charity; they voiced the new spirit of the Gospel of
Christ. At the other extremity of the Catholic world, St. John
Chrysostom re-echoes their teaching. "To put a heretic to death," he
says, "is an unpardonable crime."[3]

[1] Ep. c., n. 1.

[2] Cf. Sulpicius Severus, _Dialogi_, iii, 12, loc. cit., col. 218.

[3] _Homilia_ xlvi, in Matthaeum, cap. 1.

But in view of the advantage to the Church, either from the
maintenance of the public peace, or from the conversion of
individuals, the State may employ a certain amount of force against
heretics.

"God forbids us to put them to death," continues St. Chrysostom,
"just as he forbade the servants to gather up the cockle,"[1] because
he regards their conversion as possible; but he does not forbid us
doing all in our power to prevent their public meetings, and their
preaching of false doctrine. St. Augustine adds that they may be
punished by fine and exile. To this extent the churchmen of the day
accepted the aid of the secular arm. Nor were they content with
merely accepting it. They declared that the State had not only the
right to help the Church in suppressing heresy, but that she was in
duty bound to do so. In the seventh century, St. Isidore of Seville
discusses this question in practically this same terms as St.
Augustine.[2]

[1] Ibid., cap. ii.

[2] We think it important to give Lea's resume of this period. It
will show how a writer, although trying to be impartial, may distort
the facts: "It was only sixty-two years after the slaughter of
Priscillian and his followers had excited so much horror, that Leo I,
when the heresy seemed to be reviving, in 447, not only justified the
act, but declared that _if the followers of heresy so damnable were
allowed to live_, there would be an end to human and divine law. The
final step had been taken, and _the Church was definitely pledged to
the suppression of heresy at whatever cost_. It is impossible not to
attribute to ecclesiastical influence the successive Edicts by which,
from the time of Theodosius the Great, persistence in heresy was
punished by death. A powerful impulse to this development is to be
found in the responsibility which grew upon the Church from its
connection with the State. When it could influence the monarch and
procure from him Edicts condemning heretics to exile, to the mines,
_and even to death_, it felt that God had put into its hands powers
to be exercised and not to be neglected" (vol. i,