[1] Ep. x, 130.
But it is important to know what men then understood by the word heresy. We can ascertain this from the theologians and canonists, especially from St. Raymond of Pennafort and St. Thomas Aquinas. St. Raymond gives four meanings to the word heretic, but from the standpoint of the canon law he says: "A heretic is one who denies the faith."[1] St. Thomas Aquinas is more accurate. He declares that no one is truly a heretic unless he obstinately maintains his error, even after it has been pointed out to him by ecclesiastical authority. This is the teaching of St. Augustine.[2]
[1] S. Raymundi, Summa, lib. i, cap. De Hæreticis, sect. i, Roman Edition, 1603, p. 39.
[2] Summa, IIa, IIae, quæst. xi, Conclusio; cf. ibid., ad 3um, quotations from St. Augustine.
But by degrees the word, taken at first in a strict sense, acquired a broader meaning. St. Raymond includes schism in the notion of heresy. "The only difference between these two crimes," he writes, "is the difference between genus and species;" every schism ends in heresy. And relying on the authority of St. Jerome, the rigorous canonist goes so far as to declare that schism is even a greater crime than heresy. He proves this by the fact that Core, Dathan, and Abiron,[1] who seceded from the chosen people, were punished by the most terrible of punishments. "From the enormity of the punishment, must we not argue the enormity of the crime?" St. Raymond therefore declares that the same punishment must be inflicted upon the heretic and the schismatic.[2]
[1] Num. xvi. 31-33.
[2] Loc. cit., lib. i, cap. De Schismaticis, pp. 45-47
"The authors of the treatises on the Inquisition," writes Tanon, "classed as heretics all those who favored heresy, and all excommunicates who did not submit to the Church within a certain period. They declared that a man excommunicated for any cause whatever, who did not seek absolution within a year, incurred by this act of rebellion a light suspicion of heresy; that he could then be cited before the Inquisitor to answer not only for the crime which had caused his excommunication, but also for his orthodoxy. If he did not answer this second summons, he was at once considered excommunicated for heresy, and if he remained under this second excommunication for a year, he was liable to be condemned as a real heretic. The light suspicion caused by his first excommunication became in turn a vehement and then a violent suspicion which, together with his continued contumacy, constituted a full proof of heresy."[1]
[1] Tanon, op. cit., pp. 235, 236.
The theologians insisted greatly upon respect for ecclesiastical and especially Papal authority. Everything that tended to lessen this authority seemed to them a practical denial of the faith. The canonist Henry of Susa (Hostiensis + 1271), went so far as to say that "whoever contradicted or refused to accept the decretals of the Popes was a heretic."[1] Such disobedience was looked upon as a culpable disregard of the rights of the papacy, and consequently a form of heresy.