But most of the Bishops absolutely condemned the infliction of the death penalty for heresy, even if the heresy was incidentally the cause of social disturbances. Such was the view of St. Augustine,[1] St. Martin, St. Ambrose, many Spanish bishops, and a bishop of Gaul named Theognitus;[2] in a word, of all who disapproved of the condemnation of Priscillian. As a rule, they protested in the name of Christian charity; they voiced the new spirit of the Gospel of Christ. At the other extremity of the Catholic world, St. John Chrysostom re-echoes their teaching. "To put a heretic to death," he says, "is an unpardonable crime."[3]
[2] Cf. Sulpicius Severus, _Dialogi_, iii, 12, loc. cit., col. 218.
But in view of the advantage to the Church, either from the maintenance of the public peace, or from the conversion of individuals, the State may employ a certain amount of force against heretics.
"God forbids us to put them to death," continues St. Chrysostom, "just as he forbade the servants to gather up the cockle,"[1] because he regards their conversion as possible; but he does not forbid us doing all in our power to prevent their public meetings, and their preaching of false doctrine. St. Augustine adds that they may be punished by fine and exile. To this extent the churchmen of the day accepted the aid of the secular arm. Nor were they content with merely accepting it. They declared that the State had not only the right to help the Church in suppressing heresy, but that she was in duty bound to do so. In the seventh century, St. Isidore of Seville discusses this question in practically this same terms as St. Augustine.[2]
[2] We think it important to give Lea's resume of this period. It will show how a writer, although trying to be impartial, may distort the facts: "It was only sixty-two years after the slaughter of Priscillian and his followers had excited so much horror, that Leo I, when the heresy seemed to be reviving, in 447, not only justified the act, but declared that _if the followers of heresy so damnable were allowed to live_, there would be an end to human and divine law. The final step had been taken, and _the Church was definitely pledged to the suppression of heresy at whatever cost_. It is impossible not to attribute to ecclesiastical influence the successive Edicts by which, from the time of Theodosius the Great, persistence in heresy was punished by death. A powerful impulse to this development is to be found in the responsibility which grew upon the Church from its connection with the State. When it could influence the monarch and procure from him Edicts condemning heretics to exile, to the mines, _and even to death_, it felt that God had put into its hands powers to be exercised and not to be neglected" (vol. i, p. 215). If we read carefully the words of St. Leo (p. 27, note 1), we shall see that the Emperors are responsible for the words that Lea ascribes to the Pope. It is hard to understand how he can assert that the imperial Edicts decreeing the death penalty are due to ecclesiastical influence, when we notice that nearly all the churchmen of the day protested against such a penalty.