A. 3. Should Heretics Be Tolerated?
[This question is divided into four articles, one of which is translated here.]
We thus proceed to the third inquiry. It seems that heretics should be tolerated, for the following reasons:
Obj. 1. The Apostle says in 2 Tim. 2:24–6: “Servants of God should be meek, modestly correcting those who resist the truth, so that God may at any moment grant them repentance to know the truth, and that they may escape the snares of the devil.” But if we do not tolerate heretics and hand them over to death, we take away the opportunity for them to repent. Therefore, such seems to be contrary to the Apostle’s command.
Obj. 2. Things necessary in the church should be tolerated. But there need to be heretics in the church, for the Apostle says in 1 Cor. 11:19: “Heresies need to exist in order that the upright also be manifested among you.” Therefore, it seems that heretics should be tolerated.
Obj. 3. The Lord commanded his servants in Mt. 13:30 that they allow the weeds to grow until harvest time, that is, the end of the world, as v. 39 explains. But the weeds signify heretics, as the saints explain.1 Therefore, heretics should be tolerated.
On the contrary, the Apostle says in Tit. 3:10–1: “After correcting heretics once or twice, avoid them, for you know that such persons are wicked.”
I answer that we should consider two points regarding heretics: one, indeed, regarding themselves; the other regarding the church. Regarding themselves, they by their sins indeed deserved to be both separated from the church by excommunication and excluded from the world by death. For it is a more serious crime to corrupt the faith, which gives life to the soul, than to counterfeit money, which supports earthly life. And so if secular rulers justly put counterfeiters and other felons immediately to {195} death, much more could heretics be both excommunicated and justly killed immediately upon conviction of heresy.
But the church is merciful in order to convert those in error. And so the church condemns heretics only after admonishing them once or twice, as the Apostle teaches,2 not immediately. And later, if heretics should still persist, the church, despairing of their conversion, provides for the salvation of others by separating the heretics from the church by excommunication and in addition relinquishes them to the judgment of secular courts, to separate them from the world by death. For Jerome says,3 and the Decretum maintains4: “Rotten flesh should be cut off, and mangy sheep should be driven out of the sheepfolds, lest the whole house (the mass, the material substance, the animals) catch fire, be corrupted, rot, perish. Arius was a tiny spark in Alexandria, but his flame set fire to the whole world because he was not immediately suppressed.”
Reply Obj. 1. That heretics be admonished once or twice belongs to the recommended modesty. But if heretics are unwilling to repent, we should then consider them wicked, as the cited authority of the Apostle makes clear.
Reply Obj. 2. The benefit that heresies produce, namely, that they commend the constancy of the faithful, as the Apostle says,5 and that we cut away sloth by more carefully contemplating the sacred Scriptures, as Augustine says, is contrary to the aim of heretics. Rather, they intend to corrupt the faith, which result is most harmful. And so we should regard what they intrinsically intend, so as to exclude them, rather than regard what is contrary to their intention, so as to support them.
Reply Obj. 3. The Decretum holds: “Excommunication and inflicting death are different things. For persons are excommunicated ‘in order that their spirit be saved on the day of the Lord,’ as the Apostle says6.”7
And if death should completely exterminate heretics, this is likewise compatible with the cited command of the Lord. For we should understand this command to apply to cases where we cannot pull up the weeds without pulling up the grain, as I said before when I was treating of unbelievers in general.8
1E.g., Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew, homily 46, n. 1 (PG 58:475).
21 Tit. 3:10–1, quoted in the section On the contrary.
3Commentary on Galatians III, on 5:9 (PL 26: 403).
4Gratian, Decretum II, cause 24, q. 3, c. 16.
5Commentary on Genesis, against the Manicheans I, 1, n. 2 (PL 34:173).
61 Cor. 5:5.
7Gratian, Decretum II, cause 24, q. 3, c. 37.
8ST II–II, Q. 10, A. 8, ad 1.