the anxious vigilance then of the Holy Apostolic See, through every age, in condemning and in removing from men's hands suspected and profane books, becomes more than evident, the falsity, the rashness, and the injury offered to the Apostolic See by that doctrine, pregnant with the most deplorable evils to the Christian world, advocated by some condemning this censure of books as a needless burden, rejecting it as intolerable, or with infamous effrontery proclaiming it to be irreconcilable with the rights of men, or denying in fine the right of exercising such a power, or the existence of it in the Church.
Having moreover heard that doctrines are now circulated in writings among the common people, subversive of the fidelity and the submission due to princes, and that in consequence the flame of sedition is every where kindling; all care must be employed to prevent the people being seduced from the path of duty. Be the admonition of the Apostle known to all, that "there is no power but from God; and those that are ordained of God. Therefore he that resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God, And they that resist, purchase to themselves damnation."[1] Wherefore both divine and human laws cry out against those who by the basest machinations of treason and rebellion, strive to dissolve the bonds of allegiance to princes, and to drive them from their states.
It was to preserve their character undefiled with this foul blot, that the Christians of old, under the rage of persecution, continued to deserve the praise of the Emperors and of the Empire, not merely by the fidelity, exactness, and promptitude with which they discharged every office imposed upon them not at variance with their religion, but more particularly by their constancy in the field, and the readiness with which they shed their blood in the common cause. "The christian soldier," says St. Augustine, "fought under the banner of the Pagan Emperor; but when the cause of Christ came on, he acknowledged no other than his celestial Master. He separated the character of his eternal from that of his temporal Lord; but to please the former, he became the obedient subject of the latter."[2]—It was with eyes steadily fixed on this distinction, that Mauritius, the dauntless martyr, and the Theban legion's captain, found a ready answer to the Emperor, as recorded by St. Eucherius. "We are your soldiers O Emperor, but we are bold to confess, that we are at the same time servants of God. …, And now not the last hope of life moves us to rebel. With arms in our hands we remain defenceless, for we choose rather to die than to shed blood."[3] But to set in its
