On the Pope and the Church

Abstract

Fragments on the Church and the papacy: the power of kings and popes, ecclesiastical authority, confession and absolution without signs of sorrow, and the primacy of a true conversion of the heart over external observances.

Traduzione di George Pearce · Delphi Classics, 2000 · pubblico dominio

UNITY, MULTITUDE. CONSIDERING the Church in its unity, the Pope, for the time being, is head over all; and as it were, everything. Considering it in multitude, the Pope is but a part.

• The Fathers have considered it sometimes in the one light, sometimes in the other.

• thus they have spoken variously of the Pope.

• St. Cyprian: “Sacerdos Dei.”

• But in maintaining one of these two truths, they have not excluded the other.

Multitude, when not reduced to unity, becomes confusion; unity, which depends not upon multitude, is tyranny, + Nowhere scarcely, but in France, is it allowed to say the council is superior to the Pope.

II. We are not to judge of the Papal office by a few expressions of the Fathers, (as the Greeks stated in a council — an important rule!) but by the uniform tenor of the church, and the Fathers, and by the canons.

— The Pope is the head. Who else is there that is known of all? Who also is acknowledged by all? Insinuating himself through the whole body, holding the master-key, which commands everything.

• How easily might all this degenerate into tyranny! Therefore Jesus Christ has left this precept:—” Vos autem non sic.”

— + Unity and multitude: “Duo aut très in Unum.” It is an error, to exclude either of the two, like the Papists, who exclude the multitude; or the Huguenots, who exclude unity.

III. + The Pope dislikes and fears the learned, [“Les savants the copies have here “les souverains,” in contradiction to the MS.] who are not attached to the See by vows.

V. We desiderate certainty. We like that the Pope should be infallible in the faith, and that learned doctors [The allusion is quietly ironical, to the learned doctors of probability.] should be the like in morals; and then we are secure.

VI. God does not work miracles in the ordinary course of things in his church. It would be remarkable if infallibility were to be found in one individual; but that it should be found in a multitude seems so natural, that the intervention of Divinity is concealed in nature, as in all his other works.

• “We order and command, that every one of those who have wandered, or fallen into heresy or schism, of whatsoever condition, lay, ecclesiastical, bishops, archbishops, patriarchs, primates, cardinals, counts, marquises, dukes, kings and emperors; besides the sentences and penalties subjoined, be absolutely deprived, wholly, and entirely, of their orders, sees, benefices, offices, kingdoms, empires; and incapable of enjoying them again for evermore.

• “We further abandon such persons to the secular authorities for punishment; and we grant no other mercy to those who in sincere penitence would retract their errors, except that, by the benignity and clemency of the Holy See, they may, if thought deserving, be permitted to be shut Up in a monastery, there to do perpetual penance on bread and water; but ever to remain deprived of all dignity, order, prelature, county, duchy, kingdom. And all who shall conceal and defend them shall be adjudged excommunicated, and infamous; deprived of all royalties, states, goods and possessions, which shall be the right and property of all who shall first get possession of them.” municatos zelo catholicae matrix ardentes aliquem eorum trucidasse contigerit.”

(In the margin of the preceding passage are the following notes: — )

• After having thoroughly tormented you, they will send you home again. (Erased.)

— + It is as poor a consolation as that of the abuse of appeals — for it is a great instrument of abuse; besides that most of them will not have means to defray a journey from the farthest parts of Périgord or Anjou, to plead before the Parliament at Paris, and will always have to encounter arrests of judgment, which will be procured against their appeals. (Erased.)

— + For, although they may not obtain their object, the very endeavour is an indication of their power, which is so great as to induce them to make demands so unjust, that it is evident to all that they cannot be conceded. (Erased.)

— + This only serves more plainly to discover their objects, and the necessity of not permitting the registration of the Bull, which they are aiming to make the foundation of this novel institution. (Erased.)

• This is not a simple Bull, but a foundation. (Erased.)

— + On leaving the court. (Erased.) [It is evident, although it seems to have escaped the acuteness of the French Editor, that all these passages following the bull,’—” Cum ear,” &c., have reference to the 20th Provincial Letter, on the contemplated French Inquisition; which, though supposed to be principally written by Nicole, is proved by these memoranda, (as has been elsewhere stated,) to have been published with the sanction and assistance of Pascal: for some of the expressions in these rough notes are, verbatim, to be found in that paper. See Preface to Provincial Letters. (Transl.)]

— + 121. The Pope forbids the King to give his children in marriage without his permission. 1294.

— … 124. 1302.

VIII. + If the ancient church was in error, she has fallen. Although she exists at the present day, she is not the same, for she possesses the advantage of the traditions derived from antiquity; and thus, this submission and conformity to the ancient church regulates and corrects everything. But the ancient church did not contemplate the nature and constitution of that which was to come, in the way in which we contemplate the past.

IX. + The church has invented in vain the terms, anathema, heresy, &c. They are made to serve against her.

X. The way in which the church has been maintained is, by holding truth to be not subject to question; or, if questioned, then there was the Pope, — otherwise there was the church.

XI. + The church has always been assailed by opposing errors; but, probably, never so much so as now. Yet if she now suffers more from the multiplicity of errors, she derives from them this advantage, — that they destroy each other.

— + She complains of both; but much more of Calvinists, on account of their schismatical tendencies.

— + It is certain that many on the opposing sides are deceived; they must be disabused.

— + Faith admits many truths seemingly contradictory:—” Time to laugh, to weep,” &c. “Respondere ne respondeat” &c.

— + The origin of this is the union of two natures in Christ — + And so of the two worlds. The creation of a new heaven and a new earth; new life new death; everything duplicated; and yet the same names remaining.

— + And, finally, the two natures (deux hommes) in the righteous; for they are the two worlds, and members and types of Jesus Christ. And analogous to this are all the terms employed; — such as justified sinners, living death, dying life, elect sinner, &c.

XII. — There is then a great number of truths, both in faith and morals, which seem antagonistic, and yet harmonize in admirable order.

— The source of all heresies is the exclusion of some one of these truths; and the source of all the cavils brought against us by heretics, is their ignorance of some one of these truths.

— And it usually happens that, being unable to perceive the relation of two opposing truths, and believing that the admission of the one involves the exclusion of the other, they adhere to the one and renounce the other; and fancy that we do the contrary. Now this exclusion is the source of their heresy, and the ignorance we have shown them to labour under, the ground of their cavils.

• 1st Example. Christ is God and man. The Arians, unable to combine these things, which they hold to be incompatible, say, he is man: therein they are orthodox. But they deny him to be God: herein they are heretical. They pretend that we deny his humanity: therein they show their ignorance.

• 2d Example. Respecting the Sacrament: —

We believe that the substance of the bread being changed, and being consubstantially in that of the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, it is really present in it. This is one truth. Another is, that this sacrament is also one of the types of the cross and the glory, and a commemoration of both. This is the Catholic faith, which comprehends the two truths seemingly opposed to each other.

The modern heretics, not understanding that this sacrament contains both the presence of Christ and its type, and that it is both a sacrifice and a commemoration of a sacrifice, believe that the one of these truths cannot be admitted without necessarily excluding the other.

They make their stand upon this one point, — that this sacrament is figurative; and therein they are not heretical. They think we exclude this truth; and thence it is that they bring so many objections to the passages in the Fathers which affirm it. Lastly, they deny the presence; and in that are heretics.

• 3d Example. Indulgences. [Unfortunately this topic is not followed out. Pascal’s illustration of such a subject would hare been an intellectual curiosity, and probably fenced round with much of that reservation which his high moral standard, and enlightened and scriptural views, would have dictated: yet what would he have made of it? And who ever exposed more unsparingly, in his other writings, the abuses to which the practice gives rise? (Transl.)]

— Therefore it is that the shortest way to prevent heresies is to instruct men in every kind of truth; and the surest way to refute them, is to declare it as universally.

• For what say the heretics?

— + To ascertain whether an opinion be from one of the Fathers…

• The error they all fall into, is the more dangerous, from each pursuing one truth: their fruit is not in adopting falsehood, but in not embracing the countervailing truth.

XIII. There is a pleasure in being in a vessel tossed by storms, if we can be satisfied that we shall not perish. The persecutions which agitate the church are of this nature.

• It is shocking to be told, as in the present day, — the discipline of the church is so good, that it would be criminal to propose changes. Formerly it was infallibly good, and yet we find that it admitted of changes; and now, being what it is, we are not to desire any change!

• It has been allowed to degenerate from the practice which then prevailed, of appointing to the priesthood with so much circumspection, that instances of unworthiness were most rare; and we are not now to be allowed to mourn the laxity by which so many that are unworthy of the office are appointed!

XVI. + God has not permitted absolution to be given without the intervention of the church; as it is she who resents the offence, so should she have part in the pardon. The Divine will has associated her in this prerogative, as sovereigns do their parliaments; but if the church absolve or bind without God, it is no longer the act of the church. So it is with the parliament; although the king may have pardoned a criminal, the act must be regularly enrolled; but if the parliament enrol such act without the king, or refuse to enrol on the order of the king, it is no longer done by the royal parliament, but by an illegal assembly.

XVII. + It is not the absolution alone which remits sin in the sacrament of penance; but penitence, which is not valid if it does not avail itself of the sacrament.

• So it is not the mere nuptial benediction which serves to obviate sin in bringing a progeny into the world; but a desire to bring up our children for God, which can only be sincere in the marriage state.

XVIII. + The church teaches, and God gives his inspiration; — both, with infallibility. The office of the church is only to prepare for pardon or condemnation. What she does suffices for condemnation, not for inspiration (“suffit pour condamner, non pour inspirer”).

God alone sees the heart of man; the church can judge only of his external conduct. God pardons as soon as he discerns penitence in the heart; the church when she sees it in the life. God can make a church so pure within, that it may confound, by its internal and spiritual sanctity, the internal impiety of proud sages and pharisees; and the church can produce a body of men, whose external conduct may be so pure, as to confound the morality of the heathen. If, among them, there be hypocrites, but so disguised that the church cannot detect the imposture, she endures them; for although they cannot deceive God, they may escape the eye of man. Thus she suffers no dishonour from a conduct on the part of her members which bears the appearance of sanctity.

But you desire that the church should judge, neither of the interior, because that belongs only to God, — nor of the exterior, because God has to do only with the interior; and thus, taking from him all concernment with man, you leave in the church the most abandoned persons; and such as the Jewish synagogues and the ancient sects would have abhorred as impious, and chased from their societies as unworthy! [The MS. has only these words:— “but you desire that the church”… the rest of the page is torn off. The remainder of the passage, as given above, is found in the copy.]

• Thus, if it be true, on the one hand, that some lax professors, and some currupt casuists, not members of the hierarchy, have wallowed in defilement; it is not to be denied, that the true pastors of the church, and the authorized depositaries of divine truth, have unflinchingly defended her against all the efforts of those who have conspired for her overthrow.

• Therefore the faithful have no pretence to follow the laxities propounded to them so profanely, on the part of these casuists, instead of the pure doctrine presented by the paternal solicitudes of their own pastors. And the impious and heretical have no ground for adducing these abuses, as showing a defect in the care of God over his own church; for the church, being properly contained in the hierarchy, so far from concluding, from the existing state of things, that she is abandoned to abuses, never was it more apparent than at this time, that God is defending her from corruption.

• For, if it have happened that certain of those who, by an extraordinary call, have professed to forsake the world, and to assume a religious profession, in order to live by stricter rules than the generality of Christians, — if any of these have fallen into enormities which excite the horror of the pious, and have become, among ourselves, what the false prophets were to the Jews; — this is an individual and personal calamity, which must indeed be deplored, but which justifies no conclusions against the care of God for his church. All these things are clearly predicted, and it has ever been announced that such trials would arise on the part of men of this description; and persons well instructed see in them marks of God’s providential government, rather than of his forgetfulness of the church.

• You show yourselves ignorant of the prophecies, if you know not that all this must come to pass: — princes, prophets, popes, and even priests. And yet the church abides. It is by God’s grace that we are not of the number. Woe to such priests! Yet let us hope, that the mercy of our God will still preserve us from their guilt.

1 St. Peter, ch ii. False prophets in times past, types of those to come.

XXI. What impairs our powers of comparing the past transactions of the church with what we see around us is, that we are accustomed to regard St. Athanasius, St. Theresa, and others, as persons crowned with glory,… and like a species of divinities. Now that time has cleared up many things, this also is made plain to us. At the period of his persecutions this great saint was simply a man called Athanasius, and St. Theresa a maiden. “ Elias was a man of like passions with ourselves,” says St. Peter, in order to disabuse the Christians of that false idea which led them to reject the example of the saints, as disproportioned to our attainments. “ Ah, those were saints,” we cry; “they were not persons like ourselves!”

• But what really occurred at that time? St. Athanasius was a man named Athanasius, accused of various crimes, condemned by such and such councils, for such and such offences. All the bishops concurred, and finally the Pope. What was said of those who resisted? That they disturbed the public peace, were guilty of schism, &c.

• There were then four sorts of characters: there was zeal without knowledge; knowledge without zeal; neither knowledge nor zeal; both zeal and knowledge. The three first condemn him; the last acquit him, — are excommunicated from the church, — and yet were the saviours of the church from whose bosom they were banished!

— + Zeal, illumination.

REFLECTIONS ON THE MANNER IN WHICH CONVERTS WERE FORMERLY RECEIVED INTO THE CHURCH

HOW THEY THEN CONDUCTED THEMSELVES; HOW THEY ENTER, AND CONDUCT THEMSELVES IN IT AT THE PRESENT TIME.

[MS. Coll, of P. Guerrier, p. 227.]

In the early ages, Christians were thoroughly instructed in all things necessary for salvation; whereas we, at present, witness such gross ignorance, as to cause deep affliction to all who feel regard and affection for the church.

Admission was then obtained into the church only after severe efforts and long-continued desires; now, men find an entrance without trouble, care, or labour.

Converts were then not received without very strict examination. Now, they are received even before they are in a state to be examined.

They were then not admitted, until they had abjured their former mode of life; and had renounced the world, the flesh, and the devil.

Now, they enter without being in a condition of mind to do any of these things.

Lastly, it was in those times necessary to forsake the world, in order to be received into the church; at the present day, on the other hand, the church is entered simultaneously with the world. It was seen, by the former procedure, how essentially different were the world and the church.

They were then regarded as opposed to each other, as irreconcilable enemies; the one of which was the object of exterminable persecution from the other; and the weaker of the two, to appearance, destined one day to triumph over the stronger. Thus, the one of these opposing parties was always quitted, on going over to the other; the principles of the one were abandoned, on embracing the principles of the other; men divested themselves of the views of the one, when they took up the views of the other: in short, they forsook, they renounced, they abjured the world, in which they had had their first birth, in order to devote themselves entirely to the church, in which they obtained a second birth. In this way was realized the solemn difference between the world and the church; whereas, at the present day, people find themselves, at the same time, in both the one and the other: the same moment that sees our birth in the world, is that of our second birth in the church; and thus, when reason supervenes, she discovers no distinction between these opposing spheres. She receives her growth in both at once. We partake of the sacraments, and we enjoy, at the same time, the pleasures of the world; and thus, while formerly an immeasurable distinction was preserved between the one and the other, now they are blended, confounded, — and all distinction is lost.

Thence it was that, in former times, none were found among the ranks of Christianity, but those who were well instructed in its truths; now, the ignorance that prevails is frightful. Thence it was, that those regenerated by baptism, and who had forsaken the vicious practices of the world for the devoutness of the church, so rarely relapsed from the church to the world; now, on the other hand, nothing is more common than to see the vices of the world cherished in the very heart of Christians.

The holiness of the church is utterly sullied by the debasements of the wicked: and her own children, born and nourished from their infancy in her bosom, are those who lay bare her inmost recesses — the celebration of her most august mysteries — to the invasion of her deadly enemies, worldliness of spirit, ambition, revenge, impurity, concupiscence: while the love borne by the church to her children compels her to admit, without resistance, these her most cruel persecutors.

But it is not the church to which we ought to impute the evils which have ensued upon this abandonment of so salutary a discipline: she has never changed in spirit, although she may have changed in conduct. Considering that the postponement of baptism left large numbers of children under the curse of Adam, she was desirous of delivering them from the danger of perdition to which they were exposed, by hastening her succour; and now, that tender Parent sees, with deep concern, that the means by which she sought the salvation of the children, has occasioned the ruin of the adults.

Her real intention is, that those whom she withdraws, at so tender an age, from the contamination of the world, should embrace sentiments wholly opposed to those of the world. She anticipates the development of reason, in order to prevent the vices which a corrupted reason brings with it; and, before their minds ripen into activity, she would fill them with her influences, — that they may remain in ignorance of the world, remote from her vices, and even unconscious of their existence. This is evident from the ceremonies in use in baptism: for the sacrament is only administered to children, on a declaration, by the mouth of their sponsors, that they desire admission into the church, — that they are believers, — that they renounce the world and the devil. And, as the church desires that they should retain these dispositions to the end of their existence, she expressly commands the inviolable observance of them; and directs their sponsors, as an indispensable condition, to instruct the children in these holy things. For she desires not that those whom she has nursed in her bosom should, in these days, be less instructed and less zealous, than the adults who were of old admitted to her communion; she would not allow of lower attainments in those she has herself nourished, than in those whom she had thus received…

[A break here occurs in the MS]

Yet is all this perverted from the intentions of the church; and we feel oppressed in the contemplation of our degeneracy. We seem, as it were, to value no longer this great benefit, because we did not ourselves desiderate it, because we did not personally solicit it, because we cannot even recall the fact of its reception…[A break here occurs in the MS]…

But as it is evident that the church does not require a lower degree of zeal in those whom she has brought up and domesticated in the faith, than in such as are seeking admission into it, these latter ought to keep their eye upon the example of the catechumens, and mark their ardour, their devotion, their dread of the world, and magnanimous renouncement of its delights; and, if they are not deemed worthy of baptism without such dispositions, surely those who cannot discover such in themselves…[Break in MS.]

..They ought then to submit to receive the instructions, which would have been given them had they been now first entering into communion with the church; they must further practise habitual penitence, and feel less aversion to austerity and mortification; they must cease to delight in the poisoned charms of sin…[Break in MS.]

To dispose them to receive due instruction, they ought to be made to understand the difference of the customs observed by the church in successive periods… [Break in MS.] that, in the early days of the church, the catechumens (that is, those who aspired to baptism) were examined previous to the rite; and were not admitted without receiving full instructions in the mysteries of religion; without evincing sincere penitence for sin; without acquiring a large acquaintance with the greatness and excellence of the profession of faith and doctrine into which they sought an entrance; without showing sensible marks of a true conversion of heart, and an earnest desire of participation in the rite. These things being palpable to the whole church, the sacrament was conferred upon them, as an act of incorporation and admission to membership in the church; but, in these times, baptism being administered (for important reasons) to infants before the development of reason, it too often happens that, through the negligence of parents, youth are suffered to grow up to maturity without any sufficient knowledge of the great truths of religion.

When instruction was a pre-requisite for baptism, all were instructed; but now that baptism precedes instruction, the requisite teaching is left to the will of the individual, and is thence neglected and almost abandoned.

The real cause of this is, that baptism is believed to be indispensable, but not instruction. Therefore, when instruction preceded the rite, the necessity of the one involved a necessary recourse to the other; but now, as baptism precedes instruction, as a Christian may be made without knowledge, so it is supposed that he may remain a Christian without instruction…

..

And while the early Christians evinced the deepest gratitude to the church, for a benefit conferred by her only after prolonged solicitation; an equal insensibility is now shown for the like benefit which is conferred before the candidate is even capable, in his own person, of applying for the rite. And if the church resented so strongly the instances, though rare, of falling away among the former, how much must she hold in abhorrence the declensions and perpetual relapses of the latter, — whose obligations are the deeper, inasmuch as they have been so much earlier, and by a freer grace, delivered from the ruin in which they were involved by the condition of their natural birth! She cannot see without dismay her choicest benefits thus abused, and all her labours for the salvation of her children made the almost certain instrument of their destruction; for she has not…[Bossut thus finishes the paragraph:—” for she has not changed in spirit, although her customs have changed]

(Note of P. Guerrier.) “I have transcribed this short essay from two copies, scarcely legible, and almost decayed by the effect of time.”