Permit me then to say, that every individual is entitled by the same right to enjoy the inheritance of his father, and that he in no wise deserves to be deprived of it, or to be sent to the gallows, because he may perhaps be of the opinion of Ratram against Paschasius Ratberg, or of Berengarius against Scotus.
We are very sensible that there are many of our tenets which have not been always clearly explained: Jesus Christ not having expressly told us in what manner the Holy Ghost really proceeds, both the Latin church and the Greek believed that it proceeded only from the Father; but afterwards an article was added to the Creed in which it is said to proceed from the Son also. Now, I desire to know whether the day after this new article was added a person who might abide by the old Creed would have been deserving of death? And is there less cruelty or injustice in punishing at this day a person who may possibly think as they did two or three centuries ago? Or was there any crime in believing in the time of Honorius I. that Christ had not two wills?
It is but very lately that the belief of the immaculate conception has been established: the Dominicans have not received it as yet. Now will any one tell me the precise point of time when the Dominicans will begin to deserve punishment in this world, and in that which is to come?
If any one can set us an example for our conduct, it is certainly the Apostles and the Evangelists. There was sufficient matter to excite a violent schism between St. Peter and St. Paul. The latter, in his Epistle to the Galatians,[32] says: “That he withstood Peter to the face, because he was to be blamed; for before that certain men came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision, insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with his dissimulation.” “But,” adds he, “when I saw that they walked not uprightly, according to the truth of the Gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?”
Here now was a subject for a violent dispute. The question was, whether the new Christians followed the manners of the Jews or not. St. Paul at that very time sacrificed in the Temple of Jerusalem; and we know that the first fifteen bishops of Jerusalem were circumcised Jews; and that they observed the Sabbath, and abstained from the meats forbidden by the Jewish law. Should a bishop of Spain or Portugal at this time be circumcised, or observe the Sabbath, he would assuredly burn at an auto da fé: and yet this fundamental point did not occasion the least animosity between the Apostles, or between the primitive Christians.
If the Evangelists had resembled our modern writers, what an immense field was there for disputation between them. St. Matthew reckons only eight and twenty generations from David to Jesus. St. Luke reckons forty-one; and these generations are absolutely different. Yet no dissension appears to have arisen between the disciples on account of these apparent contradictions, which have been so admirably well reconciled by the Fathers of the Church; but they still continued in brotherly love, peace, and charity with one another. What more noble lesson can we have of indulgence in our disputes, and of humility in regard to those things which we do not understand?
St. Paul, in his Epistle to certain Jews of Rome who had been converted to Christianity, employs all the latter part of his third chapter in telling them that by faith alone they will be glorified, and that no man is justified by good works only. St. James, on the contrary, in the second chapter of his Epistle to the twelve tribes dispersed over the earth, is continually preaching up to them, that without good works no man can be saved. This has occasioned the separation of two great communions amongst us; but it caused no division among the Apostles.
If the persecuting of those who differ from us in opinion is a holy action, it must be confessed that he who had murdered the greatest number of heretics would be the most glorious saint in heaven. If so, what a pitiful figure would a man who had only stripped his brethren of all they had, and thrown them to rot in a dungeon, make, in comparison with the zealot who had butchered his hundreds on the famous day of St. Bartholomew? This may be proved as follows:
The successor of St. Peter and his consistory cannot err; they approved, they celebrated, they consecrated the action of St. Bartholomew; consequently that action was holy and meritorious; and, by a like deduction, he who of two murderers, equal in piety, had ripped up the bellies of eighty Huguenot women big with child would be entitled to double the portion of glory of another who had butchered but twelve; in this manner, by the same argument also, the enthusiasts of the Cévennes have reason to believe that they will be exalted in glory in proportion to the number of Catholic women, priests and monks whom they may have knocked on the head: but surely these are strange claims to eternal happiness.