judgments I have in my possession, in common with many other persons in Paris, and, among the rest, the Bishop of Montpelier,[328] 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 judgment.
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.”[329] 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 honor 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 infallible.
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 rigorously 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[330] 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 judgment_. 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?”[331] And yet this has not prevented Father Sirmond,[332] 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,[333] that pope, with the view of terminating the controversy, passed a decree which seemed favorable 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, Leon 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 that 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 ranks 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 favorably 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 favor 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 manœuvre, 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_.[334] 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?[335] 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.”[336] 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 condemned 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 mean time, is to induce those who are unwilling to condemn efficacious grace to condemn Jansenius with the 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 apprized 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 may 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 favorably; but it may be also that you do not interpret him favorably 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.[337] ----- Footnote 317: M. Nicole furnished the materials for this letter. (Nicole, iv. 324.)
Footnote 318: _Francis Annat_, the same person formerly referred to at p. 102. He became French provincial of the Jesuits, and confessor to Louis XIV.
Footnote 319: A threat, evidently, of administering to him the _Mentiris impudentissime_ of the Capuchin, mentioned at p. 310.
Footnote 320: _The constitution_—that is, the bull of Pope Alexander VII., issued in October 1656, in which he not only condemned the Five Propositions, but, in compliance with the solicitations of the Jesuits, added an express clause, to the effect that these had been faithfully extracted from Jansenius, and were heretical in the sense in which he (Jansenius) employed them. This was a more stringent constitution than the first; but the Jansenists were ready to meet him on this point; they replied that a declaration of this nature overstepped the limits of the papal authority, and that the pope’s infallibility did not extend to a judgment of _facts_.
Footnote 321: _The Five Propositions._—A brief view of these celebrated Propositions may be here given, as necessary to the understanding of the text. They were as follows:—I. That some commandments of God are impracticable even to the righteous, who desire to keep them, according to their present strength. II. That grace is irresistible. III. That moral freedom consists, not in exemption from necessity, but from constraint. IV. That to assert that the will may resist or obey the motions of converting grace as it pleased, was a heresy of the semi-Pelagians. V. That to assert that Jesus Christ died for all men, without exception, is an error of the semi-Pelagians. For a fuller explication of the controversy, the reader must be referred to the Introduction.
Footnote 322: Pascal might say this with truth, for his only relatives being nuns, the tie of earthly relationship was considered by him as no longer existing; and beyond personal friendship, he had really no connection with Port-Royal. There is as little truth as force, therefore, in the taunt of a late advocate of the Jesuits, who says, in reference to this passage, “Pascal was intimately connected with Port-Royal, he was even numbered among its recluses; and yet, in the act of unmasking the presumed duplicity of the Jesuits, the sublime writer did not scruple to imitate it.” (Hist. de la Comp. de Jésus, par J. Cretineau-Joly, tom. iv. p. 54. Paris, 1845.)
Footnote 323: “This book of the _Holy Virginity_ was a translation from St.
Augustine, made by Father Seguenot, priest of the Oratory. So far, all was right; but the priest had added to the original text some odd and peculiar remarks of his own, which merited censure. As the publication came from the Oratory, a community always attached to the doctrine of St. Augustine, an attempt was made to throw the blame on those called Jansenists.” (Note by Nicole, iv. 332.)
Footnote 324: “M. Jacques de Sainte-Beuve, one of the ablest divines of his age, preferred to relinquish his chair in the Sorbonne rather than concur in the censure of M. Arnauld, whose orthodoxy he regarded as beyond suspicion. He died in 1677.” (Note by Nicole.)
Footnote 325: This work was entitled “On the Victorious Grace of Jesus Christ; or, Molina and his followers convicted of the error of the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians. By the Sieur de Bonlieu. Paris, 1651.” The real author was the celebrated M. de la Lane, well known in that controversy.
(Note by Nicole.)
Footnote 326: Réponse a quelques demandes, pp. 27, 47.
Footnote 327: These judgments, or _Vota Consultorum_, as they were called, have been often printed, and particularly at the end of the _Journal de M. de St. Amour_—a book essentially necessary to the right understanding of all the intrigues employed in the condemnation of Jansenius. (Note by Nicole.)
Footnote 328: This was _Francis du Bosquet_, who, from being Bishop of Lodeve, was made Bishop of Montpelier in 1655, and died in 1676. He was one of the most learned bishops of his time in ecclesiastical matters. (Note by Nicole.)
Footnote 330: M. de Marca, an illustrious prelate, who was Archbishop of Toulouse, before he was nominated to the see of Paris, of which he was only prevented by death from taking possession. (Nicole.)
Footnote 331: _Nestorian heresy_—so called from Nestorius, Bishop of Constantinople, in the fifth century, who was accused of dividing Christ into _two persons_; in other words, representing his human nature a distinct person from his divine. There is some reason to think, however, that he was quite sound in the faith, and that his real offence was his opposition to the use of the phrase, which then came into vogue, _the Mother of God_, as applied to the Virgin, whom he called, in preference, _the Mother of Christ_.
Footnote 332: This was James Sirmond (the uncle of Anthony, formerly mentioned), a learned Jesuit, and confessor to Louis XIII. He was distinguished as an ecclesiastical historian. (Tableau de la Litt. Fran., iv. 202.)
Footnote 333: _The Monothelites_, who arose in the seventh century, were so called from holding that there was but _one will_ in Christ, his human will being absorbed, as it were, in the divine.
Footnote 334: Footnote 335: The persecution here supposed was soon lamentably realized, and exactly in the way which our author seemed to think impossible.
Footnote 337: This postscript, which is wanting in the ordinary editions, appeared in the first edition at the close of this letter. From this it appears that, in consequence of the extreme desire of the Jesuits to discover the author, and their increasing resentment against him, he was compelled to send this letter to Osnabruck, an obscure place in Germany, where it was printed in a very small and indistinct character. The _privileges_ referred to were official licenses to print books, which, at this time, when the Jesuits were in power, it was difficult for their opponents to obtain. Annat had published against the miracles of Port-Royal. Pascal was not permitted to publish in self-defence. At the same period, no Protestant books could be printed at Paris; they were generally sent to Geneva or the Low Countries for this purpose, or published furtively under fictitious names.
LETTER XVIII.
TO THE REVEREND FATHER ANNAT, JESUIT.
SHOWING STILL MORE PLAINLY, ON THE AUTHORITY OF FATHER ANNAT HIMSELF, THAT THERE IS REALLY NO HERESY IN THE CHURCH, AND THAT IN QUESTIONS OF FACT WE MUST BE GUIDED BY OUR SENSES, AND NOT BY AUTHORITY EVEN OF THE POPES.
_March 24, 1657._ REVEREND FATHER,—Long have you labored to discover some error in the creed or conduct of your opponents; but I rather think you will have to confess, in the end, that it is a more difficult task than you imagined to make heretics of people who are not only no heretics, but who hate nothing in the world so much as heresy. In my last letter I succeeded in showing that you accuse them of one heresy after another, without being able to stand by one of the charges for any length of time; so that all that remained for you was to fix on their refusal to condemn “the sense of Jansenius,” which you insist on their doing without explanation. You must have been sadly in want of heresies to brand them with, when you were reduced to this. For, who ever heard of a heresy which nobody could explain? The answer was ready, therefore, that if Jansenius has no errors, it is wrong to condemn him; and if he has, you were bound to point them out, that we might know at least what we were condemning.
This, however, you have never yet been pleased to do; but you have attempted to fortify your position by decrees,[338] which made nothing in your favor, as they gave no sort of explanation of the sense of Jansenius, said to have been condemned in the five propositions. This was not the way to terminate the dispute. Had you mutually agreed as to the genuine sense of Jansenius, and had the only difference between you been as to whether that sense was heretical or not, in that case the decisions which might pronounce it to be heretical, would have touched the real question in dispute. But the great dispute being about the sense of Jansenius, the one party saying that they could see nothing in it inconsistent with the sense of St. Augustine and St. Thomas, and the other party asserting that they saw in it an heretical sense which they would not express. It is clear that a constitution[339] which does not say a word about this difference of opinion, and which only condemns in general and without explanation the sense of Jansenius, leaves the point in dispute quite undecided.
You have accordingly been repeatedly told, that as your discussion turns on a matter of fact, you would never be able to bring it to a conclusion without declaring what you understand by the sense of Jansenius. But, as you continued obstinate in your refusal to make this explanation, I endeavored, as a last resource, to extort it from you, by hinting, in my last letter, that there was some mystery under the efforts you were making to procure the condemnation of this sense without explaining it, and that your design was to make this indefinite censure recoil, some day or other, upon the doctrine of efficacious grace, by showing, as you could easily do, that this was exactly the doctrine of Jansenius. This has reduced you to the necessity of making a reply; for, had you