their object is not the corruption of manners—that is not their design.
But as little is it their sole aim to reform them—that would be bad
policy. Their idea is briefly this: They have such a good opinion of
themselves as to believe that it is useful, and in some sort essentially
necessary to the good of religion, that their influence should extend
everywhere, and that they should govern all consciences. And the
Evangelical or severe maxims being best fitted for managing some sorts
of people, they avail themselves of these when they find them favorable
to their purpose. But as these maxims do not suit the views of the great
bulk of people, they wave them in the case of such persons, in order to
keep on good terms with all the world. Accordingly, having to deal with
persons of all classes and of all different nations, they find it
necessary to have casuists cut out to match this diversity.
“On this principle, you will easily see that if they had none but the
looser sort of casuists, they would defeat their main design, which is
to embrace all; for those that are truly pious are fond of a stricter
discipline. But as there are not many of that stamp, they do not require
many severe directors to guide them. They have a few for the select few;
while whole multitudes of lax casuists are provided for the multitudes
that prefer laxity.[131]
“It is in virtue of this ‘obliging and accommodating’ conduct, as Father
Petau[132] calls it, that they may be said to stretch out a helping hand
to all mankind. Should any person present himself before them, for
example, fully resolved to make restitution of some ill-gotten gains, do
not suppose that they would dissuade him from it. By no means; on the
contrary, they will applaud and confirm him in such a holy resolution.
But suppose another should come who wishes to be absolved without
restitution, and it will be a particularly hard case indeed, if they
cannot furnish him with means of evading the duty, of one kind or
another, the lawfulness of which they will be ready to guarantee.
“By this policy they keep all their friends, and defend themselves
against all their foes; for, when charged with extreme laxity, they have
nothing more to do than produce their austere directors, with some books
which they have written on the severity of the Christian code of morals;
and simple people, or those who never look below the surface of things,
are quite satisfied with these proofs of the falsity of the accusation.
“Thus are they prepared for all sorts of persons, and so ready are they
to suit the supply to the demand, that when they happen to be in any
part of the world where the doctrine of a crucified God is accounted
foolishness, they suppress the offence of the cross, and preach only a
glorious and not a suffering Jesus Christ. This plan they followed in
the Indies and in China, where they permitted Christians to practise
idolatry itself, with the aid of the following ingenious
contrivance:—they made their converts conceal under their clothes an
image of Jesus Christ, to which they taught them to transfer mentally
those adorations which they rendered ostensibly to the idol Cachinchoam
and Keum-fucum. This charge is brought against them by Gravina, a
Dominican, and is fully established by the Spanish memorial presented to
Philip IV., king of Spain, by the Cordeliers of the Philippine Islands,
quoted by Thomas Hurtado, in his ‘Martyrdom of the Faith,’ page 427. To
such a length did this practice go, that the Congregation _De
Propaganda_ were obliged expressly to forbid the Jesuits, on pain of
excommunication, to permit the worship of idols on any pretext whatever,
or to conceal the mystery of the cross from their catechumens; strictly
enjoining them to admit none to baptism who were not thus instructed,
and ordering them to expose the image of the crucifix in their
churches:—all which is amply detailed in the decree of that
Congregation, dated the 9th of July, 1646, and signed by Cardinal
Capponi.[133]
“Such is the manner in which they have spread themselves over the whole
earth, aided by _the doctrine of probable opinions_, which is at once
the source and the basis of all this licentiousness. You must get some
of themselves to explain this doctrine to you. They make no secret of
it, any more than of what you have already learned; with this difference
only, that they conceal their carnal and worldly policy under the garb
of divine and Christian prudence; as if the faith, and tradition its
ally, were not always one and the same at all times and in all places;
as if it were the part of the rule to bend in conformity to the subject
which it was meant to regulate; and as if souls, to be purified from
their pollutions, had only to corrupt the law of the Lord, in place of
‘the law of the Lord, which is clean and pure, converting the soul which
lieth in sin,’ and bringing it into conformity with its salutary
lessons!
“Go and see some of these worthy fathers, I beseech you, and I am
confident that you will soon discover, in the laxity of their moral
system, the explanation of their doctrine about grace. You will then see
the Christian virtues exhibited in such a strange aspect, so completely
stripped of the charity which is the life and soul of them—you will see
so many crimes palliated and irregularities tolerated, that you will no
longer be surprised at their maintaining that ‘all men have always
enough of grace’ to lead a pious life, in the sense in which they
understand piety. Their morality being entirely Pagan, nature is quite
competent to its observance. When we maintain the necessity of
efficacious grace, we assign it another sort of virtue for its object.
Its office is not to cure one vice by means of another; it is not merely
to induce men to practise the external duties of religion: it aims at a
virtue higher than that propounded by Pharisees, or the greatest sages
of Heathenism. The law and reason are ‘sufficient graces’ for these
purposes. But to disenthral the soul from the love of the world—to tear
it from what it holds most dear—to make it die to itself—to lift it up
and bind it wholly, only, and forever, to God—can be the work of none
but an all-powerful hand. And it would be as absurd to affirm that we
have the full power of achieving such objects, as it would be to allege
that those virtues, devoid of the love of God, which these fathers
confound with the virtues of Christianity, are beyond our power.”
Such was the strain of my friend’s discourse, which was delivered with
much feeling; for he takes these sad disorders very much to heart. For
my own part, I began to entertain a high admiration of these fathers,
simply on account of the ingenuity of their policy; and following his
advice, I waited on a good casuist of the Society, one of my old
acquaintances, with whom I now resolved purposely to renew my former
intimacy. Having my instructions how to manage them, I had no great
difficulty in getting him afloat. Retaining his old attachment, he
received me immediately with a profusion of kindness; and after talking
over some indifferent matters, I took occasion from the present
season,[134] to learn something from him about fasting, and thus slip
insensibly into the main subject. I told him, therefore, that I had
difficulty in supporting the fast. He exhorted me to do violence to my
inclinations; but as I continued to murmur, he took pity on me, and
began to search out some ground for a dispensation. In fact he suggested
a number of excuses for me, none of which happened to suit my case, till
at length he bethought himself of asking me, whether I did not find it
difficult to sleep without taking supper? “Yes, my good father,” said I;
“and for that reason I am obliged often to take a refreshment at
mid-day, and supper at night.”[135]
“I am extremely happy,” he replied, “to have found out a way of
relieving you without sin: go in peace—you are under no obligation to
fast. However, I would not have you depend on my word: step this way to
the library.”
On going thither with him he took up a book, exclaiming, with great
rapture, “Here is the authority for you: and, by my conscience, such an
authority! It is ESCOBAR!”[136]
“Who is Escobar?” I inquired.
“What! not know Escobar?” cried the monk; “the member of our Society who
compiled this Moral Theology from twenty-four of our fathers, and on
this founds an analogy, in his preface, between his book and ‘that in
the Apocalypse which was sealed with seven seals,’ and states that
‘Jesus presents it thus sealed to the four living creatures, Suarez,
Vasquez, Molina, and Valencia,[137] in presence of the four-and-twenty
Jesuits who represent the four-and-twenty elders?’”
He read me, in fact, the whole of that allegory, which he pronounced to
be admirably appropriate, and which conveyed to my mind a sublime idea
of the excellence of the work. At length, having sought out the passage
on fasting, “O here it is!” he said; “treatise 1, example 13, no. 67:
‘If a man cannot sleep without taking supper, is he bound to fast?
Answer: _By no means!_’ Will that not satisfy you?”
“Not exactly,” replied I; “for I might sustain the fast by taking my
refreshment in the morning, and supping at night.”
“Listen, then, to what follows; they have provided for all that: ‘And
what is to be said, if the person might make a shift with a refreshment
in the morning and supping at night?’”
“That’s my case exactly.”
“‘Answer: Still he is not obliged to fast; because no person is obliged
to change the order of his meals.’”
“A most excellent reason!” I exclaimed.
“But tell me, pray,” continued the monk, “do you take much wine?”
“No, my dear father,” I answered; “I cannot endure it.”
“I merely put the question,” returned he, “to apprize you that you
might, without breaking the fast, take a glass or so in the morning, or
whenever you felt inclined for a drop; and that is always something in
the way of supporting nature. Here is the decision at the same place,
no. 57: ‘May one, without breaking the fast, drink wine at any hour he
pleases, and even in a large quantity? Yes, he may: and a dram of
hippocrass too.’[138] I had no recollection of the hippocrass,” said the
monk; “I must take a note of that in my memorandum-book.”
“He must be a nice man, this Escobar,” observed I.
“Oh! everybody likes him,” rejoined the father; “he has such delightful
questions! Only observe this one in the same place, no. 38: ‘If a man
doubt whether he is twenty-one years old, is he obliged to fast?[139]
No. But suppose I were to be twenty-one to-night an hour after midnight,
and to-morrow were the fast, would I be obliged to fast to-morrow? No;
for you were at liberty to eat as much as you pleased for an hour after
midnight, not being till then fully twenty-one; and therefore having a
right to break the fast-day, you are not obliged to keep it.’”
“Well, that is vastly entertaining!” cried I.
“Oh,” rejoined the father, “it is impossible to tear one’s self away
from the book: I spend whole days and nights in reading it; in fact, I
do nothing else.”
The worthy monk, perceiving that I was interested, was quite delighted,
and went on with his quotations. “Now,” said he, “for a taste of
Filiutius, one of the four-and-twenty Jesuits: ‘Is a man who has
exhausted himself any way—by profligacy, for example[140]—obliged to
fast? By no means. But if he has exhausted himself expressly to procure
a dispensation from fasting, will he be held obliged? He will not, even
though he should have had that design.’ There now! would you have
believed that?”
“Indeed, good father, I do not believe it yet,” said I. “What! is it no
sin for a man not to fast when he has it in his power? And is it
allowable to court occasions of committing sin, or rather, are we not
bound to shun them? That would be easy enough, surely.”
“Not always so,” he replied; “that is just as it may happen.”
“Happen, how?” cried I.
“Oho!” rejoined the monk, “so you think that if a person experience some
inconvenience in avoiding the occasions of sin, he is still bound to do
so? Not so thinks Father Bauny. ‘Absolution,’ says he, ‘is not to be
refused to such as continue in the proximate occasions of sin,[141] if
they are so situated that they cannot give them up without becoming the
common talk of the world, or subjecting themselves to personal
inconvenience.’”
“I am glad to hear it, father,” I remarked; “and now that we are not
obliged to avoid the occasions of sin, nothing more remains but to say
that we may deliberately court them.”
“Even that is occasionally permitted,” added he; “the celebrated casuist
Basil Ponce has said so, and Father Bauny quotes his sentiment with
approbation, in his Treatise on Penance, as follows: ‘We may seek an
occasion of sin directly and designedly—_primo et per se_—when our own
or our neighbor’s spiritual or temporal advantage induces us to do so.’”
“Truly,” said I, “it appears to be all a dream to me, when I hear grave
divines talking in this manner! Come now, my dear father, tell me
conscientiously, do _you_ hold such a sentiment as that?”
“No, indeed,” said he, “I do not.”
“You are speaking, then, against your conscience,” continued I.
“Not at all,” he replied; “I was speaking on that point not according to
my own conscience, but according to that of Ponce and Father Bauny, and
them you may follow with the utmost safety, for I assure you that they
are able men.”
“What, father! because they have put down these three lines in their
books, will it therefore become allowable to court the occasions of sin?
I always thought that we were bound to take the Scripture and the
tradition of the Church as our only rule, and not your casuists.”
“Goodness!” cried the monk, “I declare you put me in mind of these
Jansenists. Think you that Father Bauny and Basil Ponce are not able to
render their opinion _probable_?”
“Probable won’t do for me,” said I; “I must have certainty.”
“I can easily see,” replied the good father, “that you know nothing
about our doctrine of _probable opinions_. If you did, you would speak
in another strain. Ah! my dear sir, I must really give you some
instructions on this point; without knowing this, positively you can
understand nothing at all. It is the foundation—the very A, B, C, of our
whole moral philosophy.”
Glad to see him come to the point to which I had been drawing him on, I
expressed my satisfaction, and requested him to explain what was meant
by a probable opinion?[142]
“That,” he replied, “our authors will answer better than I can do. The
generality of them, and, among others, our four-and-twenty elders,
describe it thus: ‘An opinion is called probable, when it is founded
upon reasons of some consideration. Hence it may sometimes happen that a
single _very grave doctor_ may render an opinion probable.’ The reason
is added: ‘For a man particularly given to study would not adhere to an
opinion unless he was drawn to it by a good and sufficient reason.’”
“So it would appear,” I observed, with a smile, “that a single doctor
may turn consciences round about and upside down as he pleases, and yet
always land them in a safe position.”
“You must not laugh at it, sir,” returned the monk; “nor need you
attempt to combat the doctrine. The Jansenists tried this; but they
might have saved themselves the trouble—it is too firmly established.
Hear Sanchez, one of the most famous of our fathers: ‘You may doubt,
perhaps, whether the authority of a single good and learned doctor
renders an opinion probable. I answer, that it does; and this is
confirmed by Angelus, Sylvester Navarre, Emanuel Sa, &c. It is proved
thus: A probable opinion is one that has a considerable foundation. Now
the authority of a learned and pious man is entitled to very great
consideration; because (mark the reason), if the testimony of such a man
has great influence in convincing us that such and such an event
occurred, say at Rome, for example, why should it not have the same
weight in the case of a question in morals?’”
“An odd comparison this,” interrupted I, “between the concerns of the
world and those of conscience!”
“Have a little patience,” rejoined the monk; “Sanchez answers that in
the very next sentence: ‘Nor can I assent to the qualification made here
by some writers, namely, that the authority of such a doctor, though
sufficient in matters of human right, is not so in those of divine
right. It is of vast weight in both cases.’”
“Well, father,” said I, frankly, “I really cannot admire that rule. Who
can assure me, considering the freedom your doctors claim to examine
everything by reason, that what appears safe to one may seem so to all
the rest? The diversity of judgments is so great”—
“You don’t understand it,” said he, interrupting me; “no doubt they are
often of different sentiments, but what signifies that?—each renders his
own opinion probable and safe. We all know well enough that they are far
from being of the same mind; what is more, there is hardly an instance
in which they ever agree. There are very few questions, indeed, in which
you do not find the one saying Yes, and the other saying No. Still, in
all these cases, each of the contrary opinions is probable. And hence
Diana says on a certain subject: ‘Ponce and Sanchez hold opposite views
of it; but, as they are both learned men, each renders his own opinion
probable.’”
“But, father,” I remarked, “a person must be sadly embarrassed in
choosing between them!”—“Not at all,” he rejoined; “he has only to
follow the opinion which suits him best.”—“What! if the other is more
probable?” “It does not signify.”—“And if the other is the safer?” “It
does not signify,” repeated the monk; “this is made quite plain by
Emanuel Sa, of our Society, in his Aphorisms: ‘A person may do what he
considers allowable according to a probable opinion, though the contrary
may be the safer one. The opinion of a single grave doctor is all that
is requisite.’”
“And if an opinion be at once the less probable and the less safe, is it
allowable to follow it,” I asked, “even in the way of rejecting one
which we believe to be more probable and safe?”
“Once more, I say Yes,” replied the monk. “Hear what Filiutius, that
great Jesuit of Rome, says: ‘It is allowable to follow the less probable
opinion, even though it be the less safe one. That is the common
judgment of modern authors.’ Is not that quite clear?”
“Well, reverend father,” said I, “you have given _us_ elbow-room, at all
events! Thanks to your probable opinions, we have got liberty of
conscience with a witness! And are you casuists allowed the same
latitude in giving your responses?”
“O yes,” said he, “we answer just as we please; or rather, I should say,
just as it may please those who ask our advice. Here are our rules,
taken from Fathers Layman, Vasquez, Sanchez, and the four-and-twenty
worthies, in the words of Layman: ‘A doctor, on being consulted, may
give an advice, not only probable according to his own opinion, but
contrary to his opinion, provided this judgment happens to be more
favorable or more agreeable to the person that consults him—_si forte
hæc favorabilior seu exoptatior sit_. Nay, I go further, and say, that
there would be nothing unreasonable in his giving those who consult him
a judgment held to be probable by some learned person, even though he
should be satisfied in his own mind that it is absolutely false.’”
“Well, seriously, father,” I said, “your doctrine is a most uncommonly
comfortable one! Only think of being allowed to answer Yes or No, just
as you please! It is impossible to prize such a privilege too highly. I
see now the advantage of the contrary opinions of your doctors. One of
them always serves your turn, and the other never gives you any
annoyance. If you do not find your account on the one side, you fall
back on the other, and always land in perfect safety.”
“That is quite true,” he replied; “and accordingly, we may always say
with Diana, on his finding that Father Bauny was on his side, while
Father Lugo was against him: _Sæpe premente deo, fert deus alter
opem_.”[143]
“I understand you,” resumed I; “but a practical difficulty has just
occurred to me, which is this, that supposing a person to have consulted
one of your doctors, and obtained from him a pretty liberal opinion,
there is some danger of his getting into a scrape by meeting a confessor
who takes a different view of the matter, and refuses him absolution
unless he recant the sentiment of the casuist. Have you not provided for
such a case as that, father?”
“Can you doubt it?” he replied. “We have bound them, sir, to absolve
their penitents who act according to probable opinions, under the pain
of mortal sin, to secure their compliance. ‘When the penitent,’ says
Father Bauny, ‘follows a probable opinion, the confessor is bound to
absolve him, though his opinion should differ from that of his
penitent.’”
“But he does not say it would be a mortal sin not to absolve him,” said
I.
“How hasty you are!” rejoined the monk; “listen to what follows; he has
expressly decided that, ‘to refuse absolution to a penitent who acts
according to a probable opinion, is a sin which is in its nature
mortal.’ And to settle that point, he cites the most illustrious of our
fathers—Suarez, Vasquez, and Sanchez.”
“My dear sir,” said I, “that is a most prudent regulation. I see nothing
to fear now. No confessor can dare to be refractory after this. Indeed,
I was not aware that you had the power of issuing your orders on pain of
damnation. I thought that your skill had been confined to the taking
away of sins; I had no idea that it extended to the introduction of new
ones. But from what I now see, you are omnipotent.”
“That is not a correct way of speaking,” rejoined the father. “We do not
introduce sins; we only pay attention to them. I have had occasion to
remark, two or three times during our conversation, that you are no
great scholastic.”
“Be that as it may, father, you have at least answered my difficulty.
But I have another to suggest. How do you manage when the Fathers of the
Church happen to differ from any of your casuists?”
“You really know very little of the subject,” he replied. “The Fathers
were good enough for the morality of their own times; but they lived too
far back for that of the present age, which is no longer regulated by
them, but by the modern casuists. On this Father Cellot, following the
famous Reginald, remarks: ‘In questions of morals, the modern casuists
are to be preferred to the ancient fathers, though those lived nearer to
the times of the apostles.’ And following out this maxim, Diana thus
decides: ‘Are beneficiaries bound to restore their revenue when guilty
of mal-appropriation of it? The ancients would say Yes, but the moderns
say No; let us, therefore, adhere to the latter opinion, which relieves
from the obligation of restitution.’”
“Delightful words these, and most comfortable they must be to a great
many people!” I observed.
“We leave the fathers,” resumed the monk, “to those who deal with
positive divinity.[144] As for us, who are the directors of conscience,
we read very little of them, and quote only the modern casuists. There
is Diana, for instance, a most voluminous writer; he has prefixed to his
works a list of his authorities, which amount to two hundred and
ninety-six, and the most ancient of them is only about eighty years
old.”
“It would appear, then,” I remarked, “that all these have come into the
world since the date of your Society?”
“Thereabouts,” he replied.
“That is to say, dear father, on your advent, St. Augustine, St.
Chrysostom, St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, and all the rest, in so far as
morals are concerned, disappeared from the stage. Would you be so kind
as let me know the names, at least, of those modern authors who have
succeeded them?”
“A most able and renowned class of men they are,” replied the monk.
“Their names are, Villabolos, Conink, Llamas, Achokier, Dealkozer,
Dellacrux, Veracruz, Ugolin, Tambourin, Fernandez, Martinez, Suarez,
Henriquez, Vasquez, Lopez, Gomez, Sanchez, De Vechis, De Grassis, De
Grassalis, De Pitigianis, De Graphœis, Squilanti, Bizozeri, Barcola, De
Bobadilla, Simancha, Perez de Lara, Aldretta, Lorca, De Scarcia,
Quaranta, Scophra, Pedezza, Cabrezza, Bisbe, Dias, De Clavasis,
Villagut, Adam à Manden, Iribarne, Binsfeld, Volfangi à Vorberg,
Vosthery, Strevesdorf.”[145]
“O my dear father!” cried I, quite alarmed, “were all these people
Christians?”
“How! Christians!” returned the casuist; “did I not tell you that these
are the only writers by whom we now govern Christendom?”
Deeply affected as I was by this announcement, I concealed my emotion
from the monk, and only asked him if all these authors were Jesuits?