human as well as divine, have forbidden; and who gave Lessius a right to
use the following language? “The book of Exodus forbids the killing of
thieves by day, when they do not employ arms in their defence; and in a
court of justice, punishment is inflicted on those who kill under these
circumstances. _In conscience_, however, no blame can be attached to
this practice, when a person is not sure of being able otherwise to
recover his stolen goods, or entertains a doubt on the subject, as Sotus
expresses it; for he is not obliged to run the risk of losing any part
of his property merely to save the life of a robber. The same privilege
extends even to clergymen.”[257] Such extraordinary assurance! The law
of Moses punishes those who kill a thief when he does not threaten our
lives, and the law of the Gospel, according to you, will absolve them!
What, fathers! has Jesus Christ come to destroy the law, and not to
fulfil it? “The civil judge,” says Lessius, “would inflict punishment on
those who should kill under such circumstances; but no blame can be
attached to the deed in conscience.” Must we conclude, then, that the
morality of Jesus Christ is more sanguinary, and less the enemy of
murder, than that of Pagans, from whom our judges have borrowed their
civil laws which condemn that crime? Do Christians make more account of
the good things of this earth, and less account of human life, than
infidels and idolaters? On what principle do you proceed, fathers?
Assuredly not upon any law that ever was enacted either by God or man—on
nothing, indeed, but this extraordinary reasoning: “The laws,” say you,
“permit us to defend ourselves against robbers, and to repel force by
force; self-defence, therefore, being permitted, it follows that murder,
without which self-defence is often impracticable, may be considered as
permitted also.”
It is false, fathers, that because self-defence is allowed, murder may
be allowed also. This barbarous method of self-vindication lies at the
root of all your errors, and has been justly stigmatized by the Faculty
of Louvain, in their censure of the doctrine of your friend Father Lamy,
as “_a murderous defence_—_defensio occisiva_.” I maintain that the laws
recognize such a wide difference between murder and self-defence, that
in those very cases in which the latter is sanctioned, they have made a
provision against murder, when the person is in no danger of his life.
Read the words, fathers, as they run in the same passage of Cujas: “It
is lawful to repulse the person who comes to invade our property; but
_we are not permitted to kill him_.” And again: “If any should threaten
to strike us, and not to deprive us of life, it is quite allowable to
repulse him; but _it is against all law to put him to death_.”
Who, then, has given you a right to say, as Molina, Reginald, Filiutius,
Escobar, Lessius, and others among you, have said, “that it is lawful to
kill the man who offers to strike us a blow?” or, “that it is lawful to
take the life of one who means to insult us, by the common consent of
all the casuists,” as Lessius says. By what authority do you, who are
mere private individuals, confer upon other private individuals, not
excepting clergymen, this right of killing and slaying? And how dare you
usurp the power of life and death, which belongs essentially to none but
God, and which is the most glorious mark of sovereign authority? These
are the points that demand explanation; and yet you conceive that you
have furnished a triumphant reply to the whole, by simply remarking, in
your thirteenth Imposture, “that the value for which Molina permits us
to kill a thief, who flies without having done us any violence, is not
so small as I have said, and that it must be a much larger sum than six
ducats!” How extremely silly! Pray, fathers, where would you have the
price to be fixed? At fifteen or sixteen ducats? Do not suppose that
this will produce any abatement in my accusations. At all events, you
cannot make it exceed the value of a horse; for Lessius is clearly of
opinion, “that we may lawfully kill the thief that runs off with our
horse.”[258] But I must tell you, moreover, that I was perfectly correct
when I said that Molina estimates the value of the thief’s life at six
ducats; and, if you will not take it upon my word, we shall refer it to
an umpire, to whom you cannot object. The person whom I fix upon for
this office is your own Father Reginald, who, in his explanation of the
same passage of Molina (l. 28, n. 68), declares that “Molina there
DETERMINES the sum for which it is not allowable to kill at three, or
four, or five ducats.” And thus, fathers, I shall have Reginald in
addition to Molina, to bear me out.
It will be equally easy for me to refute your fourteenth Imposture,
touching Molina’s permission to “kill a thief who offers to rob us of a
crown.” This palpable fact is attested by Escobar, who tells us “that
Molina has regularly determined the sum for which it is lawful to take
away life, at one crown.”[259] And all you have to lay to my charge in
the fourteenth imposture is, that I have suppressed the last words of
this passage, namely, “that in this matter every one ought to study the
moderation of a just self-defence.” Why do you not complain that Escobar
has also omitted to mention these words? But how little tact you have
about you! You imagine that nobody understands what you mean by
self-defence. Don’t we know that it is to employ “_a murderous
defence_?” You would persuade us that Molina meant to say, that if a
person, in defending his crown, finds himself in danger of his life, he
is then at liberty to kill his assailant, in self-preservation. If that
were true, fathers, why should Molina say in the same place, that “in
this matter he was of a contrary judgment from Carrer and Bald,” who
give permission to kill in self-preservation? I repeat, therefore, that
his plain meaning is, that provided the person can save his crown
without killing the thief, he ought not to kill him; but that, if he
cannot secure his object without shedding blood, even though he should
run no risk of his own life, as in the case of the robber being unarmed,
he is permitted to take up arms and kill the man, in order to save his
crown; and in so doing, according to him, the person does not transgress
“the moderation of a just defence.” To show you that I am in the right,
just allow him to explain himself: “One does not exceed the moderation
of a just defence,” says he, “when he takes up arms against a thief who
has none, or employs weapons which give him the advantage over his
assailant. I know there are some who are of a contrary judgment; but I
do not approve of their opinion, even in the external tribunal.”[260]
Thus, fathers, it is unquestionable that your authors have given
permission to kill in defence of property and honor, though life should
be perfectly free from danger. And it is upon the same principle that
they authorize duelling, as I have shown by a great variety of passages
from their writings, to which you have made no reply. You have
animadverted in your writings only on a single passage taken from Father
Layman, who sanctions the above practice, “when otherwise a person would
be in danger of sacrificing his fortune or his honor;” and here you
accuse me with having suppressed what he adds, “that such a case happens
very rarely.” You astonish me, fathers: these are really curious
impostures you charge me withal. You talk as if the question were,
Whether that is a rare case? when the real question is, If, in such a
case, duelling is lawful? These are two very different questions.
Layman, in the quality of a casuist, ought to judge whether duelling is
lawful in the case supposed; and he declares that it is. We can judge
without his assistance, whether the case be a rare one; and we can tell
him that it is a very ordinary one. Or, if you prefer the testimony of
your good friend Diana, he will tell you that “the case is exceedingly
common.”[261] But be it rare or not, and let it be granted that Layman
follows in this the example of Navarre, a circumstance on which you lay
so much stress, is it not shameful that he should consent to such an
opinion as that, to preserve a false honor, it is lawful in conscience
to accept of a challenge, in the face of the edicts of all Christian
states, and of all the canons of the Church, while, in support of these
diabolical maxims, you can produce neither laws, nor canons, nor
authorities from Scripture, or from the fathers, nor the example of a
single saint, nor, in short, anything but the following impious
syllogism: “Honor is more than life: it is allowable to kill in defence
of life; therefore it is allowable to kill in defence of honor!” What,
fathers! because the depravity of men disposes them to prefer that
factitious honor before the life which God hath given them to be devoted
to his service, must they be permitted to murder one another for its
preservation? To love that honor more than life, is in itself a heinous
evil; and yet this vicious passion, which, when proposed as the end of
our conduct, is enough to tarnish the holiest of actions, is considered
by you capable of sanctifying the most criminal of them!
What a subversion of all principle is here, fathers! And who does not
see to what atrocious excesses it may lead? It is obvious, indeed, that
it will ultimately lead to the commission of murder for the most
trifling things imaginable, when one’s honor is considered to be staked
for their preservation—murder, I venture to say, even _for an apple_!
You might complain of me, fathers, for drawing sanguinary inferences
from your doctrine with a malicious intent, were I not fortunately
supported by the authority of the grave Lessius, who makes the following
observation, in number 68: “It is not allowable to take life for an
article of small value, such as for a crown or _for an apple_—_aut pro
pomo_—unless it would be deemed dishonorable to lose it. In this case,
one may recover the article, and even, if necessary, _kill the
aggressor_; for this is not so much defending one’s property as
retrieving one’s honor.” This is plain speaking, fathers; and, just to
crown your doctrine with a maxim which includes all the rest, allow me
to quote the following from Father Hereau, who has taken it from
Lessius: “The right of self-defence extends to whatever is necessary to
protect ourselves from all injury.”
What strange consequences does this inhuman principle involve! and how
imperative is the obligation laid upon all, and especially upon those in
public stations, to set their face against it! Not the general good
alone, but their own personal interest should engage them to see well to
it; for the casuists of your school whom I have cited in my letters,
extend their permissions to kill far enough to reach even them. Factious
men, who dread the punishment of their outrages, which never appear to
them in a criminal light, easily persuade themselves that they are the
victims of violent oppression, and will be led to believe at the same
time, “that the right of self-defence extends to whatever is necessary
to protect themselves from all injury.” And thus, relieved from
contending against the checks of conscience, which stifle the greater
number of crimes at their birth, their only anxiety will be to surmount
external obstacles.
I shall say no more on this subject, fathers; nor shall I dwell on the
other murders, still more odious and important to governments, which you
sanction, and of which Lessius, in common with many others of your
authors, treats in the most unreserved manner.[262] It was to be wished
that these horrible maxims had never found their way out of hell; and
that the devil, who is their original author, had never discovered men
sufficiently devoted to his will to publish them among Christians.[263]
From all that I have hitherto said, it is easy to judge what a
contrariety there is betwixt the licentiousness of your opinions and the
severity of civil laws, not even excepting those of heathens. How much
more apparent must the contrast be with ecclesiastical laws, which must
be incomparably more holy than any other, since it is the Church alone
that knows and possesses the true holiness! Accordingly, this chaste
spouse of the Son of God, who, in imitation of her heavenly husband, can
shed her own blood for others, but never the blood of others for
herself, entertains a horror at the crime of murder altogether singular,
and proportioned to the peculiar illumination which God has vouchsafed
to bestow upon her. She views man, not simply as man, but as the image
of the God whom she adores. She feels for every one of the race a holy
respect, which imparts to him, in her eyes, a venerable character, as
redeemed by an infinite price, to be made the temple of the living God.
And therefore she considers the death of a man, slain without the
authority of his Maker, not as murder only, but as sacrilege, by which
she is deprived of one of her members; for whether he be a believer or
an unbeliever, she uniformly looks upon him, if not as one, at least as
capable of becoming one, of her own children.[264]
Such, fathers, are the holy reasons which, ever since the time that God
became man for the redemption of men, have rendered their condition an
object of such consequence to the Church, that she uniformly punishes
the crime of homicide, not only as destructive to them, but as one of
the grossest outrages that can possibly be perpetrated against God. In
proof of this I shall quote some examples, not from the idea that all
the severities to which I refer ought to be kept up (for I am aware that
the Church may alter the arrangement of such exterior discipline), but
to demonstrate her immutable spirit upon this subject. The penances
which she ordains for murder may differ according to the diversity of
the times, but no change of time can ever effect an alteration of the
horror with which she regards the crime itself.
For a long time the Church refused to be reconciled, till the very hour
of death, to those who had been guilty of wilful murder, as those are to
whom you give your sanction. The celebrated Council of Ancyra adjudged
them to penance during their whole lifetime; and, subsequently, the
Church deemed it an act of sufficient indulgence to reduce that term to
a great many years. But, still more effectually to deter Christians from
wilful murder, she has visited with most severe punishment even those
acts which have been committed through inadvertence, as may be seen in
St. Basil, in St. Gregory of Nyssen, and in the decretals of Popes
Zachary and Alexander II. The canons quoted by Isaac, bishop of Langres
(tr. 2. 13), “ordain seven years of penance for having killed another in
self-defence.” And we find St. Hildebert, bishop of Mans, replying to
Yves de Chartres, “that he was right in interdicting for life a priest
who had, in self-defence, killed a robber with a stone.”
After this, you cannot have the assurance to persist in saying that your
decisions are agreeable to the spirit or the canons of the Church. I
defy you to show one of them that permits us to kill solely in defence
of our property (for I speak not of cases in which one may be called
upon to defend his life—_se suaqae liberando_): your own authors, and,
among the rest, Father Lamy, confess that no such canon can be found.
“There is no authority,” he says, “human or divine, which gives an
express permission to kill a robber who makes no resistance.” And yet
this is what you permit most expressly. I defy you to show one of them
that permits us to kill in vindication of honor, for a buffet, for an
affront, or for a slander. I defy you to show one of them that permits
the killing of witnesses, judges, or magistrates, whatever injustice we
may apprehend from them. The spirit of the church is diametrically
opposite to these seditious maxims, opening the door to insurrections to
which the mob is naturally prone enough already. She has invariably
taught her children that they ought not to render evil for evil; that
they ought to give place unto wrath; to make no resistance to violence;
to give unto every one his due—honor, tribute, submission; to obey
magistrates and superiors, even though they should be unjust, because we
ought always to respect in them the power of that God who has placed
them over us. She forbids them, still more strongly than is done by the
civil law, to take justice into their own hands; and it is in her spirit
that Christian kings decline doing so in cases of high treason, and
remit the criminals charged with this grave offence into the hands of
the judges, that they may be punished according to the laws and the
forms of justice, which in this matter exhibit a contrast to your mode
of management, so striking and complete that it may well make you blush
for shame.
As my discourse has taken this turn, I beg you to follow the comparison
which I shall now draw between the style in which you would dispose of
your enemies, and that in which the judges of the land dispose of
criminals. Everybody knows, fathers, that no private individual has a
right to demand the death of another individual; and that though a man
should have ruined us, maimed our body, burnt our house, murdered our
father, and was prepared, moreover, to assassinate ourselves, or ruin
our character, our private demand for the death of that person would not
be listened to in a court of justice. Public officers have been
appointed for that purpose, who make the demand in the name of the king,
or rather, I would say, in the name of God. Now, do you conceive,
fathers, that Christian legislators have established this regulation out
of mere show and grimace? Is it not evident that their object was to
harmonize the laws of the state with those of the Church, and thus
prevent the external practice of justice from clashing with the
sentiments which all Christians are bound to cherish in their hearts? It
is easy to see how this, which forms the commencement of a civil
process, must stagger you; its subsequent procedure absolutely
overwhelms you.
Suppose, then, fathers, that these official persons have demanded the
death of the man who has committed all the above mentioned crimes, what
is to be done next? Will they instantly plunge a dagger in his breast?
No, fathers; the life of man is too important to be thus disposed of;
they go to work with more decency; the laws have committed it, not to
all sorts of persons, but exclusively to the judges, whose probity and
competency have been duly tried. And is one judge sufficient to condemn
a man to death? No; it requires seven at the very least; and of these
seven there must not be one who has been injured by the criminal, lest
his judgment should be warped or corrupted by passion. You are aware
also, fathers, that the more effectually to secure the purity of their
minds, they devote the hours of the morning to these functions. Such is
the care taken to prepare them for the solemn action of devoting a
fellow-creature to death; in performing which they occupy the place of
God, whose ministers they are, appointed to condemn such only as have
incurred his condemnation.
For the same reason, to act as faithful administrators of the divine
power of taking away human life, they are bound to form their judgment
solely according to the depositions of the witnesses, and according to
all the other forms prescribed to them; after which they can pronounce
conscientiously only according to law, and can judge worthy of death
those only whom the law condemns to that penalty. And then, fathers, if
the command of God obliges them to deliver over to punishment the bodies
of the unhappy culprits, the same divine statute binds them to look
after the interests of their guilty souls, and binds them the more to
this just because they are guilty; so that they are not delivered up to
execution till after they have been afforded the means of providing for
their consciences.[265] All this is quite fair and innocent; and yet,
such is the abhorrence of the Church to blood, that she judges those to
be incapable of ministering at her altars who have borne any share in
passing or executing a sentence of death, accompanied though it be with
these religious circumstances; from which we may easily conceive what
idea the Church entertains of murder.
Such, then, being the manner in which human life is disposed of by the
legal forms of justice, let us now see how you dispose of it. According
to your modern system of legislation, there is but one judge, and that
judge is no other than the offended party. He is at once the judge, the
party, and the executioner. He himself demands from himself the death of
his enemy; he condemns him, he executes him on the spot; and, without
the least respect either for the soul or the body of his brother, he
murders and damns him for whom Jesus Christ died; and all this for the
sake of avoiding a blow on the cheek, or a slander, or an offensive
word, or some other offence of a similar nature, for which, if a
magistrate, in the exercise of legitimate authority, were condemning any
to die, he would himself be impeached; for, in such cases, the laws are
very far indeed from condemning any to death. In one word, to crown the
whole of this extravagance, the person who kills his neighbor in this
style, without authority, and in the face of all law, contracts no sin
and commits no disorder, though he should be religious, and even a
priest! Where are we, fathers? Are these really religious, and priests,
who talk in this manner? Are they Christians? are they Turks? are they
men? or are they demons? And are these “the mysteries revealed by the
Lamb to his Society?” or are they not rather abominations suggested by
the Dragon to those who take part with him?
To come to the point with you, fathers, whom do you wish to be taken
for?—for the children of the Gospel, or for the enemies of the Gospel?
You must be ranged either on the one side or on the other; for there is
no medium here. “He that is not with Jesus Christ is against him.” Into
these two classes all mankind are divided. There are, according to St.
Augustine, two peoples and two worlds, scattered abroad over the earth.
There is the world of the children of God, who form one body, of which
Jesus Christ is the king and the head; and there is the world at enmity
with God, of which the devil is the king and the head. Hence Jesus
Christ is called the King and God of the world, because he has
everywhere his subjects and worshippers; and hence the devil is also
termed in Scripture the prince of this world, and the god of this world,
because he has everywhere his agents and his slaves. Jesus Christ has
imposed upon the Church, which is his empire, such laws as he, in his
eternal wisdom, was pleased to ordain; and the devil has imposed on the
world, which is his kingdom, such laws as he chose to establish. Jesus
Christ has associated honor with suffering; the devil with not
suffering. Jesus Christ has told those who are smitten on the one cheek
to turn the other also; and the devil has told those who are threatened
with a buffet to kill the man that would do them such an injury. Jesus
Christ pronounces those happy who share in his reproach; and the devil
declares those to be unhappy who lie under ignominy. Jesus Christ says,
Woe unto you when men shall speak well of you! and the devil says, Woe
unto those of whom the world does not speak with esteem!