Plan B Forum

Interesting fellow, Bellarmine. The quote that starts the clip is inaccurate but correctly interprets what he did say. The reasoning is peculiar (not to say alarming and other critical expressions). He argued first that excommunication was the more awful punishment because (of course) it condemned people into the hands of Satan. Therefore, torture and death were in fact improvements in having a lesser impact on the future eternal life.

But then of course he goes on to say (above) that the church proceeded by degrees from "merely" excommunicating heretics up to the point of being "constrained" to put them to death. This hardly comports with his first point that excommunication was the more terrible punishment!

Bellarmine cited Augustine as an authority for his own position. In one of my papers for SATS, I wrote this:

Augustine “stood between two worlds, the classical and the new medieval” (Cairns 1981:146); in Johnson’s view bridging the gap between “humanistic optimism of the classical world and the despondent passivity of the Middle Ages” (2005:122). His theological and novel historical methods were a great contribution to the Church but in the suppression of the Donatists in North Africa he learned the efficacy of State power and torture (Newton 1997). The worthy goals of the Church required such methods; did not Luke 14:23 teach compulsion to bring people in? Augustine provided the biblical arguments used by apologists for the future Inquisition (Johnson 2005:116-117). Cairns identifies Augustinian errors that led to the refinement of Roman Catholic doctrines of purgatory, baptismal regeneration, the obtaining of grace through the sacraments and identification of the Church of Rome as the “city of God” (the latter not intended by Augustine); nevertheless, his insistence upon God’s grace through faith alone provided vital support to the arguments of the Reformation (1981:149)

Cairns EE 1981. Christianity Through the Centuries (2nd rev. ed.) Grand
Rapids: Zondervan

Johnson P 2005. A History of Christianity. New York: Borders/Simon and Schuster

Newton J 1997. “Augustine of Hippo.” In Douglas JD, Comfort PW and
Mitchell D (eds.), Who's Who in Christian History. Wheaton: Tyndale
House

Please note that the comment about "worthy goals" was to indicate Augustine's belief - not mine.

Meade

The video mentions millions of heretics being killed.*

I always wondered why the Vatican never made more of that as a selling point. Could have had a big sign that said "Throne of St Peter. Over 1,235,400 heretics burned" with the number getting updated every few years. They might have had a 'whoops' column for people like Jeanne D'arc who they killed and then canonized to make up for it. "Mc Dammit! Sorry! We fucked up. You were a saint all along.

yrs,
rubato

*I don't actually believe it. All that hewing, sawing, splitting and hauling wood? Much too industrious for the countries which invented the Siesta and the 2-hour lunch.