ter, says concerning these words of St. Augustine: "That that bishop had excommunicated Clazianus's whole family for Clazianus's sin, and that seemed to him the right thing to do, because one is sometimes punished with corporal punishment for the sins of another and also because some priests of great name have excommunicated certain persons for sins not their own. In the first part of the chapter Augustine asks of him [Maximus] the cause and reason of his judgment. Later he teaches that none of the reasons aforesaid suffice to confirm his sentence. Thirdly, he comes down to the specific act itself and proves that the sentence issued against the family of Clazianus was unjust. And, finally, he advises the bishop that if he is not willing to give a reason for the judgment, he ought to abandon his error and follow the truth." Thus far the Gloss.
Would, therefore, that those who excommunicate would heed the saying of St. Augustine together with the Gloss, and also they who impose a general interdict for the sake of a single man in the church or the state. Why do they afflict with excommunication and the interdict a community which is not guilty and altogether deprive the good and devoted presbyters of the exercise of the divine ministry and God's devoted people of the sacraments and God Himself, who is therein set forth, of honor, the dead of burial, and often infants of baptism, without which they pass away and are damned, according to the judgment of Augustine? Here the Gloss of the Decretum says on these words: "In case one soul through this severity, by which that whole household was anathematized, should perish, passing out of the body without baptism, the death of innumerable bodies, if innocent men are violently removed from the church, is not to be compared with this injury." The Gloss, Argumentum, says: "Greater is the sin if one soul perish through the sin of unbelief than if they should put to death the bodies of innumerable martyrs for God's sake." This seems to correspond to the very letter,
