[1] Ep. clxxxv, n. 23.
[2] Ep. cxxxxiii, n. 2.
In his opinion, the severest penalty that ought to be inflicted upon the Donatists is exile for their bishops and priests, and fines for their followers. He strongly denounced the death penalty as contrary to Christian charity.[1]
[1] Ep. clxxxv, n. 26; Ep. xciii, n. 10.
Both the imperial officers and the Donatists themselves objected to this theory.
The officers of the Emperor wished to apply the law in all its rigor, and to sentence the schismatics to death, when they deemed it proper. St. Augustine adjures them, in the name of "Christian and Catholic meekness,"[1] not to go to this extreme, no matter how great the crimes of the Donatists had been. "You have penalties enough," he writes, "exile, for instance, without torturing their bodies or putting them to death."[2]
[1] Ep. clxxxv, n. 26; Ep. cxxxix, n. 2.
[2] Ep. cxxxiii, n. 1.
And when the proconsul Apringius quoted St. Paul to justify the use of the sword, St. Augustine replied: "The apostle has well said, 'for he beareth not the sword in vain.'[1] But we must carefully distinguish between temporal and spiritual affairs."[2] "Because it is just to inflict the death penalty for crimes against the common law, it does not follow that it is right to put heretics and schismatics to death." "Punish the guilty ones, but do not put them to death." "For," he writes another proconsul, "if you decide upon putting them to death, you will thereby prevent our denouncing them before your tribunal. They will then rise up against us with greater boldness. And if you tell us that we must either denounce them or risk death at their hands, we will not hesitate a moment, but will choose death ourselves."[3]
[1] Rom. xiii. 4.