Thomas Aquinas urged forced listening to sermons while keeping conversion nominally voluntary

Evidence

Thomas has a more practical suggestion for those who wish to fulfill the evangelical injunction to preach to infidels: why not preach to the Jews? After all, he says, Christian princes can force Jews to listen to the preachers’ sermons, and one could hope that a few of them might convert. Some respond, he says, that one should not cast pearls before swine and that there is little hope to convert the “incorrigible and obstinate” Jews. But Thomas says that Jews regularly convert, and that missionary activity toward them should be encouraged. Here again the preacher bends to practical political consideration: to preach to infidels, one needs the help of a Christian prince who can compel them to listen (though conversion itself remains entirely voluntary, for Thomas). — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1177

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Church-sanctioned compulsion of infidels to hear Christian preaching foreshadows the coerced-modesty frame where the religious majority dictates terms of the Other’s conduct.
• XREF: Connects to the vault’s genealogical claims about Church-mediated Islamophobia; forced-‘dialogue’ of the majority inventing a captive audience parallels how misrepresentation precedes control.