mhansen:
Karl Keating:
Sorry to throw a big damper on things, folks, but “exterminate” back then didn’t mean what “exterminate” means today.
The Latin “exterminare” in Medieval usage meant to drive out, banish, or exile. It did not mean what “exterminate” means today: “to get rid of completely, usually by killing off” (Webster’s).
That explains exterminare, and thank you for that. My Latin isn’t what it used to be. OK, I admit it, my Latin never *was. *However, you failed to explain “death”, as in “put to death” in the following quote:
**“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.” **
…which somebody was kind enough to quote above, and which I am borrowing from. Please forgive
me, if I am throwing a damper on things.
mhansen, you are right. The Latin does not explain away execution. The passage you quoted reads in Latin from "much more reason is there . . . " : “multo magis haeretici, statim cum de haeresi convincuntur, possent non solum excommunicari, sed et juste occidi.” “Occidi” is even more blunt – it means “to be killed.”
If there was any doubt that Aquinas thought it possible to kill heretics, he says they may be exterminated (exterminandum) but but
from the world through death:
“et alterius relinquit eum iudicio saeculari
a mundo exterminandum
per mortem.” (“and furthermore delivers him to the secular tribunal to be exterminated thereby from the world by death.”)
If there is wiggle room it is not in “exterminare”, but in “possunt” and the conditional comparison with forgers.
If forgers of money are executed, then forgers of the faith
can be executed. (Sorry Karl)
But I don’t see the need to go to the wall defending Aquinas, per se. I think his statements can be understood in an historical context where heretics were a much greater threat to both the faith of others and social order. But, we don’t live in the same world.
BTW Aquinas did not accept the Immaculate Conception, or more precisely, he thought that Mary was sanctified in the womb, but after her conception, not at her conception. He thought she was redeemed from original sin, not preserved from it, through the merits of her Son. See Summa Theologiae, Third Part,
Q. 27, a. 1 (esp Replies to Objections 3 & 4) and
Q. 27, a. 2. To be fair, also, he only offers probable arguments – he did not explicitly deny what was to be defined as dogma. I’m sure he knows better now.
