Paris, May 28, 1656
  SIR,
    You did not suppose that anybody would have the curiosity to
know who we were; but it seems there are people who are trying to make
it out, though they are not very happy in their conjectures. Some take
me for a doctor of the Sorbonne; others ascribe my letters to four
or five persons, who, like me, are neither priests nor Churchmen.
All these false surmises convince me that I have succeeded pretty well
in my object, which was to conceal myself from all but yourself and
the worthy monk, who still continues to bear with my visits, while I
still contrive, though with considerable difficulty, to bear with
his conversations. I am obliged, however, to restrain myself; for,
were he to discover how much I am shocked at his communications, he
would discontinue them and thus put it out of my power to fulfil the
promise I gave you, of making you acquainted with their morality.
You ought to think a great deal of the violence which I thus do to
my own feelings. It is no easy matter, I can assure you, to stand
still and see the whole system of Christian ethics undermined by
such a set of monstrous principles, without daring to put in a word of
flat contradiction against them. But, after having borne so much for
your satisfaction, I am resolved I shall burst out for my own
satisfaction in the end, when his stock of information has been
exhausted. Meanwhile, I shall repress my feelings as much as I
possibly can for I find that the more I hold my tongue, he is the more
communicative. The last time I saw him, he told me so many things that
I shall have some difficulty in repeating them all. On the point of
restitution you will find they have some most convenient principles.
For, however the good monk palliates his maxims, those which I am
about to lay before you really go to sanction corrupt judges, usurers,
bankrupts, thieves, prostitutes and sorcerers- all of whom are most
liberally absolved from the obligation of restoring their ill-gotten
gains. It was thus the monk resumed the conversation:
    "At the commencement of our interviews, I engaged to explain to
you the maxims of our authors for all ranks and classes; and you
have already seen those that relate to beneficiaries, to priests, to
monks, to domestics, and to gentlemen. Let us now take a cursory
glance at the remaining, and begin with the judges.
    "Now I am going to tell you one of the most important and
advantageous maxims which our fathers have laid down in their
favour. Its author is the learned Castro Palao, one of our
four-and-twenty elders. His words are: 'May a judge, in a question
of right and wrong, pronounce according to a probable opinion, in
preference to the more probable opinion? He may, even though it should
be contrary to his own judgement- imo contra propriam opinionem.'"
    "Well, father," cried I, "that is a very fair commencement! The
judges, surely, are greatly obliged to you; and I am surprised that
they should be so hostile, as we have sometimes observed, to your
probabilities, seeing these are so favourable to them. For it would
appear from this that you give them the same power over men's fortunes
as you have given to yourselves over their consciences."
    "You perceive we are far from being actuated by self-interest,"
returned he; "we have had no other end in view than the repose of
their consciences; and to the same useful purpose has our great Molina
devoted his attention, in regard to the presents which may be made
them. To remove any scruples which they might entertain in accepting
of these on certain occasions, he has been at the pains to draw out
a list of all those cases in which bribes may be taken with a good
conscience, provided, at least, there be no special law forbidding
them. He says: 'Judges may receive presents from parties when they are
given them either for friendship's sake, or in gratitude for some
former act of justice, or to induce them to give justice in future, or
to oblige them to pay particular attention to their case, or to engage
them to despatch it promptly.' The learned Escobar delivers himself to
the same effect: 'If there be a number of persons, none of whom have
more right than another to have their causes disposed of, will the
judge who accepts of something from one of them, on condition-
expacto- of taking up his cause first, be guilty of sin? Certainly
not, according to Layman; for, in common equity, he does no injury
to the rest by granting to one, in consideration of his present,
what he was at liberty to grant to any of them he pleased; and
besides, being under an equal obligation to them all in respect of
their right, he becomes more obliged to the individual who furnished
the donation, who thereby acquired for himself a preference above
the rest- a preference which seems capable of a pecuniary valuation-
quae obligatio videtur pretio aestimabilis.'"
    "May it please your reverence," said I, "after such a
permission, I am surprised that the first magistrates of the kingdom
should know no better. For the first president has actually carried an
order in Parliament to prevent certain clerks of court from taking
money for that very sort of preference- a sign that he is far from
thinking it allowable in judges; and everybody has applauded this as a
reform of great benefit to all parties."
    The worthy monk was surprised at this piece of intelligence, and
replied: "Are you sure of that? I heard nothing about it. Our opinion,
recollect, is only probable; the contrary is probable also."
    "To tell you the truth, father," said I, "people think that the
first president has acted more than probably well, and that he has
thus put a stop to a course of public corruption which has been too
long winked at."
    "I am not far from being of the same mind," returned he; "but
let us waive that point, and say no more about the judges."
    "You are quite right, sir," said I; "indeed, they are not half
thankful enough for all you have done for them."
    "That is not my reason," said the father; "but there is so much to
be said on all the different classes that we must study brevity on
each of them. Let us now say a word or two about men of business.
You are aware that our great difficulty with these gentlemen is to
keep them from usury- an object to accomplish which our fathers have
been at particular pains; for they hold this vice in such abhorrence
that Escobar declares 'it is heresy to say that usury is no sin';
and Father Bauny has filled several pages of his Summary of Sins
with the pains and penalties due to usurers. He declares them
'infamous during their life, and unworthy of sepulture after their
death.'"
    "O dear! " cried I, "I had no idea he was so severe."
    "He can be severe enough when there is occasion for it," said
the monk; "but then this learned casuist, having observed that some
are allured into usury merely from the love of gain, remarks in the
same place that 'he would confer no small obligation on society,
who, while he guarded it against the evil effects of usury, and of the
sin which gives birth to it, would suggest a method by which one's
money might secure as large, if not a larger profit, in some honest
and lawful employment than he could derive from usurious dealings."
    "Undoubtedly, father, there would be no more usurers after that."
    "Accordingly," continued he, "our casuist has suggested 'a general
method for all sorts of persons- gentlemen, presidents,
councillors,' &c.; and a very simple process it is, consisting only in
the use of certain words which must be pronounced by the person in the
act of lending his money; after which he may take his interest for
it without fear of being a usurer, which he certainly would be on
any other plan."
    "And pray what may those mysterious words be, father?"
    "I will give you them exactly in his own words," said the
father; "for he has written his Summary in French, you know, 'that
it may be understood by everybody,' as he says in the preface: 'The
person from whom the loan is asked must answer, then, in this
manner: I have got no money to lend, I have got a little, however,
to lay out for an honest and lawful profit. If you are anxious to have
the sum you mention in order to make something of it by your industry,
dividing the profit and loss between us, I may perhaps be able to
accommodate you. But now I think of it, as it may be a matter of
difficulty to agree about the profit, if you will secure me a
certain portion of it, and give me so much for my principal, so that
it incur no risk, we may come to terms much sooner, and you shall
touch the cash immediately.' Is not that an easy plan for gaining
money without sin? And has not Father Bauny good reason for concluding
with these words: 'Such, in my opinion, is an excellent plan by
which a great many people, who now provoke the just indignation of God
by their usuries, extortions, and illicit bargains, might save
themselves, in the way of making good, honest, and legitimate
profits'?"
    "O sir!" I exclaimed, "what potent words these must be!
Doubtless they must possess some latent virtue to chase away the demon
of usury which I know nothing of, for, in my poor judgement, I
always thought that that vice consisted in recovering more money
that what was lent."
    "You know little about it indeed," he replied. "Usury, according
to our fathers, consists in little more than the intention of taking
the interest as usurious. Escobar, accordingly, shows you how you
may avoid usury by a simple shift of the intention. 'It would be
downright usury,' says he 'to take interest from the borrower, if we
should exact it as due in point of justice; but if only exacted as due
in point of gratitude, it is not usury. Again, it is not lawful to
have directly the intention of profiting by the money lent; but to
claim it through the medium of the benevolence of the borrower-
media benevolentia- is not usury.' These are subtle methods; but, to
my mind, the best of them all (for we have a great choice of them)
is that of the Mohatra bargain."
    "The Mohatra, father!"
    "You are not acquainted with it, I see," returned he. "The name is
the only strange thing about it. Escobar will explain it to you:
'The Mohatra bargain is effected by the needy person purchasing some
goods at a high price and on credit, in order to sell them over again,
at the same time and to the same merchant, for ready money and at a
cheap rate.' This is what we call the Mohatra- a sort of bargain,
you perceive, by which a person receives a certain sum of ready
money by becoming bound to pay more."
    "But, sir, I really think nobody but Escobar has employed such a
term as that; is it to be found in any other book?"
    "How little you do know of what is going on, to be sure!" cried
the father. "Why, the last work on theological morality, printed at
Paris this very year, speaks of the Mohatra, and learnedly, too. It is
called Epilogus Summarum, and is an abridgment of all the summaries of
divinity- extracted from Suarez, Sanchez, Lessius, Fagundez,
Hurtado, and other celebrated casuists, as the title bears. There
you will find it said, on p. 54, that 'the Mohatra bargain takes place
when a man who has occasion for twenty pistoles purchases from a
merchant goods to the amount of thirty pistoles, payable within a
year, and sells them back to him on the spot for twenty pistoles ready
money.' This shows you that the Mohatra is not such an unheard-of term
as you supposed."
    "But, father, is that sort of bargain lawful?"
    "Escobar," replied he, "tells us in the same place that there
are laws which prohibit it under very severe penalties."
    "It is useless, then, I suppose?"
    "Not at all; Escobar, in the same passage, suggests expedients for
making it lawful: 'It is so, even though the principal intention
both of the buyer and seller is to make money by the transaction,
provided the seller, in disposing of the goods, does not exceed
their highest price, and in re-purchasing them does not go below their
lowest price, and that no previous bargain has been made, expressly or
otherwise.' Lessius, however, maintains that 'even though the merchant
has sold his goods, with the intention of re-purchasing them at the
lowest price, he is not bound to make restitution of the profit thus
acquired, unless, perhaps, as an act of charity, in the case of the
person from whom it had been exacted being in poor circumstances,
and not even then, if he cannot do it without inconvenience- si
commode non potest.' This is the utmost length to which they could
go."
    "Indeed, sir," said I, "any further indulgence would, I should
think, be rather too much."
    "Oh, our fathers know very well when it is time for them to stop!"
cried the monk. "So much, then, for the utility of the Mohatra. I
might have mentioned several other methods, but these may suffice; and
I have now to say a little in regard to those who are in embarrassed
circumstances. Our casuists have sought to relieve them, according
to their condition of life. For, if they have not enough of property
for a decent maintenance, and at the same time for paying their debts,
they permit them to secure a portion by making a bankruptcy with their
creditors. This has been decided by Lessius, and confirmed by Escobar,
as follows: 'May a person who turns bankrupt, with a good conscience
keep back as much of his personal estate as may be necessary to
maintain his family in a respectable way- ne indecore vivat? I hold,
with Lessius, that he may, even though he may have acquired his wealth
unjustly and by notorious crimes- ex injustilia et notorio delicto;
only, in this case, he is not at liberty to retain so large an
amount as he otherwise might.'"
    "Indeed, father! what a strange sort of charity is this, to
allow property to remain in the hands of the man who has acquired it
by rapine, to support him in his extravagance rather than go into
the hands of his creditors, to whom it legitimately belongs!"
    "It is impossible to please everybody," replied the father; "and
we have made it our particular study to relieve these unfortunate
people. This partiality to the poor has induced our great Vasquez,
cited by Castro Palao, to say that 'if one saw a thief going to rob
a poor man, it would be lawful to divert him from his purpose by
pointing out to him some rich individual, whom he might rob in place
of the other.' If you have not access to Vasquez or Castro Palao,
you will find the same thing in your copy of Escobar; for, as you
are aware, his work is little more than a compilation from twenty-four
of the most celebrated of our fathers. You will find it in his
treatise, entitled The Practice of our Society, in the Matter of
Charity towards our Neighbours."
    "A very singular kind of charity this," I observed, "to save one
man from suffering loss, by inflicting it upon another! But I
suppose that, to complete the charity, the charitable adviser would be
bound in conscience to restore to the rich man the sum which he had
made him lose?"
    "Not at all, sir," returned the monk; "for he did not rob the man-
he only advised the other to do it. But only attend to this notable
decision of Father Bauny, on a case which will still more astonish
you, and in which you would suppose there was a much stronger
obligation to make restitution. Here are his identical words: 'A
person asks a soldier to beat his neighbour, or to set fire to the
barn of a man that has injured him. The question is whether, in the
essence of the soldier, the person who employed him to commit these
outrages is bound to make reparation out of his own pocket for the
damage that has followed? My opinion is that he is not. For none can
be held bound to restitution, where there has been no violation of
justice; and is justice violated by asking another to do us a
favour? As to the nature of the request which he made, he is at
liberty either to acknowledge or deny it; to whatever side he may
incline, it is a matter of mere choice; nothing obliges him to it,
unless it may be the goodness, gentleness, and easiness of his
disposition. If the soldier, therefore, makes no reparation for the
mischief he has done, it ought not to be exacted from him at whose
request he injured the innocent.'"
    This sentence had very nearly broken up the whole conversation,
for I was on the point of bursting into a laugh at the idea of the
goodness and gentleness of a burner of barns, and at these strange
sophisms which would exempt from the duty of restitution the principal
and real incendiary, whom the civil magistrate would not exempt from
the halter. But, had I not restrained myself, the worthy monk, who was
perfectly serious, would have been displeased; he proceeded,
therefore, without any alteration of countenance, in his observations.
    "From such a mass of evidence, you ought to be satisfied now of
the futility of your objections; but we are losing sight of our
subject. To revert, then, to the succour which our fathers apply to
persons in straitened circumstances, Lessius, among others,
maintains that 'it is lawful to steal, not only in a case of extreme
necessity, but even where the necessity is grave, though not
extreme.'"
    "This is somewhat startling, father," said I. "There are very
few people in this world who do not consider their cases of
necessity to be grave ones, and to whom, accordingly, you would not
give the right of stealing with a good conscience. And, though you
should restrict the permission to those only who are really and
truly in that condition, you open the door to an infinite number of
petty larcenies which the magistrates would punish in spite of your
grave necessity, and which you ought to repress on a higher principle-
you who are bound by your office to be the conservators, not of
justice only, but of charity between man and man, a grace which this
permission would destroy. For after all, now, is it not a violation of
the law of charity, and of our duty to our neighbour, to deprive a man
of his property in order to turn it to our own advantage? Such, at
least, is the way I have been taught to think hitherto."
    "That will not always hold true," replied the monk; "for our great
Molina has taught us that 'the rule of charity does not bind us to
deprive ourselves of a profit, in order thereby to save our
neighbour from a corresponding loss.' He advances this in
corroboration of what he had undertaken to prove- 'that one is not
bound in conscience to restore the goods which another had put into
his hands in order to cheat his creditors.' Lessius holds the same
opinion, on the same ground. Allow me to say, sir, that you have too
little compassion for people in distress. Our fathers have had more
charity than that comes to: they render ample justice to the poor,
as well as the rich; and, I may add, to sinners as well as saints.
For, though far from having any predilection for criminals, they do
not scruple to teach that the property gained by crime may be lawfully
retained. 'No person,' says Lessius, speaking generally, 'is bound,
either by the law of nature or by positive laws (that is, by any law),
to make restitution of what has been gained by committing a criminal
action, such as adultery, even though that action is contrary to
justice.' For, as Escobar comments on this writer, 'though the
property which a woman acquires by adultery is certainly gained in
an illicit way, yet once acquired, the possession of it is lawful-
quamvis mulier illicite acquisat, licite tamen retinet acquisita.'
It is on this principle that the most celebrated of our writers have
formally decided that the bribe received by a judge from one of the
parties who has a bad case, in order to procure an unjust decision
in his favour, the money got by a soldier for killing a man, or the
emoluments gained by infamous crimes, may be legitimately retained.
Escobar, who has collected this from a number of our authors, lays
down this general rule on the point that 'the means acquired by
infamous courses, such as murder, unjust decisions, profligacy, &c.,
are legitimately possessed, and none are obliged to restore them.'
And, further, 'they may dispose of what they have received for
homicide, profligacy, &c., as they please; for the possession is just,
and they have acquired a propriety in the fruits of their iniquity.'"
    "My dear father," cried I, "this is a mode of acquisition which
I never heard of before; and I question much if the law will hold it
good, or if it will consider assassination, injustice, and adultery,
as giving valid titles to property."
    "I do not know what your law-books may say on the point," returned
the monk; "but I know well that our books, which are the genuine rules
for conscience, bear me out in what I say. It is true they make one
exception, in which restitution is positively enjoined; that is, in
the case of any receiving money from those who have no right to
dispose of their property such as minors and monks. 'Unless,' says the
great Molina, 'a woman has received money from one who cannot dispose'
of it, such as a monk or a minor- nisi mulier accepisset ab eo qui
alienare non potest, ut a religioso et filio familias. In this case
she must give back the money.' And so says Escobar."
    "May it please your reverence," said I, "the monks, I see, are
more highly favoured in this way than other people."
    "By no means," he replied; "have they not done as much generally
for all minors, in which class monks may be viewed as continuing all
their lives? It is barely an act of justice to make them an exception;
but with regard to all other people, there is no obligation whatever
to refund to them the money received from them for a criminal
action. For, as has been amply shown by Lessius, 'a wicked action
may have its price fixed in money, by calculating the advantage
received by the person who orders it to be done and the trouble
taken by him who carries it into execution; on which account the
latter is not bound to restore the money he got for the deed, whatever
that may have been- homicide, injustice, or a foul act' (for such
are the illustrations which he uniformly employs in this question);
'unless he obtained the money from those having no right to dispose of
their property. You may object, perhaps, that he who has obtained
money for a piece of wickedness is sinning and, therefore, ought
neither to receive nor retain it. But I reply that, after the thing is
done, there can be no sin either in giving or in receiving payment for
it.' The great Filiutius enters still more minutely into details,
remarking 'that a man is bound in conscience to vary his payments
for actions of this sort, according to the different conditions of the
individuals who commit them, and some may bring a higher price than
others.' This he confirms by very solid arguments."
    He then pointed out to me, in his authors, some things of this
nature so indelicate that I should be ashamed to repeat them; and
indeed the monk himself, who is a good man, would have been
horrified at them himself, were it not for the profound respect
which he entertains for his fathers, and which makes him receive
with veneration everything that proceeds from them. Meanwhile, I
held my tongue, not so much with the view of allowing him to enlarge
on this matter as from pure astonishment at finding the books of men
in holy orders stuffed with sentiments at once so horrible, so
iniquitous, and so silly. He went on, therefore, without
interruption in his discourse, concluding as follows:
    "From these premisses, our illustrious Molina decides the
following question (and after this, I think you will have got enough):
'If one has received money to perpetrate a wicked action, is he
obliged to restore it? We must distinguish here,' says this great man;
'if he has not done the deed, he must give back the cash; if he has,
he is under no such obligation!' Such are some of our principles
touching restitution. You have got a great deal of instruction to-day;
and I should like, now, to see what proficiency you have made. Come,
then, answer me this question: 'Is a judge, who has received a sum
of money from one of the parties before him, in order to pronounce a
judgement in his favour, obliged to make restitution?'"
    "You were just telling me a little ago, father, that he was not."
    "I told you no such thing," replied the father; "did I express
myself so generally? I told you he was not bound to make
restitution, provided he succeeded in gaining the cause for the
party who had the wrong side of the question. But if a man has justice
on his side, would you have him to purchase the success of his
cause, which is his legitimate right? You are very unconscionable.
Justice, look you, is a debt which the judge owes, and therefore he
cannot sell it; but he cannot be said to owe injustice, and
therefore he may lawfully receive money for it. All our leading
authors, accordingly, agree in teaching 'that though a judge is
bound to restore the money he had received for doing an act of
justice, unless it was given him out of mere generosity, he is not
obliged to restore what he has received from a man in whose favour
he has pronounced an unjust decision.'"
    This preposterous decision fairly dumbfounded me, and, while I was
musing on its pernicious tendencies, the monk had prepared another
question for me. "Answer me again," said he, "with a little more
circumspection. Tell me now, 'if a man who deals in divination is
obliged to make restitution of the money he has acquired in the
exercise of his art?'"
    "Just as you please, your reverence," said I.
    "Eh! what!- just as I please! Indeed, but you are a pretty
scholar! It would seem, according to your way of talking, that the
truth depended on our will and pleasure. I see that, in the present
case, you would never find it out yourself: so I must send you to
Sanchez for a solution of the problem- no less a man than Sanchez.
In the first place, he makes a distinction between 'the case of the
diviner who has recourse to astrology and other natural means, and
that of another who employs the diabolical art. In the one case, he
says, the diviner is bound to make restitution; in the other he is
not.' Now, guess which of them is the party bound?"
    "It is not difficult to find out that," said I.
    "I see what you mean to say," he replied. "You think that he ought
to make restitution in the case of his having employed the agency of
demons. But you know nothing about it; it is just the reverse. 'If,'
says Sanchez, 'the sorcerer has not taken care and pains to
discover, by means of the devil, what he could not have known
otherwise, he must make restitution- si nullam operam apposuit ut arte
diaboli id sciret, but if he has been at that trouble, he is not
obliged.'"
    "And why so, father?"
    "Don't you See?" returned he. "It is because men may truly
divine by the aid of the devil, whereas astrology is a mere sham."
    "But, sir, should the devil happen not to tell the truth (and he
is not much more to be trusted than astrology), the magician must, I
should think, for the same reason, be obliged to make restitution?"
    "Not always," replied the monk: "Distinguo, as Sanchez says, here.
If the magician be ignorant of the diabolic art- si sit artis
diabolicae ignarus- he is bound to restore: but if he is an expert
sorcerer, and has done all in his power to arrive at the truth, the
obligation ceases; for the industry of such a magician may be
estimated at a certain sum of money.'"
    "There is some sense in that," I said; "for this is an excellent
plan to induce sorcerers to aim at proficiency in their art, in the
hope of making an honest livelihood, as you would say, by faithfully
serving the public."
    "You are making a jest of it, I suspect," said the father: "that
is very wrong. If you were to talk in that way in places where you
were not known, some people might take it amiss and charge you with
turning sacred subjects into ridicule."
    "That, father, is a charge from which I could very easily
vindicate myself; for certain I am that whoever will be at the trouble
to examine the true meaning of my words will find my object to be
precisely the reverse; and perhaps, sir, before our conversations
are ended, I may find an opportunity of making this very amply
apparent."
    "Ho, ho," cried the monk, "there is no laughing in your head now."
    "I confess," said I, "that the suspicion that I intended to
laugh at things sacred would be as painful for me to incur as it would
be unjust in any to entertain it."
    "I did not say it in earnest," returned the father; "but let us
speak more seriously."
    "I am quite disposed to do so, if you prefer it; that depends upon
you, father. But I must say, that I have been astonished to see your
friends carrying their attentions to all sorts and conditions of men
so far as even to regulate the legitimate gains of sorcerers."
    "One cannot write for too many people," said the monk, "nor be too
minute in particularising cases, nor repeat the same things too
often in different books. You may be convinced of this by the
following anecdote, which is related by one of the gravest of our
fathers, as you may well suppose, seeing he is our present Provincial-
the reverend Father Cellot: 'We know a person,' says he, 'who was
carrying a large sum of money' in his pocket to restore it, in
obedience to the orders of his confessor, and who, stepping into a
bookseller's shop by the way, inquired if there was anything new?-
numquid novi?- when the bookseller showed him a book on moral
theology, recently published; and turning over the leaves
carelessly, and without reflection, he lighted upon a passage
describing his own case, and saw that he was under no obligation to
make restitution: upon which, relieved from the burden of his
scruples, he returned home with a purse no less heavy, and a heart
much lighter, than when he left it- abjecta scrupuli sarcina,
retento auri pondere, levior domum repetiit.'
    "Say, after hearing that, if it is useful or not to know our
maxims? Will you laugh at them now? or rather, are you not prepared to
join with Father Cellot in the pious reflection which he makes on
the blessedness of that incident? 'Accidents of that kind,' he
remarks, 'are, with God, the effect of his providence; with the
guardian angel, the effect of his good guidance; with the
individuals to whom they happen, the effect of their predestination.
From all eternity, God decided that the golden chain of their
salvation should depend on such and such an author, and not upon a
hundred others who say the same thing, because they never happen to
meet with them. Had that man not written, this man would not have been
saved. All, therefore, who find fault with the multitude of our
authors, we would beseech, in the bowels of Jesus Christ, to beware of
envying others those books which the eternal election of God and the
blood of Jesus Christ have purchased for them!' Such are the
eloquent terms in which this learned man proves successfully the
proposition which he had advanced, namely, 'How useful it must be to
have a great many writers on moral theology- quam utile sit de
theologia morali multos scribere!'"
    "Father," said I, "I shall defer giving you my opinion of that
passage to another opportunity; in the meantime, I shall only say that
as your maxims are so useful, and as it is so important to publish
them, you ought to continue to give me further instruction in them.
For I can assure you that the person to whom I send them shows my
letters to a great many people. Not that we intend to avail
ourselves of them in our own case; but, indeed, we think it will be
useful for the world to be informed about them."
    "Very well," rejoined the monk, "you see I do not conceal them;
and, in continuation, I am ready to furnish you, at our next
interview, with an account of the comforts and indulgences which our
fathers allow, with the view of rendering salvation easy, and devotion
agreeable; so that, in addition to what you have hitherto learned as
to particular conditions of men, you may learn what applies in general
to all classes, and thus you will have gone through a complete
course of instruction." So saying, the monk took his leave of me. I
am, &c.
    P.S. I have always forgot to tell you that there are different
editions of Escobar. Should you think of purchasing him, I would
advise you to choose the Lyons edition, having on the title page the
device of a lamb lying on a book sealed with seven seals; or the
Brussels edition of 1651. Both of these are better and larger than the
previous editions published at Lyons in the years 1644 and 1646.
                        

 

LETTER IX

                                                  Paris, July 3, 1656
  SIR,
    I shall use as little ceremony with you as the worthy monk did
with me when I saw him last. The moment he perceived me, he came
forward, with his eyes fixed on a book which he held in his hand,
and accosted me thus: "'Would you not be infinitely obliged to any one
who should open to you the gates of paradise? Would you not give
millions of gold to have a key by which you might gain admittance
whenever you thought proper? You need not be at such expense; here
is one- here are a hundred for much less money.'"
    At first I was at a loss to know whether the good father was
reading, or talking to me, but he soon put the matter beyond doubt
by adding:
    "These, sir, are the opening words of a fine book, written by
Father Barry of our Society; for I never give you anything of my own."
    "What book is it?" asked I.
    "Here is its title," he replied: "Paradise opened to Philagio,
in a Hundred Devotions to the Mother of God, easily practised."
    "Indeed, father! and is each of these easy devotions a
sufficient passport to heaven?"
    "It is," returned he. "Listen to what follows: 'The devotions to
the Mother of God, which you will find in this book, are so many
celestial keys, which will open wide to you the gates of paradise,
provided you practise them'; and, accordingly, he says at the
conclusion, 'that he is satisfied if you practise only one of them.'"
    "Pray, then, father, do teach me one of the easiest of them."
    "They are all easy," he replied, "for example- 'Saluting the
Holy Virgin when you happen to meet her image- saying the little
chaplet of the pleasures of the Virgin- fervently pronouncing the name
of Mary- commissioning the angels to bow to her for us- wishing to
build her as many churches as all the monarchs on earth have done-
bidding her good morrow every morning, and good night in the
evening- saying the Ave Maria every day, in honour of the heart of
Mary'- which last devotion, he says, possesses the additional virtue
of securing us the heart of the Virgin."
    "But, father," said I, "only provided we give her our own in
return, I presume?"
    "That," he replied, "is not absolutely necessary, when a person is
too much attached to the world. Hear Father Barry: 'Heart for heart
would, no doubt, be highly proper; but yours is rather too much
attached to the world, too much bound up in the creature, so that I
dare not advise you to offer, at present, that poor little slave which
you call your heart.' And so he contents himself with the Ave Maria
which he had prescribed."
    "Why, this is extremely easy work," said I, "and I should really
think that nobody will be damned after that."
    "Alas!" said the monk, "I see you have no idea of the hardness
of some people's hearts. There are some, sir, who would never engage
to repeat, every day, even these simple words, Good day, Good evening,
just because such a practice would require some exertion of memory.
And, accordingly, it became necessary for Father Barry to furnish them
with expedients still easier, such as wearing a chaplet night and
day on the arm, in the form of a bracelet, or carrying about one's
person a rosary, or an image of the Virgin. 'And, tell me now,' as
Father Barry says, 'if I have not provided you with easy devotions
to obtain the good graces of Mary?'"
    "Extremely easy indeed, father," I observed.
    "Yes," he said, "it is as much as could possibly be done, and I
think should be quite satisfactory. For he must be a wretched creature
indeed, who would not spare a single moment in all his lifetime to put
a chaplet on his arm, or a rosary in his pocket, and thus secure his
salvation; and that, too, with so much certainty that none who have
tried the experiment have ever found it to fail, in whatever way
they may have lived; though, let me add, we exhort people not to
omit holy living. Let me refer you to the example of this, given at p.
34; it is that of a female who, while she practised daily the devotion
of saluting the images of the Virgin, spent all her days in mortal
sin, and yet was saved after all, by the merit of that single
devotion."
    "And how so?" cried I.
    "Our Saviour," he replied, "raised her up again, for the very
purpose of showing it. So certain it is that none can perish who
practise any one of these devotions."
    "My dear sir," I observed, "I am fully aware that the devotions to
the Virgin are a powerful means of salvation, and that the least of
them, if flowing from the exercise of faith and charity, as in the
case of the saints who have practised them, are of great merit; but to
make persons believe that, by practising these without reforming their
wicked lives, they will be converted by them at the hour of death,
or that God will raise them up again, does appear calculated rather to
keep sinners going on in their evil courses, by deluding them with
false peace and foolhardy confidence, than to draw them off from sin
by that genuine conversion which grace alone can effect."
    "What does it matter," replied the monk, "by what road we enter
paradise, provided we do enter it? as our famous Father Binet,
formerly our Provincial, remarks on a similar subject, in his
excellent book, On the Mark of Predestination. 'Be it by hook or by
crook,' as he says, 'what need we care, if we reach at last the
celestial city.'"
    "Granted," said I; "but the great question is if we will get there
at all."
    "The Virgin will be answerable for that," returned he; "so says
Father Barry in the concluding lines of his book: 'If at the hour of
death, the enemy should happen to put in some claim upon you, and
occasion disturbance in the little commonwealth of your thoughts,
you have only to say that Mary will answer for you, and that he must
make his application to her.'"
    "But, father, it might be possible to puzzle you, were one
disposed to push the question a little further. Who, for example,
has assured us that the Virgin will be answerable in this case?"
    "Father Barry will be answerable for her," he replied. "'As for
the profit and happiness to be derived from these devotions,' he says,
'I will be answerable for that; I will stand bail for the good
Mother.'"
    "But, father, who is to be answerable for Father Barry?"
    "How!" cried the monk; "for Father Barry? is he not a member of
our Society; and do you need to be told that our Society is answerable
for all the books of its members? It is highly necessary and important
for you to know about this. There is an order in our Society, by which
all booksellers are prohibited from printing any work of our fathers
without the approbation of our divines and the permission of our
superiors. This regulation was passed by Henry III, 10th May 1583, and
confirmed by Henry IV, 20th December 1603, and by Louis XIII, 14th
February 1612; so that the whole of our body stands responsible for
the publications of each of the brethren. This is a feature quite
peculiar to our community. And, in consequence of this, not a single
work emanates from us which does not breathe the spirit of the
Society. That, sir, is a piece of information quite apropos."
    "My good father," said I, "you oblige me very much, and I only
regret that I did not know this sooner, as it will induce me to pay
considerably more attention to your authors."
    "I would have told you sooner," he replied, "had an opportunity
offered; I hope, however, you will profit by the information in
future, and, in the meantime, let us prosecute our subject. The
methods of securing salvation which I have mentioned are, in my
opinion, very easy, very sure, and sufficiently numerous; but it was
the anxious wish of our doctors that people should not stop short at
this first step, where they only do what is absolutely necessary for
salvation and nothing more. Aspiring, as they do without ceasing,
after the greater glory of God, they sought to elevate men to a higher
pitch of piety; and, as men of the world are generally deterred from
devotion by the strange ideas they have been led to form of it by some
people, we have deemed it of the highest importance to remove this
obstacle which meets us at the threshold. In this department Father Le
Moine has acquired much fame, by his work entitled Devotion Made Easy,
composed for this very purpose. The picture which he draws of devotion
in this work is perfectly charming. None ever understood the subject
before him. Only hear what he says in the beginning of his work:
'Virtue has never as yet been seen aright; no portrait of her hitherto
produced, has borne the least verisimilitude. It is by no means
surprising that so few have attempted to scale her rocky eminence. She
has been held up as a cross-tempered dame, whose only delight is in
solitude; she has been associated with toil and sorrow; and, in short,
represented as the foe of sports and diversions, which are, in fact,
the flowers of joy and the seasoning of life.'"
    "But, father, I am sure, I have heard, at least, that there have
been great saints who led extremely austere lives."
    "No doubt of that," he replied; "but still, to use the language of
the doctor, 'there have always been a number of genteel saints, and
well-bred devotees'; and this difference in their manners, mark you,
arises entirely from a difference of humours. 'I am far from denying,'
says my author, 'that there are devout persons to be met with, pale
and melancholy in their temperament, fond of silence and retirement,
with phlegm instead of blood in their veins, and with faces of clay;
but there are many others of a happier complexion, and who possess
that sweet and warm humour, that genial and rectified blood, which
is the true stuff that joy is made of.'
    "You see," resumed the monk, "that the love of silence and
retirement is not common to all devout people; and that, as I was
saying, this is the effect rather of their complexion than their
piety. Those austere manners to which you refer are, in fact, properly
the character of a savage and barbarian, and, accordingly, you will
find them ranked by Father Le Moine among the ridiculous and brutal
manners of a moping idiot. The following is the description he has
drawn of one of these in the seventh book of his Moral Pictures. 'He
has no eyes for the beauties of art or nature. Were he to indulge in
anything that gave him pleasure, he would consider himself oppressed
with a grievous load. On festival days, he retires to hold
fellowship with the dead. He delights in a grotto rather than a
palace, and prefers the stump of a tree to a throne. As to injuries
and affronts, he is as insensible to them as if he had the eyes and
ears of a statue. Honour and glory are idols with whom he has no
acquaintance, and to whom he has no incense to offer. To him a
beautiful woman is no better than a spectre; and those imperial and
commanding looks- those charming tyrants who hold so many slaves in
willing and chainless servitude- have no more influence over his
optics than the sun over those of owls,' &c."
    "Reverend sir," said I, "had you not told me that Father Le
Moine was the author of that description, I declare I would have
guessed it to be the production of some profane fellow who had drawn
it expressly with the view of turning the saints into ridicule. For if
that is not the picture of a man entirely denied to those feelings
which the Gospel obliges us to renounce, I confess that I know nothing
of the matter."
    "You may now perceive, then, the extent of your ignorance," he
replied; "for these are the features of a feeble, uncultivated mind,
'destitute of those virtuous and natural affections which it ought
to possess,' as Father Le Moine says at the close of that description.
Such is his way of teaching 'Christian virtue and philosophy,' as he
announces in his advertisement; and, in truth, it cannot be denied
that this method of treating devotion is much more agreeable to the
taste of the world than the old way in which they went to work
before our times."
    "There can be no comparison between them," was my reply, "and I
now begin to hope that you will be as good as your word."
    "You will see that better by-and-by," returned the monk. "Hitherto
I have only spoken of piety in general, but, just to show you more
in detail how our fathers have disencumbered it of its toils and
troubles, would it not be most consoling to the ambitious to learn
that they may maintain genuine devotion along with an inordinate
love of greatness?"
    "What, father! even though they should run to the utmost excess of
ambition?"
    "Yes," he replied; "for this would be only a venial sin, unless
they sought after greatness in order to offend God and injure the
State more effectually. Now venial sins do not preclude a man from
being devout, as the greatest saints are not exempt from them.
'Ambition,' says Escobar, 'which consists in an inordinate appetite
for place and power, is of itself a venial sin; but when such
dignities are coveted for the purpose of hurting the commonwealth,
or having more opportunity to offend God, these adventitious
circumstances render it mortal.'"
    "Very savoury doctrine, indeed, father."
    "And is it not still more savoury," continued the monk, "for
misers to be told, by the same authority, 'that the rich are not
guilty of mortal sin by refusing to give alms out of their superfluity
to the poor in the hour of their greatest need?- scio in gravi
pauperum necessitate divites non dando superflua, non peccare
mortaliter.'"
    "Why truly," said I, "if that be the case, I give up all
pretension to skill in the science of sins."
    "To make you still more sensible of this," returned he, "you
have been accustomed to think, I suppose, that a good opinion of one's
self, and a complacency in one's own works, is a most dangerous sin?
Now, will you not be surprised if I can show you that such a good
opinion, even though there should be no foundation for it, is so far
from being a sin that it is, on the contrary, the gift of God?"
    "Is it possible, father?"
    "That it is," said the monk; "and our good Father Garasse shows it
in his French work, entitled Summary of the Capital Truths of
Religion: 'It is a result of commutative justice that all honest
labour should find its recompense either in praise or in
self-satisfaction. When men of good talents publish some excellent
work, they are justly remunerated by public applause. But when a man
of weak parts has wrought hard at some worthless production, and fails
to obtain the praise of the public, in order that his labour may not
go without its reward, God imparts to him a personal satisfaction,
which it would be worse than barbarous injustice to envy him. It is
thus that God, who is infinitely just, has given even to frogs a
certain complacency in their own croaking.'"
    "Very fine decisions in favour of vanity, ambition, and
avarice!" cried I; "and envy, father, will it be more difficult to
find an excuse for it?"
    "That is a delicate point," he replied. "We require to make use
here of Father Bauny's distinction, which he lays down in his
Summary of Sins.- 'Envy of the spiritual good of our neighbour is
mortal but envy of his temporal good is only venial.'"
    "And why so, father?"
    "You shall hear, said he. "'For the good that consists in temporal
things is so slender, and so insignificant in relation to heaven, that
it is of no consideration in the eyes of God and His saints.'"
    "But, father, if temporal good is so slender, and of so little
consideration, how do you come to permit men's lives to be taken
away in order to preserve it?"
    "You mistake the matter entirely," returned the monk; "you were
told that temporal good was of no consideration in the eyes of God,
but not in the eyes of men."
    "That idea never occurred to me," I replied; "and now, it is to be
hoped that, in virtue of these same distinctions, the world will get
rid of mortal sins altogether."
    "Do not flatter yourself with that," said the father; "there are
still such things as mortal sins- there is sloth, for example."
    "Nay, then, father dear!" I exclaimed, "after that, farewell to
all 'the joys of life!'"
    "Stay," said the monk, "when you have heard Escobar's definition
of that vice, you will perhaps change your tone: 'Sloth,' he observes,
'lies in grieving that spiritual things are spiritual, as if one
should lament that the sacraments are the sources of grace; which
would be a mortal sin.'"
    "O my dear sir!" cried I, "I don't think that anybody ever took it
into his head to be slothful in that way."
    "And accordingly," he replied, "Escobar afterwards remarks: 'I
must confess that it is very rarely that a person falls into the sin
of sloth.' You see now how important it is to define things properly?"
    "Yes, father, and this brings to my mind your other definitions
about assassinations, ambuscades, and superfluities. But why have
you not extended your method to all cases, and given definitions of
all vices in your way, so that people may no longer sin in
gratifying themselves?"
    "It is not always essential," he replied, "to accomplish that
purpose by changing the definitions of things. I may illustrate this
by referring to the subject of good cheer, which is accounted one of
the greatest pleasures of life, and which Escobar thus sanctions in
his Practice according to our Society: 'Is it allowable for a person
to eat and drink to repletion, unnecessarily, and solely for pleasure?
Certainly he may, according to Sanchez, provided he does not thereby
injure his health; because the natural appetite may be permitted to
enjoy its proper functions.'"
    "Well, father, that is certainly the most complete passage, and
the most finished maxim in the whole of your moral system! What
comfortable inferences may be drawn from it! Why, and is gluttony,
then, not even a venial sin?"
    "Not in the shape I have just referred to," he replied; "but,
according to the same author, it would be a venial sin 'were a
person to gorge himself, unnecessarily, with eating and drinking, to
such a degree as to produce vomiting.' So much for that point. I would
now say a little about the facilities we have invented for avoiding
sin in worldly conversations and intrigues. One of the most
embarrassing of these cases is how to avoid telling lies, particularly
when one is anxious to induce a belief in what is false. In such
cases, our doctrine of equivocations has been found of admirable
service, according to which, as Sanchez has it, 'it is permitted to
use ambiguous terms, leading people to understand them in another
sense from that in which we understand them ourselves.'"
    "I know that already, father," said I.
    "We have published it so often," continued he, "that at length, it
seems, everybody knows of it. But do you know what is to be done
when no equivocal words can be got?"
    "No, father."
    "I thought as much, said the Jesuit; "this is something new,
sir: I mean the doctrine of mental reservations. 'A man may swear,' as
Sanchez says in the same place, 'that he never did such a thing
(though he actually did it), meaning within himself that he did not do
so on a certain day, or before he was born, or understanding any other
such circumstance, while the words which he employs have no such sense
as would discover his meaning. And this is very convenient in many
cases, and quite innocent, when necessary or conducive to one's
health, honour, or advantage.'"
    "Indeed, father! is that not a lie, and perjury to boot?"
    "No," said the father; "Sanchez and Filiutius prove that it is
not; for, says the latter, 'it is the intention that determines the
quality of the action.' And he suggests a still surer method for
avoiding falsehood, which is this: After saying aloud, 'I swear that I
have not done that,' to add, in a low voice, 'to-day'; or after saying
aloud, 'I swear,' to interpose in a whisper, 'that I say,' and then
continue aloud, 'that I have done that.' This, you perceive, is
telling the truth."
    "I grant it," said I; "it might possibly, however, be found to
be telling the truth in a low key, and falsehood in a loud one;
besides, I should be afraid that many people might not have sufficient
presence of mind to avail themselves of these methods."
    "Our doctors," replied the Jesuit, "have taught, in the same
passage, for the benefit of such as might not be expert in the use
of these reservations, that no more is required of them, to avoid
lying, than simply to say that 'they have not done' what they have
done, provided 'they have, in general, the intention of giving to
their language the sense which an able man would give to it.' Be
candid, now, and confess if you have not often felt yourself
embarrassed, in consequence of not knowing this?"
    "Sometimes," said I.
    "And will you not also acknowledge," continued he, "that it
would often prove very convenient to be absolved in conscience from
keeping certain engagements one may have made?"
    "The most convenient thing in the world!" I replied.
    "Listen, then, to the general rule laid down by Escobar: 'Promises
are not binding, when the person in making them had no intention to
bind himself. Now, it seldom happens that any have such an
intention, unless when they confirm their promises by an oath or
contract; so that when one simply says, "I will do it," he means
that he will do it if he does not change his mind; for he does not
wish, by saying that, to deprive himself of his liberty.' He gives
other rules in the same strain, which you may consult for yourself,
and tells us, in conclusion, 'that all this is taken from Molina and
our other authors, and is therefore settled beyond all doubt.'"
    "My dear father," I observed, "I had no idea that the direction of
the intention possessed the power of rendering promises null and
void."
    "You must perceive," returned he, "what facility this affords
for prosecuting the business of life. But what has given us the most
trouble has been to regulate the commerce between the sexes; our
fathers being more chary in the matter of chastity. Not but that
they have discussed questions of a very curious and very indulgent
character, particularly in reference to married and betrothed
persons."
    At this stage of the conversation I was made acquainted with the
most extraordinary questions you can well imagine. He gave me enough
of them to fill many letters; but, as you show my communications to
all sorts of persons, and as I do not choose to be the vehicle of such
reading to those who would make it the subject of diversion, I must
decline even giving the quotations.
    The only thing to which I can venture to allude, out of all the
books which he showed me, and these in French, too, is a passage which
you will find in Father Bauny's Summary, p. 165, relating to certain
little familiarities, which, provided the intention is well
directed, he explains "as passing for gallant"; and you will be
surprised to find, on p. 148 a principle of morals, as to the power
which daughters have to dispose of their persons without the leave
of their relatives, couched in these terms: "When that is done with
the consent of the daughter, although the father may have reason to
complain, it does not follow that she, or the person to whom she has
sacrificed her honour, has done him any wrong, or violated the rules
of justice in regard to him; for the daughter has possession of her
honour, as well as of her body, and can do what she pleases with them,
bating death or mutilation of her members." Judge, from that specimen,
of the rest. It brings to my recollection a passage from a heathen
poet, a much better casuist, it would appear, than these reverend
doctors; for he says, "that the person of a daughter does not belong
wholly to herself, but partly to her father and partly to her
mother, without whom she cannot dispose of it, even in marriage."
And I am much mistaken if there is a single judge in the land who
would not lay down as law the very reverse of this maxim of Father
Bauny.
    This is all I dare tell you of this part of our conversation,
which lasted so long that I was obliged to beseech the monk to
change the subject. He did so and proceeded to entertain me with their
regulations about female attire.
    "We shall not speak," he said, "of those who are actuated by
impure intentions; but, as to others, Escobar remarks that 'if the
woman adorn herself without any evil intention, but merely to
gratify a natural inclination to vanity- ob naturalem fastus
inclinationem- this is only a venial sin, or rather no sin at all.'
And Father Bauny maintains, that 'even though the woman knows the
bad effect which her care in adorning her person may have upon the
virtue of those who may behold her, all decked out in rich and
precious attire, she would not sin in so dressing.' And, among others,
he cites our Father Sanchez as being of the same mind."
    "But, father, what do your authors say to those passages of
Scripture which so strongly denounce everything of that sort?"
    "Lessius has well met that objection," said the monk, "by
observing, 'that these passages of Scripture have the force of
precepts only in regard to the women of that period, who were expected
to exhibit, by their modest demeanour, an example of edification to
the Pagans.'"
    "And where did he find that, father"?
    "It does not matter where he found it," replied he; "it is
enough to know that the sentiments of these great men are always
probable of themselves. It deserves to be noticed, however, that
Father Le Moine has qualified this general permission; for he will
on no account allow it to be extended to the old ladies. 'Youth,' he
observes, 'is naturally entitled to adorn itself, nor can the use of
ornament be condemned at an age which is the flower and verdure of
life. But there it should be allowed to remain: it would be
strangely out of season to seek for roses on the snow. The stars alone
have a right to be always dancing, for they have the gift of perpetual
youth. The wisest course in this matter, therefore, for old women,
would be to consult good sense and a good mirror, to yield to
decency and necessity, and to retire at the first approach of the
shades of night.'"
    "A most judicious advice," I observed.
    "But," continued the monk, "just to show you how careful our
fathers are about everything you can think of, I may mention that,
after granting the ladies permission to gamble, and foreseeing that,
in many cases, this license would be of little avail unless they had
something to gamble with, they have established another maxim in their
favour, which will be found in Escobar's chapter on larceny, no. 13:
'A wife,' says he, 'may gamble, and for this purpose may pilfer
money from her husband.'"
    "Well, father, that is capital!
    "There are many other good things besides that," said the
father; "but we must waive them and say a little about those more
important maxims, which facilitate the practice of holy things- the
manner of attending mass, for example. On this subject, our great
divines, Gaspard Hurtado and Coninck, have taught 'that it is quite
sufficient to be present at mass in body, though we may be absent in
spirit, provided we maintain an outwardly respectful deportment.'
Vasquez goes a step further, maintaining 'that one fulfils the precept
of hearing mass, even though one should go with no such intention at
all.' All this is repeatedly laid down by Escobar, who, in one
passage, illustrates the point by the example of those who are dragged
to mass by force, and who put on a fixed resolution not to listen to
it."
    "Truly, sir," said I, "had any other person told me that, I
would not have believed it."
    "In good sooth," he replied, "it requires all the support which
the authority of these great names can lend it; and so does the
following maxim by the same Escobar, 'that even a wicked intention,
such as that of ogling the women, joined to that of hearing mass
rightly, does not hinder a man from fulfilling the service.' But
another very convenient device, suggested by our learned brother
Turrian, is that 'one may hear the half of a mass from one priest, and
the other half from another; and that it makes no difference though he
should hear first the conclusion of the one, and then the commencement
of the other.' I might also mention that it has been decided by
several of our doctors to be lawful 'to hear the two halves of a
mass at the same time, from the lips of two different priests, one
of whom is commencing the mass, while the other is at the elevation;
it being quite possible to attend to both parties at once, and two
halves of a mass making a whole- duae medietates unam missam
constituunt.' 'From all which,' says Escobar, 'I conclude, that you
may hear mass in a very short period of time; if, for example, you
should happen to hear four masses going on at the same time, so
arranged that when the first is at the commencement, the second is
at the gospel, the third at the consecration, and the last at the
communion.'"
    "Certainly, father, according to that plan, one may hear mass
any day at Notre Dame in a twinkling."
    "Well," replied he, "that just shows how admirably we have
succeeded in facilitating the hearing of mass. But I am anxious now to
show you how we have softened the use of the sacraments, and
particularly that of penance. It is here that the benignity of our
fathers shines in its truest splendour; and you will be really
astonished to find that devotion, a thing which the world is so much
afraid of, should have been treated by our doctors with such
consummate skill that, to use the words of Father Le Moine, in his
Devotion Made Easy, demolishing the bugbear which the devil had placed
at its threshold, they have rendered it easier than vice and more
agreeable than pleasure; so that, in fact, simply to live is
incomparably more irksome than to live well. Is that not a
marvellous change, now?"
    "Indeed, father, I cannot help telling you a bit of my mind: I
am sadly afraid that you have overshot the mark, and that this
indulgence of yours will shock more people than it will attract. The
mass, for example, is a thing so grand and so holy that, in the eyes
of a great many, it would be enough to blast the credit of your
doctors forever to show them how you have spoken of it."
    "With a certain class," replied the monk, "I allow that may be the
case; but do you not know that we accommodate ourselves to all sorts
of persons? You seem to have lost all recollection of what I have
repeatedly told you on this point. The first time you are at
leisure, therefore, I propose that we make this the theme of our
conversation, deferring till then the lenitives we have introduced
into the confessional. I promise to make you understand it so well
that you will never forget it."
    With these words we parted, so that our next conversation, I
presume, will turn on the policy of the Society. I am, &c.
    P.S. Since writing the above, I have seen Paradise Opened by a
Hundred Devotions Easily Practised, by Father Barry; and also the Mark
of Predestination, by Father Binet; both of them pieces well worth the
seeing.
                        


LETTER X

                                                Paris, August 2, 1656
  SIR,
    I have not come yet to the policy of the Society, but shall
first introduce you to one of its leading principles. I refer to the
palliatives which they have applied to confession, and which are
unquestionably the best of all the schemes they have fallen upon to
"attract all and repel none." It is absolutely necessary to know
something of this before going any further; and, accordingly, the monk
judged it expedient to give me some instructions on the point,
nearly as follows:
    "From what I have already stated," he observed, "you may judge
of the success with which our doctors have laboured to discover, in
their wisdom, that a great many things, formerly regarded as
forbidden, are innocent and allowable; but as there are some sins
for which one can find no excuse, and for which there is no remedy but
confession, it became necessary to alleviate, by the methods I am
now going to mention, the difficulties attending that practice.
Thus, having shown you, in our previous conversations, how we
relieve people from troublesome scruples of conscience by showing them
that what they believed to be sinful was indeed quite innocent, I
proceed now to illustrate our convenient plan for expiating what is
really sinful, which is effected by making confession as easy a
process as it was formerly a painful one."
    "And how do you manage that, father?"
    "Why," said he, "it is by those admirable subtleties which are
peculiar to our Company, and have been styled by our fathers in
Flanders, in The Image of the First Century, 'the pious finesse, the
holy artifice of devotion- piam et religiosam calliditatem, et
pietatis solertiam.' By the aid of these inventions, as they remark in
the same place, 'crimes may be expiated nowadays alacrius- with more
zeal and alacrity than they were committed in former days, and a great
many people may be washed from their stains almost as cleverly as they
contracted them- plurimi vix citius maculas contrahunt quam eluunt.'"
    "Pray, then, father, do teach me some of these most salutary
lessons of finesse."
    "We have a good number of them, answered the monk; "for there
are a great many irksome things about confession, and for each of
these we have devised a palliative. The chief difficulties connected
with this ordinance are the shame of confessing certain sins, the
trouble of specifying the circumstances of others, the penance exacted
for them, the resolution against relapsing into them, the avoidance of
the proximate occasions of sins, and the regret for having committed
them. I hope to convince you to-day that it is now possible to get
over all this with hardly any trouble at all; such is the care we have
taken to allay the bitterness and nauseousness of this very
necessary medicine. For, to begin with the difficulty of confessing
certain sins, you are aware it is of importance often to keep in the
good graces of one's confessor; now, must it not be extremely
convenient to be permitted, as you are by our doctors, particularly
Escobar and Suarez, 'to have two confessors, one for the mortal sins
and another for the venial, in order to maintain a fair character with
your ordinary confessor- uti bonam famam apud ordinarium tueatur-
provided you do not take occasion from thence to indulge in mortal
sin?' This is followed by another ingenious contrivance for confessing
a sin, even to the ordinary confessor, without his perceiving that
it was committed since the last confession, which is, 'to make a
general confession, and huddle this last sin in a lump among the
rest which we confess.' And I am sure you will own that the
following decision of Father Bauny goes far to alleviate the shame
which one must feel in confessing his relapses, namely, 'that,
except in certain cases, which rarely occur, the confessor is not
entitled to ask his penitent if the sin of which he accuses himself is
an habitual one, nor is the latter obliged to answer such a
question; because the confessor has no right to subject his penitent
to the shame of disclosing his frequent relapses.'"
    "Indeed, father! I might as well say that a physician has no right
to ask his patient if it is long since he had the fever. Do not sins
assume quite a different aspect according to circumstances? and should
it not be the object of a genuine penitent to discover the whole state
of his conscience to his confessor, with the same sincerity and
open-heartedness as if he were speaking to Jesus Christ himself, whose
place the priest occupies? If so, how far is he from realizing such
a disposition who, by concealing the frequency of his relapses,
conceals the aggravations of his offence!"
    I saw that this puzzled the worthy monk, for he attempted to elude
rather than resolve the difficulty by turning my attention to
another of their rules, which only goes to establish a fresh abuse,
instead of justifying in the least the decision of Father Bauny; a
decision which, in my opinion, is one of the most pernicious of
their maxims, and calculated to encourage profligate men to continue
in their evil habits.
    "I grant you," replied the father, "that habit aggravates the
malignity of a sin, but it does not alter its nature; and that is
the reason why we do not insist on people confessing it, according
to the rule laid down by our fathers, and quoted by Escobar, 'that one
is only obliged to confess the circumstances that alter the species of
the sin, and not those that aggravate it.' Proceeding on this rule,
Father Granados says, 'that if one has eaten flesh in Lent, all he
needs to do is to confess that he has broken the fast, without
specifying whether it was by eating flesh, or by taking two fish
meals.' And, according to Reginald, 'a sorcerer who has employed the
diabolical art is not obliged to reveal that circumstance; it is
enough to say that he has dealt in magic, without expressing whether
it was by palmistry or by a paction with the devil.' Fagundez,
again, has decided that 'rape is not a circumstance which one is bound
to reveal, if the woman give her consent.' All this is quoted by
Escobar, with many other very curious decisions as to these
circumstances, which you may consult at your leisure."
    "These 'artifices of devotion' are vastly convenient in their
way," I observed.
    "And yet," said the father, "notwithstanding all that, they
would go for nothing, sir, unless we had proceeded to mollify penance,
which, more than anything else, deters people from confession. Now,
however, the most squeamish have nothing to dread from it, after
what we have advanced in our theses of the College of Clermont,
where we hold that, if the confessor imposes a suitable penance, and
the penitent be unwilling to submit himself to it, the latter may go
home, 'waiving both the penance and the absolution.' Or, as Escobar
says, in giving the Practice of our Society, 'if the penitent
declare his willingness to have his penance remitted to the next
world, and to suffer in purgatory all the pains due to him, the
confessor may, for the honour of the sacrament, impose a very light
penance on him, particularly if he has reason to believe that this
penitent would object to a heavier one.'"
    "I really think," said I, "that, if that is the case, we ought
no longer to call confession the sacrament of penance."
    "You are wrong," he replied; "for we always administer something
in the way of penance, for the form's sake."
    "But, father, do you suppose that a man is worthy of receiving
absolution when he will submit to nothing painful to expiate his
offences? And, in these circumstances, ought you not to retain
rather than remit their sins? Are you not aware of the extent of
your ministry, and that you have the power of binding and loosing?
Do you imagine that you are at liberty to give absolution
indifferently to all who ask it, and without ascertaining beforehand
if Jesus Christ looses in heaven those whom you loose on earth?"
    "What!" cried the father, "do you suppose that we do not know that
'the confessor (as one remarks) ought to sit in judgement on the
disposition of his penitent, both because he is bound not to
dispense the sacraments to the unworthy, Jesus Christ having
enjoined him to be a faithful steward and not give that which is
holy unto dogs; and because he is a judge, and it is the duty of a
judge to give righteous judgement, by loosing the worthy and binding
the unworthy, and he ought not to absolve those whom Jesus Christ
condemns.'
    "Whose words are these, father?"
    "They are the words of our father Filiutius," he replied.
    "You astonish me," said I; "I took them to be a quotation from one
of the fathers of the Church. At all events, sir, that passage ought
to make an impression on the confessors, and render them very
circumspect in the dispensation of this sacrament, to ascertain
whether the regret of their penitents is sufficient, and whether their
promises of future amendment are worthy of credit."
    "That is not such a difficult matter," replied the father;
"Filiutius had more sense than to leave confessors in that dilemma,
and accordingly he suggests an easy way of getting out of it, in the
words immediately following: 'The confessor may easily set his mind at
rest as to the disposition of his penitent; for, if he fail to give
sufficient evidence of sorrow, the confessor has only to ask him if he
does not detest the sin in his heart, and, if he answers that he does,
he is bound to believe it. The same thing may be said of resolutions
as to the future, unless the case involves an obligation to
restitution, or to avoid some proximate occasion of sin.'"
    "As to that passage, father, I can easily believe that it is
Filiutius' own."
    "You are mistaken though," said the father, "for he has
extracted it, word for word, from Suarez."
    "But, father, that last passage from Filiutius overturns what he
had laid down in the former. For confessors can no longer be said to
sit as judges on the disposition of their penitents, if they are bound
to take it simply upon their word, in the absence of all satisfying
signs of contrition. Are the professions made on such occasions so
infallible, that no other sign is needed? I question much if
experience has taught your fathers that all who make fair promises are
remarkable for keeping them; I am mistaken if they have not often
found the reverse."
    "No matter," replied the monk; "confessors are bound to believe
them for all that; for Father Bauny, who has probed this question to
the bottom, has concluded 'that at whatever time those who have fallen
into frequent relapses, without giving evidence of amendment,
present themselves before a confessor, expressing their regret for the
past, and a good purpose for the future, he is bound to believe them
on their simple averment, although there may be reason to presume that
such resolution only came from the teeth outwards. Nay,' says he,
'though they should indulge subsequently to greater excess than ever
in the same delinquencies, still, in my opinion, they may receive
absolution.' There now! that, I am sure, should silence you."
    "But, father," said I, "you impose a great hardship, I think, on
the confessors, by thus obliging them to believe the very reverse of
what they see."
    "You don't understand it," returned he; "all that is meant is that
they are obliged to act and absolve as if they believed that their
penitents would be true to their engagements, though, in point of
fact, they believe no such thing. This is explained, immediately
afterwards, by Suarez and Filiutius. After having said that 'the
priest is bound to believe the penitent on his word,' they add: 'It is
not necessary that the confessor should be convinced that the good
resolution of his penitent will be carried into effect, nor even
that he should judge it probable; it is enough that he thinks the
person has at the time the design in general, though he may very
shortly after relapse. Such is the doctrine of all our authors- ita
docent omnes autores.' Will you presume to doubt what has been
taught by our authors?"
    "But, sir, what then becomes of what Father Petau himself is
obliged to own, in the preface to his Public Penance, 'that the holy
fathers, doctors, and councils of the Church agree in holding it as
a settled point that the penance preparatory to the eucharist must
be genuine, constant, resolute, and not languid and sluggish, or
subject to after-thoughts and relapses?'"
    "Don't you observe," replied the monk, "that Father Petau is
speaking of the ancient Church? But all that is now so little in
season, to use a common saying of our doctors, that, according to
Father Bauny, the reverse is the only true view of the matter.
'There are some,' says he, 'who maintain that absolution ought to be
refused to those who fall frequently into the same sin, more
especially if, after being often absolved, they evince no signs of
amendment; and others hold the opposite view. But the only true
opinion is that they ought not to be refused absolution; and, though
they should be nothing the better of all the advice given them, though
they should have broken all their promises to lead new lives, and been
at no trouble to purify themselves, still it is of no consequence;
whatever may be said to the contrary, the true opinion which ought
to be followed is that even in all these cases, they ought to be
absolved.' And again: 'Absolution ought neither to be denied nor
delayed in the case of those who live in habitual sins against the law
of God, of nature, and of the Church, although there should be no
apparent prospect of future amendment- etsi emendationis futurae nulla
spes appareat.'"
    "But, father, this certainty of always getting absolution may
induce sinners- "
    "I know what you mean," interrupted the Jesuit; "but listen to
Father Bauny, Q. 15: 'Absolution may be given even to him who candidly
avows that the hope of being absolved induced him to sin with more
freedom than he would otherwise have done.' And Father Caussin,
defending this proposition, says 'that, were this not true, confession
would be interdicted to the greater part of mankind; and the only
resource left poor sinners would be a branch and a rope.'"
    "O father, how these maxims of yours will draw people to your
confessionals!"
    "Yes, he replied, "you would hardly believe what numbers are in
the habit of frequenting them; 'we are absolutely oppressed and
overwhelmed, so to speak, under the crowd of our penitents-
penitentium numero obruimur'- as is said in The Image of the First
Century."
    "I could suggest a very simple method," said I, "to escape from
this inconvenient pressure. You have only to oblige sinners to avoid
the proximate occasions of sin; that single expedient would afford you
relief at once."
    "We have no wish for such a relief," rejoined the monk; "quite the
reverse; for, as is observed in the same book, 'the great end of our
Society is to labor to establish the virtues, to wage war on the
vices, and to save a great number of souls.' Now, as there are very
few souls inclined to quit the proximate occasions of sin, we have
been obliged to define what a proximate occasion is. 'That cannot be
called a proximate occasion,' says Escobar, 'where one sins but
rarely, or on a sudden transport- say three or four times a year'; or,
as Father Bauny has it, once or twice in a month.' Again, asks this
author, 'what is to be done in the case of masters and servants, or
cousins, who, living under the same roof, are by this occasion tempted
to sin?'"
    "They ought to be separated," said I.
    "That is what he says, too, 'if their relapses be very frequent:
but if the parties offend rarely, and cannot be separated without
trouble and loss, they may, according to Suarez and other authors,
be absolved, provided they promise to sin no more, and are truly sorry
for what is past.'"
    This required no explanation, for he had already informed me
with what sort of evidence of contrition the confessor was bound to
rest satisfied.
    "And Father Bauny," continued the monk, "permits those who are
involved in the proximate occasions of sin, 'to remain as they are,
when they cannot avoid them without becoming the common talk of the
world, or subjecting themselves to inconvenience.' 'A priest,' he
remarks in another work, 'may and ought to absolve a woman who is
guilty of living with a paramour, if she cannot put him away
honourably, or has some reason for keeping him- si non potest
honeste ejicere, aut habeat aliquam causam retinendi- provided she
promises to act more virtuously for the future.'"
    "Well, father," cried I, "you have certainly succeeded in relaxing
the obligation of avoiding the occasions of sin to a very
comfortable extent, by dispensing with the duty as soon as it
becomes inconvenient; but I should think your fathers will at least
allow it be binding when there is no difficulty in the way of its
performance?"
    "Yes," said the father, "though even then the rule is not
without exceptions. For Father Bauny says, in the same place, 'that
any one may frequent profligate houses, with the view of converting
their unfortunate inmates, though the probability should be that he
fall into sin, having often experienced before that he has yielded
to their fascinations. Some doctors do not approve of this opinion,
and hold that no man may voluntarily put his salvation in peril to
succour his neighbor; yet I decidedly embrace the opinion which they
controvert.'"
    "A novel sort of preachers these, father! But where does Father
Bauny find any ground for investing them with such a mission?"
    "It is upon one of his own principles," he replied, "which he
announces in the same place after Basil Ponce. I mentioned it to you
before, and I presume you have not forgotten it. It is, 'that one
may seek an occasion of sin, directly and expressly- primo et per
se- to promote the temporal or spiritual good of himself or his
neighbour.'"
    On hearing these passages, I felt so horrified that I was on the
point of breaking out; but, being resolved to hear him to an end, I
restrained myself, and merely inquired: "How, father, does this
doctrine comport with that of the Gospel, which binds us to 'pluck out
the right eye,' and 'cut off the right hand,' when they 'offend,' or
prove prejudicial to salvation? And how can you suppose that the man
who wilfully indulges in the occasions of sins, sincerely hates sin?
Is it not evident, on the contrary, that he has never been properly
touched with a sense of it, and that he has not yet experienced that
genuine conversion of heart, which makes a man love God as much as
he formerly loved the creature?"
    "Indeed!" cried he, "do you call that genuine contrition? It seems
you do not know that, as Father Pintereau says, 'all our fathers
teach, with one accord, that it is an error, and almost a heresy, to
hold that contrition is necessary; or that attrition alone, induced by
the sole motive, the fear of the pains of hell, which excludes a
disposition to offend, is not sufficient with the sacrament?'"
    "What, father! do you mean to say that it is almost an article
of faith that attrition, induced merely by fear of punishment, is
sufficient with the sacrament? That idea, I think, is peculiar to your
fathers; for those other doctors who hold that attrition is sufficient
along with the sacrament, always take care to show that it must be
accompanied with some love to God at least. It appears to me,
moreover, that even your own authors did not always consider this
doctrine of yours so certain. Your Father Suarez, for instance, speaks
of it thus: 'Although it is a probable opinion that attrition is
sufficient with the sacrament, yet it is not certain, and it may be
false- non est certa, et potest esse falsa. And, if it is false,
attrition is not sufficient to save a man; and he that dies
knowingly in this state, wilfully exposes himself to the grave peril
of eternal damnation. For this opinion is neither very ancient nor
very common- nec valde antiqua, nec multum communis.' Sanchez was
not more prepared to hold it as infallible when he said in his Summary
that 'the sick man and his confessor, who content themselves at the
hour of death with attrition and the sacrament, are both chargeable
with mortal sin, on account of the great risk of damnation to which
the penitent would be exposed, if the opinion that attrition is
sufficient with the sacrament should not turn out to be true.
Comitolus, too, says that 'we should not be too sure that attrition
suffices with the sacrament.'"
    Here the worthy father interrupted me. "What!" he cried, "you read
our authors then, it seems? That is all very well; but it would be
still better were you never to read them without the precaution of
having one of us beside you. Do you not see, now, that, from having
read them alone, you have concluded, in your simplicity, that these
passages bear hard on those who have more lately supported our
doctrine of attrition? Whereas it might be shown that nothing could
set them off to greater advantage. Only think what a triumph it is for
our fathers of the present day to have succeeded in disseminating
their opinion in such short time, and to such an extent that, with the
exception of theologians, nobody almost would ever suppose but that
our modern views on this subject had been the uniform belief of the
faithful in all ages! So that, in fact, when you have shown, from
our fathers themselves, that, a few years ago, 'this opinion was not
certain,' you have only succeeded in giving our modern authors the
whole merit of its establishment!
    "Accordingly," he continued, "our cordial friend Diana, to gratify
us, no doubt, has recounted the various steps by which the opinion
reached its present position. 'In former days, the ancient schoolmen
maintained that contrition was necessary as soon as one had
committed a mortal sin; since then, however, it has been thought
that it is not binding except on festival days; afterwards, only
when some great calamity threatened the people; others, again, that it
ought not to be long delayed at the approach of death. But our
fathers, Hurtado and Vasquez, have ably refuted all these opinions and
established that one is not bound to contrition unless he cannot be
absolved in any other way, or at the point of death!' But, to continue
the wonderful progress of this doctrine, I might add, what our
fathers, Fagundez, Granados, and Escobar, have decided, 'that
contrition is not necessary even at death; because,' say they, 'if
attrition with the sacrament did not suffice at death, it would follow
that attrition would not be sufficient with the sacrament. And the
learned Hurtado, cited by Diana and Escobar, goes still further; for
he asks: 'Is that sorrow for sin which flows solely from
apprehension of its temporal consequences, such as having lost
health or money, sufficient? We must distinguish. If the evil is not
regarded as sent by the hand of God, such a sorrow does not suffice;
but if the evil is viewed as sent by God, as, in fact, all evil,
says Diana, except sin, comes from him, that kind of sorrow is
sufficient.' Our Father Lamy holds the same doctrine."
    "You surprise me, father; for I see nothing in all that
attrition of which you speak but what is natural; and in this way a
sinner may render himself worthy of absolution without supernatural
grace at all. Now everybody knows that this is a heresy condemned by
the Council."
    "I should have thought with you," he replied; "and yet it seems
this must not be the case, for the fathers of our College of
Clermont have maintained (in their Theses of the 23rd May and 6th June
1644) 'that attrition may be holy and sufficient for the sacrament,
although it may not be supernatural'; and (in that of August 1643)
'that attrition, though merely natural, is sufficient for the
sacrament, provided it is honest.' I do not see what more could be
said on the subject, unless we choose to subjoin an inference, which
may be easily drawn from these principles, namely, that contrition, so
far from being necessary to the sacrament, is rather prejudicial to
it, inasmuch as, by washing away sins of itself, it would leave
nothing for the sacrament to do at all. That is, indeed, exactly
what the celebrated Jesuit Father Valencia remarks. (Book iv,
disp.7, q.8, p.4.) 'Contrition,' says he, 'is by no means necessary in
order to obtain the principal benefit of the sacrament; on the
contrary, it is rather an obstacle in the way of it- imo obstat potius
quominus effectus sequatur.' Nobody could well desire more to be
said in commendation of attrition."
    "I believe that, father, said I; "but you must allow me to tell
you my opinion, and to show you to what a dreadful length this
doctrine leads. When you say that 'attrition, induced by the mere
dread of punishment,' is sufficient, with the sacrament, to justify
sinners, does it not follow that a person may always expiate his
sins in this way, and thus be saved without ever having loved God
all his lifetime? Would your fathers venture to hold that?"
    "I perceive," replied the monk, "from the strain of your
remarks, that you need some information on the doctrine of our fathers
regarding the love of God. This is the last feature of their morality,
and the most important of all. You must have learned something of it
from the passages about contrition which I have quoted to you. But
here are others still more definite on the point of love to God- Don't
interrupt me, now; for it is of importance to notice the connection.
Attend to Escobar, who reports the different opinions of our
authors, in his Practice of the Love of God according to our
Society. The question is: 'When is one obliged to have an actual
affection for God?' Suarez says it is enough if one loves Him before
being articulo mortis- at the point of death- without determining
the exact time. Vasquez, that it is sufficient even at the very
point of death. Others, when one has received baptism. Others,
again, when one is bound to exercise contrition. And others, on
festival days. But our father, Castro Palao, combats all these
opinions, and with good reason- merito. Hurtado de Mendoza insists
that we are obliged to love God once a year; and that we ought to
regard it as a great favour that we are not bound to do it oftener.
But our Father Coninck thinks that we are bound to it only once in
three or four years; Henriquez, once in five years; and Filiutius says
that it is probable that we are not strictly bound to it even once
in five years. How often, then, do you ask? Why, he refers it to the
judgement of the judicious."
    I took no notice of all this badinage, in which the ingenuity of
man seems to be sporting, in the height of insolence, with the love of
God.
    "But," pursued the monk, "our Father Antony Sirmond surpasses
all on this point, in his admirable book, The Defence of Virtue,
where, as he tells the reader, 'he speaks French in France,' as
follows: 'St. Thomas says that we are obliged to love God as soon as
we come to the use of reason: that is rather too soon! Scotus says
every Sunday; pray, for what reason? Others say when we are sorely
tempted: yes, if there be no other way of escaping the temptation.
Scotus says when we have received a benefit from God: good, in the way
of thanking Him for it. Others say at death: rather late! As little do
I think it binding at the reception of any sacrament: attrition in
such cases is quite enough, along with confession, if convenient.
Suarez says that it is binding at some time or another; but at what
time?- he leaves you to judge of that for yourself- he does not
know; and what that doctor did not know I know not who should know.'
In short, he concludes that we are not strictly bound to more than
to keep the other commandments, without any affection for God, and
without giving Him our hearts, provided that we do not hate Him. To
prove this is the sole object of his second treatise. You will find it
in every page; more especially where he says: 'God, in commanding us
to love Him, is satisfied with our obeying Him in his other
commandments. If God had said: "Whatever obedience thou yieldest me,
if thy heart is not given to me, I will destroy thee!" would such a
motive, think you, be well fitted to promote the end which God must,
and only can, have in view? Hence it is said that we shall love God by
doing His will, as if we loved Him with affection, as if the motive in
this case was real charity. If that is really our motive, so much
the better; if not, still we are strictly fulfilling the commandment
of love, by having its works, so that (such is the goodness of God!)
we are commanded, not so much to love Him, as not to hate Him.'
    "Such is the way in which our doctors have discharged men from the
painful obligation of actually loving God. And this doctrine is so
advantageous that our Fathers Annat, Pintereau, Le Moine, and Antony
Sirmond himself, have strenuously defended it when it has been
attacked. You have only to consult their answers to the Moral
Theology. That of Father Pintereau, in particular, will enable you
to form some idea of the value of this dispensation, from the price
which he tells us that it cost, which is no less than the blood of
Jesus Christ. This crowns the whole. It appears, that this
dispensation from the painful obligation to love God, is the privilege
of the Evangelical law, in opposition to the Judaical. 'It was
reasonable,' he says, 'that, under the law of grace in the New
Testament, God should relieve us from that troublesome and arduous
obligation which existed under the law of bondage, to exercise an
act of perfect contrition, in order to be justified; and that the
place of this should be supplied by the sacraments, instituted in
aid of an easier disposition. Otherwise, indeed, Christians, who are
the children, would have no greater facility in gaining the good
graces of their Father than the Jews, who were the slaves, had in
obtaining the mercy of their Lord and Master.'"
    "O father!" cried I; "no patience can stand this any longer. It is
impossible to listen without horror to the sentiments I have just
heard."
    "They are not my sentiments," said the monk.
    "I grant it, sir," said I; "but you feel no aversion to them; and,
so far from detesting the authors of these maxims, you hold them in
esteem. Are you not afraid that your consent may involve you in a
participation of their guilt? and are you not aware that St. Paul
judges worthy of death, not only the authors of evil things, but
also 'those who have pleasure in them that do them?' Was it not enough
to have permitted men to indulge in so many forbidden things under the
covert of your palliations? Was it necessary to go still further and
hold out a bribe to them to commit even those crimes which you found
it impossible to excuse, by offering them an easy and certain
absolution; and for this purpose nullifying the power of the
priests, and obliging them, more as slaves than as judges, to
absolve the most inveterate sinners- without any amendment of life,
without any sign of contrition except promises a hundred times broken,
without penance 'unless they choose to accept of it', and without
abandoning the occasions of their vices, 'if they should thereby be
put to any inconvenience?'
    "But your doctors have gone even beyond this; and the license
which they have assumed to tamper with the most holy rules of
Christian conduct amounts to a total subversion of the law of God.
They violate 'the great commandment on which hang all the law and
the prophets'; they strike at the very heart of piety; they rob it
of the spirit that giveth life; they hold that to love God is not
necessary to salvation; and go so far as to maintain that 'this
dispensation from loving God is the privilege which Jesus Christ has
introduced into the world!' This, sir, is the very climax of
impiety. The price of the blood of Jesus Christ paid to obtain us a
dispensation from loving Him! Before the incarnation, it seems men
were obliged to love God; but since 'God has so loved the world as
to give His only begotten Son,' the world, redeemed by him, is
released from loving Him! Strange divinity of our days- to dare to
take off the 'anathema' which St. Paul denounces on those 'that love
not the Lord Jesus!' To cancel the sentence of St. John: 'He that
loveth not, abideth in death!' and that of Jesus Christ himself: 'He
that loveth me not keepeth not my precepts!' and thus to render
those worthy of enjoying God through eternity who never loved God
all their life! Behold the Mystery of Iniquity fulfilled! Open your
eyes at length, my dear father, and if the other aberrations of your
casuists have made no impression on you, let these last, by their very
extravagance, compel you to abandon them. This is what I desire from
the bottom of my heart, for your own sake and for the sake of your
doctors; and my prayer to God is that He would vouchsafe to convince
them how false the light must be that has guided them to such
precipices; and that He would fill their hearts with that love of
Himself from which they have dared to give man a dispensation!"
    After some remarks of this nature, I took my leave of the monk,
and I see no great likelihood of my repeating my visits to him.
This, however, need not occasion you any regret; for, should it be
necessary to continue these communications on their maxims, I have
studied their books sufficiently to tell you as much of their
morality, and more, perhaps, of their policy, than he could have
done himself. I am, &c.
                        


LETTER XI

TO THE REVEREND FATHERS, THE JESUITS

                                                      August 18, 1656
  REVEREND FATHERS,
    I have seen the letters which you are circulating in opposition to
those which I wrote to one of my friends on your morality; and I
perceive that one of the principal points of your defence is that I
have not spoken of your maxims with sufficient seriousness. This
charge you repeat in all your productions, and carry it so far as to
allege, that I have been "guilty of turning sacred things into
ridicule."
    Such a charge, fathers, is no less surprising than it is
unfounded. Where do you find that I have turned sacred things into
ridicule? You specify "the Mohatra contract, and the story of John
d'Alba." But are these what you call "sacred things?" Does it really
appear to you that the Mohatra is something so venerable that it would
be blasphemy not to speak of it with respect? And the lessons of
Father Bauny on larceny, which led John d'Alba to practise it at
your expense, are they so sacred as to entitle you to stigmatize all
who laugh at them as profane people?
    What, fathers! must the vagaries of your doctors pass for the
verities of the Christian faith, and no man be allowed to ridicule
Escobar, or the fantastical and unchristian dogmas of your authors,
without being stigmatized as jesting at religion? Is it possible you
can have ventured to reiterate so often an idea so utterly
unreasonable? Have you no fears that, in blaming me for laughing at
your absurdities, you may only afford me fresh subject of merriment;
that you may make the charge recoil on yourselves, by showing that I
have really selected nothing from your writings as the matter of
raillery but what was truly ridiculous; and that thus, in making a
jest of your morality, I have been as far from jeering at holy things,
as the doctrine of your casuists is far from being the holy doctrine
of the Gospel?
    Indeed, reverend sirs, there is a vast difference between laughing
at religion and laughing at those who profane it by their
extravagant opinions. It were impiety to be wanting in respect for the
verities which the Spirit of God has revealed; but it were no less
impiety of another sort to be wanting in contempt for the falsities
which the spirit of man opposes to them.
    For, fathers (since you will force me into this argument), I
beseech you to consider that, just in proportion as Christian truths
are worthy of love and respect, the contrary errors must deserve
hatred and contempt; there being two things in the truths of our
religion: a divine beauty that renders them lovely, and a sacred
majesty that renders them venerable; and two things also about errors:
an impiety, that makes them horrible, and an impertinence that renders
them ridiculous. For these reasons, while the saints have ever
cherished towards the truth the twofold sentiment of love and fear-
the whole of their wisdom being comprised between fear, which is its
beginning, and love, which is its end- they have, at the same time,
entertained towards error the twofold feeling of hatred and
contempt, and their zeal has been at once employed to repel, by
force of reasoning, the malice of the wicked, and to chastise, by
the aid of ridicule, their extravagance and folly.
    Do not then expect, fathers, to make people believe that it is
unworthy of a Christian to treat error with derision. Nothing is
easier than to convince all who were not aware of it before that
this practice is perfectly just- that it is common with the fathers of
the Church, and that it is sanctioned by Scripture, by the example
of the best of saints, and even by that of God himself.
    Do we not find God at once hates and despises sinners; so that
even at the hour of death, when their condition is most sad and
deplorable, Divine Wisdom adds mockery to the vengeance which consigns
them to eternal punishment? "In interitu vestro ridebo et
subsannabo- I will laugh at your calamity." The saints, too,
influenced by the same feeling, will join in the derision; for,
according to David, when they witness the punishment of the wicked,
"they shall fear, and yet laugh at it- videbunt justi et timebunt,
et super eum ridebunt." And Job says: "Innocens subsannabit eos- The
innocent shall laugh at them."
    It is worthy of remark here that the very first words which God
addressed to man after his fall contain, in the opinion of the
fathers, "bitter irony" and mockery. After Adam had disobeyed his
Maker, in the hope, suggested by the devil, of being like God, it
appears from Scripture that God, as a punishment, subjected him to
death; and after having reduced him to this miserable condition, which
was due to his sin, He taunted him in that state with the following
terms of derision: "Behold, the man has become as one of us!- Ecce
Adam quasi unus ex nobis!"- which, according to St. Jerome and the
interpreters, is "a grievous and cutting piece of irony," with which
God "stung him to the quick." "Adam," says Rupert, "deserved to be
taunted in this manner, and he would be naturally made to feel his
folly more acutely by this ironical expression than by a more
serious one." St. Victor, after making the same remark, adds, "that
this irony was due to his sottish credulity, and that this species
of rainery is an act of justice, merited by him against whom it was
directed."
    Thus you see, fathers, that ridicule is, in some cases, a very
appropriate means of reclaiming men from their errors, and that it
is accordingly an act of justice, because, as Jeremiah says, "the
actions of those that err are worthy of derision, because of their
vanity- vana sunt es risu digna." And so far from its being impious to
laugh at them, St. Augustine holds it to be the effect of divine
wisdom: "The wise laugh at the foolish, because they are wise, not
after their own wisdom, but after that divine wisdom which shall laugh
at the death of the wicked."
    The prophets, accordingly, filled with the Spirit of God, have
availed themselves of ridicule, as we find from the examples of Daniel
and Elias. In short, examples of it are not wanting in the
discourses of Jesus Christ himself. St. Augustine remarks that, when
he would humble Nicodemus, who deemed himself so expert in his
knowledge of the law, "perceiving him to be pulled up with pride, from
his rank as doctor of the Jews, he first beats down his presumption by
the magnitude of his demands, and, having reduced him so low that he
was unable to answer, What! says he, you a master in Israel, and not
know these things!- as if he had said, Proud ruler, confess that
thou knowest nothing." St. Chrysostom and St. Cyril likewise observe
upon this that "he deserved to be ridiculed in this manner."
    You may learn from this, fathers, that should it so happen, in our
day that persons who enact the part of "masters" among Christians,
as Nicodemus and the Pharisees did among the Jews, show themselves
so ignorant of the first principles of religion as to maintain, for
example, that "a man may be saved who never loved God all his life,"
we only follow the example of Jesus Christ when we laugh at such a
combination of ignorance and conceit.
    I am sure, fathers, these sacred examples are sufficient to
convince you that to deride the errors and extravagances of man is not
inconsistent with the practice of the saints; otherwise we must
blame that of the greatest doctors of the Church, who have been guilty
of it- such as St. Jerome, in his letters and writings against
Jovinian, Vigilantius, and the Pelagians; Tertullian, in his Apology
against the follies of idolaters; St. Augustine against the monks of
Africa, whom he styles "the hairy men"; St. Irenaeus the Gnostics; St.
Bernard and the other fathers of the Church, who, having been the
imitators of the apostles, ought to be imitated by the faithful in all
time coming; for, say what we will, they are the true models for
Christians, even of the present day.
    In following such examples, I conceived that I could not go far
wrong; and, as I think I have sufficiently established this
position, I shall only add, in the admirable words of Tertullian,
which give the true explanation of the whole of my proceeding in
this matter: "What I have now done is only a little sport before the
real combat. I have rather indicated the wounds that might be given
you than inflicted any. If the reader has met with passages which have
excited his risibility, he must ascribe this to the subjects
themselves. There are many things which deserve to be held up in
this way to ridicule and mockery, lest, by a serious refutation, we
should attach a weight to them which they do not deserve. Nothing is
more due to vanity than laughter; and it is the Truth properly that
has a right to laugh, because she is cheerful, and to make sport of
her enemies, because she is sure of the victory. Care must be taken,
indeed, that the raillery is not too low, and unworthy of the truth;
but, keeping this in view, when ridicule may be employed with
effect, it is a duty to avail ourselves of it." Do you not think
fathers, that this passage is singularly applicable to our subject?
The letters which I have hitherto written are "merely a little sport
before a real combat." As yet, I have been only playing with the foils
and "rather indicating the wounds that might be given you than
inflicting any." I have merely exposed your passages to the light,
without making scarcely a reflection on them. "If the reader has met
with any that have excited his risibility, he must ascribe this to the
subjects themselves." And, indeed, what is more fitted to raise a
laugh than to see a matter so grave as that of Christian morality
decked out with fancies so grotesque as those in which you have
exhibited it? One is apt to form such high anticipations of these
maxims, from being told that "Jesus Christ himself has revealed them
to the fathers of the Society," that when one discovers among them
such absurdities as "that a priest, receiving money to say a mass, may
take additional sums from other persons by giving up to them his own
share in the sacrifice"; "that a monk is not to be excommunicated
for putting off his habit, provided it is to dance, swindle, or go
incognito into infamous houses"; and "that the duty of hearing mass
may be fulfilled by listening to four quarters of a mass at once
from different priests"- when, I say, one listens to such decisions as
these, the surprise is such that it is impossible to refrain from
laughing; for nothing is more calculated to produce that emotion
than a startling contrast between the thing looked for and the thing
looked at. And why should the greater part of these maxims be
treated in any other way? As Tertullian says, "To treat them seriously
would be to sanction them."
    What! is it necessary to bring up all the forces of Scripture
and tradition, in order to prove that running a sword through a
man's body, covertly and behind his back, is to murder him in
treachery? or, that to give one money as a motive to resign a
benefice, is to purchase the benefice? Yes, there are things which
it is duty to despise, and which "deserve only to be laughed at." In
short, the remark of that ancient author, "that nothing is more due to
vanity than derision, with what follows, applies to the case before us
so justly and so convincingly, as to put it beyond all question that
we may laugh at errors without violating propriety.
    And let me add, fathers, that this may be done without any
breach of charity either, though this is another of the charges you
bring against me in your publications. For, according to St.
Augustine, "charity may sometimes oblige us to ridicule the errors
of men, that they may be induced to laugh at them in their turn, and
renounce them- Haec tu misericorditer irride, ut eis ridenda ac
fugienda commendes." And the same charity may also, at other times,
bind us to repel them with indignation, according to that other saying
of St. Gregory of Nazianzen: "The spirit of meekness and charity
hath its emotions and its heats." Indeed, as St. Augustine observes,
"who would venture to say that truth ought to stand disarmed against
falsehood, or that the enemies of the faith shall be at liberty to
frighten the faithful with hard words, and jeer at them with lively
sallies of wit; while the Catholics ought never to write except with a
coldness of style enough to set the reader asleep?"
    Is it not obvious that, by following such a course, a wide door
would be opened for the introduction of the most extravagant and
pernicious dogmas into the Church; while none would be allowed to
treat them with contempt, through fear of being charged with violating
propriety, or to confute them with indignation, from the dread of
being taxed with want of charity?
    Indeed, fathers! shall you be allowed to maintain, "that it is
lawful to kill a man to avoid a box on the ear or an affront," and
must nobody be permitted publicly to expose a public error of such
consequence? Shall you be at liberty to say, "that a judge may in
conscience retain a fee received for an act of injustice," and shall
no one be at liberty to contradict you? Shall you print, with the
privilege and approbation of your doctors, "that a man may be saved
without ever having loved God"; and will you shut the mouth of those
who defend the true faith, by telling them that they would violate
brotherly love by attacking you, and Christian modesty by laughing
at your maxims? I doubt, fathers, if there be any persons whom you
could make believe this; if however, there be any such, who are really
persuaded that, by denouncing your morality, I have been deficient
in the charity which I owe to you, I would have them examine, with
great jealousy, whence this feeling takes its rise within them. They
may imagine that it proceeds from a holy zeal, which will not allow
them to see their neighbour impeached without being scandalized at it;
but I would entreat them to consider that it is not impossible that it
may flow from another source, and that it is even extremely likely
that it may spring from that secret, and often self-concealed
dissatisfaction, which the unhappy corruption within us seldom fails
to stir up against those who oppose the relaxation of morals. And,
to furnish them with a rule which may enable them to ascertain the
real principle from which it proceeds, I will ask them if, while
they lament the way in which the religious have been treated, they
lament still more the manner in which these religious have treated the
truth; if they are incensed, not only against the letters, but still
more against the maxims quoted in them. I shall grant it to be
barely possible that their resentment proceeds from some zeal,
though not of the most enlightened kind; and, in this case, the
passages I have just cited from the fathers will serve to enlighten
them. But if they are merely angry at the reprehension, and not at the
things reprehended, truly, fathers, I shall never scruple to tell them
that they are grossly mistaken, and that their zeal is miserably
blind.
    Strange zeal, indeed! which gets angry at those that censure
public faults, and not at those that commit them! Novel charity
this, which groans at seeing error confuted, but feels no grief at
seeing morality subverted by that error. If these persons were in
danger of being assassinated, pray, would they be offended at one
advertising them of the stratagem that had been laid for them; and
instead of turning out of their way to avoid it, would they trifle
away their time in whining about the little charity manifested in
discovering to them the criminal design of the assassins? Do they
get waspish when one tells them not to eat such an article of food,
because it is poisoned? or not to enter such a city, because it has
the plague?
    Whence comes it, then, that the same persons who set down a man as
wanting in charity, for exposing maxims hurtful to religion, would, on
the contrary, think him equally deficient in that grace were he not to
disclose matters hurtful to health and life, unless it be from this,
that their fondness for life induces them to take in good part every
hint that contributes to its preservation, while their indifference to
truth leads them, not only to take no share in its defence, but even
to view with pain the efforts made for the extirpation of falsehood?
    Let them seriously ponder, as in the sight of God, how shameful,
and how prejudicial to the Church, is the morality which your casuists
are in the habit of propagating; the scandalous and unmeasured license
which they are introducing into public manners; the obstinate and
violent hardihood with which you support them. And if they do not
think it full time to rise against such disorders, their blindness
is as much to be pitied as yours, fathers; and you and they have equal
reason to dread that saying of St. Augustine, founded on the words
of Jesus Christ, in the Gospel: "Woe to the blind leaders! woe to
the blind followers!- Vae caecis ducentibus! vae caecis sequentibus!"
    But, to leave you no room in future, either to create such
impressions on the minds of others, or to harbour them in your own,
I shall tell you, fathers (and I am ashamed I should have to teach you
what I should have rather learnt from you), the marks which the
fathers of the Church have given for judging when our animadversions
flow from a principle of piety and charity, and when from a spirit
of malice and impiety.
    The first of these rules is that the spirit of piety always
prompts us to speak with sincerity and truthfulness; whereas malice
and envy make use of falsehood and calumny. "Splendentia et
vehementia, sed rebus veris- Splendid and vehement in words, but
true in things," as St. Augustine says. The dealer in falsehood is
an agent of the devil. No direction of the intention can sanctify
slander; and though the conversion of the whole earth should depend on
it, no man may warrantably calumniate the innocent: because none may
do the least evil, in order to accomplish the greatest good; and, as
the Scripture says, "the truth of God stands in no need of our lie."
St. Hilary observes that "it is the bounden duty of the advocates of
truth, to advance nothing in its support but true things." Now,
fathers, I can declare before God that there is nothing that I
detest more than the slightest possible deviation from the truth,
and that I have ever taken the greatest care, not only not to
falsify (which would be horrible), but not to alter or wrest, in the
slightest possible degree, the sense of a single passage. So closely
have I adhered to this rule that, if I may presume to apply them to
the present case, I may safely say, in the words of the same St.
Hilary: "If we advance things that are false, let our statements be
branded with infamy; but if we can show that they are public and
notorious, it is no breach of apostolic modesty or liberty to expose
them."
    It is not enough, however, to tell nothing but the truth; we
must not always tell everything that is true; we should publish only
those things which it is useful to disclose, and not those which can
only hurt, without doing any good. And, therefore, as the first rule
is to speak with truth, the second is to speak with discretion. "The
wicked," says St. Augustine, "in persecuting the good, blindly
follow the dictates of their passion; but the good, in their
prosecution of the wicked, are guided by a wise discretion, even as
the surgeon warily considers where he is cutting, while the murderer
cares not where he strikes." You must be sensible, fathers, that in
selecting from the maxims of your authors, I have refrained from
quoting those which would have galled you most, though I might have
done it, and that without sinning against discretion, as others who
were both learned and Catholic writers, have done before me. All who
have read your authors know how far I have spared you in this respect.
Besides, I have taken no notice whatever of what might be brought
against individual characters among you; and I would have been
extremely sorry to have said a word about secret and personal
failings, whatever evidence I might have of them, being persuaded that
this is the distinguishing property of malice, and a practice which
ought never to be resorted to, unless where it is urgently demanded
for the good of the Church. It is obvious, therefore, that, in what
I have been compelled to advance against your moral maxims, I have
been by no means wanting in due consideration: and that you have
more reason to congratulate yourself on my moderation than to complain
of my indiscretion.
    The third rule, fathers, is: That when there is need to employ a
little raillery, the spirit of piety will take care to employ it
against error only, and not against things holy; whereas the spirit of
buffoonery, impiety, and heresy, mocks at all that is most sacred. I
have already vindicated myself on that score; and indeed there is no
great danger of falling into that vice so long as I confine my remarks
to the opinions which I have quoted from your authors.
    In short, fathers, to abridge these rules, I shall only mention
another, which is the essence and the end of all the rest: That the
spirit of charity prompts us to cherish in the heart a desire for
the salvation of those against whom we dispute, and to address our
prayers to God while we direct our accusations to men. "We ought
ever," says St. Augustine, "to preserve charity in the heart, even
while we are obliged to pursue a line of external conduct which to man
has the appearance of harshness; we ought to smite them with a
sharpness, severe but kindly, remembering that their advantage is more
to be studied than their gratification." I am sure, fathers, that
there is nothing in my letters from which it can be inferred that I
have not cherished such a desire towards you; and as you can find
nothing to the contrary in them, charity obliges you to believe that I
have been really actuated by it. It appears, then, that you cannot
prove that I have offended against this rule, or against any of the
other rules which charity inculcates; and you have no right to say,
therefore, that I have violated it.
    But, fathers, if you should now like to have the pleasure of
seeing, within a short compass, a course of conduct directly at
variance with each of these rules, and bearing the genuine stamp of
the spirit of buffoonery, envy, and hatred, I shall give you a few
examples of it; and, that they may be of the sort best known and
most familiar to you, I shall extract them from your own writings.
    To begin, then, with the unworthy manner in which your authors
speak of holy things, whether in their sportive and gallant effusions,
or in their more serious pieces, do you think that the parcel of
ridiculous stories, which your father Binet has introduced into his
Consolation to the Sick, are exactly suitable to his professed object,
which is that of imparting Christian consolation to those whom God has
chastened with affliction? Will you pretend to say that the profane,
foppish style in which your Father Le Moine has talked of piety in his
Devotion made Easy is more fitted to inspire respect than contempt for
the picture that he draws of Christian virtues? What else does his
whole book of Moral Pictures breathe, both in its prose and poetry,
but a spirit full of vanity, and the follies of this world? Take,
for example, that ode in his seventh book, entitled, "Eulogy on
Bashfulness, showing that all beautiful things are red, or inclined to
redden." Call you that a production worthy of a priest? The ode is
intended to comfort a lady, called Delphina, who was sadly addicted to
blushing. Each stanza is devoted to show that certain red things are
the best of things, such as roses, pomegranates, the mouth, the
tongue; and it is in the midst of this badinage, so disgraceful in a
clergyman, that he has the effrontery to introduce those blessed
spirits that minister before God, and of whom no Christian should
speak without reverence:

           "The cherubim- those glorious choirs-
             Composed of head and plumes,
           Whom God with His own Spirit inspires,
             And with His eyes illumes.
           These splendid faces, as they fly,
           Are ever red and burning high,
           With fire angelic or divine;
           And while their mutual flames combine,
           The waving of their wings supplies
           A fan to cool their ecstasies!
           But redness shines with better grace,
           Delphina, on thy beauteous face,
           Where modesty sits revelling-
           Arrayed in purple, like a king," &c.

    What think you of this, fathers? Does this preference of the
blushes of Delphina to the ardour of those spirits, which is neither
more nor less than the ardour of divine love, and this simile of the
fan applied to their mysterious wings, strike you as being very
Christian-like in the lips which consecrate the adorable body of Jesus
Christ? I am quite aware that he speaks only in the character of a
gallant and to raise a smile; but this is precisely what is called
laughing at things holy. And is it not certain, that, were he to get
full justice, he could not save himself from incurring a censure?
although, to shield himself from this, he pleads an excuse which is
hardly less censurable than the offence, "that the Sorbonne has no
jurisdiction over Parnassus, and that the errors of that land are
subject neither to censure nor the Inquisition"; as if one could act
the blasphemer and profane fellow only in prose! There is another
passage, however, in the preface, where even this excuse fails him,
when he says, "that the water of the river, on whose banks he composes
his verses, is so apt to make poets, that, though it were converted
into holy water, it would not chase away the demon of poesy." To match
this, I may add the following flight of your Father Garasse, in his
Summary of the Capital Truths in Religion, where, speaking of the
sacred mystery of the incarnation, he mixes up blasphemy and heresy in
this fashion: "The human personality was grafted, as it were, or set
on horseback, upon the personality of the Word!" And omitting many
others, I might mention another passage from the same author, who,
speaking on the subject of the name of Jesus, ordinarily written thus,
                               +
                             I.H.S.
observes that "some have taken away the cross from the top of it,
leaving the characters barely thus, I.H.S.- which," says he, "is a
stripped Jesus!"
    Such is the indecency with which you treat the truths of religion,
in the face of the inviolable law which binds us always to speak of
them with reverence. But you have sinned no less flagrantly against
the rule which obliges us to speak of them with truth and
discretion. What is more common in your writings than calumny? Can
those of Father Brisacier be called sincere? Does he speak with
truth when he says that "the nuns of Port-Royal do not pray to the
saints, and have no images in their church?" Are not these most
outrageous falsehoods, when the contrary appears before the eyes of
all Paris? And can he be said to speak with discretion when he stabs
the fair reputation of these virgins, who lead a life so pure and
austere, representing them as "impenitent, unsacramentalists,
uncommunicants, foolish virgins, visionaries, Calagans, desperate
creatures, and anything you please," loading them with many other
slanders, which have justly incurred the censure of the late
Archbishop of Paris? Or when he calumniates priests of the most
irreproachable morals, by asserting "that they practise novelties in
confession, to entrap handsome innocent females, and that he would
be horrified to tell the abominable crimes which they commit." Is it
not a piece of intolerable assurance to advance slanders so black
and base, not merely without proof, but without the slightest
shadow, or the most distant semblance of truth? I shall not enlarge on
this topic, but defer it to a future occasion, for I have something
more to say to you about it; but what I have now produced is enough to
show that you have sinned at once against truth and discretion.
    But it may be said, perhaps, that you have not offended against
the last rule at least, which binds you to desire the salvation of
those whom you denounce, and that none can charge you with this,
except by unlocking the secrets of your breasts, which are only
known to God. It is strange, fathers, but true, nevertheless, that
we can convict you even of this offence; that while your hatred to
your opponents has carried you so far as to wish their eternal
perdition, your infatuation has driven you to discover the
abominable wish that, so far from cherishing in secret desires for
their salvation, you have offered up prayers in public for their
damnation; and that, after having given utterance to that hideous
vow in the city of Caen, to the scandal of the whole Church, you
have since then ventured, in Paris, to vindicate, in your printed
books, the diabolical transaction. After such gross offences against
piety, first ridiculing and speaking lightly of things the most
sacred; next falsely and scandalously calumniating priests and
virgins; and lastly, forming desires and prayers for their
damnation, it would be difficult to add anything worse. I cannot
conceive, fathers, how you can fail to be ashamed of yourselves, or
how you could have thought for an instant of charging me with a want
of charity, who have acted all along with so much truth and
moderation, without reflecting on your own horrid violations of
charity, manifested in those deplorable exhibitions, which make the
charge recoil against yourselves.
    In fine, fathers, to conclude with another charge which you
bring against me, I see you complain that among the vast number of
your maxims which I quote, there are some which have been objected
to already, and that I "say over again, what others have said before
me." To this I reply that it is just because you have not profited
by what has been said before that I say it over again. Tell me now
what fruit has appeared from all the castigations you have received in
all the books written by learned doctors and even the whole
University? What more have your Fathers Annat, Caussin, Pintereau, and
Le Moine done, in the replies they have put forth, except loading with
reproaches those who had given them salutary admonitions? Have you
suppressed the books in which these nefarious maxims are taught?
Have you restrained the authors of these maxims? Have you become
more circumspect in regard to them? On the contrary, is it not the
fact that since that time Escobar has been repeatedly reprinted in
France and in the Low Countries, and that your fathers Cellot,
Bagot, Bauny, Lamy, Le Moine, and others, persist in publishing
daily the same maxims over again, or new ones as licentious as ever?
Let us hear no more complaints, then, fathers, either because I have
charged you with maxims which you have not disavowed, or because I
have objected to some new ones against you, or because I have
laughed equally at them all. You have only to sit down and look at
them, to see at once your own confusion and my defence. Who can look
without laughing at the decision of Bauny, respecting the person who
employs another to set fire to his neighbour's barn; that of Cellot on
restitution; the rule of Sanchez in favour of sorcerers; the plan of
Hurtado for avoiding the sin of duelling by taking a walk through a
field and waiting for a man; the compliments of Bauny for escaping
usury; the way of avoiding simony by a detour of the intention, and
keeping clear of falsehood by speaking high and low; and such other
opinions of your most grave and reverend doctors? Is there anything
more necessary, fathers, for my vindication? And, as Tertullian
says, "can anything be more justly due to the vanity and weakness of
these opinions than laughter?" But, fathers, the corruption of
manners, to which your maxims lead, deserves another sort of
consideration; and it becomes us to ask, with the same ancient writer:
"Whether ought we to laugh at their folly, or deplore their
blindness?- Rideam vanitatem, an exprobrem caecitatem?" My humble
opinion is that one may either laugh at them or weep over them, as one
is in the humour. "Haec tolerabilius vel ridentur, vel flentur, " as
St. Augustine says. The Scripture tells us that "there is a time to
laugh, and a time to weep"; and my hope is, fathers, that I may not
find verified, in your case, these words in the Proverbs: "If a wise
man contendeth with a foolish man, whether he rage or laugh, there
is no rest."
    P.S.- On finishing this letter, there was put in my hands one of
your publications, in which you accuse me of falsification, in the
case of six of your maxims quoted by me, and also with being in
correspondence with heretics. You will shortly receive, I trust, a
suitable reply; after which, fathers, I rather think you will not feel
very anxious to continue this species of warfare.
                        


LETTER XII

             TO THE REVEREND FATHERS, THE JESUITS

                                                    September 9, 1656
  REVEREND FATHERS,
    I was prepared to write you on the subject of the abuse with which
you have for some time past been assailing me in your publications, in
which you salute me with such epithets as "reprobate," "buffoon,"
"blockhead," "merry- Andrew," "impostor," "slanderer," "cheat,"
"heretic," "Calvinist in disguise," "disciple of Du Moulin,"
"possessed with a legion of devils," and everything else you can think
of. As I should be sorry to have all this believed of me, I was
anxious to show the public why you treated me in this manner; and I
had resolved to complain of your calumnies and falsifications, when
I met with your Answers, in which you bring these same charges against
myself. This will compel me to alter my plan; though it will not
prevent me from prosecuting it in some sort, for I hope, while
defending myself, to convict you of impostures more genuine than the
imaginary ones which you have ascribed to me. Indeed, fathers, the
suspicion of foul play is much more sure to rest on you than on me. It
is not very likely, standing as I do, alone, without power or any
human defence against such a large body, and having no support but
truth and integrity, that I would expose myself to lose everything
by laying myself open to be convicted of imposture. It is too easy
to discover falsifications in matters of fact such as the present.
In such a case there would have been no want of persons to accuse
me, nor would justice have been denied them. With you, fathers, the
case is very different; you may say as much as you please against
me, while I may look in vain for any to complain to. With such a
wide difference between our positions, though there had been no
other consideration to restrain me, it became me to study no little
caution. By treating me, however, as a common slanderer, you compel me
to assume the defensive, and you must be aware that this cannot be
done without entering into a fresh exposition and even into a fuller
disclosure of the points of your morality. In provoking this
discussion, I fear you are not acting as good politicians. The war
must be waged within your own camp and at your own expense; and,
although you imagine that, by embroiling the questions with scholastic
terms, the answers will be so tedious, thorny, and obscure, that
people will lose all relish for the controversy, this may not,
perhaps, turn out to be exactly the case; I shall use my best
endeavours to tax your patience as little as possible with that sort
of writing. Your maxims have something diverting about them, which
keeps up the good humour of people to the last. At all events,
remember that it is you that oblige me to enter upon this
eclaircissement, and let us see which of us comes off best in
self-defence.
    The first of your Impostures, as you call them, is on the
opinion of Vasquez upon alms-giving. To avoid all ambiguity, then,
allow me to give a simple explanation of the matter in dispute. It
is well known, fathers, that, according to the mind of the Church,
there are two precepts touching alms: 1st, "To give out of our
superfluity in the case of the ordinary necessities of the poor";
and 2nd, "To give even out of our necessaries, according to our
circumstances, in cases of extreme necessity." Thus says Cajetan,
after St. Thomas; so that, to get at the mind of Vasquez on this
subject, we must consider the rules he lays down, both in regard to
necessaries and superfluities.
    With regard to superfluity, which is the most common source of
relief to the poor, it is entirely set aside by that single maxim
which I have quoted in my Letters: "That what the men of the world
keep with the view of improving their own condition, and that of their
relatives, is not properly superfluity; so that such a thing as
superfluity is rarely to be met with among men of the world, not
even excepting kings." It is very easy to see, fathers, that,
according to this definition, none can have superfluity, provided they
have ambition; and thus, so far as the greater part of the world is
concerned, alms-giving is annihilated. But even though a man should
happen to have superfluity, he would be under no obligation, according
to Vasquez, to give it away in the case of ordinary necessity; for
he protests against those who would thus bind the rich. Here are his
own words: "Corduba," says he, "teaches that when we have a
superfluity we are bound to give out of it in cases of ordinary
necessity; but this does not please me- sed hoc non placet- for we
have demonstrated the contrary against Cajetan and Navarre." So,
fathers, the obligation to this kind of alms is wholly set aside,
according to the good pleasure of Vasquez.
    With regard to necessaries, out of which we are bound to give in
cases of extreme and urgent necessity, it must be obvious, from the
conditions by which he has limited the obligation, the richest man
in all Paris may not come within its reach one in a lifetime. I
shall only refer to two of these. The first is: That "we must know
that the poor man cannot be relieved from any other quarter- haec
intelligo et caetera omnia, quando SCIO nullum alium opem laturum."
What say you to this, fathers? Is it likely to happen frequently in
Paris, where there are so many charitable people, that I must know
that there is not another soul but myself to relieve the poor wretch
who begs an alms from me? And yet, according to Vasquez, if I have not
ascertained that fact, I may send him away with nothing. The second
condition is: That the poor man be reduced to such straits "that he is
menaced with some fatal accident, or the ruin of his character"-
none of them very common occurrences. But what marks still more the
rarity of the cases in which one is bound to give charity, is his
remark, in another passage, that the poor man must be so ill off,
"that he may conscientiously rob the rich man!" This must surely be
a very extraordinary case, unless he will insist that a man may be
ordinarily allowed to commit robbery. And so, after having cancelled
the obligation to give alms out of our superfluities, he obliges the
rich to relieve the poor only in those cases when he would allow the
poor to rifle the rich! Such is the doctrine of Vasquez, to whom you
refer your readers for their edification!
    I now come to your pretended Impostures. You begin by enlarging on
the obligation to alms-giving which Vasquez imposes on
ecclesiastics. But on this point I have said nothing; and I am
prepared to take it up whenever you choose. This, then, has nothing to
do with the present question. As for laymen, who are the only
persons with whom we have now to do, you are apparently anxious to
have it understood that, in the passage which I quoted, Vasquez is
giving not his own judgement, but that of Cajetan. But as nothing
could be more false than this, and as you have not said it in so
many terms, I am willing to believe, for the sake of your character,
that you did not intend to say it.
    You next loudly complain that, after quoting that maxim of
Vasquez, "Such a thing as superfluity is rarely if ever to be met with
among men of the world, not excepting kings," I have inferred from it,
"that the rich are rarely, if ever, bound to give alms out of their
superfluity." But what do you mean to say, fathers? If it be true that
the rich have almost never superfluity, is it not obvious that they
will almost never be bound to give alms out of their superfluity? I
might have put it into the form of a syllogism for you, if Diana,
who has such an esteem for Vasquez that he calls him "the phoenix of
genius," had not drawn the same conclusion from the same premisses;
for, after quoting the maxim of Vasquez, he concludes, "that, with
regard to the question, whether the rich are obliged to give alms
out of their superfluity, though the affirmation were true, it would
seldom, or almost never, happen to be obligatory in practice." I
have followed this language word for word. What, then, are we to
make of this, fathers? When Diana quotes with approbation the
sentiments of Vasquez, when he finds them probable, and "very
convenient for rich people," as he says in the same place, he is no
slanderer, no falsifier, and we hear no complaints of
misrepresenting his author; whereas, when I cite the same sentiments
of Vasquez, though without holding him up as a phoenix, I am a
slanderer, a fabricator, a corrupter of his maxims. Truly, fathers,
you have some reason to be apprehensive, lest your very different
treatment of those who agree in their representation, and differ
only in their estimate of your doctrine, discover the real secret of
your hearts and provoke the conclusion that the main object you have
in view is to maintain the credit and glory of your Company. It
appears that, provided your accommodating theology is treated as
judicious complaisance, you never disavow those that publish it, but
laud them as contributing to your design; but let it be held forth
as pernicious laxity, and the same interest of your Society prompts
you to disclaim the maxims which would injure you in public
estimation. And thus you recognize or renounce them, not according
to the truth, which never changes, but according to the shifting
exigencies of the times, acting on that motto of one of the
ancients, "Omnia pro tempore, nihil pro veritate- Anything for the
times, nothing for the truth." Beware of this, fathers; and that you
may never have it in your power again to say that I drew from the
principle of Vasquez a conclusion which he had disavowed, I beg to
inform you that he has drawn it himself: "According to the opinion
of Cajetan, and according to my own- et secundum nostram- (he says,
chap. i., no. 27), one is hardly obliged to give alms at all when
one is only obliged to give them out of one's superfluity." Confess
then, fathers, on the testimony of Vasquez himself, that I have
exactly copied his sentiment; and think how you could have the
conscience to say that "the reader, on consulting the original,
would see to his astonishment that he there teaches the very reverse!"
    In fine, you insist, above all, that if Vasquez does not bind
the rich to give alms out of their superfluity, he obliges them to
atone for this by giving out of the necessaries of life. But you
have forgotten to mention the list of conditions which he declares
to be essential to constitute that obligation, which I have quoted,
and which restrict it in such a way as almost entirely to annihilate
it. In place of giving this honest statement of his doctrine, you tell
us, in general terms, that he obliges the rich to give even what is
necessary to their condition. This is proving too much, fathers; the
rule of the Gospel does not go so far; and it would be an error,
into which Vasquez is very far, indeed, from having fallen. To cover
his laxity, you attribute to him an excess of severity which would
be reprehensible; and thus you lose all credit as faithful reporters
of his sentiments. But the truth is, Vasquez is quite free from any
such suspicion; for he has maintained, as I have shown, that the
rich are not bound, either in justice or in charity, to give of
their superfluities, and still less of their necessaries, to relieve
the ordinary wants of the poor; and that they are not obliged to
give of the necessaries, except in cases so rare that they almost
never happen.
    Having disposed of your objections against me on this head, it
only remains to show the falsehood of your assertion that Vasquez is
more severe than Cajetan. This will by very easily done. That cardinal
teaches "that we are bound in justice to give alms out of our
superfluity, even in the ordinary wants of the poor; because,
according to the holy fathers, the rich are merely the dispensers of
their superfluity, which they are to give to whom they please, among
those who have need of it." And accordingly, unlike Diana, who says of
the maxims of Vasquez that they will be "very convenient and agreeable
to the rich and their confessors," the cardinal, who has no such
consolation to afford them, declares that he has nothing to say to the
rich but these words of Jesus Christ: "It is easier for a camel to
go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into
heaven"; and to their confessors: "If the blind lead the blind, both
shall fall into the ditch." So indispensable did he deem this
obligation! This, too, is what the fathers and all the saints have
laid down as a certain truth. "There are two cases," says St.
Thomas, "in which we are bound to give alms as a matter of justice- ex
debito legali: one, when the poor are in danger; the other, when we
possess superfluous property." And again: "The three-tenths which
the Jews were bound to eat with the poor, have been augmented under
the new law; for Jesus Christ wills that we give to the poor, not
the tenth only, but the whole of our superfluity." And yet it does not
seem good to Vasquez that we should be obliged to give even a fragment
of our superfluity; such is his complaisance to the rich, such his
hardness to the poor, such his opposition to those feelings of charity
which teach us to relish the truth contained in the following words of
St. Gregory, harsh as it may sound to the rich of this world: "When we
give the poor what is necessary to them, we are not so much
bestowing on them what is our property as rendering to them what is
their own; and it may be said to be an act of justice rather than a
work of mercy."
    It is thus that the saints recommend the rich to share with the
poor the good things of this earth, if they would expect to possess
with them the good things of heaven. While you make it your business
to foster in the breasts of men that ambition which leaves no
superfluity to dispose of, and that avarice which refuses to part with
it, the saints have laboured to induce the rich to give up their
superfluity, and to convince them that they would have abundance of
it, provided they measured it, not by the standard of covetousness,
which knows no bounds to its cravings, but by that of piety, which
is ingenious in retrenchments, so as to have wherewith to diffuse
itself in the exercise of charity. "We will have a great deal of
superfluity," says St. Augustine, "if we keep only what is
necessary: but if we seek after vanities, we will never have enough.
Seek, brethren, what is sufficient for the work of God"- that is,
for nature- "and not for what is sufficient for your covetousness,"
which is the work of the devil: "and remember that the superfluities
of the rich are the necessaries of the poor."
    I would fondly trust, fathers, that what I have now said to you
may serve, not only for my vindication- that were a small matter-
but also to make you feel and detest what is corrupt in the maxims
of your casuists, and thus unite us sincerely under the sacred rules
of the Gospel, according to which we must all be judged.
    As to the second point, which regards simony, before proceeding to
answer the charges you have advanced against me, I shall begin by
illustrating your doctrine on this subject. Finding yourselves
placed in an awkward dilemma, between the canons of the Church,
which impose dreadful penalties upon simoniacs, on the one hand, and
the avarice of many who pursue this infamous traffic on the other, you
have recourse to your ordinary method, which is to yield to men what
they desire, and give the Almighty only words and shows. For what else
does the simoniac want but money in return for his benefice? And yet
this is what you exempt from the charge of simony. And as the name
of simony must still remain standing, and a subject to which it may be
ascribed, you have substituted, in the place of this, an imaginary
idea, which never yet crossed the brain of a simoniac, and would not
serve him much though it did- the idea, namely, that simony lies in
estimating the money considered in itself as highly as the spiritual
gift or office considered in itself. Who would ever take it into his
head to compare things so utterly disproportionate and
heterogeneous? And yet, provided this metaphysical comparison be not
drawn, any one may, according to your authors, give away a benefice,
and receive money in return for it, without being guilty of simony.
    Such is the way in which you sport with religion, in order to
gratify the worst passions of men; and yet only see with what
gravity your Father Valentia delivers his rhapsodies in the passage
cited in my letters. He says: "One may give a spiritual for a temporal
good in two ways- first, in the way of prizing the temporal more
than the spiritual, and that would be simony; secondly, in the way
of taking the temporal as the motive and end inducing one to give away
the spiritual, but without prizing the temporal more than the
spiritual, and then it is not simony. And the reason is that simony
consists in receiving something temporal as the just price of what
is spiritual. If, therefore, the temporal is sought- si petatur
temporale- not as the price, but only as the motive determining us
to part with the spiritual, it is by no means simony, even although
the possession of the temporal may be principally intended and
expected- minime erit simonia, etiamsi temporale principaliter
intendatur et expectetur." Your redoubtable Sanchez has been
favoured with a similar revelation; Escobar quotes him thus: "If one
give a spiritual for a temporal good, not as the price, but as a
motive to induce the collator to give it, or as an acknowledgement
if the benefice has been actually received, is that simony? Sanchez
assures us that it is not." In your Caen Theses of 1644 you say: "It
is a probable opinion, taught by many Catholics, that it is not simony
to exchange a temporal for a spiritual good, when the former is not
given as a price." And as to Tanner, here is his doctrine, exactly the
same with that of Valentia; and I quote it again to show you how far
wrong it is in you to complain of me for saying that it does not agree
with that of St. Thomas, for he avows it himself in the very passage
which I quoted in my letter: "There is properly and truly no
simony," says he, "unless when a temporal good is taken as the price
of a spiritual; but when taken merely as the motive for giving the
spiritual, or as an acknowledgement for having received it, this is
not simony, at least in point of conscience." And again: "The same
thing may be said, although the temporal should be regarded as the
principal end, and even preferred to the spiritual; although St.
Thomas and others appear to hold the reverse, inasmuch as they
maintain it to be downright simony to exchange a spiritual for a
temporal good, when the temporal is the end of the transaction."
    Such, then, being your doctrine on simony, as taught by your
best authors, who follow each other very closely in this point, it
only remains now to reply to your charges of misrepresentation. You
have taken no notice of Valentia's opinion, so that his doctrine
stands as it was before. But you fix on that of Tanner, maintaining
that he has merely decided it to be no simony by divine right; and you
would have it to be believed that, in quoting the passage, I have
suppressed these words, divine right. This, fathers, is a most
unconscionable trick; for these words, divine right, never existed
in that passage. You add that Tanner declares it to be simony
according to positive right. But you are mistaken; he does not say
that generally, but only of particular cases, or, as he expresses
it, in casibus a jure expressis, by which he makes an exception to the
general rule he had laid down in that passage, "that it is not
simony in point of conscience," which must imply that it is not so
in point of positive right, unless you would have Tanner made so
impious as to maintain that simony, in point of positive right, is not
simony in point of conscience. But it is easy to see your drift in
mustering up such terms as "divine right, positive right, natural
right, internal and external tribunal, expressed cases, outward
presumption," and others equally little known; you mean to escape
under this obscurity of language, and make us lose sight of your
aberrations. But, fathers, you shall not escape by these vain
artifices; for I shall put some questions to you so simple, that
they will not admit of coming under your distinguo.
    I ask you, then, without speaking of "positive rights," of
"outward presumptions," or "external tribunals"- I ask if, according
to your authors, a beneficiary would be simoniacal, were he to give
a benefice worth four thousand livres of yearly rent, and to receive
ten thousand francs ready money, not as the price of the benefice, but
merely as a motive inducing him to give it? Answer me plainly,
fathers: What must we make of such a case as this according to your
authors? Will not Tanner tell us decidedly that "this is not simony in
point of conscience, seeing that the temporal good is not the price of
the benefice, but only the motive inducing to dispose of it?" Will not
Valentia, will not your own Theses of Caen, will not Sanchez and
Escobar, agree in the same decision and give the same reason for it?
Is anything more necessary to exculpate that beneficiary from
simony? And, whatever might be your private opinion of the case, durst
you deal with that man as a simonist in your confessionals, when he
would be entitled to stop your mouth by telling you that he acted
according to the advice of so many grave doctors? Confess candidly,
then, that, according to your views, that man would be no simonist;
and, having done so, defend the doctrine as you best can.
    Such, fathers, is the true mode of treating questions, in order to
unravel, instead of perplexing them, either by scholastic terms, or,
as you have done in your last charge against me here, by altering
the state of the question. Tanner, you say, has, at any rate, declared
that such an exchange is a great sin; and you blame me for having
maliciously suppressed this circumstance, which, you maintain,
"completely justifies him." But you are wrong again, and that in
more ways than one. For, first, though what you say had been true,
it would be nothing to the point, the question in the passage to which
I referred being, not if it was sin, but if it was simony. Now,
these are two very different questions. Sin, according to your maxims,
obliges only to confession- simony obliges to restitution; and there
are people to whom these may appear two very different things. You
have found expedients for making confession a very easy affair; but
you have not fallen upon ways and means to make restitution an
agreeable one. Allow me to add that the case which Tanner charges with
sin is not simply that in which a spiritual good is exchanged for a
temporal, the latter being the principal end in view, but that in
which the party "prizes the temporal above the spiritual," which is
the imaginary case already spoken of. And it must be allowed he
could not go far wrong in charging such a case as that with sin, since
that man must be either very wicked or very stupid who, when permitted
to exchange the one thing for the other, would not avoid the sin of
the transaction by such a simple process as that of abstaining from
comparing the two things together. Besides, Valentia, in the place
quoted, when treating the question- if it be sinful to give a
spiritual good for a temporal, the latter being the main
consideration- and after producing the reasons given for the
affirmative, adds, "Sed hoc non videtur mihi satis certum- But this
does not appear to my mind sufficiently certain."
    Since that time, however, your father, Erade Bille, professor of
cases of conscience at Caen, has decided that there is no sin at all
in the case supposed; for probable opinions, you know, are always in
the way of advancing to maturity. This opinion he maintains in his
writings of 1644, against which M. Dupre, doctor and professor at
Caen, delivered that excellent oration, since printed and well
known. For though this Erade Bille confesses that Valentia's doctrine,
adopted by Father Milhard and condemned by the Sorbonne, "is
contrary to the common opinion, suspected of simony, and punishable at
law when discovered in practice," he does not scruple to say that it
is a probable opinion, and consequently sure in point of conscience,
and that there is neither simony nor sin in it. "It is a probable
opinion, he says, "taught by many Catholic doctors, that there is
neither any simony nor any sin in giving money, or any other
temporal thing, for a benefice, either in the way of
acknowledgement, or as a motive, without which it would not be
given, provided it is not given as a price equal to the benefice."
This is all that could possibly be desired. In fact, according to
these maxims of yours, simony would be so exceedingly rare that we
might exempt from this sin even Simon Magus himself, who desired to
purchase the Holy Spirit and is the emblem of those simonists that buy
spiritual things; and Gehazi, who took money for a miracle and may
be regarded as the prototype of the simonists that sell them. There
can be no doubt that when Simon, as we read in the Acts, "offered
the apostles money, saying, Give me also this power"; he said
nothing about buying or selling, or fixing the price; he did no more
than offer the money as a motive to induce them to give him that
spiritual gift; which being, according to you, no simony at all, he
might, had be but been instructed in your maxims, have escaped the
anathema of St. Peter. The same unhappy ignorance was a great loss
to Gehazi, when he was struck with leprosy by Elisha; for, as he
accepted the money from the prince who had been miraculously cured,
simply as an acknowledgement, and not as a price equivalent to the
divine virtue which had effected the miracle, he might have insisted
on the prophet healing him again on pain of mortal sin; seeing, on
this supposition, he would have acted according to the advice of
your grave doctors, who, in such cases, oblige confessors to absolve
their penitents and to wash them from that spiritual leprosy of
which the bodily disease is the type.
    Seriously, fathers, it would be extremely easy to hold you up to
ridicule in this matter, and I am at a loss to know why you expose
yourselves to such treatment. To produce this effect, I have nothing
more to do than simply to quote Escobar, in his Practice of Simony
according to the Society of Jesus; "Is it simony when two Churchmen
become mutually pledged thus: Give me your vote for my election as
Provincial, and I shall give you mine for your election as prior? By
no means." Or take another: "It is not simony to get possession of a
benefice by promising a sum of money, when one has no intention of
actually paying the money; for this is merely making a show of simony,
and is as far from being real simony as counterfeit gold is from the
genuine." By this quirk of conscience, he has contrived means, in
the way of adding swindling to simony, for obtaining benefices without
simony and without money.
    But I have no time to dwell longer on the subject, for I must
say a word or two in reply to your third accusation, which refers to
the subject of bankrupts. Nothing can be more gross than the manner in
which you have managed this charge. You rail at me as a libeller in
reference to a sentiment of Lessius, which I did not quote myself, but
took from a passage in Escobar; and, therefore, though it were true
that Lessius does not hold the opinion ascribed to him by Escobar,
what can be more unfair than to charge me with the
misrepresentation? When I quote Lessius or others of your authors
myself, I am quite prepared to answer for it; but, as Escobar has
collected the opinions of twenty-four of your writers, I beg to ask if
I am bound to guarantee anything beyond the correctness of my
citations from his book? Or if I must, in addition, answer for the
fidelity of all his quotations of which I may avail myself? This would
be hardly reasonable; and yet this is precisely the case in the
question before us. I produced in my letter the following passage from
Escobar, and you do not object to the fidelity of my translation: "May
the bankrupt, with a good conscience, retain as much of his property
as is necessary to afford him an honourable maintenance- ne indecore
vivat? I answer, with Lessius, that he may- cum Lessio assero
posse." You tell me that Lessius does not hold that opinion. But
just consider for a moment the predicament in which you involve
yourselves. If it turns out that he does hold that opinion, you will
be set down as impostors for having asserted the contrary; and if it
is proved that he does not hold it, Escobar will be the impostor; so
it must now of necessity follow that one or other of the Society
will be convicted of imposture. Only think what a scandal! You cannot,
it would appear, foresee the consequences of things. You seem to
imagine that you have nothing more to do than to cast aspersions
upon people, without considering on whom they may recoil. Why did
you not acquaint Escobar with your objection before venturing to
publish it? He might have given you satisfaction. It is not so very
troublesome to get word from Valladolid, where he is living in perfect
health, and completing his grand work on Moral Theology, in six
volumes, on the first of which I mean to say a few words by-and-by.
They have sent him the first ten letters; you might as easily have
sent him your objection, and I am sure he would have soon returned you
an answer, for he has doubtless seen in Lessius the passage from which
he took the ne indecore vivat. Read him yourselves, fathers, and you
will find it word for word, as I have done. Here it is: "The same
thing is apparent from the authorities cited, particularly in regard
to that property which he acquires after his failure, out of which
even the delinquent debtor may retain as much as is necessary for
his honourable maintenance, according to his station of life- ut non
indecore vivat. Do you ask if this rule applies to goods which he
possessed at the time of his failure? Such seems to be the judgement
of the doctors."
    I shall not stop here to show how Lessius, to sanction his
maxim, perverts the law that allows bankrupts nothing more than a mere
livelihood, and that makes no provision for "honourable
maintenance." It is enough to have vindicated Escobar from such an
accusation- it is more, indeed, than what I was in duty bound to do.
But you, fathers, have not done your duty. It still remains for you to
answer the passage of Escobar, whose decisions, by the way, have
this advantage, that, being entirely independent of the context and
condensed in little articles, they are not liable to your
distinctions. I quoted the whole of the passage, in which "bankrupts
are permitted to keep their goods, though unjustly acquired, to
provide an honourable maintenance for their families"- commenting on
which in my letters, I exclaim: "Indeed, father! by what strange
kind of charity would you have the ill-gotten property of a bankrupt
appropriated to his own use, instead of that of his lawful creditors?"
This is the question which must be answered; but it is one that
involves you in a sad dilemma, and from which you in vain seek to
escape by altering the state of the question, and quoting other
passages from Lessius, which have no connection with the subject. I
ask you, then: May this maxim of Escobar be followed by bankrupts with
a safe conscience, or no? And take care what you say. If you answer,
"No," what becomes of your doctor, and your doctrine of probability?
If you say, "Yes," I delate you to the Parliament.
    In this predicament I must now leave you, fathers; for my limits
will not permit me to overtake your next accusation, which respects
homicide. This will serve for my next letter, and the rest will
follow.
    In the meanwhile, I shall make no remarks on the advertisements
which you have tagged to the end of each of your charges, filled as
they are with scandalous falsehoods. I mean to answer all these in a
separate letter, in which I hope to show the weight due to your
calumnies. I am sorry, fathers, that you should have recourse to
such desperate resources. The abusive terms which you heap on me
will not clear up our disputes, nor will your manifold threats
hinder me from defending myself You think you have power and
impunity on your side; and I think I have truth and innocence on mine.
It is a strange and tedious war when violence attempts to vanquish
truth. All the efforts of violence cannot weaken truth, and only serve
to give it fresh vigour. All the lights of truth cannot arrest
violence, and only serve to exasperate it. When force meets force, the
weaker must succumb to the stronger; when argument is opposed to
argument, the solid and the convincing triumphs over the empty and the
false; but violence and verity can make no impression on each other.
Let none suppose, however, that the two are, therefore, equal to each
other; for there is this vast difference between them, that violence
has only a certain course to run, limited by the appointment of
Heaven, which overrules its effects to the glory of the truth which it
assails; whereas verity endures forever and eventually triumphs over
its enemies, being eternal and almighty as God himself.
                        


LETTER XIII

TO THE REVEREND FATHERS OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS

                                                   September 30, 1656
  REVEREND FATHERS,
    I have just seen your last production, in which you have continued
your list of Impostures up to the twentieth and intimate that you mean
to conclude with this the first part of your accusations against me,
and to proceed to the second, in which you are to adopt a new mode
of defence, by showing that there are other casuists besides those
of your Society who are as lax as yourselves. I now see the precise
number of charges to which I have to reply; and as the fourth, to
which we have now come, relates to homicide, it may be proper, in
answering it, to include the 11th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, and
18th, which refer to the same subject.
    In the present letter, therefore, my object shall be to
vindicate the correctness of my quotations from the charges of falsity
which you bring against me. But as you have ventured, in your
pamphlets, to assert that "the sentiments of your authors on murder
are agreeable to the decisions of popes and ecclesiastical laws,"
you will compel me, in my next letter, to confute a statement at
once so unfounded and so injurious to the Church. It is of some
importance to show that she is innocent of your corruptions, in
order that heretics may be prevented from taking advantage of your
aberrations, to draw conclusions tending to her dishonour. And thus,
viewing on the one hand your pernicious maxims, and on the other the
canons of the Church which have uniformly condemned them, people
will see, at one glance, what they should shun and what they should
follow.
    Your fourth charge turns on a maxim relating to murder, which
you say I have falsely ascribed to Lessius. It is as follows: "That if
a man has received a buffet, he may immediately pursue his enemy,
and even return the blow with the sword, not to avenge himself, but to
retrieve his honour." This, you say, is the opinion of the casuist
Victoria. But this is nothing to the point. There is no
inconsistency in saying that it is at once the opinion of Victoria and
of Lessius; for Lessius himself says that it is also held by Navarre
and Henriquez, who teach identically the same doctrine. The only
question, then, is if Lessius holds this view as well as his brother
casuists. You maintain "that Lessius quotes this opinion solely for
the purpose of refuting it, and that I, therefore, attribute to him
a sentiment which he produces only to overthrow- the basest and most
disgraceful act of which a writer can be guilty." Now I maintain,
fathers, that he quotes the opinion solely for the purpose of
supporting it. Here is a question of fact, which it will be very
easy to settle. Let us see, then, how you prove your allegation, and
you will see afterwards how I prove mine.
    To show that Lessius is not of that opinion, you tell us that he
condemns the practice of it; and in proof of this, you quote one
passage of his (l. 2, c. 9, n. 92), in which he says, in so many
words, "I condemn the practice of it." I grant that, on looking for
these words, at number 92, to which you refer, they will be found
there. But what will people say, fathers, when they discover, at the
same time, that he is treating in that place of a question totally
different from that of which we are speaking, and that the opinion
of which he there says that he condemns the practice has no connection
with that now in dispute, but is quite distinct? And yet to be
convinced that this is the fact, we have only to open the book to
which you refer, and there we find the whole subject in its connection
as follows: At number 79 he treats the question, "If it is lawful to
kill for a buffet?" and at number 80 he finishes this matter without a
single word of condemnation. Having disposed of this question, he
opens a new one at 81, namely, "If it is lawful to kill for slanders?"
and it is when speaking of this question that he employs the words you
have quoted: "I condemn the practice of it."
    Is it not shameful, fathers, that you should venture to produce
these words to make it be believed that Lessius condemns the opinion
that it is lawful to kill for a buffet? and that, on the ground of
this single proof, you should chuckle over it, as you have done, by
saying: "Many persons of honour in Paris have already discovered
this notorious falsehood by consulting Lessius, and have thus
ascertained the degree of credit due to that slanderer?" Indeed! and
is it thus that you abuse the confidence which those persons of honour
repose in you? To show them that Lessius does not hold a certain
opinion, you open the book to them at a place where he is condemning
another opinion; and these persons, not having begun to mistrust
your good faith and never thinking of examining whether the author
speaks in that place of the subject in dispute, you impose on their
credulity. I make no doubt, fathers, that, to shelter yourselves
from the guilt of such a scandalous lie, you had recourse to your
doctrine of equivocations; and that, having read the passage in a loud
voice, you would say, in a lower key, that the author was speaking
there of something else. But I am not so sure whether this saving
clause, which is quite enough to satisfy your consciences, will be a
very satisfactory answer to the just complaint of those "honourable
persons," when they shall discover that you have hoodwinked them in
this style.
    Take care, then, fathers, to prevent them by all means from seeing
my letters; for this is the only method now left to you to preserve
your credit for a short time longer. This is not the way in which I
deal with your writings: I send them to all my friends; I wish
everybody to see them. And I verily believe that both of us are in the
right for our own interests; for, after having published with such
parade this fourth Imposture, were it once discovered that you have
made it up by foisting in one passage for another, you would be
instantly denounced. It will be easily seen that if you could have
found what you wanted in the passage where Lessius treated of this
matter, you would not have searched for it elsewhere, and that you had
recourse to such a trick only because you could find nothing in that
passage favourable to your purpose.
    You would have us believe that we may find in Lessius what you
assert, "that he does not allow that this opinion (that a man may be
lawfully killed for a buffet) is probable in theory"; whereas
Lessius distinctly declares, at number 80: "This opinion, that a man
may kill for a buffet, is probable in theory." Is not this, word for
word, the reverse of your assertion? And can we sufficiently admire
the hardihood with which you have advanced, in set phrase, the very
reverse of a matter of fact! To your conclusion, from a fabricated
passage, that Lessius was not of that opinion, we have only to place
Lessius himself, who, in the genuine passage, declares that he is of
that opinion.
    Again, you would have Lessius to say "that he condemns the
practice of it"; and, as I have just observed, there is not in the
original a single word of condemnation; all that he says is: "It
appears that it ought not to be easily permitted in practice- In praxi
non videtur facile permittenda." Is that, fathers, the language of a
man who condemns a maxim? Would you say that adultery and incest ought
not to be easily permitted in practice? Must we not, on the
contrary, conclude that as Lessius says no more than that the practice
ought not to be easily permitted, his opinion is that it may be
permitted sometimes, though rarely? And, as if he had been anxious
to apprise everybody when it might be permitted, and to relieve
those who have received affronts from being troubled with unreasonable
scruples from not knowing on what occasions they might lawfully kill
in practice, he has been at pains to inform them what they ought to
avoid in order to practise the doctrine with a safe conscience. Mark
his words: "It seems," says he, "that it ought not to be easily
permitted, because of the danger that persons may act in this matter
out of hatred or revenge, or with excess, or that this may occasion
too many murders." From this it appears that murder is freely
permitted by Lessius, if one avoids the inconveniences referred to- in
other words, if one can act without hatred or revenge and in
circumstances that may not open the door to a great many murders. To
illustrate the matter, I may give you an example of recent occurrence-
the case of the buffet of Compiegne. You will grant that the person
who received the blow on that occasion has shown, by the way in
which he has acted, that he was sufficiently master of the passions of
hatred and revenge. It only remained for him, therefore, to see that
he did not give occasion to too many murders; and you need hardly be
told, fathers, it is such a rare spectacle to find Jesuits bestowing
buffets on the officers of the royal household that he had no great
reason to fear that a murder committed on this occasion would be
likely to draw many others in its train. You cannot, accordingly, deny
that the Jesuit who figured on that occasion was killable with a
safe conscience, and that the offended party might have converted
him into a practical illustration of the doctrine of Lessius. And very
likely, fathers, this might have been the result had he been
educated in your school, and learnt from Escobar that the man who
has received a buffet is held to be disgraced until he has taken the
life of him who insulted him. But there is ground to believe that
the very different instructions which he received from a curate, who
is no great favourite of yours, have contributed not a little in
this case to save the life of a Jesuit.
    Tell us no more, then, of inconveniences which may, in many
instances, be so easily got over, and in the absence of which,
according to Lessius, murder is permissible even in practice. This
is frankly avowed by your authors, as quoted by Escobar, in his
Practice of Homicide, according to your Society. "Is it allowable,"
asks this casuist, "to kill him who has given me a buffet? Lessius
says it is permissible in speculation, though not to be followed in
practice- non consulendum in praxi- on account of the risk of
hatred, or of murders prejudicial to the State. Others, however,
have judged that, by avoiding these inconveniences, this is
permissible and safe in practice- in praxi probabilem et tutam
judicarunt Henriquez," &c. See how your opinions mount up, by little
and little, to the climax of probabilism! The present one you have
at last elevated to this position, by permitting murder without any
distinction between speculation and practice, in the following
terms: "It is lawful, when one has received a buffet, to return the
blow immediately with the sword, not to avenge one's self, but to
preserve one's honour." Such is the decision of your fathers of Caen
in 1644, embodied in their publications produced by the university
before parliament, when they presented their third remonstrance
against your doctrine of homicide, as shown in the book then emitted
by them, on page 339.
    Mark, then, fathers, that your own authors have themselves
demolished this absurd distinction between speculative and practical
murder- a distinction which the university treated with ridicule,
and the invention of which is a secret of your policy, which it may
now be worth while to explain. The knowledge of it, besides being
necessary to the right understanding of your 15th, 16th, 17th, and
18th charges, is well calculated, in general, to open up, by little
and little, the principles of that mysterious policy.
    In attempting, as you have done, to decide cases of conscience
in the most agreeable and accommodating manner, while you met with
some questions in which religion alone was concerned- such as those of
contrition, penance, love to God, and others only affecting the
inner court of conscience- you encountered another class of cases in
which civil society was interested as well as religion- such as
those relating to usury, bankruptcy, homicide, and the like. And it is
truly distressing to all that love the Church to observe that, in a
vast number of instances, in which you had only Religion to contend
with, you have violated her laws without reservation, without
distinction, and without compunction; because you knew that it is
not here that God visibly administers his justice. But in those
cases in which the State is interested as well as Religion, your
apprehension of man's justice has induced you to divide your decisions
into two shares. To the first of these you give the name of
speculation; under which category crimes, considered in themselves,
without regard to society, but merely to the law of God, you have
permitted, without the least scruple, and in the way of trampling on
the divine law which condemns them. The second you rank under the
denomination of practice, and here, considering the injury which may
be done to society, and the presence of magistrates who look after the
public peace, you take care, in order to keep yourselves on the safe
side of the law, not to approve always in practice the murders and
other crimes which you have sanctioned in speculation. Thus, for
example, on the question, "If it be lawful to kill for slanders?" your
authors, Filiutius, Reginald, and others, reply: "This is permitted in
speculation- ex probabile opinione licet; but is not to be approved in
practice, on account of the great number of murders which might ensue,
and which might injure the State, if all slanderers were to be killed,
and also because one might be punished in a court of justice for
having killed another for that matter." Such is the style in which
your opinions begin to develop themselves, under the shelter of this
distinction, in virtue of which, without doing any sensible injury
to society, you only ruin religion. In acting thus, you consider
yourselves quite safe. You suppose that, on the one hand, the
influence you have in the Church will effectually shield from
punishment your assaults on truth; and that, on the other, the
precautions you have taken against too easily reducing your
permissions to practice will save you on the part of the civil powers,
who, not being judges in cases of conscience, are properly concerned
only with the outward practice. Thus an opinion which would be
condemned under the name of practice, comes out quite safe under the
name of speculation. But this basis once established, it is not
difficult to erect on it the rest of your maxims. There is an infinite
distance between God's prohibition of murder and your speculative
permission of the crime; but between that permission and the
practice the distance is very small indeed. It only remains to show
that what is allowable in speculation is also so in practice; and
there can be no want of reasons for this. You have contrived to find
them in far more difficult cases. Would you like to see, fathers,
how this may be managed? I refer you to the reasoning of Escobar,
who has distinctly decided the point in the first six volumes of his
grand Moral Theology, of which I have already spoken- a work in
which he shows quite another spirit from that which appears in his
former compilation from your four-and-twenty elders. At that time he
thought that there might be opinions probable in speculation, which
might not be safe in practice; but he has now come to form an opposite
judgment, and has, in this, his latest work, confirmed it. Such is the
wonderful growth attained by the doctrine of probability in general,
as well as by every probable opinion in particular, in the course of
time. Attend, then, to what he says: "I cannot see how it can be
that an action which seems allowable in speculation should not be so
likewise in practice; because what may be done in practice depends
on what is found to be lawful in speculation, and the things differ
from each other only as cause and effect. Speculation is that which
determines to action. Whence it follows that opinions probable in
speculation may be followed with a safe conscience in practice, and
that even with more safety than those which have not been so well
examined as matters of speculation."
    Verily, fathers, your friend Escobar reasons uncommonly well
sometimes; and, in point of fact, there is such a close connection
between speculation and practice, that when the former has once
taken root, you have no difficulty in permitting the latter, without
any disguise. A good illustration of this we have in the permission
"to kill for a buffet," which, from being a point of simple
speculation, was boldly raised by Lessius into a practice "which ought
not easily to be allowed"; from that promoted by Escobar to the
character of "an easy practice"; and from thence elevated by your
fathers of Caen, as we have seen, without any distinction between
theory and practice, into a full permission. Thus you bring your
opinions to their full growth very gradually. Were they presented
all at once in their finished extravagance, they would beget horror;
but this slow imperceptible progress gradually habituates men to the
sight of them and hides their offensiveness. And in this way the
permission to murder, in itself so odious both to Church and State,
creeps first into the Church, and then from the Church into the State.
    A similar success has attended the opinion of "killing for
slander," which has now reached the climax of a permission without any
distinction. I should not have stopped to quote my authorities on this
point from your writings, had it not been necessary in order to put
down the effrontery with which you have asserted, twice over, in
your fifteenth Imposture, "that there never was a Jesuit who permitted
killing for slander." Before making this statement, fathers, you
should have taken care to prevent it from coming under my notice,
seeing that it is so easy for me to answer it. For, not to mention
that your fathers Reginald, Filiutius, and others, have permitted it
in speculation, as I have already shown, and that the principle laid
down by Escobar leads us safely on to the practice, I have to tell you
that you have authors who have permitted it in so many words, and
among others Father Hereau in his public lectures, on the conclusion
of which the king put him under arrest in your house, for having
taught, among other errors, that when a person who has slandered us in
the presence of men of honour, continues to do so after being warned
to desist, it is allowable to kill him, not publicly, indeed, for fear
of scandal, but in a private way- sed clam.
    I have had occasion already to mention Father Lamy, and you do not
need to be informed that his doctrine on this subject was censured
in 1649 by the University of Louvain. And yet two months have not
elapsed since your Father Des Bois maintained this very censured
doctrine of Father Lamy and taught that "it was allowable for a monk
to defend the honour which he acquired by his virtue, even by
killing the person who assails his reputation- etiam cum morte
invasoris"; which has raised such a scandal in that town that the
whole of the cures united to impose silence on him, and to oblige him,
by a canonical process, to retract his doctrine. The case is now
pending in the Episcopal court.
    What say you now, fathers? Why attempt, after that, to maintain
that "no Jesuit ever held that it was lawful to kill for slander?"
Is anything more necessary to convince you of this than the very
opinions of your fathers which you quote, since they do not condemn
murder in speculation, but only in practice, and that, too, "on
account of the injury that might thereby accrue to the State"? And
here I would just beg to ask whether the whole matter in dispute
between us is not simply and solely to ascertain if you have or have
not subverted the law of God which condemns murder? The point in
question is, not whether you have injured the commonwealth, but
whether you have injured religion. What purpose, then, can it serve,
in a dispute of this kind, to show that you have spared the State,
when you make it apparent, at the same time, that you have destroyed
the faith? Is this not evident from your saying that the meaning of
Reginald, on the question of killing for slanders, is, "that a private
individual has a right to employ that mode of defence, viewing it
simply in itself"? I desire nothing beyond this concession to
confute you. "A private individual," you say, "has a right to employ
that mode of defence" (that is, killing for slanders), "viewing the
thing in itself'; and, consequently, fathers, the law of God, which
forbids us to kill, is nullified by that decision.
    It serves no purpose to add, as you have done, "that such a mode
is unlawful and criminal, even according to the law of God, on account
of the murders and disorders which would follow in society, because
the law of God obliges us to have regard to the good of society." This
is to evade the question: for there are two laws to be observed- one
forbidding us to kill, and another forbidding us to harm society.
Reginald has not, perhaps, broken the law which forbids us to do
harm to society; but he has most certainly violated that which forbids
us to kill. Now this is the only point with which we have to do. I
might have shown, besides, that your other writers, who have permitted
these murders in practice, have subverted the one law as well as the
other. But, to proceed, we have seen that you sometimes forbid doing
harm to the State; and you allege that your design in that is to
fulfil the law of God, which obliges us to consult the interests of
society. That may be true, though it is far from being certain, as you
might do the same thing purely from fear of the civil magistrate. With
your permission, then, we shall scrutinize the real secret of this
movement.
    Is it not certain, fathers, that if you had really any regard to
God, and if the observance of his law had been the prime and principal
object in your thoughts, this respect would have invariably
predominated in all your leading decisions and would have engaged
you at all times on the side of religion? But, if it turns out, on the
contrary, that you violate, in innumerable instances, the most
sacred commands that God has laid upon men, and that, as in the
instances before us, you annihilate the law of God, which forbids
these actions as criminal in themselves, and that you only scruple
to approve of them in practice, from bodily fear of the civil
magistrate, do you not afford us ground to conclude that you have no
respect to God in your apprehensions, and that if you yield an
apparent obedience to his law, in so far as regards the obligation
to do no harm to the State, this is not done out of any regard to
the law itself, but to compass your own ends, as has ever been the way
with politicians of no religion?
    What, fathers! will you tell us that, looking simply to the law of
God, which says, "Thou shalt not kill," we have a right to kill for
slanders? And after having thus trampled on the eternal law of God, do
you imagine that you atone for the scandal you have caused, and can
persuade us of your reverence for Him, by adding that you prohibit the
practice for State reasons and from dread of the civil arm? Is not
this, on the contrary, to raise a fresh scandal? I mean not by the
respect which you testify for the magistrate; that is not my charge
against you, and it is ridiculous in you to banter, as you have
done, on this matter. I blame you, not for fearing the magistrate, but
for fearing none but the magistrate. And I blame you for this, because
it is making God less the enemy of vice than man. Had you said that to
kill for slander was allowable according to men, but not according
to God, that might have been something more endurable; but when you
maintain that what is too criminal to be tolerated among men may yet
be innocent and right in the eyes of that Being who is righteousness
itself, what is this but to declare before the whole world, by a
subversion of principle as shocking in itself as it is alien to the
spirit of the saints, that while you can be braggarts before God,
you are cowards before men?
    Had you really been anxious to condemn these homicides, you
would have allowed the commandment of God which forbids them to remain
intact; and had you dared at once to permit them, you would have
permitted them openly, in spite of the laws of God and men. But,
your object being to permit them imperceptibly, and to cheat the
magistrate, who watches over the public safety, you have gone craftily
to work. You separate your maxims into two portions. On the one
side, you hold out "that it is lawful in speculation to kill a man for
slander"; and nobody thinks of hindering you from taking a speculative
view of matters. On the other side, you come out with this detached
axiom, "that what is permitted in speculation is also permissible in
practice"; and what concern does society seem to have in this
general and metaphysical-looking proposition? And thus these two
principles, so little suspected, being embraced in their separate
form, the vigilance of the magistrate is eluded; while it is only
necessary to combine the two together to draw from them the conclusion
which you aim at- namely, that it is lawful in practice to put a man
to death for a simple slander.
    It is, indeed, fathers, one of the most subtle tricks of your
policy to scatter through your publications the maxims which you
club together in your decisions. It is partly in this way that you
establish your doctrine of probabilities, which I have frequently
had occasion to explain. That general principle once established,
you advance propositions harmless enough when viewed apart, but which,
when taken in connection with that pernicious dogma, become positively
horrible. An example of this, which demands an answer, may be found in
the 11th page of your Impostures, where you allege that "several
famous theologians have decided that it is lawful to kill a man for
a box on the ear." Now, it is certain that, if that had been said by a
person who did not hold probabilism, there would be nothing to find
fault with in it; it would in this case amount to no more than a
harmless statement, and nothing could be elicited from it. But you,
fathers, and all who hold that dangerous tenet, "that whatever has
been approved by celebrated authors is probable and safe in
conscience," when you add to this "that several celebrated authors are
of opinion that it is lawful to kill a man for a box on the ear," what
is this but to put a dagger into the hand of all Christians, for the
purpose of plunging it into the heart of the first person that insults
them, and to assure them that, having the judgement of so many grave
authors on their side, they may do so with a perfectly safe
conscience?
    What monstrous species of language is this, which, in announcing
that certain authors hold a detestable opinion, is at the same time
giving a decision in favour of that opinion- which solemnly teaches
whatever it simply tells! We have learnt, fathers, to understand
this peculiar dialect of the Jesuitical school; and it is
astonishing that you have the hardihood to speak it out so freely, for
it betrays your sentiments somewhat too broadly. It convicts you of
permitting murder for a buffet, as often as you repeat that many
celebrated authors have maintained that opinion.
    This charge, fathers, you will never be able to repel; nor will
you be much helped out by those passages from Vasquez and Suarez
that you adduce against me, in which they condemn the murders which
their associates have approved. These testimonies, disjoined from
the rest of your doctrine, may hoodwink those who know little about
it; but we, who know better, put your principles and maxims
together. You say, then, that Vasquez condemns murders; but what say
you on the other side of the question, my reverend fathers? Why, "that
the probability of one sentiment does not hinder the probability of
the opposite sentiment; and that it is warrantable to follow the
less probable and less safe opinion, giving up the more probable and
more safe one." What follows from all this taken in connection, but
that we have perfect freedom of conscience to adopt any one of these
conflicting judgements which pleases us best? And what becomes of
all the effect which you fondly anticipate from your quotations? It
evaporates in smoke, for we have no more to do than to conjoin for
your condemnation the maxims which you have disjoined for your
exculpation. Why, then, produce those passages of your authors which I
have not quoted, to qualify those which I have quoted, as if the one
could excuse the other? What right does that give you to call me an
"impostor"? Have I said that all your fathers are implicated in the
same corruptions? Have I not, on the contrary, been at pains to show
that your interest lay in having them of all different minds, in order
to suit all your purposes? Do you wish to kill your man?- here is
Lessius for you. Are you inclined to spare him?- here is Vasquez.
Nobody need go away in ill humour- nobody without the authority of a
grave doctor. Lessius will talk to you like a Heathen on homicide, and
like a Christian, it may be, on charity. Vasquez, again, will
descant like a Heathen on charity, and like a Christian on homicide.
But by means of probabilism, which is held both by Vasquez and
Lessius, and which renders all your opinions common property, they
will lend their opinions to one another, and each will be held bound
to absolve those who have acted according to opinions which each of
them has condemned. It is this very variety, then, that confounds you.
Uniformity, even in evil, would be better than this. Nothing is more
contrary to the orders of St. Ignatius and the first generals of
your Society than this confused medley of all sorts of opinions,
good and bad. I may, perhaps, enter on this topic at some future
period; and it will astonish many to see how far you have
degenerated from the original spirit of your institution, and that
your own generals have foreseen that the corruption of your doctrine
on morals might prove fatal, not only to your Society, but to the
Church universal.
    Meanwhile, I repeat that you can derive no advantage from the
doctrine of Vasquez. It would be strange, indeed, if, out of all the
that have written on morals, one or two could not be found who may
have hit upon a truth which has been confessed by all Christians.
There is no glory in maintaining the truth, according to the Gospel,
that it is unlawful to kill a man for smiting us on the face; but it
is foul shame to deny it. So far, indeed, from justifying you, nothing
tells more fatally against you than the fact that, having doctors
among you who have told you the truth, you abide not in the truth, but
love the darkness rather than the light. You have been taught by
Vasquez that it is a Heathen, and not a Christian, opinion to hold
that we may knock down a man for a blow on the cheek; and that it is
subversive both of the Gospel and of the Decalogue to say that we
may kill for such a matter. The most profligate of men will
acknowledge as much. And yet you have allowed Lessius, Escobar, and
others, to decide, in the face of these well-known truths, and in
spite of all the laws of God against manslaughter, that it is quite
allowable to kill a man for a buffet!
    What purpose, then, can it serve to set this passage of Vasquez
over against the sentiment of Lessius, unless you mean to show that,
in the opinion of Vasquez, Lessius is a "Heathen" and a
"profligate"? and that, fathers, is more than I durst have said
myself. What else can be deduced from it than that Lessius "subverts
both the Gospel and the Decalogue"; that, at the last day, Vasquez
will condemn Lessius on this point, as Lessius will condemn Vasquez on
another; and that all your fathers will rise up in judgement one
against another, mutually condemning each other for their sad outrages
on the law of Jesus Christ?
    To this conclusion, then, reverend fathers, must we come at
length, that, as your probabilism renders the good opinions of some of
your authors useless to the Church, and useful only to your policy,
they merely serve to betray, by their contrariety, the duplicity of
your hearts. This you have completely unfolded, by telling us, on
the one hand, that Vasquez and Suarez are against homicide, and on the
other hand, that many celebrated authors are for homicide; thus
presenting two roads to our choice and destroying the simplicity of
the Spirit of God, who denounces his anathema on the deceitful and the
double-hearted: "Voe duplici corde, et ingredienti duabus viis!- Woe
be to the double hearts, and the sinner that goeth two ways!"
                        



LETTER XIV: TO THE REVEREND FATHERS, THE JESUITS