while
presiding as judges in their tribunals.[2]

[1] Ep. clxxxv, n. 23.

[2] Ep. cxxxxiii, n. 2.

In his opinion, the severest penalty that ought to be inflicted upon
the Donatists is exile for their bishops and priests, and fines for
their followers. He strongly denounced the death penalty as contrary
to Christian charity.[1]

[1] Ep. clxxxv, n. 26; Ep. xciii, n. 10.

Both the imperial officers and the Donatists themselves objected to
this theory.

The officers of the Emperor wished to apply the law in all its rigor,
and to sentence the schismatics to death, when they deemed it proper.
St. Augustine adjures them, in the name of "Christian and Catholic
meekness,"[1] not to go to this extreme, no matter how great the
crimes of the Donatists had been. "You have penalties enough," he
writes, "exile, for instance, without torturing their bodies or
putting them to death."[2]

[1] Ep. clxxxv, n. 26; Ep. cxxxix, n. 2.

[2] Ep. cxxxiii, n. 1.

And when the proconsul Apringius quoted St. Paul to justify the use
of the sword, St. Augustine replied: "The apostle has well said, 'for
he beareth not the sword in vain.'[1] But we must carefully
distinguish between temporal and spiritual affairs."[2] "Because it
is just to inflict the death penalty for crimes against the common
law, it does not follow that it is right to put heretics and
schismatics to death." "Punish the guilty ones, but do not put them
to death." "For," he writes another proconsul, "if you decide upon
putting them to death, you will thereby prevent our denouncing them
before your tribunal. They will then rise up against us with greater
boldness. And if you tell us that we must either denounce them or
risk death at their hands, we will not hesitate a moment, but will
choose death ourselves."[3]

[1] Rom. xiii. 4.

[2] Ep. cxxxiv, n. 3.

[3] Ep. c, n. 2; cf. Ep. cxxxix, n. 2.

Despite these impassioned appeals for mercy, some Donatists were put
to death. This prompted the schismatics everywhere to deny that the
State had any right to inflict the death penalty or any other penalty
upon them.[1]

[1] _Contra Epistolam Parmeniani_, lib. i. cap. xvi.

St. Augustine at once undertook to defend the rights of the State. He
declared that the death penalty, which on principle he disapproved,
might in some instances be lawfully inflicted. Did not the crimes of
some of these rebellious schismatics merit the most extreme penalty
of the law? "They kill the s