Distinction XLV

GRATIAN. Part I. It follows: “not a striker.” For a bishop ought not to be so irascible and disturbed in understanding that he strikes, since he ought to be patient; rather, let him follow the one who set his back before scourges. Hence Gregory writes to John, Bishop of Constantinople [Book I, epistle 52]:

What the canons say concerning bishops who wish to be feared by blows your fraternity knows well. For we have been made shepherds, not strikers. The distinguished preacher says: “Reprove, entreat, rebuke with all patience and doctrine.” But this preaching that exacts faith by blows is new and unheard of.

Likewise in a certain Council [the Roman under Sylvester, c. 17]. Let no one touch any sinning cleric with a beating; let no priest bring a deacon, nor a bishop a cleric or servant of the Church, to a beating. But if the cause so requires—that is, if the cleric has proved incorrigible—let him be deprived of his honor for three days, so that, repenting, he may return to mother Church.

Likewise to Paschasius, Bishop of Naples [Book XI, epistle 15]. Those who with sincere intention desire to lead persons alien to the Christian religion to the right faith ought to devote themselves to blandishments, not harshness, lest adversity drive far away those whose mind an explanation rendered calmly could have provoked. For whoever act otherwise and under this covering wish to remove them from the customary observance of their rite are proved to attend there to their own causes more than God’s. §1. The Jews dwelling at Naples have indeed complained to us, asserting that certain persons strive unreasonably to prohibit them from certain solemnities of their feast days, so that it may not be lawful for them to observe the solemnities of their feasts as it has been lawful for them and their parents to observe them until now for long periods in the past. If the truth stands thus, they appear to devote their labor to a superfluous matter. For what utility is there when, even if they have been prohibited contrary to long usage, it profits nothing toward their conversion to the faith? Or why do we set rules for the Jews concerning how they ought to observe their ceremonies if through this we cannot gain them? Therefore one must act so that, provoked rather by reason and meekness, they may wish to follow us, not flee us, so that by showing them from their own books the things we say we may, with God’s help, convert them to the bosom of mother Church. And so, as your fraternity is able, let it by admonitions and with God’s help kindle them toward conversion, and let it not permit them again to be disturbed concerning their solemnities; rather, let them have free license to observe and celebrate all their festivals and feast days, just as both they and their parents, observing them through long periods in the past, have maintained them until now.

The same to all the Bishops established throughout Gaul, Europe, and Germany. Although things that are to be reproved frequently happen among priests, nevertheless let benevolence accomplish more toward those to be corrected than severity, exhortation more than agitation, charity more than power, since none of us lives without reproof or without sin. For if the Lord had judged blessed Peter, our teacher and apostle, immediately after his threefold denial, he would not have received so much fruit from him as he did. Therefore, rulers of the Church are rather to be awaited and corrected than immediately judged. Hence it is necessary that every ecclesiastical affair, after the evidence of many causes, be considered more solicitously and guarded more diligently, so that through the spirit of charity and peace every material of scandals, presumption of the Jews, and oppression of simple brethren may be removed from the churches of the Lord. And just as none of the brethren wishes himself to be weighed down by the judgment of others, so let him not dare to inflict upon another what he does not wish to be done to himself. Jews are not to be compelled to the faith; nevertheless, if they have received it unwillingly, they are to be compelled to retain it. Hence in the Fourth Council of Toledo [c. 56] it was established:

Concerning the Jews, however, the holy synod commanded that henceforth no one inflict force upon them for believing. “For God has mercy upon whom he wills, and whom he wills he hardens.” For persons of this kind are not to be saved unwillingly but willingly, so that the form of justice may remain integral. For just as a human being, obeying the serpent by the will of his own choice, perished, so, when the grace of God calls him, each person is saved by believing through the conversion of his own mind. Therefore, they are to be persuaded, not rather driven, to be converted, not by force but by the free capacity of choice. Those, however, who were formerly compelled to Christianity, as was done in the times of the most religious prince Sisebut, because it is now established that they were associated with the divine sacraments, received the grace of baptism, were anointed with chrism, and became participants in the body of the Lord, ought to be compelled to maintain the faith they received by force or necessity, lest the name of the Lord be blasphemed and the faith they received be held cheap and contemptible.

Likewise Bishop Leo [epistle LXXXII to Anastasius, Bishop of Thessalonica, c. 1]. Although things that are to be reproved sometimes happen in priestly persons, nevertheless let benevolence accomplish more toward those to be corrected than severity, exhortation more than agitation, charity more than power. But those who seek the things that are their own, not the things of Jesus Christ, easily depart from this law; and while it pleases them to dominate subjects rather than counsel them, honor inflates pride, and that which was provided for concord tends toward harm.

Likewise from a canon of the Apostles [canon 28, according to the old version]. We command that a bishop, priest, or deacon who strikes delinquent believers or unbelievers acting unjustly, and through this wishes to be feared, be cast down from his office, because the Lord never taught us this. On the contrary, he himself, “when he was struck, did not strike back; when he was cursed, did not curse; when he suffered, did not threaten.”

Likewise from the Council of Braga [III, c. 7]. Since the blessed Apostle commands one to reprove, entreat, or rebuke with all patience, we have learned that, outside this teaching, certain of the brethren rage with such great beatings against those without honor as the persons of brigands could deserve. And therefore, it is not worthy that those who have now merited ecclesiastical grades—that is, priests, abbots, or Levites, who, except for graver and mortal faults, ought to be subject to no blows—should everywhere be subjected to blows and pain by each prelate as he wishes and as it pleases him, lest, while he incautiously strikes the subject members, he also take away the reverence owed to him by his subjects, according to what a certain wise person says: “One lightly chastised displays reverence to the chastiser, but a reproof of excessive harshness receives neither reproof nor salvation.” And therefore, if anyone, exalted by the license of the power he has received, believes that the aforesaid honorable subjects are to be beaten out of malice alone otherwise than has been said, he will sustain a sentence of both excommunication and exile according to the measure of the blows he has inflicted. Part II. GRATIAN. Solomon, however, admonishes to the contrary, saying: “Strike your son with the rod, and you will deliver his soul from death.” Hence blessed Gregory also writes in the Dialogues that blessed Benedict healed by striking with a rod a certain monk whom he could not cure by frequent admonition. Hence also the Lord, having made a scourge from little cords, scourged those conducting themselves badly in the temple and cast them out of the house of prayer. Hence also the Apostle handed that fornicator over to Satan to be vexed bodily, and condemned that magician with bodily blindness. Hence also in the canons boys who before the rational years conduct themselves irrationally are commanded to be chastised by blows. Virgins also, if they have put aside the garment of religion and joined themselves to others, are commanded to be confined in workhouses. Hence Gregory also writes in the Moralia, Book XX, part 4, chapter 11:

Discipline or mercy is greatly deprived if one is maintained without the other. But toward subjects there ought to be in rulers both mercy that counsels justly and discipline that rages piously. Hence it is that both wine and oil are applied to the wounds of that half-dead man who was led by the Samaritan into the inn, so that through wine the wounds may be bitten, and through oil they may be soothed; so that everyone who presides over the healing of wounds may apply in wine the bite of strictness and in oil the softness of piety. Through wine putrid things are cleansed; through oil things to be healed are soothed. Gentleness, therefore, is to be mingled with severity; a certain tempering is to be made from both, so that subjects may neither be ulcerated by much harshness nor loosened by excessive kindness. This is certainly signified by that ark of the tabernacle in which the rod is together with the tablets and the manna, because when knowledge of sacred Scripture is in the breast of a good ruler, if there is the rod of strictness, let there also be the manna of sweetness. Hence David also says: “Your rod and your staff, they have consoled me.” For by the rod we are struck, and by the staff we are sustained. Therefore, if there is the strictness of justice that strikes, let there also be the consolation of the staff that sustains. Accordingly, let there be love, but not one that softens; let there be vigor, but not one that exasperates; let there be zeal, but not one that rages immoderately; let there be piety, but not one that spares more than is expedient. It is pleasing to behold in the breast of Moses mercy joined together with severity. Let us see him loving piously and raging strictly. §1. Certainly, when the Israelite people had contracted before the eyes of God an almost unpardonable offense, so that its ruler heard: “Go down; your people have sinned,” as if the divine voice said to him: “He who has fallen into such sin is not mine,” and added: “Let me alone, that my fury may be angry against them and that I may destroy them, and I will make you into a great nation,” he, once and again opposing himself for the people over whom he presided as a barrier against the onslaught of the angry God, said: “Either forgive them this offense, or, if you do not, blot me out of your book that you have written.” Let us therefore consider with what inward affection he loved that people, for whose life he asked to be blotted from the book of life. Yet let us consider with how great a zeal for rectitude this man, who is bound by so great a love for that people, was inflamed against its faults. For immediately after he obtained that the pardon of the fault be granted, kindled by zeal for rectitude, he said: “Let every man place his sword upon his thigh; go and return from gate to gate through the midst of the camp, and let each kill his brother and friend and neighbor”; and on that day about twenty-three thousand persons fell. Behold, the one who sought the life of the people even by his own death extinguished by the sword the life of a few. Within he burned with the fire of love; without he was kindled with the zeal of severity. So great was his piety that he did not hesitate to offer himself to death before the Lord for them; so great his severity that those whom he had feared would be struck divinely he himself struck with the sword of judgment. Thus he loved those over whom he presided so that for them he did not spare even himself; and nevertheless he so pursued the delinquents whom he loved that he laid them low even when the Lord spared them. A strong legate in both matters, an admirable mediator in both, he pleaded the cause of the people before God by prayers and the cause of God before the people by swords. Loving inwardly, he opposed the divine wrath by supplication; raging outwardly, he consumed the fault by striking. Therefore, in governance Moses mingled both, so that neither mercy would be absent from discipline nor discipline from mercy. Hence here also it is said according to both virtues: “And when I sat as though a king with the army standing around me, I was nevertheless the consoler of those who mourned.” For to sit with the army standing around is the vigor of the discipline of governance; but to console the hearts of those who mourn is the ministry of piety.

The same. Everyone who judges justly carries a balance in his hand; in each weight he carries justice and mercy. But through justice he renders sentence upon sins; through mercy he moderates the punishment of sin, so that by a just balance he may correct certain things through equity and forgive others through compassion. One who sets the judgments of God before his eyes, always fearing and trembling, dreads in every affair lest, deviating from the path of justice, he fall and be condemned rather by that from which he is not justified.

Likewise Augustine in the Enchiridion [c. 72]. One who corrects by a blow the person over whom power is given, or restrains him by some discipline, and nevertheless forgives from the heart the sin by which he was injured or offended by him, or prays that it be forgiven him, gives alms not only in that he forgives and prays, but also in that he corrects and strikes with some corrective punishment, because he furnishes mercy. For many goods are furnished to unwilling persons when counsel is taken for their utility, not their will, because they are found to be enemies to themselves. GRATIAN. For there are many kinds of alms, concerning which Albinus says:

There are three kinds of alms: one bodily, to give a needy person whatever you can; another spiritual, to forgive one by whom you have been injured; the third, to correct a delinquent and lead those who err into the way of truth.

Likewise Augustine [Book of Fifty Homilies, homily 6]. There are two alms, one of the heart, the other of money. Alms of the heart are to forgive one by whom you have been injured. For sometimes you seek to give something to a needy person and do not have it; to forgive one who sins abounds to you as much as you wish. Alms of the heart are much greater than alms of the body. §2. The alms of charity suffice without earthly substance; but those that are given bodily, if bestowed without a kindly heart, are altogether insufficient. Part III. GRATIAN. From all these things it appears that neither the gentleness of meekness without the rectitude of severity nor zeal for rectitude without meekness ought to be found in prelates. Therefore, the strikers who are removed from episcopal office by the foregoing authorities are to be understood not as any who corporally scourge, but as those who, having omitted meekness, are always ready for blows and desire through scourges not to correct vices but to be feared. Peter writes to them: “Do not be domineering among the clergy, but be made a pattern of the flock from the heart.” Hence Gregory also writes in the Moralia, Book XIX, part 4, chapter 23:

For there are some so strict that they lose even all meekness of kindness; and there are some so meek that they lose the rights of strict governance. Hence both are to be maintained with the greatest care by all rulers, so that they neither abandon the kindness of meekness in the vigor of discipline nor, again, the strictness of discipline in meekness, so that they may neither grow hard against the compassion of piety when they correct the contumacious nor soften the vigor of discipline when they console the minds of the weak. Therefore let the vigor of discipline rule meekness, and let meekness adorn vigor in speech; and thus let one be commended by the other, so that neither vigor is rigid nor meekness lax.

The same [homily XXXIV on the Gospels, near the beginning]. True justice has compassion; false justice, disdain, although the just also are accustomed rightly to be indignant at sinners. But it is one thing when this is done in the form of pride, another when it is done from zeal for discipline. For they are indignant, yet not disdainful. §1. But, on the contrary, those who are accustomed to take pride in false justice despise everyone else, descend with no mercy to those who are weak, and the more they do not believe themselves to be sinners, the worse sinners they become.

Likewise Jerome on Jeremiah. “Withdraw,” they say, “you polluted persons; withdraw, depart; do not touch us; do not communicate with us.” Such speech does not illuminate the blind, does not heal the sick, does not cure the weak, but rather kills him and casts the person in peril into despair. For good rulers, weighing the weaknesses of others from their own weakness, strive to rescue sinners from the snare of error through the relief of humility and meekness rather than to drive those wavering into the pit of perdition through austerity. Hence the teacher of the gentiles says: “I became weak to the weak.”

The same. But this is not to be passed over idly, that when one person sins wrath comes upon the whole people. How does this happen? When priests who preside over the people wish to appear benevolent toward delinquents and, fearing the tongues of sinners lest perhaps they speak badly of them, forget priestly severity and are unwilling to fulfill what is written: “Reprove the sinner before everyone, so that the rest may have fear,” and again: “Remove the evil from among yourselves.” Nor, kindled with zeal for God, do they imitate the Apostle saying: “I handed such a person over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that the spirit may be saved.” Nor do they strive to fulfill that evangelical command that, if they see one sinning, they should first admonish him secretly, afterward also with two or three witnesses; but if he shows contempt and is not amended after the correction of the Church, they should cast him out of the Church and hold him as a gentile and publican. And while they spare one, they contrive the destruction of the universal Church. What goodness is this, what mercy, to spare one and bring everyone into danger? For the people are polluted by one sinner. Just as the whole flock is infected by one diseased sheep, so also, when one person either fornicates or commits any other crime whatsoever, the whole people are polluted. GRATIAN. Hence it is also said elsewhere: “Let piety exhibit the ruler as a mother to subjects, but discipline as a father.” Part IV. One who wounds the conscience of the weak with useless speech is also called a striker. Hence Pope Anacletus [epistle II to the Bishops of Italy]:

That teacher is indeed called a striker who strikes the conscience of the weak with useless speech. Therefore, it is fitting that you and all the faithful hold to the faithful word that is according to doctrine, so that one may be able to console in sacred doctrine, reprove those who contradict, and strengthen those who live rightly and hold the right faith.