Part 98

P. 273. Jesuits and Jansenists. A collection of fragments on these subjects, which perhaps might be considered rather as an appendix to, or notes for the Provincial Letters, than a part of the Thoughts, properly so called. But they form part of the autograph MS.

P. 273, l. 9. There is a time to laugh. Eccles. iii. 4. Responde, ne respondeas. Prov. xxvi. 4.

P. 275, l. 9. Elias was a man like ourselves. Quoted by memory as from Saint Peter, but really from Saint James, v. 17.

P. 275, l. 14. accused of many crimes. Athanasius was accused of rape, of murder, and of sacrilege. He was condemned by the Councils of Tyre, A.D. 335, of Arles, A.D. 353, and of Milan A.D. 355. Pope Liberius, after having long refused to ratify the condemnation, was said to have finally done so A.D. 357. But this is disputed by recent authorities. For Athanasius we are of course here to read Jansenius and Arnauld; for Saint Theresa, la mère Angélique or la mère Agnès; for Liberius, Clement IX.

P. 275, l. 33. Antonio Escobar y Mendoza. The Spanish Jesuit whose system of morals was so severely handled by Pascal in the Provincial Letters. He is among those whose names have given rise to a word: "escobarderie" is a synonym for equivocation.

P. 276, l. 6. Molina, Louis, a Spanish Jesuit, born 1535, died 1601. The Jansenists accused his Commentary on the Summa of Saint Thomas Aquinas of favouring a lax morality.

P. 277, l. 4. Mohatra. "The contract Mohatra, by which a man buys cloth at a dear rate and on credit, to re-sell it at once to the same person cheaply for ready money." Eighth Provincial.

P. 278, l. 21. Est and non est.

P. 278, l. 26. Væ qui conditis leges iniquas. Is. x. 1. But the Vulgate reads Væ qui condunt.

P. 279, l. 22. M. de Condran. No doubt Charles de Condren, 1588-1641, doctor of the Sorbonne, and second General of the French Oratory, a society of priests founded by Cardinal de Bérulle at Paris in 1611.

P. 280, l. 7. Sanctificavi prælium. Mic. iii. 5.

P. 280, l. 12. Ne convertantur. Is. vi. 10.

P. 282, l. 21. Coacervabunt tibi magistras. 2 ad Tim. iv. 3, where the Vulgate has "sibi."

P. 282, l. 28. not to make appointments to bishoprics. But a few years after this Fathers La Chaise and Le Tellier, as Confessors to the King, had this power in their hands.

P. 282, l. 31. Father Brisacier, born 1603, a Jesuit, and a warm opponent of Jansenism. He wrote Le Jansénisme confondu, and several minor works. He is constantly quoted in the Provincial Letters.

P. 283, l. 1. Venice. The Jesuits had just returned to Venice in 1657, having been expelled thence in 1606.

P. 283, l. 22. Amice, ad quid venisti. Matt. xxvi. 50.

P. 283, l. 24. probability, or, technically, probabilism. Probabilism teaches that it is permissible to act on an opinion which is less probable than the opinion opposed to it so long as there is a solid ground for regarding it as probable in itself. Thus, if out of three moral theologians of recognised authority, two give it as their opinion that a certain course of conduct is unlawful, while the third asserts it to be lawful, probabilism permits the adoption in practice of the third opinion in opposition to the other two. A confessor would therefore have no right to forbid it under pain of sin.

P. 284, l. 12. Dii estis. Ps. lxxxii. 6.

P. 284, l. 13. If my Letters are condemned at Rome. The Provincial Letters were condemned at Rome, Sept. 6, 1657.

P. 285, l. 22. imago. An allusion to the famous panegyric on the Jesuits called, "Imago primi sæculi." See Fifth Provincial.

P. 285, l. 36. Si non fecissem quæ alius non fecit. Jon. xv. 24.

P. 286, l. 31. These nuns. The nuns of Port Royal were called upon to sign the Formula which declared that the Five Propositions were in Jansenius.

P. 287, l. 4. Vide si via iniquitatis in me est. Ps. cxxxix. 24.

P. 287, l. 15. they are so no longer, i.e. since the miracle.

P. 288, l. 18. Vos autem non sic. Luc. xxii. 26.

P. 289, l. 28. Annat, 1590-1670, a Jesuit priest, Provincial of the Order, and Confessor to Louis XIV., 1654-1670. He wrote the well-known book, Le Rabat-joie des Jansénistes, 1666, and to him were addressed Pascal's Seventeenth and Eighteenth Provincials.

P. 290, l. 9. Montalte. Louis de Montalte was the pseudonym adopted by Pascal as the writer of the Provincial Letters.