This, however, they have done in the most unequivocal way.M.de Sainte-Beuve, king's professor in the Sorbonne, censured these propositions in his published writings long before the Pope; and other Augustinian doctors, in various publications, and, among others, in a work On Victorious Grace, reject the same articles as both heretical and strange doctrines.In the preface to that work they say that these propositions are "heretical and Lutheran, forged and fabricated at pleasure, and are neither to be found in Jansenius, nor in his defenders." They complain of being charged with such sentiments, and address you in the words of St.Prosper, the first disciple of St.
Augustine their master, to whom the semi-Pelagians of France had ascribed similar opinions, with the view of bringing him into disgrace: "There are persons who denounce us, so blinded by passion that they have adopted means for doing so which ruin their own reputation.They have, for this purpose, fabricated propositions of the most impious and blasphemous character, which they industriously circulate, to make people believe that we maintain them in the wicked sense which they are pleased to attach to them.But our reply will show at once our innocence, and the malignity of these persons who have ascribed to us a set of impious tenets, of which they are themselves the sole inventors." Truly, father, when I found that they had spoken in this way before the appearance of the papal constitution- when I saw that they afterwards received that decree with all possible respect, that they offered to subscribe it, and that M.Arnauld had declared all this in his second letter, in stronger terms than I can report him, I should have considered it a sin to doubt their soundness in the faith.And, in fact, those who were formerly disposed to refuse absolution to M.Arnauld's friends, have since declared that, after his explicit disclaimer of the errors imputed to him, there was no reason left for cutting off either him or them from the communion of the Church.Your associates, however, have acted very differently; and it was this that made me begin to suspect that you were actuated by prejudice.You threatened first to compel them to sign that constitution, so long as you thought they would resist it; but no sooner did you see them quite ready of their own accord to submit to it than we heard no more about this.Still however, though one might suppose this ought to have satisfied you, you persisted in calling them heretics, "because,"said you, "their heart belies their hand; they are Catholics outwardly, but inwardly they are heretics." This, father, struck me as very strange reasoning; for where is the person of whom as much may not be said at any time? And what endless trouble and confusion would ensue, were it allowed to go on! "If," says Pope St.Gregory, "we refuse to believe a confession of faith made in conformity to the sentiments of the Church, we cast a doubt over the faith of all Catholics whatsoever." I am afraid, father, to use the words of the same pontiff when speaking of a similar dispute this time, "that your object is to make these persons heretics in spite of themselves; because to refuse to credit those who testify by their confession that they are in the true faith, is not to purge heresy, but to create it- hoc non est haeresim purgare, sed facere." But what confirmed me in my persuasion that there was, indeed, no heretic in the Church, was finding that our so-called heretics had vindicated themselves so successfully that you were unable to accuse them of a single error in the faith, and that you were reduced to the necessity of assailing them on questions of fact only, touching Jansenius, which could not possibly be construed into heresy.
You insist, it now appears, on their being compelled to acknowledge "that these propositions are contained in Jansenius, word for word, every one of them, in so many terms," or, as you express it, "Singulares, individuae, totidem verbis apud Jansenium contentae." Thenceforth your dispute became, in my eyes, perfectly indifferent.So long as I believed that you were debating the truth or falsehood of the propositions, I was all attention, for that quarrel touched the faith; but when I discovered that the bone of contention was whether they were to be found word for word in Jansenius or not, as religion ceased to be interested in the controversy, I ceased to be interested in it also.Not but that there was some presumption that you were speaking the truth; because to say that such and such expressions are to be found word for word in an author, is a matter in which there can be no mistake.I do not wonder, therefore, that so many people, both in France and at Rome, should have been led to believe, on the authority of a phrase so little liable to suspicion, that Jansenius has actually taught these obnoxious tenets.And, for the same reason, I was not a little surprised to learn that this same point of fact, which you had propounded as so certain and so important, was false; and that, after being challenged to quote the pages of Jansenius in which you had found these propositions "word for word," you have not been able to point them out to this day.
