Chapter VI — On the divine and ecclesiastical precept of confessing the Christian doctrine, both of faith and of morals

I. Question I. Is there a precept of confessing the Christian faith outwardly? Answer. All affirm it. This divine precept is twofold, affirmative and negative. The discourse is now of the first. The exterior manifestation of the faith can be made by words, signs, nods, gestures, and actions which express the faith either by peculiar institution or by common acceptation.

II. The divine precept of confessing the faith outwardly Christ frequently inculcates, saying in Matthew chapter 10: Every one therefore that shall confess me before men, I will also confess him before my Father. The precept presses: 1. When the honor of God, and the good of Religion, demand it. 2. When our Neighbor needs to be confirmed in the faith. 3. When we are constrained to teach others the catholic Religion. 4. When from our silence a suspicion arises, or can arise, that we have withdrawn from the faith. In these and similar cases the precept of exterior confession presses.

III. Question II. Does he sin who, being interrogated about the catholic faith, keeps silence? Answer. The Theologians are wont to distinguish an interrogation made by the public Power from an interrogation made by a private person. It is agreed among all that those Christians sin against the precept of confessing the faith who, interrogated about matters of faith by the public Power sitting in tribunal, keep silence and omit to profess the faith openly. Wherefore the following thesis was justly condemned: If one be interrogated by the public Power, I counsel him to confess the faith openly, as glorious to God and to the faith; to keep silence I do not condemn as of itself sinful. If the interrogation be made by a private person, then the circumstances of persons, of time, and of place must be regarded. For if the bystanders would incur danger from the silence, if the honor of God would suffer detriment, then the precept of confession would press, even though the interrogation were made by a private person. The Faithful are also bound to answer a catholic Superior interrogating them about the faith. And this holds true even if the Prince be a layman: for although it does not belong to such to interrogate about matters of faith, it can nevertheless happen that it is theirs to know whether their own subjects are catholics. When a Catholic sees the sacred images trampled upon, he is bound to profess his faith, that, so far as can be done, he may repel the injury inflicted upon God and upon the sacred images.

IV. Question III. Is it sometimes licit to flee from a tyrant, that compulsion to confess the faith may be avoided? Answer. Tertullian denied it in his book On flight in persecution; and his error the Montanists embraced. The error of Tertullian the Fathers confuted by manifest testimonies of the Gospel. St. Matthew, chapter 10, says: And when they shall persecute you in this city, flee into another; and again, chapter 24: Then they that are in Judea, let them flee to the mountains.

V. Bishops, Parish priests, and other Pastors can licitly flee, and sometimes ought, when tyrants rage against them personally, and other ministers are present who can administer spiritual assistance to the flock — as is evident from the example of the most invincible Athanasius, and as the Angelic Doctor teaches, lecture 3 on John. On the contrary, when no ministers are present, and the sheep are pressed by grave necessity and are in grave danger of losing the faith, then the Pastors cannot flee, but must expose their life for the salvation of the flock, as John says in chapter 10: For the good shepherd giveth his life for his sheep. But the hireling ... leaveth the sheep, and flieth. Those who are not Pastors are bound, by the title of charity, not of justice, to succor their brethren when the gravest necessity presses.

VI. Question IV. Are those who have the care of souls bound to make public profession of the faith? Answer. All affirm it; and this the Council of Trent decreed, session 24, chapter 12. The Tridentine decree Pius IV confirmed and amplified in his motu proprio whose beginning is Injunctum nobis. And again St. Pius V, in his constitution which begins In sacrosancta, etc., commands that all Doctors, Masters, Regents, Lecturers, Preachers, etc., make the profession of faith. And these decrees oblige under grave fault, as the common opinion teaches. Beneficiaries having the care of souls are bound, within two months from the day of peaceful possession, to make the profession of faith in the hands of the Bishop or his Vicar; otherwise they do not make the fruits their own, and are bound to restitution, as the more common and more probable opinion teaches. See Tome I on the Decalogue, book 1, dissertation I, chapter 13. To the aforesaid constitutions are subject also Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, and Bishops.

VII. Question V. Would he deny the faith who denied that he is a Christian? Answer. St. Augustine affirms it, tractate 103 on John. For he who denies that he is a Christian, denies Christ himself. The same must be said of him who should deny that he is a Papist, a Pontifical, a Romanist, when the interrogation were made by Heretics for the sake of religion. Similarly he would deny the faith who, interrogated whether he is a Turk or a Lutheran, should affirm it — provided the end of the interrogator was to ascertain the religion of the one answering; otherwise, if the interrogation looked to something else. He who should deny that he is a Cleric, a Priest, a Religious, would not deny the faith, yet he would be guilty of a lie — whatever certain Probabilists assert to the contrary. It is not licit, for the sake of avoiding death, to burn incense to an Idol, or to bend the knee to it, or to exhibit other signs of religion, even though interiorly the faith be kept inviolate. For when external actions of their own nature savor of religion, they can never be licitly exercised for the purpose of testifying veneration toward an Idol. The example of Naaman the Syrian, which is wont to be objected, is vain, as will be made plain in its place. The use is not licit of ceremonies which are, as it were, the tokens of a false religion, and which savor of superstition.

VIII. It is not lawful for Christians to use the garments of Infidels instituted of themselves for the protestation of a false Sect — whatever Azor, with certain others, asserts to the contrary. For although garments, absolutely speaking, have been instituted for the adornment of the body, and under this aspect their use is licit, yet when they have been determined to the professing of a false Sect, then they can in no way be licitly employed. See Tome I on the Decalogue, book 1, dissertation I, chapter 14. Entrance into the temples of Heretics, into the synagogues of Jews and of Infidels, is licit for just causes: since such an entrance, in the common estimation of men, is not reputed an office or protestation of religion. If, however, a heretical Prince should command that the Catholics subject to his dominion enter the temples of the Heretics for the sake of religion, the Catholics ought rather to meet death than obey such a decree. Under pressing extreme necessity it is licit to go to the temples of Heretics for the receiving of baptism.

IX. It is also licit to eat idol-offerings, that is, foods consecrated to Idols, provided suspicion of superstition, scandal, and the worship of the false Sect be absent, as is gathered from St. Paul, 1 Corinthians 10: Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, eat; asking no question for conscience' sake. Catholics passing through the regions of Heretics cannot eat flesh on forbidden days, necessity being absent. For the precepts of the Church are to be observed everywhere. Yet to avoid death, or another grave inconvenience, the eating of flesh is licit. If, however, the eating of flesh were commanded in contempt of Religion, death would rather have to be undergone than to eat forbidden foods in contempt of one's own true Religion.

X. Question VI. Do they sin against the precept of confessing the faith who blush at the public confession of the doctrine which rules morals? Answer. The Christian religion, as I have said elsewhere, turns upon what is to be believed and what is to be done, as upon two inseparable hinges. Each part, then — both of the things to be believed and of the things to be done — must be publicly confessed. In the first centuries of the Church the heathen tyrants persecuted the things to be believed, but venerated the things to be done. On the contrary, in these last times of the Church, the things to be done are assailed by not a few professors of the Christian Religion itself. For he that shall be ashamed of me (says Christ, Luke 9) and of my words, of him the Son of man shall be ashamed, etc. Christ does not say: he that shall be ashamed to confess the Divinity, the Trinity, God the Creator, and the other splendid mysteries, which illuminate the mind only; but he says: he that shall be ashamed of me — that is, of me, a man humble, assailed with reproaches, contumelies, and derisions, crucified and dead. He adds: he that shall be ashamed of my words. What are the words of Christ? They are the precepts of morals, which crucify the flesh, restrain the appetites, humble the puffed-up soul, command penance, and prohibit allurements, dancings, the pomps of the world, luxury, lust, and the love of riches. He that shall be ashamed of me before men. It does not suffice to confess all these things in the heart; they must be manifested and defended before men. It is not enough to profess the things to be believed in any fashion whatever; they must be championed pure and inviolate, as Christ revealed them. By the same reason it does not suffice to profess any Moral doctrine whatsoever; but there is necessary the public confession of the Christian Moral, which leads through the strait and narrow way, which separates men from the pomps of the world, from spectacles, comedies, and the other allurements. Necessary is the profession of a Moral pure and immaculate, which is simple and ingenuous, and which detests cavillations and double-tongued distinctions.

XI. Question VII. Is it ever lawful to simulate a false Religion by words or deeds? Answer. From what has been said it is plain that this is never lawful. Against all simulations whatsoever Benedict XIV published a constitution, inserted in Tome 1 of his Bullarium, number 89, whose beginning is Inter omnigenas. From it I excerpt a few things, and subjoin them below.¹

¹ I. "Beginning, therefore, from the business of the faith, without which it is impossible to please God, we strictly command and enjoin upon all and each of the Faithful of that Kingdom [Serbia] who desire to retain the communion of the catholic Church, that they take care not to do or admit anything against the evangelical precepts and institutes in order to conceal — when it is sometimes licit and necessary to do so — the profession of the Christian Religion; and above all, things which include a protestation of the Mahometan Sect. Therefore, if they receive circumcision, let them know that Christ, as the Apostle testifies, shall profit them nothing. Let them altogether avoid taking upon their lips Turkish names, of which they ought not even to be mindful; frequenting the abominable temples of the Infidels, which they call Mosques; profaning the days of ecclesiastical fasts by the eating of flesh — and this to the end that they may be believed Mahometans. For all these things, even if the faith of Christ be held in the heart, cannot be done without a simulation of the errors of Mahomet, contrary to Christian sincerity, which contains a lie in a most grave matter, and includes a virtual denial of the faith, with the greatest injury to God and scandal to one's Neighbor. — II. But much more, when they are interrogated by the public Power, let them know that it is illicit for them to profess themselves adherents of the Mahometan Sect; but let them know that that is the time at which it behooves them, taking the shield of faith, not only to believe with the heart unto justice, but also with the mouth to confess Christ unto salvation: otherwise, if they dare to deny him before men, he also will deny them before his Father. — III. Equally impious and illicit is the abuse of those Christians of Serbia who, being about to depart from this life, permit or command that their corpses be committed to the burial-places of the Turks, with the assistance of the latter and with Mahometan rites employed. For if they ought by no means to be ashamed of Christ in life, how much less when they are to be presented at his tremendous judgment — lest he too be ashamed of them before his eternal Father. — IV. It shall therefore be the office of Bishops, Parish priests, and Missionaries seriously to teach and admonish those Christians who nefariously presume the above-said things, with immense injury to the faith, that in vain do they flatter themselves on their custody of the Christian law and their zeal, and on the education of their children in the same: since, failing even in one of these things, they are become guilty of all. Let them therefore openly declare to them that whoever, through fear of any Power whatever, or through dread of losing temporal goods, betrays his faith, provokes the wrath of God upon himself, and, unless he repent, renders himself a stranger to all hope of salvation: since he fears man more than God, and prefers to retain momentary things rather than to acquire eternal. And if any, obstinate, will to go on in this way of the ungodly, they shall be incapable of the Sacraments in life, and, if they die impenitent, of suffrages after death — to which let no minister of the Church presume to admit them; otherwise he shall be punished by his own Bishop with canonical penalties, according also to the prescript of the above-said Council of Albania. — V. Equally to be kept from the Sacraments of the Church are those women who, admitted under the name of marriage into the cohabitation of Turks, concealing the profession of the Christian Religion, there lead a life removed from every exercise of Religion; and it must be declared to them by their Pastors that they should not place the confidence of eternal salvation in that faith which, dead without works, they persuade themselves they can profitably preserve in the heart alone."