Augustine Vs Aquinas Research Paper

The early Church went through many transformations. It was a span of only one hundred years from the time the last Christian was persecuted to the time where Christians began to persecute others due to religious beliefs. This is seemingly inconsistent with the obedience and martyrdom that was promoted by the Bible and the early Catholic Church. Early political thought, which was closely tied with the beliefs of the Catholic Church heavily relied on the idea of nonresistance and obedience to keep people in line and in return keep the Church and Kings in power. How did St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas transition from the use of persuasion to the use of violence to achieve legitimate moral and political ends? How can they reconcile the use of violence

Though the teachings of Jesus Christ and the Bible clearly promote pacifism and the use of nonviolence, different interpretations could allow for the use of violence. In the early Catholic Church, resistance was intolerable and a mortal sin, the only way to guarantee a way to heaven was through obedience. Violence and rebellion was something that was completely unheard of and unaccepted. But both Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine became jaded by to violence that they saw in the world around them. Through the violence they learned to believe the only way to fight violence was with violence and the only appropriate way to deal with heretics and rebellion is through violence to bring people back into the fold of the church. Both Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine became jaded with the world around them, which led them to interpret the Bible in different ways that would further what they believed to be the best way to deal with violence and heretical