Compel Them to Come In
A Philosophical Commentary on These Words of the Gospel, Luke 14:23 (1686–88)
Pierre Bayle, a Huguenot refugee at Rotterdam
An answer written from safety, about a cost the author had just finished paying.
- Catch rate
- Not found in the wild
- Base research
- 304
- Stat total
- 344
Base stats
Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.
Why these numbers
The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.
Four parts, taking Luke 14:23 apart clause by clause rather than answering the persecutors point for point.
The reductio is the whole weapon: if "compel" licenses force for the sake of truth, it licenses force for every sincere believer on every side, which is no rule at all.
Written from Rotterdam, out of reach — the one advantage a refugee has over the men he is answering.
Published within a few years of the Revocation, while the wound was still fresh rather than safely historical.
Cited for this book
Bayle wrote this in Rotterdam in 1686–88, a year after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes drove him into exile and his brother Jacob — a Reformed pastor, arrested in France because the authorities could not reach Pierre himself — died in a French prison cell before the year was out. The book takes up Augustine’s own Letter 93 to Vincentius, the letter that first turned "compel them to come in" into a policy against the Donatists, and argues that no reading of the verse can be right if it requires believing God commands what plainly contradicts justice and mercy.
Moves learned
By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.
| Lv | Move | Type | Cat. | Pwr | Acc | PP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Random Verse | Bible | Argument | 10 | 100% | 30 |
| 22 | Each Party’s Own Religion | Rationality | Argument | 82 | 100% | 15 |
| 30 | Plunged Into a Greater Sin | Rationality | Argument | 100 | 100% | 10 |