Note 331 — Chapter II · - THE BEGINNINGS OF THE INQUISITION

Summa, 2, 2, qu. 11, arts. 3 and 4. ‘Multo enim gravius corrumpere fidem, per quam est animae vita, quam falsare pecuniam, per quam temporali vitae subvenitur. Unde si falsarii pecuniae vel alii malefactores statim per saeculares principes juste morti traduntur, multo magis haeretici statim ex quo de haeresi convincuntur, possunt non solum excommunicari, sed et juste occidi.’ Vacandard (p. 176) answers: ‘Such reasoning is not very convincing. Why should not the life-imprisonment of the heretic safeguard the faithful as well as his death? Will you answer that this penalty is too trivial to prevent the faithful from falling into heresy? If that be so, why not at once condemn all heretics to death, even when repentant? That would terrorize the wavering ones all the more. But St. Thomas evidently was not thinking of the logical consequences of his reasoning. His one aim was to defend the criminal code in vogue at the time. That is his only excuse. For we must admit that rarely has his reasoning been so faulty and so weak as in his thesis upon the coercive power of the Church and the punishment of heresy.’ St. Thomas’s logic is sounder than his apologist’s, if his humanity is less! It is not St. Thomas’s logic that is at fault, but the standpoint of mediæval Christianity, which it is vain to seek to harmonize with modern humanitarianism.