"The church does not thirst for blood "^44 but excommunicates the obstinate heretic and hands him
over to the civil magistrate to be dealt with according to law. And the laws of pagan Rome and
Christian Rome were alike severe against every open dissent from the state religion. The Mosaic
legislation against idolatry and blasphemy, which were punished by death, as a crime against the
theocracy and as treason against Jehovah,^45 seemed to afford divine authority for similar enactments
under the Christian dispensation, in spite of the teaching and example of Christ and his Apostles.
The Christian emperors after Constantine persecuted the heathen religion and heretical sects, as
their heathen predecessors had persecuted the Christians as enemies of the national gods. The
Justinian code, which extended its influence over the whole Continent of Europe, declares Christian
heretics and schismatics, as well as Pagans and Jews, incapable of holding civil or military offices,
forbids their public assemblies and ecclesiastical acts, and orders their books to be burned.
The leading divines of the church gave sanction to this theory. St. Augustin, who had himself
been a heretic for nine years, was at first in favor of toleration.^46 But during the Donatist controversy,
he came to the conclusion that the correction and coërcion of heretics and schismatics was in some
cases necessary and wholesome. His tract on the Correction of the Donatists was written about 417,
to show that the schismatical and fanatical Donatists should be subjected to the punishment of the
imperial laws. He admits that it is better that men should be led to worship God by teaching than
be driven to it by fear of punishment or pain; but he reasons that more men are corrected by fear.
He derives the proof from the Old Testament. The only passages from the New Testament which
he is able to quote, would teach a compulsory salvation rather than punishment, but are really not
to the point. He refers to Paul’s conversion as a case of compulsion by Christ himself, and misapplies
the word of our Lord in the parable of the Supper: "Constrain them to come in."^47 Yet he professed,
(^44) Ecclesia non sitit sanguinem,"a maxim held by the Catholic church even in the darkest days of persecution. When the first blood of
heretics was shed by order of the Emperor Maximus who punished some Priscillianists in Spain by the sword in 388, St. Ambrose of
Milan and St. Martin of Tours loudly protested against the cruelty and broke off communion with the bishops who had approved it.
(^45) Ex. 22:20; Num. 25:2-8; Deut. 13:1-14; 17:2-5; Lev. 24:14-16; comp. 1 Kings 21:10, 13. The law was executed against Stephen,
the protomartyr, Acts 6:11, 13; 7:58.
(^46) He begins his anti-Manichaean work, Adv. Epistolam Manichaei quam vocant fundamenti, written in 397, with these noble Christian
sentiments: "My prayer to the one true, almighty God, of whom and by whom and in whom are all things, has been and is now, that in
opposing and refuting the heresy of you Manichaeans, as you may after all be heretics more from thoughtlessness than from malice, He
would give me a calm and composed mind, aiming at your recovery rather than your discomfiture. For, while the Lord by his servants
overthrows the kingdoms of error, his will concerning erring men, as far as they are men, is that they should be restored rather than
destroyed. And in every case where, previous to the final judgment, God inflicts punishment ... we must believe that the designed effect
is the recovery of men, and not their ruin; while there is a preparation for the final doom in the case of those who reject the means of
recovery," And in ch. 3 he says to the Manichaeeans, remembering his own former connection with them: I can on no account treat you
angrily; for I must bear with you now as formerly I had to bear with myself, and I must be as patient with you as my associates were with
me, when I went madly and blindly astray in your beliefs."
(^47) De Correct. Donatist, c. 6, § 24: "The Lord himself (Luke 14:23) bids the guests in the first instance to be invited to His great supper,
and afterwards to be compelled." He understands the highways and hedges of the parable to mean heresies and schisms, and the Supper
of the Lord to mean the unity of the body of Christ in the sacrament of the altar and the bond of peace. He says (ch. 7, § 25) that when
the imperial laws against heresy first were sent to Africa he with certain brethren opposed their execution, but afterwards justified them
as a measure of catholic self-defense against the fanatical violence of the Donatists. The result was, that both Catholics and Donatists
were overwhelmed in ruin by the Vandal conquerors, who were Arian heretics.