Question V: Whether unbaptized unbelievers can be compelled to abandon errors or rites contrary to natural reason

The first opinion is affirmative. So Maior, and Sepúlveda, as in Suarez disput. 18. sect. 4. They are cited by Coninck disput. 18. num. 184.; St. Antoninus 3. p. tit. 22. cap. 1. §. 6. et 8., but there he speaks according to the mind of Augustinus Anconitanus. Sylvester is also adduced, under the word Papa, quaestione 7., who speaks in the same way. Panormitanus is also cited, cap. Quod super his, de voto; and after Panormitanus, Hostiensis, and Innocent on cap. Quod super his, extra de voto.

The common opinion of Theologians grants this of subject infidels only. So Caietan. Victoria, Soto, Valentia, Aragon, and others, whom Suarez disp. 18. sect. 4. cites and follows; Turtianus disp. 52. dub. 2.; Coninck disp. 18. dub. 12. num. 187.; Hurtad. disp. 75. §. 23.; Lugo disp. 19. sect. 2.; Bassaeus v. Fides 2. 8., who cite others. Others hold the same with Tanneto disp. 1. quaest. 9. dub. 2., who also say it is lawful if they are burdensome and a scandal to Christians. The Saintly Doctor, de Eccl. Hierarch. p. 2. cap. 3. proves it from the deed of Iudae Machabaei lib. 1. cap. 3.

It is proved by Suarez from the example of God, who, when He wished to destroy or punish the nations dwelling in the land of promise, nevertheless willed them not to be warred down by the Israelites for the crime of Idolatry, but for the denial of peaceful passage through their lands; and it is gathered from 20. Numer., and St. August. signifies this, cited in cap. 3. d. 23. quaest. 2.

But Coninck num. 193. says this deed was done by a special concession of God, the supreme Lord.

Lugo num. 97. adds that the mere denial of passage did not bring those evils upon the Chanaanites, nor sufficiently justify all the wars of the Jews. Hence when they crossed the Jordan, they killed them, yet not on account of the denied passage. Moreover even little ones were killed, who were ignorant of that barbarity. You will find the better course with St. Bonaventure, ad 12. Sap., for the universal cause of the just war of the Israelites: because certainly those Pagans, corrupted, were unwilling to cease from works against the law of nature; and thus he speaks: O quam bonus, et suavis est Domine spiritus tuus in omnibus! Ideoque eos, qui exerrant, partibus corripis: et de quibus peccant, admones, et alloqueris: ut relicta malitia, credant in te Domine. Illos enim antiquos inhabitatores terrae sanctae tuae, quos exhorruisti, quoniam odibilia opera tibi faciebant per medicamina, et sacrificia iniusta; et filiorum suorum necatores sine misericordia, et comestores viscerum hominum, et devoratores sanguinis a medio Sacramento tuo, et auctores parentes animarum inauxiliatarum perdere voluisti per manus parentum nostrorum, ut dignam perciperent peregrinationem puerorum Dei, quae sibi omnium charior est terra — O how good and sweet is thy spirit, O Lord, in all things! And therefore thou correctest those that err by little and little: and admonishest and speakest to them of the things wherein they sin: that leaving wickedness they may believe in thee, O Lord. For those ancient inhabitants of thy holy land, whom thou didst abhor, because they did odious works to thee by potions and unjust sacrifices; and murderers of their own children without mercy, and eaters of the bowels of men, and devourers of blood from the midst of thy Sacrament, and authors and parents of souls without help, thou didst will to destroy by the hands of our parents, that they might receive a pilgrimage worthy of the children of God, the land most dear to them of all.

These are the causes, as the Saintly Doctor says there, for which He willed those peoples not to dwell with the faithful people, nor to make a covenant with them; nay rather to be expelled and killed, because incorrigible they accomplished enormous works against nature, to the ruin, scandal, and damnation of the faithful. But the little ones were killed in punishment of the scandals of the adults.

Pope NICOLAUS, answering the questions of the Bulgarians, speaking of Idolaters as such, says: De his, qui idolis immolant, nihil aliud dicere possumus, nisi quod ratione potius, quam vi, convincendi sunt — Of those who sacrifice to idols we can say nothing else, but that they are to be convinced rather by reason than by force.

And Paul III, as in Lugo n. 102. et Coninch. 160., declared that the Indians, as infidels, are the true lords of their goods, nor can they be despoiled of them;

But Bannes quaest. 10. art. 10. dub. 2.; Suarez, above, num. 8.; Coninck num. 188.; Lugo n. 116. note that the Prince must first enact a law, prohibiting; and afterwards punish the delinquents.

Lugo adds that they ought to be punished in the mildest way possible; nevertheless, the same says, the more atrocious crimes related above are to be punished most severely. It is a wonder, however, that in the Laws of Solon and Romulus no penalty for parricides is prescribed. Certainly I think with Tullius, oratione pro Rossio Amerino, and Plutarch in vita Romuli, that the cause was that they did not believe so great a crime would ever happen. But when the case should occur, the parricide ought to be chastised with the most atrocious death, as was Francis Ravaillac of Angoulême, who stabbed Henry IV, the Great, the legitimate King of the Gauls, as Lugo Hispanus observes. For this Monarch was great, not inferior to Alexander or Caesar, as his deeds show in Matthaeus and Davila. He had been made most sincerely Catholic, but he wished first to acquire the Kingdom by the sword, lest anyone should ever induce in his mind the hope of capturing the kingdom by the flood of the Sacraments of the reconciled Church; nor indeed had he relapsed by his own judgment, because as an adolescent, with the terror of death struck into him by Charles IX, he had received the Catholic faith. Truly, however, if he had abjured before a Judge, he was not excused, as P. Cyprianus fol. 748. P. Bonagratia v. Absolutio says, even though this doctrine was declared by the Most Eminent only in the year 1068.^{1 1} Editor's note: the print reads 'declarata solum an. 1068'; the year is chronologically impossible here (the volume was printed in 1655 and the authors discussed are 16th–17th century), and the djvu OCR layer could not be aligned to verify the figures; the true reading (perhaps 1568 or 1668 of the Congregation's decree) cannot be established, so the print's '1068' is kept.