Opening material · Part 8

Seriously, fathers, it would be extremely easy to hold you up to ridicule in this matter, and I am at a loss to know why you expose yourselves to such treatment. To produce this effect, I have nothing more to do than simply to quote Escobar, in his “Practice of Simony according to the Society of Jesus;” “Is it simony when two Churchmen become mutually pledged thus: Give me your vote for my election as provincial, and I shall give you mine for your election as prior? By no means.” Or take another: “It is not simony to get possession of a benefice by promising a sum of money, when one has no intention of actually paying the money; for this is merely making a show of simony, and is as far from being real simony as counterfeit gold is from the genuine.” By this quirk of conscience, he has contrived means, in the way of adding swindling to simony, for obtaining benefices without simony and without money.

But I have no time to dwell longer on the subject, for I must say a word or two in reply to your third accusation, which refers to the subject of bankrupts. Nothing can be more gross than the manner in which you have managed this charge. You rail at me as a libeller in reference to a sentiment of Lessius, which I did not quote myself, but took from a passage in Escobar; and therefore, though it were true that Lessius does not hold the opinion ascribed to him by Escobar, what can be more unfair than to charge me with the misrepresentation? When I quote Lessius or others of your authors myself, I am quite prepared to answer for it; but as Escobar has collected the opinions of twenty-four of your writers, I beg to ask, if I am bound to guarantee anything beyond the correctness of my citations from his book? or if I must, in addition, answer for the fidelity of all his quotations of which I may avail myself? This would be hardly reasonable; and yet this is precisely the case in the question before us.

I produced in my letter the following passage from Escobar, and you do not object to the fidelity of my translation: “May the bankrupt, with a good conscience, retain as much of his property as is necessary to afford him an honorable maintenance—_ne indecore vivat_? I answer, with Lessius, that he may—_cum Lessio assero posse_.” You tell me that Lessius does not hold that opinion. But just consider for a moment the predicament in which you involve yourselves. If it turns out that he does hold that opinion, you will be set down as impostors for having asserted the contrary; and if it is proved that he does not hold it, Escobar will be the impostor; so it must now of necessity follow, that one or other of the Society will be convicted of imposture. Only think what a scandal! You cannot, it would appear, foresee the consequences of things. You seem to imagine that you have nothing more to do than to cast aspersions upon people, without considering on whom they may recoil. Why did you not acquaint Escobar with your objection before venturing to publish it?

He might have given you satisfaction. It is not so very troublesome to get word from Valladolid, where he is living in perfect health, and completing his grand work on Moral Theology, in six volumes, on the first of which I mean to say a few words by-and-by. They have sent him the first ten letters; you might as easily have sent him your objection, and I am sure he would have soon returned you an answer, for he has doubtless seen in Lessius the passage from which he took the _ne indecore vivat_. Read him yourselves, fathers, and you will find it word for word, as I have done. Here it is: “The same thing is apparent from the authorities cited, particularly in regard to that property which he acquires after his failure, out of which even the delinquent debtor may retain as much as is necessary for his honorable maintenance, according to his station of life—_ut non indecore vivat_. Do you ask if this rule applies to goods which he possessed at the time of his failure? Such seems to be the judgment of the doctors.”

I shall not stop here to show how Lessius, to sanction his maxim, perverts the law that allows bankrupts nothing more than a mere livelihood, and that makes no provision for “honorable maintenance.” It is enough to have vindicated Escobar from such an accusation—it is more, indeed, than what I was in duty bound to do. But you, fathers, have not done your duty. It still remains for you to answer the passage of Escobar, whose decisions, by the way, have this advantage, that being entirely independent of the context, and condensed in little articles, they are not liable to your distinctions. I quoted the whole of the passage, in which “bankrupts are permitted to keep their goods, though unjustly acquired, to provide an honorable maintenance for their families”—commenting on which in my letters, I exclaim: “Indeed, father! by what strange kind of charity would you have the ill-gotten property of a bankrupt appropriated to his own use, instead of that of his lawful creditors?”[245] This is the question which must be answered; but it is one that involves you in a sad dilemma, and from which you in vain seek to escape by altering the state of the question, and quoting other passages from Lessius, which have no connection with the subject. I ask you, then, May this maxim of Escobar be followed by bankrupts with a safe conscience, or no? And take care what you say. If you answer, No, what becomes of your doctor, and your doctrine of probability? If you say, Yes—I delate you to the Parliament.[246]

In this predicament I must now leave you, fathers; for my limits will not permit me to overtake your next accusation, which respects homicide. This will serve for my next letter, and the rest will follow.

In the mean while, I shall make no remarks on the advertisements which you have tagged to the end of each of your charges, filled as they are with scandalous falsehoods. I mean to answer all these in a separate letter, in which I hope to show the weight due to your calumnies. I am sorry fathers, that you should have recourse to such desperate resources. The abusive terms which you heap on me will not clear up our disputes, nor will your manifold threats hinder me from defending myself. You think you have power and impunity on your side; and I think that I have truth and innocence on mine. It is a strange and tedious war, when violence attempts to vanquish truth. All the efforts of violence cannot weaken truth, and only serve to give it fresh vigor. All the lights of truth cannot arrest violence, and only serve to exasperate it. When force meets force, the weaker must succumb to the stronger; when argument is opposed to argument, the solid and the convincing triumphs over the empty and the false; but violence and verity can make no impression on each other. Let none suppose, however, that the two are, therefore, equal to each other; for there is this vast difference between them, that violence has only a certain course to run, limited by the appointment of Heaven, which overrules its effects to the glory of the truth which it assails; whereas verity endures forever, and eventually triumphs over its enemies, being eternal and almighty as God himself.[247]

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Footnote 241:

Pierre du Moulin is termed by Bayle “one of the most celebrated ministers which the Reformed Church in France ever had to boast of.” He was born in 1568, and was for some time settled in Paris; but having incurred the resentment of Louis XIII., he retired to Sedan in 1623, where he became a professor in the Protestant University, and died, in the ninetieth year of his age, in 1658, two years after the time when Pascal wrote. Of his numerous writings, few are known in this country, excepting his “Buckler of the Faith,” and his “Anatomy of the Mass,” which were translated into English. (Quick’s Synodicon, ii., 105.)

Footnote 242:

De Eleemosyna, c. 6.

Footnote 243:

See before, page 73.

Footnote 244:

See before, page 140.

Footnote 245:

See before, p. 177.

Footnote 246:

“The Parliament of Paris was originally the court of the kings of France, to which they committed the supreme administration of justice.” (Robertson’s Charles V., vol. i. 171.)

Footnote 247:

In most of the French editions, another letter is inserted after this, being a refutation of a reply which appeared at the time to Letter xii. But as this letter, though well written, was not written by Pascal, and as it does not contain anything that would now be interesting to the reader, we omit it. Suffice it to say, that the reply of the Jesuits consisted, as usual, of the most barefaced attempts to fix the charge of misrepresentation on their opponent, accusing him of omitting to quote passages from his authors which they never wrote, of not answering objections which were never brought against him, of not adverting to cases which neither he nor his authors dreamt of—in short, like all Jesuitical answers, it is anything and everything but a refutation of the charges which have been substantiated against them.

LETTER XIII.

TO THE REVEREND FATHERS OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS.

THE DOCTRINE OF LESSIUS ON HOMICIDE THE SAME WITH THAT OF VALENTIA—HOW EASY IT IS TO PASS FROM SPECULATION TO PRACTICE—WHY THE JESUITS HAVE RECOURSE TO THIS DISTINCTION, AND HOW LITTLE IT SERVES FOR THEIR VINDICATION.

_September 30, 1656._

REVEREND FATHERS,—I have just seen your last production, in which you have continued your list of Impostures up to the twentieth, and intimate that you mean to conclude with this the first part of your accusations against me, and to proceed to the second, in which you are to adopt a new mode of defence, by showing that there are other casuists besides those of your Society who are as lax as yourselves. I now see the precise number of charges to which I have to reply; and as the fourth, to which we have now come, relates to homicide, it may be proper, in answering it, to include the 11th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, and 18th, which refer to the same subject.

In the present letter, therefore, my object shall be to vindicate the correctness of my quotations from the charges of falsity which you bring against me. But as you have ventured, in your pamphlets, to assert that “the sentiments of your authors on murder are agreeable to the decisions of popes and ecclesiastical laws,” you will compel me, in my next letter, to confute a statement at once so unfounded and so injurious to the Church. It is of some importance to show that she is innocent of your corruptions, in order that heretics may be prevented from taking advantage of your aberrations, to draw conclusions tending to her dishonor.[248] And thus, viewing on the one hand your pernicious maxims, and on the other the canons of the Church which have uniformly condemned them, people will see, at one glance, what they should shun and what they should follow.

Your fourth charge turns on a maxim relating to murder, which you say I have falsely ascribed to Lessius. It is as follows: “That if a man has received a buffet, he may immediately pursue his enemy, and even return the blow with the sword, not to avenge himself, but to retrieve his honor.” This, you say, is the opinion of the casuist Victoria. But this is nothing to the point. There is no inconsistency in saying, that it is at once the opinion of Victoria and of Lessius; for Lessius himself says that it is also held by Navarre and Henriquez, who teach identically the same doctrine. The only question, then, is, if Lessius holds this view as well as his brother casuists. You maintain “that Lessius quotes this opinion solely for the purpose of refuting it, and that I therefore attribute to him a sentiment which he produces only to overthrow—the basest and most disgraceful act of which a writer can be guilty.” Now I maintain, fathers, that he quotes the opinion solely for the purpose of supporting it. Here is a question of fact, which it will be very easy to settle. Let us see, then, how you prove your allegation, and you will see afterwards how I prove mine.

To show that Lessius is not of that opinion, you tell us that he condemns the practice of it; and in proof of this, you quote one passage of his (l. 2, c. 9, n. 92), in which he says, in so many words, “I condemn the practice of it.” I grant that, on looking for these words, at number 92, to which you refer, they will be found there. But what will people say, fathers, when they discover, at the same time, that he is treating in that place of a question totally different from that of which we are speaking, and that the opinion of which he there says that he condemns the practice, has no connection with that now in dispute, but is quite distinct? And yet to be convinced that this is the fact, we have only to open the book to which you refer, and there we find the whole subject in its connection as follows: At number 79 he treats the question, “If it is lawful to kill for a buffet?” and at number 80 he finishes this matter without a single word of condemnation. Having disposed of _this_ question, he opens a new one at art. 81, namely, “If it is lawful to kill for slanders?” and it is when speaking of this question that he employs the words you have quoted—“I condemn the practice of it.”

Is it not shameful, fathers, that you should venture to produce these words to make it be believed that Lessius condemns the opinion that it is lawful to kill for a buffet? and that, on the ground of this single proof, you should chuckle over it, as you have done, by saying: “Many persons of honor in Paris have already discovered this notorious falsehood by consulting Lessius, and have thus ascertained the degree of credit due to that slanderer?” Indeed! and is it thus that you abuse the confidence which those persons of honor repose in you? To show them that Lessius does not hold a certain opinion, you open the book to them at a place where he is condemning another opinion; and these persons not having begun to mistrust your good faith, and never thinking of examining whether the author speaks in that place of the subject in dispute, you impose on their credulity. I make no doubt, fathers, that to shelter yourselves from the guilt of such a scandalous lie, you had recourse to your doctrine of equivocations; and that, having read the passage _in a loud voice_, you would say, _in a lower key_, that the author was speaking there of something else. But I am not so sure whether this saving clause, which is quite enough to satisfy your consciences, will be a very satisfactory answer to the just complaint of those “honorable persons,” when they shall discover that you have hoodwinked them in this style.

Take care, then, fathers, to prevent them by all means from seeing my letters; for this is the only method now left you to preserve your credit for a short time longer. This is not the way in which I deal with your writings: I send them to all my friends: I wish everybody to see them. And I verily believe that both of us are in the right for our own interests; for after having published with such parade this fourth Imposture, were it once discovered that you have made it up by foisting in one passage for another, you would be instantly denounced. It will be easily seen, that if you could have found what you wanted in the passage where Lessius treated of this matter, you would not have searched for it elsewhere, and that you had recourse to such a trick only because you could find nothing in that passage favorable to your purpose.

You would have us believe that we may find in Lessius what you assert, “that he does _not_ allow that this opinion (that a man may be lawfully killed for a buffet) is probable in theory;” whereas Lessius distinctly declares, at number 80: “This opinion, that a man may kill for a buffet, _is_ probable in theory.” Is not this, word for word, the reverse of your assertion? And can we sufficiently admire the hardihood with which you have advanced, in set phrase, the very reverse of a matter of fact! To your conclusion, from a fabricated passage, that Lessius was _not_ of that opinion, we have only to place Lessius himself, who, in the genuine passage, declares that he is of that opinion.

Again, you would have Lessius to say “that he condemns the practice of it;” and, as I have just observed, there is not in the original a single word of condemnation; all that he says is: “It appears that it ought not to be EASILY permitted in practice—_In praxi non videtur FACILE permittenda_.” Is that, fathers, the language of a man who _condemns_ a maxim? Would you say that adultery and incest ought not to be _easily permitted_ in practice? Must we not, on the contrary, conclude, that as Lessius says no more than that the practice ought not to be easily permitted, his opinion is, that it may be permitted sometimes, though rarely? And, as if he had been anxious to apprize everybody when it might be permitted, and to relieve those who have received affronts from being troubled with unreasonable scruples, from not knowing on what occasions they might lawfully kill in practice, he has been at pains to inform them what they ought to avoid in order to practise the doctrine with a safe conscience. Mark his words: “It seems,” says he, “that it ought not to be easily permitted, _because_ of the danger that persons may act in this matter out of hatred or revenge, or with excess, or that this may occasion too many murders.”

From this it appears that murder is freely permitted by Lessius, if one avoids the inconveniences referred to—in other words, if one can act without hatred or revenge, and in circumstances that may not open the door to a great many murders. To illustrate the matter, I may give you an example of recent occurrence—the case of the buffet of Compiègne.[249] You will grant that the person who received the blow on that occasion has shown by the way in which he has acted, that he was sufficiently master of the passions of hatred and revenge. It only remained for him, therefore, to see that he did not give occasion to too many murders; and you need hardly be told, fathers, it is such a rare spectacle to find Jesuits bestowing buffets on the officers of the royal household, that he had no great reason to fear that a murder committed on this occasion would be likely to draw many others in its train. You cannot, accordingly, deny that the Jesuit who figured on that occasion was _killable_ with a safe conscience, and that the offended party might have converted him into a practical illustration of the doctrine of Lessius.

And very likely, fathers, this might have been the result had he been educated in your school, and learnt from Escobar that the man who has received a buffet is held to be disgraced until he has taken the life of him who insulted him. But there is ground to believe, that the very different instructions which he received from a curate, who is no great favorite of yours, have contributed not a little in this case to save the life of a Jesuit.

Tell us no more, then, of inconveniences which may, in many instances, be so easily got over, and in the absence of which, according to Lessius, murder is permissible even in practice. This is frankly avowed by your authors, as quoted by Escobar, in his “Practice of Homicide, according to your Society.” “Is it allowable,” asks this casuist, “to kill him who has given me a buffet? Lessius says it is permissible in speculation, though not to be followed in practice—_non consulendum in praxi_—on account of the risk of hatred, or of murders prejudicial to the State. Others, however, have judged that, BY AVOIDING THESE INCONVENIENCES, THIS IS PERMISSIBLE AND SAFE IN PRACTICE—_in praxi probabilem et tutam judicarunt Henriquez_,” &c. See how your opinions mount up, by little and little, to the climax of probabilism! The present one you have at last elevated to this position, by permitting murder without any distinction between speculation and practice, in the following terms: “It is lawful, when one has received a buffet, to return the blow immediately with the sword, not to avenge one’s self, but to preserve one’s honor.” Such is the decision of your fathers of Caen in 1644, embodied in their publications produced by the university before parliament, when they presented their third remonstrance against your doctrine of homicide, as shown in the book then emitted by them, at page 339.

Mark, then, fathers, that your own authors have themselves demolished this absurd distinction between speculative and practical murder—a distinction which the university treated with ridicule, and the invention of which is a secret of your policy, which it may now be worth while to explain. The knowledge of it, besides being necessary to the right understanding of your 15th, 16th, 17th, and 18th charges, is well calculated, in general, to open up, by little and little, the principles of that mysterious policy.

In attempting, as you have done, to decide cases of conscience in the most agreeable and accommodating manner, while you met with some questions in which religion alone was concerned—such as those of contrition, penance, love to God, and others only affecting the inner court of conscience—you encountered another class of cases in which civil society was interested as well as religion—such as those relating to usury, bankruptcy, homicide, and the like. And it is truly distressing to all that love the Church, to observe that, in a vast number of instances, in which you had only Religion to contend with, you have violated her laws without reservation, without distinction, and without compunction; because you knew that it is not here that God visibly administers his justice. But in those cases in which the State is interested as well as Religion, your apprehension of man’s justice has induced you to divide your decisions into two shares. To the first of these you give the name of _speculation_; under which category crimes, considered in themselves, without regard to society, but merely to the law of God, you have permitted, without the least scruple, and in the way of trampling on the divine law which condemns them.

The second you rank under the denomination of _practice_; and here, considering the injury which may be done to society, and the presence of magistrates who look after the public peace, you take care, in order to keep yourselves on the safe side of the law, not to approve always in practice the murders and other crimes which you have sanctioned in speculation. Thus, for example, on the question, “If it be lawful to kill for slanders?” your authors, Filiutius, Reginald, and others, reply: “This is permitted in speculation—_ex probabile opinione licet_; but is not to be approved in _practice_, on account of the great number of murders which might ensue, and which might injure the State, if all slanderers were to be killed, _and also because one might be punished in a court of justice for having killed another for that matter_.” Such is the style in which your opinions begin to develop themselves, under the shelter of this distinction, in virtue of which, without doing any sensible injury to society, you only ruin religion. In acting thus, you consider yourselves quite safe.

You suppose that, on the one hand, the influence you have in the Church will effectually shield from punishment your assaults on truth; and that, on the other, the precautions you have taken against too easily reducing your permissions to practice will save you on the part of the civil powers, who, not being judges in cases of conscience, are properly concerned only with the outward practice. Thus an opinion which would be condemned under the name of practice, comes out quite safe under the name of speculation. But this basis once established, it is not difficult to erect on it the rest of your maxims. There is an infinite distance between God’s prohibition of murder, and your speculative permission of the crime; but between that permission and the practice the distance is very small indeed. It only remains to show, that what is allowable in speculation is also so in practice; and there can be no want of reasons for this. You have contrived to find them in far more difficult cases. Would you like to see, fathers, how this may be managed?

I refer you to the reasoning of Escobar, who has distinctly decided the point in the first of the six volumes of his grand Moral Theology, of which I have already spoken—a work in which he shows quite another spirit from that which appears in his former compilation from your four-and-twenty elders. At that time he thought that there might be opinions probable in speculation, which might not be safe in practice; but he has now come to form an opposite judgment, and has, in this, his latest work, confirmed it. Such is the wonderful growth attained by the doctrine of probability in general, as well as by every probable opinion in particular, in the course of time. Attend, then, to what he says: “I cannot see how it can be that an action which seems allowable in speculation should not be so likewise in practice; because what may be done in practice depends on what is found to be lawful in speculation, and the things differ from each other only as cause and effect. Speculation is that which determines to action. WHENCE IT FOLLOWS THAT OPINIONS PROBABLE IN SPECULATION MAY BE FOLLOWED WITH A SAFE CONSCIENCE IN PRACTICE, and that even with more safety than those which have not been so well examined as matters of speculation.”[250]

Verily, fathers, your friend Escobar reasons uncommonly well sometimes; and, in point of fact, there is such a close connection between speculation and practice, that when the former has once taken root, you have no difficulty in permitting the latter, without any disguise. A good illustration of this we have in the permission “to kill for a buffet,” which, from being a point of simple speculation, was boldly raised by Lessius into a practice “which ought not easily to be allowed;” from that promoted by Escobar to the character of “an easy practice;” and from thence elevated by your fathers of Caen, as we have seen, without any distinction between theory and practice, into a full permission. Thus you bring your opinions to their full growth very gradually. Were they presented all at once in their finished extravagance, they would beget horror; but this slow imperceptible progress gradually habituates men to the sight of them, and hides their offensiveness. And in this way the permission to murder, in itself so odious both to Church and State, creeps first into the Church, and then from the Church into the State.

A similar success has attended the opinion of “killing for slander,” which has now reached the climax of a permission without any distinction. I should not have stopped to quote my authorities on this point from your writings, had it not been necessary in order to put down the effrontery with which you have asserted, twice over, in your fifteenth Imposture, “that there never was a Jesuit who permitted killing for slander.” Before making this statement, fathers, you should have taken care to prevent it from coming under my notice, seeing that it is so easy for me to answer it. For, not to mention that your fathers Reginald, Filiutius, and others, have permitted it in speculation, as I have already shown, and that the principle laid down by Escobar leads us safely on to the practice, I have to tell you that you have authors who have permitted it in so many words, and among others Father Hereau in his public lectures, on the conclusion of which the king put him under arrest in your house, for having taught, among other errors, that when a person who has slandered us in the presence of men of honor, continues to do so after being warned to desist, it is allowable to kill him, not publicly, indeed, for fear of scandal, but IN A PRIVATE WAY—_sed clam_.

I have had occasion already to mention Father Lamy, and you do not need to be informed that his doctrine on this subject was censured in 1649 by the University of Louvain.[251] And yet two months have not elapsed since your Father Des Bois maintained this very censured doctrine of Father Lamy, and taught that “it was allowable for a monk to defend the honor which he acquired by his virtue, EVEN BY KILLING the person who assails his reputation—_etiam cum morte invasoris_;” which has raised such a scandal in that town, that the whole of the curés united to impose silence on him, and to oblige him, by a canonical process, to retract his doctrine. The case is now pending in the Episcopal court.

What say you now, fathers? Why attempt, after that, to maintain that “no Jesuit ever held that it was lawful to kill for slander?” Is anything more necessary to convince you of this than the very opinions of your fathers which you quote, since they do not condemn murder in speculation, but only in practice, and that, too, “on account of the injury that might thereby accrue to the State?” And here I would just beg to ask, whether the whole matter in dispute between us is not simply and solely to ascertain if you have or have not subverted the law of God which condemns murder? The point in question is, not whether you have injured the commonwealth, but whether you have injured religion. What purpose, then, can it serve, in a dispute of this kind, to show that you have spared the State, when you make it apparent, at the same time, that you have destroyed the faith? Is this not evident from your saying that the meaning of Reginald, on the question of killing for slanders, is, “that a private individual has a right to employ that mode of defence, viewing it simply _in itself_?” I desire nothing beyond this concession to confute you. “A private individual,” you say, “has a right to employ that mode of defence” (that is, killing for slanders), “viewing the thing in itself;” and, consequently, fathers, the law of God, which forbids us to kill, is nullified by that decision.

It serves no purpose to add, as you have done, “that such a mode is unlawful and criminal, even according to the law of God, on account of the murders and disorders which would follow in society, because the law of God obliges us to have regard to the good of society.” This is to evade the question: for there are two laws to be observed—one forbidding us to kill, and another forbidding us to harm society. Reginald has not, perhaps, broken the law which forbids us to do harm to society; but he has most certainly violated that which forbids us to kill. Now this is the only point with which we have to do. I might have shown, besides, that your other writers, who have permitted these murders in practice, have subverted the one law as well as the other. But, to proceed, we have seen that you _sometimes_ forbid doing harm to the State; and you allege that your design in that is to fulfil the law of God, which obliges us to consult the interests of society. That may be true, though it is far from being certain, as you might do the same thing purely from fear of the civil magistrate. With your permission, then, we shall scrutinize the real secret of this movement.

Is it not certain, fathers, that if you had really any regard to God, and if the observance of his law had been the prime and principal object in your thoughts, this respect would have invariably predominated in all your leading decisions, and would have engaged you at all times on the side of religion? But if it turns out, on the contrary, that you violate, in innumerable instances, the most sacred commands that God has laid upon men, and that, as in the instances before us, you annihilate the law of God, which forbids these actions as criminal in themselves, and that you only scruple to approve of them in practice, from bodily fear of the civil magistrate, do you not afford us ground to conclude that you have no respect to God in your apprehensions, and that if you yield an apparent obedience to his law, in so far as regards the obligation to do no harm to the State, this is not done out of any regard to the law itself, but to compass your own ends, as has ever been the way with politicians of no religion?

What, fathers! will you tell us that, looking simply to the law of God, which says, “Thou shalt not kill,” we have a right to kill for slanders? And after having thus trampled on the eternal law of God, do you imagine that you atone for the scandal you have caused, and can persuade us of your reverence for him, by adding that you prohibit the practice for State reasons, and from dread of the civil arm? Is not this, on the contrary, to raise a fresh scandal?—I mean not by the respect which you testify for the magistrate; that is not my charge against you, and it is ridiculous in you to banter, as you have done, on this matter. I blame you, not for fearing the magistrate, but for fearing none but the magistrate. And I blame you for this, because it is making God less the enemy of vice than man. Had you said that to kill for slander was allowable according to men, but not according to God, that might have been something more endurable; but when you maintain, that what is too criminal to be tolerated among men, may yet be innocent and right in the eyes of that Being who is righteousness itself, what is this but to declare before the whole world, by a subversion of principle as shocking in itself as it is alien to the spirit of the saints, that while you can be braggarts before God, you are cowards before men?

Had you really been anxious to condemn these homicides, you would have allowed the commandment of God which forbids them to remain intact; and had you dared at once to permit them, you would have permitted them openly, in spite of the laws of God and men. But your object being to permit them imperceptibly, and to cheat the magistrate, who watches over the public safety, you have gone craftily to work. You separate your maxims into two portions. On the one side, you hold out “that it is lawful in speculation to kill a man for slander;”—and nobody thinks of hindering you from taking a speculative view of matters. On the other side, you come out with this detached axiom, “that what is permitted in speculation is also permissible in practice;”—and what concern does society seem to have in this general and metaphysical-looking proposition? And thus these two principles, so little suspected, being embraced in their separate form, the vigilance of the magistrate is eluded; while it is only necessary to combine the two together, to draw from them the conclusion which you aim at—namely, that it is lawful in practice to put a man to death for a simple slander.

It is, indeed, fathers, one of the most subtle tricks of your policy, to scatter through your publications the maxims which you club together in your decisions. It is partly in this way that you establish your doctrine of probabilities, which I have frequently had occasion to explain. That general principle once established, you advance propositions harmless enough when viewed apart, but which, when taken in connection with that pernicious dogma, become positively horrible. An example of this, which demands an answer, may be found in the 11th page of your “Impostures,” where you allege that “several famous theologians have decided that it is lawful to kill a man for a box on the ear.” Now, it is certain, that if that had been said by a person who did not hold probabilism, there would be nothing to find fault with in it; it would in this case amount to no more than a harmless statement, and nothing could be elicited from it. But you, fathers, and all who hold that dangerous tenet, “that whatever has been approved by celebrated authors is probable and safe in conscience,” when _you_ add to this “that several celebrated authors are of opinion that it is lawful to kill a man for a box on the ear,” what is this but to put a dagger into the hand of all Christians, for the purpose of plunging it into the heart of the first person that insults them, and to assure them that, having the judgment of so many grave authors on their side, they may do so with a perfectly safe conscience?

What monstrous species of language is this, which, in announcing that certain authors hold a detestable opinion, is at the same time giving a decision in favor of that opinion—which solemnly teaches whatever it simply tells! We have learnt, fathers, to understand this peculiar dialect of the Jesuitical school; and it is astonishing that you have the hardihood to speak it out so freely, for it betrays your sentiments somewhat too broadly. It convicts you of permitting murder for a buffet, as often as you repeat that many celebrated authors have maintained that opinion.

This charge, fathers, you will never be able to repel; nor will you be much helped out by those passages from Vasquez and Suarez that you adduce against me, in which they condemn the murders which their associates have approved. These testimonies, disjoined from the rest of your doctrine, may hoodwink those who know little about it; but we, who know better, put your principles and maxims together. You say, then, that Vasquez condemns murders; but what say you on the other side of the question, my reverend fathers? Why, “that the probability of one sentiment does not hinder the probability of the opposite sentiment; and that it is warrantable to follow the less probable and less safe opinion, giving up the more probable and more safe one.” What follows from all this taken in connection, but that we have perfect freedom of conscience to adopt any one of these conflicting judgments which pleases us best? And what becomes of all the effect which you fondly anticipate from your quotations? It evaporates in smoke, for we have no more to do than to conjoin for your condemnation the maxims which you have disjoined for your exculpation.

Why, then, produce those passages of your authors which I have not quoted, to qualify those which I have quoted, as if the one could excuse the other? What right does that give you to call me an “impostor?” Have I said that all your fathers are implicated in the same corruptions? Have I not, on the contrary, been at pains to show that your interest lay in having them of all different minds, in order to suit all your purposes? Do you wish to kill your man?—here is Lessius for you. Are you inclined to spare him?—here is Vasquez. Nobody need go away in ill humor—nobody without the authority of a grave doctor. Lessius will talk to you like a Heathen on homicide, and like a Christian, it may be, on charity. Vasquez, again, will descant like a Heathen on charity, and like a Christian on homicide. But by means of probabilism, which is held both by Vasquez and Lessius, and which renders all your opinions common property, they will lend their opinions to one another, and each will be held bound to absolve those who have acted according to opinions which each of them has condemned.

It is this very variety, then, that confounds you. Uniformity, even in evil, would be better than this. Nothing is more contrary to the orders of St. Ignatius[252] and the first generals of your Society, than this confused medley of all sorts of opinions, good and bad. I may, perhaps, enter on this topic at some future period; and it will astonish many to see how far you have degenerated from the original spirit of your institution, and that your own generals have foreseen that the corruption of your doctrine on morals might prove fatal, not only to your Society, but to the Church universal.[253]

Meanwhile, I repeat that you can derive no advantage from the doctrine of Vasquez. It would be strange, indeed, if, out of all the Jesuits that have written on morals, one or two could not be found who may have hit upon a truth which has been confessed by all Christians. There is no glory in maintaining the truth, according to the Gospel, that it is unlawful to kill a man for smiting us on the face; but it is foul shame to deny it. So far, indeed, from justifying you, nothing tells more fatally against you than the fact that, having doctors among you who have told you the truth, you abide not in the truth, but love the darkness rather than the light. You have been taught by Vasquez that it is a heathen, and not a Christian, opinion to hold that we may knock down a man for a blow on the cheek; and that it is subversive both of the Gospel and of the decalogue to say that we may kill for such a matter. The most profligate of men will acknowledge as much. And yet you have allowed Lessius, Escobar, and others, to decide, in the face of these well-known truths, and in spite of all the laws of God against manslaughter, that it is quite allowable to kill a man for a buffet!

What purpose, then, can it serve to set this passage of Vasquez over against the sentiment of Lessius, unless you mean to show that, in the opinion of Vasquez, Lessius is a “heathen” and a “profligate?” and that, fathers, is more than I durst have said myself. What else can be deduced from it than that Lessius “subverts both the Gospel and the decalogue;” that, at the last day, Vasquez will condemn Lessius on this point, as Lessius will condemn Vasquez on another; and that all your fathers will rise up in judgment one against another, mutually condemning each other for their sad outrages on the law of Jesus Christ?

To this conclusion, then, reverend fathers, must we come at length, that as your probabilism renders the good opinions of some of your authors useless to the Church, and useful only to your policy, they merely serve to betray, by their contrariety, the duplicity of your hearts. This you have completely unfolded, by telling us, on the one hand, that Vasquez and Suarez are against homicide, and on the other hand, that many celebrated authors are for homicide; thus presenting two roads to our choice, and destroying the simplicity of the Spirit of God, who denounces his anathema on the deceitful and the double-hearted: “_Væ duplici corde, et ingredienti duabus viis!_—Woe be to the double hearts, and the sinner that goeth two ways!”[254]

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Footnote 248:

The Church of Rome has not left those whom she terms heretics so doubtfully to “take advantage” of Jesuitical aberrations. She has done everything in her power to _give_ them this advantage. By identifying herself, at various times, with the Jesuits, she has virtually stamped their doctrines with her approbation.

Footnote 249:

The reference here is to an affray which made a considerable noise at the time, between Father Borin, a Jesuit, and M. Guille, one of the officers of the royal kitchen, in the College of Compiègne. A quarrel having taken place, the enraged Jesuit struck the royal cook in the face while he was in the act of preparing dinner, by his majesty’s order, for Christina, queen of Sweden, in honor, perhaps, of her conversion to the Romish faith. (Nicole, iv. 37)

Footnote 250:

In Prælog., n. 15.

Footnote 251:

The doctrines advanced by Lamy are too gross for repetition. Suffice it to say, that they sanctioned the murder not only of the slanderer, but of the person who might tell tales against a religious order, of one who might stand in the way of another enjoying a legacy or a benefice, and even of one whom a priest might have robbed of her honor, if she threatened to rob him of his. These horrid maxims were condemned by civil tribunals and theological faculties; but the Jesuits persisted in justifying them. (Nicole, Notes, iv. 41, &c.)

Footnote 252:

It is very sad to see Pascal reduced to the necessity of saluting the founder of the sect which he held up to the scorn of the world, as _Saint Ignatius_! Ignatius Loyola was a native of Spain, and born in 1491. At first a soldier of fortune, he was disabled from service by a wound in the leg at the siege of Pampeluna, and his brain having become heated by reading romances and legendary tales, he took it into his head to become the Don Quixote of the Virgin, and wage war against all heretics and infidels. By indomitable perseverance he succeeded in establishing the sect calling itself “the Society of Jesus.” This ignorant fanatic, who, in more enlightened times, would have been consigned to a mad-house, was beatified by one pope, and canonized, or put into the list of saints, by another! Jansenius, in his correspondence with St. Cyran, indignantly complains of pope Gregory XV. for having canonized Ignatius and Xavier. (Leydecker, Hist. Jansen. 23.)

Footnote 253:

This is rather a singular fact, and applies only to one of the Society’s generals, viz., Vitelleschi, who, in a circular letter, addressed, January 1617, to the Company, much to his own honor, strongly recommended a purer morality, and denounced probabilism. But, says Nicole, the Jesuits did not profit by his good advice. (Nicole, iv., p. 33.) It is true, however, that the Jesuits, during this century, had lost sight of the original design of their order, and of all the ascetic rules of their founders, Ignatius and Aquaviva. “The spirit which once animated them had fallen before the temptations of the world, and their sole endeavor now was to make themselves necessary to mankind, let the means be what they might.” (Ranke’s Hist. of the Popes, iii. 139.)

Footnote 254:

Ecclesiasticus (Apocrypha), ii. 12.

LETTER XIV.

TO THE REVEREND FATHERS, THE JESUITS.

IN WHICH THE MAXIMS OF THE JESUITS ON MURDER ARE REFUTED FROM THE FATHERS—SOME OF THEIR CALUMNIES ANSWERED BY THE WAY—AND THEIR DOCTRINE COMPARED WITH THE FORMS OBSERVED IN CRIMINAL TRIALS.

_October 23, 1656._

REVEREND FATHERS,—If I had merely to reply to the three remaining charges on the subject of homicide, there would be no need for a long discourse, and you will see them refuted presently in a few words; but as I think it of much more importance to inspire the public with a horror at your opinions on this subject, than to justify the fidelity of my quotations, I shall be obliged to devote the greater part of this letter to the refutation of your maxims, to show you how far you have departed from the sentiments of the Church, and even of nature itself. The permissions of murder, which you have granted in such a variety of cases, render it very apparent, that you have so far forgotten the law of God, and quenched the light of nature, as to require to be remanded to the simplest principles of religion and of common sense.

What can be a plainer dictate of nature than that “no private individual has a right to take away the life of another?” “So well are we taught this of ourselves,” says St. Chrysostom, “that God, in giving the commandment not to kill, did not add as a reason that homicide was an evil; because,” says that father, “the law supposes that nature has taught us that truth already.” Accordingly, this commandment has been binding on men in all ages. The Gospel has confirmed the requirement of the law; and the decalogue only renewed the command which man had received from God before the law, in the person of Noah, from whom all men are descended. On that renovation of the world, God said to the patriarch: “At the hand of man, and at the hand of every man’s brother, will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for man is made in the image of God.” (Gen. ix. 5, 6.) This general prohibition deprives man of all power over the life of man.

And so exclusively has the Almighty reserved this prerogative in his own hand, that, in accordance with Christianity, which is at utter variance with the false maxims of Paganism, man has no power even over his own life. But, as it has seemed good to his providence to take human society under his protection, and to punish the evil-doers that give it disturbance, he has himself established laws for depriving criminals of life; and thus those executions which, without his sanction, would be punishable outrages, become, by virtue of his authority, which is the rule of justice, praiseworthy penalties. St. Augustine takes an admirable view of this subject. “God,” he says, “has himself qualified this general prohibition against manslaughter, both by the laws which he has instituted for the capital punishment of malefactors, and by the special orders which he has sometimes issued to put to death certain individuals. And when death is inflicted in such cases, it is not man that kills, but God, of whom man may be considered as only the instrument, in the same way as a sword in the hand of him that wields it. But, these instances excepted, whosoever kills incurs the guilt of murder.”[255]

It appears, then, fathers, that the right of taking away the life of man is the sole prerogative of God, and that having ordained laws for executing death on criminals, he has deputed kings or commonwealths as the depositaries of that power—a truth which St. Paul teaches us, when, speaking of the right which sovereigns possess over the lives of their subjects, he deduces it from Heaven in these words: “He beareth not the sword in vain; for he is the minister of God to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.” (Rom. xiii. 4.) But as it is God who has put this power into their hands, so he requires them to exercise it in the same manner as he does himself; in other words, with perfect justice; according to what St. Paul observes in the same passage: “Rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou, then, not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good: for he is the minister of God to thee for good.” And this restriction, so far from lowering their prerogative, exalts it, on the contrary, more than ever; for it is thus assimilated to that of God, who has no power to do evil, but is all-powerful to do good; and it is thus distinguished from that of devils, who are impotent in that which is good, and powerful only for evil.

There is this difference only to be observed betwixt the King of Heaven and earthly sovereigns, that God, being justice and wisdom itself, may inflict death instantaneously on whomsoever and in whatsoever manner he pleases; for, besides his being the sovereign Lord of human life, it is certain that he never takes it away either without cause or without judgment, because he is as incapable of injustice as he is of error. Earthly potentates, however, are not at liberty to act in this manner; for, though the ministers of God, still they are but men, and not gods. They may be misguided by evil counsels, irritated by false suspicions, transported by passion, and hence they find themselves obliged to have recourse, in their turn also, to human agency, and appoint magistrates in their dominions, to whom they delegate their power, that the authority which God has bestowed on them may be employed solely for the purpose for which they received it.

I hope you understand, then, fathers, that to avoid the crime of murder, we must act at once by the authority of God, and according to the justice of God; and that when these two conditions are not united, sin is contracted; whether it be by taking away life with his authority, but without his justice; or by taking it away with justice, but without his authority. From this indispensable connection it follows, according to St. Augustine, “that he who, without proper authority, kills a criminal, becomes a criminal himself, chiefly for this reason, that he usurps an authority which God has not given him;” and on the other hand, magistrates, though they possess this authority, are nevertheless chargeable with murder, if, contrary to the laws which they are bound to follow, they inflict death on an innocent man.

Such are the principles of public safety and tranquillity which have been admitted at all times and in all places, and on the basis of which all legislators, sacred and profane, from the beginning of the world, have founded their laws. Even Heathens have never ventured to make an exception to this rule, unless in cases where there was no other way of escaping the loss of chastity or life, when they conceived, as Cicero tells us, “that the law itself seemed to put its weapons into the hands of those who were placed in such an emergency.”

But with this single exception, which has nothing to do with my present purpose, that such a law was ever enacted, authorizing or tolerating, as you have done, the practice of putting a man to death, to atone for an insult, or to avoid the loss of honor or property, where life is not in danger at the same time; that, fathers, is what I deny was ever done, even by infidels. They have, on the contrary, most expressly forbidden the practice. The law of the Twelve Tables of Rome bore, “that it is unlawful to kill a robber in the day-time, when he does not defend himself with arms;” which, indeed, had been prohibited long before in the 22d chapter of Exodus. And the law _Furem_, in the _Lex Cornelia_, which is borrowed from Ulpian, forbids the killing of robbers even by night, if they do not put us in danger of our lives.[256]

Tell us now, fathers, what authority you have to permit what all laws, human as well as divine, have forbidden; and who gave Lessius a right to use the following language? “The book of Exodus forbids the killing of thieves by day, when they do not employ arms in their defence; and in a court of justice, punishment is inflicted on those who kill under these circumstances. _In conscience_, however, no blame can be attached to this practice, when a person is not sure of being able otherwise to recover his stolen goods, or entertains a doubt on the subject, as Sotus expresses it; for he is not obliged to run the risk of losing any part of his property merely to save the life of a robber. The same privilege extends even to clergymen.”[257] Such extraordinary assurance! The law of Moses punishes those who kill a thief when he does not threaten our lives, and the law of the Gospel, according to you, will absolve them! What, fathers! has Jesus Christ come to destroy the law, and not to fulfil it?

“The civil judge,” says Lessius, “would inflict punishment on those who should kill under such circumstances; but no blame can be attached to the deed in conscience.” Must we conclude, then, that the morality of Jesus Christ is more sanguinary, and less the enemy of murder, than that of Pagans, from whom our judges have borrowed their civil laws which condemn that crime? Do Christians make more account of the good things of this earth, and less account of human life, than infidels and idolaters? On what principle do you proceed, fathers? Assuredly not upon any law that ever was enacted either by God or man—on nothing, indeed, but this extraordinary reasoning: “The laws,” say you, “permit us to defend ourselves against robbers, and to repel force by force; self-defence, therefore, being permitted, it follows that murder, without which self-defence is often impracticable, may be considered as permitted also.”

It is false, fathers, that because self-defence is allowed, murder may be allowed also. This barbarous method of self-vindication lies at the root of all your errors, and has been justly stigmatized by the Faculty of Louvain, in their censure of the doctrine of your friend Father Lamy, as “_a murderous defence_—_defensio occisiva_.” I maintain that the laws recognize such a wide difference between murder and self-defence, that in those very cases in which the latter is sanctioned, they have made a provision against murder, when the person is in no danger of his life. Read the words, fathers, as they run in the same passage of Cujas: “It is lawful to repulse the person who comes to invade our property; but _we are not permitted to kill him_.” And again: “If any should threaten to strike us, and not to deprive us of life, it is quite allowable to repulse him; but _it is against all law to put him to death_.”

Who, then, has given you a right to say, as Molina, Reginald, Filiutius, Escobar, Lessius, and others among you, have said, “that it is lawful to kill the man who offers to strike us a blow?” or, “that it is lawful to take the life of one who means to insult us, by the common consent of all the casuists,” as Lessius says. By what authority do you, who are mere private individuals, confer upon other private individuals, not excepting clergymen, this right of killing and slaying? And how dare you usurp the power of life and death, which belongs essentially to none but God, and which is the most glorious mark of sovereign authority? These are the points that demand explanation; and yet you conceive that you have furnished a triumphant reply to the whole, by simply remarking, in your thirteenth Imposture, “that the value for which Molina permits us to kill a thief, who flies without having done us any violence, is not so small as I have said, and that it must be a much larger sum than six ducats!”

How extremely silly! Pray, fathers, where would you have the price to be fixed? At fifteen or sixteen ducats? Do not suppose that this will produce any abatement in my accusations. At all events, you cannot make it exceed the value of a horse; for Lessius is clearly of opinion, “that we may lawfully kill the thief that runs off with our horse.”[258] But I must tell you, moreover, that I was perfectly correct when I said that Molina estimates the value of the thief’s life at six ducats; and, if you will not take it upon my word, we shall refer it to an umpire, to whom you cannot object. The person whom I fix upon for this office is your own Father Reginald, who, in his explanation of the same passage of Molina (l. 28, n. 68), declares that “Molina there DETERMINES the sum for which it is not allowable to kill at three, or four, or five ducats.” And thus, fathers, I shall have Reginald in addition to Molina, to bear me out.

It will be equally easy for me to refute your fourteenth Imposture, touching Molina’s permission to “kill a thief who offers to rob us of a crown.” This palpable fact is attested by Escobar, who tells us “that Molina has regularly determined the sum for which it is lawful to take away life, at one crown.”[259] And all you have to lay to my charge in the fourteenth imposture is, that I have suppressed the last words of this passage, namely, “that in this matter every one ought to study the moderation of a just self-defence.” Why do you not complain that Escobar has also omitted to mention these words? But how little tact you have about you! You imagine that nobody understands what you mean by self-defence. Don’t we know that it is to employ “_a murderous defence_?” You would persuade us that Molina meant to say, that if a person, in defending his crown, finds himself in danger of his life, he is then at liberty to kill his assailant, in self-preservation. If that were true, fathers, why should Molina say in the same place, that “in this matter he was of a contrary judgment from Carrer and Bald,” who give permission to kill in self-preservation?

I repeat, therefore, that his plain meaning is, that provided the person can save his crown without killing the thief, he ought not to kill him; but that, if he cannot secure his object without shedding blood, even though he should run no risk of his own life, as in the case of the robber being unarmed, he is permitted to take up arms and kill the man, in order to save his crown; and in so doing, according to him, the person does not transgress “the moderation of a just defence.” To show you that I am in the right, just allow him to explain himself: “One does not exceed the moderation of a just defence,” says he, “when he takes up arms against a thief who has none, or employs weapons which give him the advantage over his assailant. I know there are some who are of a contrary judgment; but I do not approve of their opinion, even in the external tribunal.”[260]

Thus, fathers, it is unquestionable that your authors have given permission to kill in defence of property and honor, though life should be perfectly free from danger. And it is upon the same principle that they authorize duelling, as I have shown by a great variety of passages from their writings, to which you have made no reply. You have animadverted in your writings only on a single passage taken from Father Layman, who sanctions the above practice, “when otherwise a person would be in danger of sacrificing his fortune or his honor;” and here you accuse me with having suppressed what he adds, “that such a case happens very rarely.” You astonish me, fathers: these are really curious impostures you charge me withal. You talk as if the question were, Whether that is a rare case? when the real question is, If, in such a case, duelling is lawful? These are two very different questions. Layman, in the quality of a casuist, ought to judge whether duelling is lawful in the case supposed; and he declares that it is.

We can judge without his assistance, whether the case be a rare one; and we can tell him that it is a very ordinary one. Or, if you prefer the testimony of your good friend Diana, he will tell you that “the case is exceedingly common.”[261] But be it rare or not, and let it be granted that Layman follows in this the example of Navarre, a circumstance on which you lay so much stress, is it not shameful that he should consent to such an opinion as that, to preserve a false honor, it is lawful in conscience to accept of a challenge, in the face of the edicts of all Christian states, and of all the canons of the Church, while, in support of these diabolical maxims, you can produce neither laws, nor canons, nor authorities from Scripture, or from the fathers, nor the example of a single saint, nor, in short, anything but the following impious syllogism: “Honor is more than life: it is allowable to kill in defence of life; therefore it is allowable to kill in defence of honor!”

What, fathers! because the depravity of men disposes them to prefer that factitious honor before the life which God hath given them to be devoted to his service, must they be permitted to murder one another for its preservation? To love that honor more than life, is in itself a heinous evil; and yet this vicious passion, which, when proposed as the end of our conduct, is enough to tarnish the holiest of actions, is considered by you capable of sanctifying the most criminal of them!

What a subversion of all principle is here, fathers! And who does not see to what atrocious excesses it may lead? It is obvious, indeed, that it will ultimately lead to the commission of murder for the most trifling things imaginable, when one’s honor is considered to be staked for their preservation—murder, I venture to say, even _for an apple_! You might complain of me, fathers, for drawing sanguinary inferences from your doctrine with a malicious intent, were I not fortunately supported by the authority of the grave Lessius, who makes the following observation, in number 68: “It is not allowable to take life for an article of small value, such as for a crown or _for an apple_—_aut pro pomo_—unless it would be deemed dishonorable to lose it. In this case, one may recover the article, and even, if necessary, _kill the aggressor_; for this is not so much defending one’s property as retrieving one’s honor.” This is plain speaking, fathers; and, just to crown your doctrine with a maxim which includes all the rest, allow me to quote the following from Father Hereau, who has taken it from Lessius: “The right of self-defence extends to whatever is necessary to protect ourselves from all injury.”

What strange consequences does this inhuman principle involve! and how imperative is the obligation laid upon all, and especially upon those in public stations, to set their face against it! Not the general good alone, but their own personal interest should engage them to see well to it; for the casuists of your school whom I have cited in my letters, extend their permissions to kill far enough to reach even them. Factious men, who dread the punishment of their outrages, which never appear to them in a criminal light, easily persuade themselves that they are the victims of violent oppression, and will be led to believe at the same time, “that the right of self-defence extends to whatever is necessary to protect themselves from all injury.” And thus, relieved from contending against the checks of conscience, which stifle the greater number of crimes at their birth, their only anxiety will be to surmount external obstacles.

I shall say no more on this subject, fathers; nor shall I dwell on the other murders, still more odious and important to governments, which you sanction, and of which Lessius, in common with many others of your authors, treats in the most unreserved manner.[262] It was to be wished that these horrible maxims had never found their way out of hell; and that the devil, who is their original author, had never discovered men sufficiently devoted to his will to publish them among Christians.[263]

From all that I have hitherto said, it is easy to judge what a contrariety there is betwixt the licentiousness of your opinions and the severity of civil laws, not even excepting those of heathens. How much more apparent must the contrast be with ecclesiastical laws, which must be incomparably more holy than any other, since it is the Church alone that knows and possesses the true holiness! Accordingly, this chaste spouse of the Son of God, who, in imitation of her heavenly husband, can shed her own blood for others, but never the blood of others for herself, entertains a horror at the crime of murder altogether singular, and proportioned to the peculiar illumination which God has vouchsafed to bestow upon her. She views man, not simply as man, but as the image of the God whom she adores. She feels for every one of the race a holy respect, which imparts to him, in her eyes, a venerable character, as redeemed by an infinite price, to be made the temple of the living God. And therefore she considers the death of a man, slain without the authority of his Maker, not as murder only, but as sacrilege, by which she is deprived of one of her members; for whether he be a believer or an unbeliever, she uniformly looks upon him, if not as one, at least as capable of becoming one, of her own children.[264]

Such, fathers, are the holy reasons which, ever since the time that God became man for the redemption of men, have rendered their condition an object of such consequence to the Church, that she uniformly punishes the crime of homicide, not only as destructive to them, but as one of the grossest outrages that can possibly be perpetrated against God. In proof of this I shall quote some examples, not from the idea that all the severities to which I refer ought to be kept up (for I am aware that the Church may alter the arrangement of such exterior discipline), but to demonstrate her immutable spirit upon this subject. The penances which she ordains for murder may differ according to the diversity of the times, but no change of time can ever effect an alteration of the horror with which she regards the crime itself.

For a long time the Church refused to be reconciled, till the very hour of death, to those who had been guilty of wilful murder, as those are to whom you give your sanction. The celebrated Council of Ancyra adjudged them to penance during their whole lifetime; and, subsequently, the Church deemed it an act of sufficient indulgence to reduce that term to a great many years. But, still more effectually to deter Christians from wilful murder, she has visited with most severe punishment even those acts which have been committed through inadvertence, as may be seen in St. Basil, in St. Gregory of Nyssen, and in the decretals of Popes Zachary and Alexander II. The canons quoted by Isaac, bishop of Langres (tr. 2. 13), “ordain seven years of penance for having killed another in self-defence.” And we find St. Hildebert, bishop of Mans, replying to Yves de Chartres, “that he was right in interdicting for life a priest who had, in self-defence, killed a robber with a stone.”

After this, you cannot have the assurance to persist in saying that your decisions are agreeable to the spirit or the canons of the Church. I defy you to show one of them that permits us to kill solely in defence of our property (for I speak not of cases in which one may be called upon to defend his life—_se suaqae liberando_): your own authors, and, among the rest, Father Lamy, confess that no such canon can be found. “There is no authority,” he says, “human or divine, which gives an express permission to kill a robber who makes no resistance.” And yet this is what you permit most expressly. I defy you to show one of them that permits us to kill in vindication of honor, for a buffet, for an affront, or for a slander. I defy you to show one of them that permits the killing of witnesses, judges, or magistrates, whatever injustice we may apprehend from them. The spirit of the church is diametrically opposite to these seditious maxims, opening the door to insurrections to which the mob is naturally prone enough already.

She has invariably taught her children that they ought not to render evil for evil; that they ought to give place unto wrath; to make no resistance to violence; to give unto every one his due—honor, tribute, submission; to obey magistrates and superiors, even though they should be unjust, because we ought always to respect in them the power of that God who has placed them over us. She forbids them, still more strongly than is done by the civil law, to take justice into their own hands; and it is in her spirit that Christian kings decline doing so in cases of high treason, and remit the criminals charged with this grave offence into the hands of the judges, that they may be punished according to the laws and the forms of justice, which in this matter exhibit a contrast to your mode of management, so striking and complete that it may well make you blush for shame.

As my discourse has taken this turn, I beg you to follow the comparison which I shall now draw between the style in which you would dispose of your enemies, and that in which the judges of the land dispose of criminals. Everybody knows, fathers, that no private individual has a right to demand the death of another individual; and that though a man should have ruined us, maimed our body, burnt our house, murdered our father, and was prepared, moreover, to assassinate ourselves, or ruin our character, our private demand for the death of that person would not be listened to in a court of justice. Public officers have been appointed for that purpose, who make the demand in the name of the king, or rather, I would say, in the name of God. Now, do you conceive, fathers, that Christian legislators have established this regulation out of mere show and grimace? Is it not evident that their object was to harmonize the laws of the state with those of the Church, and thus prevent the external practice of justice from clashing with the sentiments which all Christians are bound to cherish in their hearts? It is easy to see how this, which forms the commencement of a civil process, must stagger you; its subsequent procedure absolutely overwhelms you.

Suppose, then, fathers, that these official persons have demanded the death of the man who has committed all the above mentioned crimes, what is to be done next? Will they instantly plunge a dagger in his breast? No, fathers; the life of man is too important to be thus disposed of; they go to work with more decency; the laws have committed it, not to all sorts of persons, but exclusively to the judges, whose probity and competency have been duly tried. And is one judge sufficient to condemn a man to death? No; it requires seven at the very least; and of these seven there must not be one who has been injured by the criminal, lest his judgment should be warped or corrupted by passion. You are aware also, fathers, that the more effectually to secure the purity of their minds, they devote the hours of the morning to these functions. Such is the care taken to prepare them for the solemn action of devoting a fellow-creature to death; in performing which they occupy the place of God, whose ministers they are, appointed to condemn such only as have incurred his condemnation.

For the same reason, to act as faithful administrators of the divine power of taking away human life, they are bound to form their judgment solely according to the depositions of the witnesses, and according to all the other forms prescribed to them; after which they can pronounce conscientiously only according to law, and can judge worthy of death those only whom the law condemns to that penalty. And then, fathers, if the command of God obliges them to deliver over to punishment the bodies of the unhappy culprits, the same divine statute binds them to look after the interests of their guilty souls, and binds them the more to this just because they are guilty; so that they are not delivered up to execution till after they have been afforded the means of providing for their consciences.[265] All this is quite fair and innocent; and yet, such is the abhorrence of the Church to blood, that she judges those to be incapable of ministering at her altars who have borne any share in passing or executing a sentence of death, accompanied though it be with these religious circumstances; from which we may easily conceive what idea the Church entertains of murder.

Such, then, being the manner in which human life is disposed of by the legal forms of justice, let us now see how you dispose of it. According to your modern system of legislation, there is but one judge, and that judge is no other than the offended party. He is at once the judge, the party, and the executioner. He himself demands from himself the death of his enemy; he condemns him, he executes him on the spot; and, without the least respect either for the soul or the body of his brother, he murders and damns him for whom Jesus Christ died; and all this for the sake of avoiding a blow on the cheek, or a slander, or an offensive word, or some other offence of a similar nature, for which, if a magistrate, in the exercise of legitimate authority, were condemning any to die, he would himself be impeached; for, in such cases, the laws are very far indeed from condemning any to death. In one word, to crown the whole of this extravagance, the person who kills his neighbor in this style, without authority, and in the face of all law, contracts no sin and commits no disorder, though he should be religious, and even a priest! Where are we, fathers? Are these really religious, and priests, who talk in this manner? Are they Christians? are they Turks? are they men? or are they demons? And are these “the mysteries revealed by the Lamb to his Society?” or are they not rather abominations suggested by the Dragon to those who take part with him?

To come to the point with you, fathers, whom do you wish to be taken for?—for the children of the Gospel, or for the enemies of the Gospel? You must be ranged either on the one side or on the other; for there is no medium here. “He that is not with Jesus Christ is against him.” Into these two classes all mankind are divided. There are, according to St. Augustine, two peoples and two worlds, scattered abroad over the earth. There is the world of the children of God, who form one body, of which Jesus Christ is the king and the head; and there is the world at enmity with God, of which the devil is the king and the head. Hence Jesus Christ is called the King and God of the world, because he has everywhere his subjects and worshippers; and hence the devil is also termed in Scripture the prince of this world, and the god of this world, because he has everywhere his agents and his slaves. Jesus Christ has imposed upon the Church, which is his empire, such laws as he, in his eternal wisdom, was pleased to ordain; and the devil has imposed on the world, which is his kingdom, such laws as he chose to establish. Jesus Christ has associated honor with suffering; the devil with not suffering. Jesus Christ has told those who are smitten on the one cheek to turn the other also; and the devil has told those who are threatened with a buffet to kill the man that would do them such an injury. Jesus Christ pronounces those happy who share in his reproach; and the devil declares those to be unhappy who lie under ignominy. Jesus Christ says, Woe unto you when men shall speak well of you! and the devil says, Woe unto those of whom the world does not speak with esteem!