and when receiving the heavenly sacraments from those to whom this pertains, know that you must submit to, rather than command, the religious hierarchy. Know therefore that in these matters you depend on their judgment, and they cannot be reduced to your will.”161
Finally, Christ committed the task of governing the Church to Peter and the bishops, not to Tiberius and his prefects, and for three hundred years the Church was governed most successfully by bishops and prelates alone, without any Christian king, except for a very few who either ruled for a very short time, as Philippus Caesar, or ruled only in a certain province, as Lucius king of the Britons. See more in the already mentioned passages.
The defense of religion pertains to the magistrate
The second error is made by those who go to the other extreme and teach that kings must take care of their commonwealth and the public peace, but not religion. They teach that everybody should be allowed to believe and live as they wish, provided that they do not disturb the public peace. The pagans once found themselves in this error, for they approved every religion and admitted every philosophical sect, as Augustine says in De civitate Dei, book 18, chapter 51. Hence the blessed Leo, in his first sermon on Peter and Paul [82], says: “When this city, while ignorant of the Author of its progress, dominated almost every people, it was a slave to every people’s errors and seemed to have adopted a great religion because it did not reject any falsehood.” And the philosopher Themistius, as Socrates reports in Historia, book 4, chapter 23, tried to persuade Emperor Valens that the variety of sects is pleasing to God because He is then worshipped in many ways, and the more difficult it is to know God the more this is the case. A certain heresiarch by the name of Rethor taught that all sects were true, as Augustine says in his De haeresibus, chapter 72.
Finally, the Germans wanted and obtained such freedom in 1526, when the princes of the empire were gathered at Speyer,162 and now they are said to seek the same in Flanders,163 and they have four main arguments. The first, that faith is free. The second, that it is a gift of God. The third, that experience teaches that nothing is accomplished by coercion. The fourth, that Christians have always tolerated the Jews even if they are enemies of Christ.
This error is, however, very dangerous, and without a doubt the Christian princes are obliged not to grant their subjects freedom of belief but to see to it that the faith that the Catholic bishops and especially the Supreme Pontiff teach to be the true one is preserved. This is proved, first, by Scriptures: Proverbs 20: “A king that sitteth in the throne of judgment scattereth away all evil with his eyes”;164 likewise: “A wise king scattereth the wicked,”165 and indeed it cannot be denied that the wicked are heretics. Likewise, Psalm 2: “Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear.”166
Augustine in his epistle 50 [185] says: “The king serves God differently as a man and as a king: as a man, he serves Him by living in faith, as a king, by ordering just laws and prohibiting the opposite, and by giving appropriately strong sanctions, just as Hezekiah served God by destroying the groves and temples of the idols; as King Josiah did, by similar acts; as the king of the Ninivites did, by compelling the entire city to appease the Lord; as Darius did, by giving Daniel the authority to destroy the idols; as Nebuchadnezzar did, by a terrible law forbidding everybody who dwelled in his kingdom to blaspheme against God.” And in the same letter he adds: “Who in his right mind would say to kings: in your kingdom do not attend to that which either supports or opposes the Church of your Lord; and who would say to kings: it is not your concern to see who in your kingdom wants to live piously or sacrilegiously? To them it cannot be said, it is not your concern to see who in your kingdom wants to live chastely or unchastely.”
Moreover, in the New Testament, Apocalypse 2, the angel of Pergamos is blamed because he had around him some men who held the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes, and the angel of Thyatira is blamed because he allowed Jezebel to seduce the servants of God. From these things it is gathered that the mixing of Catholics with heretics is harmful to the Church. In Romans 16 Christians are ordered to avoid heretics, in Galatians 5 we read: “I would they were even cut off which trouble you,”167 and in Titus 1: “Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith.”168 Therefore the kings, who are the nursing fathers of the Church, as it is said in Isaiah 49,169 must not allow such mixing.
Second, it is proved with the testimonies of popes and emperors. In his epistle 75 [156] to Leo Emperor, Leo says: “O emperor, you must realize without hesitation that regal authority has been granted to you not only to govern the world, but especially to protect the Church, so that by suppressing the rash attempts of the wicked you might defend that which is well established and restore the true peace in those matters which are perturbed.” Pope Anastasius II in his epistle to Emperor Anastasius says: “I urge on Your Serenity especially this, that when the reasons of the Alexandrines reach your most pious ears, you will drive them back to the Catholic and true faith with your authority, wisdom, and sacred commands.” Gregory says similar things in book 9 [11], epistle 60 [66], to the king of England, and in book 11 [13], epistle 44 [39], to Leontia Augusta, and Agatho as well in his epistle to Constantine IV.
Moreover the pious emperors thought the same, for with the law “Cunctos populos,” title “De summa trinitate et fide Catholica,” Theodosius eradicated completely the freedom of belief that some princes had allowed and he ordered that the teachings of the Roman Pontiff should be believed.170 Ambrose in his Oratio funebris praises Valentinian the younger because he most vigorously resisted the Romans who were asking for the ancient freedom of religion so that they could worship their gods with sacrifices. Similarly Marcian, same title, law “Nemo,” severely prohibits anybody from questioning the matters defined in the Councils of Bishops and from intending to discuss them in public.171
It is true that Constantine the Great at the beginning of his empire allowed everybody freedom of religion, as is clear from the Historia of Eusebius, book 10, chapter 5, but afterward he ordered that the temples of the idols be closed and that only the Christian religion be considered valid, as Optatus reports in his Contra Parmenianum, book 2. Constans and Constantine, his sons, followed in their father’s footsteps, as Augustine reports in epistle 166 [105], and Constantine threatened exile for those who did not assent to the decrees of the Council of Nicaea (Rufinus, bk. 10, chap. 5).
There are three emperors who allowed freedom of religion: Jovian, who was sternly warned by the Council of Antioch not to mix Catholics with heretics, as Socrates writes in book 3, chapter 21. Valens, the Arian emperor, allowed all heretics and pagans the free exercise of their religion, as Theodoretus writes in book 4, chapter 22. Finally, Julian the Apostate, who allowed freedom of religion in the hope of destroying the Christian religion, as Augustine says in epistle 166 or 165 [105]: “Julian, deserter and enemy of Christ, allowed the heretics freedom to be ruined, and then handed over to them the basilicas as temples of devils, thinking that in this way Christianity would disappear from the earth if he broke the unity of the Church from which he had fallen and if he allowed sacrilegious dissensions to develop freely.”
Third, it is proved by reason. First, the temporal and the spiritual authority in the Church are not disconnected and separate things, as two political kingdoms, but are connected so as to form one body; or rather they present themselves as the body and soul in a man, for the spiritual authority is like the soul, and the temporal like the body, as Gregory of Nazianzus teaches in his Oratio ad populum timore perculsum. Therefore the temporal authority must be servant to the spiritual authority and protect and defend it from its enemies, and (as blessed Gregory says, book 2 [3], epistle 61 [65]) the earthly kingdom must attend to the heavenly kingdom. However, the said freedom of religion is destructive for the Church, for the bond of the Church is the profession of one faith, as Paul says in the epistle
