Summa Theologica help real quick

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A pentecostal is posting what appears to be a ridiculous excerpt from Thomas Aquinas that doesn’t appear to be legitimate. I don’t have the book however, so I can’t look it up. Can someone post what it really says in the book? Here is the supposed quote:

Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas, vol. iv., p. 90
“Though heretics (Protestants) must not be tolerated because they deserve it, we must bear with them till, by the second admonition, they may be brought back to the faith of the church. But those who, after a second admonition, remain obstinate to their errors, must not only be excommunicated, but they must be delivered to the secular power to be EXTERMINATED.”
 
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michaelgazin:
A pentecostal is posting what appears to be a ridiculous excerpt from Thomas Aquinas that doesn’t appear to be legitimate. I don’t have the book however, so I can’t look it up. Can someone post what it really says in the book? Here is the supposed quote:

Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas, vol. iv., p. 90
“Though heretics (Protestants) must not be tolerated because they deserve it, we must bear with them till, by the second admonition, they may be brought back to the faith of the church. But those who, after a second admonition, remain obstinate to their errors, must not only be excommunicated, but they must be delivered to the secular power to be EXTERMINATED.”
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Have to run so I can’t answer it too much but:
  1. Heretics does NOT refer to Protestants (he must have put that in there). Protestants did not even exist then! It refers to people like gnostics and others who deny very basic and important Christian beliefs.
  2. Exterminated doesn’t necessarily mean killed. It might have a political meaning, as in the idea that a Republican might say democrats must be exterminated; he would mean the ideology, not the people.
I think he may have purposefully cut off the end of that quote though.

newadvent.org/summa/

You can look it up there. Whole thing is online.
 
Thanks…ya I found it on newadvent, but the apparent quote comes from vol. 4 (which newadvent lists 3 parts and a supplement) and on page 90 (which I’m not sure how that’d translate to the sections online).
 
Summa Theologiae, Secunda Secundae (Second Part of the Second Part), Question 11, Article 3

Whether heretics ought to be tolerated?

I answer that, With regard to heretics two points must be observed: one, on their own side; the other, on the side of the Church. On their own side there is the sin, whereby they deserve not only to be separated from the Church by excommunication, but also to be severed from the world by death. For it is a much graver matter to corrupt the faith which quickens the soul, than to forge money, which supports temporal life. Wherefore if forgers of money and other evil-doers are forthwith condemned to death by the secular authority, much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death.

On the part of the Church, however, there is mercy which looks to the conversion of the wanderer, wherefore she condemns not at once, but “after the first and second admonition,” as the Apostle directs: after that, if he is yet stubborn, the Church no longer hoping for his conversion, looks to the salvation of others, by excommunicating him and separating him from the Church, and furthermore delivers him to the secular tribunal to be exterminated thereby from the world by death. For Jerome commenting on Gal. 5:9, “A little leaven,” says: “Cut off the decayed flesh, expel the mangy sheep from the fold, lest the whole house, the whole paste, the whole body, the whole flock, burn, perish, rot, die. Arius was but one spark in Alexandria, but as that spark was not at once put out, the whole earth was laid waste by its flame.”
Aquinas’ recommendation of execution is conditional. If forgers are executed by secular authority, so should heretics (forgers of the faith). Punishments were harsher then, and faith and society were more closely connected than they are now. A threat to the fatih was a threat to the civil order. We don’t live in the same society.

As a defense, look at what Vatican II says about religious freedom.
 
To get a balanced picture of Aquinas, look at ST II-II, q. 10, a. 8 – Whether Unbelievers Ought to be Compelled to the Faith?

His short answer is no, not if they have never professed the faith: this includes the heathens (pagans) and Jews. Faith is an act of the will, and it can’t be compelled. For those who accepted the faith and later denied it (apostates and heretics), Aquinas believes that they should be compelled to honor their promises.

In today’s world, Protestants are more like those who have never known the truth of the Catholic faith. In what they profess they may be heretical (materially heretical), but they are not renegging on the promises to live the Catholic faith (formally heretical), since they never made such promises.

So, Aquinas never said anything explicitly about Protestants (as was pointed out, they didn’t exist in the 13th century). Given what he does say about unbelievers, I think he would say that Protestants should not be compelled to believe or executed.
 
What is your friend saying one should conclude by the quote from the Summa? That Catholics are murderers?

Martin Luther aided and abetted the slaughter of a quarter-million peasants between 1523 and 1527. Said Luther: “A prince can win heaven more easily by bloodshed than by prayer.”

Source: Triumph, by H.W. Crocker III pp. 248-249.

What exactly is your friend insinuating?
 
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Genesis315:
And what point is this pentecostal trying to make?
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I don’t think he knows. Somehow trying to claim that Catholic doctrine orders the death of people such as in the inquisition. It is really silly, but I wanted to put an end to the radical claims.
 
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