LETTER XVII

P. 211, 1. 1. Au révérend P. Anruxt. For Annat see above, note on p. 32, 1. 9.

P. 211, 1. 1. vostre procédé. Hermant {Mém., t. iii., p. 245) speaks of an armistice between the belligerent parties. But this did not prevent the busy préparation of pamphlets on either side. The Jesuits, however, had good hope of procuring both an embargo on Jansenist publioi'iions and "privilèges" for themselves as "defenders of the truth"

from the Ohancellor SéRiiier, always their firm friond, The XViIth Letiter was ready on 12 January ; it was not issued till 19 February.

P. 211, 1. 3. tant d'escrits. The latest of theso were (1) Nouet's Rexponse â la quinzième Lettre. (2) Defenxe de la Vérité Catholique touchant les miraclex, written under the paeudonym of Sainte-Foy. (3) La Bonne Foy des Jansénistes, by Annat, written in September, which was answored by a Lettre an R. P. Annat, which is includod with the Provinciales in the édition of 1B57, but which is not Pascal'B.

P. 211, 1. 12. ce livre, i.e. La Bonne Foy des Jansénistes.

P. 211, 1. IR. assez répondu. Cf. " Apres ma 8'"» je croyois avoir asiez repondu " (Pensées, No. 30).

P. 212, 1. 3. je vous y vas repondre = je vais vous répondre 'àdeasus.

P. 212, 1. 7. Charenton. See above, note on p. 197, 1. 15.

P. 212, 1. n. Constitution. This is a convenient place to state the distinctive titles of Papal utterance. A papal '• Constitution " U a légal enactment from the Pope. It is a generic term. AU lettersfrom the Pope are constitutions; they receive spécifie namea according to their form or subject matter. A constitution may be a Bull, the form adopted for important and permanent decrees. A bull begins + " Episcopua servus aervorum Dei," and haa a leaden seal ('* huila ") attached to ît. In a Bricf some of the formalities are dispensed with. The direct form of addresa is uaed, the document ia closed and sealed in red wax with the fisherman's rins;. Papal letters addreased to ail biahops are termed Eneuclicals ; when they are issued in responae to an inquiry thev are Décrétai Epistles, when they are issued propria, niotu they are Decrees ; when they are directed to individuals and deal with mattera of minor importsince they are Rescripts.

P. 212, 1. 12. ou . . . vous m^entendez bien. Nicole complètes the phrase : " Respondondum est, Pater, aut l'am Valeriani Patris intornuebo telum," i.e. " I will reply, mentiria impudentissime ". See above, Letter XV, p. 189 f .

P. 212, 1. 15. Qtie le Port-Royal, etc. Cf. Pensées, No. 929.

P. 212, 1. 23. Que je suis seul, etc. See above, note on p. 193, 1. 2.

P. 212. 1. 28. La Constitutùm, i.e. the Bull of Innocent X. oondemninc the Five Propositions. 30 May, 1653, "Cum occawione ".

P. 212, 1. 32. dans la 14. See above, p. 174, 1. 6.

P. 213, 1. 1. je n'ay d'attache, etc. This is not mère rhetoric or polemical subterfuge. A month or two earlier Pascal had written to the Rouannez : " Nous sçavons que toutes les vertuea. le martyre, les austeritez et toutes les bonnes œuvres sont inutiles hors de l'Eglise et de la communion du Chef de l'Eglise, qui est le Pape. Je ne me separeray jamais de sa communion, au moins je prie Dieu de m'en faire la grâce: sans quov je serois perdu twur jamais." Pascal was gradually drawing away from the extrême .Tanaenist poaition.

P. 218, 1. 17. Je n'espère rien, etc. Cf. Pensées, No. 920.

P. 213, 1. 22. délogé . . . de Sorbonne. Some thirty-seven Doctors were

lodged within the collège. Note the omission oE the article. Sorbonne is regarded as a place name.

P. 213, 1. 30. pousser = " to combat ". Cf.

" Et je ne sais pourquoi votre âme ainsi S'emporte, Madame, a me pousser de cette étrange sorte."

Molière, Misanthr., Act III., se. 5.

P. 213, 1. 40. P. Mester. Etienne Mester, Oratorian (f 1648), committed suicide at Metz, bis mind being distraugbt, the Jesuits said, by Jansenist teaching. If this be true, Mester is an instance of the danger against which the XVIIth Art. of the Church of England warns ; to dwell on the mystery of Prédestination may be " a most dangerous downfall ".

P. 214, 1. 2. S. Merry. See above, note on p. 192, 1. 5.

P. 214, 1. 3. Prertdre . . . a partie = To make a formai charge against some one. Cf. " Je vous prends à partie pour me payer les 10,000 écus ". Molière, Avare, Act V., se. 5.

P. 214, 1, 3. de la Sainte Virginité. This v^as a translation of St. Augustine's Be Sancta Virginitate, by Claude Seguenot of the Oratory (1638), avec quelques remarques pour la clarté de la doctrine. Thèse "remarques," which betrayed the influence of Port-Royal, were attributed to Saint-Cyran, and were the occasion of his incarcération for three years in the Bastile. See Sainte-Beuve, P.R., ii., oh. 6, and the Xme Imposture.

P. 214, 1. 12. comme je Vay fait voir. In Letters IX. and XIII.

P. 214, 1. 18. vos généraux. See above, note on p. 161, 1. 10.

P. 215, 1. 7. qu'on n'a pas la liberté, etc. Pascal runs together the Third and Fourth Propositions.

P. 215, 1. 13. vos catéchismes. See note on p. 27, 1. 8.

P. 215, 1. 14. à S. Louis. To-day the Church of St-Paul et St- Louis in the Rue St- Antoine.

P. 215, 1. 15. vos petites bergères, i.e. dressed up as a shepherd in the Dévotion to the Orib.

P. 215, 1. 21. Grasset. See above, note on p. 181, 1. 4,

P. 215, 1. 21. qui en a esté interdit. "En," in accordance with a common use in the seventeenth century, refers to the whole phrase (" vous les entretenez . . . sermons ") and marks the cause of Crasset's disgrâce.

P. 215, 1. 24. quand vous commençâtes, etc. The first move was in 1649, when Cornet denounced the Propositions to the Sorbonne.

P. 215, 1. 29. M. de Sainte-Beuve. Jacques de S. B. (1613 1677), regius professor of theology from 1643 to 1656, when he was removed from his chair and forbidden to preach, for having refused subscription to Arnauld's censure. But he signed the Pormulary in 1661 " à deux mains," i.e. with alacrity, and was restored to dignity, being commissioned by the Assemblée de Clergé at Mantes to compose a Théologie Morale. Pascal adds sting to his sentence by giving to Sainte-Beuve the title which he had just lost.

P. 215, 1. 30. cscrits publics, i.o. his public lectures. Sainte-Beuve wrote no pamphlet in defence of the Propositions.

P. 215, 1. 32. de la Grâce Victorieme. i.e. De la Grâce Victorieuse de J. C. ou Molina et ses disciples convaincus de l'erreur des t'elagiens et des setni-Felagiens . . . par le sieur de Bofilieu, docteur en théologie (Paris, 1651). The author was Noël do Lalane, who in it accuses the Jesuits of having invented the two Propositions out of their own head and of aeeking to contrive the ruin of Efficacious Grâce in favour of Sufl&cient Grâce. The préface, which Pascal summarizes, contains the passages of St. Prosper quoted.

P. 215, 1. 39. S. Prosper. St. Prosper of Aquitaine (403-468) embraced the cause of St. Augustine, whom he liad never seen, and whom ho induced to write two of his most famous anti-Pelagian Treatises. His opponents, unable to confute them by argument, had recourse to calumny, as St. Prosper describes in his liesponsio ad capitula objectionum Viitcentianorum, from the préface to which the following passage is taken. Prosper was a poet as well as a divine, and his anti-Pelagian Carmen de injustis was translated by M. de Saci in 1646.

P, 215, 1. 40. les Semipelagiens de France, i.e. the monks of Southern Gaul (Marseilles and the island of Lerins), whose leaders John Cassian and Vincent of Lerins were imbued with Greek notions oonoeming Pree Will. See Introduction, p. xv ff.

P. 216, 1. 10. La Constitutioti. See above, note on p. 285, 1. 5.

P. 216, 1. 10. ils la receurent avec . . . respect. Papal BuUs could not enter France without the King's consent, and it was not at ail unusual for him to delay publication or to take exception to their clauses. But Louis XIV.,acting under the adviceof Mazarin,made nodifiiculty over the " Gum occasione," which was received by the biahops in the name of the French clergy on 11 July, 1658, and by the Sorbonne immediately afterwards without any opposition.

P. 216, 1. 21. avec passio7i, " with hatred ".

P. 216, 1. 26. estre satisfaits de. . . . See critical note. The reviser remembers that the Letter is addressed to Annat in persou.

P. 216, 1. 30. Resp. à quelques demandes, i.e. Response à quelques demandes, by Annat, written in 1655, a few months before Arnauld's Seconde Lettre. See above, note on p. 32, 1. 9.

P. 21(3, 1. 34. Si Von refuse, etc. The quotation, from St. Qregory'a Registr., v., c. 15, is supplied by the Seconde Lettre.

P. 216, 1. 40. parce dit-il, que. . . . Cf. St. Qreg., Ep., vi., 16 (MPL, Ixxvii. col. 805).

P. 217, 1. 12. Cavilli, i.e. Cavilli Jansenistariim contra latam in ipsos a sede apostolica sententiam a P. Francisco Annati, S.J. (1664). There is no doubt that Annat strains the truth in saying " totidem verbis," nor, on the other hand, that Pascal labours the point.

P. 217, 1. 28. On vous défia de citer les pages de Jansenius, etc. Annat, in his reply to the XVIth Letter, gives ohapterand verse which, however, only correspond " totidem verbis " to Proposition I.

P. 217, 1. 31. Je rapporte, etc. Cf. Pensées, No. 929.

P. 217, 1. 40. Depuis vous la mites dans le cœur, i.e. in the Formulary of 1656 : " Je condamne de cœur et de bouche le doctrine des cinq Propositions de Jansenius . . . laquelle doctrine n'est point celle de Saint Augustin, que Jansenius a naal expliquée contre le sens de ce saint Docteur ".

P. 218, 1. 22. S. Basile et S. Athanase. The editors of the Œuvres de Pascal suggest (ad loc.) that Pascal, using Amauld's Apologie pour M. de Saint-Cyran, has confounded the separate incidents. This is not so. Pascal's history is correct. St. Basil believed the current calumny that St. Dionysius of Alexandria had sown the seeds of the Anomœan heresy (viz. the essential unUkeness of the Son to the Father). St. Athanasius, with better knowledge, defended St. Dionysius in a treatise (de sententia Dionysii), and established his orthodoxy. Cf. Lumper, Historia sanctorum patrum, vol. xiii., pp. 85 ff.

P. 219, 1. 15. gue la doctrine, etc. Cf. Cavilli, ch. iv.

P. 219, 1. 20. les Avis des Consulteurs. The Congrégation of the Holy Office, charged with the examination of the Propositions, consisted of five cardinals and thirteen consuUores. Their " avis " were brought to France by François Bosquet, then Bishop of Lodève, and two years later, of Montpellier. They were published in 1657 and reprinted by Nicole in 1660.

P. 219, 1. 26. le Maistre du sacré Palais. This was Vincenzo Candido, Dominican, who declared the first three and the fifth propositions to be orthodox ; also with some reserve the fourth.

P. 219, 1. 25. le commissaire du saint Office. Vincenzo de Pretis, Dominican.

P. 219, 1. 26. le Général des Augtistins. Filippo Visconti.

The difficulty of the problem set by the Propositions is seen in the guarded language of most of the constiliores. As Molinier says, they evidently wanted to leave the responsibility of a décision to the Pope.

P. 220, 1. 35. Il est donc seiir, etc. Thèse are the very words which the Pope himself used when the Jansenists, taking leave of him at Eome, expressed their trust that his Bull did not touch the doctrine of efficacious grâce. " 0 ! questo è certol " he replied.

P. 220, 1. 38. une autorité qui est grande, etc., the Church in a gênerai Council. Cf. "Il n'y a presque plus que la France ou il soit permis de dire que le concile est au-dessus du Pape". Pensées, No.

P. 220, 1. 42. Les conciles généraux, etc. Cf. Bellarmin, De Romano pontifice, iv., c. 11.

P. 221, 1. 1. Le Pape comme Pape, etc. Cf. Bellarmin, ib.

P. 221, 1. 14. Il faut se soumettre, etc. Cf. Annales ecclesiasiici ad an. 681, No. 39, by Cesaro Baronius, Oratorian and Cardinal (1530- 1607), " the father of modem church history ".

P. 221, 1. 10. l'Archevêque de Toulouse. Pierre de Marca, a celebrated Canonist. The two quotations from him which follow are taken

from his De concordia sacerdotii et itnperii (1641). Psuscal translates freely.

P. 221, 1. 11. S. Lean et Pelage IL Cf. Léo, Ep., Ixxi. (olim liii.), {MPL, liv., col. 896 seq.). Pelagius II. (Pope from 678 to 590), Ep., iv. (olim vi.), MPL, Ixxii., col. 710 seg.

P. 221, 1. 16. Tertullien. Cf. " Fides in régula posita est ". Tert, De praescriptione, 14.

P. 221, 1. 26. le IV et le V concile. The Fourth General Council of Chalcedon (451) allowed the orthodoxy of the Antiochenes in the writings of Théodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrus, and Ibas of Edessa ; the Fifth Council of Constantinople (453) condemned them as Nestorian, i.e. distinguishing two natures in Jésus Christ, see below.

P. 221, 1. 29. certains moines de Scythie. ... In 619 certain anti- Nestorian nionks (what the désignation " Scythian " exactly means is unknown) appeared in Constantinople and endeavoured to insert a new clause into the creed, viz. that one of the Persons of the Trinity had been crucified. Pope Hormisdas pronounced the clause, " unum crucifixum esse ex sancta et consubstantiali Trinitati " to be wholly unorthodox ; but the Theopaschites, as they were termed, won the day ten years later, when Pope John II. traversed the ruling of his predecessor.

P. 222, 1. 12. le V Concile gênerai. . . . The anathematizing of certain propositions of Origen, to which Pascal refers, was most probably not the work of the Council of Constantinople. They are contained in an edict of Justinian issued some time between 638 and 643. The condcmnation in question is the ninth out of ten.

P. 222, 1. 18. Père Halloix. Pierre Halloix (1671-1656) dedicated his Origenes defetisus (Liège, 1C48) to Innocent XI. It was none the less placed upon the Index in 1655, " donec corrigatur ".

P. 222, 1. 8. Pic de la Mirande. Giovanni Pico délia Mirandola (1468-1494), prince, philosopher, and theologian ; author, amongst many other works, of 900 thèses, De omni re scibili (to which Voltaire added the words " et quibusdam aliis "), and Heptaplus, an allegorical treatise, in the manner of Origen, on the Création.

P. 222, 1. 8. Genebrard. Gilbert Génébrard (1527-1597), archbishop of Aix, pupil of the great humanist Adrien Tumèbe ; regius professor of Hebrew. He edited the works of Origen in 1574 in an édition which was the best until those of Huet and Delarne.

P. 222, 1. 25. Sirmond. Jacques Sirmoud ; see above, note on p. 117, 1. 39. His defence of the orthodoxy of Theodoret may be read in the Life prefîxed to his édition of that Father (Paris, 1642).

P. 222, 1. 33. Pape Honorius. Pope from 625 to 688. The story of Honorius is briefly this : Ëarly in the seventh century an attempt was made to reconcile with the Church and the doctrine of Chalcedon (see above, note on p. 221, 1. 26) the Monophysites who held the heresy of only one nature in Christ. The Emperor Heraclius proclaimed, by way of compromise, the theory of two natures, a humain and a divine, and one diviue-human energy {ivîfryaa SpcurriK^). To this Honorius,

whose opinion was asked, gave a qualified assent, but in his letters on the subjeot he used the tenu " una voluntas," thus sanctioning the Monothelite heresy. Honorius's action and language were not viewed with favour at Rome, but it was not till af ter his death that trouble began. The Sixth General Council (Constantinople, 680) condemned the doctrine and anathematized Honorius " non quidem ut haereticus sed ut haereticorum fautor".

P. 223, 1. 5. deux autres conciles, viz. the Seventh (Nicaea, 787) and the Eighth (Constantinople, 870).

P. 223, 1. 6. par . . . par. Cf. Haase, § 145, Rem I.

P. 223, 1. 5. Léon IL Pope from 682 to 684.

P. 223, 1. 5. Adrien IL Pope from 867 to 872.

P. 223, 1. 9. Bellarmin. The passage quoted is from the De romano pontifice.

P. 224, 1. 9. par un bref. Rapin {Mém., ii., 227) tells us that the Pope, pressed on ail sides to explain his Bull which was being diversely interpreted, summoned a new Congrégation in which he condemned everything that had been written before and after the Bull in defence of Jansenist doctrine, and especially the letters of the archbishop of Sens, the bishops of Angers, Beauvais, and Comminges. The resuit was the Brief of 29 September, 1654.

P. 224, 1. 23. vous estiez à Borne. Annat was at the time assistant to the Jesuit General.

P. 224, I. 33. vous avez trompé le Pape. Cf. Pensées, No. 882.

P. 225, 1. 3. telle qu'elle soit. Cf. Haase, § 45, B.

P. 225, 1, 21. selon le Pape et les evesques, etc., i.e. the bishops who received the Bull and the Brief.

P. 225, 1. 37. une confession de foy en blanc. The expression was actually used by a deputy of the Assembly of Clergy on 4 September. Cf. Hermant, Mém., t. iii., p. 141, quoted in Œuvres de Pascal, ad loc.

P. 226, 1. 1. abstraJiendo ab omni sensu. . . . See Letter I;, p. 8, 1. 39.

P. 226, 1. 21. vostre principal interest, etc. The thème of Lalane's De la Grâce victorieuse, see above, note on p. 215, 1. 32.

P. 228, 1. 37. des privilèges, see above, note on p. 126, 1. 23.

P. 228, 1. 88. jusqu'aux miracles. Annat's Defence de la Vérité catholique touchant les miracles had a privilège of 30 December, 1656.

P. 228, 1. 42. d'estre réduit à l'impression d'Osnabrilck, " to be reduced to Osnabriick printing ". If any reason is to be sought for the choice of Osnabriick as the supposititious place of the bad printing of Letter XVII., it is perhaps to be found in the interest in the fate of that town and bishopric as decided by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. Cardinal Wartenberg, who had been bishop ail through the Thirty Years' War, managed to prevent the sécularisation of his See by the Swedes, but only on condition that after his death (which occurred in 1661) it should be administered alternately by a Protestant and a Catholic bishop. Annat, in his reply to Letter XVII., makes a smart point : •' Why," he asks, " go ail the way to Osnabriick for your print-

iûg ? Amstordam, Leyden, Qeneva, are ail nearer at hand and more sympathetic."