5 - DESTROYING ERROR

Summary

Our intention is to make known, in our limited way, the truth that the Catholic faith professes, and to remove the errors that are opposed to it.

Thomas Aquinas, SCG, bk. 1, ch. 2

If teaching orthodox “truth” led some Dominicans into contact and at times into conflict with Muslims or (more often) Jews, the second part of Aquinas' Summa contra gentiles dictum provoked further complications in the medieval Crown of Aragon. The friars sought to root out and destroy what they saw as theological “error” – disbelief of Christian truths, heretical misbelief and sinful behaviors deemed offensive to God. This would include all aspects of Islam and Judaism which deviated from Christianity, and so the ultimate elimination of non-Christian communities remained a theoretical goal. Practically speaking, however, medieval Church authorities and Dominican leaders generally understood that a total purge of this nature was both impossible and undesirable. Until they converted in the divinely appointed fullness of time, Jews and Muslims would remain significant minorities within some Christian territories. If sufficiently isolated, they could be left in peace to suffer the consequences of their own errors; meanwhile the mendicant Orders could put all their energies into working for the salvation of Christian souls. In regions such as the Iberian peninsula where contacts between Christians and non-Christians were unavoidable, however, the friars' pastoral work with the faithful would occasionally have a negative impact on local Muslim and Jewish populations.