Chapter III — On the temptation of God, and sacrilege

I. Question I. What is the temptation of God? Answer. It is a disordered proof, or experiment, of some divine perfection, by words or deeds. The word disordered distinguishes licit temptation from illicit. It is licit when, urgent necessity pressing, it is done by God's instinct — as when Abraham, Gideon, Elias, and several other holy men obtained a pledge that God would be propitious to them in arduous trials. But it is illicit and disordered when, without necessity and from mere caprice, an experiment is made of some divine perfection — of justice, of mercy, of omnipotence. This temptation is twofold: express, as when someone throws himself headlong from a window with the intention of testing whether God is willing to free him. The other is tacit, and interpretative, when someone acts in such a way that from the deed it is gathered that he wills to tempt God. By this reasoning, he tempts God who, without necessity, exposes himself to grave danger, hoping to be freed by God. When someone tempts God with deliberate mind, it is a grave fault; if with a half-deliberate mind, for the most part light.

II. Question II. Does he tempt God who contends to manifest his innocence by the proof of hot iron or boiling water? Answer. The true and common opinion affirms it. For natural means are at hand by which innocence can be manifested — namely spontaneous confession, and the proof of witnesses — as St. Thomas proves, II-II, q. 95, art. 8, ad 3. The examples of the adulterous woman to be tested by bitter waters, as is had in Numbers 5, and of the Monk suspected of theft, commanded to manifest his innocence by receiving the Eucharist, as is established in the chapter Saepe, question 2, cause 5, are of no weight. For the precept concerning the adulterous woman was ceremonial, which has been abrogated. To the second authority St. Thomas answers, III, q. 80, art. 6, ad 3, that those decrees have been abrogated by the contrary documents of the Roman Pontiffs. For Pope Stephen says: "of hot iron," etc., and the same is had extra, On purgations, chapter Ex tuarum: "For in all such things there seems to be a temptation of God. Whence they cannot be done without sin." That if miracles were sometimes seen in these proofs, God worked them for the defense of the innocence of the accused, the sin being permitted in the men making the trial.

III. He who offers a miracle to be worked by God, that he may convert a Heretic, tempts God: because there are readily available most luminous arguments of truth by which the catholic Religion can be confirmed. That if holy men have sometimes shown these miracles to Heretics, this happened by a singular instinct of God. Nothing, however, forbids that with humble obedience and due submission such miracles sometimes be sought from God.

IV. Question III. What is sacrilege, and of how many kinds? Answer. Sacrilege is the violation of a sacred thing. A thing is called sacred which is deputed to divine worship. And therefore everything that pertains to irreverence toward sacred things pertains to injury against God, and has the character of sacrilege, says the Angelic Doctor, II-II, q. 99, art. 1.

V. St. Thomas distinguishes a threefold sacrilege, in the same place, article 3. The first is an injury inflicted upon a sacred person, such as a Cleric, a Monk, a Nun, or fornication with a person bound by a vow of chastity. The second regards a sacred place, such as a Church or a Cemetery. The third is committed against sacred things, singularly dedicated to divine worship, such as the sacraments, chalices, vestments destined for the performance of sacred rites, images of the Saints, relics, etc.

VI. The first sacrilege against sacred persons can be committed in four ways: 1. If such sacred persons are forcibly detained and struck. 2. If they are brought before a lay tribunal. 3. If, without legitimate authority, tributes and taxes are imposed upon them...

upon them. 4. If fornication or unchastity is committed with persons bound by a vow of chastity. To this species of sacrilege is also reduced unchastity committed by a Confessor with a spiritual daughter.

VII. The second species of sacrilege is committed in many ways as well. 1. If someone burns, breaks, or tears down a sacred place, or demolishes altars. 2. If, from a Church even threatening ruin, or polluted, or interdicted, and from its cemeteries, courtyards, cloister, and any place not separated from it — likewise from Oratories founded by legitimate authority, from Bishops' palaces, from the Convents of Regulars and their enclosed precincts — someone forcibly drags out a man. 3. If someone kills a man there, or forcibly sheds human blood there; if someone commits voluntary pollution, either openly or secretly. 4. If someone conducts trade and markets in a Church, opens banquets, games, shameful conversations, and theatrical scenes. 5. If someone steals in a Church a sacred thing from a sacred place, or a non-sacred thing from a sacred place, or a sacred thing from a non-sacred place.

VIII. The third species is real sacrilege, by which a sacred thing is treated unworthily. Sacred things are distinguished into four classes, as it were. 1. There come the sacraments. 2. Sacred vessels, sacred images, the relics of Saints. 3. The ornaments of the Church, or of the Ministers, such as chasubles, veils, and other things of this kind. 4. Movable or immovable goods deputed to the sustenance of ministers, such as Tithes, First-fruits, etc.

IX. To this too are referred the abuses of the words of sacred Scripture. Those who twist sacred words to spread heresies, who mix them into profane sermons, or abuse them to compose scurrilous pamphlets, or to express profane things, are sacrilegious, as is had in the Council of Trent, session 4.

X. Sacrilege can also be committed by omission. Guilty of this sacrilege are sacristans who neglect to guard, with due vigilance, the sacred chrisms and the Eucharist, with locks applied according to the prescriptions of the sacred canons; likewise while they do not keep the Corporals, sacred vessels, altars, and ecclesiastical vestments clean and neat, but offer them stained, soiled, and filthy for performing the unbloody sacrifice. They are also sacrilegious, if they negligently allow the sacred particles to spoil in the pyx.

XI. Sacrilege is by its nature a deadly crime. It can be venial on account of either lack of deliberation or parvity of matter. There are penalties of two kinds enacted against the sacrilegious. Some are pecuniary, which are not inflicted before the judge's sentence; others are spiritual, which the sacrilegious undergo by the very fact, and are as follows: excommunication enacted against strikers of Clerics; likewise against those who violate ecclesiastical immunity, usurp the immovable goods of the Church, impose tributes on ecclesiastical persons, and bring them before a lay tribunal; and against those who break down the doors of a Church to steal sacred things.