|
|
BLAISE PASCAL
LETTERS TO A PROVINCIAL
Blaise Pascal, mathematician, theologian, and one of the greatest writers of French prose, was born on June 19, 1623, at Clermont-Ferrand, and died on August 19, 1662. His mother died in his fourth year, and the father, an eminent lawyer, took the boy with his two sisters to Paris. Pascal showed the most astonishing mathematical genius; he produced at the age of seventeen a profound work on conic sections, and devoted the following years to physical researches and to investigations in the higher mathematics. In 1654, Pascal, having experienced a remarkable vision, which he recorded on a parchment known as his "amulet," renounced the world and entered on the ascetic life, in close relations with the Jansenist community. Hence, in the interests of Arnauld, the Jansenist leader, Pascal issued the famous "Letters Written to a Provincial" ("Lettres Écrites par Louis de Montalte à un Provincial de ses Amis"), a series of eighteen tracts directed with the keenest and bitterest irony against the casuistry of the Jesuits. The "Letters" appeared during a period of fourteen months, the first being dated January 23, 1656, and the last March 24, 1657. They took the form of little pamphlets, each of eight or twelve quarto pages; they had a very large circulation, and created an immense impression throughout Catholic countries. They are open letters, intended really for the public and not for any individual.
I.--LAX CASUISTS
SIR,--I send you, as I promised, the chief outlines of the moral teaching of these good Jesuit fathers, these "men so eminent in doctrine and in wisdom, who are led by that divine wisdom which is more trustworthy than all philosophy." Possibly you think that I speak in jest. I speak seriously, or, rather, it is they who have spoken thus of themselves. I only copy their words where they write, "It is a society of men, or, rather, of angels, foretold by the prophet Isaiah." They claim to have changed the face of Christianity. We must believe it, since they have told us so; and, indeed, you will see how far they have done so, when you have mastered their maxims.
I took care to be instructed by themselves and trusted to nothing which my friend had told me. I had been told such strange things that I could hardly believe them, until I was shown them in their own books; and then I could say nothing in their defence, except that these must be the principles of certain isolated Jesuits, and not those of the whole society. Indeed, I was able to say that I knew Jesuits who were as severe as these were lax.
It was on that occasion that the spirit of the society was explained to me, for it is not by any means known to every one. I was told as follows:
"You imagine that you are speaking in their favour when you say that there are among them fathers who are as obedient to the principles of the Gospel as others are distant from those principles, and you conclude therefore that these loose opinions do not characterise the whole society. That is true. But since the society admits of so licentious a doctrine within it, you must conclude that its spirit is not one of Christian severity."
"But what then," said I, "is the purpose of the whole institution? Is it that everyone should be free to say whatever he may happen to think?"
"That is not so," was the reply. "So great a society could not exist without discipline, and without one spirit governing and ruling all its movements."
The objects of the Jesuits is not to corrupt morals, but, on the other hand, they have not in view as their single object the reformation of morals, because they would find this a political disadvantage. Their principle is this: they have so high an opinion of themselves as to believe that it is advantageous, and even necessary, to the good of religion that their credit should extend everywhere and that they should govern all consciences. And as the severe maxims of the Gospel are suitable for governing certain temperaments, they make use of these whenever they serve their purpose. But since these same maxims do not at all suit the wishes of the generality of mankind, they usually put them aside so as to be able to please everyone.
Therefore, having to do with people of all sorts and conditions, and of diverse nationalities, they need casuists suited to all this diversity. From this principle you will easily see that if they had none but lax casuists they would defeat their chief purpose, which is to include the whole world. Truly pious people seek a more severe direction, but as there are not many who are truly pious the Jesuits do not need many strict directors to guide them. They have a few for the few who need them. On the other hand, the vast number of their lax casuists are at the service of the innumerable multitude who seek the broad and easy way.
It is by this obliging and accommodating conduct that they open their arms to all the world. Thus, if someone comes to them already determined to make restitution of goods which he has wrongly acquired, you need not fear that they will dissuade him. On the contrary, they will praise and confirm his holy resolution. But if another should come wishing to have absolution without making restitution, their position would be a difficult one, if they had not the means of giving him his desire. It is thus that they keep all their friends and defend themselves against their enemies. And if anyone accuses them of extreme laxity, they immediately bring forward their most austere directors, and certain books which they have written on the severity of the Christian law; and simple and uninquiring people are contented with these proofs.
They have proofs for all sorts of people, and make such ingenious replies to every question that when they find themselves in countries where a crucified God seems like madness, they suppress the scandal of the Cross and preach only Christ in glory. This they have done in India and China, where they even condone idolatry by a subtle device; they allow their people to carry with them hidden images of Christ, to which they should address the public worship ostensibly paid to their idols. This conduct led to their being forbidden under pain of excommunication to permit the adoration of idols, under any pretext, or to hide the mystery of the Cross from those whom they instruct in religion, and they have been forbidden to receive anyone in baptism until he has this knowledge, and are enjoined to erect in their churches the image of the crucifix.
Thus they have spread over the whole earth in the strength of their doctrine of "probable opinions," which is the fount and origin of all these irregularities. You may learn of this from themselves, for they take no pains to hide it, except that they cover their human and political prudence with the pretence of a divine and Christian prudence. They act as if the faith and the tradition which maintains it were not for ever invariable at all times and in all places, and as if nothing more were required, in order to remove the stains of guilt, than to corrupt the law of the Lord, instead of regarding that stainless and holy law as itself the instrument of conversion, and conforming human souls to its salutary precepts.
II.--THE DOCTRINE OF INTENTION
Sir,--I must now let you know what the good Jesuit father told me about the maxims of their casuists, with regard to the "point of honour" among gentlemen. "You know," said he, "that this point of honour is the dominating passion of men in that rank of life, and is constantly leading them into acts of violence which appear quite contrary to Christian piety. Indeed, we should have to exclude all of them from our confessionals, if our fathers had not in some degree relaxed the severity of religion and accommodated it to the weakness of men. But since they wished to remain attached to the Gospel by their duty towards God, and to men of the world by their charity towards their neighbour, they had to seek expedients by which they might make it possible for a man to maintain his honour in the ordinary way of the world without wounding his conscience. They had to preserve, at the same time, two things which are apparently so opposed to one another as piety and honour. But, however valuable their purpose might be, its execution was exceedingly difficult."
"I am surprised," I said, "that you find it difficult."
"Are you?" he replied. "Do you not know that on the one hand the law of the Gospel commands us never to render evil for evil, and to leave vengeance to God; and that on the other hand the laws of the world forbid that we should suffer injury without executing justice, even by the death of our enemies? Is it possible that two precepts should be more contrary to one another?"
"What I meant to say was, that after what I have seen of your fathers, I know that they can easily do things which are impossible to other men. I am quite ready to believe that they have discovered some means of reconciling these two precepts, and I beg of you to inform me what it is."
"You must know, then," he replied, "that this wonderful principle is our grand method of _directing the intention,_ a principle of great importance in our moral system. You have already seen certain examples of it. Thus, when I explained to you how servants could carry with a clear conscience certain harmful messages, you must have seen that it was by diverting their intention from the evil of which they are the bearers and by turning it to the gain which they receive for their service. This is what we call 'directing the intention.' In the same way you have seen that those who give money in return for benefices would be guilty of simony unless they diverted their intention from the transaction. But I am going to show you this grand method in all its beauty in relation to homicide, which it justifies under a thousand circumstances."
"I am ready to believe," I said, "that your principle will permit everything, and that nothing will escape it."
"Not at all," he replied; "you are always running from one extreme to the other. We by no means permit everything. For instance, we never permit the formal intention of sin, for the mere sake of sinning, and we will have nothing to do with anyone who persists in seeking evil as an end in itself, for that is a devilish intention, in whatever age, sex, or rank it may be found. But so long as there is no such unhappy disposition as that, we try to put in practice our method of directing intention, which consists in proposing a lawful object as the end of one's actions. In so far as it is in our power, we turn away from forbidden things; but when we are unable to prevent the action, we at least try to purify the intention, and so correct the vice of the means by the purity of the end.
"That is how our fathers have been able to permit the acts of violence which are committed in the defence of honour. It is only necessary to turn away one's intention from the desire of vengeance, which is criminal, and to restrict it to the desire of defending one's honour, which is a lawful desire. It is thus that our fathers are able to fulfil their duties towards God and towards men alike. They please the world by permitting the actions, and they satisfy the Gospel by purifying the intentions. It is a method which was unknown to the ancients, and is entirely due to our fathers. Do you understand it now?"
"I understand it very well," I said. "You allow to men the external and material effect of the action, and you give to God the internal and spiritual movement of intention, and thus reconcile the human with the divine law. But though I understand your principle well enough, I should like to know what are its consequences.--I should like to know, for instance, all the cases in which your method permits one to kill. You have told me that whoever receives a blow may repay it with a sword-thrust without the guilt of vengeance, but you have not yet told me how far one may go."
"You can hardly make a mistake," said the father. "You may go as far as to kill the man. One of our authorities speaks: 'It is permitted to kill a man who has given a blow, even though he runs away, on the condition that it is not done through hatred or through vengeance, and that one's actions do not lead to murders which are excessive and harmful to the state.' The reason is, that one may thus run after one's honour as if after a stolen object. For though your honour is not exactly in the hands of your enemy as if it were something which he had picked up, you can yet recover it in the same way by giving a proof of greatness and of authority, and by thus acquiring human esteem. Indeed, he continues: 'Is it not true that he who has received a blow is considered disgraced until he has slain his enemy?'"
This appeared to me so horrible that I had difficulty in restraining myself. I felt that I had heard enough.
III.--THE CHARGE OF RAILLERY
Reverend Fathers,--I have read the letters which you have published in answer to some of mine on the subject of your moral principles; and I find that one of the principal points in your defence is that I have not spoken seriously enough of your maxims. You repeat this charge in all your writings, and you go so far as to say that I have turned holy things into ridicule.
This is a surprising and very unjust reproach; for where is a passage to be found in which I have treated holy things with raillery? It is true that I have spoken with little respect of the teachings of certain among you, but do you suppose that the imaginations of your authors are to be taken as the verities of the faith? Is it impossible to laugh at passages of Escobar, and at the very fantastic and unchristian conclusions of others of your authors without being accused of ridiculing religion? Are you not afraid lest your reproaches should give me a new subject for ridicule, or lest it should be seen that when I make sport of your moral principles I am as far from laughing at holy things as the doctrine of your casuists is far from the holy teaching of the Evangel!
Truly, fathers, there is a great difference between laughing at religion, and laughing at those whose extravagant opinions are its profanation. It would be impious to be wanting in respect for the truths which the Spirit of God has revealed, but it would hardly be less impious that we should not show our contempt for the falsities which the human spirit has opposed to them.
I pray you to consider that just as Christian truth is worthy of love and of respect, the errors that are contrary to it deserve our contempt and hatred. For there are two qualities in the truths of our religion, a divine beauty which compels our love, and a holy majesty that demands our veneration; and there are two qualities in error, the impiety which makes it horrible, and the impertinence which renders it absurd.
Do not hope, therefore, to persuade the world that it is unworthy of Christians to deal with errors as absurdities, since this method has been common to the early fathers of the church, and is authorised by Holy Scriptures, by the example of the greatest saints, and even by that of God himself. For do we not see that God at the same time hates and despises sinners in such a degree that at the hour of their death, when their condition is at its saddest and most deplorable, the divine wisdom is said to unite mockery and laughter with the vengeance and fury which condemns them to perpetual torments.
Nay, it is worthy of our notice that in the first words which God spake to man after the fall the fathers of the church have discovered a tone of mockery, a stinging irony. After Adam had disobeyed, in the hope that the devil had given that he would then be made like a God, it appears from Scripture that God's punishment made him subject to death, and that after having reduced Adam to the miserable condition which his sin had deserved, God mocked him with words of piercing irony, saying: "There is the man who has become as one of us."
You see, therefore, that mockery is sometimes designed to turn men from their follies, and is then an act of righteousness. Thus Jeremiah says that the deeds of the foolish are worthy of laughter because of their vanity. And, again, St. Augustine says that the wise laugh at the foolish because they are wise, but in virtue not of their own wisdom, but of the divine wisdom which will mock at the death of the wicked.
What? Must we call in Scripture and tradition to prove that cutting down one's enemy from behind, and in an ambush is a treacherous murder? Or that giving a present of money to secure an ecclesiastical benefice is to purchase it? Of course, there are teachings which deserve our contempt, and can only be dealt with by mockery. Are you, fathers, to be permitted to teach that it is lawful to slay in order to avoid a blow and an affront, yet are we to be forbidden to refute publicly so grave an error? Are you to be at liberty to say that a judge may conscientiously retain a bribe given him to purchase injustice, yet may we never contradict you? Are you formally to pronounce that a man may be saved without ever having loved God, and yet close the mouths of those who would defend the truth of the faith, on the ground that their defence must wound fraternal charity by attacking you, and must grieve Christian modesty by laughing at your maxims?
IV.--THE SIN OF SIMONY
Reverend Fathers,--I was about to write to you concerning the accusations which you have so long brought against me, wherein you call me impious, buffoon, rogue, impostor, calumniator, swindler, heretic, disguised Calvinist, one possessed of a legion of devils. I wish the world to know why you speak thus, for I should be sorry that anyone should think thus of me; and I had already made up my mind to complain publicly of your calumnies and impostures when I saw your replies, wherein you bring the same charges against me. You have thus forced me to change my purpose. Yet I shall still carry it out in some degree, inasmuch as I hope that my defence will convict you of more real impostures which you have imputed to me. Truly, fathers, your position is more open to suspicion than mine, for it is very unlikely that I, being alone as I am, and without strength or human support against so powerful a society as yours, and being sustained only by truth and sincerity, should have exposed myself to the risk of losing all, by exposing myself to a conviction of imposture. But your position, fathers, is different; you can say of me what you please, and I can find no one to whom I may complain. Well, you have chosen your ground, and the war shall be made in your country and at your expense. Do not fear that I shall be tedious; there is something so diverting about your maxims that they never fail to rejoice the world.
Let me closely explain, for instance, your doctrine with regard to simony. Finding yourself in a dilemma between the canons of the church, which forbid with the severest penalties any trade in ecclesiastical benefices, and the avarice of so many people who promote this infamous traffic, you have followed your ordinary method, which is to give to men what they desire, and to offer to God nothing but words and appearances. For what do simonfacal persons demand, if not that they shall receive money in return for their benefices?
But that is precisely the transaction which you have cleared from the guilt of simony. Yet, since you cannot do away with the name of simony, and there must be some matter to which the name attaches, you have devised for that purpose an imaginary idea, which never enters the minds of simoniacs at all, and indeed would be quite useless to them. This is, that simony consists in valuing the money, considered in itself, as highly as the spiritual privilege, considered in itself. Who would ever dream of comparing things which are so disproportionate and of such different kinds? Yet, according to your authors, so long as a man does not entertain this metaphysical comparison, he may give his benefice to another, and may receive money in return, without incurring the guilt of simony. It is thus that you make game of religion in order to pander to human passions.
The abusive language which you utter against me will never clear up our differences, nor shall any of your threats restrain me from defending myself. You trust in your strength and impunity, but I believe that I possess truth and innocence. The war by which violence attempts to oppress the truth is a strange and a long one, for all the efforts of violence are unable to weaken truth, and serve only to make it more evident. On the other hand, all the light of truth can do nothing to arrest violence, but rather inflames it. When force combats force, the stronger destroys the weaker; when argument is opposed to argument, true and convincing reasoning confounds that which is based on vanity and lies; but violence and truth have, no power one over the other. That is not to say that these two things are equal. There is this extreme difference between them: the career of violence is limited by the divine order, which determines its effects to the glory of the truth which it attacks; but truth, on the other hand, exists externally, and triumphs at last over its enemies, because it is eternal and powerful as God Himself.
V.--HOMICIDE
Let us now see, fathers, how you value that life of man, which is so jealously safeguarded by human justice. It appears from your novel laws that there is only one judge in a case of affront or injury, and that this judge is to be he who has received the offence. He is to be at the same time judge, plaintiff, and executioner. He demands the death of the offender, sentences him to death, and immediately executes the sentence; and so, without respect either for the body or for the soul of his brother, slays and imperils the salvation of him for whom Christ died. And all this is to be done to avoid a blow, a slander, an insulting word, or some other offence for which neither the law nor any authorised judge could assign the penalty of death.
Not only so, but even a priest is held to have contracted neither sin nor irregularity in this infliction of death without authority and against law. Can these be religious men and priests who speak in this way? Are they Christians or Turks--men or demons? Spread over the whole earth, according to St. Augustine, there are two peoples and two worlds--the world of the children of God, who form one body, of which Jesus Christ is king, and the world of the enemies of God, of whom the devil is king.
Now, Christ has founded honour on suffering; the devil has founded it on the refusal to suffer. Christ has taught those who receive a blow to offer the other cheek; but the devil has taught those who are in danger of a blow to kill the enemy who threatens them.
Consider, therefore, fathers, to which of these two kingdoms you belong. You have heard the language of the city of peace, which is called the mystical Jerusalem, and you have heard the language of the city of turmoil, which is called in the Scriptures the spiritual Sodom. Which of these two languages do you understand? According to St. Paul, those who belong to Christ act and speak on his principles; and, according to the words of Christ, those who are the children of the devil, who has been a murderer from the beginning of the world, follow his maxims. We listen, therefore, to the language of your teachers, and ask of them whether when a blow is threatened, we ought to suffer it rather than slay the offender, or whether we may kill him in order to escape the affront?
Lessius, Molina, Escobar, and other Jesuits say that it is lawful to kill the man who threatens a blow. Is that the language of Jesus Christ?