Precautions for Prosecutors (Cautio Criminalis)

guilty parties without a legitimate cause, they sin most gravely and become accomplices to the crime, according to the decree on the office and power of the Judge regarding delegates original: de offic. & potest. Iudicis de leg.; a reference to Canon Law regarding the limits of judicial authority, and according to Innocent Pope Innocent IV, a prominent medieval legal scholar, Baldus, Decius, Barbatius, Panormitanus, and the rest of the Doctors of Law. They are moreover bound to the restitution restitutio: the legal and moral obligation to restore what has been lost or damaged of all damages which overflow from there into either the Commonwealth original: Remp. (Respublica) or onto private individuals, as is defined in the said chapter on the Office of delegates. This is also the common opinion of the Theologians—St. Thomas Aquinas, Sylvester, Cajetan in his summary on the entry restitution, Dominicus Soto in book 4 of On Justice and Right, Medina in the Codex on things to be restored, and others whom it would be tedious to list.

REASON IV. They demonstrate their zeal for protecting divine honor when they proceed against God’s chief enemies with the noose and the flame. They act rightly, therefore, and cannot be blamed, especially since Scripture warns: You shall not permit sorcerers to live. Exodus 22:18; the Latin maleficos was traditionally used in this period to justify the execution of witches

DOUBT VII.

I answer. However much the Princes may burn, they will never burn the evil out, unless they burn everything to the ground;