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Blaise Pascal The Provincial Letters The translation is that
of Rev. Dr. Thomas M’Crie D.D., Professor of Divinity, Edinburgh and was published
in New York by Robert Carter & Brothers, 1853. [Return
to book contents page] Letter XVII
TO THE
REVEREND FATHER ANNAT, JESUIT January 23, 1657 REVEREND FATHER, Your former behaviour had
induced me to believe that you were anxious for a truce in our hostilities,
and I was quite disposed to agree that it should be so. Of late, however, you
have poured forth such a volley of pamphlets, in such rapid succession, as to
make it apparent that peace rests on a very precarious footing when it
depends on the silence of Jesuits. I know not if this rupture will prove very
advantageous to you; but, for my part, I am far from regretting the
opportunity which it affords me of rebutting that stale charge of heresy with
which your writings abound. It is full time, indeed, that
I should, once for all, put a stop to the liberty you have taken to treat me
as a heretic—a piece of gratuitous impertinence which seems to increase by
indulgence, and which is exhibited in your last book in a style of such
intolerable assurance that, were I not to answer the charge as it deserves, I
might lay myself open to the suspicion of being actually guilty. So long as
the insult was confined to your associates I despised it, as I did a thousand
others with which they interlarded their productions. To these my Fifteenth
Letter was a sufficient reply. But you now repeat the charge with a different
air: you make it the main point of your vindication. It is, in fact, almost
the only thing in the shape of argument that you employ. You say that, “as a
complete answer to my fifteen letters, it is enough to say fifteen times that
I am a heretic; and, having been pronounced such, I deserve no credit.” In
short, you make no question of my apostasy, but assume it as a settled point,
on which you may build with all confidence. You are serious then, father, it
would seem, in deeming me a heretic. I shall be equally serious in replying
to the charge. You are well aware, sir, that
heresy is a charge of grave a character that it is an act of high presumption
to advance, without being prepared to substantiate it. I now demand your
proofs. When was I seen at Charenton? When did I fail in my presence at mass,
or in my Christian duty to my parish church? What act of union with heretics,
or of schism with the Church, can you lay to my charge? What council have I
contradicted? What papal constitution have I violated? You must answer,
father, else—You know what I mean. And what do you answer? I beseech all to
observe it: First of all, you assume “that the author of the letters is a
Port-Royalist”; then you tell us “that Port-Royal is declared to be
heretical”; and, therefore, you conclude, “the author of letters must be a
heretic.” It is not on me, then, father, that the weight of this indictment
falls, but on Port-Royal; and I am only involved in the crime because you
suppose me to belong to that establishment; so that it will be no difficult
matter for me to exculpate myself from the charge. I have no more to say than
that I am not a member of that community; and to refer you to my letters, in
which I have declared that “I am a private individual”; and again in so many
words, that “I am not of Port-Royal, as I said in my Sixteenth Letter, which
preceded your publication. You must fall on some other
way, then, to prove me heretic, otherwise the whole world will be convinced
that it is beyond your power to make good your accusation. Prove from my
writings that I do not receive the constitution. My letters are not very
voluminous—there are but sixteen of them—and I defy you or anybody else to
detect in them the slightest foundation for such a charge. I shall, however,
with your permission, produce something out of them to prove the reverse.
When, for example, I say in the Fourteenth that, “by killing our brethren in
mortal sin, according to your maxims, we are damning those for whom Jesus
Christ died, do I not plainly acknowledge that Jesus Christ died for those
who may be damned, and, consequently, declare it to be false “that he died
only for the predestinated,” which is the error condemned in the fifth
proposition? Certain it is, father, that I have not said a word in behalf of
these impious propositions, which I detest with all my heart. And even though
Port-Royal should hold them, I protest against your drawing any conclusion
from this against me, as, thank God, I have no sort of connection with any
community except the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church, in the bosom of
which I desire to live and die, in communion with the Pope, the head of the
Church, and beyond the pale of which I am persuaded there is no salvation. How are you to get at a person
who talks in this way, father? On what quarter will you assail me, since
neither my words nor my writings afford the slightest handle to your
accusations, and the obscurity in which my person is enveloped forms my
protection against your threatenings? You feel yourselves smitten by an
invisible hand—a hand, however, which makes your delinquencies visible to all
the earth; and in vain do you endeavour to attack me in the person of those
with whom you suppose me to be associated. I fear you not, either on my own
account or on that of any other, being bound by no tie either to a community
or to any individual whatsoever. All the influence which your Society
possesses can be of no avail in my case. From this world I have nothing to
hope, nothing to dread, nothing to desire. Through the goodness of God, I
have no need of any man’s money or any man’s patronage. Thus, my father, I
elude all your attempts to lay hold of me. You may touch Port-Royal, if you
choose, but you shall not touch me. You may turn people out of the Sorbonne,
but that will not turn me out of my domicile. You may contrive plots against
priests and doctors, but not against me, for I am neither the one nor the
other. And thus, father, you never perhaps had to do, in the whole course of
your experience, with a person so completely beyond your reach, and therefore
so admirably qualified for dealing with your errors—one perfectly free—one
without engagement, entanglement, relationship, or business of any kind—one,
too, who is pretty well versed in your maxims, and determined, as God shall
give him light, to discuss them, without permitting any earthly consideration
to arrest or slacken his endeavours. Since, then, you can do
nothing against me, what good purpose can it serve to publish so many
calumnies, as you and your brethren are doing, against a class of persons who
are in no way implicated in our disputes? You shall not escape under these
subterfuges: you shall be made to feel the force of the truth in spite of
them. How does the case stand? I tell you that you are ruining Christian
morality by divorcing it from the love of God, and dispensing with its
obligation; and you talk about “the death of Father Mester”—a person whom I
never saw in my life. I tell you that your authors permit a man to kill
another for the sake of an apple, when it would be dishonourable to lose it;
and you reply by informing me that somebody “has broken into the poor-box at
St. Merri!” Again, what can you possibly mean by mixing me up perpetually
with the book On the Holy Virginity, written by some father of the Oratory,
whom I never saw any more than his book? It is rather extraordinary, father,
that you should thus regard all that are opposed to you as if they were one
person. Your hatred would grasp them all at once, and would hold them as a
body of reprobates, every one of whom is responsible for all the rest. There is a vast difference
between Jesuits and all their opponents. There can be no doubt that you
compose one body, united under one head; and your regulations, as I have
shown, prohibit you from printing anything without the approbation of your
superiors, who are responsible for all the errors of individual writers, and
who “cannot excuse themselves by saying that they did not observe the errors
in any publication, for they ought to have observed them.” So say your
ordinances, and so say the letters of your generals, Aquaviva, Vitelleschi,
&c. We have good reason, therefore, for charging upon you the errors of
your associates, when we find they are sanctioned by your superiors and the
divines of your Society. With me, however, father, the case stands otherwise.
I have not subscribed to the book of the Holy Virginity. All the alms-boxes
in Paris may be broken into, and yet I am not the less a good Catholic for
all that. In short, I beg to inform you, in the plainest terms, that nobody
is responsible for my letters but myself, and that I am responsible for
nothing but my letters. Here, father, I might fairly
enough have brought our dispute to an issue, without saying a word about
those other persons whom you stigmatize as heretics, in order to comprehend
me under the condemnation. But, as I have been the occasion of their ill
treatment, I consider myself bound in some sort to improve the occasion, and
I shall take advantage of it in three particulars. One advantage, not
inconsiderable in its way, is that it will enable me to vindicate the
innocence of so many calumniated individuals. Another, not inappropriate to
my subject, will be to disclose, at the same time, the artifices of your
policy in this accusation. But the advantage which I prize most of all is
that it affords me an opportunity of apprising the world of the falsehood of
that scandalous report which you have been so busily disseminating, namely, “that
the Church is divided by a new heresy.” And as you are deceiving multitudes
into the belief that the points on which you are raising such a storm are
essential to the faith, I consider it of the last importance to quash these
unfounded impressions, and distinctly to explain here what these points are,
so as to show that, in point of fact, there are no heretics in the Church. I presume, then, that were the
question to be asked: Wherein consists the heresy of those called Jansenists?
the immediate reply would be, “These people hold that the commandments of God
are impracticable to men, that grace is irresistible, that we have not free
will to do either good or evil, that Jesus Christ did not die for all men,
but only for the elect; in short, they maintain the five propositions
condemned by the Pope.” Do you not give it out to all that this is the ground
on which you persecute your opponents? Have you not said as much in your
books, in your conversations, in your catechisms? A specimen of this you gave
at the late Christmas festival at St. Louis. One of your little shepherdesses
was questioned thus: “For whom did Jesus Christ
come into the world, my dear?” “For all men, father.” “Indeed, my child; so you are
not one of those new heretics who say that he came only for the elect?” Thus children are led to
believe you, and many others besides children; for you entertain people with
the same stuff in your sermons as Father Crasset did at Orleans, before he
was laid under an interdict. And I frankly own that, at one time, I believed
you myself. You had given me precisely the same idea of these good people; so
that, when you pressed them on these propositions, I narrowly watched their
answer, determined never to see them more, if they did not renounce them as
palpable impieties. This, however, they have done
in the most unequivocal way. M. de Sainte-Beuve, king’s professor in the
Sorbonne, censured these propositions in his published writings long before
the Pope; and other Augustinian doctors, in various publications, and, among
others, in a work On Victorious Grace, reject the same articles as both
heretical and strange doctrines. In the preface to that work they say that
these propositions are “heretical and Lutheran, forged and fabricated at
pleasure, and are neither to be found in Jansenius, nor in his defenders. “
They complain of being charged with such sentiments, and address you in the
words of St. Prosper, the first disciple of St. Augustine their master, to
whom the semi-Pelagians of France had ascribed similar opinions, with the
view of bringing him into disgrace: “There are persons who denounce us, so
blinded by passion that they have adopted means for doing so which ruin their
own reputation. They have, for this purpose, fabricated propositions of the
most impious and blasphemous character, which they industriously circulate,
to make people believe that we maintain them in the wicked sense which they
are pleased to attach to them. But our reply will show at once our innocence,
and the malignity of these persons who have ascribed to us a set of impious
tenets, of which they are themselves the sole inventors.” Truly, father, when I found
that they had spoken in this way before the appearance of the papal
constitution—when I saw that they afterwards received that decree with all
possible respect, that they offered to subscribe it, and that M. Arnauld had
declared all this in his second letter, in stronger terms than I can report
him, I should have considered it a sin to doubt their soundness in the faith.
And, in fact, those who were formerly disposed to refuse absolution to M.
Arnauld’s friends, have since declared that, after his explicit disclaimer of
the errors imputed to him, there was no reason left for cutting off either
him or them from the communion of the Church. Your associates, however, have
acted very differently; and it was this that made me begin to suspect that
you were actuated by prejudice. You threatened first to compel
them to sign that constitution, so long as you thought they would resist it;
but no sooner did you see them quite ready of their own accord to submit to
it than we heard no more about this. Still however, though one might suppose
this ought to have satisfied you, you persisted in calling them heretics,
“because,” said you, “their heart belies their hand; they are Catholics
outwardly, but inwardly they are heretics.” This, father, struck me as
very strange reasoning; for where is the person of whom as much may not be
said at any time? And what endless trouble and confusion would ensue, were it
allowed to go on! “If,” says Pope St. Gregory, “we refuse to believe a
confession of faith made in conformity to the sentiments of the Church, we
cast a doubt over the faith of all Catholics whatsoever.” I am afraid,
father, to use the words of the same pontiff when speaking of a similar
dispute this time, “that your object is to make these persons heretics in
spite of themselves; because to refuse to credit those who testify by their
confession that they are in the true faith, is not to purge heresy, but to
create it—hoc non est haeresim purgare, sed facere.” But what confirmed me in
my persuasion that there was, indeed, no heretic in the Church, was finding
that our so-called heretics had vindicated themselves so successfully that
you were unable to accuse them of a single error in the faith, and that you
were reduced to the necessity of assailing them on questions of fact only,
touching Jansenius, which could not possibly be construed into heresy. You
insist, it now appears, on their being compelled to acknowledge “that these
propositions are contained in Jansenius, word for word, every one of them, in
so many terms,” or, as you express it, “Singulares, individuae, totidem
verbis apud Jansenium contentae.” Thenceforth your dispute
became, in my eyes, perfectly indifferent. So long as I believed that you
were debating the truth or falsehood of the propositions, I was all
attention, for that quarrel touched the faith; but when I discovered that the
bone of contention was whether they were to be found word for word in
Jansenius or not, as religion ceased to be interested in the controversy, I
ceased to be interested in it also. Not but that there was some presumption
that you were speaking the truth; because to say that such and such
expressions are to be found word for word in an author, is a matter in which
there can be no mistake. I do not wonder, therefore, that so many people,
both in France and at Rome, should have been led to believe, on the authority
of a phrase so little liable to suspicion, that Jansenius has actually taught
these obnoxious tenets. And, for the same reason, I was not a little
surprised to learn that this same point of fact, which you had propounded as
so certain and so important, was false; and that, after being challenged to
quote the pages of Jansenius in which you had found these propositions “word
for word,” you have not been able to point them out to this day. I am the more particular in
giving this statement, because, in my opinion, it discovers, in a very
striking light, the spirit of your Society in the whole of this affair; and
because some people will be astonished to find that, notwithstanding all the
facts above mentioned, you have not ceased to publish that they are heretics
still. But you have only altered the heresy to suit the time; for no sooner
had they freed themselves from one charge than your fathers, determined that
they should never want an accusation, substituted another in its place. Thus,
in 1653, their heresy lay in the quality of the propositions; then came the
word for word heresy; after that we had the heart heresy. And now we hear
nothing of any of these, and they must be heretics, forsooth, unless they
sign a declaration to the effect “that the sense of the doctrine of Jansenius
is contained in the sense of the five propositions.” Such is your present dispute.
It is not enough for you that they condemn the five propositions, and
everything in Jansenius that bears any resemblance to them, or is contrary to
St. Augustine; for all that they have done already. The point at issue is
not, for example, if Jesus Christ died for the elect only—they condemn that
as much as you do; but, is Jansenius of that opinion, or not? And here I
declare, more strongly than ever, that your quarrel affects me as little as it
affects the Church. For although I am no doctor, any more than you, father, I
can easily see, nevertheless, that it has no connection with the faith. The
only question is to ascertain what is the sense of Jansenius. Did they
believe that his doctrine corresponded to the proper and literal sense of
these propositions, they would condemn it; and they refuse to do so, because
they are convinced it is quite the reverse; so that, although they should
misunderstand it, still they would not be heretics, seeing they understand it
only in a Catholic sense. To illustrate this by an
example, I may refer to the conflicting sentiments of St. Basil and St.
Athanasius, regarding the writings of St. Denis of Alexandria, which St.
Basil, conceiving that he found in them the sense of Arius against the
equality of the Father and the Son, condemned as heretical, but which St.
Athanasius, on the other hand, judging them to contain the genuine sense of
the Church, maintained to be perfectly orthodox. Think you, then, father, that
St. Basil, who held these writings to be Arian, had a right to brand St.
Athanasius as a heretic because he defended them? And what ground would he
have had for so doing, seeing that it was not Arianism that his brother
defended, but the true faith which he considered these writings to contain?
Had these two saints agreed about the true sense of these writings, and had
both recognized this heresy in them, unquestionably St. Athanasius could not
have approved of them without being guilty of heresy; but as they were at
variance respecting the sense of the passage, St. Athanasius was orthodox in
vindicating them, even though he may have understood them wrong; because in
that case it would have been merely an error in a matter of fact, and because
what he defended was really the Catholic faith, which he supposed to be
contained in these writings. I apply this to you, father.
Suppose you were agreed upon the sense of Jansenius, and your adversaries
were ready to admit with you that he held, for example, that grace cannot be
resisted, those who refused to condemn him would be heretical. But as your
dispute turns upon the meaning of that author, and they believe that,
according to this doctrine, grace may be resisted, whatever heresy you may be
pleased to attribute to him, you have no ground to brand them as heretics,
seeing they condemn the sense which you put on Jansenius, and you dare not
condemn the sense which they put on him. If, therefore, you mean to convict
them, show that the sense which they ascribe to Jansenius is heretical; for
then they will be heretical themselves. But how could you accomplish this,
since it is certain, according to your own showing, that the meaning which
they give to his language has never been condemned? To elucidate the point still
further, I shall assume as a principle what you yourselves acknowledge—that
the doctrine of efficacious grace has never been condemned, and that the pope
has not touched it by his constitution. And, in fact, when he proposed to
pass judgement on the five propositions, the question of efficacious grace
was protected against all censure. This is perfectly evident from the
judgements of the consulters to whom the Pope committed them for examination.
These judgements I have in my possession, in common with many other persons
in Paris, and, among the rest, the Bishop of Montpelier, who brought them
from Rome. It appears from this document that they were divided in their
sentiments; that the chief persons among them, such as the Master of the
Sacred Palace, the commissary of the Holy Office, the General of the
Augustinians, and others, conceiving that these propositions might be
understood in the sense of efficacious grace, were of opinion that they ought
not to be censured; whereas the rest, while they agreed that the propositions
would not have merited condemnation had they borne that sense, judged that
they ought to be censured, because, as they contended, this was very far from
being their proper and natural sense. The Pope, accordingly, condemned them;
and all parties have acquiesced in his judgement. It is certain, then, father,
that efficacious grace has not been condemned. Indeed, it is so powerfully
supported by St. Augustine, by St. Thomas, and all his school, by a great
many popes and councils, and by all tradition, that to tax it with heresy
would be an act of impiety. Now, all those whom you condemn as heretics
declare that they find nothing in Jansenius, but this doctrine of efficacious
grace. And this was the only point which they maintained at Rome. You have
acknowledged this yourself when you declare that “when pleading before the
pope, they did not say a single word about the propositions, but occupied the
whole time in talking about efficacious grace.” So that, whether they be
right or wrong in this supposition, it is undeniable, at least, that what
they suppose to be the sense is not heretical sense; and that, consequently,
they are no heretics; for, to state the matter in two words, either Jansenius
has merely taught the doctrine of efficacious grace, and in this case he has
no errors; or he has taught some other thing, and in this case he has no
defenders. The whole question turns on ascertaining whether Jansenius has
actually maintained something different from efficacious grace; and, should
it be found that he has, you will have the honour of having better understood
him, but they will not have the misfortune of having erred from the faith. It is matter of thankfulness
to God, then, father, that there is in reality no heresy in the Church. The
question relates entirely to a point of fact, of which no heresy can be made;
for the Church, with divine authority, decides the points of faith, and cuts
off from her body all who refuse to receive them. But she does not act in the
same manner in regard to matters of fact. And the reason is that our
salvation is attached to the faith which has been revealed to us, and which
is preserved in the Church by tradition, but that it has no dependence on
facts which have not been revealed by God. Thus we are bound to believe that
the commandments of God are not impracticable; but we are under no obligation
to know what Jansenius has said upon that subject. In the determination of
points of faith, God guides the Church by the aid of His unerring Spirit;
whereas in matters of fact He leaves her to the direction of reason and the
senses, which are the natural judges of such matters. None but God was able
to instruct the Church in the faith; but to learn whether this or that
proposition is contained in Jansenius, all we require to do is to read his
book. And from hence it follows that, while it is heresy to resist the
decisions of the faith, because this amounts to an opposing of our own spirit
to the Spirit of God, it is no heresy, though it may be an act of
presumption, to disbelieve certain particular facts, because this is no more
than opposing reason—it may be enlightened reason—to an authority which is
great indeed, but in this matter not infailible. What I have now advanced is
admitted by all theologians, as appears from the following axiom of Cardinal
Bellarmine, a member of your Society: “General and lawful councils are
incapable of error in defining the dogmas of faith; but they may err in
questions of fact.” In another place he says: “The pope, as pope, and even as
the head of a universal council, may err in particular controversies of fact,
which depend principally on the information and testimony of men.” Cardinal
Baronius speaks in the same manner: “Implicit submission is due to the
decisions of councils in points of faith; but, in so far as persons and their
writings are concerned, the censures which have been pronounced against them
have not been so rigourously observed, because there is none who may not
chance to be deceived in such matters.” I may add that, to prove this point,
the Archbishop of Toulouse has deduced the following rule from the letters of
two great popes—St. Leon and Pelagius II: “That the proper object of councils
is the faith; and whatsoever is determined by them, independently of the
faith, may be reviewed and examined anew: whereas nothing ought to be
re-examined that has been decided in a matter of faith; because, as
Tertullian observes, the rule of faith alone is immovable and irrevocable.” Hence it has been seen that,
while general and lawful councils have never contradicted one another in
points of faith, because, as M. de Toulouse has said, “it is not allowable to
examine de novo decisions in matters of faith”; several instances have occurred
in which these same councils have disagreed in points of fact, where the
discussion turned upon the sense of an author; because, as the same prelate
observes, quoting the popes as his authorities, “everything determined in
councils, not referring to the faith, may be reviewed and examined de novo.”
An example of this contrariety was furnished by the fourth and fifth
councils, which differed in their interpretation of the same authors. The
same thing happened in the case of two popes, about a proposition maintained
by certain monks of Scythia. Pope Hormisdas, understanding it in a bad sense,
had condemned it; but Pope John II, his successor, upon re-examining the
doctrine understood it in a good sense, approved it, and pronounced it to be
orthodox. Would you say that for this reason one of these popes was a
heretic? And must you not consequently acknowledge that, provided a person
condemn the heretical sense which a pope may have ascribed to a book, he is
no heretic because he declines condemning that book, while he understands it
in a sense which it is certain the pope has not condemned? If this cannot be
admitted, one of these popes must have fallen into error. I have been anxious to
familiarize you with these discrepancies among Catholics regarding questions
of fact, which involve the understanding of the sense of a writer, showing
you father against father, pope against pope, and council against council, to
lead you from these to other examples of opposition, similar in their nature,
but somewhat more disproportioned in respect of the parties concerned. For,
in the instances I am now to adduce, you will see councils and popes ranged
on one side, and Jesuits on the other; and yet you have never charged your
brethren for this opposition even with presumption, much less with heresy. You are well aware, father,
that the writings of Origen were condemned by a great many popes and
councils, and particularly by the fifth general council, as chargeable with
certain heresies, and, among others, that of the reconciliation of the devils
at the day of judgement. Do you suppose that, after this, it became
absolutely imperative, as a test of Catholicism, to confess that Origen
actually maintained these errors, and that it is not enough to condemn them,
without attributing them to him? If this were true, what would become of your
worthy Father Halloix, who has asserted the purity of Origen’s faith, as well
as many other Catholics who have attempted the same thing, such as Pico
Mirandola, and Genebrard, doctor of the Sorbonne? Is it not, moreover, a
certain fact, that the same fifth general council condemned the writings of
Theodoret against St. Cyril, describing them as impious, “contrary to the
true faith, and tainted with the Nestorian heresy”? And yet this has not prevented
Father Sirmond, a Jesuit, from defending him, or from saying, in his life of
that father, that “his writings are entirely free from the heresy of
Nestorius.” It is evident, therefore, that
as the Church, in condemning a book, assumes that the error which she
condemns is contained in that book, it is a point of faith to hold that error
as condemned; but it is not a point of faith to hold that the book, in fact,
contains the error which the Church supposes it does. Enough has been said, I
think, to prove this; I shall, therefore, conclude my examples by referring
to that of Pope Honorius, the history of which is so well known. At the
commencement of the seventh century, the Church being troubled by the heresy
of the Monothelites, that pope, with the view of terminating the controversy,
passed a decree which seemed favourable to these heretics, at which many took
offence. The affair, nevertheless, passed over without making much
disturbance during his pontificate; but fifty years after, the Church being
assembled in the sixth general council, in which Pope Agathon presided by his
legates, this decree was impeached, and, after being read and examined, was
condemned as containing the heresy of the Monothelites, and under that
character burnt, in open court, along with the other writings of these
heretics. Such was the respect paid to this decision, and such the unanimity
with which it was received throughout the whole Church, that it was
afterwards ratified by two other general councils, and likewise by two popes,
Leo II and Adrian II, the latter of whom lived two hundred years after it had
passed; and this universal and harmonious agreement remained undisturbed for
seven or eight centuries. Of late years, however, some authors, and among the
rest Cardinal Bellarmine, without seeming to dread the imputation of heresy,
have stoutly maintained, against all this array of popes and councils, that
the writings of Honorius are free from the error which had been ascribed to
them; “because,” says the cardinal, “general councils being liable to err in
questions of fact, we have the best grounds for asserting the sixth council
was mistaken with regard to the fact now under consideration; and that,
misconceiving the sense of the Letters of Honorius, it has placed this pope most
unjustly in the rank of heretics.” Observe, then, I pray you, father, that a
man is not heretical for saying that Pope Honorius was not a heretic; even
though a great many popes and councils, after examining his writings, should
have declared that he was so. I now come to the question
before us, and shall allow you to state your case as favourably as you can.
What will you then say, father, in order to stamp your opponents as heretics?
That “Pope Innocent X has declared that the error of the five propositions is
to be found in Jansenius?” I grant you that; what inference do you draw from
it? That “it is heretical to deny that the error of the five propositions is
to be found in Jansenius?” How so, father? Have we not here a question of
fact exactly similar to the preceding examples? The Pope has declared that
the error of the five propositions is contained in Jansenius, in the same way
as his predecessors decided that the errors of the Nestorians and the
Monothelites polluted the pages of Theodoret and Honorius. In the latter
case, your writers hesitate not to say that, while they condemn the heresies,
they do not allow that these authors actually maintained them; and, in like
manner, your opponents now say that they condemn the five propositions, but
cannot admit that Jansenius has taught them. Truly, the two cases are as like
as they could well be; and, if there be any disparity between them, it is
easy to see how far it must go in favour of the present question, by a
comparison of many particular circumstances, which as they are self-evident,
I do not specify. How comes it to pass, then, that when placed in precisely
the same predicament, your friends are Catholics and your opponents heretics?
On what strange principle of exception do you deprive the latter of a liberty
which you freely award to all the rest of the faithful? What answer will you
make to this, father? Will you say, “The pope has confirmed his constitution
by a brief.” To this I would reply, that two general councils and two popes
confirmed the condemnation of the letters of Honorius. But what argument do
you found upon the language of that brief, in which all that the Pope says is
that “he has condemned the doctrine of Jansenius in these five propositions”?
What does that add to the constitution, or what more can you infer from it?
Nothing, certainly, except that as the sixth council condemned the doctrine
of Honorius, in the belief that it was the same with that of the
Monothelites, so the Pope has said that he has condemned the doctrine of Jansenius
in these five propositions, because he was led to suppose it was the same
with that of the five propositions. And how could he do otherwise than
suppose it? Your Society published nothing else; and you yourself, father,
who have asserted that the said propositions were in that author “word for
word,” happened to be in Rome (for I know all your motions) at the time when
the censure was passed. Was he to distrust the sincerity or the competence of
so many grave ministers of religion? And how could he help being convinced of
the fact, after the assurance which you had given him that the propositions
were in that author “word for word”? It is evident, therefore, that in the
event of its being found that Jansenius has not supported these doctrines, it
would be wrong to say, as your writers have done in the cases before
mentioned, that the Pope has deceived himself in this point of fact, which it
is painful and offensive to publish at any time; the proper phrase is that
you have deceived the Pope, which, as you are now pretty well known, will
create no scandal. Determined, however, to have a
heresy made out, let it cost what it may, you have attempted, by the
following manoeuvre, to shift the question from the point of fact, and make
it bear upon a point of faith. “The Pope,” say you, “declares that he has
condemned the doctrine of Jansenius in these five propositions; therefore it
is essential to the faith to hold that the doctrine of Jansenius touching
these five propositions is heretical, let it be what it may.” Here is a
strange point of faith, that a doctrine is heretical be what it may. What! if
Jansenius should happen to maintain that “we are capable of resisting
internal grace” and that “it is false to say that Jesus Christ died for the
elect only,” would this doctrine be condemned just because it is his
doctrine? Will the proposition, that “man has a freedom of will to do good or
evil,” be true when found in the Pope’s constitution, and false when
discovered in Jansenius? By what fatality must he be reduced to such a
predicament, that truth, when admitted into his book, becomes heresy? You
must confess, then, that he is only heretical on the supposition that he is
friendly to the errors condemned, seeing that the constitution of the Pope is
the rule which we must apply to Jansenius, to judge if his character answer
the description there given of him; and, accordingly, the question, “Is his
doctrine heretical?” must be resolved by another question of fact, “Does it
correspond to the natural sense of these propositions?” as it must
necessarily be heretical if it does correspond to that sense, and must
necessarily be orthodox if it be of an opposite character. For, in one word,
since, according to the Pope and the bishops, “the propositions are condemned
in their proper and natural sense,” they cannot possibly be condemned in the
sense of Jansenius, except on the understanding that the sense of Jansenius
is the same with the proper and natural sense of these propositions; and this
I maintain to be purely a question of fact. The question, then, still
rests upon the point of fact, and cannot possibly be tortured into one
affecting the faith. But though incapable of twisting it into a matter of
heresy, you have it in your power to make it a pretext for persecution, and
might, perhaps, succeed in this, were there not good reason to hope that
nobody will be found so blindly devoted to your interests as to countenance
such a disgraceful proceeding, or inclined to compel people, as you wish to
do, to sign a declaration that they condemn these propositions in the sense
of Jansenius, without explaining what the sense of Jansenius is. Few people
are disposed to sign a blank confession of faith. Now this would really be to
sign one of that description, leaving you to fill up the blank afterwards
with whatsoever you pleased, as you would be at liberty to interpret
according to your own taste the unexplained sense of Jansenius. Let it be
explained, then, beforehand, otherwise we shall have, I fear, another version
of your proximate power, without any sense at all—abstrahendo ab omni sensu.
This mode of proceeding, you must be aware, does not take with the world. Men
in general detest all ambiguity, especially in the matter of religion, where
it is highly reasonable that one should know at least what one is asked to
condemn. And how is it possible for doctors, who are persuaded that Jansenius
can bear no other sense than that of efficacious grace, to consent to declare
that they condemn his doctrine without explaining it, since, with their
present convictions, which no means are used to alter, this would be neither
more nor less than to condemn efficacious grace, which cannot be condemned
without sin? Would it not, therefore, be a piece of monstrous tyranny to
place them in such an unhappy dilemma that they must either bring guilt upon
their souls in the sight of God, by signing that condemnation against their
consciences, or be denounced as heretics for refusing to sign it? But there is a mystery under
all this. You Jesuits cannot move a step without a stratagem. It remains for
me to explain why you do not explain the sense of Jansenius. The sole purpose
of my writing is to discover your designs, and, by discovering, to frustrate
them. I must, therefore, inform those who are not already aware of the fact
that your great concern in this dispute being to uphold the sufficient grace
of your Molina, you could not effect this without destroying the efficacious
grace which stands directly opposed to it. Perceiving, however, that the latter
was now sanctioned at Rome and by all the learned in the Church, and unable
to combat the doctrine on its own merits, you resolved to attack it in a
clandestine way, under the name of the doctrine of Jansenius. You were
resolved, accordingly, to get Jansenius condemned without explanation; and,
to gain your purpose, gave out that his doctrine was not that of efficacious
grace, so that every one might think he was at liberty to condemn the one
without denying the other. Hence your efforts, in the present day, to impress
this idea upon the minds of such as have no acquaintance with that author; an
object which you yourself, father, have attempted, by means of the following
ingenious syllogism: “The pope has condemned the doctrine of Jansenius; but
the pope has not condemned efficacious grace: therefore, the doctrine of
efficacious grace must be different from that of Jansenius.” If this mode of
reasoning were conclusive, it might be demonstrated in the same way that
Honorius and all his defenders are heretics of the same kind. “The sixth
council has condemned the doctrine of Honorius; but the council has not
condemned the doctrine of the Church: therefore the doctrine of Honorius is
different from that of the Church; and therefore, all who defend him are heretics.”
It is obvious that no conclusion can be drawn from this; for the Pope has
done no more than condemn the doctrine of the five propositions, which was
represented to him as the doctrine of Jansenius. But it matters not; you have
no intention to make use of this logic for any length of time. Poor as it is,
it will last sufficiently long to serve your present turn. All that you wish
to effect by it, in the meantime, is to induce those who are unwilling to
condemn efficacious grace to condemn Jansenius with less scruple. When this
object has been accomplished, your argument will soon be forgotten, and their
signatures, remaining as an eternal testimony in condemnation of Jansenius,
will furnish you with an occasion to make a direct attack upon efficacious
grace by another mode of reasoning much more solid than the former, which
shall be forthcoming in proper time. “The doctrine of Jansenius,” you will
argue, “has been condemned by the universal subscriptions of the Church. Now
this doctrine is manifestly that of efficacious grace” (and it will be easy
for you to prove that); “therefore the doctrine of efficacious grace is
condemned even by the confession of his defenders.” Behold your reason for
proposing to sign the condemnation of a doctrine without giving an
explanation of it! Behold the advantage you expect to gain from subscriptions
thus procured! Should your opponents, however, refuse to subscribe, you have
another trap laid for them. Having dexterously combined the question of faith
with that of fact, and not allowing them to separate between them, nor to
sign the one without the other, the consequence will be that, because they
could not subscribe the two together, you will publish it in all directions
that they have refused the two together. And thus though, in point of fact,
they simply decline acknowledging that Jansenius has maintained the
propositions which they condemn, which cannot be called heresy, you will
boldly assert that they have refused to condemn the propositions themselves,
and that it is this that constitutes their heresy. Such is the fruit which you
expect to reap from their refusal, and which will be no less useful to you
than what you might have gained from their consent. So that, in the event of
these signatures being exacted, they will fall into your snares, whether they
sign or not, and in both cases you will gain your point; such is your
dexterity in uniformly putting matters into a train for your own advantage,
whatever bias they may happen to take in their course! How well I know you, father!
and how grieved am I to see that God has abandoned you so far as to allow you
such happy success in such an unhappy course! Your good fortune deserves
commiseration, and can excite envy only in the breasts of those who know not
what truly good fortune is. It is an act of charity to thwart the success you
aim at in the whole of this proceeding, seeing that you can only reach it by
the aid of falsehood, and by procuring credit to one of two lies either that
the Church has condemned efficacious grace, or that those who defend that
doctrine maintain the five condemned errors. The world must, therefore, be
apprised of two facts: first, That by your own confession, efficacious grace
has not been condemned; and secondly, That nobody supports these errors. So
that it may be known that those who refuse to sign what you are so anxious to
exact from them, refuse merely in consideration of the question of fact, and
that, being quite ready to subscribe that of faith, they cannot be deemed
heretical on that account; because, to repeat it once more, though it be
matter of faith to believe these propositions to be heretical, it will never
be matter of faith to hold that they are to be found in the pages of
Jansenius. They are innocent of all error; that is enough. It may be that
they interpret Jansenius too favourably; but it may be also that you do not
interpret him favourably enough. I do not enter upon this question. All that
I know is that, according to your maxims, you believe that you may, without
sin, publish him to be a heretic contrary to your own knowledge; whereas,
according to their maxims, they cannot, without sin, declare him to be a
Catholic, unless they are persuaded that he is one. They are, therefore, more
honest than you, father; they have examined Jansenius more faithfully than
you; they are no less intelligent than you; they are, therefore, no less
credible witnesses than you. But come what may of this point of fact, they
are certainly Catholics; for, in order to be so, it is not necessary to
declare that another man is not a Catholic; it is enough, in all conscience,
if a person, without charging error upon anybody else, succeed in discharging
himself. Reverend
Father, if you have found any difficulty in deciphering this letter, which is
certainly not printed in the best possible type, blame nobody but yourself.
Privileges are not so easily granted to me as they are to you. You can
procure them even for the purpose of combating miracles; I cannot have them
even to defend myself. The printing-houses are perpetually haunted. In such
circumstances, you yourself would not advise me to write you any more
letters, for it is really a sad annoyance to be obliged to have recourse to
an Osnabruck impression. |
Blaise Pascal |
