Quod sancti viri ad incutiendum metum reos morte jure puniverint
Holy Fear and Holy Judgment
Augustine and Elijah show that holy men sometimes punished sins with death, not rashly but under divine authority, to instill salutary fear in the living.
For holy men not only avoided such friendships, but also, to instill fear in the living, they even punished the guilty with death, as blessed Augustine shows in his book on the Lord's Sermon on the Mount, saying (bk. 1, ch. 20): "Great and holy men, who already knew very well that this death which separates the soul from the body is not to be feared, nevertheless, in keeping with the mindset of those who did fear it, punished certain sins with death, so that useful fear might be struck into the living, and so that for those who were being punished with death, death itself would not harm them, but sin, which could have grown if they had lived. They did not judge rashly, to whom God had granted such judgment. This is why Elijah struck many with death by his own hand (3 Kings 18), and with fire obtained from God (4 Kings 1), since many other great and divine men, calming human affairs by the same Spirit, did not act rashly. Concerning this Elijah, when the disciples had given the example to the Lord, recalling what had been done by him, so that he might also give them authority to ask fire from heaven to consume those who did not offer them hospitality, the Lord rebuked them, not for the example of the holy prophet, but for the ignorance of avenging, which was still present in the untrained, noticing that they desired correction not from love, but from hatred to long for vengeance (Luke
Apostolic Power in the New Covenant
After Pentecost, the Apostles exercised the power to punish—Peter with death, Paul with handing over to Satan—though far more rarely and always in love rather than fear.
IX). And so, after he had taught them what it means to love your neighbor as yourself, once the Holy Spirit had also been poured out on them — the Spirit he sent from above, just as he had promised, ten days after his ascension, once those days were complete (Act. II), such punishments were not lacking, although far more rarely than in the Old Testament. There, for the most part, those in servitude were driven by fear; here, on the other hand, those who were free were nourished by the greatest love. For at the words of the apostle Peter, Ananias and his wife dropped dead, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles — and they were not raised again, but buried (Act. V). And if heretics who oppose this book and the Old Testament are unwilling to believe it, let them look at the apostle Paul, whom they read alongside us, saying concerning a certain sinner: 'I handed him over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his soul may be saved' (I Cor. V, 5).
Mercy at the Heart of Correction
Even when vengeance is permitted, it must aim at the soul's salvation, not hatred; Christians are called to correct wrongs with mercy, patience, and readiness to endure further injury.
And if they are unwilling to understand death here (for perhaps it is uncertain), let them at least acknowledge that any vengeance done by Satan through the Apostle was not done out of hatred, but out of love — the added words make that clear: 'so that the soul may be saved.'✦ Or let them consider, in those books to which they themselves attribute great authority, what we are pointing to — where it is written that the Apostle Thomas called down upon a certain man, by whom he had been struck on the palm, a most atrocious punishment of death, yet he commended his soul, so that in the age to come it might be spared: a hand of his, torn from the rest of his body by a lion that had killed him, was brought by a dog to the tables at which the Apostle was feasting. To this scripture we are not obliged to give credence, for it is not in the Catholic canon; and yet those very people both read it and honor it as most uncorrupted and most true — those who rage most fiercely, I don't know with what blindness, against the bodily acts of vengeance found in the Old Testament, entirely unaware of the spirit in which they were carried out and the distribution of times in which they occurred. This, then, is the practice Christians should hold to in this kind of injury that is atoned through vengeance: when wronged, it must not give rise to hatred, but the heart should be prepared, in mercy toward human weakness, to endure still more — and not neglect correction, by which one may use either advice, or authority, or power, as the situation allows. »
Read the original Latin
Quia enim sancti viri, non solum talium amicitias vitaverunt, sed ad incutiendum viventibus metum, etiam jure reos morte punierunt, sicut beatus Augustinus in libro de Sermone Domini in monte demonstrat, dicens (lib. I, cap. 20): « Magni et sancti viri, qui jam optime scirent mortem istam, quae animam dissolvit a corpore, non esse formidandam, secundum eorum tamen animum qui illam timerent, nonnulla peccata morte punierunt, quo et viventibus utilis metus incuteretur, et illis qui morte puniebantur, non ipsa mors noceret, sed peccatum, quod augeri posset si viverent. Non temere illi judicabant, quibus tale judicium donaverat Deus. Inde est quod Elias multos morte affecit, et propria manu (III Reg. XVIII), et igne divinitus impetrato (IV Reg. I), cum et alii multi, et divini magni viri eodem spiritu tranquillandis rebus humanis non temere fecerint. De quo Elia cum exemplum dedissent discipuli Domino, commemorantes quod ab eo factum sit, ut etiam ipsis daret potestatem petendi de coelo ignem, ad consumendos eos qui sibi hospitium non praeberent, reprehendit in eis Dominus, non exemplum prophetae sancti, sed ignorantiam vindicandi, quae adhuc erat in rudibus, animadvertens eos non amore correptionem, sed odio desiderare vindictam (Luc.
IX). Itaque posteaquam eos docuit quid esset diligere proximum tanquam seipsum, infuso etiam Spiritu sancto, quem decem diebus completis post ascensionem suam desuper ut promiserat misit (Act. II), non defuerunt tales vindictae, quamvis multo rarius quam in Veteri Testamento. Ibi enim ex majore parte servientes timore premebantur: hic autem maxima dilectione liberi nutriebantur. Nam et verbis apostoli Petri, Ananias et uxor ejus, sicut in Actibus apostolorum legimus, exanimes ceciderunt, nec resuscitati sunt, sed sepulti (Act. V). Et si huic libro haeretici, qui adversantur et Veteri Testamento, nolunt credere, Paulum apostolum quem nobiscum legunt intueantur, dicentem de quodam peccatore: Quem tradidi Satanae in interitum carnis, ut anima salva sit (I Cor. V, 5).
Et si nolunt hic mortem intelligere (fortasse enim incertum est), quamlibet vindictam per Satanam factam ab Apostolo fateantur: quod non eam odio sed amore fecisse, manifestat illud adjectum, ut anima salva sit. Aut in illis libris, quibus ipsi magnam tribuunt auctoritatem, animadvertant quod dicimus, ubi scriptum est, apostolum Thomam imprecatum cuidam, a quo palma percussus esset, atrocissimae mortis supplicium, animam ejus tamen commendavit, ut in futuro ei saeculo parceretur: cujus a leone occisi a caetero corpore discerptam manum canis intulit mensis, in quibus convivabatur apostolus. Cui scripturae licet nobis non credere: non enim est in catholico canone: illi tamen eam et legunt, et tanquam incorruptissimam verissimamque honorant, qui adversus corporales vindictas quae sunt in Veteri Testamento, nescio qua caecitate acerrime saeviunt, quo animo et qua distributione temporum factae sunt omnino nescientes. Tenebitur ergo in hoc injuriarum genere, quod per vindictam luitur, iste a Christianis modus, ut accepta injuria non surgat in odium, sed infirmitatis misericordia paratus sit animus plura perpeti, nec correptionem negligat, qua vel consilio, vel auctoritate, vel potestate uti potest. »
Scripture echoes
- ↩1Cor.5.5 — Hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that the spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord.
On the Person and Ministry of the King (De regis persona et regio ministerio) companion
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