Question IV

GRATIAN. PART I. That vengeance is not to be inflicted is proved in many ways. For the evil are to be tolerated, not cast away; struck by rebuke, not expelled bodily. Hence Augustine says in the book On the Words of the Lord, [sermon 18]:

The evil are indeed to be tolerated for the sake of peace, nor is one to withdraw from them bodily; but to depart spiritually is to do what pertains to the correction of the evil, insofar as is permitted according to each person’s rank, while preserving peace. To be displeased is not to touch. For the prophets who said this did not abandon their people, but lived among those whom they rebuked, entered one temple with them, and celebrated the same sacraments. Therefore, this is to depart: not to spare with the mouth. This is not to touch the unclean: not to consent with the will.

The same. You who are good, tolerate the evil man. For Christ also tolerated Judas, although he knew him to be a thief, sent him to preach, and gave him the Eucharist with the others.

The same upon John, [tractate 50, on c. 12]. What, therefore, brothers, did our Lord Jesus Christ wish to admonish his church when he willed to have one lost man among twelve, except that we should tolerate the evil lest we divide the body of Christ? Behold, Judas is among the saints; behold, Judas is a thief and, lest you dispute it, a thief and a sacrilegious man—not just any kind of thief, but a thief of the Lord’s purses, of sacred things. Thus crimes are distinguished in a thief between theft of any kind and embezzlement—for theft from the commonwealth is called embezzlement, and theft of private property is not judged in the same way as that of public property. How much more severely is the sacrilegious thief to be judged, since this is to take not from just anywhere, but from the church? One who steals something from the church is compared to Judas the betrayer.

The same, [sermon 18 On the Words of the Lord]. Behold, they say, the Prophet says: “Withdraw; depart from there, and do not touch the unclean.” How, then, shall we tolerate the evil for the sake of peace, when we are commanded to depart and withdraw from them lest we touch the unclean? We understand that withdrawal spiritually; they understand it bodily. For I too cry out with the Prophet. We are equal vessels; God uses us in his dispensation toward you. We cry out and say to you: withdraw and depart from there, and do not touch the unclean—but by contact of the heart, not of the body. For what is it to touch the unclean except to consent to sins? But what is it to depart from there except to do what pertains to the correction of the evil, insofar as it can be done according to the rank and person of each, while preserving peace? And a little later: § 1. Therefore, my brothers, however many you have among you who are still weighed down by love of the world—the avaricious, perjurers, adulterers, spectators of trifles, consulters of astrologers, fanatics, augurs, soothsayers, drunkards, and the luxurious—whatever evil persons you know to be among you, condemn them insofar as you can, so that you may withdraw in heart; reprove them, so that you may depart from there; and do not consent, so that you may not touch the unclean.

The same in Book II Against Parmenian, c. 1. Whoever either corrects by reproving what he can, or excludes while preserving the bond of peace what he cannot correct, or equitably condemns and steadfastly supports what he cannot exclude while preserving the bond of peace, is peaceable and is altogether free, completely secure, and entirely separate from that curse in which Scripture says, “Woe to those who call what is wicked good, and what is good wicked.” § 1. How, says Parmenian, will you be able to remain uncorrupted when you associate with the corrupt?

The same, [continuing in the same chapter]. Thus, plainly, one is associated—that is, if he commits some evil with them or favors them when they commit it. But if he does neither, he is associated in no way. Moreover, if he adds a third thing, that he not be sluggish in punishing but either, as a just man, rebuke in mercy and reprove, or even, if he bears that office and the rationale of preserving peace admits it, reprove those sinning before all so that the others may fear, and let him also be removed either from some rank of honor or even from communion in the sacraments; and if he does all these things with love for correcting, not with the hatred of persecuting, he has fulfilled the fullest duty not only of the purest innocence but also of the most diligent severity. But where the other things are impeded, those two, always retained, preserve him uncorrupted and chaste: that he neither do evil nor approve it when done.

The same in the conciliar letter to the Donatists. If anyone shall have been separated from the Catholic Church, however praiseworthily he may think that he lives, by this crime alone—that he is severed from Christianity—he will not have life, but the wrath of God remains upon him. But whoever shall have lived well in this holy church is in no way prejudiced by the sins of others, because in it each will bear his own burden, as the Apostle says. § 1. Therefore, communion with the evil does not stain anyone through participation in the sacraments, but consent to their deeds does. For if anyone does not consent to them in evil deeds, the evil man bears his own case and does not prejudice the other, whom he does not have as a partner in crime through consent to the evil work.

The same in a sermon [18] On the Words of the Gospel. Always separate yourselves from the evil in heart; for a time, cautiously be joined to them in body. § 6. An evil man does not stain you in two ways: if you do not consent, and if you reprove him. This is not to communicate: not to consent; for communication occurs when a partnership of will or approval is joined to his deed. § 2. Therefore, neither consent to the evil so as to approve them, nor be negligent so as not to reprove them, nor be proud so as to reprove them insultingly.

Likewise in the same. Withdraw; depart from there, and do not touch the unclean—but by contact of the heart, not of the body. For what is it to touch the unclean except to consent to sins? What is it to depart from there except to do what pertains to their correction, insofar as it can be done according to the rank and person of each, while preserving peace? Were you displeased that someone sinned? You did not touch the unclean. Did you reprove, rebuke, admonish, and even apply, if the matter requires it, fitting discipline that does not violate unity? You departed from there. § 1. Moses cried these things; Isaiah cried them; Jeremiah cried them; Ezekiel cried them. Let us see whether they abandoned the people of God and transferred themselves to other nations. How many things, and how vehemently, did Jeremiah speak in rebuke against the sinners and criminals of the people? Yet he was among them, entered one temple with them, celebrated the same sacraments, and lived in the same congregation of criminal men; but by crying out he departed from there. This is to depart from there; this is not to touch the unclean: both not to consent with the will and not to spare with the mouth.

The same in letter [48] to Vincentius. How great a crime it is to be separated from the communion of these innocent persons! For even deeds of the guilty that cannot be demonstrated to the innocent or believed by the innocent do not defile anyone if, for the sake of the innocent, they are tolerated even after becoming known. For the good are not to be abandoned on account of the evil, but the evil are to be tolerated on account of the good, just as the Prophets tolerated those against whom they said so many things and did not leave communion in the sacraments of that people; just as the Lord himself tolerated the guilty Judas until his deserved end and permitted him to share the sacred supper with the innocent; just as the Apostles tolerated those who proclaimed Christ through envy, which is a vice of the devil himself.

The same in Book I On the One Baptism. Perhaps among the people of God there stands beside you an avaricious man, a robber, one gaping after the property of others, whom you know to be such; and he is faithful, or rather is called faithful. You cannot expel him from the church; you have no access by which to correct him through chastising and rebuking him; he is about to approach the altar with you. Do not fear: each will bear his own burden. Likewise: § 1. How, you ask, could I bear one whom I know to be evil? Would it not be better that you bear him than carry yourself outside? Behold how you could bear him: attend to the Apostle saying, “Each will bear his own burden.” Let that sentence free you. For you would not share avarice with him, but you would share Christ’s table with him. And how would it harm you if you shared Christ’s table with him? The Apostle says: “For one who eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks judgment to himself”—to himself, not to you. Certainly, if you are a judge, if you have received the power of judging by ecclesiastical rule, if he is accused before you, if he is convicted by true documents and witnesses, restrain, rebuke, excommunicate, degrade him. GRATIAN. There is also another distinction concerning those to be tolerated and those to be avoided, which may be gathered from the words of Augustine, who says, [sermon 49 On the Words of the Lord]:

The Lord spoke of three persons in the Gospel—and we ought to investigate them—the shepherd, the hireling, and the thief. He said that the shepherd lays down his life for the sheep and enters through the door. He said that the thief and robber climbs up by another way. He said that the hireling, if he sees the wolf or even the thief, flees because he has no care for the sheep; for he is a hireling, not a shepherd. The one who is a shepherd enters through the door; the one who is a thief climbs up by another way; the one who, on seeing those who wish to take away the sheep, fears and flees is a hireling, and he has no care for the sheep, for he is a hireling. If we find these three persons, your holiness finds whom you should love, whom you should tolerate, and whom you should avoid. The shepherd is to be loved, the hireling tolerated, the robber avoided. GRATIAN. Behold, the evil are to be tolerated and punished not with bodily but with spiritual vengeance. Hence, when the disciples, not having been received by the Samaritans, wished to bring down fire from heaven upon them, saying to the master, “Do you wish us to say that fire should descend from heaven and consume them?” they heard, “You do not know of what spirit you are.” Likewise: “Everyone who takes the sword will perish by the sword.”

Hence Jerome also says, [in the commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, c. 4]. He who was born according to the flesh persecuted the spiritual man; but the spiritual man never persecutes the carnal, but forgives him as an uncultivated brother. He knows that the other can make progress with time; and if at any time he shall have seen the son of the Egyptian woman growing angry, he will remember the one Father who created both the oxen and the gnat, and who willed that in a great house there should be not only vessels of gold and silver but also wooden and earthen vessels.

Likewise Augustine in Book [IV] On Baptism, [c. 12]. How great a swelling of arrogance it is, how great a forgetfulness of humility and gentleness, and how great a boast of arrogance, that someone should believe himself able to do what the Lord did not grant even to the Apostles—namely, that he should think himself able to distinguish the weeds from the wheat.

Likewise Gregory, [homily 38 on the Gospels]. This life, which is situated between heaven and hell, just as it subsists in the middle, so receives in common the citizens of both parts; nevertheless, the holy church receives them without distinction and afterwards will distinguish them at their departure. Therefore, if you are good, so long as you subsist in this life, tolerate the evil with equanimity. For whoever does not tolerate the evil is by his intolerance a witness against himself that he is not good. For he refuses to be Abel whom Cain’s malice does not exercise. PART II. GRATIAN. From all these things it is gathered that vengeance upon the evil is to be reserved to God, and that they are not to be punished bodily but invited to correction by frequent admonition and the benefit of charity. Hence Christ says in the Gospel: “You have heard that it was said in the law”—which manner of vengeance the law established—“An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” But I, taking away this reciprocity and inviting you to gentleness and the perfection of charity, say to you: “Do not resist evil, but love your enemies; do good to those who hate you, so that you may be sons of your Father, who makes his sun rise upon the good and the evil and rains upon the just and the unjust.” Hence Paul says: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he thirsts, give him drink.” Moreover, every unjust man is an enemy of the good, for every friend of this world is an enemy of God. But an enemy of God is an enemy of goodness and justice, and on this account he cannot love a lover of justice and goodness. Therefore, since we are commanded to love our enemies or do good to them and furnish them food and drink, we are prohibited from persecuting and punishing our enemies. § 1. For in the law of the Old Testament a bodily penalty was established, but in the law of the Gospel pardon through penance is promised to every sinner. Hence the former began from terror, saying, “I am the Lord, a jealous God, visiting the sins of the fathers upon the sons unto the third and fourth generation.” But the latter began from the gentleness of meekness and mercy, saying thus: “Blessed are the poor in spirit; blessed are the meek; blessed are the merciful, because they shall obtain mercy.” In the former it was said, “One who does this or that shall die the death.” In the latter it is said, “I rejoice over one sinner doing penance more than over ninety-nine just persons who do not need penance.” Likewise: “I came not to call the just but sinners.” Likewise: “Be merciful, as your Father also is merciful.” The beginning of the preaching of our Savior and of his herald also invited sinners to penance. For each began thus: “Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven will draw near.” Thus also in the Acts of the Apostles, when the Jews, pierced concerning the crime of Christ’s death, said to Peter, “What shall we do, men and brothers?” Peter is read to have answered them, “Do penance, and let each one of you be baptized.” And, to speak universally, in the law that untutored people was compelled by servile fear of penalties; hence it also received the law as a pedagogue. But in the Gospel the free and adult people of grace is invited to the observance of divine service by filial love and certainty of inheritance. Hence, when certain persons preached that the law, as though restraining, was to be kept together with grace, the Apostle said, “For you have not received the spirit of servitude again in fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons, in which we cry: Abba, Father.” § 2. Hence Gregory also says in the exposition of the Gospel: “The kingdom of heaven was made like a man who was a king and made a wedding for his son.”

Since it is written in the law, “You shall love your friend and hold your enemy in hatred,” license had then been granted to the just to restrain the adversaries of God and of themselves with as much strength as they could, and to strike them by right of the sword. This is undoubtedly restrained in the New Testament, when Truth himself preaches, saying, “Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you.” Therefore, what is signified by the bulls except the fathers of the Old Testament? For when, by permission of the law, they had received authority to strike their adversaries with the requital of hatred, what else were they, so to speak, but bulls that struck their enemies with the horn of bodily strength? But what is figured by the fattened animals except the fathers of the New Testament? For when they receive the grace of inner richness, rising from earthly desires, as though by the wing of contemplation they raise themselves to the heights. GRATIAN. To these things the answer is thus: There are certain things that are to be reproved only by salutary admonition and not punished with bodily scourges; but vengeance for them is to be reserved only to divine judgment when, namely, we cannot exercise discipline upon the offenders, either because they are not under our jurisdiction or because their crimes, although known to us, nevertheless cannot be proved by manifest evidence. § 1. Concerning those who are not under our jurisdiction, the Apostle says in the First Epistle to the Corinthians: “For what does it pertain to me to judge those who are outside? For the Lord will judge them.” Augustine, expounding this, says:

We cannot gain unbelievers for Christ if we avoid conversation and a banquet with them. Hence the Lord also ate and drank with publicans and sinners. But in those who are within—that is, the faithful—the putrefaction is to be cut away. GRATIAN. Hence also, when the Prophet says, “The Lord executes judgment for all who suffer injury,” Augustine added by way of exposition: “from those who are not under his jurisdiction, upon whom discipline cannot be exercised.” § 1. Likewise, when a multitude is involved in crime and the evils cannot be punished while preserving the peace of the church, they are rather to be tolerated than punished with the peace of the church violated. Hence Augustine says, [in the book On Faith and Works, cc. 4 and 5]:

Some persons, when they have perceived that the mingling of the good and the evil in the church has been demonstrated or foretold, and have learned the precepts of patience—which render us most steadfast, so that even if weeds should be seen in the church, nevertheless neither our faith nor our charity is impeded, and because we discern that weeds are in the church we do not therefore ourselves withdraw from the church—think that ecclesiastical discipline is to be abandoned. They attribute to prelates a certain most perverse security, so that nothing pertains to them except to say what is to be avoided and what is to be done, but not to care what each person may do. But we judge that it pertains to sound doctrine to moderate life and judgment by both sets of testimonies, so that we tolerate dogs in the church for the sake of the church’s peace, but do not give what is holy to dogs where the church’s peace is secure. But when, through the negligence of prelates, or through some excusable necessity, or through hidden intrusions, we find in the church evil persons whom ecclesiastical discipline cannot correct or restrain, then—lest an impious and pernicious presumption rise in our heart by which we judge that we are to be separated from them so that we may not be defiled by their sins, and thus attempt to draw after us, as though pure and holy, disciples separated from the structure of unity as though from association with the evil—let those similitudes from the Scriptures, divine oracles, and most certain examples come to mind by which it has been demonstrated and pronounced that the evil, mingled with the good in the church until the end of the age and the time of future judgment, are to be tolerated, and will harm nothing in the good who do not consent to their deeds while remaining in the unity and participation of the sacraments. § 1. But when those by whom the church is governed possess, with peace preserved, the power to exercise discipline against the wicked or criminal, then again let us sleep through neither indifference nor sloth, but let us be roused by the goads of the precepts that pertain to severity of restraint, so that, directing our steps upon the way of the Lord from both sets of testimonies, with him as leader and helper, we may neither grow torpid in the name of patience nor rage under the pretext of diligence.

The same against the letter of Parmenian, [Book III, c. 2]. When any one of the brothers and Christians established within the fellowship of the church shall have been detected in some such sin that he is held worthy of anathema, let this be done where there is no danger of schism. Below: § 1. When anyone’s crime is known and appears execrable to all, so that it has either no defenders at all or not such defenders through whom a schism could occur, let the severity of discipline not sleep. PART III. GRATIAN. There is also another cause by which correction with words or blows appears useless or superfluous. For those predestined to life are changed without correction, as Peter, whom the Lord, looking upon him while no one reproved him, moved to tears. Those foreknown for death become worse amid scourges, as Pharaoh did. Therefore, these things are found superfluous for the good and useless for those to be condemned. To these things the answer is thus by the authority of Gregory and Augustine:

Just as one must not cease from prayer for those whom we wish to be corrected, even though, when no man prayed for Peter, the Lord looked upon him and caused him to weep for his sin, so correction is not to be neglected, although God makes those whom he wills corrected without correction. A man then profits from correction when he who causes those whom he wills to profit even without correction has mercy and assists. Likewise in the Dialogues, [Book I, c. 8]:

Things that have not been predestined can by no means be obtained. But those things that holy men effect by praying have been so predestined that they are obtained by prayers. For even the predestination of the everlasting kingdom itself has been so arranged by almighty God that the elect reach it through labor, so that by petitioning they may merit to receive what almighty God arranged before the ages to give them.

Likewise Augustine, [in the book On Predestination and Grace, c. 15]. Nebuchadnezzar merited fruitful penance. Did he not repent after he had been scourged following innumerable impieties, and receive again the kingdom that he had lost? But was not Pharaoh rendered harder by the very scourges and did he not perish? Let the person who with a wise heart passes judgment upon the exceedingly deep divine counsel render me a reason why a medicine compounded by one physician availed for one man’s destruction and for the other’s salvation, unless because the good fragrance of Christ is for some a fragrance of life unto life and for others a fragrance of death unto death. As regards nature, both were men. As regards dignity, both were kings. As regards the cause, both possessed God’s people captive. As regards the penalty, both were mercifully admonished by scourges. What, therefore, made their ends different, except that one, feeling the hand of God, groaned in remembrance of his own iniquity, while the other by free choice fought against the most merciful truth of God?

God would never render destruction to vessels of wrath if man were not found to have voluntary sin, because God would not justly inflict wrath upon a sinning man if man had fallen into fault by God’s predestination. The same: § 1. It is said most foolishly that God’s predestination operates in all persons either toward good or toward evil, so that a certain necessity appears to impel men toward either, since in good things the will is to be understood not without grace, but in evil things the will is to be understood without grace. § 2. But when we read that some persons have either been handed over by God to their own desires, or hardened, or abandoned, we profess that they themselves merited this by their great sins, because such crimes of theirs preceded that they owed themselves the penalty by which even their punishment would be turned into guilt for them. And thus we neither complain of God’s judgment by which he abandons those who deserve to be abandoned, and we give thanks for his mercy by which he frees those who do not deserve to be freed. § 3. Accordingly, he did not withdraw the powers of obedience from anyone because he did not predestine him, but he did not predestine him because he foresaw that he would withdraw from obedience itself. § 4. God’s predestination also is always toward good; it knows that sin committed solely by man’s will is either to be forgiven with praise of mercy or punished with praise of justice. But in our evil works only God’s foreknowledge is to be understood, because, just as he foreknew and predestined the things that he himself did and gave us the power to do, so he only foreknew, but did not also predestine, the things that he neither did himself nor exacted that we do. § 5. But those concerning whom it is said, “They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they certainly would have remained with us,” went out by their will and fell by their will; and because they were foreknown as going to fall, they were not predestined. But they would have been predestined if they were going to return and remain in holiness and truth. And through this, God’s predestination is for many a cause of standing, but for no one a cause of falling. GRATIAN. Therefore, divine predestination or foreknowledge does not create the necessity of correction or hardening, since the good are corrected through grace and the evil perish by free choice. For neither, because God’s predestination or foreknowledge cannot be deceived, do the things that are predestined or foreknown happen necessarily, just as neither are the things that will be necessarily predestined or foreknown; rather, it is because good things cannot happen without his grace, nor evil things outside his knowledge. § 1. Therefore, although it is fittingly said, “If these things are predestined or foreknown, they will happen necessarily,” nevertheless it is not therefore absolutely true that the things predestined or foreknown will happen necessarily, because here necessity is referred to the event of things, but there to the gaze of divine foreknowledge. Hence Augustine says: “There are,” he says, “two necessities: one simple, as, for example, it is necessary that all men are mortal; the other conditional, as, if someone knows that a person is walking, it is necessary that he is walking. For what anyone knows cannot be otherwise than it is known. But this necessity by no means brings that simple necessity with it. For its own nature does not create this necessity, but the addition of a condition. For no necessity compels one who walks by his will to proceed, although at the time when he walks it is necessary that he is proceeding. In the same manner, therefore, if present providence sees something, it is necessary that it be, even though it has no necessity of nature. Yet foreknowledge beholds those future things that proceed from freedom of choice. Therefore, when referred to the divine gaze, these things become necessary through the disposition of divine knowledge. But considered in themselves, they do not abandon the absolute freedom of their own nature. Therefore, all things that God foreknows will be will undoubtedly happen; but certain of them proceed from free choice, and although they happen, nevertheless in coming to exist they do not lose their own nature by which, before they happened, they could also not have happened.” § 2. By all these things our evils are ascribed to free choice, although elsewhere they are ascribed to divine indignation. Hence Gregory says: “When heavenly indignation moves itself, so to speak, from the marrow, human opinion does not move it away, nor does anyone’s supplication usefully oppose it when once God, becoming angry from within, determines something. Hence it is that Moses, who wiped away the guilt of the whole people before the Lord by his prayers and, when he offered himself as an obstacle, appeased the force of divine wrath, upon coming to the rock of Horeb and distrusting concerning the furnishing of water, could not enter the promised land when the Lord was angry.” § 3. Likewise Augustine: “Concerning the Tyrians and Sidonians, what else can we say except that it was not given to them to believe, whom Truth himself teaches would have believed if they had seen such signs of powers as were performed among those who did not believe? But why this was denied to them, let those who bring false accusation say, if they can, and let them show why the Lord performed among those whom they would not benefit wonders that would have benefited those among whom he did not perform them. For our part, if by reason of the deed we cannot penetrate the depth of his judgment, nevertheless we know most manifestly both that what he said is true and what he did is just, and that not only the Tyrians and Sidonians but even Chorazin and Bethsaida could have been converted and made faithful from unfaithful if the Lord had willed to work this in them. For that which Truth says can appear false to no one: ‘No one can come to me unless it shall have been given to him by my Father.’ Likewise, he who through the Prophet promised the Jewish people, ‘Behold, I shall hedge your ways with thorns and fortify them with squared stones,’ that is, ‘I shall take from you the opportunity to sin,’ had said the same through the Psalmist concerning those to be condemned: ‘Let their ways become darkness and slippery ground, and the angel of the Lord pursuing them.’ But in all these things our vices are ascribed to the choice of the human mind, which divine clemency mercifully turns to good in the elect and justly leaves to evil in those to be condemned. Therefore, just as, although we know most certainly that no one will live beyond the limit fixed for him by God, nevertheless we not unfittingly administer medicine to all the sick, so, although no one is saved unless predestined to life, nevertheless correction is to be applied to every offender, nor is discipline of the evil to be neglected.” Hence the same Augustine to Boniface:

Piety itself, truth, and charity do not permit us to accept against Caecilian the testimony of those men whom we do not see in the church to which the Lord furnishes testimony. For those whom divine testimonies do not accompany have lost the weight of human testimony. Likewise: § 1. A physician is troublesome to a raging madman, and a father to an undisciplined son—the former by binding, the latter by beating, but both by loving. But if they neglect them and permit them to perish, that false gentleness is rather cruelty. Likewise: § 2. Therefore, if by the power that the church received by divine gift for the sake of religion and faith at the time when it ought, those who are found in the ways and hedges—that is, in heresies and schisms—are compelled to enter, let them not blame the fact that they are compelled, but attend to that to which they are compelled. The Lord’s banquet is the unity of Christ’s body, not only in the sacrament of the altar but also in the bond of peace. In the same: § 3. Emperor Theodosius promulgated a general law against all heretics that any bishop or cleric of theirs who was found anywhere should be fined ten pounds of gold. Likewise: § 4. If two persons were living together in one house that we knew most certainly would collapse, and, when we forewarned them of it, they refused to believe and persisted in remaining in it, if we could drag them out from there even against their will—we who had shown them beforehand that imminent collapse—so that they would not dare to return thereafter beneath its danger, I think that, unless we did so, we would not undeservedly be judged cruel. Furthermore, if one of them said to us, “When you enter to drag us out, I will immediately kill myself,” but the other neither wished to depart from there nor to be dragged out, yet would not dare to kill himself, what would we choose: to leave both to be crushed by the collapse, or, when at least one had been freed by our labor, that the other should perish not by our fault but rather his own? No one is so unfortunate that he would not most easily judge what ought to be done in such matters. Likewise after a few words: § 5. But if there were very many in the house about to collapse, and at least one could be freed from it, and while I attempted to do this the others killed themselves by throwing themselves headlong, we would be consoled concerning the salvation of at least one, though grieving concerning the others. Nevertheless, lest the others destroy themselves, we would not permit all to perish with no one freed. What, therefore, is to be judged concerning a work of mercy that we ought to expend upon men for obtaining eternal life and avoiding eternal punishment, if true and benevolent reason compels us thus to assist men for freeing not only this temporal life but even a brief one of little duration? Likewise: § 6. If, say the Donatists, it is fitting that we repent of having been outside the church and against the church so that we can be saved, how after this penance do we remain clerics or even bishops among you? This would not happen—since in truth, as must be confessed, it ought not to happen—unless a few were healed by this compensation. But let those say this to themselves and grieve much more and humbly who lie in so great a death of severance, so that they may revive by this certain wound of the Catholic mother. For when a severed branch is grafted, another wound is made in the tree by which it can be received, so that what was perishing without the life of the root may live. But when the branch received shall have grown together with the tree receiving it, both vigor and fruit follow; but if it shall not grow together, the branch indeed will wither, but the life of the tree will remain. For there is also such a kind of grafting that, with no branch that is within cut off, the branch that is outside is grafted; nevertheless, not without a wound, though the slightest, to the tree. Thus, therefore, when these persons come to the Catholic root and, after they have scarcely repented of their error, the honor of the clerical or episcopal office is not taken away from them, something is indeed done as though in the bark of the mother tree contrary to the integrity of severity. Nevertheless, because neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, with prayers poured out to God’s mercy and peace growing together among its branches, charity has covered a multitude of sins. And a little later: § 7. But in causes of this kind, where through grave rents of dissensions the danger is not that of this or that man, but the slaughter of peoples lies before us, something must be taken away from severity so that sincere charity may assist in healing greater evils. Therefore, let them have bitter grief concerning their detestable former error, as Peter had concerning the fear that produced his lie, and let them come to the true church of Christ—that is, the Catholic mother. Let them be clerics in it; let them usefully be bishops who were hostilely against it. We do not envy this; rather, we embrace, exhort, and desire it. And those whom we find in the ways or hedges we compel to enter, and yet we still do not persuade some that we seek not their property but themselves?

The same to Faustus, [letter 167]. What will the medicine of the church do, seeking the salvation of all with maternal charity, as though laboring amid the frenzied and the lethargic? Ought it or can it either contemn them or desist? If necessary, let it be troublesome to both, since it is the enemy of neither. For the frenzied are unwilling to be bound, and the lethargic are unwilling to be awakened, but the diligence of charity persists in binding the frenzied, stimulating the lethargic, and loving both. Both are offended, but both are loved. Both are indignant at being troubled so long as they are sick, but both rejoice when healed. In the same: § 1. They do not begin to be Catholics unless they cease to be heretics. For neither are their sacraments, which are common to us in them, hostile to us, because they are not human but divine. Their own error, which they entered badly, is to be taken away, not the sacraments that they received in the same manner, which they bear and have to their own punishment—the more unworthily they have them, but nevertheless they have them. PART IV. GRATIAN. Behold, crimes are to be punished when they can be struck while preserving the peace of the church; nevertheless, discretion is to be applied in this. For sometimes the multitude of offenders is to be awaited for a long time through patience unto penance; sometimes it is to be punished in a few, so that by their example the others may be terrified and provoked to penance. Hence, when the disciples wished to consume the Samaritans with heavenly fire, they were prohibited, and the Samaritans were awaited unto penance so that, when Christ preached, they might be converted to the faith. Hence Ambrose says, [Book VII of the commentary on Luke 9:54]:

That Christ rebuked the disciples because they desired fire to descend upon those who had not received him shows us that vengeance is not always to be taken upon those who sin, because sometimes clemency benefits you more toward patience than it benefits the fallen man toward correction. Finally, the Samaritans from whom fire is here withheld believed more quickly; nor do the disciples, who follow the law, sin. For they knew both that it was reckoned to Phinehas as justice because he had killed the sacrilegious, and that at Elijah’s prayers fire had descended from heaven. GRATIAN. Another thing can be understood in this prohibition of the Apostles. The Apostles wished to consume the Samaritans with fire not from zeal for justice but from the hatred of bitterness, to avenge the injury of their own expulsion. But the Lord, wishing them to tolerate with patience and joy an injury to their own person, but not to leave unavenged an injury to divine service, said, “You do not know of what spirit you are.” Hence also Peter, who had heard with the others, “You will be blessed when men curse you and say every evil against you; rejoice on that day and exult, because your reward is abundant in heaven,” received with joy insults inflicted upon himself; but he punished most sharply sins that were committed against God. Hence he struck Ananias and Sapphira, who lied to the Holy Spirit, with the sentence of death. Thus also Paul, while recalling the Corinthians from contempt of himself by pious admonition and manifold commendation of himself, struck with blindness that magician Elymas, who was drawing those about to believe away from the faith, so that the others, terrified, would not impede his preaching, but, believing in Christ, would escape blindness of the soul. And he delivered to Satan for affliction that Corinthian fornicator because he had sinned against God. Hence Gregory also writes to Bishop Januarius, rebuking him because he had excommunicated someone on account of an injury to his own person, saying, [Book II, indiction 10, letter 34]:

Amid his many complaints, Isidore, a most illustrious man, complained that he had been excommunicated and anathematized by your fraternity without cause. When we wished to learn from your cleric, who was present, for what reason this had been done, it became known that it had been done for no other cause except that he had wronged you. This matter greatly afflicted us, because, if it is so, you show that you think nothing of heavenly things, but signify that your conduct is earthly, since for vengeance of a personal injury—which is prohibited by the sacred rules—you inflicted the curse of anathema. Henceforth, therefore, be altogether circumspect and solicitous, and do not again presume to inflict such things upon anyone in defense against an injury to you. For if you do any such thing, know that afterward it must be avenged upon you. GRATIAN. Hence the same in the Homilies, showing that sins committed against God or against a neighbor are to be punished by us, but those by which an offense is committed against us are patiently to be tolerated, or rather overlooked, says:

If he who is prelate lets the faults of one indebted to the Lord go unpunished, he assuredly offends in no slight degree, since by his own presumption he releases the debts of the heavenly King and Lord. For those things that are committed against us we can easily forgive; but those that are committed against God we can remit with great discretion, yet not without penance. PART V. GRATIAN. But once a fault has been forgiven, it ought not to be recalled to mind again through recurring grief. Hence Gelasius to Bishops Gerontius, John, Germanus, and Peter:

If, in the place where these things were done, it shall be established in the presence of both parties both that Stephen made satisfaction and that, his supplication having been received, the person who was badly treated forgave him, a punishment once sent into oblivion ought not to be repeated through recurring grief, in imitation, namely, of divine clemency, which does not permit forgiven sins to return for vengeance. But if nothing shall be proved either concerning satisfaction or concerning remission, let what was transacted be shown by a declaration of your charity, so that, if even now an appropriate satisfaction can be obtained, that may preferably be carried out whereby it can heal the mind of the afflicted man; or, if unforgiving bitterness persists, let punishment nonetheless be taken in that same place where the punishable presumption arose.

PART VI. GRATIAN. But that statement of Ambrose is raised as an objection: “At Elijah’s prayers fire descended from heaven so that the Prophet’s injury might be avenged.” This is understood to have happened at the time when Ahab, king of Israel, after that barrenness of three years and six months which occurred when at Elijah’s prayers heaven was closed for three years and six months, sent two captains of fifty to Elijah, who were to say to him, “Man of God, the king of Israel calls you”; he said, “If I am a man of God, let fire descend from heaven and consume you”; and immediately fire descended from heaven and consumed them. By this deed he wished to show not what merit he had before God, but by most evident signs to make manifest that the true God was the one whom he worshiped, not the one to whose worship Jezebel provoked certain persons by the prostitution of her own body. Therefore the Prophet’s injury is understood as nothing other than the injury of the Lord himself, which is to be avenged upon a few so that the others may be terrified. Likewise that statement of Silverius is raised as an objection: [to Bishop Amator]

Guilisarius our patrician commanded me to come peacefully to him in the prince’s palace concerning certain ecclesiastical arrangements; and at the first and second veil he detained all the clergy and people who were coming with me, and permitted no one to enter except me alone and Vigilius our deacon. But after I had been detained by force and led before the aforesaid patrician woman, they sent me into exile, in which I am now sustained by the bread of tribulation and the water of anguish. Nevertheless, I did not, nor do I, abandon my office on that account; rather, with the bishops whom I was able to assemble, I anathematized those who did such things toward me, and together with them I established by apostolic authority that no one should ever be deceived in such a way, as I was deceived, and that if anyone thereafter should ever deceive any of the bishops in such a way, he should become anathema maranatha in the sight of God and the holy angels. The same to Vigilius: § 1. Therefore, have with those who consent to you a sentence of complete condemnation, and recognize that the name and function of the priestly ministry have been taken from you, condemned by the judgment of the Holy Spirit and by apostolic authority from us. GRATIAN. But here also he avenged not his own injury but that of the church. Moses taught by example that the sin of the people is to be punished in a few, for he avenged the sin of idolatry upon a few worshipers of the calf, expiating the sins of many by the death of a few, causing fear in the present and sanctioning discipline for the future. Thus also Christ himself punished the sins of the whole people by the death of a few, when in one day twenty-three thousand perished for the fornication of the whole people. Thus also for the sin of murmuring or temptation certain persons were punished, so that by their example the others might be compelled to penance. Thus also God daily punishes certain persons, so that divine providence may be known to keep watch even over human affairs; and he also awaits certain persons for penance through long periods, so that he may show us the patience of his kindness. Thus Elijah also avenged the worship of Baal by killing its priests and prophets, expiating by the death of its authors the sins of the peoples who imitated them. § 1. But that sins which lack public proofs are not to be punished is proved by that example in which Christ, who alone knew Judas to be a thief, is asserted not to have cast him away, but to have tolerated him patiently.

Hence Ambrose says upon the First Epistle to the Corinthians, [c. 5]:

If anyone does not have the power to cast away one whom he knows to be guilty, or is unable to prove it, he is free from blame; and it is not for a judge to condemn without an accuser, just as Christ did not cast away Judas. GRATIAN. Similarly, a sentence is not to be issued when a multitude is involved in the case, or when the one who sins has a multitude as his associate. Hence Augustine in Book II, [c. 2], Against Parmenian:

Correction by many cannot be salutary unless the person who has no multitude as an associate is reproved. But when the same disease shall have seized very many, nothing else remains for the good except grief and groaning, so that through that sign which is revealed to holy Ezekiel they may merit to escape unharmed from their devastation. And below: § 1. Truly, when the contagion of sinning has invaded a multitude, the severe mercy of divine discipline is necessary. For counsels of separation are both empty and pernicious and sacrilegious, because they are impious and proud, and they disturb the weak good more than they correct the spirited evil. And below: § 2. But when there is opportunity among the peoples to bring forth a discourse, the crowd of the wicked is to be struck with a general rebuke, especially if some scourge from the Lord above shall have furnished the occasion and opportunity, by which it appears that they are being beaten for their deserts. GRATIAN. But the evangelical precepts concerning love of enemies and mercy to be expended upon neighbors, and also the Apostle’s exhortations concerning feeding or giving drink to enemies, are not to be understood to such an extent that impunity for sinning is granted, but so that correction may be provided to the offender and assistance to his nature, until, through the sentence of a judge, once hope of correction has been taken away, the practice of evils is removed. In this, therefore, we are commanded to love our enemies and to have mercy on them: that we grieve over their perdition, desire their salvation, and daily labor and pray for their correction; that we expend consolations upon the penitent, bearing one another’s burdens; not that we grant impunity to those who are obstinate and persist in evil. For just as we are admonished to be not severe but merciful toward the penitent, according to this: “Do not be excessively just, because there is a just man who perishes in his justice”; and again: “Judgment without mercy to him who has not shown mercy”; and likewise that statement of the Apostle in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians: “To whom you have forgiven anything, I also. For I too, if I forgave anything, forgave it for your sake, as if Christ himself were forgiving, so that we may not be circumvented by Satan. For we are not ignorant of his thoughts”—who makes those whom he cannot deceive by inducing consent excessively harsh—just as, I say, we are commanded to be merciful to the penitent, so we are prohibited from expending mercy upon the impenitent and those obstinate in evil.

Hence Ambrose in the book On Duties:

There is an unjust mercy. Indeed, in the law it is written concerning a certain man, “You shall not have mercy upon him”; and in the books of Kings it is read that Saul incurred offense because he had mercy upon Agag, king of the enemies, whom the divine sentence had forbidden to be preserved. Thus, if anyone, moved by the entreaties of a robber’s children and swayed by the tears of his wife, thinks that a man whose inclination still aspires to robbery should be absolved, does he not hand over the innocent to destruction, he who frees one contemplating the destruction of many? Certainly, if he restrains the sword, dissolves the bonds, and relaxes the exile, why does he not take away the opportunity for robbery by the more merciful way available to him, since he could not wrest away the will? Then, between two persons—that is, an accuser and a defendant—contending at equal peril concerning their life, the former if he had not proved his case, the latter if he had been convicted by the accuser: if the judge does not carry out what belongs to justice but has mercy upon one of them, he will either condemn the one proving his case, or, while he favors the accuser in what he cannot prove, he will sentence the innocent; therefore, this cannot be called just mercy. In the church itself, where one especially ought to have mercy, the form of justice ought especially to be maintained, lest anyone, removed from participation on account of an accusation, extort from the indulgence of the priest—by a brief little tear prepared for the occasion, or even by more abundant weeping—the communion that he ought to seek for very many periods of time. When he grants indulgence to one unworthy man, does he not provoke all to the contagion of falling? For facility of pardon furnishes an incentive to offending.

Likewise Augustine in the book of Psalms, [Psalm 32]. Lest judgment be lost, do not be merciful to a poor man in an evil case; for if you spare his purse, you strike his heart and render him so much more wicked as he sees that a just man favors him.

The same. When we speak these two names, “man” and “sinner,” they are assuredly not spoken without purpose. Because he is a sinner, reprove him; and because he is a man, have mercy upon him. Nor will you free the man at all unless you have persecuted the sinner. All discipline keeps watch over this office, as it is fitting and adapted to each person who governs: not only to a bishop governing his people,

but also to a poor man governing his house, a rich man governing his household, a husband governing his wife, a father governing his offspring, a judge governing his province, and a king governing his nation. And a little later: § 1. Thus mercy is to be closed to no man, and impunity granted to no sin. Hence it is to be understood how alms, which by right of humanity is expended upon any poor persons, is not to be contemned, since the Lord relieved the need of the poor even from those money-boxes which he filled from the resources of others. And a little later: § 2. Therefore, let us not receive sinners on account of that by which they are sinners; nevertheless, because they are also men, let us treat those same persons with human consideration. Let us persecute their own iniquity in them; let us have mercy upon the nature common to us. GRATIAN. Likewise Augustine expounds in Book II Against the Manichaeans, [c. 70], that statement of the Gospel which was raised as an objection, “He who shall have used the sword will fall by the sword,” saying thus:

He takes up the sword who arms himself against anyone’s blood with no superior and legitimate authority either commanding or permitting it. PART VII. GRATIAN. Furthermore, that statement of Jerome by which the church is denied to persecute anyone is not to be understood in such a way that the church generally persecutes no one, but that it persecutes no one unjustly. For not every persecution is culpable; rather, we reasonably persecute heretics, just as Christ also bodily persecuted those whom he expelled from the temple. Hence Augustine says to Vincentius the Donatist:

They are exceedingly unruly, and it does not seem useless to me that they should be restrained and corrected through powers ordained by God. For we already rejoice in the correction of many. And after a few words: § 1. For if anyone saw his enemy, made frantic by dangerous fevers, running headlong, would he not then rather return evil for evil if he permitted him to go on in this way than if he bound him so that he might be corrected and cured? And nevertheless, at the time when he had proved most useful and most merciful to him, he would seem most troublesome and hostile to him. But assuredly, when health had been restored, the more fully would he give thanks to him, the more he perceived that he had not spared him. And after a few words: § 2. Yet these things do not benefit certain persons. Is medicine therefore to be neglected because the pestilence of some is incurable? Likewise after some words: § 3. Not everyone who spares is a friend, nor is everyone who beats an enemy. Better are the wounds of a friend than the kisses

of an enemy. It is better to love with severity than to deceive with gentleness. It is more useful for bread to be taken from a hungry man if, secure concerning food, he was neglecting justice, than for bread to be broken for a hungry man so that, having been seduced, he may acquiesce in injustice. Likewise after a few words: § 4. Do you think that no one ought to be compelled to justice, when you read that the master of the household said to his servants, “Whomever you shall find, compel them to enter”; when you also read that Saul himself, first Saul and afterward Paul, was compelled to know and hold the truth by the great violence of Christ compelling him? Likewise after a few words: § 5. And you should know that a thief sometimes scatters fodder to lead cattle away, and a shepherd sometimes calls wandering cattle back with a whip. Likewise: § 6. If it were always culpable to carry out persecution, it would not have been written in the sacred books, “He who secretly slandered his neighbor, this man I persecuted.” Therefore, sometimes both the one who suffers it is unjust and the one who carries it out is just. But assuredly, often both the evil have persecuted the good and the good the evil: the former by harming through injustice, the latter by consulting their welfare through discipline; the former savagely, the latter temperately; the former serving cupidity, the latter charity. For he who slaughters does not consider how he cuts. The one persecutes health; the other, putrefaction. The impious killed the Prophets; the Prophets also killed the impious. The Jews scourged Christ; Christ also scourged the Jews. The Apostles were handed over by men to human power; the Apostles handed men over to the power of Satan. In all these things, what is considered except who acts for truth, who for iniquity, who for the sake of harming, and who for the sake of correcting? And a little later: § 7. Emperor Constantine established that the property of those convicted and obstinately resisting unity should be claimed for the fisc. And after a few words: § 8. Certainly no one’s crime stains one who is ignorant of it. Likewise: § 9. The deeds of those who do harm, which cannot be demonstrated to the innocent or believed by the innocent, do not defile anyone; rather, even when known, they are tolerated for the sake of fellowship with the innocent. For the good are not to be abandoned on account of the evil, but the evil are to be tolerated on account of the good, just as the Prophets tolerated those who said so many things against them, and did not abandon participation in the sacraments of that people.

Likewise to Donatus the Presbyter, [letter 204]. It displeases you that you are drawn to the salvation of God, although you have drawn many of ours to destruction? For what do we wish except that you be apprehended, presented, and preserved, lest you perish? But as to the fact that you were injured in body, you did this to yourself, since you refused to use the pack animal that was immediately brought to you and violently dashed yourself against the ground. For certainly another man who was brought with you, a colleague of yours, came unharmed because he did not do such things to himself. But you think that this ought not to have been done to you either,

because you suppose that no one is to be compelled to the good. Attend to what the Apostle said: “He who desires the episcopate desires a good work.” And nevertheless, so many persons, that they may undertake the episcopate, are detained against their will, brought forward, shut in, and suffer so many things they do not wish until the will to undertake the good work is present in them. How much more are you to be drawn away from the pernicious error in which you are enemies to yourselves, and to be led to the truth either to be known or to be chosen, not only so that you may salutarily possess honor, but also lest you perish most wickedly? § 1. You say that the Lord gave free choice, and that therefore a man ought not to be compelled to the good. Why, then, are those of whom we spoke above compelled to the good? Attend, therefore, to what you do not wish to consider. Good will is mercifully expended for this purpose: that man’s evil will may be directed. For who does not know both that a man is not condemned except by the desert of an evil will, and that he is not freed unless he has had a good will? Nevertheless, those who are loved are not therefore to be permitted to their evil will with impunity and cruelty; rather, where power is given, they are both to be prohibited from evil and compelled to good. For if an evil will is always to be permitted its liberty, why were the Israelites, when they refused and murmured, prohibited from evil by such harsh scourges and compelled to the land of promise? If an evil will is to be permitted its liberty, why was Paul not permitted to employ the most evil will by which he persecuted the church, but was prostrated so that he might be blinded, was blinded so that he might be changed, was changed so that he might be sent, and was sent so that he might suffer for the truth such things as he had done in error? If an evil will is always to be permitted its liberty, why is a father admonished in the holy Scriptures not only to reprove a hard son with words, but also to beat his sides, so that, compelled and subdued, he may be directed to good discipline? Hence the same Solomon says, “You strike him with the rod, but you free his soul from death.” If an evil will is always to be permitted its liberty, why are negligent shepherds reproved, and why is it said to them, “You have not called back the wandering; you have not sought the lost”? And you are Christ’s sheep; you bear the Lord’s character in the sacrament which you received; but you wander and perish. Let us not therefore displease you because we call back the wandering and seek the wandering lost. For we better do the will of the Lord, who admonishes us to compel you to return to his fold, than consent to the will of those who wander, so that we permit you to perish. § 2. Therefore, do not now say what I hear you have repeatedly said: “Thus I will to wander; thus I will to perish.” Much better, insofar as we can, we do not permit this. Just now, when you cast yourself into a well so that you might die, you assuredly did so by free will. But how cruel would the servants of God have been if they had permitted you to this evil will of yours and had not freed you from that death? Who would not deservedly blame them? Who would not rightly judge them impious? And yet you willingly cast yourself into the water so that you might die; they raised you unwilling from the water lest you die. You acted according to your will, but to your destruction; they acted against your will, but against your death. Therefore, if this bodily salvation is to be guarded in such a way that it is preserved even in the unwilling by those who love them, how much more that spiritual salvation, in the abandonment of which eternal death is feared? Although even in this death which you wished to inflict upon yourself, you would have died not only for a time but also eternally, because even if you were being compelled not to salvation, not to the church’s peace, not to the unity of Christ’s body, not to holy and undivided charity, but to some evil things, not even then ought you to have inflicted death upon yourself. Consider the divine Scriptures and examine, insofar as you can, and see whether any one of the just and faithful ever did this when they suffered such great evils from those who were driving them to destruction, not to life, to which you are being compelled. And after a few words: § 3. As I hear, you repeat what is written in the Gospel: that seventy disciples withdrew from the Lord and were permitted the choice of their evil and impious withdrawal, and that the other twelve who remained were answered, “Do you also wish to go away?” And you do not attend to the fact that at that time the church was first sprouting with a new shoot, and that prophecy had not yet been fulfilled: “And all the kings of the earth will adore him; all nations will serve him.” Assuredly, the more this is fulfilled, the greater the power the church employs, so that it not only does not invite but also compels to the good. The Lord wished to signify this; although he had great power, he nevertheless first chose to commend humility. He also showed this sufficiently evidently in that similitude of the banquet, where he sent to the invited and they refused to come, and he said to the servant, “Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring the poor and the feeble, the blind and the lame, in here. And the servant said to the lord, ‘It has been done as you commanded, and there is still room.’ And the lord said to the servant, ‘Go out into the ways and hedges and compel them to enter, so that my house may be filled.’” See now how, concerning those who had come first, it was said, “Bring them in”; now it is said, “Compel.” Thus were signified the beginnings of the church while it was still growing, so that there might also be strength to compel.

The same upon John, [tractate XI, on c. 3]. When God wills to rouse the powers against heretics, against schismatics, against destroyers of the church, against those who spurn Christ, against blasphemers of Christ’s baptism, let them not marvel. Since God repeatedly calls for Hagar to be beaten by Sarah, let her recognize herself as Hagar and lower her neck. When she, after being humbled, withdrew from her mistress, an angel met her and said, “What is it with you, Hagar, Sarah’s maidservant?” When she had complained concerning her mistress, what did she hear from the angel? “Return to your mistress.” Therefore, she is afflicted for this purpose: that she may return—and would that she return—because her offspring, like Jacob, will hold the inheritance with his brothers. But they marvel because Christian powers are stirred against detestable destroyers of the church. If they were not stirred, how would they render an account to God concerning their imperial power? Let your charity attend to what I say, because this pertains to Christian kings of the age: that in their own times they should will their mother the church, from whom they were spiritually born, to be at peace. And a little later: § 1. King Nebuchadnezzar decreed, saying, “Whoever shall utter blasphemy against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego shall be destroyed, and their houses dispersed.” Behold how a foreign king rages lest the God of Israel be blasphemed, who was able to free three boys from the fire. And they are unwilling for Christian kings to rage because Christ is spurned—Christ by whom not three boys, but the world together with the kings themselves, is freed from the fire of hell? And below: § 2. How, then, are these kings not to be stirred, who consider not three boys freed from the flame, but themselves freed from the flame of Gehenna, when they see Christ, by whom they were freed, spurned in Christians? When they hear it said to a Christian, “Say that you are not a Christian”? They wish to do such things, but at least they are unwilling to suffer such things. For see what things they do and what things they suffer: they kill souls; they are afflicted in body. They cause everlasting deaths, and complain that they suffer temporal ones.

The same Against Petilian, [Book II, c. 79]. He who sins does not sin by the authority of the law, but against the authority of the law. But because you ask what the reason for persecuting is, I in turn ask you whose voice it is that says in the Psalm, “He who secretly slandered his neighbor, this man I persecuted.” Therefore, inquire into the cause and manner of persecution, and do not with such ignorance generally reprehend persecutors of the evil. [c. 82]. For we do not persecute you except as truth persecutes falsehood. Likewise, [c. 10]: § 2. Petilian said, “Did the Apostles persecute anyone, or did Christ hand anyone over?” Augustine responded: I could indeed say that Satan himself is worse than all evil men, to whom nevertheless the Apostle handed a man over for the destruction of the flesh, so that the spirit might be saved on the day of the Lord Jesus; likewise, others concerning whom he says, “Whom I handed over to Satan, so that they may learn not to blaspheme.” And the Lord, using a whip, expelled the dishonest merchants from the temple, where the testimony of Scripture that says, “Zeal for your house has consumed me,” is also joined. Behold, we find the Apostle handing over, and Christ persecuting. [c. 19]: § 3. Why, through most violent crowds, are you even of your own accord wicked toward Catholic churches, wherever you have been able to attack, as the matter itself indicates by innumerable examples? But you say that you defend your own places, and you resist with cudgels and slaughter by whatever means you can. Why did you not hear there the voice of the Lord saying, “But I say to you, do not resist evil”? Or, if it is possible sometimes rightly to resist a violent man through bodily force, without thereby violating the precept that we heard from the Lord, “But I say to you, do not resist evil,” why is it not also possible that through ordained and legitimate powers a pious man should expel an impious man, and a just man an unjust man, from sees that are unlawfully usurped or retained to the injury of God? For the false prophets did not suffer persecution from Elijah in the same manner as Elijah himself did from the most wicked king; nor, because the Lord was scourged by persecutors, are those whom he himself scourged and cast out of the temple to be compared to his sufferings. § 4. It remains, therefore, that you confess that nothing else is to be sought except whether you have acted justly or impiously. Do not marvel if God does not lack ministers through whom you may be scourged, because you suffer persecution not from us, but, as it is written, from your own deeds. And below: § 5. Your complaint concerning persecution will be quieted if you first consider and understand that not every persecution is culpable. Otherwise it would not laudably be said, “He who secretly slandered his neighbor, this man I persecuted.” For daily we see both a son complain of a father as his persecutor, a wife of a husband, a servant of a master, a tenant of a landowner, a defendant of a judge, and a soldier or provincial of a commander or king, since the latter very often by most orderly power prohibit and restrain the men subject to them from graver evils through the terrors of lighter penalties, but very often deter them from a good life and good deeds by threatening and raging. But when they prohibit them from evil and unlawful things, they are correctors and counselors; but when from good and lawful things, they are persecutors and oppressors. Those who prohibit from evil are also blamed if the measure of correction exceeds the measure of the sin.

The same in the letter [48] to Vincentius. No example is found in the evangelical and apostolic writings of anything having been sought from the kings of the earth on behalf of the church against the enemies of the church. Who denies that it is not found? But that prophecy was not yet being fulfilled: “And now, O kings, understand; be instructed, you who judge the earth.” For at that time what is read a little earlier in the same Psalm was still being fulfilled: “Why have the nations raged and the peoples meditated vain things? The kings of the earth stood forth, and the princes assembled together as one.” Nevertheless, if past deeds in the prophetic books were figures of future things, in that king who was called Nebuchadnezzar both times were prefigured: both the one the church had under the Apostles and the one it now has. Therefore, in the times of the Apostles and martyrs, that which was figured when the aforesaid king compelled the pious and just to adore an image and cast those who refused into the fire was being fulfilled. Now that which a little later was figured in the same king is fulfilled, when, converted to honoring the true God, he decreed in his kingdom that whoever blasphemed the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego should be subject to due penalties. Therefore, the earlier period of that king signified the earlier times of unbelieving kings, whom Christians suffer as impious men. But the later period of that king signified the times of faithful kings, whom the impious suffer as Christians. But assuredly, in the case of those who under the name of Christ were seduced by perverse men—lest perhaps they be wandering sheep of Christ who are to be recalled to the flock in another manner—tempered severity, and rather gentleness, is preserved, so that by the coercion of banishments and losses they may be admonished to consider what and why they suffer and may learn to place the Scriptures that they read before the rumors and calumnies of men. For who among us, who among you, does not praise laws given by emperors against the sacrifices of pagans? And certainly a far more severe penalty was established there. For capital punishment was established for that impiety. But with regard to correcting and restraining you, a plan has been adopted by which you might preferably be admonished to withdraw from error rather than be punished for a crime.

The same, from the same, to Count Boniface, [letter 50]. If the true church is the one that suffers persecution, not the one that carries it out, let them ask the Apostle which church Sarah signified when she persecuted the maidservant. For he says that your free mother, the heavenly Jerusalem—that is, the true church of God—was figured in that woman who afflicted the maidservant. But if we examine the matter more carefully, the latter persecuted Sarah more by acting proudly than Sarah did her by restraining her. For the former did injury to her mistress; the latter imposed discipline upon the proud woman. Then I ask: if good and holy men carry out persecution against no one but only suffer it, whose voice do they suppose it to be in the Psalm where it is read, “I will persecute my enemies and apprehend them, and I will not turn back until they fail”? Therefore, if we wish to speak or acknowledge the truth, there is an unjust persecution which the impious carry out against the church of Christ. For the latter is blessed, because it suffers persecution for justice; but the former are wretched, because they suffer persecution for injustice. Accordingly, the latter persecutes by loving, the former by raging:

the latter so that it may correct, the former so that it may overthrow; the latter so that it may call back from error, the former so that it may hurl into error. § 1. But when those who are unwilling for just laws to be established against their impieties say that the Apostles did not seek such things from the kings of the earth, they do not consider that there was a different time then and that all things are suited to their own times. For what emperor then had believed in Christ? Who served him on behalf of piety against impiety by enacting laws? For at that time this prophetic statement was still being fulfilled: “Why have the nations raged and the peoples meditated vain things? The kings of the earth stood forth, and the princes assembled together as one against the Lord and against his Christ.” For that which is said a little later in the same Psalm was not yet being done: “And now, O kings, understand; be instructed, you who judge the earth. Serve the Lord in fear and exult in him with trembling.” How, then, do kings serve the Lord in fear except by prohibiting and punishing with religious severity those things that are done contrary to the Lord’s commands? For he serves in one way because he is a man, and in another way also because he is a king. Because he is a man, he serves by living faithfully; because he is a king, he serves by sanctioning with suitable vigor laws that command just things and prohibit their contraries.

The same, [in the same letter]. Who can love us more than Christ, who laid down his life for his sheep? And although he had called Peter and the other Apostles by his word alone, Paul—afterward a great builder of his church, but previously its dreadful devastator—he not only restrained by his voice, but also prostrated by his power; and, while he raged in the darkness of unbelief, in order that he might desire the light of the heart when he arose, Christ first struck him with bodily blindness. If that blindness were not a punishment, he would not afterward have been healed from it; and when with open eyes he saw nothing, if he had them sound, Scripture would not narrate that at the imposition of Ananias’s hand, so that their sight might be opened, what were like scales by which it had been closed fell from them. Where is what these men are accustomed to cry out: “It is free to believe or not to believe”? Upon whom did Christ inflict force? Whom did he compel? Behold, they have the Apostle Paul. Let them recognize in him Christ first compelling and afterward teaching, first striking and afterward consoling. But it is marvelous how he who entered the Gospel compelled by a bodily penalty labored more in the Gospel than all those who were called by the word alone; and the perfect charity of him whom greater fear compelled to charity casts fear outside. Why, therefore, should the church not compel its lost children to return?

The same Against Faustus, [Book XXII, c. 79]. What cruel thing did Moses command or do when, exercising holy zeal for the people committed to him and desiring them to be subject to the living and one true God, after he learned that they had sunk to fabricating and worshiping an idol and had prostituted their shameless mind to demons, avenging the matter with the sword upon a few of them whom God himself, whom they had offended, willed by a profound and secret judgment to be struck and struck at once, he both salutarily terrified them in the present and sanctioned discipline for the future? For who does not recognize in his words that he did what he did with no cruelty but with great love, when he prayed for their sins and said, “If you forgive them the sin, forgive it; but if not, blot me out from your book”? § 1. Thus assuredly the Apostle also, not cruelly but lovingly, handed a man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that the spirit might be saved on the day of the Lord Jesus; he also handed over others so that they might learn not to blaspheme.

Likewise Innocent, [letter III to Exsuperius, Bishop of Toulouse, c. 3]. Inquiry was also made concerning those who have exercised public office after baptism and either employed tortures alone or also pronounced a capital sentence. We read nothing concerning them as defined by the fathers. For they remembered that these powers had been granted by God, that the sword had been permitted for vengeance upon the guilty, and that the ministry of God had been given to avengers of this kind. How, then, would they reprehend as done what they saw to have been permitted with the Lord as its author? Concerning these persons, therefore, let us maintain what has been observed until now, lest we dare either to overturn discipline or to act contrary to the Lord’s authority. But all their deeds will be reserved to them in the rendering of an account.

The same to the Bishop of Toulouse. You also wished to inquire whether, certainly after the regeneration of baptism, freedom is granted to those dictating petitions to seek from princes the death or blood of someone on account of a charge. Princes never grant this without cognizance, but always remit the matters or crimes committed to the judges, so that, once the case is known, they may be avenged. When these have been delegated to an examining judge, either acquittal or condemnation is pronounced according to the character of the business. And while the authority of the laws is exercised against the wicked, the drafter will be free from guilt.

Likewise Gregory to Brunhild, Queen of the Franks, [Book VII, indiction 1, letter 5]. If, therefore, you know any violent persons, adulterers, thieves, or persons intent upon other depraved acts, hasten to placate God by their correction, so that through you he may not bring in the scourge of faithless nations, which, insofar as we see, has been roused for the vengeance of many nations; lest, if—as we do not believe—the anger of divine vengeance shall have been stirred by the activity of the wicked, the pestilence of war destroy those offending persons whom the precepts of God do not recall to the way of rectitude.

The same to Gennadius, Patrician and Exarch of Africa, [Book I, letter 72]. Just as the Lord has caused your Excellency to shine in this life with the light of victories in hostile wars, so it is fitting also to oppose the enemies of his church with every liveliness of mind and body, so that the renown of your Excellency may shine forth more and more from each triumph, since you both vehemently resist the adversaries of the catholic church for the Christian people in external wars, and as warriors of the Lord you bravely wage ecclesiastical battles. For it is known that men of heretical religion, if—which God forbid—license to do harm is available to them, rise up vehemently against the catholic faith, so that they may pour out the poisons of their heresy to waste away, if they can, the members of the Christian body. For we have learned that, with the Lord opposing them, they raise their necks against the catholic church and wish to bow down the faith of the Christian name; but let your Eminence repress their attempts and press their proud necks beneath the yoke of rectitude. Command that the council of catholic bishops be admonished not to appoint a primate according to the order of place while setting aside merits of life, since before God it is not the more distinguished rank, but the action of a better life, that is approved. But let the primate himself reside not indiscriminately through villages, as is customary, but in one of their cities according to their election, so that the capacity to resist the Donatists may be arranged with better ingenuity by reason of the dignity obtained. But if any from the council of Numidia desire to come to the Apostolic See, permit them; and if any persons should think to oppose their journey, resist them. Assuredly, the glory of your Excellency increases more before the Creator if through it the fellowship of the scattered churches can be restored. For when he beholds the gifts bestowed being recalled to the glory of his name, he bestows all the more abundant ones, the more he sees the dignity of his religion enlarged through them. Moreover, discharging the affection of paternal charity, we petition the Lord that he may render your arm strong for repressing enemies, and sharpen the mind of your Excellency with zeal for the faith, like the edge of a flashing sword.

The same to the same, [Book I, epistle 73]. If such prosperity in military actions did not come to your Excellency from the merit of faith and the grace of the Christian religion, it would not have been a matter for wonder, since we know that these things were also granted to military leaders of old. But since, by God’s largess, you anticipate future victories not by carnal foresight but rather by prayers, it comes about that this falls within the realm of astonishment, because your glory descends not by earthly counsel but by God’s largess from above. For where does the eloquent report of your merits not range? It declares that you frequently seek wars not from the desire to shed blood, but for the sake of enlarging the commonwealth in which we behold God worshiped, so that the name of Christ might range everywhere through the subject nations by the preaching of the faith. For just as outward works of virtues establish you as eminent in this life, so also the inward adornments of morals proceeding from a pure heart glorify you in the future life by participation in heavenly joys. For we have learned that your Excellency has furnished very many resources for feeding the sheep of blessed Peter, prince of the Apostles, such that it restored no small number of places of his patrimony, stripped of their own cultivators, by inhabitants granted from the Dacians. Therefore, whatever things you confer upon him with a most Christian mind, you await their recompense through hope in the future judgment. PART VIII. GRATIAN. It has briefly been shown that the good laudably persecute the evil, and the evil culpably persecute the good. But that saying of the Apostle, “But who are you, who judge another’s servant?” is to be understood of the hidden things of another’s heart. That vengeance may be inflicted has been shown. It now remains to show that it ought to be inflicted and that those who are punished are loved more than those who are left unpunished; each of these points is proved by the authority of many. For Augustine says:

If we defer pursuing or avenging those things by which God is vehemently offended, we assuredly provoke the patience of the divinity to wrath. “Did not Achan, son of Zerah, transgress the commandment of the Lord, and did not his wrath lie upon all the people of Israel? And he was one man—and would that he alone had perished in his crime.”

Likewise Augustine, On the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, Book I, [cc. 37 and 38]. That vengeance is not prohibited which avails for correction, which also pertains to mercy and does not impede that disposition by which each person is prepared to endure more things from him whom he wishes to be corrected. But no one is fit to inflict this vengeance unless he has overcome, by the gentleness of love, the hatred with which those who desire to avenge themselves are accustomed to burn. For it is not to be feared that parents are seen to hate a little son when, sinning, he is beaten by them lest he sin further. And certainly the perfection of the love of God the Father himself is proposed to us for imitation when it is said in what follows: “Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you; and pray for those who persecute you.” And yet it is said of him through the Prophet: “For the Lord corrects him whom he loves, but he scourges every son whom he receives.” And the Lord also says: “The servant who does not know the will of his lord and does things not worthy of blows will be beaten with few; but the servant who knows the will of his lord and does things worthy of blows will be beaten with many.” Therefore, let no one avenge except him to whom power has been given in the order of things, and let him avenge with that will with which a father scourges a little son, whom nevertheless, on account of his age, he cannot hate. For from this a most evident example is stated, by which it appears sufficiently that a sin can be avenged from love rather than left unpunished, so that he may will that the person whom he avenges be not wretched through punishment, but blessed through correction; nevertheless, let him be prepared, if there is need, to tolerate with an even mind more unlawful things from the person whom he wishes to be corrected, whether he has power to coerce him or does not have it. § 1. But great and holy men, who already knew most excellently that this death, which dissolves the soul from the body, was not to be feared, nevertheless, in accordance with the mind of those who feared it, punished certain sins by death, so that a useful fear might be struck into the living and, for those who were punished by death, death itself might not harm them, but the sin that could have increased if they lived might be diminished. Those men judged not rashly, to whom God had granted such judgment. Hence it is that Elijah put many to death by his own hand and by fire obtained from God, a thing that many other great and divine men, by the same spirit, also did not rashly, taking counsel for human affairs. When the disciples gave an example from that Elijah, recalling what had been done by him, so that power might also be given them to ask for fire from heaven to consume those who had not furnished them hospitality, the Lord reproved in them not the example of the holy prophet, but ignorance of avenging, which was still in the inexperienced, observing that they did not love correction but desired vengeance from hatred. And so, after he taught them what it was to love one’s neighbor as oneself, and after the Holy Spirit was also poured in, whom, when ten days had been completed after his ascension, he sent from above as he had promised, such acts of vengeance were not lacking, although much more rarely than in the Old Testament. For there, for the greater part, servants were oppressed by fear; but here, above all, free persons were nourished by love. For at the words of the Apostle Peter, Ananias and his wife, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, fell lifeless and were not raised again but buried.

Likewise Augustine, Against Cresconius the Grammarian, Book I. Any Christian who persecutes an unrighteous man is an enemy of Christ. What you say is true, if he does not persecute in him that which is an enemy of Christ. For surely a lord in a servant, a father in a son, and a husband in a wife, though both parties are Christians, ought not to leave unpersecuted vices contrary to Christian truth. Or indeed, if they do not persecute them, will they not deservedly be held guilty of negligence?

Likewise Augustine to Macedonius, [epistle 52]. A man ought to love his neighbor as himself, so that, whichever man he can, he may bring to the worship of God by the consolation of beneficence, or by the instruction of teaching, or by the coercion of discipline.

[PALEA.

Likewise Augustine to Donatus the Presbyter, epistle 204. The evil are to be prohibited from evil and compelled to good.] GRATIAN. From all these things it is gathered that vengeance is to be inflicted not from love of vengeance itself, but from zeal for justice; not so that hatred may be exercised, but so that depravity may be corrected. But since vengeance is sometimes inflicted by losses of property, sometimes by scourgings, and sometimes even by death, it is asked whether it is a sin for a judge or minister to hand the guilty over to death.