LETTER V

Betweon 25 Pebruary and 20 March the storm gathered which was to break upon Port-Royal. Doctors and bachelors who refused to subscribe to Arnauld's censure were expelled from the Sorbonue. The Court determined to break up the boys' school and to remove the Solitaries. On 18 March "on commença à déménager ". The children, Jean Racine among them, were sent home. The nuns were left alone to their prayers and tears.

Thèse circumstances explain the bitter tone of Pascal's new Letter. Arnauld, who was hiding in Paris, supplied him with material, and introduced him to Escobar.

P. 42, 1. 7. The Imago primi saeculi societatis Jesu a Provincia Flandro Beîgica eiusdem societatis repraesentata was printed by the Plantin press, and published at Antwerp in 1640. It was a mémorial volume for the centenary of the founding of the Order, and is a farrago of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew which has been condemned for its extravagance and want of taste even by friends of the Society. Cf. A. Brou, Les Jésuites de la légende (1906), t. i., p. 364.

P. 42, 1. 10. Isaïe. Cf. Is. xviii. 2.

P. 43, 1. â. aussi sévères. Is Pascal serions hère, or is he merely using a rhetorical device, setting up Jesuit severity to be knocked down by his friend in the next paragraph ? As a matter of fact strict Jesuits were not rare ; but Pascal takes the Society at its worst. He was not bound to take it at its best, for he honestly believed its prlnciples to be rotten.

P. 43, 1. 3. il me découvrit l'esprit de la Société. Hère is where Pascal goes wrong. He does not accuse the Jesuits of deliberately corrupting morals, but of deliberately allowing laxity, with a political object, viz., the aggrandizement of their own power and influence. He does not prove the charge.

P. 43, 1. 14. ils n'en souffriraient pas. " En " refers to " pères," *• y " to " maximes évangéliques " in 1. 16. Trs. " They would not suffer such amongst them as are so opposed to the Gospel ".

P. 43, 1. 23. satis l'aveu de leurs Supérieurs. Cf. Letter IX., where the thème is developed.

P. 44, 1. 12. obligeante et accommodante. The expression in question, which de Sacy had already ridiculed in his ninth Enlumineure, occura in Petau's De la pénitence publique et de la préparation à la Communion, contre le livre de M. Amauld (La Fréquente Communion), Paris, 1644. Jésus is "si accommodant"; the method of the doctors of mystical theology is " obligeante et raisonnable ".

P. 44, 1. 12. le P. Petau. Denis Petau (1583-1652) was a great scholar and theologian, the fellow student of Saint-Cyran and the friend of Casaubon. Ho was professer of philosophy at Bourges at the âge of niueteen, and afterwards at Paris, where he won such famé that according to the atory the fiiat visit of certain Polish ambassadors in

1645 was to the Jesuit Collège which they entered crying " Volumus videre clarissimum Petavium ! " He was indeed one of those who justify Selden's remark : " The Jesuits and the Lawyers of France and the Low-country men hâve engrossed ail learning ". His Bationarium temporum was translated into French and English and continued down to 1745,

P. 44, 1. 30. un Dieu crucifié. Cf. 1 Cor. i. 23.

P. 44, 1. 31. le scandale de la Croix. Cf. Gai. v. 11.

P. 44, 1. 36. enseignent de rapporter. Cf. Haase, § 112, s.v. " enseigner" (p. 289).

P. 44, 1. 38. Chacim-choan is obviously Ch'eng-Huang, the tutelary deity, sometimes called guardian angel, of every Chinese city. The name means " Wall-moat ".

P. 44, 1. 88. Keum-fucum is Confucius.

P. 44, 1. 88. Gravina, a Neapolitan who died at Kome in 1643.

P. 44, 1. 42. Thomas Hurtado. Franciscan " regular ", professer of theology at Rome, died 1659. The work of Hurtado from which Pascal quotes is Resolutiones orthodoxo-morales de vero . . . catholico martyrio fidei, sanguine sanctorum rubricato . . . quibus junguntur digressiones . . . de restrictione mentali (Cologne, 1655). It was written in reply to the Jesuit Théophile Raynaud's De Martyrio per pestem, Lyons, 1630. Raynaud maintained that a missionary's death by plague was martyrdom : Hurtado, that a martyr must hâve shed his blood for the Faith. Hurtado's sixty-ninth Resolutio considered utrum in catecJiesi Indorum et Chinesium crucis mysterium ante baptismum debeat edoceri, et Christi crucifixi imago in pitblico monstrari. He reproaches the Jesuit missionaries with the practices described by Pascal, and quotes in support a report addressed to Philip IV. by Capuchins (not Cordeliers) of the Philippines. The genuineness of this report, which Hurtado claims to hâve been communicated to him by a Capuchin friar of Seville, has been questioned but not disproved, and it is a fact that the practices denounced in it were expressly condemned by the Congrégation de propaganda in 1645. Pascal quotes accurately from Hurtado, and the two slips which he makes (Cordeliers, and 9 July, 1646, the date of the copy, instead of 12 September, 1645, the date of the original decree) are trifiing. The Roman Curia withdrew its strictures in May, 1656, two months after Pascal's Letber, but they were renewed in 1674, 1704, 1710, and 1716.

The fact of the matter is that the Jesuits in China, fortified by Elisha's permission to Naaman to " bow down in the house of Rimmon," tolerated and "baptized" many heathen practices. In doing so, they only followed or extended the advice given by Gregory the Great to Mellitus. Cf. Beda, Hist. Eccl, i., 30.

For the whole story of the "Rites Controversy" of. Brou, op. cit., t. ii., p. 49 ff. Jacqueline Pascal remembers her brother's Letter when à propos of devices for avoiding subscription to the Formulary of 1661 (see Introduction, p. xxxv) she writes, " quelle différence . . . entre ces

KOTES 265

deguisomens et donner de l'encens i\ une idole sous prétexte d'une croix qu'on a dans sa manche ? " (Lettre à la Mère Angélique, 22 June, 1661).

P. 45, 1. 10. Caponi. It has bceu objected that tliere was no Cardinal of this name ; but there was a " cardinal prieat " (i.e. a priest in charge of one of tho parish churches instituted by Pope Marcellus in a.d. 304), named Aloysio Caponi. See Molinier, ad. loc.

P. 45, 1. 12. ojnnions probables. See Introduction, pp. xxix ff.

P. 45, 1. 21. au sujet, i.e. tho peraon who is subject to the rule.

P. 45, 1. 23. la loy du Seigneur. Cf. Ps. xix. 7. It must be remembered that Probabilists to-day expressly recognize the higher law of God which overrides ail doubtful ca^es.

P. 45, 1. 37. d'autres vertîis, i.e. virtues other than merely natural onea.

P. 45, 1. 38. gtterir les vices par d^autres vices, e.g. to cover the sin of idolatry by that of dissimulation.

P. 45, 1. 41. la raison, i.e. the light of nature.

P. 46, 1. 11. J'estimay . . . de. For this construction cf. " M. qui tant dit qu'il l'estime de deux choses : l'une est d'être bon cocher," etc. (Mme de Sévigné).

P. 46, 1. 18. du temps où nous sommes, i.e. Lent.

P. 46, 1. 27. Collation etc. Fasting in the Roman Catholic Church consiats essentially in eating but one full meal in twenty-four hours, and that about noon. Besides the one meal a " collation " is permitted, generally taken in the evening. The hour for the midday meal and for the collation may for good reason be Inverted without violence to conscience.

P. 46, 1. 33. Escobar. Antonio de Escobar y Mendoza, 1589-1669. His Examen de Gonfessores y practica de Pénitentes went through thirty-sevea éditions ia Spanish before it was translated into Latin under the title Liber Tfieologiae Moralis XXIV. societatis Jesîi doctoribus reseratus.

The frontispieoe to which Pascal refers first ocours in the third édition, Lyons, 1644 (see plate).

The work was well suited to Pascal's purpose, as the " cases " cited are ail decided by Jesuits. The author did not personally merlt the odium which Pascal's Satire won for him. He was a man of blameless life. But his name, thauks to the Provinciales, has enriched the French language with a synonym for hypocrite. Cf. La Fontaine, Ballade à Amauld (1664) ; Dict. de VAcad. ; Littré, s.v. " escobarder, escobarderie ".

P. 46, 1. 37. celuy de V Apocalypse. Cf. Rev. iv. 4, 6; v. 1, 6.

P. 46, 1. 3S. animaux. The original word is ^yo. Latin " auimantia ". Pascal, not without mischief, prefers a word of less dignity than " êtres vivants".

P. 46, 1. 38. Suaree. Francisco Suarez (1648-1617). He taught philosophy and theology in half a dozen cities, including Paris, Rome, and Salamauca, and was the chief propounder of the subtle theory known

as Congruism, according to which God bestows on those who by his decree are not fit for congruous or efficacious grâce an incongruous grâce, which because their wills are bad will never become eiïicacious. The learning and piefcy of Suarez were unbounded. Paul V. invited him to Write against the oath of allegiance required of his subjects by James I. He did so, and his Defensio CathoUcae fidei contra anglicanae sectae errores was burnt not only by James but by the Parlement of Paris (1814:) as inimical to royal prérogative. The Jesuits in France were at the same time commanded to teach a contrary doctrine.

P. 46, 1. 39. Vasquez: Gabriel Vâsquez (1549-1604). He taught for twenty-nine years at Rome and won for himself the title of the Aagustine of Spain from his contemporaries, and of '• Lumen theologiae " from Benedict XIV. He commented largely on St. Thomas and on St. Paul's Epistles.

P. 46, 1. 39. Valentia: Gregorio Valentia (1551-1603), professor in turn at Rome, Dillingen, and Ingoldstadt. In 1598 he was recalled to Rome by Clément VIII. to occupy the chair of theology at the Roman Collège. He took an active part in the Congrégation De Auxiliis (see Introduction, p. xvi), but succumbed before the terrifie éloquence of the Dominican champion Tomâs de Lemos, and died the next year.

P. 46, 1. 42. cet ouvrage. See critical note. " Ouvrage " was generally of both genders till the seventeenth century, and is still féminine in popular usage.

P. 47, 1. 17. 071 le peut, etc. Because drunkenness violâtes the duty of tempérance, but not the rule of fasting.

P. 47, 1. 18. de Vhypocras = " spiced wine ". Escobar allows " clarea seu hipocras seu aloxa" (a mixture of honey and water and spices), but not milk, which is a food and breaks the fast. He goes on to discuss the question of chocolaté, and décides that it too is a food.

P. 47, 1. 19. honneste homme, in the 17th cent, sensé of " gentleman ".

P. 47, 1. 33. Filiutius. Vicentio Filiucci (1566-1622), professor of philosophy and mathematics at Siena, and of moral theology in the Jesuit collège at Rome, for whose benefit the Morales Quaestiones (Lyons, 1622) were composed. Pascal has been generally blamed, even by Sainte-Beuve (P.E., t. iii., 123) for omitting an ail-important réservation made by Filiucci, viz. that although the person of this particular " case " would not bave been guilty of breaking his fast, he would still be guilty of sin in pursuing an evil object. But Pascal has the example of Escobar himself in making the omission, and what is omitted bythefellowCasuist may fairlybe omitted by the controversialist. Cf. Strowski, Pascal et son temps, t. iii., pp. 98 ff. Apologists for the Jesuits further call out that Pascal not only makes Filiucci coudone debauchery but even allow a man deliberately to seek an occasion for sinning, whereas he expressly states that fatigue counted for the purpose of escaping the obligation to fast is to be regarded as sinful. But Pascal does nothing of the sort. He merely sets in relief the disproportion of the Casuist's décision whereby the breaking of the fast

appeara as a sin of equal gravity with debauchery. He might hâve added, " with murder," for that ia in Piliucci'a text. The remark about the avoidance of ainful occasions " Et est-il permis de rechercher lei occasions de pécher, etc.,"arisesnaturallyfrom Escobar's statement, " If ho has fatiguod himself on purpose to avoid the obligation to fast, a Icarned doctor (Filiucci) givea him diapensation : but foUowing Azor my opinion is that such an intention is a breach of the fast," and it givos Pascal tho opportunity of drawing his Jesuit on to quote Banny'a view with approval.

P. 47, 1. 38. ait eu ce dessein formé . Cf. Haaae, § 163, 0.

P. 48, 1. 8. Bauny . . . Pa. 1084, i.e. Somme des Péchez, ch. xlvi., pp. 1083, 1084, where various opinions are advanced. Pascal does not quote Bauny Verbatim. He arranges his clauses and polishea hia clumsy French, suhstituting " donner sujet " for the old-fashioned " bailler sujet" : and he omits the provision that the ainners who seeka absolution ought te hâve a firm résolve not to continue in sin — " dummodo firmiter proponant non peccare " — but in ail essential particulars he is exact.

P. 48, 1. 9. qui demeurent dans les occasions prochaines, trs. " who dwell on the confines of sin ".

P. 48, 1. 11. sujet au inonde de parler. Cf. Haase, § 156, C.

P. 48, 1. 17. Bazile Ponce. Basilio Ponce de Leôn, Auguatinian (1571-1629), professor at Salamanca : famous (or notorious) as the author of De Sacramento Matrimonii (1624).

P. 48, 1. 17. le cite, not in his Somme des Pecliez, but in De sacramentis acpersonis sacris . . . theologia moralis (Lyons, 1640).

P. 48, 1. 18. on peut rechercher, etc. This proposition was oondemned as dangerous and immoral by Innocent XI. in 1679.

P. 48, 1. 31. rechercher les occasions de pécher. Note that Pascal does not name Filiucci in this connection, a fact which justifies the view advanced above, note on p. 47, 1. 33.

P. 48, 1. 37. je cherche le seur. Cf. Pensées, No. 908.

P. 49, 1. 6. princ. ex. 3, n. 9 = Principia generalia (introductory to the Moralis Tlieologia) examen 3, numertis 9. Pascal's translation ia accurate.

P. 49, 1. 18. SancheB : Tomds Sanchez (1550-1610), profeaaorof canon law and theology at Granada. Pascal takes évident delight in calling him " un des plus célèbres de nos Pères ". He was notorious for the indecenciea contained in his Disputationes de matrimonio.

The work from which this pewsage is culled is, however, the Opus morale in praecepta decalogi sive summa casuwn coriscientiae, Paris,

P. 49, 1. 21. Angélus : Angélus de Clavasio or Angelo di Chivaaso the Blessed (1411-1495), Minorité, author of the celebrated Summa de casibus conscientiae or Summa angelica (1476), a dictionary of moral theology which by 1620 had seen thirty-one éditions.

P. 49, 1. 21. Sylv. Silvestro Mazzolini of Priero, hence known as

Prierias (1460-1523), Dominican, author of the famous Summa Silvestrina (1515, and forty times reprinted), an alphabetical dictionary of theology. The art. on " opinio " is divided into two quaestiones, (1) "op. doctoris an excusefc," (2) "op. cui sit adhaerendum ". Nicole strangely expands Sylv. = Silvestrio into Sylvius, i.e. Fr. Du Bois, professer at Douai and commentator on St. Thomas, and Havet follows this false lead. But a référence to the text of Sanchez leaves no room for doubt. It may be remarked that Prierias gives only a qualified assent to the doctrine in favour of which he is quoted : he préféra to follow St. Thomas.

P. 49. 1. 22, Navarr. Martine de Azpilcueta (1493-1586), called Navarrus from his birthplace : Augustinian canon, professer at Salamanca, Papal penitentiary. Died at Rome.

P. 49, 1. 22. Emmanuel Sa. Manoel de Sa (1530-1596), a Portuguese theologian who spent forty years in Italy promoting the interests of his order, cellaborating in the Sixtine édition of the Vulgate (1590), and preparing inter alla the Aphorismi confessariorum ex doctorum sententiis colledi (Venice, 1592), from which the censor made him omit some eighty passages as being incensistent with the Bible and the Fathers.

P. 49, 1. 22. etc. Why did Pascal hère content himself with an etc ? The next name in Sanchez's list is that of the Angelic Docter himself, and the sentence continues (after Sa), " et favet D. Th. quodlib. 8, a. 10 ubi ait posse quenquam amplecti opinionem quam a magi-tro audivit in iis quae ad mores pertinent ".

Pascal has been blamed, even by his admirers, for this failure to register the name of a really great authority in support of Probabilism. Thus Molinier, in his note ad loc. (t. ii., p. 236), says : " Le procédé est, en somme, peu loyal ". It is not certain that the omission is due to Pascal and that the truncated quotation was not supplied to him by the Port- Royalists. But in any case there is a différence between the attitude of St. Thomas and that of the four other theologians. They afïirm the proposition without qualification : he approves of it so far as it concerns morals and does not extend it, as they do, to things pertaining to God. Thus he really belongs to the " certains Autheurs " of 1. 29.

P. 49, 1. 30. La plaisante œmparaison, etc., i.e. what possible comparison is there between the scruples of a tender conscience and the trifling occurrences of everyday life ?

P. 50, ]. 8. Diana. Antonio Diana, Theatin (1595-1663), his Résolutionummoralium Partes duodecim (Palermo, 1629-1656), reprinted under the title Sutnma Dianae (Antwerp, 1656) and again as Diana Coordinatus (Lyons, 1667, 9 vols.). The édition of 1635 describes the author as a Diana of the Crossways who will show the right path to those in difficulty. Caramuel applied to him the words of John i. 29 (see above, note on p. 32, 1. 4). But he is blamed as too lax by St. Alphonso.

P. 50, 1. 34. Laiman. Paul Laymann, Tyrolese (1574-1635), aprolific writer. The TJieologia Moralis, the most important of his thirty-three Works, was first published at Munich in 1625, and went through many

éditions. He stood up for the milder treatment of those aocused of witchcraft.

P. 61, 1. 12. Diana . . . Bauny . . . Lugo. Cf. Diana Coordinatus, c. ii., p. 303 (i.e. P.V., tr. XIII. res. 93), where Diana quêtes Hurtado, who quotes the Une of Ovid. The question is of declarationes cardinalium inter se ptignantes, which makes it likely that by Lugo Pascal means Cardinal Juan de Lugo (1583-1660) rather than his brother Francisco, who never rose to that honour. Neither Bauny nor Lugo is mentioned in the passage of Diana.

P. 51, 1. 13. Saepe ■premente, etc. Ovid., Trist., T., ii., 4.

P. 52, 1. 11. Cellot; Louis Cellot (1588-1658), Provincial of the Prench Jesuits. He wrote his De hierarchia et hierarchis (Rouen, 1641), in favour of Papal Supromacy, against the Pctrus Aurelius of Saint- Cyran, for which see below, note on p. 200, 1. 5.

The de Hier, was put on the Index " donec corrigatur," in 1642, and the Sorbonne was on tho point of censuring it in 1641, when Cellot recanted.

P. 52, 1. 13. Reginaldus. Valère Regnault, or Renaud (1545-1623), who is not to be confounded with the great Italian Jesuit Teofilo llainaudo (Th. Raynaud) (1587-1663), enjoyed an immense réputation as teacher of moral theology at Dôle in the Jura, his classes being crowded by foreigners as well as Prenchmen. His Praxis fori poenitentialis (2 vols. 1616), translated into Prench, 1617, won the praise of St. François de Sales in his Avis aux Confesseurs.

Nouet, in his XIXe Imposture, accuses Pascal of mistranslating " veteres " by " anciens pères ". Acoording to him Regnault was thinking of the early scholastics. But Annat, coming to the defence of Regnault, gives tho case away by quoting, in support. St. Augustine and the Cappadocian Fathers. However, it may be admitted that in point of practice Cellot and Regnault are right ; expérience teaches.

P. 52, 1. 16. Bcneficiers, " beneficed clergymen ".

P. 52, 1. 1^. Diana gives a long liât of authorities. Pascal summarily classifies them as "anciens" and "nouveaux". There is, of course, no question hère of Church fathers, who wrote before bénéfices came into existence.

P. 52, 1. 22. La Positive. Positive theology is the science which deals with sacred history and criticism. A nephew of Père Annat (see note on p, 32, 1. 0) wrote an Apparatus methodicus ad positivant theologiam (Paris, 1700).

P. 52, 1. 36. C'est Villalobos, etc. This list of names is taken from Diana's Index : Opéra et Nomina Authorum recentiorum quae in hoc volumine citantur ad construendam optimam casuum conscientiae Bibliothecam.

Pascal rearranges them so as to increase the cacophony, and is not in the least careful to get them right. There is not a Prench name among them. By way of reprisais Nouet, in his XlXf Imposture, draws up a catalogue of Protestant and Jansenist worthies, beginning with

Luther and ending with Sharpius. He makes almost as many blundera as Pascal, and his list sounds less strange to us, for it includes a dozen good English names — Whittaker, Usher, Philpob, Hall, etc.

P. 53, 1. 13. No one has yet found the place in Diana which contains thèse laudatory terms applied to Vasquez.