Through Force or Faith? — Page 97
Chapter 1 — Analysis of the Papal Lecture 97 known in the Christian world as ‘Gnadenlehre’ or the ‘Teachings of Forgiveness’. They were translated into German for the first time in 1990 under the auspices of Professor Kurt Flasch. He also edited this book and wrote a review on it and entitled it as ‘Logik des Schreckens’, that is, the ‘Logic of Terrorism’ because according to Professor Kurt Flasch, the message conveyed by the book is that of terrorism and not forgiveness. Hence, he writes: Obviously Augustin had a different conception of mercy than the people of today. For Augustin ‘Mercy’ and ‘Terror’ clearly belonged together. ( Logic of Terror, by Kurt Flasch, 1990, p 13) Then, referring to religious persecution, he writes: Augustin spricht 397 noch nicht von Ketzerverfolgung, aber er schafft hier die Grundlage für seine Rechtfertigung der Gewalt. ( Logik des Schreckens, Kurt Flasch, 1990, p. 12) Though, in 397, Augustine does not mention the pros- ecution of heretics, however here he lays the fundamentals for his justification of coercion. While talking about how Augustine implemented his concept after its publication, he writes: Ten years after writing this tract, Augustine assured cor- rect spellings mobilized the army in order to maintain orthodoxy and to fight against dissenting Christians. After this, the ‘righteous’ stained their hands with the blood of