Correction as medicine; what immunity is; the first objection answered

This is confirmed, first, from the fact that Christ, the wisest and most merciful physician, does so with his disciples, whom he loves more (as blessed Gregory declares in the twenty-first [book] of the Moralia, and as was recited in the preceding chapter). Hence in Apocalypse 3:19 this physician says: "Such as I love, I rebuke and chastise"; and in Hebrews 12:6 it is said: "And God scourgeth every son whom he receiveth."¹ Second, it is confirmed from the testimony of Augustine set down in the Decretum, C. 23 q. 4, Ipsa pietas, where it is written thus: "The physician is troublesome to the raving frenzied man, and the father to the undisciplined son: the one by binding, the other by beating, but both by loving." But if they should neglect them and let them perish, this false gentleness would be cruelty: C. 5 q. 5, Non vos and Non omnis.² And afterwards he gives an example: how, if several friends were in a house most certainly about to fall, and they would not believe the report of the danger, we would beat someone or drag him out against his will, even though we believe that someone may foolishly throw himself down. Much more in a greater, spiritual danger.³ Hence in C. 23 q. 4, Quid faciet, it is said that medicine is given to the churchecclesia: church for this: that among the frenzied and the lethargic, even those who scorn [it], it ought not to desist, so that the diligence of charitycaritas: charity may persevere, binding the frenzied and goading the lethargic. Any number of such laws pronouncesentenciare: to pronounce the same. If, then, the sin is so great in those having power who omit [this], more manifest and more inexcusable is the sin in the watchmanspeculator: watchman who by omitting betrays the truth.⁴

Since, then (as was touched on above), it cannot be that two contraries are at once privileges to the same [person] and in the same respect, it is clear that, since in the case specified it would be a privilegeprivilegium / privilegiare / privilegiacio: privilege / to privilege / privileging to the fugitive 239to be bound and goaded, it would not then likewise be a privilege [to him] to be released in his goods and his penalty; because truly everyone so greedy of pomp and gain is a raving frenzied man and a drowsy lethargic, from the fumes of temporal goodstemporalia: temporal goods infecting the brain of reason.⁵ And it is clear, by way of epilogue, how the privilege must be so interpreted that fugitives to the place thus privileged, for whatever offence, have liberty or immunity of every kind according to the rules of charity and mercy, to be given them by the king and kingdom together with the peers, so that everything to be given tends to a useful good both for them and for the givers.⁶ As for the difference between crime, misdeed and outrage, it has been said in chapter 25 of book 6 how a misdeed tends to the injury of one’s neighbour; and of the quiddityquiditas: quiddity of privilege it was said above, in chapter 8 of this book; and since [by liberty] freedom from sin must be understood (as the Apostle speaks, Romans 6:22), it is clear that immunity, properly speaking, is the crime’s not deserving torment (as scripture speaks in Jeremiah 25 and Ecclesiasticus 7).⁷ But commonly it is understood of cleanness from a misdeed, which in England is called felony; and it is a certain species of liberty which some call franchise, and it is taken now more widely and now more narrowly. Hence immunis is said from in and munium, "tribute", as though free from the rendering of tribute; so [one is immune] as he is without part in, or a stranger to, guilt, and, truly speaking, only the guiltless, so long as he does not deserve to be so punished. One is called immune in such a way that immunity is opposed to guilt; in which sense no human privilege yields immunity before God in a criminal; but from privilegingprivilegium / privilegiare / privilegiacio: privilege / to privilege / privileging there follows freedom from liability to penalty as regards the prince who grants the liberty.⁸

Against what has been said it is objected, by appeal toobicitur per: it is objected, by appeal to this, first: that if every criminal is unworthy to have the aidsuffragium sensus: aid of sense of the church, then 240the law would express it; but it does the opposite, since it teaches that even a servant who is in grace be dragged out, and teaches that other criminals enjoy liberty.⁹ To this the answer isdicitur multipliciter: is said in many ways that one who sins more is, in principle, further removed from the aid of the church, although the church, from ignorance of the gravity of the sin, or from a plainer perception of the injury, or from some other culpable cause, pursues this unequally.¹⁰ For if, according to human and ecclesiastical laws, it is lawful, reasonable and legitimate to drag a servant or a freedman out of a church for the debt of work to be rendered to a temporal lord (as is clear from the chapter De hiis qui ad ecclesiam fugiunt, the last law), [and] if everyone indebted to his neighbour in money or anything else owes the serviceservicium: service of satisfaction, under pain of damnation, to the lord of lords, then much more is it lawful to drag him out of a church if from there he rests disobedient to rendering service to the king of kings.¹¹ The minor is clear from this, that every man is more a servant to God, more a debtor and earlier [a debtor], than any servant is a debtor to a temporal lord. Hence the Apostle, Ephesians 6:5[–7], teaches servants to obey their carnal lords with fear and trembling, as to Christ, serving as to the Lord and not to men.¹²

This is confirmed, first, by this: that as a man is bound to love God more than himself, so he is bound to hate more an injury to God. Hence in C. 23 q. 4 it is written thus: "If we put off pursuing or avenging the things by which God is vehemently offended, we surely provoke the patience of the divinitydeitas / divinitas: the Godhead / divinity to anger."¹³ Second, it is confirmed from this: that according to human laws the privileges of the church ought to aidsuffragari: to aid by intercession the injured and not 241those who injure (as is clear from the third collation); now every refugee who, on the pretext of refuge at any church, unjustly withholds a debt owed to another, injures God and all the saints, and harms himself and every neighbour who shares in [his] mortal sin. Therefore it is not just that one who so injures should thus enjoy the immunity of the church.¹⁴ And any number of principles of lawius: right / law go to the same, as in the third [book] of the Decretals, De rerum permutacione, chapter Cum universorum: "The laws come to the aid of the deceived and not of the deceivers"; for otherwise laws would be ordained to foster injuries. But in Isaiah 10:1 it is said: "Woe to them that make wicked laws"; for there is no law, human or divine, except to maintain justice and purge away injuries.¹⁵ Third, it is confirmed from this: that a man is more obliged to avenge an injury to God than his own, since he ought to remit his own except in so far as it savours of an injury to God, as is clear in Christ, in Moses and in the other membersmembrum: member of Christ, all of whom ought to expose themselves for the headcaput: head; now he ought to attend more to everything to whose fulfilment he is more obliged; therefore he ought to attend more to the avenging of an injury to God. Hence all who do the opposite are culpably lovers of themselves (as the Apostle speaks, 2 Timothy [3:2]).¹⁶ And Augustine teaches this teachingsentencia: CONTEXTUAL: teaching / sentence in the first book To Cresconius the Grammarian, as it is recited in the Decretum, C. 23 q. 4: "Whoever, being a Christian, does not pursue the wicked is an enemy of Christ. You say truly, if he does not pursue in him what is hostile to Christ. For neither the master in the servant, nor the father in the son, nor the husband in 242the wife, since both are Christians, ought to pursue anything but the vices contrary to Christian truth; and if they do not pursue these, they will rightly be held guilty of negligence."¹⁷

And this teachingsentencia: CONTEXTUAL: teaching / sentence would set the churchecclesia: church greatly to rights; because sloth in correction, and its deformity, disturb the church, since many, not correctors but corrupters, out of zeal for vengeance love the sin and hate the person, seek money, not the justice of the one corrected; and therefore corrections, because of their inverted order, have no efficacy.¹⁸ The assumptionassumptum: the assumption in the objection is therefore granted, since God must make the fugitive worthy through grace, and afterwards he is rendered more worthy to have the aidsuffragium sensus: aid of sense of his mother; nor can any laws express the opposite of this. And it is reasonable to drag out a servant fleeing from the serviceservicium: service owed to his lord, since as such he offends against God; but in that men weigh this more heavily than greater sins, they accuse [themselves] as men who love themselves as owners.¹⁹