good. It is greatly to be feared that the churchmen of the future will go a great deal further."

[1] De Viris illustribus, 121-123.

[2] De hæresibus, cap. 70.

[3] Ep. xv, ad Turribium, P.L., vol. liv, col. 679-680.

The Church is endeavoring to state her position accurately on the suppression of heresy. She declares that nothing will justify her shedding of human blood. This is evident from the conduct and writings of St. Augustine, St. Martin, St. Ambrose, St. Leo (cruentas refugit ultiones), and Ithacius himself. But to what extent should she accept the aid of the civil power, when it undertakes to defend her teachings by force?

Some writers, like St. Optatus of Mileve, and Priscillian, later on the victim of his own teaching, believed that the Christian State ought to use the sword against heretics guilty of crimes against the public welfare; and, strangely enough, they quote the Old Testament as their authority. Without giving his approval to this theory, St. Leo the Great did not condemn the practical application of it in the case of the Priscillianists. The Church, according to him, while assuming no responsibility for them, reaped the benefit of the rigorous measures taken by the State.

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]

[1] Ep. c., n. 1.

[2] Cf. Sulpicius Severus, Dialogi, iii, 12, loc. cit., col. 218.

[3] Homilia xlvi, in Matthæum, cap. 1.

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]

[1] Ibid., cap. ii.

[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.

CHAPTER III THIRD PERIOD FROM 1100 TO 1250 THE REVIVAL OF THE MANICHEAN HERESIES IN THE MIDDLE AGES

FROM the sixth to the eleventh century, heretics, with the exception of certain Manichean sects, were hardly ever persecuted.[1] In the sixth century, for instance, the Arians lived side by side with the Catholics, under the protection of the State, in a great many Italian cities, especially in Ravenna and Pavia.[2]

[1] In 556, Manicheans were put to death in Ravenna, in accordance with the laws of Justinian.

[2] We may still visit at Ravenna the Arian and Catholic baptisteries of the sixth century. Cf. Gregorii Magni Dialogi, iii, cap. xxii, Mon. Germ., ibid., pp. 534-535.

During the Carlovingian period, we come across a few heretics, but they gave little trouble.

The Adoptianism of Elipandus, Archbishop of Toledo, and Felix, Bishop of Urgel, was abandoned by its authors, after it had been condemned by Pope Adrian I, and several provincial councils.[1]

[1] Einhard: Annales, ann. 792, in the Mon. Germ. SS., vol. 1, p. 179.

A more important heresy arose in the ninth century. Godescalcus, a monk of Orbais, in the diocese of Soissons, taught that Jesus Christ did not die for all men. His errors on predestination were condemned as heretical by the Council of Mainz (848); and Quierzy (849); and he himself was sentenced to be flogged and then imprisoned for life in the monastery of Hautvilliers.[1] But this punishment of flogging was a purely ecclesiastical penalty. Archbishop Hincmar, in ordering it, declared that he was acting in accordance with the rule of St. Benedict, and a canon of the Council of Agde.

[1] "In nostra parochia … monasteriali costudiæ mancipatus est." Hincmar's letter to Pope Nicholas I, Hincmari Opera, ed. Sirmond, Paris, 1645, vol. ii, p. 262.

The imprisonment to which Godescalcus was subjected was likewise a monastic punishment. Practically, it did not imply much more than the confinement strictly required by the rules of his convent. It is interesting to note that imprisonment for crime is of purely ecclesiastical origin. The Roman law knew nothing of it. It was at first a penalty peculiar to monks and clerics, although later on laymen also were subjected to it.

About the year 1000, the Manicheans, under various names, came from Bulgaria, and spread over western Europe.[1] We meet them about this time in Italy, Spain, France, and Germany. Public sentiment soon became bitter against them, and they became the victims of a general, though intermittent, persecution. Orléans, Arras, Cambrai, Châlons, Goslai, Liège, Soissons, Ravenna, Monteforte, Asti, and Toulouse became the field of their propaganda, and often the place of their execution. Several heretics like Peter of Bruys, Henry of Lausanne, Arnold of Brescia, and Éon de l'Étoile (Eudo de Stella), likewise troubled the Church, who to stop their bold propaganda used force herself, or permitted the State or the people to use it.

[1] Cf. C. Schmidt, Histoire et doctrine de la secte des Cathares, vol. 1, pp. 16-54, 82.

It was at Orleans in