"The first man was created in a state of perfect innocence, and could not come forth otherwise from the hand of God. The idea of any other state whatever is a chimera which would degrade humanity and openly conflict with the perfections of a sovereign Providence. Faith teaches us that Adam was established in justice and charity. He therefore loved his Creator, and had within himself no perverse inclination."[210] Thus speak the sectaries of Pistoia, faithful interpreters of Jansenist thought. The church has condemned this conclusion; she teaches us that God could have created man as he is born at present, without sin, to be sure, but still without that perfect innocence which consists in the supernatural and purely gratuitous gifts of charity and integrity.[211]
However, sin entered into the world, and at one blow man lost all the gifts of the Holy Ghost: he had fallen into that abnormal state of incompleteness in which God could not have established him in the beginning. "He hastened from darkness to darkness, from error to error, from sin to sin: powerless to deliver himself from that love which held him attached to himself."[212] But "the infected root must (by a physical necessity, as Jansenius says)[213] produce defective and corrupt fruit. He transmits to his children, therefore, in the order of generation, ignorance of good and a vicious inclination to evil."[214] This is original sin, according to the Jansenists.
The Catholic Church, in whose eyes sin is above all a moral disorder, teaches that ignorance and concupiscence are not sins, but the consequence of the first transgression, and the occasion to man in his fallen state of voluntarily committing new sins.
Jansenius exaggerates from the first the extent of the wound which ignorance caused in us. The fallen man, according to him, is no longer possessed of organs for perceiving the truths which concern the higher interests of the soul; God, the future life, natural right, are so many closed books, which revelation alone can open for us.[215] This is a sort of religious scepticism, often revived since, and always rejected by sound theology. It is the real source also, we may be sure, of the peculiar mysticism which has flourished among the Jansenists from the beginning. By a natural consequence, Jansenius treats reason and science as enemies of faith; he would have them banished afar from theology. It is not intelligence, says he, but memory, and, above all, the heart, which penetrates revelation.[216] Is this the same as to say that the adversaries of the Augustinus have opened the door to modern rationalism, as Sainte-Beuve insinuates? By no means. Between the two errors lies the truth as proclaimed by the Scriptures and the fathers, maintained by the sovereign pontiffs, and definitely decided in the Holy Council of the Vatican.[217]
Ignorance, the fruit of sin, is itself imputed as sin, say the Jansenists; in other words, we are guilty before God of the faults into which ignorance causes us to fall unwittingly and in spite of ourselves.[218] This is also the teaching of Scipio Ricci's false synod. Pelagius, we are told by it, "could not understand why the ignorance of good which is born with us, which is necessarily transmitted to us in the order of generation, and by which man falls into error without wishing to, and in spite of himself—invitus ac nolens—ought not to excuse sin."[219]
Pelagius, who denied the fact of the original fall, would not admit that ignorance, the consequence of the fall, was an evil or a weakness, especially in view of man's supernatural end; but faith, equally with good sense, forbids our maintaining that one can be guilty without willing to be so—invitus ac nolens.
The second wound of man in his fallen state is denominated concupiscence. In the system of Jansenius "it is a movement of the soul which leads to the enjoyment of self and of other creatures for some other end than God. It is, therefore, an affection of the soul contrary to order, and bad in itself. Hence it is that man without grace (that is, deprived of grace), and under the slavery of sin, since cupidity reigns in his heart, whatever effort he may make to withdraw himself from its influence, refers everything to himself, and by the general influence of the love which dominates him, spoils and corrupts all his actions."[220] This error of Jansenius has been stigmatized as it deserves in the bulls directed against Baius and Quesnel.[221] These writers present the error under forms the most various; for example, "All that man does without grace is sin. All the works of infidels are sins. The sinner, without grace, is free only for evil."
According to Catholic doctrine, man by his fall has become the slave of sin, and has from himself only sin and falsehood, in the sense that of himself he is for ever incapable of justifying himself from the stain of original sin and from the sins he has voluntarily committed; he can do nothing, absolutely nothing, towards his supernatural destiny; his weakness is so great that, without assistance from on high, he cannot but fall frequently and grievously, especially when assailed by powerful temptations. In these truths there are motives enough for humbling our pride, without needing to go so far as the Jansenists, and say that the necessity of our sinning is an absolute and continual necessity. This theory would be less repulsive if, with the fathers, the abundance of grace were also proclaimed. Christ's redemption, the latter tell us, embraces all time; but his grace is more palpable to us in these days, and more generally diffused. Divine assistance is always at hand, say they unanimously, at the moment it is wanted; so that man can at least call upon God for help, and thus obtain the strength of which he stands in need. Jansenius, on the contrary, pitilessly restrains the measure of liberating grace. Let us hear what the Synod of Pistoia has to say on this subject:
"The Lord willed that, before this plenitude of time [the time of our Saviour's appearance upon earth], mankind should pass through different states. It was his will that man, abandoned to his own lights, should learn to distrust his blind reason, and that his wanderings should thus lead him to desire the assistance of a superior light. This was the state of nature in which man knew not sin, and suffered himself to be drawn by concupiscence without being aware of it."[222] Thus, then, there was a long series of centuries in which mankind in general were abandoned to ignorance and cupidity, and when, without knowing it, without wishing it, they fell from sin to sin. Is this not frightful? But what follows is still more cruel: "God then gave him a law which brought him to a knowledge of sin. But man, being POWERLESS to observe it, became a prevaricator under the law. Sin became even more widespread, either because the law forbidding it heightened the desire for it, or because prevarication—that is, contempt of the law—was added to its violation.... The law, therefore, was given by God, ... not to heal the wounds of mankind, but to acquaint him with the malady and with the necessity of a remedy."[223] Thus viewed, the law of Sinai is an injustice and a subject of derision.
Finally, "The Son of God descended from the bosom of his Father and brought salvation."[224] Now, at least, grace, like a current of life, will pass into the veins of languishing humanity! Alas! no; the further we advance the more disheartening becomes the doctrine of Jansenius. He acknowledges at the outset that progress in the individual follows the same course as in the species. I will explain his thought: many men, even under the Christian law, have not the gift of faith—they are in the state of nature; others are enlightened by the rays of divine revelation or by the interior light of grace—they are in a state analogous to that of men under the law. "While earthly love reigns in the heart, the light of grace, if it be alone, produces the same effect as the law.... It is necessary, therefore, that the Lord should create in the heart a holy love, that he should inspire it with a holy delectation, contrary to the love which reigns there. This holy love, this holy delectation, is, properly speaking, the grace of Jesus Christ; it is the grace of the New Testament.... Dominant love is a holy passion which operates in man, in regard to God, the same effects which dominant cupidity operates therein in regard to the things of earth."[225] Millions of men are thus excluded from all participation in redeeming grace. Jansenius says distinctly that the graces indispensable to salvation are not accorded at all times except to the small number of the elect; all others receive nothing, or only temporary and insufficient helps, which serve but to render them more guilty. In this sense, the Jansenists refuse to admit that Christ died for the eternal salvation of all men; the predestined alone were comprehended in the great contract by which Jesus, in dying, offered his life, and the Eternal Father accepted his stainless oblation as the price of justifying grace. It is in this sense, also, that the fifth proposition of Jansenius has been condemned as heretical: "It is a semi-Pelagian error to say that Christ died or shed his blood for all men in general."[226]