A. 11. Should the Religious Rites of Unbelievers Be Tolerated?
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In ST II–II, Q. 10, Thomas endorses very limited tolerance of unbelievers. They should not be compelled to embrace the faith, but they should be compelled not to hinder the faith (A. 8). Jewish rites should be tolerated, but the rites of other unbelievers should not (A. 11).
In Q. 11, Thomas approves complete intolerance of public heresy. Public authorities are urged to put persistent heretics to death (A. 3).
In the two selections from the CS on church-state relations, Thomas recognizes the autonomy of the secular power in matters pertaining to civic well-being (except in the Papal States, where the pope has secular power) but subjects the secular power to the spiritual power in matters pertaining to the salvation of souls. See also , , and , ad 3, in Chapter 6.
[This question is divided into twelve articles, two of which are translated here.]
We thus proceed to the eighth inquiry. It seems that unbelievers should not be compelled to embrace the faith, for the following reasons:
Obj. 1. Mt. 13:28–9 says that the servants of the master of a household in whose field weeds were sown asked him: “Do you want us to go and gather up the weeds?” And he replied: “No, lest you in gathering the weeds perhaps pull up the grain as well.” And Chrysostom comments on the text: “The Lord in saying this forbad killing heretics. It is indeed unfitting to kill them, since, to do so, you would need to kill many saints at the same time.”1 Therefore, it seems by like reasoning that no unbelievers should be compelled to embrace the faith.
{191} Obj. 2. The Decretum says: “The holy synod commanded, secondly, that no Jews be forced to embrace the faith.”2 Therefore, no other unbeliever should by like reasoning be forced to embrace the faith.
Obj. 3. Augustine says that unwilling persons, moreover, can “believe only if they want to.”3 But the will cannot be compelled. Therefore, it seems that unbelievers should not be compelled to embrace the faith.
Obj. 4. Ez. 18:23, 32 says in the person of God: “I do not wish the death of sinners.” But we should conform our will to God’s, as I have said before.4 Therefore, we should also not wish to kill unbelievers.
On the contrary, Lk. 14:23 says: “Go out into the roads and byways and force them to enter, in order that my house may be filled.” But human beings by faith enter God’s house, that is, the church. Therefore, some should be compelled to embrace the faith.
I answer that there are some unbelievers who never embraced the faith (e.g., pagans and Jews). And such unbelievers should never be compelled to embrace the faith, to believe, since belief is proper to the individual’s own will. But the faithful should compel them, if possible, not to hinder the faith, whether by blasphemies or wicked influences or open persecution. And so the Christian faithful often wage war against unbelievers in order to compel the latter not to hinder the faith, not indeed to compel them to embrace the faith, since unbelievers would remain free to decide whether they wanted to believe even if the faithful were to conquer them and hold them captive.
And there are other unbelievers who once accepted and professed the faith (e.g., heretics or any kind of apostates). And we should compel such unbelievers, even by physical force, to fulfill what they promised and to hold fast to what they once accepted.
Reply Obj. 1. Some have understood the scriptural text to prohibit the killing of heretics, although not indeed their excommunication, as the cited text of Chrysostom makes clear. And Augustine says of himself in his letter to Vincent: “My opinion at first was that no one should be compelled into Christian unity, that unbelievers should be brought into that unity by exhortation and fought by discussion. But the examples cited by those arguing against that opinion, not their words of refutation, won me over. For fear of the laws was so helpful that many said: ‘Thanks be to the Lord, who freed us from our chains.’”5 Therefore, the meaning of {192} the Lord’s statement (Mt. 13:30), “Let both the weeds and the grain grow until the harvest,” is clear by what he adds: “Lest in gathering the weeds, you perhaps pull up the grain as well.” And as Augustine says against Parmenian: “This shows sufficiently that rigorous discipline flourishes when fear of pulling up the grain does not exist, that is, when the sin of each is so known and appears so despicable to all that there are either absolutely no defenders of the sin or no defenders who could give rise to schism.”6
Reply Obj. 2. Jews should never be compelled to embrace the faith if they have never accepted it. But if they have, “it is fitting that they of necessity be compelled to maintain the faith,” as the same Chapter Five says.
Reply Obj. 3. As “making vows to God is a matter of free will, but observing them a matter of obligation,”7 so accepting the faith is a matter of free will, but maintaining it once accepted a matter of obligation. And so heretics should be compelled to maintain the faith. For Augustine says in a letter to Count Boniface: “Why are they accustomed to exclaim: ‘One is free to believe or not. Whom did Christ force to believe?’? Let them recognize in the case of Paul one whom Christ first compelled and then instructed.”8
Reply Obj. 4. Augustine says in the same letter to Count Boniface: “None of us wishes any heretic to perish. But the house of David would not otherwise have deserved to enjoy peace unless his son Absalom were to have been crushed in the war Absalom waged against him. Thus does the Catholic Church, when it gains some in losing others, ease the sorrow of her maternal heart in liberating so many people.”9
We thus proceed to the eleventh inquiry. It seems that the religious rites of unbelievers should not be tolerated, for the following reasons:
Obj. 1. Unbelievers evidently sin when they observe their religious rites. But those who do not prevent sin when they could, seem to consent to sin, as a gloss on Rom. 1:32, “Both those who do evil and those who consent to others doing evil,” etc., maintains.10 Therefore, those who tolerate the religious rites of unbelievers sin.
{193} Obj. 2. Jewish religious rites are related to idolatry, for a gloss on Gal. 5:1, “Do not again become subject to the yoke of servitude,” says: “The servitude of the [Old] Law is as heavy as that of idolatry.”11 But no one would maintain that some should be permitted to practice idolatry. Rather, Christian rulers first closed, then destroyed, pagan temples, as Augustine relates in The City of God.12 Therefore, Jewish religious rites should also not be tolerated.
Obj. 3. The sin of unbelief is the greatest, as I have said before.13 But civil law does not tolerate and punishes other sins (e.g., adultery, theft, and such like). Therefore, civil law should also not tolerate the religious rites of unbelievers.
On the contrary, Gregory in a decretal says regarding the Jews: “Let them be legally free to observe and celebrate their holy days, as they and their ancestors have for so long observed and celebrated them in worship up to now.”14
I answer that human governance derives from God’s and should be modeled on his. But God, although all-powerful and supremely good, nonetheless allows some evils to take place in the universe, evils that he could prevent, lest greater goods be lost if the evils were removed, or lest still worse evils result. Therefore, likewise in human governance, rulers rightly tolerate certain evils lest certain goods be prevented, or even worse evils incurred. Just so, Augustine says in his work On Order: “Do away with prostitutes in human society, and you will stir up all sorts of things out of sexual lust.”15 Therefore, although unbelievers sin regarding their religious rites, rulers can tolerate the rites either to bring about good from them or to avoid evil.
And Jews observe their religious rites, which in former times prefigured the true faith that we profess. And so Jews observing their religious rites produce good, namely, that our enemies bear witness to our faith, and that their rites represent to us in figures, as it were, what we believe. And so Jews are allowed to practice their religious rites.
But rulers should in no way tolerate the religious rites of other unbelievers, who contribute no truth or benefit, except, perhaps, in order to avoid such evils as possible resulting scandal or discontent, or in order to avoid preventing the salvation of those who will, little by little, be converted to the faith if they are tolerated in this way. For example, the {194} church has at times tolerated the religious rites of heretics and pagans for the latter reason when there were very many unbelievers.
Reply Objs. 1–3. The foregoing makes clear the reply to the objections.
1Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew, homily 46, nn. 1, 2 (PG 58:477).
2Gratian, Decretum I, dist. 45, c. 5.
3Commentary on the Gospel of John, on 6:44, tr. 26, n. 2 (PL 35:1607).
4ST I–II, Q. 19, AA. 9, 10.
5Letter 93, to the Donatist Vincent, c. 5, nn. 17, 18 (PL 33:329–30).
6Response to the Letter of Parmenian III, 2, n. 13 (PL 43:92).
7Peter Lombard, Glossa, on Ps. 76:11 (PL 191:709).
8Letter 185, to Count Boniface, c. 6, n. 22 (PL 33:803).
9Ibid., c. 8, n. 32 (PL 33:807).
10Glossa ordinaria, on Rom. 1:32 (PL 114:474); Peter Lombard, Glossa (PL 191:1336).
11Peter Lombard, Glossa, on Gal. 5:1 (PL 192:152).
12The City of God XVIII, 54, n. 1 (PL 41:620).
13ST II–II, Q. 10, A. 3.
14Actually, Gratian, Decretum I, dist. 45, c. 3.
15On Order II, 4, n. 12 (PL 32:1000).