The theologians, and even the civil authorities, did not concern themselves much with the evil effects of heresy upon the social order, but viewed it rather as an offense against God. Thus they made no distinction between those teachings which entailed injury on the family and on society, and those which merely denied certain revealed truths. Innocent III, in his constitution of September 23, 1207, legislated particularly against the Patarins, but he took care to point out that no heretic, no matter what the nature of his error might be, should be allowed to escape the full penalty of the law.[1] Frederic II spoke in similar terms in his Constitutions of 1220, 1224, and 1232. This was the current teaching throughout the Middle Ages. [1] Ep. x, 130. But it is important to know what men then understood by the word heresy. We can ascertain this from the theologians and canonists, especially from St. Raymond of Pennafort and St. Thomas Aquinas. St. Raymond gives four meanings to the word heretic, but from the standpoint of the canon law he says: "A heretic is one who denies the faith."[1] St. Thomas Aquinas is more accurate. He declares that no one is truly a heretic unless he obstinately maintains his error, even after it has been pointed out to him by ecclesiastical authority. This is the teaching of St. Augustine.[2] [1] S. Raymundi, _Summa_, lib. i, cap. _De Hæreticis_, sect. i, Roman Edition, 1603, p. 39. [2] _Summa_, IIa, IIae, quæst. xi, Conclusio; cf. ibid., ad 3um, quotations from St. Augustine. But by degrees the word, taken at first in a strict sense, acquired a broader meaning. St. Raymond includes schism in the notion of heresy. "The only difference between these two crimes," he writes, "is the difference between genus and species;" every schism ends in heresy. And relying on the authority of St. Jerome, the rigorous canonist goes so far as to declare that schism is even a greater crime than heresy. He proves this by the fact that Core, Dathan, and Abiron,[1] who seceded from the chosen people, were punished by the most terrible of punishments. "From the enormity of the punishment, must we not argue the enormity of the crime?" St. Raymond therefore declares that the same punishment must be inflicted upon the heretic and the schismatic.[2] [1] Num. xvi. 31-33. [2] Loc. cit., lib. i, cap. _De Schismaticis_, pp. 45-47