[1] Contra Celsum, lib. vii, cap. xxvi.
St. Cyprian also repudiates in the name of the Gospel the laws of the Old Testament on this point. He writes as follows: "God commanded that those who did not obey his priests or hearken to his judges,[1] appointed for the time, should be slain. Then indeed they were slain with the sword, while the circumcision of the flesh was yet in force; but now that circumcision has begun to be of the spirit among God's faithful servants, the proud and contumacious are slain with the sword of the spirit by being cast out of the Church."[2]
[1] Deut. xvii. 12.
[2] Ep. lxii, ad Pomponium, n. 4, P.L., vol. iii. col. 371. Cf. De unitate Ecclesiæ, n. 17 seq.; ibid., col. 513 seq.
The Bishop of Carthage, who was greatly troubled by stubborn schismatics, and men who violated every moral principle of the Gospel, felt that the greatest punishment he could inflict was excommunication.
When Lactantius wrote his Divinæ Institutiones in 308, he was too greatly impressed by the outrages of the pagan persecutions not to protest most strongly against the use of force in matters of conscience. He writes: "There is no justification for violence and injury, for religion cannot be imposed by force. It is a matter of the will, which must be influenced by words, not by blows…. Why then do they rage, and increase, instead of lessening, their folly? Torture and piety have nothing in common; there is no union possible between truth and violence, justice and cruelty.[1] … For they (the persecutors) are aware that there is nothing among men more excellent than religion, and that it ought to be defended with all one's might. But as they are deceived in the matter of religion itself, so also are they in the manner of its defence. For religion is to be defended, not by putting to death, but by dying; not by cruelty but by patient endurance; not by crime but by faith…. If you wish to defend religion by bloodshed, by tortures and by crime, you no longer defend it, but pollute and profane it. For nothing is so much a matter of free will as religion."[2]
[1] Cf. Pascal, Lettre provinciale, xii.
[2] Divin. Institut., lib. v, cap. xx.
An era of official toleration began a few years later, when Constantine published the Edict of Milan (313), which placed Christianity and Paganism on practically the same footing. But the Emperor did not always observe this law of toleration, whereby he hoped to restore the peace of the Empire. A convert to Christian views and policy, he thought it his duty to interfere in the doctrinal and ecclesiastical quarrels of the day; and he claimed the title and assumed the functions of a Bishop in externals. "You are Bishops," he said one day, addressing a number of them, "whose jurisdiction is within the Church; I also am a Bishop, ordained by God to oversee whatever is external to the church."[1] This assumption of power frequently worked positive harm to the Church, although Constantine always pretended to further her interests.
[1] Eusebius, Vita Constantini, lib. iv, cap. xxiv.