Use of Force in Religion

 "IN no long time," says Athan., "they will turn to outrage; and next they will threaten us with the band and the captain." Vid. John xviii. 12. Elsewhere he speaks of tribune and governor, with an allusion perhaps to Acts xxiii. 22, 24, etc. Hist. Arian. § 66 fin. and 67; vid. also § 2. "How venture they to call that a Council, in which a Count presided," etc. Apol. c. Ar. 8; vid. also 10, 45; Ep. Enc. 5. And so also doctrinally, "Our Saviour is so gentle that He teaches thus, If any man wills to come after Me, and Whoso wills to be My disciple ; and coming to each, He does not force them, but knocks at the door and says, Open unto Me, My sister, My spouse ; and, if they open to Him, He enters in, but if they delay and will not, He departs from them. For the Truth is not preached with swords or with darts, nor by means of soldiers, but by persuasion and counsel." Ar. Hist. § 33; vid. also 67, and Hilar. ad Const. i. 2. On the other hand he observes of the Nicene Fathers, "It was not necessity which drove the judges" to their decision, "but all vindicated the truth of deliberate purpose." Ep. Æg. 13.

 As to the view taken in early times of the use of force in religion, it seems to have been that that was a bad cause which depended upon it; but that, when a cause was good, there was nothing wrong in using secular means in due subordination to argument; that it was as lawful to urge religion by such means on individuals who were incapable of higher motives, as by inducements of temporal advantage. Our Lord's kingdom was not of this world, in that it did not depend on this world; but means of this world were sometimes called for in order to lead the mind to an act of faith in that which was not of this world. The simple question was, whether a cause depended on force for its success. S. Athanasius declared, and the event proved, that Arianism was thus dependent. When Emperors ceased to persecute, Arianism ceased to be; it had no life in itself. Again, active heretics were rightly prevented by secular means from spreading the poison of their heresy. But all exercise of temporal pressure, long continued or on a large scale, was wrong, as arguing an absence of moral and rational grounds in its justification. Again, the use of secular weapons in ecclesiastical hands was a scandal, as negotiatio would be. And further there is an abhorrence of cruelty, just and natural to us, which may easily be elicited, unless the use of the secular arm is directed with much discretion and charity. For a list of passages from the Fathers on the subject, vid. Limborch on the Inquisition, vol. i. and ii. 2 and 5; Bellarmin. de Laicis, c. 21, 22. For authors who defend its adoption, vid. Gerhard de Magistr. Polit. p. 741. So much as to the question of principle, which even Protestants act on and have generally acted; in this day and here, State interference would so simply tell against the Catholic cause, that it would be a marvel to find any Catholic advocating it.

 In that day it was a thought which readily arose in the minds of zealous men. Thus:

 "Who comprehends not the craft of these God-assailants? who but would stone such madmen? [ ouk an katalithoseien ]." Decr. § 28.

 "If then they thus conceive of the Son, let all men throw stones at them, considering, as they do, the Word a part of this universe, and a part insufficient without the rest for the service committed to Him. But if this be manifestly impious, let them acknowledge that the Word is not in the number of things made, but the sole and proper Word of the Father, and their Framer. His words are [ ballesthosan para panton ]," Orat. ii. § 28. Vid. also i. 38, and iii. 41.

 There is an apparent allusion in such passages to the punishment of blasphemy and idolatry under the Jewish Law. Vid. art. Definition, supra, Ex. xxi. 17. Thus, for instance, Nazianzen: "While I go up the mount with good heart, ... that I may become within the cloud, and may hold converse with God, (for so God bids,) if there be any Aaron, let him go up with me and stand near ... And if there be any Nadab or Abiud, or any of the elders, let him go up, but stand far off, according to the measure of his purification ... But if any one is an evil and savage beast, and quite incapable of science and theology ... let him stand off still further, and depart from the mount; or he will be stoned and crushed; for the wicked shall be miserably destroyed. For as  stones  for  the  bestial  are  true  words  and  strong . Whether he be leopard, let him die, spots and all," etc. Orat. 28. 2. The stoning then was metaphorical; the stones were strong words. In the same way S. Dionysius speaks of the charges of heterodoxy brought against him before the Roman See. "By two words taken out of their context, as with stones, they sling at me from a distance." Athan. de Sent. D. § 18.

 "Are they not deserving of many deaths?" Orat. ii. § 4. "You ought ([ opheiles ]) to have your impious tongue cut out," the Arian Acacius says to Marcellus, ap. Epiph. Hær. 72, 7. "If Eutyches thinks otherwise than the decrees of the Church, he deserves ([ axios ]) not only punishment, but the fire," says the Monophysite. Dioscorus ap. Concil. Chalced. (Hard. t. 2, p. 100.) In time they advanced from accounting to doing. The Emperor Justin proposes to cut out the heretic Severus's tongue, Evagr. iv. 4; and "blasphemiis lapidasti," Theodor. ap. Concil. 6. (Labbe, t. 6, p. 88.) Afterwards we find an advance from allegory to fact. Sometimes it was a literalism deduced from the doctrine in dispute; as the heretics at the Latrocinium cried, "Cut in two those who assert two Natures." Concil. Hard. t. 2, p. 81. Palladius relates a case in which a sort of ordeal became a punishment: Abbot Copres proposed to a Manichee to enter a fire with him. After Copres had come out unharmed, the populace forced the Manichee into it, and then cast him, burnt as he was, out of the city. Hist. Lausiac. 54. S. Gregory mentions the case of a wizard, who had pretended to be a monk, and had used magical arts against a nun, being subsequently burned by the Roman populace. Dial. i. 4.