fold,
and the fate of Core, Dathan and Abiron was invoked _for the
destruction of the obstinate_." (_Summa_, lib. i. tit. v, 2, 4, 8;
tit. vi, i.) This is a travesty of the mind, and words of Saint
Raymond. He merely called attention to the lot of Core, Dathan and
Abiron to show what a great crime schism was. He never asserted that
heretics or schismatics, even when obdurate, ought to be "destroyed."
_Summa_, lib. i, cap. _De Haereticis_ and _De Schismaticis_.

But St. Thomas, who wrote at a time when the Inquisition was in full
operation, felt called upon to defend the infliction of the death
penalty upon heretics and the relapsed. His words deserve careful
consideration. He begins by answering the objections that might be
brought from the Scriptures and the Fathers against his thesis. The
first of these is the well-known passage of St. Matthew, in which our
Saviour forbids the servants of the householder to gather up the
cockle before the harvest time, lest they root up the wheat with
it.[1] St. John Chrysostom, he says, "argues from this text that it
is wrong to put heretics to death."[2] But according to St. Augustine
the words of the Saviour: "Let the cockle grow until the harvest,"
are explained at once by what follows: "lest perhaps gathering up the
cockle, you root up the wheat also with it." When there is no danger
of uprooting the wheat and no danger of schism, violent measures may
be used:" _Cum metus iste non subest ... non dormiat severitas
disciplinae_."[3] We doubt very much whether such reasoning would have
satisfied St. John Chrysostom, St. Theodore the Studite, or Bishop
Wazo, who understood the Saviour's prohibition in a literal and an
absolute sense.

[1] Matt. xiii. 28-30.

[2] _In Matthaeum_, Homil. xlvi.

[3] Augustine, _Contra epistol. Parmeniani_, lib. iii. cap. ii.

But this passage does not reveal the whole mind of the Angelic
doctor. It is more evident in his exegesis of Ezechiel xviii. 32,
_Nolo mortem peccatoris_. "Assuredly," he writes, "none of us desires
the death of a single heretic. But remember that the house of David
could not obtain peace until Absalom was killed in the war he waged
against his father. In like manner, the Catholic Church saves some of
her children by the death of others, and consoles her sorrowing heart
by reflecting that she is acting for the general good."[1]

[1] St. Thomas, _Summa_, loc. cit., ad. 4m.

If we are not mistaken, St. Thomas is here trying t