aware of the traffic with benefices that is now carried on, and that
were the matter referred to St. Thomas and the ancients who have written
on it, there might chance to be some simoniacs in the Church. This
rendered it highly necessary for our fathers to exercise their prudence
in finding out a palliative. With what success they have done so will
appear from the following words of Valencia, who is one of Escobar’s
‘four living creatures.’ At the end of a long discourse, in which he
suggests various expedients, he propounds the following at page 2039,
vol. iii., which, to my mind, is the best: ‘If a person gives a temporal
in exchange for a spiritual good’—that is, if he gives money for a
benefice—‘and gives the money as the price of the benefice, it is
manifest simony. But if he gives it merely as the motive which inclines
the will of the patron to confer on him the living, it is not simony,
even though the person who confers it considers and expects the money as
the principal object.’ Tanner, who is also a member of our Society,
affirms the same thing, vol. iii., p. 1519, although he ‘grants that St.
Thomas is opposed to it; for he expressly teaches that it is always
simony to give a spiritual for a temporal good, if the temporal is the
end in view.’ By this means we prevent an immense number of simoniacal
transactions; for who would be so desperately wicked as to refuse, when
giving money for a benefice, to take the simple precaution of so
directing his intentions as to give it as _a motive_ to induce the
beneficiary to part with it, instead of giving it as _the price_ of the
benefice? No man, surely, can be so far left to himself as that would
come to.”
“I agree with you there,” I replied; “all men, I should think, have
_sufficient grace_ to make a bargain of that sort.”
“There can be no doubt of it,” returned the monk. “Such, then, is the
way in which we soften matters in regard to the beneficiaries. And now
for the priests—we have maxims pretty favorable to them also. Take the
following, for example, from our four-and-twenty elders: ‘Can a priest,
who has received money to say a mass, take an additional sum upon the
same mass? Yes, says Filiutius, he may, by applying that part of the
sacrifice which belongs to himself as a priest to the person who paid
him last; provided he does not take a sum equivalent to a whole mass,
but only a part, such as the third of a mass.’”
“Surely, father,” said I, “this must be one of those cases in which the
_pro_ and the _con_ have both their share of probability. What you have
now stated cannot fail, of course, to be probable, having the authority
of such men as Filiutius and Escobar; and yet, leaving that within the
sphere of probability, it strikes me that the contrary opinion might be
made out to be probable too, and might be supported by such reasons as
the following: That, while the Church allows priests who are in poor
circumstances to take money for their masses, seeing it is but right
that those who serve at the altar should live by the altar, she never
intended that they should barter the sacrifice for money,[156] and still
less, that they should deprive themselves of those benefits which they
ought themselves, in the first place, to draw from it; to which I might
add, that, according to St. Paul, the priests are to offer sacrifice
first for themselves, and then for the people;[157] and that
accordingly, while permitted to participate with others in the benefit
of the sacrifice, they are not at liberty to forego their share, by
transferring it to another for a third of a mass, or, in other words,
for the matter of fourpence or fivepence. Verily, father, little as I
pretend to be a _grave_ man, I might contrive to make this opinion
probable.”
“It would cost you no great pains to do that,” replied the monk; “it is
visibly probable already. The difficulty lies in discovering probability
in the converse of opinions manifestly good; and this is a feat which
none but great men can achieve. Father Bauny shines in this department.
It is really delightful to see that learned casuist examining with
characteristic ingenuity and subtlety, the negative and affirmative of
the same question, and proving both of them to be right! Thus in the
matter of priests, he says in one place: ‘No law can be made to oblige
the curates to say mass every day; for such a law would unquestionably
(_haud dubiè_) expose them to the danger of saying it sometimes in
mortal sin.’ And yet in another part of the same treatise, he says,
‘that priests who have received money for saying mass every day ought to
say it every day, and that they cannot excuse themselves on the ground
that they are not always in a fit state for the service; because it is
in their power at all times to do penance, and if they neglect this they
have themselves to blame for it, and not the person who made them say
mass.’ And to relieve their minds from all scruples on the subject, he
thus resolves the question: ‘May a priest say mass on the same day in
which he has committed a mortal sin of the worst kind, in the way of
confessing himself beforehand?’ Villabolos says No, because of his
impurity; but Sancius says, He may without any sin; and I hold his
opinion to be safe, and one which may be followed in practice—_et tuta
et sequenda in praxi_.”[158]
“Follow this opinion in practice!” cried I. “Will any priest who has
fallen into such irregularities, have the assurance on the same day to
approach the altar, on the mere word of Father Bauny? Is he not bound to
submit to the ancient laws of the Church, which debarred from the
sacrifice forever, or at least for a long time, priests who had
committed sins of that description—instead of following the modern
opinions of casuists, who would admit him to it on the very day that
witnessed his fall?”
“You have a very short memory,” returned the monk. “Did I not inform you
a little ago that, according to our fathers Cellot and Reginald, ‘in
matters of morality we are to follow, not the ancient fathers, but the
modern casuists?’”
“I remember it perfectly,” said I; “but we have something more here: we
have the laws of the Church.”
“True,” he replied; “but this shows you do not know another capital
maxim of our fathers, ‘that the laws of the Church lose their authority
when they have gone into desuetude’—_cum jam desuetudine abierunt_—as
Filiutius says.[159] We know the present exigencies of the Church much
better than the ancients could do. Were we to be so strict in excluding
priests from the altar, you can understand there would not be such a
great number of masses. Now a multitude of masses brings such a revenue
of glory to God and of good to souls, that I may venture to say, with
Father Cellot, that there would not be too many priests, ‘though not
only all men and women, were that possible, but even inanimate bodies,
and even brute beasts—_bruta animalia_—were transformed into priests to
celebrate mass.’”[160]
I was so astounded at the extravagance of this imagination, that I
could not utter a word, and allowed him to go on with his discourse.
“Enough, however, about priests; I am afraid of getting tedious: let
us come to the _monks_. The grand difficulty with them is the
obedience they owe to their superiors; now observe the palliative
which our fathers apply in this case. Castro Palao[161] of our Society
has said: ‘Beyond all dispute, a monk who has a probable opinion of
his own, is not bound to obey his superior, though the opinion of the
latter is the more probable. For the monk is at liberty to adopt the
opinion which is more agreeable to himself—_quæ sibi gratior
fuerit_—as Sanchez says. And though the order of his superior be just,
that does not oblige you to obey him, for it is not just at all points
or in every respect—_non undequaquè justè præcepit_—but only probably
so; and consequently, you are only probably bound to obey him, and
probably not bound—_probabiliter obligatus, et probabiliter
deobligatus_.’”
“Certainly, father,” said I, “it is impossible too highly to estimate
this precious fruit of the double probability.”
“It is of great use indeed,” he replied; “but we must be brief. Let me
only give you the following specimen of our famous Molina in favor of
monks who are expelled from their convents for irregularities. Escobar
quotes him thus: ‘Molina asserts that a monk expelled from his monastery
is not obliged to reform in order to get back again, and that he is no
longer bound by his vow of obedience.’”
“Well, father,” cried I, “this is all very comfortable for the clergy.
Your casuists, I perceive, have been very indulgent to them, and no
wonder—they were legislating, so to speak, for themselves. I am afraid
people of other conditions are not so liberally treated. Every one for
himself in this world.”
“There you do us wrong,” returned the monk; “they could not have been
kinder to themselves than we have been to them. We treat all, from the
highest to the lowest, with an even-handed charity, sir. And to prove
this, you tempt me to tell you our maxims for servants. In reference to
this class, we have taken into consideration the difficulty they must
experience, when they are men of conscience, in serving profligate
masters. For if they refuse to perform all the errands in which they are
employed, they lose their places; and if they yield obedience, they have
their scruples. To relieve them from these, our four-and-twenty fathers
have specified the services which they may render with a safe
conscience; such as, ‘carrying letters and presents, opening doors and
windows, helping their master to reach the window, holding the ladder
which he is mounting. All this,’ say they, ‘is allowable and
indifferent; it is true that, as to holding the ladder, they must be
threatened, more than usually, with being punished for refusing; for it
is doing an injury to the master of a house to enter it by the window.’
You perceive the judiciousness of that observation, of course?”
“I expected nothing less,” said I, “from a book edited by
four-and-twenty Jesuits.”
“But,” added the monk, “Father Bauny has gone beyond this; he has taught
valets how to perform these sorts of offices for their masters quite
innocently, by making them direct their intention, not to the sins to
which they are accessary, but to the gain which is to accrue from them.
In his Summary of Sins, p. 710, first edition, he thus states the
matter: ‘Let confessors observe,’ says he, ‘that they cannot absolve
valets who perform base errands, if they consent to the sins of their
masters; but the reverse holds true, if they have done the thing merely
from a regard to their temporal emolument.’ And that, I should conceive,
is no difficult matter to do; for why should they insist on consenting
to sins of which they taste nothing but the trouble? The same Father
Bauny has established a prime maxim in favor of those who are not
content with their wages: ‘May servants who are dissatisfied with their
wages, use means to raise them by laying their hands on as much of the
property of their masters as they may consider necessary to make the
said wages equivalent to their trouble? They may, in certain
circumstances; as when they are so poor that, in looking for a
situation, they have been obliged to accept the offer made to them, and
when other servants of the same class are gaining more than they,
elsewhere.’”
“Ha, father!” cried I, “that is John d’Alba’s passage, I declare.”
“What John d’Alba?” inquired the father: “what do you mean?”
“Strange, father!” returned I: “do you not remember what happened in
this city in the year 1647? Where in the world were you living at that
time?”
“I was teaching cases of conscience in one of our colleges far from
Paris,” he replied.
“I see you don’t know the story, father: I must tell it you. I heard it
related the other day by a man of honor, whom I met in company. He told
us that this John d’Alba, who was in the service of your fathers in the
College of Clermont, in the Rue St. Jacques, being dissatisfied with his
wages, had purloined something to make himself amends; and that your
fathers, on discovering the theft, had thrown him into prison on the
charge of larceny. The case was reported to the court, if I recollect
right, on the 16th of April, 1647; for he was very minute in his
statements, and indeed they would hardly have been credible otherwise.
The poor fellow, on being questioned, confessed to having taken some
pewter plates, but maintained that for all that he had not _stolen_
them; pleading in his defence this very doctrine of Father Bauny, which
he produced before the judges, along with a pamphlet by one of your
fathers, under whom he had studied cases of conscience, and who had
taught him the same thing. Whereupon M. De Montrouge, one of the most
respected members of the court, said, in giving his opinion, ‘that he
did not see how, on the ground of the writings of these fathers—writings
containing a doctrine so illegal, pernicious, and contrary to all laws,
natural, divine, and human, and calculated to ruin all families, and
sanction all sorts of household robbery—they could discharge the
accused. But his opinion was, that this too faithful disciple should be
whipped before the college gate, by the hand of the common hangman; and
that, at the same time, this functionary should burn the writings of
these fathers which treated of larceny, with certification that they
were prohibited from teaching such doctrine in future, upon pain of
death.’
“The result of this judgment, which was heartily approved of, was waited
for with much curiosity when some incident occurred which made them
delay procedure. But in the mean time the prisoner disappeared, nobody
knew how, and nothing more was heard about the affair; so that John
d’Alba got off, pewter plates and all. Such was the account he gave us,
to which he added, that the judgment of M. De Montrouge was entered on
the records of the court, where any one may consult it. We were highly
amused at the story.”
“What are you trifling about now?” cried the monk. “What does all that
signify? I was explaining the maxims of our casuists, and was just going
to speak of those relating to gentlemen, when you interrupt me with
impertinent stories.”
“It was only something put in by the way, father,” I observed; “and
besides, I was anxious to apprize you of an important circumstance,
which I find you have overlooked in establishing your doctrine of
probability.”
“Ay, indeed!” exclaimed the monk, “what defect can this be, that has
escaped the notice of so many ingenious men?”
“You have certainly,” continued I, “contrived to place your disciples in
perfect safety so far as God and the conscience are concerned; for they
are quite safe in that quarter, according to you, by following in the
wake of a grave doctor. You have also secured them on the part of the
confessors, by obliging priests, on the pain of mortal sin, to absolve
all who follow a probable opinion. But you have neglected to secure them
on the part of the judges; so that, in following your probabilities,
they are in danger of coming into contact with the whip and the gallows.
This is a sad oversight.”
“You are right,” said the monk; “I am glad you mentioned it. But the
reason is, we have no such power over magistrates as over the
confessors, who are obliged to refer to us in cases of conscience, in
which we are the sovereign judges.”
“So I understand,” returned I; “but if, on the one hand, you are the
judges of the confessors, are you not, on the other hand, the confessors
of the judges? Your power is very extensive. Oblige them, on pain of
being debarred from the sacraments, to acquit all criminals who act on a
probable opinion; otherwise it may happen, to the great contempt and
scandal of probability, that those whom you render innocent in theory
may be whipped or hanged in practice. Without something of this kind,
how can you expect to get disciples?”
“The matter deserves consideration,” said he; “it will never do to
neglect it. I shall suggest it to our father Provincial. You might,
however, have reserved this advice to some other time, without
interrupting the account I was about to give you of the maxims which we
have established in favor of gentlemen; and I shall not give you any
more information, except on condition that you do not tell me any more
stories.”
This is all you shall have from me at present; for it would require more
than the limits of one letter to acquaint you with all that I learned in
a single conversation.—Meanwhile I am, &c.
-----
Footnote 147:
Luke xi. 41.—_Quod superest, date eleemosynam_ (Vulgate); τα ἐνοντα
δότε (Gr.); _Ea quæ penes vos sunt date_ (Beza); “Give alms of such
things as ye have.” (Eng. Ver.)
Footnote 148:
When Pascal speaks of alms-giving “working out our salvation,” it is
evident that he regarded it only as the evidence of our being in a
state of salvation. Judging by the history of his life, and by his
“Thoughts on Religion,” no man was more free from spiritual pride, or
that poor species of it which boasts of or rests in its eleemosynary
sacrifices. His charity flowed from love and gratitude to God. Such
was his regard for the poor that he could not refuse to give alms even
though compelled to take from the supply necessary to relieve his own
infirmities; and on his death-bed he entreated that a poor person
should be brought into the house and treated with the same attention
as himself, declaring that when he thought of his own comforts and of
the multitudes who were destitute of the merest necessaries, he felt a
distress which he could not endure. “One thing I have observed,” he
says in his Thoughts—“that let a man be ever so poor, he has always
something to leave on his death-bed.”
Footnote 149:
These bulls were directed against gross and unnatural crimes
prevailing among the clergy. (Nicolo, ii. pp. 372–376.)
Footnote 150:
An allusion to the popularity of the Letters, which induced many to
inquire after the casuistical writings so often quoted in them.
Footnote 151:
_Lenten life_—an abstemious life, or life of fasting.
Footnote 152:
_Prevaricateurs._—Alluding probably to such texts as Rom. iv. 15:
“The law worketh wrath; for where no law is, there is no
transgression.”—_Ubi enim non est lex, nec prevaricatio_ (Vulg.); or
Rom. v. 13, &c.
Footnote 153:
The Rules (_Regulæ Communes_) of the Society of Jesus, it must be
admitted, are rigid enough in the enforcement of moral decency and
discipline on the members; and the perfect candor of Pascal appears in
the admission. This, however, only adds weight to the real charge
which he substantiates against them, of teaching maxims which tend to
the subversion of morality. With regard to their personal conduct,
different opinions prevail. “Whatever we may think of the political
delinquencies of their leaders,” says Blanco White, “their bitterest
enemies have never ventured to charge the order of Jesuits with moral
irregularities. The internal policy of that body,” he adds, “precluded
the possibility of gross misconduct.” (Letters from Spain, p. 89.) We
are far from being sure of this. The remark seems to apply to only one
species of vice, too common in monastic life, and may be true of the
conventual establishments of the Jesuits, where outward decency forms
part of the deep policy of the order; but what dependence can be
placed on the moral purity of men whose consciences must be debauched
by such maxims? Jarrige informs us that they boasted at one time in
Spain of possessing an herb which preserved their chastity; and on
being questioned by the king to tell what it was, they replied: “It
was the fear of God.” “But,” says the author, “whatever they might be
then, it is plain that they have since lost the seed of that herb for
it no longer grows in their garden.” (Jesuites sur l’Echaufaud, ch.
6.)
Footnote 154:
It has been observed, with great truth, by Sir James Macintosh, that
“casuistry, the inevitable growth of the practices of confession and
absolution, has generally vibrated betwixt the extremes of
impracticable severity and contemptible indulgence.” (Hist. of
England, vol. ii. p. 359.)
Footnote 155:
_Tiers etat._—These were the three orders into which the people of
France were divided; the _tiers etat_ or third estate, corresponding
to our commons.
Footnote 156:
With all respect for Pascal and his good intention, it is plain that
there is a wide difference between the duty, illustrated by the
apostle from the ancient law, of supporting those who minister in holy
things in and for their ministrations, and the practice introduced by
the Church of Rome, of putting a price on the holy things themselves.
In the one case, it was simply a recognition of the general principle
that “the laborer is worthy of his hire.” In the other, it was
converting the minister into a shopman who was allowed to “barter” his
sacred wares at the market price, or any price he pleased. To this
mercenary principle most of the superstitions of Rome may be traced.
The popish doctrine of the mass is founded on transubstantiation, or
the superstition broached in the ninth century, that the bread and
wine are converted by the priest into the real body and blood of
Christ. It was never settled in the Romish Church to be a proper
propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead till the Council of
Trent, in the sixteenth century; so that it is comparatively a modern
invention. The mass proceeds on the absurd assumption that our blessed
Lord offered up his body and blood in the institution of the supper,
before offering them on the cross, and partook of them himself; and it
involves the blasphemy of supposing that a sinful mortal may, whenever
he pleases, offer up the great sacrifice of that body and blood, which
could only be offered by the Son of God and offered by him only once.
This, however, is the great Diana of the popish priests—by this craft
they have their wealth—and the whole of its history proves that it was
invented for no other purposes than imposture and extortion.
Footnote 157:
Heb. vii. 27.—It is astonishing to see an acute mind like that of
Pascal so warped by superstition as not to perceive that in this, and
other allusions to the Levitical priesthood, the object of the apostle
was avowedly to prove that the great sacrifice for sin, of which the
ancient sacrifices were the types, had been “once offered in the end
of the world,” and that “there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins;”
and that the very text to which he refers, teaches that, in the person
of Jesus Christ, our high priest, all the functions of the sacrificing
priesthood were fulfilled and terminated: “Who needeth _not_ daily _as
those high priests_, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins,
and then for the people’s: for this he did _once_, when he offered up
himself.” The ministers of the New Testament are never in Scripture
called priests, though this name has been applied to the Christian
people who offer up the “spiritual sacrifices” of praise and good
works. (Heb. xiii. 15, 16; 1 Pet. ii. 5.)
Footnote 158:
Treatise 10, p. 474; ib., p. 441; Quest. 32, p. 457.
Footnote 159:
Tom. ii. tr. 25. n. 33. And yet they will pretend to hold that their
Church is infallible!
Footnote 160:
Book of the Hierarchy, p. 611, Rouen edition.
Footnote 161:
Op. Mor. p. 1, disp. 2, p. 6. _Ferdinand de Castro Palao_ was a Jesuit
of Spain, and author of a work on Virtues and Vices, published in
1631.
LETTER VII.[162]
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 BY CARAMUEL, AS TO WHETHER JESUITS MAY
BE ALLOWED TO KILL JANSENISTS.
PARIS, _April 25, 1656_.
SIR,—Having succeeded in pacifying the good father, who had been rather
disconcerted by the story of John d’Alba, he resumed the conversation,
on my assuring him that I would avoid all such interruptions in future,
and spoke of the maxims of his casuists with regard to gentlemen, nearly
in the following terms:—