It was a matter of course that when the great Jansenist controversy began, Arnauld should be found in the van of it. ‘An Apology for Jansen’ appeared from his pen in 1644, and a second ‘Apology’ in the following year. It seemed for a time as if the Jesuits would be foiled in their efforts to secure the effectual condemnation of the book. But at length one of their number, Nicolas Cornet, Syndic of the Faculty of Theology at Paris, collected its essential heresy in the shape of seven propositions. These propositions were afterwards reduced to five; and at length, on the 31st of May 1653, a formal condemnation of them was obtained from the Court of Rome. There was no longer any doubt as to the attitude of the Holy See. All the propositions were declared to be distinctly heretical, and the first and the fifth, moreover, to be blasphemous and impious. This result was not reached without much debate and
delay. No sooner had Cornet’s propositions appeared than Arnauld assailed them and all who supported them. A congregation of four cardinals and eleven theological assessors had been appointed to examine them in the end of the year 1651. They had taken, therefore, a year and a half to their work, and the sentence at length issued was intended to bring the long warfare to a close. In point of fact it kindled a fresh fire, and opened, if not a larger, yet a more vital controversy. Arnauld retired willingly before a new writer summoned by himself into the field, and girded with his blessing as he went forth to the encounter.
The five propositions, which were professed to be extracted from Jansen’s book, and as such were condemned by the Papal Bull of 31st May 1653, are so intimately connected with the ‘Provincial Letters’ as to claim a place in our pages. They are as follows:—
I. There are divine commandments which good men, although willing, are unable to obey; and the grace by which these commandments are possible is also wanting in them.
II. No person, in the state of fallen nature, is able to resist internal grace.
III. In order to render human actions meritorious or otherwise, liberty from necessity is not required, but only liberty from constraint.
IV. The semi-Pelagians, while admitting the necessity of prevenient grace—or grace preceding all actions—were heretics, inasmuch as they said that this grace was such as man could, according to his will, either resist or obey.
V. The semi-Pelagians also erred in saying that Christ died or shed His blood for all men universally.
It would be needless for us to touch these propositions, even by way of explanation. We have endeavoured to state them from the original Latin as clearly as we can, so that they may bear some definite meaning even to the non-theological reader. But their very statement bristles with controversy, and the half-extinct meanings of old questions that go to the root of Christian thought lie hid in their language. All the propositions were condemned without reserve, but two points were left unsettled. It was not asserted that the propositions were to be found in the ‘Augustinus,’ and that they were condemned in the sense in which Jansen held them, and in no other. The course of the controversy and the fate of Port Royal in the end mainly turned upon these points.
The Papal Bull condemning the five propositions was speedily published in France, and the triumph of the Jesuits was undisguised. A great blow had been struck, and for a time all seemed inclined to bow before it. Political reasons combined with others to give effect to the Papal verdict. Cardinal Mazarin, in possession of the favour of the Queen-mother, had imprisoned his enemy, Cardinal de Retz, who had so long waged in the intrigues and wars of the Fronde a restless conflict with them; and as the latter in his prosperity had shown a certain favour for Port Royal, this was enough to stimulate, on the part of Mazarin, an interest on behalf of the Jesuits. Yet he was reluctant to move actively against the Jansenists. M. d’Andilly still had his ear in matters of State, and by his intervention and that of others the project of an armistice was for a time entertained. Port Royal was to keep silence, if its enemies did not push their triumph to an
extremity. Even the indefatigable Arnauld seems to have promised to be quiet. But the Jesuits were too conscious of their power, and too relentless in their hostility, to pause in their determination to crush their opponents. They had recourse both to gibes and to active persecution. They printed an almanac with the figure of Jansen as frontispiece, flying in the guise of a winged devil before the Pope and the king into the arms of the Huguenots. They assailed the Duc de Liancourt, and refused him absolution in his own parish church, for no other reason but that he was on friendly relations with Port Royal, and would not withdraw, at their demand, his granddaughter from its protection. This affair, which appears to have been deliberately planned, caused a great sensation, and became, strangely, the indirect occasion of the ‘Provincial Letters.’
Indignant at such an outrage, Arnauld was no longer to be restrained. He rushed before the public with a pamphlet under the title, “Letter of a Doctor of the Sorbonne to a Person of Condition, concerning an event which has recently happened in a parish of Paris to a Nobleman of the Court, February 24, 1655.” The Letter opened with an expression of his wish to dispute no more; but as Sainte-Beuve hints, the avowed desire of peace plunged him all the more into war. His letter called forth numerous replies. He responded by a “Second Letter,” in the shape of a volume. In this letter his enemies seemed to see his fate written. They extracted from it two propositions which in their view clearly contravened the Papal verdict—namely, 1st, that he had expressed doubts whether the five propositions condemned as heretical were in Jansen’s book at all; and 2d, that
he had really reproduced the first of the five condemned propositions in one of his own statements, that according to both the Gospel and the Fathers, St Peter, a just man, was wanting in grace when he fell. This was nothing but undisguised Jansenism, and his accusers in the Sorbonne rallied for his overthrow. A meeting was summoned to consider the letter, and to judge it and the author.
The details of the proceedings would weary the reader. It is sufficient to say that, notwithstanding the concessions wrung from Arnauld, some of which were humiliating enough, he was condemned on the first point (Jan. 1656)—the great question of “fait,” in contrast to the question of “droit,” involved in the second statement as to grace being wanting to St Peter in his fall. His condemnation, however, was mainly secured by the introduction of a number of monks who swelled the majority against him, and the legality of whose vote was challenged by many members. But, as Pascal afterwards said, “it was easier to find monks than arguments.” The second and doctrinal point received professedly more deliberate discussion. The sittings regarding it were protracted till the close of the month, the 29th of January. But the result was really forestalled. The restriction laid on free debate was such as to lead no fewer than sixty doctors to withdraw, protesting to Parliament against the interference with their rights. Their protest, however, came to nothing. Sentence was finally passed, against not only Arnauld, but all who adhered to him or espoused his opinions. The victim, with his usual adroitness, escaped his pursuers, and went once more into a concealment which all their vigilance could not penetrate. Two days after the censure he wrote to one of his nieces, “I am