CHAPTER VIII THEOLOGIANS, CANONISTS AND CASUISTS.
Heresy and Crimes Subject to the Inquisition The Procedure The Use of Torture Theologians Defend the Death Penalty for Heresy Canonists Defend the Use of the State The Church's Responsibility in Inflicting the Death Penalty
Its Field of Action The Excessive Cruelty of Inquisitors The Penalty of Imprisonment The Number of Heretics Handed Over to the Secular Arm Confiscation The _auto-da-fé_
CHAPTER X CRITICISM OF THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF THE INQUISITION.
Development of the Theory on the Coercive Power of the Church Intolerance of the People Intolerance of Sovereigns The Church and Intolerance The Theologians and Intolerance Appeal to the Old Testament England and the Suppression of Heresy The Calvinists and the Suppression of Heresy Cruelty of the Criminal Code in the Middle Ages The Spirit of the Age Explains the Cruelty of the Inquisition Defects in the Procedure Abuses of Antecedent Imprisonment and Torture Heretics who were also Criminals Heresy Punished as Such Should the Death Penalty Be Inflicted upon Heretics? The Responsibility of the Church Abuses of the Penalties of Confiscation and Exile The Penitential Character of Imprisonment The Syllabus and the Coercive Power of the Church
CHAPTER 1 FIRST PERIOD I-IV CENTURY THE EPOCH OF THE PERSECUTIONS
ST. PAUL was the first to pronounce a sentence of condemnation upon heretics. In his Epistle to Timothy, he writes: "Of whom is Hymeneus and Alexander, whom I have delivered up to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme."[1] The Apostle is evidently influenced in his action by the Gospel. The one-time Pharisee no longer dreams of punishing the guilty with the severity of the Mosaic Law. The death penalty of stoning, which apostates merited under the old dispensation,[2] has been changed into a purely spiritual penalty: excommunication.
[1] 1) Tim. i. 20. Cf . Tit. iii. 10-11. "A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, avoid, knowing that he, that is such an one, is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned by his own judgment."
During the first three centuries, as long as the era of persecution lasted, the early Christians never thought of using any force save the force of argument to win back their dissident brethren. This is the meaning of that obscure passage in the _Adversus Gnosticos_ of Tertullian, in which he speaks of "driving heretics (i.e., by argument), to their duty, instead of trying to win them, for obstinacy must be conquered, not coaxed."[1] In this work he is trying to convince the Gnostics of their errors from various passages in the Old Testament. But he never invokes the death penalty against them. On the contrary, he declares that no practical Christian can be an executioner or jailer. He even goes so far as to deny the right of any disciple of Christ to serve in the army, at least as an officer, "because the duty of a military commander comprises the right to sit in judgment upon a man's life, to condemn, to put in chains, to imprison and to torture."[2]