Letter VI
Paris, April 10, 1656

SIR,
I mentioned, at the close of my last letter, that my good
friend, the Jesuit, had promised to show me how the casuists reconcile
the contrarieties between their opinions and the decisions of the
popes, the councils, and the Scripture. This promise he fulfilled at
our last interview, of which I shall now give you an account.

"One of the methods," resumed the monk, "in which we reconcile
these apparent contradictions, is by the interpretation of some
phrase. Thus, Pope Gregory XIV decided that assassins are not worthy
to enjoy the benefit of sanctuary in churches and ought to be
dragged out of them; and yet our four-and-twenty elders affirm that
'the penalty of this bull is not incurred by all those that kill in
treachery.' This may appear to you a contradiction; but we get over
this by interpreting the word assassin as follows: 'Are assassins
unworthy of sanctuary in churches? Yes, by the bull of Gregory XIV
they are. But by the word assassins we understand those that have
received money to murder one; and, accordingly, such as kill without
taking any reward for the deed, but merely to oblige their friends, do
not come under the category of assassins.'"
"Take another instance: It is said in the Gospel, 'Give alms of
your superfluity.' Several casuists, however, have contrived to
discharge the wealthiest from the obligation of alms-giving. This
may appear another paradox, but the matter is easily put to rights
by giving such an interpretation to the word superfluity that it
will seldom or never happen that any one is troubled with such an
article. This feat has been accomplished by the learned Vasquez, in
his Treatise on Alms, c. 4: 'What men of the world lay up to improve
their circumstances, or those of their relatives, cannot be termed
superfluity, and accordingly, such a thing as superfluity is seldom to
be found among men of the world, not even excepting kings.' Diana,
too, who generally founds on our fathers, having quoted these words of
Vasquez, justly concludes, 'that as to the question whether the rich
are bound to give alms of their superfluity, even though the
affirmative were true, it will seldom or never happen to be obligatory
in practice.'"

"I see very well how that follows from the doctrine of Vasquez,"
said I. "But how would you answer this objection, that, in working out
one's salvation, it would be as safe, according to Vasquez, to give no
alms, provided one can muster as much ambition as to have no
superfluity; as it is safe, according to the Gospel, to have no
ambition at all, in order to have some superfluity for the purpose
of alms-giving?"

"Why," returned he, "the answer would be that both of these ways
are safe according to the Gospel; the one according to the Gospel in
its more literal and obvious sense, and the other according to the
same Gospel as interpreted by Vasquez. There you see the utility of
interpretations. When the terms are so clear, however," he
continued, "as not to admit of an interpretation, we have recourse
to the observation of favourable circumstances. A single example
will illustrate this. The popes have denounced excommunication on
monks who lay aside their canonicals; our casuists, notwithstanding,
put it as a question, 'On what occasions may a monk lay aside his
religious habits without incurring excommunication?' They mention a
number of cases in which they may, and among others the following: 'If
he has laid it aside for an infamous purpose, such as to pick
pockets or to go incognito into haunts of profligacy, meaning
shortly after to resume it.' It is evident the bulls have no reference
to cases of that description."
I could hardly believe that and begged the father to show me the
passage in the original. He did so, and under the chapter headed
"Practice according to the School of the Society of Jesus"- Praxis
ex Societatis Jesu Schola- I read these very words: Si habitum
dimittat ut furetur occulte, vel fornicetur. He showed me the same
thing in Diana, in these terms: Ut eat incognitus ad lupanar. "And
why, father," I asked, "are they discharged from excommunication on
such occasions?"

"Don't you understand it?" he replied. "Only think what a
scandal it would be, were a monk surprised in such a predicament
with his canonicals on! And have you never heard," he continued,
"how they answer the first bull contra sollicitantes and how our
four-and-twenty, in another chapter of the Practice according to the
School of our Society, explain the bull of Pius V contra clericos,
&c.?"

"I know nothing about all that," said I.

"Then it is a sign you have not read much of Escobar," returned
the monk.

"I got him only yesterday, father, said I; "and I had no small
difficulty, too, in procuring a copy. I don't know how it is, but
everybody of late has been in search of him."
"The passage to which I referred," returned the monk, "may be
found in treatise I, example 8, no. 102. Consult it at your leisure
when you go home."

I did so that very night; but it is so shockingly bad that I
dare not transcribe it.

The good father then went on to say: "You now understand what
use we make of favourable circumstances. Sometimes, however, obstinate
cases will occur, which will not admit of this mode of adjustment;
so much so, indeed, that you would almost suppose they involved flat
contradictions. For example, three popes have decided that monks who
are bound by a particular vow to a Lenten life cannot be absolved from
it even though they should become bishops. And yet Diana avers that
notwithstanding this decision they are absolved.

"And how does he reconcile that?" said I.

"By the most subtle of all the modern methods, and by the nicest
possible application of probability," replied the monk. "You may
recollect you were told the other day that the affirmative and
negative of most opinions have each, according to our doctors, some
probability enough, at least, to be followed with a safe conscience.
Not that the pro and con are both true in the same sense- that is
impossible- but only they are both probable and, therefore, safe, as a
matter of course. On this principle our worthy friend Diana remarks:
'To the decision of these three popes, which is contrary to my
opinion, I answer that they spoke in this way by adhering to the
affirmative side- which, in fact, even in my judgement, is probable;
but it does not follow from this that the negative may not have its
probability too.' And in the same treatise, speaking of another
subject on which he again differs from a pope, he says: 'The pope, I
grant, has said it as the head of the Church; but his decision does
not extend beyond the sphere of the probability of his own opinion.'
Now you perceive this is not doing any harm to the opinions of the
popes; such a thing would never be tolerated at Rome, where Diana is
in high repute. For he does not say that what the popes have decided
is not probable; but leaving their opinion within the sphere of
probability, he merely says that the contrary is also probable."

"That is very respectful," said I.

"Yes," added the monk, "and rather more ingenious than the reply
made by Father Bauny, when his books were censured at Rome; for,
when pushed very hard on this point by M. Hallier, he made bold to
write: 'What has the censure of Rome to do with that of France?' You
now see how, either by the interpretation of terms, by the observation
of favourable circumstances, or by the aid of the double probability
of pro and con, we always contrive to reconcile those seeming
contradictions which occasioned you so much surprise, without ever
touching on the decisions of Scripture, councils, or popes."

"Reverend father," said I, "how happy the world is in having
such men as you for its masters! And what blessings are these
probabilities! I never knew the reason why you took such pains to
establish that a single doctor, if a grave one, might render an
opinion probable, and that the contrary might be so too, and that
one may choose any side one pleases, even though he does not believe
it to be the right side, and all with such a safe conscience, that the
confessor who should refuse him absolution on the faith of the
casuists would be in a state of damnation. But I see now that a single
casuist may make new rules of morality at his discretion and
dispose, according to his fancy, of everything pertaining to the
regulation of manners."

"What you have now said," rejoined the father, "would require to
be modified a little. Pay attention now, while I explain our method,
and you will observe the progress of a new opinion, from its birth
to its maturity. First, the grave doctor who invented it exhibits it
to the world, casting it abroad like seed, that it may take root. In
this state it is very feeble; it requires time gradually to ripen.
This accounts for Diana, who has introduced a great many of these
opinions, saying: 'I advance this opinion; but as it is new, I give it
time to come to maturity- relinquo tempori maturandum.' Thus in a
few years it becomes insensibly consolidated; and, after a
considerable time, it is sanctioned by the tacit approbation of the
Church, according to the grand maxim of Father Bauny, 'that if an
opinion has been advanced by some casuist, and has not been impugned
by the Church, it is a sign that she approves of it.' And, in fact, on
this principle he authenticates one of his own principles in his sixth
treatise, p. 312."

"Indeed, father! " cried I, "why, on this principle the Church
would approve of all the abuses which she tolerates, and all the
errors in all the books which she does not censure!"

"Dispute the point with Father Bauny," he replied. "I am merely
quoting his words, and you begin to quarrel with me. There is no
disputing with facts, sir. Well, as I was saying, when time has thus
matured an opinion, it thenceforth becomes completely probable and
safe. Hence the learned Caramuel, in dedicating his Fundamental
Theology to Diana, declares that this great Diana has rendered many
opinions probable which were not so before- quae antea non erant,
and that, therefore, in following them, persons do not sin now, though
they would have sinned formerly- jam non peccant, licet ante
peccaverint."

"Truly, father," I observed, "it must be worth one's while
living in the neighbourhood of your doctors. Why, of two individuals
who do the same actions, he that knows nothing about their doctrine
sins, while he that knows it does no sin. It seems, then, that their
doctrine possesses at once an edifying and a justifying virtue! The
law of God, according to St. Paul, made transgressors; but this law of
yours makes nearly all of us innocent. I beseech you, my dear sir, let
me know all about it. I will not leave you till you have told me all
the maxims which your casuists have established."

"Alas!" the monk exclaimed, "our main object, no doubt, should
have been to establish no other maxims than those of the Gospel in all
their strictness: and it is easy to see, from the Rules for the
regulation of our manners, that, if we tolerate some degree of
relaxation in others, it is rather out of complaisance than through
design. The truth is, sir, we are forced to it. Men have arrived at
such a pitch of corruption nowadays that, unable to make them come
to us, we must e'en go to them, otherwise they would cast us off
altogether; and, what is worse, they would become perfect castaways.
It is to retain such characters as these that our casuists have
taken under consideration the vices to which people of various
conditions are most addicted, with the view of laying down maxims
which, while they cannot be said to violate the truth, are so gentle
that he must be a very impracticable subject indeed who is not pleased
with them. The grand project of our Society, for the good of religion,
is never to repulse any one, let him be what he may, and so avoid
driving people to despair.

"They have got maxims, therefore, for all sorts of persons; for
beneficiaries, for priests, for monks; for gentlemen, for servants;
for rich men, for commercial men; for people in embarrassed or
indigent circumstances; for devout women, and women that are not
devout; for married people, and irregular people. In short, nothing
has escaped their foresight."

"In other words," said I, "they have got maxims for the clergy,
the nobility, and the commons. Well, I am quite impatient to hear
them."

"Let us commence," resumed the father, 'with the beneficiaries.
You are aware of the traffic with benefices that is now carried on,
and that, were the matter referred to St. Thomas and the ancients
who had written on it, there might chance to be some simoniacs in
the Church. This rendered it highly necessary for our fathers to
exercise their prudence in finding out a palliative. With what success
they have done so will appear from the following words of Valencia,
who is one of Escobar's 'four living creatures.' At the end of a
long discourse, in which he suggests various expedients, he
propounds the following at page 2039, vol. iii, which, to my mind,
is the best: 'If a person gives a temporal in exchange for a spiritual
good'- that is, if he gives money for a benefice- 'and gives the money
as the price of the benefice, it is manifest simony. But if he gives
it merely as the motive which inclines the will of the patron to
confer on him the living, it is not simony, even though the person who
confers it considers and expects the money as the principal object.'
Tanner, who is also a member of our Society, affirms the same thing,
vol. iii, p.1519, although he 'grants that St. Thomas is opposed to
it; for he expressly teaches that it is always simony to give a
spiritual for a temporal good, if the temporal is the end in view.' By
this means we prevent an immense number of simoniacal transactions;
for who would be so desperately wicked as to refuse, when giving money
for a benefice, to take the simple precaution of so directing his
intentions as to give it as a motive to induce the beneficiary to part
with it, instead of giving it as the price of the benefice? No man,
surely, can be so far left to himself as that would come to."

"I agree with you there," I replied; "all men, I should think,
have sufficient grace to make a bargain of that sort."

"There can be no doubt of it," returned the monk. "Such, then,
is the way in which we soften matters in regard to the
beneficiaries. And now for the priests- we have maxims pretty
favourable to them also. Take the following, for example, from our
four-and-twenty elders: "Can a priest, who has received money to say a
mass, take an additional sum upon the same mass? Yes, says
Filiutius, he may, by applying that part of the sacrifice which
belongs to himself as a priest to the person who paid him last;
provided he does not take a sum equivalent to a whole mass, but only a
part, such as the third of a mass.'"

"Surely, father," said I, "this must be one of those cases in
which the pro and the con have both their share of probability. What
you have now stated cannot fail, of course, to be probable, having the
authority of such men as Filiutius and Escobar; and yet, leaving
that within the sphere of probability, it strikes me that the contrary
opinion might be made out to be probable too, and might be supported
by such reasons as the following: That, while the Church allows
priests who are in poor circumstances to take money for their
masses, seeing it is but right that those who serve at the altar
should live by the altar, she never intended that they should barter
the sacrifice for money, and, still less, that they should deprive
themselves of those benefits which they ought themselves, in the first
place, to draw from it; to which I might add that, according to St.
Paul, the priests are to offer sacrifice first for themselves and then
for the people; and that, accordingly, while permitted to
participate with others in the benefit of the sacrifice, they are
not at liberty to forego their share by transferring it to another for
a third of a mass, or, in other words, for the matter of fourpence
or fivepence. Verily, father, little as I pretend to be a grave man, I
might contrive to make this opinion probable."

"It would cost you no great pains to do that, replied the monk;
"it is visibly probable already. The difficulty lies in discovering
probability in the converse of opinions manifestly good; and this is a
feat which none but great men can achieve. Father Bauny shines in this
department. It is really delightful to see that learned casuist
examining with characteristic ingenuity and subtlety the negative
and affirmative of the same question, and proving both of them to be
right! Thus in the matter of priests, he says in one place: 'No law
can be made to oblige the curates to say mass every day; for such a
law would unquestionably (haud dubie) expose them to the danger of
saying it sometimes in mortal sin.' And yet, in another part of the
same treatise, he says, 'that priests who have received money for
saying mass every day ought to say it every day, and that they
cannot excuse themselves on the ground that they are not always in a
fit state for the service; because it is in their power at all times
to do penance, and if they neglect this they have themselves to
blame for it and not the person who made them say mass.' And to
relieve their minds from all scruples on the subject, he thus resolves
the question: 'May a priest say mass on the same day in which he has
committed a mortal sin of the worst kind, in the way of confessing
himself beforehand?' Villalobos says no, because of his impurity;
but Sancius says: 'He may without any sin; and I hold his opinion to
be safe, and one which may be followed in practice- et tuta et
sequenda in praxi.'"

"Follow this opinion in practice!" cried I. "Will any priest who
has fallen into such irregularities have the assurance on the same day
to approach the altar, on the mere word of Father Bauny? Is he not
bound to submit to the ancient laws of the Church, which debarred from
the sacrifice forever, or at least for a long time, priests who had
committed sins of that description- instead of following the modern
opinions of casuists, who would admit him to it on the very day that
witnessed his fall?"

"You have a very short memory, returned the monk. "Did I not
inform you a little ago that, according to our fathers Cellot and
Reginald, 'in matters of morality we are to follow, not the ancient
fathers, but the modern casuists?'"

"I remember it perfectly," said I; "but we have something more
here: we have the laws of the Church."

"True," he replied; "but this shows you do not know another
capital maxim of our fathers, 'that the laws of the Church lose
their authority when they have gone into desuetude- cum jam
desuetudine abierunt- as Filiutius says. We know the present
exigencies of the Church much better than the ancients could do.
Were we to be so strict in excluding priests from the altar, you can
understand there would not be such a great number of masses. Now a
multitude of masses brings such a revenue of glory to God and of
good to souls that I may venture to say, with Father Cellot, that
there would not be too many priests, 'though not only all men and
women, were that possible, but even inanimate bodies, and even brute
beasts- bruta animalia- were transformed into priests to celebrate
mass.'"

I was so astounded at the extravagance of this imagination that
I could not utter a word and allowed him to go on with his
discourse. "Enough, however, about priests; I am afraid of getting
tedious: let us come to the monks. The grand difficulty with them is
the obedience they owe to their superiors; now observe the
palliative which our fathers apply in this case. Castro Palao of our
Society has said: 'Beyond all dispute, a monk who has a probable
opinion of his own, is not bound to obey his superior, though the
opinion of the latter is the more probable. For the monk is at liberty
to adopt the opinion which is more agreeable to himself- quae sibi
gratior fuerit- as Sanchez says. And though the order of his
superior be just, that does not oblige you to obey him, for it is
not just at all points or in every respect- non undequaque juste
praecepit- but only probably so; and, consequently, you are only
probably bound to obey him, and probably not bound- probabiliter
obligatus, et probabiliter deobligatus.'"

"Certainly, father," said I, "it is impossible too highly to
estimate this precious fruit of the double probability."

"It is of great use indeed," he replied; "but we must be brief.
Let me only give you the following specimen of our famous Molina in
favour of monks who are expelled from their convents for
irregularities. Escobar quotes him thus: 'Molina asserts that a monk
expelled from his monastery is not obliged to reform in order to get
back again, and that he is no longer bound by his vow of obedience.'"

"Well, father," cried I, "this is all very comfortable for the
clergy. Your casuists, I perceive, have been very indulgent to them,
and no wonder- they were legislating, so to speak, for themselves. I
am afraid people of other conditions are not so liberally treated.
Every one for himself in this world."

"There you do us wrong," returned the monk; "they could not have
been kinder to themselves than we have been to them. We treat all,
from the highest to the lowest, with an even-handed charity, sir.
And to prove this, you tempt me to tell you our maxims for servants.
In reference to this class, we have taken into consideration the
difficulty they must experience, when they are men of conscience, in
serving profligate masters. For, if they refuse to perform all the
errands in which they are employed, they lose their places; and if
they yield obedience, they have their scruples. To relieve them from
these, our four-and-twenty fathers have specified the services which
they may render with a safe conscience; such as 'carrying letters
and presents, opening doors and windows, helping their master to reach
the window, holding the ladder which he is mounting. All this,' say
they, 'is allowable and indifferent; it is true that, as to holding
the ladder, they must be threatened, more than usually, with being
punished for refusing; for it is doing an injury to the master of a
house to enter it by the window.' You perceive the judiciousness of
that observation, of course?"

"I expected nothing less," said I, "from a book edited by
four-and-twenty Jesuits."

"But," added the monk, "Father Bauny has gone beyond this; he
has taught valets how to perform these sorts of offices for their
masters quite innocently, by making them direct their intention, not
to the sins to which they are accessary, but to the gain which is to
accrue from them. In his Summary of Sins, p.710, first edition, he
thus states the matter: 'Let confessors observe,' says he, 'that
they cannot absolve valets who perform base errands, if they consent
to the sins of their masters; but the reverse holds true, if they have
done the thing merely from a regard to their temporal emolument.'
And that, I should conceive, is no difficult matter to do; for why
should they insist on consenting to sins of which they taste nothing
but the trouble? The same Father Bauny has established a prime maxim
in favour of those who are not content with their wages: 'May servants
who are dissatisfied with their wages use means to raise them by
laying their hands on as much of the property of their masters as they
may consider necessary to make the said wages equivalent to their
trouble? They may, in certain circumstances; as when they are so
poor that, in looking for a situation, they have been obliged to
accept the offer made to them, and when other servants of the same
class are gaining more than they, elsewhere.'"

"Ha, father!" cried I, "that is John d'Alba's passage, I declare."

"What John d'Alba?" inquired the father: "what do you mean?"

"Strange, father!" returned I: "do you not remember what
happened in this city in the year 1647? Where in the world were you
living at that time?"

"I was teaching cases of conscience in one of our colleges far
from Paris," he replied.

"I see you don't know the story, father: I must tell it to you.
I heard it related the other day by a man of honour, whom I met in
company. He told us that this John d'Alba, who was in the service of
your fathers in the College of Clermont, in the Rue St. Jacques, being
dissatisfied with his wages, had purloined something to make himself
amends; and that your fathers, on discovering the theft, had thrown
him into prison on the charge of larceny. The case was reported to the
court, if I recollect right, on the 16th of April, 1647; for he was
very minute in his statements, and indeed they would hardly have
been credible otherwise. The poor fellow, on being questioned,
confessed to having taken some pewter plates, but maintained that
for all that he had not stolen them; pleading in his defence this very
doctrine of Father Bauny, which he produced before the judges, along
with a pamphlet by one of your fathers, under whom he had studied
cases of conscience, and who had taught him the same thing.
Whereupon M. de Montrouge, one of the most respected members of the
court, said, in giving his opinion, 'that he did not see how, on the
ground of the writings of these fathers- writings containing a
doctrine so illegal, pernicious, and contrary to all laws, natural,
divine, and human, and calculated to ruin all families, and sanction
all sorts of household robbery- they could discharge the accused.
But his opinion was that this too faithful disciple should be
whipped before the college gate, by the hand of the common hangman;
and that, at the same time, this functionary should burn the
writings of these fathers which treated of larceny, with certification
that they were prohibited from teaching such doctrine in future,
upon pain of death.'

"The result of this judgement, which was heartily approved of, was
waited for with much curiosity, when some incident occurred which made
them delay procedure. But in the meantime the prisoner disappeared,
nobody knew how, and nothing more was heard about the affair; so
that John d'Alba got off, pewter plates and all. Such was the
account he gave us, to which he added, that the judgement of M. de
Montrouge was entered on the records of the court, where any one may
consult it. We were highly amused at the story."

"What are you trifling about now?" cried the monk. "What does
all that signify? I was explaining the maxims of our casuists, and was
just going to speak of those relating to gentlemen, when you interrupt
me with impertinent stories."

"It was only something put in by the way, father," I observed;

"and besides, I was anxious to apprise you of an important
circumstance, which I find you have overlooked in establishing your
doctrine of probability."

"Ay, indeed!" exclaimed the monk, "what defect can this be that
has escaped the notice of so many ingenious men?"

"You have certainly," continued I, "contrived to place your
disciples in perfect safety so far as God and the conscience are
concerned; for they are quite safe in that quarter, according to
you, by following in the wake of a grave doctor. You have also secured
them on the part of the confessors, by obliging priests, on the pain
of mortal sin, to absolve all who follow a probable opinion. But you
have neglected to secure them on the part of the judges; so that, in
following your probabilities, they are in danger of coming into
contact with the whip and the gallows. This is a sad oversight."

"You are right," said the monk; "I am glad you mentioned it. But
the reason is we have no such power over magistrates as over the
confessors, who are obliged to refer to us in cases of conscience,
in which we are the sovereign judges."

"So I understand," returned I; "but if, on the one hand, you are
the judges of the confessors, are you not, on the other hand, the
confessors of the judges? Your power is very extensive. Oblige them,
on pain of being debarred from the sacraments, to acquit all criminals
who act on a probable opinion; otherwise it may happen, to the great
contempt and scandal of probability, that those whom you render
innocent in theory may be whipped or hanged in practice. Without
something of this kind, how can you expect to get disciples?"

"The matter deserves consideration," said he; "it will never do to
neglect it. I shall suggest it to our father Provincial. You might,
however, have reserved this advice to some other time, without
interrupting the account I was about to give you of the maxims which
we have established in favour of gentlemen; and I shall not give you
any more information, except on condition that you do not tell me
any more stories."

This is all you shall have from me at present; for it would
require more than the limits of one letter to acquaint you with all
that I learned in a single conversation. Meanwhile I am, &c.