abundant: but if that is not done, then he commissions the fire to mark the distinction in the crops." Finally, Theophylact of Ohrid believed that the parable has a double meaning, writing that the field "is the world, or, each one’s soul", that the "good seed is good people, or, good thoughts", and that the tares are heretics, or, bad thoughts. Religious toleration The Parable of the Tares has often been cited in support of various degrees of religious toleration. Once the wheat is identified with orthodox believers and the tares with heretics, the command Let both grow together until the harvest becomes a call for toleration in some interpretations; however the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church explicitly reject such an interpretation, interpreting the "tares" as bad but right-believing members of the Church, but excluding manifest heretics altogether as true members of the Church. Nonetheless, the field also represents the world even in these interpretations: preaching on the parable, St. John Chrysostom declared that "it is not right to put a heretic to death, since an implacable war would be brought into the world" which would lead to the death of many saints. Furthermore, he suggested that the phrase Lest ye root up the wheat with them can mean "that of the very tares it is likely that many may change and become wheat." However, he also asserted that God does not forbid depriving heretics of their freedom of speech, and "breaking up their assemblies and confederacies". In his "Letter to Bishop Roger of Chalons", Bishop Wazo of Liege (c. 985-1048 AD) relied on the parable to argue that "the church should let dissent grow with orthodoxy until the Lord comes to separate and judge them", a remarkable departure from the standard Catholic view of the time of handing over heretics to the secular arm to be punished. Opponents of toleration, such as Thomas Aquinas and the inquisitors, but also John Calvin and Theodore Beza, did not interpret the parable as excluding the execution of heretics. Some argued that a number of tares can be carefully uprooted without harming the wheat. What is more, the tares could be identified with moral offenders within the Church, not heretics who were never considered to be true members of the Church, or alternatively the prohibition of pulling up the tares could be applied only to the clergy, not to the magistrates. As