THE
PROVINCIAL LETTERS
OF
BLAISE PASCAL.
A NEW TRANSLATION
WITH HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION AND NOTES,
BY
THE REV. THOMAS M‘CRIE.
EDINBURGH.
If my letters are condemned at Rome, that which I condemn in
them is condemned in heaven.—PASCAL.
NEW YORK:
ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS
No. 530 BROADWAY.
------------------
1856.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
PREFACE, vii
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION, ix
LETTER I.
Disputes in the Sorbonne, and the invention of proximate power—a
term employed by the Jesuits to procure the censure of M.
Arnauld, 63
LETTER II.
Of sufficient grace, which turns out to be not
sufficient—Concert between the Jesuits and the Dominicans—A
parable, 76
Reply of “the Provincial” to the first two Letters, 88
LETTER III.
Injustice, absurdity, and nullity of the censure on M. Arnauld—A
personal heresy, 90
LETTER IV.
Actual grace and sins of ignorance—Father Bauny’s Summary of
sins, 100
LETTER V.
Design of the Jesuits in establishing a new system of morals—Two
sorts of casuists among them—A great many lax and some severe
ones—Reason of this difference—Explanation of the doctrine of
probabilism—A multitude of modern and unknown authors
substituted in the place of the holy fathers—Escobar, 116
LETTER VI.
Various artifices of the Jesuits to elude the authority of the
gospel, of councils, and of the popes—Some consequences
resulting from their doctrine of probability—Their relaxations
in favor of beneficiaries, of priests, of monks, and of
domestics—Story of John d’Alba, 135
LETTER VII.
Method of directing the intention adopted by the
casuists—Permission to kill in defence of honor and property,
extended even to priests and monks—Curious question raised as
to whether Jesuits may be allowed to kill Jansenists, 152
LETTER VIII.
Corrupt maxims of the casuists relating to judges—Usurers—The
Contract Mohatra—Bankrupts—Restitution—Divers ridiculous
notions of these same casuists, 170
LETTER IX.
False worship of the Virgin introduced by the Jesuits—Devotion
made easy—Their maxims on ambition, envy, gluttony,
equivocation, mental reservations, female dress, gaming, and
hearing mass, 188
LETTER X.
Palliatives applied by the Jesuits to the sacrament of penance,
in their maxims regarding confession, satisfaction,
absolution, proximate occasions of sin, and love to God, 206
LETTER XI.
The Letters vindicated from the charge of profaneness—Ridicule a
fair weapon, when employed against absurd opinions—Rules to be
observed in the use of this weapon—Charitableness and
discretion of the Provincial Letters—Specimens of genuine
profaneness in the writings of Jesuits, 225
LETTER XII.
The quirks and chicaneries of the Jesuits on the subjects of
alms-giving and simony, 243
LETTER XIII.
Fidelity of Pascal’s quotations—Speculative murder—Killing for
slander—Fear of the consequences—The policy of Jesuitism, 260
LETTER XIV.
On murder—The Scriptures on murder—Lessius, Molina, and Layman
on murder—Christian and Jesuitical legislation contrasted, 277
LETTER XV.
On calumny—M. Puys and Father Alby—An odd heresy—Barefaced
denials—Flat contradictions and vague insinuations employed by
the Jesuits—The Capuchin’s _Mentiris impudentissime_, 295
LETTER XVI.
Calumnies against Port-Royal—Port-Royalists no heretics—M. de
St. Cyran and M. Arnauld vindicated—Slanders against the nuns
of Port-Royal—Miracle of the holy thorn—No impunity for
slanderers—Excuse for a long letter, 314
LETTER XVII.
The author of the Letters vindicated from the charge of
heresy—The five propositions—The popes fallible in matters of
fact—Persecution of the Jansenists—The grand object of the
Jesuits, 341
LETTER XVIII.
The sense of Jansenius not the sense of Calvin—Resistibility of
grace—Jansenius no heretic—The popes may be
surprised—Testimony of the senses—Condemnation of
Galileo—Conclusion, 366
LETTER XIX.
Fragment of a nineteenth Provincial Letter, addressed to Père
Annat, 391
THE TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE.
The following translation of the Provincial Letters was undertaken
several years ago, in compliance with the suggestion of a revered
parent, chiefly as a literary recreation in a retired country charge,
and, after being finished, was laid aside. It is now published at the
request of friends, who considered such a work as peculiarly seasonable,
and more likely to be acceptable at the present crisis, when general
attention has been again directed to the popish controversy, and when
such strenuous exertions are being made by the Jesuits to regain
influence in our country.
None are strangers to the fame of the Provincials, and few literary
persons would choose to confess themselves altogether ignorant of a work
which has acquired a world-wide reputation. Yet there is reason to
suspect that few books of the same acknowledged merit have had a more
limited circle of _bona fide_ English readers. This may be ascribed, in
a great measure, to the want of a good English translation. Two
translations of the Provincials have already appeared in our language.
The first was contemporary with the Letters themselves, and was printed
at London in 1657, under the title of “_Les Provinciales_; or, The
Mysterie of Jesuitism, discovered in certain Letters, written upon
occasion of the present differences at Sorbonne, between the Jansenists
and the Molinists, from January 1656 to March 1657, S. N. Displaying the
corrupt Maximes and Politicks of that Society. Faithfully rendered into
English. _Sicut Serpentes._” Of the translation under this unpromising
title, it may only be remarked, that it is probably one of the worst
specimens of “rendering into English” to be met with, even during that
age when little attention was paid to the art of translation. Under its
uncouth phraseology, not only are the wit and spirit of the original
completely shrouded, but the meaning is so disguised that the work is
almost as unintelligible as it is uninteresting.
Another translation of the Letters—of which I was not aware till I had
completed mine—was published in London in 1816. On discovering that a
new attempt had been made to put the English public in possession of the
Provincials, and that it had failed to excite any general interest, I
was induced to lay aside all thoughts of publishing my version; but,
after examining the modern translation, I became convinced that its
failure might be ascribed to other causes than want of taste among us
for the beauties and excellences of Pascal. This translation, though
written in good English, bears evident marks of haste, and of want of
acquaintance with the religious controversies of the time; in
consequence of which, the sense and spirit of the original have been
either entirely lost, or so imperfectly developed, as to render its
perusal exceedingly tantalizing and unsatisfactory.
It remains for the public to judge how far the present version may have
succeeded in giving a more readable and faithful transcript of the
Provincial Letters. No pains, at least, have been spared to enhance its
interest and insure its fidelity. Among the numerous French editions of
the Letters, the basis of the following translation is that of
Amsterdam, published in four volumes 12mo, 1767; with the notes of
Nicole, and his prefatory History of the Provincials, which were
translated from the Latin into French by Mademoiselle de Joncourt. With
this and other French editions I have compared Nicole’s Latin
translation, which appeared in 1658, and received the sanction of
Pascal.
The voluminous notes of Nicole, however interesting they may have been
at the time, and to the parties involved in the Jansenist controversy,
are not, in general, of such a kind as to invite attention now; nor
would a full translation even of his historical details, turning as they
do chiefly on local and temporary disputes, be likely to reward the
patience of the reader. So far as they were fitted to throw light on the
original text, I have availed myself of these, along with other sources
of information, in the marginal notes. Some of these annotations, as
might be expected from a Protestant editor, are intended to correct
error, or to guard against misconception.
To the full understanding of the Provincials, however, some idea of the
controversies which occasioned their publication seems almost
indispensable. This I have attempted to furnish in the Historical
Introduction; which will also be found to contain some interesting
facts, hitherto uncollected, and borrowed from a variety of authorities
not generally accessible, illustrating the history of the Letters, and
the parties concerned in them, with a vindication of Pascal from the
charges which this work has provoked from so many quarters against him.
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION
TO
THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS.
BY THE TRANSLATOR.
The Church of Rome, notwithstanding her pretensions to infallibility,
has been fully as prolific in theological controversy and intestine
discord as any of the Reformed Churches. She has contrived, indeed, with
singular policy, to preserve, amidst all her variations, the semblance
of unity. Protestantism, like the primitive Church, suffered its
dissentients to fly off into hostile or independent communions. The
Papacy, on the contrary, has managed to retain hers within the outward
pale of her fellowship, by the institution of various religious orders,
which have served as safety-valves for exuberant zeal, and which, though
often hostile to each other, have remained attached to the mother
Church, and even proved her most efficient supporters. Still, at
different times, storms have arisen within the Romish Church, which
could be quelled neither by the infallibility of popes nor the authority
of councils. It is doubtful if religious controversy ever raged with so
much violence in the Reformed Church, as it did between the Thomists and
the Scotists, the Dominicans and Franciscans, the Jesuits and the
Jansenists, of the Church of Rome.
Uninviting as they may now appear, the disputes about grace, in which
the last mentioned parties were involved, gave occasion to the
Provincial Letters. The origin of these disputes must be traced as far
back as the days of Augustine and the Pelagian controversy of the fifth
century. The motto of Pelagius was free-will; that of Augustine was
efficacious grace. The former held that, notwithstanding the fall, the
human will was perfectly free to choose at any time between good and
evil; the latter, that in consequence of the fall, the will is in a
state of moral bondage, from which it can only be freed by divine grace.
With the British monk, election is suspended on the decision of man’s
will; human nature is still as pure as it came originally from the hands
of the Creator: Christ died equally for all men; and, as the result of
his death, a general grace is granted to all mankind, which any may
comply with, but which all may finally forfeit. With the African bishop,
election is absolute—we are predestinated, not from foreseen holiness,
but that we might be holy;[1] all men are lying under the guilt or penal
obligation of the first sin, and in a state of spiritual helplessness
and corruption; the sacrifice of Christ was, in point of destination,
offered for the elect, though, in point of exhibition, it is offered to
all; and the saints obtain the gift of perseverance in holiness to the
end.[2]
Pelagius, whose real name was Morgan, and who is supposed to have been a
Welshman, belonged to that numerous class of thinkers, who, from their
peculiar idiosyncrasy, are apt to start at the sovereignty of divine
grace, developed in the plan of redemption, as if it struck at once at
the equity of God and the responsibility of man. He is said to have
betrayed his heretical leanings, for the first time, by publicly
expressing his disapprobation of a sentiment of Augustine, which he
heard quoted by a bishop “_Da quod jubes, et jube quod vis_—Give, Lord,
what thou biddest, and bid what thou wilt.” It would be easy to show
that, in recoiling from the odious picture of the orthodox doctrine,
drawn by his own fancy, he fell into the very consequences which he was
so eager to avoid. The deity of Pelagius being subjected to the
changeable will of the creature, all things were left to the direction
of blind chance or unthinking destiny; while man, being represented as
created with concupiscence, to account for his aberrations from
rectitude—in other words, with a constitution in which the seeds of evil
were implanted—the authorship of sin was ascribed, directly and
primarily, to the Creator.[3]
Augustine was a powerful but unsteady writer, and has expressed himself
so inconsistently as to have divided the opinions of the Latin Church,
where he was recognized as a standard, canonized as a saint, and revered
under the title of “The Doctor of Grace.” On the great doctrine of
salvation by grace, he is scriptural and evangelical; and hence he has
been frequently quoted with admiration by our Reformed divines, partly
to evince the declension of Rome from the faith of the earlier fathers,
partly from that veneration for antiquity, which induces us to bestow
more notice on the ivy-mantled ruin, than on the more graceful and
commodious modern edifice in its vicinity. When arguing against
Pelagianism, Augustine is strong in the panoply of Scripture; when
developing his own system, he fails to do justice either to Scripture or
to himself. Loud, and even fierce, for the entire corruption of human
nature, he spoils all by admitting the absurd dogma of baptismal
regeneration. Chivalrous in the defence of grace, as opposed to
free-will, he virtually abandons the field to the enemy, by teaching
that we are justified by our works of evangelical obedience, and that
the faith which justifies includes in its nature all the offices of
Christian charity.
During the dark ages, the Church of Rome, professing the highest
veneration for St. Augustine, had ceased to hold the Augustinian
theology. The Dominicans, indeed, yielded a vague allegiance to it, by
adhering to the views of Thomas Aquinas, “the angelic doctor” of the
schools, from whom they were termed Thomists; while the Franciscans, who
opposed them, under the auspices of Duns Scotus, from whom they were
termed Scotists, leaned to the views of Pelagius. The Scotists, like the
modern advocates of free-will, inveighed against their opponents as
fatalists, and charged them with making God the author of sin; the
Thomists, again, retorted on the Scotists, by accusing them of
annihilating the grace of God. But the doctrines of grace had sunk out
of view, under a mass of penances, oblations, and intercessions, founded
on the assumption of human merit, and on that very confusion of the
forensic change in justification with the moral change in
sanctification, in which Augustine had unhappily led the way. At length
the Reformation appeared; and as both Luther and Calvin appealed to the
authority of Augustine, when treating of grace and free-will, the Romish
divines, in their zeal against the Reformers, became still more
decidedly Pelagian. In the Council of Trent, the admirers of Augustine
durst hardly show themselves; the Jesuits carried everything before
them; and the anathemas of that synod, which were aimed at Calvin fully
as much as Luther, though they professed to condemn only the less
guarded statements of the German reformer, were all in favor of
Pelagius.
The controversy was revived in the Latin Church, about the close of the
sixteenth century, both in the Low Countries and in Spain. In 1588,
Lewis Molina, a Spanish Jesuit, published lectures on “The Concord of
Grace and Free-Will;” and this work, filled with the jargon of the
schools, gave rise to disputes which continued to agitate the Church
during the whole of the succeeding century. Molina conceived that he had
discovered a method of reconciling the divine purposes with the freedom
of the human will, which would settle the question forever. According to
his theory, God not only foresaw from eternity all things possible, by a
foresight of intelligence, and all things future by a foresight of
vision; but by another kind of foresight, intermediate between these
two, which he termed _scientia media_, or middle knowledge, he foresaw
what _might_ have happened under certain circumstances or conditions,
though it never may take place. All men, according to Molina, are
favored with a general grace, sufficient to work out their salvation, if
they choose to improve it; but when God designs to convert a sinner, he
vouchsafes that measure of grace which he foresees, according to the
middle knowledge, or in all the circumstances of the case, the person
will comply with. The honor of this discovery was disputed by another
Jesuit, Peter Fonseca, who declared that the very same thing had burst
upon his mind with all the force of inspiration, when lecturing on the
subject some years before.[4]
Abstruse as these questions may appear, they threatened a serious
rupture in the Romish Church. The Molinists were summoned to Rome in
1598, to answer the charges of the Dominicans; and after some years of
deliberation, Pope Clement VIII. decided against Molina. The Jesuits,
however, alarmed for the credit of their order, never rested till they
prevailed on the old pontiff to re-examine the matter; and in 1602, he
appointed a grand council of cardinals, bishops, and divines, who
convened for discussion no less than seventy-eight times. This council
was called _Congregatio de Auxiliis_, or council on the aids of grace.
Its records being kept secret, the result of their collective wisdom was
not known with certainty, and has been lost to the world.[5] The
probability is, that like Milton’s “grand infernal peers,” who reasoned
high on similar points,
“They found no end, in wandering mazes lost.”
Those who appealed to them for the settlement of the question, had too
much reason to say, as the man in Terence does to his lawyers—“_Fecistis
probe; incertior sum multo quam dudum._”[6]
But this interminable dispute was destined to assume a more popular
form, and lead to more practical results. In 1604, two young men
entered, as fellow-students, the university of Louvain, which had been
distinguished for its hostility to Molinism. Widely differing in natural
temperament as well as outward rank, Cornelius Jansen, who was
afterwards bishop of Ypres, and John Duverger de Hauranne, afterwards
known as the Abbé de St. Cyran, formed an acquaintance which soon
ripened into friendship. They began to study together the works of
Augustine, and to compare them with the Scriptures. The immediate result
was, an agreement in opinion that the ancient father was in the right,
and that the Jesuits, and other followers of Molina, were in the wrong.
This was followed by an ardent desire to revive the doctrines of their
favorite doctor—a task which each of them prosecuted in the way most
suited to his respective character.
Jansen, or Jansenius, as he is often called,[7] was descended of humble
parentage, and born October 28, 1585, in a village near Leerdam, in
Holland. By his friends he is extolled for his penetrating genius,
tenacious memory, magnanimity, and piety. Taciturn and contemplative in
his habits, he was frequently overheard, when taking his solitary walks
in the garden of the monastery, to exclaim: “_O veritas! veritas!_—O
truth! truth!” Keen in controversy, ascetic in devotion, and rigid in
his Catholicism, his antipathies were about equally divided between
heretics and Jesuits. Towards the Protestants, his acrimony was probably
augmented by the consciousness of having embraced views which might
expose himself to the suspicion of heresy; or, still more probably, by
that uneasy feeling with which we cannot help regarding those who,
holding the same doctrinal views with ourselves, may have made a more
decided and consistent profession of them. The first supposition derives
countenance from the private correspondence between him and his friend
St. Cyran, which shows some dread of persecution;[8] the second is
confirmed by his acknowledged writings. He speaks of Protestants as no
better than Turks, and gives it as his opinion that “they had much more
reason to congratulate themselves on the mercy of princes, than to
complain of their severities, which, as the vilest of heretics, they
richly deserved.”[9] His controversy with the learned Gilbert Voet led
the latter to publish his _Desperata Causa Papatus_, one of the best
exposures of the weaknesses of Popery. When to this we add that the
Calvinistic synod of Dort, in 1618, had condemned Arminius and the Dutch
Remonstrants as having fallen into the errors of Pelagius and Molina,
the position of Jansen became still more complicated. Of Arminius he
could not approve, without condemning Augustine; with the Protestant
synod he could not agree, unless he chose to be denounced as a
Calvinist.
But the natural enemies of Jansen were, without doubt, the Jesuits. To
the history of this Society we can only now advert in a very cursory
manner. It may appear surprising that an order so powerful and politic
should have owed its origin to such a person as Ignatius Loyola, a
Spanish soldier: and that a wound in the leg, which this hidalgo
received at the battle of Pampeluna, should have issued in his becoming
the founder of a Society which has embroiled the world and the Church.
But in fact, Loyola, though the originator of the sect, is not entitled
to the honor, or rather the disgrace, of organizing its constitution.
This must be assigned to Laynez and Aquaviva, the two generals who
succeeded him—men as superior to the founder of the Society in talents
as he excelled them in enthusiasm. Ignatius owed his success to
circumstances. While he was watching his arms as the knight-errant of
the Virgin, in her chapel at Montserrat, or squatting within his cell in
a state of body too noisome for human contact, and of mind verging on
insanity, Luther was making Germany ring with the first trumpet-notes of
the Reformation. The monasteries, in which ignorance had so long
slumbered in the lap of superstition, were awakened; but their inmates
were totally unfit for doing battle on the new field of strife that had
opened around them. Unwittingly, in the heat of his fanaticism, the
illiterate Loyola suggested a line of policy which, matured by wiser
heads, proved more adapted to the times. Bred in the court and the camp,
he contrived to combine the finesse of the one, and the discipline of
the other, with the sanctity of a religious community; and proposed
that, instead of the lazy routine of monastic life, his followers should
actively devote themselves to the education of youth, the conversion of
the heathen, and the suppression of heresy. Such a proposal, backed by a
vow of devotion to the Holy See, commended itself to the pope so highly
that, in 1540, he confirmed the institution by a bull, granted it ample
privileges, and appointed Loyola to be its first general. In less than a
century, this sect, which assumed to itself, with singular arrogance,
the name of “The Society of Jesus,” rose to be the most enterprising and
formidable order in the Romish communion.
Never was the name of the blessed Jesus more grossly prostituted than
when applied to a Society which is certainly the very opposite, in
spirit and character, to Him who was “meek and lowly,” “holy, harmless,
undefiled, and separate from sinners.” The Jesuits may be said to have
invented, for their own peculiar use, an entirely new system of ethics.
In place of the divine law, they prescribed, as the rule of their
conduct, a “blind obedience” to the will of their superiors, whom they
are bound to recognize as “standing in the place of God,” and in
fulfilling whose orders they are to have no more will of their own “than
a corpse, or an old man’s staff.” The glory of God they identify with
the aggrandizement of their Society; and holding that “the end
sanctifies the means,” they scruple at no means, foul or fair, which
they conceive may advance such an end.[10] The supreme power is vested
in the general, who is not responsible to any other authority, civil or
ecclesiastical. A system of mutual espionage, and a secret
correspondence with head-quarters at Rome, in which everything that can,
in the remotest degree, affect the interests of the Society is made
known, and by means of which the whole machinery of Jesuitism can be set
in motion at once, or its minutest feelers directed to any object at
pleasure, presents the most complete system of organization in the
world. Every member is sworn, by secret oath, to obey the orders, and
all are confederated in a solemn league to advance the cause of the
Society. It has been defined to be “a naked sword, the hilt of which is
at Rome.” Such a monstrous combination could not fail to render itself
obnoxious. Constantly aiming at ascendency in the Church, in which it is
an _imperium in imperio_, the Society has not only been embroiled in
perpetual feuds with the other orders, but has repeatedly provoked the
thunders of the Vatican. Ever intermeddling with the affairs of civil
governments, with allegiance to which, under any form, its principles
are utterly at variance, it has been expelled in turn from almost every
European State, as a political nuisance. But Jesuitism is the very soul
of Popery; both have revived or declined together; and accordingly,
though the order was abolished by Clement XIV. in 1775, it was found
necessary to resuscitate it under Pius VII. in 1814; and the Society was
never in greater power, nor more active operation, than it is at the
present moment. It boasts of immortality, and, in all probability, it
will last as long as the Church of Rome. It has been termed “a militia
called out to combat the Reformation,” and exhibiting, as it does to
this day, the same features of ambition, treachery, and intolerance, it
seems destined to fall only in the ruins of that Church of whose
unchanging spirit it is the genuine type and representative.[11]
In prosecuting the ends of their institution, the Jesuits have adhered
with singular fidelity to its distinguishing spirit. As the instructors
of youth, their solicitude has ever been less to enlarge the sphere of
human knowledge than to bar out what might prove dangerous to clerical
domination; they have confined their pupils to mere literary studies,
which might amuse without awakening their minds, and make them subtle
dialecticians without disturbing a single prejudice of the dark ages. As
missionaries, they have been much more industrious and successful in the
manual labor of baptizing all nations than in teaching them the
Gospel.[12] As theologians, they have uniformly preferred the views of
Molina; regarding these, if not as more agreeable to Scripture and right
reason, at least (to use the language of a late writer) as “more
consonant with the common sense and natural feelings of mankind.”[13] As
controversialists, they were the decided foes of all reform and all
reformers, from within or without the Church. As moralists, they
cultivated, as might be expected, the loosest system of casuistry, to
qualify themselves for directing the consciences of high and low, and
becoming, through the confessional, the virtual governors of mankind. In
all these departments they have, doubtless, produced men of abilities;
but the very means which they employed to aggrandize the Society have
tended to dwarf the intellectual growth of its individual members: and
hence, while it is true that “the Jesuits had to boast of the most
vigorous controversialists, the most polite scholars, the most refined
courtiers, and the most flexible casuists of their age,”[14] it has been
commonly remarked, that they have never produced a single great man.
Casuistry, the art in which the Jesuits so much excelled, is, strictly
speaking, that branch of theology which treats of cases of conscience,
and originally consisted in nothing more than an application of the
general precepts of Scripture to particular cases. The ancient casuists,
so long as they confined themselves to the simple rules of the Gospel,
were at least harmless, and their ingenious writings are still found
useful in cases of ecclesiastical discipline; but they gradually
introduced into the science of morals the metaphysical jargon of the
schools, and instead of aiming at making men moral, contented themselves
with disputing about morality.[15] The main source of the aberrations of
casuistry lay in the unscriptural dogma of priestly absolution—in the
right claimed by man to forgive _sin_, as a transgression of the law of
God; and the arbitrary distinction between sins as venial and mortal—a
distinction which assigns to the priest the prerogative, and imposes on
him the obligation, of drawing the critical line, or fixing a kind of
tariff on human actions, and apportioning penance or pardon, as the case
may seem to require. In their desperate attempt to define the endless
forms of depravity on which they were called to adjudicate, or which the
pruriency of the cloister suggested to the imagination, the casuists
sank deeper into the mire at every step; and their productions, at
length, resembled the common sewers of a city, which, when exposed,
become more pestiferous than the filth which they were meant to remove.
Even under the best management, such a system was radically bad; in the
hands of the Jesuits it became unspeakably worse. To their “modern
casuists,” as they were termed, must we ascribe the invention of
_probabilism_, _mental reservation_, and the _direction of the
intention_, which have been sufficiently explained and rebuked in the
Provincial Letters. We shall only remark here, that the actions to which
these principles were applied were not only such as have been termed
indifferent, and the criminality of which may be doubtful, or dependent
on the intention of the actor: the probabilism of the Jesuits was, in
fact, a systematic attempt to legalize crime, under the sanction of some
grave doctor, who had found out some excuse for it; and their theory of
mental reservations, and direction of the intention, was equally
employed to sanctify the plainest violations of the divine law.
Casuistry, it is true, has generally vibrated betwixt the extremes of
impracticable severity and contemptible indulgence; but the charge
against the Jesuits was, not that they softened the rigors of ascetic
virtue, but that they propagated principles which sapped the foundation
of all moral obligation. “They are a people,” said Boileau, “who
lengthen the creed and shorten the decalogue.”
Such was the community with which the Bishop of Ypres ventured to enter
the lists. Already had he incurred their resentment by opposing their
interests in some political negotiations; and by publishing his “Mars
Gallicus,” he had mortally offended their patron, Cardinal Richelieu;
but, strange to say, his deadly sin against the Society was a posthumous
work. Jansen was cut off by the plague, May 8, 1638. Shortly after his
decease, his celebrated work, entitled “Augustinus,” was published by
his friends Fromond and Calen, to whom he had committed it on his
death-bed. To the preparation of this work he may be said to have
devoted his life. It occupied him twenty-two years, during which, we are
told, he had ten times read through the works of Augustine (ten volumes,
folio!) and thirty times collated those passages which related to
Pelagianism.[16] The book itself, as the title imports, was little more
than a digest of the writings of Augustine on the subject of grace.[17]
It was divided into three parts; the first being a refutation of
Pelagianism, the second demonstrating the spiritual disease of man, and
the third exhibiting the remedy provided. The sincerity of Jansen’s love
to truth is beyond question, though we may be permitted to question the
form in which it was evinced. The radical defect of the work is, that
instead of resorting to the living fountain of inspiration, he confined
himself to the cistern of tradition. Enamored with the excellences of
Augustine, he adopted even his inconsistencies. With the former he
challenged the Jesuits; with the latter he warded off the charge of
heresy. As a controvertist, he is chargeable with prejudice, rather than
dishonesty. As a reformer, he wanted the independence of mind necessary
to success. Instead of standing boldly forward on the ground of
Scripture, he attempted, with more prudence than wisdom, to shelter
himself behind the venerable name of Augustine.
If by thus preferring the shield of tradition to the sword of the
Spirit, Jansen expected to out-manœuvre the Jesuits, he had mistaken his
policy. “Augustinus,” though professedly written to revive the doctrine
of Augustine, was felt by the Society as, in reality, an attack upon
them, under the name of Pelagians. To conscious delinquency, the
language of implied censure is ever more galling than formal
impeachment. Jansen’s portrait of Augustine was but too faithfully
executed; and the disciples of Loyola could not fail to see how far they
had departed from the faith of the ancient Church; but the discovery
only served to incense them at the man who had exhibited their defection
before the world. The approbation which the book received from forty
learned doctors, and the rapture with which it was welcomed by the
friends of the author, only added to their exasperation. The whole
efforts of the Society were summoned to defeat its influence. Balked by
the hand of death of their revenge on the person of the author, they
vented it even on his remains. By a decree of the pope, procured through
their instigation, a splendid monument, which had been erected over the
grave of the learned and much-loved bishop, was completely demolished,
that, in the words of his Holiness, “the memory of Jansen might perish
from the earth.” It is even said that his body was torn from its
resting-place, and thrown into some unknown receptacle.[18] His literary
remains were no less severely handled. Nicholas Cornet, a member of the
Society, after incredible pains, extracted the heretical poison of
“Augustinus,” in the form of seven propositions, which were afterwards
reduced to five. These having been submitted to the judgment of Innocent
X., were condemned by that pontiff in a bull dated 31st May, 1653. This
decision, so far from restoring peace, awakened a new controversy. The
Jansenists, as the admirers of Jansen now began to be named by their
opponents, while they professed acquiescence in the judgment of the
pope, denied that these propositions were to be found in “Augustinus.”
The succeeding pope, Alexander VII., who was still more favorable to the
Jesuits, declared formally, in a bull dated 1657, “that the five
propositions were certainly taken from the book of Jansenius, and had
been condemned in the sense of that author.” But the Jansenists were
ready to meet him on this point; they replied, that a decision of this
kind overstepped the limits of papal authority, and that the pope’s
infallibility did not extend to a judgment of facts.[19]
The reader may be curious to know something more about these famous five
propositions, condemned by the pope, which, in fact, may be said to have
given occasion to the Provincial Letters. They were as follows:—
1. There are divine precepts which good men, though willing, are
absolutely unable to obey.
2. No person, in this corrupt state of nature, can resist the influence
of divine grace.
3. In order to render human actions meritorious, or otherwise, it is not
requisite that they be exempt from necessity, but only free from
constraint.
4. The semi-Pelagian heresy consisted in allowing the human will to be
endued with a power of resisting grace, or of complying with its
influence.
5. Whoever says that Christ died or shed his blood for all mankind, is a
semi-Pelagian.
The Jansenists, in their subsequent disputes on these propositions,
contended that they were ambiguously expressed, and that they might be
understood in three different senses—a Calvinistic, a Pelagian, and a
Catholic or Augustinian sense. In the first two senses they disclaimed
them, in the last they approved and defended them. Owing to the extreme
aversion of the party to Calvinism, while they substantially held the
same system under the name of Augustinianism, it becomes extremely
difficult to convey an intelligible idea of their theological views. On
the first proposition, for example, while they disclaimed what they term
the Calvinistic sense, namely, that the best of men are liable to sin in
all that they do, they equally disclaim the Pelagian sentiment, that all
men have a general sufficient grace, at all times, for the discharge of
duty, subject to free will; and they strenuously maintained that,
without efficacious grace, constantly vouchsafed, we can do nothing
spiritually good. In regard to the resistibility of grace, they seem to
have held that the will of man might always resist the influence of
grace, if it chose to do so; but that grace would effectually prevent it
from so choosing. And with respect to redemption, they appear to have
compromised the matter, by holding that Christ died for all, so as that
all might be partakers of the grace of justification by the merits of
his death; but they denied that Christ died for each man in particular,
so as to secure his final salvation; in this sense, he died for the
elect only.
Were this the proper place, it would be easy to show that, in the
leading points of his theology, Jansen did not differ from Calvin, so
much as he misunderstood Calvinism. The Calvinists, for example, never
held, as they are represented in the Provincial Letters,[20] “that we
have not the power of resisting grace.” So far from this, they held that
fallen man could not but resist the grace of God. They preferred,
therefore, the term “invincible,” as applied to grace. In short, they
held exactly the _victrix delectatio_ of Augustine, by which the will of
man is sweetly but effectually inclined to comply with the will of
God.[21] On the subject of necessity and constraint their views are
precisely similar. Nor can they be considered as differing essentially
in their views of the death of Christ, as these, at least, were given by
Jansen, who acknowledges in his “Augustinus,” that, “according to St.
Augustine, Jesus Christ did not die for all mankind.” It is certain that
neither Augustine nor Jansen would have subscribed to the views of grace
and redemption held by many who, in our day, profess evangelical views.
Making allowance for the different position of the parties, it is very
plain that the dispute between Augustine and Pelagius, Jansen and
Molina, Calvin and Arminius, was substantially one and the same. At the
same time, it must be granted that on the great point of justification
by faith, Jansen went widely astray from the truth; and in the
subsequent controversial writings of the party, especially when arguing
against the Protestants, this departure became still more strongly
marked, and more deplorably manifested.[22]
The revenge of the Jesuits did not stop at procuring the condemnation of
Jansen’s book; it aimed at his living followers. Among these none was
more conspicuous for virtue and influence than the Abbé de St. Cyran,
who was known to have shared his counsels, and even aided in the
preparation of his obnoxious work. While Jansen labored to restore the
theoretical doctrines of Augustine, St. Cyran was ambitious to reduce
them to practice. In pursuance of the moral system of that father, he
taught the renunciation of the world, and the total absorption of the
soul in the love of God. His religious fervor led him into some
extravagances. He is said to have laid some claim to a species of
inspiration, and to have anticipated for the Saviour some kind of
temporal dominion, in which the saints alone would be entitled to the
wealth and dignities of the world.[23] But his piety appears to have
been sincere, and, what is more surprising, his love to the Scriptures
was such that he not only lived in the daily study of them himself, but
earnestly enforced it on all his disciples. He recommended them to study
the Scriptures on their knees. “No means of conversion,” he would say,
“can be more apostolic than the Word of God. Every word in Scripture
deserves to be weighed more attentively than gold. The Scriptures were
penned by a direct ray of the Holy Spirit; the fathers only by a reflex
ray emanating therefrom.” His whole character and appearance
corresponded with his doctrine. “His simple mortified air, and his
humble garb formed a striking contrast with the awful sanctity of his
countenance, and his native lofty dignity of manner.”[24] Possessing
that force of character by which men of strong minds silently but surely
govern others, his proselytes soon increased, and he became the nucleus
of a new class of reformers.
St. Cyran was soon called to preside over the renowned monastery of
Port-Royal. Two houses went under this name, though forming one abbey.
One of these was called Port-Royal des Champs, and was situated in a
gloomy forest, about six leagues from Paris; but this having been found
an unhealthy situation, the nuns were removed for some time to another
house in Paris, which went under the name of Port-Royal de Paris. The
Abbey of Port-Royal was one of the most ancient belonging to the order
of Citeaux, having been founded by Eudes de Sully, bishop of Paris, in
1204. It was placed originally under the rigorous discipline of St.
Benedict, but in course of time fell, like most other monasteries, into
a state of the greatest relaxation. In 1602, a new abbess was appointed
in the person of Maria Angelica Arnauld, sister of the famous Arnauld,
then a mere child, scarcely eleven years old! The nuns, promising
themselves a long period of unbounded liberty, rejoiced at this
appointment. But their joy was not of long duration. The young abbess,
at first, indeed, thought of nothing but amusement; but at the age of
seventeen a change came over her spirit. A certain Capuchin, wearied, it
is said, or more probably disgusted, with the monastic life, had been
requested by the nuns, who were not aware of his character, to preach
before them. The preacher, equally ignorant of his audience, and
supposing them to be eminently pious ladies, delivered an affecting
discourse, pitched on the loftiest key of devotion, which left an
impression on the mind of Angelica never to be effaced. She set herself
to reform her establishment, and carried it into effect with a
determination and self-denial quite beyond her years. This
“reformation,” so highly lauded by her panegyrists, consisted chiefly in
restoring the austere discipline of St. Benedict, and other severities
practised in the earlier ages, the details of which would be neither
edifying nor agreeable. The substitution of coarse serge in place of
linen as underclothing, and dropping melted wax on the bare arms, may be
taken as specimens of the reformation introduced by Mère Angelique. In
these mortifying exercises the abbess showed an example to all the rest.
She chose as her dormitory the filthiest cell in the convent, a place
infested with toads and vermin, in which she found the highest delight,
declaring that she “seemed transported to the grotto of Bethlehem.” The
same rigid denial of pleasure was extended to her food, her dress, her
whole occupations. Clothed herself in the rudest dress she could
procure, nothing gave her greater offence than to see in her nuns any
approach to the fashions of the world, even in the adjustment of the
coarse black serge, with the scarlet cross, which formed their humble
apparel[25]. Yet, in the midst of all this “voluntary humility,” her
heart seems to have been turned mainly to the Saviour. It was Jesus
Christ whom she aimed at adoring in the worship she paid to “the
sacrament of the altar.” And in a book of devotion, composed by her for
private use, she gave expression to sentiments too much savoring of
undivided affection to Christ to escape the censure of the Church. It
was dragged to light and condemned at Rome[26]. There is reason to
believe that, under the direction of M. de St. Cyran, her religious
sentiments, as well as those of her community, became much more
enlightened. Her firmness in resisting subscription to the formulary and
condemning Jansen, in spite of the most cruel and unmanly persecution,
and the piety and faith she manifested on her death-bed, when, in the
midst of exquisite suffering, and in the absence of the rites which her
persecutors denied her, she expired in the full assurance of salvation
through the merits of the only Saviour, form one of the most interesting
chapters in the martyrology of the Church.