faith
- Question VIII: On the other means the Church uses against heretics, by forbidding their books
- Question IX: Whether we are bound to avoid the conversation of heretics
- Question X: What excommunication is inflicted upon heretics
- Question XI: On the other spiritual punishments of heretics
- Question XII: On the temporal punishments of heretics