The argued justification of the now well-established system of persecution, of which _Ad extirpanda_ is the coping-stone, we find in Thomas Aquinas. In the Church’s procedure in respect of heretics he sees proof of her deep mercy and charity. Her aim is the retrievement of the prodigal, his penitence and return to the fold. She aims not at punishment, but forgiveness. For the penitent all is well, only for the obdurate and those who have relapsed after reconciliation is there punishment. It is meet that these should suffer, for in her kindness to the individual the Church must not jeopardize the welfare of the whole community. Heresy is the most terrible of all offences. To corrupt the faith is a far worse crime than to corrupt the coinage.[331] The latter is an aid to our temporal existence, the former an absolute necessity for the eternal life of the soul. If then the coiner be deemed worthy of death, how much more the heretic! The argument of analogy is fortified by the text of Scripture. The methods of the Inquisition are found to be justified by Christ’s words: ‘If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered, and they shall gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burned.’ Thus the sayings of the Founder of Christianity were made to sanction a system of cruelty utterly abhorrent to the whole tenor of His teaching.[332] CHAPTER III THE SPREAD OF THE INQUISITION THROUGH EUROPE By the willing labours of the two Mendicant orders the Inquisition was introduced into most of the countries of Europe during the course of the thirteenth century. Sometimes the two co-operated, as for example in Aragon, Navarre, Burgundy and Lorraine. But there was a good deal of jealousy between them, and sometimes friction, so that it was generally found expedient to assign Franciscans and Dominicans to different areas. Thus the former were given the eastern portion of France south of the Loire; the latter the western. Italy was also divided, each order being allotted carefully defined districts by Innocent IV in 1254. Northern France, Germany and Austria were entrusted to Dominicans; eastern countries, Bohemia and Dalmatia, to Franciscans. The tribunal met with varying measures of success in the different countries of Europe, and in early days encountered considerable opposition and other difficulties in each.