Letters to the provincial

The reason for the appearance of the letters was a discussion between the Jansenists and Jesuits about the nature of the teachings of Cornelius Jansenius (in particular, his writings Augustinus, slve doctrina Augustini de humanae nature sanitate, aegritudine, medicina, 1640). The Jesuits, who considered the work of Yansenius heretical , were opposed to the publication and distribution of Augustine.

In 1649, the theorist from the Sorbonne, Nicola Corne, presented five propositions extracted from Augustine and containing, in his opinion, heretical statements. After consideration by the French bishops , these provisions were sent to Rome , where in 1653 Pope Innocent X recognized them as heretical in his bull Cum occasione ^[1] . The Jesuit Order drew up a form of condemnation, under which it was intended to collect the signatures of all church leaders. However, the Jansenists successfully defended themselves, and the form was not widely used.

The Jansenists claimed that the charges were untenable, as they were based on out of context and misinterpreted provisions. A. Arno argued that the positions condemned by the pope were really heretical, but in the composition of Yanseni they were not, therefore, the pope did not condemn his work. The confrontation between the Jesuits and Jansenists escalated in 1655 , when the Duke of Liancourt, known for his sympathies for the teachings of Yansenia, did not receive absolution from his confessor ^[1] . Arno published a “Letter to a Noble Person,” where he condemned the actions of a confessor; in the second “Letter to the Duke and Peer,” he continued the discussion with the Jesuits. The letter clarified the views of the opponents and supporters of the Jansenists. It was submitted by the Jesuits to the Commission of the Theological Department of the Sorbonne. The meeting of the commission took place from December 1655 to January 1656 . Government circles and the pope were interested in ending disputes in favor of the Jesuits. Chancellor Segier attended the meetings of the commission. The parties from the very beginning were put in an unequal position. The Jesuits achieved superiority in the discussion by violations of the charter (the monks of the mendicant orders joined the commission), by limiting the time for the Jansenists to speak, Arno himself was not given the floor. On January 14, 1656, Arno was convicted by 124 votes, with 71 against and 15 abstentions ^[2] . In his defense, Arno drew up a letter, but it was recognized by the Por-Royal community as very unfortunate, then Arno turned to Pascal for help. He outlined his views in the form of a letter, which received the warm approval of the hermits of Port Royal.

The first of the letters began to be secretly printed on January 21, 1656, it was published on January 23 without indicating the name of the author under the heading "Letter to the provincial of one of his friends about the debate taking place now in the Sorbonne." Pascal led the story on behalf of a simpleton, considering the positions of the opposing sides in terms of common sense. In order to gain knowledge and navigate the debate, he turns to the Jesuits and their allies, the Jacobins (Parisian Dominicans), or to the Jansenists. As a result, the naive simpleton discovers that the purpose of the debate is not the search for truth, but the condemnation of Arno.

The appearance of the letter had a stunning effect. 60 doctors left the Sorbonne department in protest against the commission’s decision. Arno himself said on January 26 that he did not recognize the charges as legal. However, on January 29, he was still expelled from the Sorbonne.

In the second letter, Pascal continued his analysis of the contention of the disagreement between the Jansenists and the Jesuits. Again, Pascal points out that, in essence, the Jacobins agree with the Jansenists in the concept of “effective grace ”. The author mockingly criticizes the union of the Jacobins and Jesuits as a temporary phenomenon, because the deep interests of temporary allies are different.

In the third letter, Pascal refers to the injustice of the attacks on Arno: the prosecutors were unable to cite a single line from his writings that was reprehensible. “I realized that here is a heresy of a new kind. The heresy is not in the opinions of Mr. Arno, but in his very personality. This is a personal heresy. A heretic he is not for what he said and wrote, but for the fact that he is Mr. Arno. That's all that is reprehensible in it ” ^[3] , - the author concludes. This letter was signed: " Your lowest and most humble servant EAABPAFDEP ." The abbreviation meant: "and a longtime friend, Blaise Pascal, an overcast son of Etienne Pascal."

At court, letters aroused great discontent, at the order of the Chancellor, the police began searching for an anonymous author. Searches were carried out at printers, interrogations of workers at printers were inconclusive. Letters meanwhile circulated throughout France. According to one Jesuit: “Never before has the post earned that much money. Impressions were sent to all the cities of the kingdom ... ”

In his fourth letter, Pascal goes on to criticize the moral theology of the Jesuits. New characters appear: “a decent person” as an observer from the outside and “a good pater casuist”, the main character in the next six letters, an impeccable person who unquestioningly follows the dogmas of the Jesuits, helping the first to understand the casuistic legalism of the Jesuits. The prototype of the "good patter" was Antonio Escobar , author of "Moral Theology" ( Liber Theologiæ Moralis , 1644). Pascal himself twice read Escobar's book, with the rest of the works of the Jesuit fathers he was introduced to Arno and Nicole . Pascal said that not all the books mentioned in the Letters were read by him, there simply wasn’t time for this: “... my friends read them; but I didn’t cite a single passage without reading it myself in that book from which I quoted, and without delving into the question that he was touching, and also not reading what the passage preceded and what followed, so as not to to make a mistake and not to quote an answer instead of an objection, which would be unfair and worthy of reproaches. ”

From the fifth letter (March 20, 1656), Pascal begins an attack on the Jesuit ethics . The author of the letter, a “decent man”, conversing with the “good pater” learns that it is possible to perform actions that are considered to be sinful and at the same time remain sinless. “Good Pater”, in order to dispel the perplexity of the interlocutor, introduces him to probabilism and quotes the work of Father Escobar. According to him, only one authoritative scientist is enough to make any opinion believable, and then the sinner can follow it without fear. Even if another no less authoritative scientist adheres to the opposite point of view ^[4] . The Jesuits have many authoritative scholars, they often disagree, so among the many plausible opinions it is possible to choose what meets the interests of a particular person at the moment. To this, a “decent man” remarks that, thanks to this theory, “we have a great freedom of conscience in questions, and you, casuists, have the same freedom of answer”. The author concludes that adhering to such a convenient morality, the order rules the whole world ^[5] .

The letters were very successful. Circulations reached 6-8 thousand copies, which at that time meant incredible popularity. However, the enemies of the Jansenists began to act more energetically: the police expanded their searches and in March 1656 letters were found at one of the printing houses. Por-Royal himself was searched, nothing compromising was found, but after the fifth letter was issued, the hermits were forced to leave the monastery’s suburban residence. Jansenist schools were closed. The very existence of the monastery was in jeopardy: the authorities intended to disperse confessors and nuns to other cloisters. During this difficult time for the Por Royal community, an event occurred that not only softened its position, but also made Por Royal even more popular.

Margaret Perrier , a pupil of the Paris Por-Royal, niece and goddaughter of Pascal, for several years suffered from a fistula in the corner of her left eye. The ulcer corroded the bone of the nose and the palate, pus poisoned the girl, it was impossible to touch her head without causing pain. Doctors were powerless and believed that only cauterization would help Margarita. On March 24, 1656, during the evening prayer, the nuns, as usual, kissed the relic stored in Port Royal. It was a thorn (holy thorns) from the crown of thorns of Christ. One of the nuns advised the girl to attach thorns to her sore eye. Having done this, Margarita returned to her cell and informed her neighbor that she had ceased to feel pain: "holy thorns cured me." A few days later, according to one of the hermits of Port Royal, Margarita Perrier was so cured that the confessor of the nuns "took one eye after another."

This incredible event amazed and inspired Pascal. According to Gilberta Perrier, her brother: “... was extremely comforted by the fact that God's power was manifested with such obviousness at a time when faith seemed to go out in the hearts of most people. His joy was so great that his mind completely surrendered to this miracle, and he had many amazing thoughts about miracles, which, having presented religion to him in new light, doubled the love and respect that he always had for objects of faith. ” Pascal even changed his seal: now it depicted the sky and a crown of thorns with the inscription Scio cui credidi - I Know Who I Believed ( Apostle Paul ).

David Hume , noting in his treatise The Study of Human Cognition , the rigor of Por Royal’s morals, the honesty and mind of the inhabitants who testify to the miracle, writes: “... In a word, supernatural healing was so certain that it temporarily saved this famous monastery from death, which the Jesuits threatened him. "

Church authorities organized a commission of inquiry to check the circumstances of the girl’s cure, it included the most famous doctors and scientists of that time. Within six months, the commission collected evidence of this extraordinary incident. Mazarin's library contains one of the testimony protocols ^[6] collected by the commission, signed by Blaise Pascal. In October, the fact of healing was recognized. After that, the position of the Por-royal community was noticeably easier ^[7] .

Subsequently, a natural science explanation was proposed for the cure of Pascal's niece: perhaps the tip of a needle fell into her eye, and the thorns turned out to be magnetic ^[8] .

Despite the assertion of one of the prominent representatives of the Jesuit Order of Father Anna (French: François Annat ) in the treatise “Hindrance to the fun of the Jansenists” that the miraculous healing of the girl is a call for humility, Pascal continues the polemic with renewed vigor.

In a sixth letter, issued on April 10, 1656, “good pater” introduces the interlocutor to casuistic techniques: “the correct interpretation of the terms” and “the method of finding good circumstances.” With the help of these ingenious tricks, it is easy to get out of any difficult situation, to circumvent any gospel commandment. So the Gospel says: “From your excess, give alms.” But if you don’t want to do this, you can use the correct interpretation of the word “excess” proposed by the learned husband Gabriel Vasqez : “The secular people putting aside to elevate their own position and the position of their relatives are not called excess. Therefore, there will hardly ever be an excess of secular people and even kings ” ^[9] . With the correct interpretation of the word “murderer” —one who doesn’t kill for money, but only provides free services to friends, is not a murderer — one can circumvent the decree prohibiting hiding the killer in churches. And if a monk, going to steal or fornication, takes off his vestments and thereby violates one of the papal bulls, then the method of finding favorable circumstances comes to the rescue: according to Escobar’s father, the monk must do so to avoid scandal - such a bull is not provided, therefore, a contradiction allowed. Only in this way, says the “good pater”, “without breaking prescriptions, creating easy rules for people who are spoiled, you can’t push them away from the church.”

In the seventh letter, Pascal considers the method of sending intentions , which consists in replacing one intention with another in order to justify “the viciousness of the means by the purity of the goal,” the reconciliation of “piety and honor,” which are completely opposite things. According to the “good pater”, it is honor that pushes people of noble rank to commit violence, which “contradicts Christian piety.” An illustration of the method is revenge on the offender. Retribution by evil for evil is condemned by the Holy Scriptures , but the Jesuit father Lessius claims that he who received a slap in the face “should not have the intention to avenge her, but he may have the intention to avoid shame and immediately repel this insult, even with blows of the sword” ^[10] . Thus, playing out the method of directing intentions, Jesuit scholars justify participation in a duel (father Diana ) and even a challenge to a duel (father Sanchez): the main thing is that “the intention was directed in a good direction” ^[11] . Father Navarr comes to the conclusion that it is better to secretly kill the enemy and then you become uninvolved in the “sin that our enemy commits a duel” ^[11] . The interlocutor of the “good pater” learns that murder is allowed in less serious cases: a dismissive gesture, gossip can be quite good reasons for revenge - here the correct direction of intention also comes to the rescue. “A decent man” remarks: “It seems to me that one can well direct an intention and kill for preservation (welfare).” “Good Pater” agrees: if “a thing costs a lot of money”, then you can kill a person who has encroached on it. Molina ’s father estimates the cost of a Christian’s life as “six or seven ducats.”

The eighth letter is devoted to the rules favorable to all kinds of sinners: thieves, bankrupt, dishonest judges, promiscuous women.

The ninth letter tells about how to avoid sin without sacrificing a convenient and enjoyable way of life, by observing only external decencies. According to P. Serini:

“... if everything depended only on Jesuits, brought up in severity, they would teach exclusively gospel maxims. But, since the latter, because of their severity, are not suitable for the majority, the Jesuits use their wit, looking for ways to mitigate or evade them, so that these principles do not prevent people from pursuing their interests and in a secular way of life, and the time is right for the Jesuits to succeed in spreading influence over society ” ^[12]

The tenth letter is dedicated to the sacrament of repentance. According to father Boni ( Etienne Bauny ), sinners have the right to absolution, even admitting that the hope of forgiveness pushed them to commit sin. The very concept of sin is transformed: "You can’t be called the closest reason to sin when only rarely do they sin ...". To top it all, a person is not obliged to experience love for God: “one can be saved and never love God” ^[13] . The "decent man" leaves the "good patter" in indignation with the words: "I pray to God that he deigns to teach them (the Jesuits) how misleading the light leading to such abysses is, and that he will fill with love those who dare to free people from it" ^[14] .

The continuation of the polemic by the author of "Letters to the Provincial" provoked a violent reaction of the Jesuits. In their sermons and pamphlets, the anonymous author was called an atheist, accused of distorting quotes, ridiculing sacred objects.

In recent letters, Pascal, replacing comedic tricks and wit with sarcasm, denied all the accusations of opponents. Citing controversial places, he argued that he never distorted extracts from the works of the Jesuits. By this time, Pascal was forced to move from place to place, live under a false name, since he was suspected of writing “Letters”. Difficult times came again for the Jansenist community: a new indictment form was prepared against them. On October 16, 1656, Pope Alexander VII , like his predecessor, condemns the five provisions and indicates that they are contained in Augustine. ^[15] The royal confessor, Father Anna, publishes a pamphlet declaring the Jansenists heretics. The seventeenth and eighteenth letters Pascal addresses him. Protecting his friends, the anonymous author claims that he alone is responsible for the letters: persons not involved in the dispute should not suffer. He himself is invulnerable:

All the influence that you use is useless to me. I do not expect anything from the world and I am not afraid of anything ... [] You, of course, can affect Port Royal, but not me. You can survive people from the Sorbonne, but you will not survive me from my house. You can use violence against priests and doctors of theology, but not against me, since I do not have these titles ... ^[16]

Pascal goes back to discussing the issues raised in the first three letters.

There was a draft of the nineteenth letter, but it was not published. The controversy ended. Probably, given the course of events, the Jansenists found it impossible to continue it. In the Jansenist camp itself, there were opponents of open discussion with the Jesuits: Angelica Arnault , Antoine Senglen (Pascal’s spiritual mentor) believed that a just cause should be defended only by humility and obedience. Pascal himself later said that if once again had to set foot on the path of theological struggle, the book would be written even more sharply.

A separate collection of Letters to the Provincial was published in Cologne in 1657, signed by Louis Montalt. In the same year they were included in the Index of banned books . Upon learning of this, Pascal said that if the "Letters" are condemned in Rome, then what is condemned in them is condemned in heaven ^[17] .

The last lifetime edition dates from 1659. By that time, the real name of the author became known. In 1660, the Latin translation of letters, made by Nicholas, was burned by order of the Royal Council. At the same time, casuistic morality was dealt a serious blow. Even in the midst of Pascal's work on letters, Parisian church officials at a special assembly discussed topics raised in them in order to condemn either their author or the Jesuits. The order’s response to the protest movement against casuism unfolding in France was Piro’s book Apology of the Casuists against the Jansenists. The most controversial provisions of casuism were defended in it, this defense was accompanied by slander against the opponents of the Jesuits. "Apology ..." was so unsuccessful that it caused displeasure even among the representatives of the order, and in 1659 it was enrolled in the Index of Banned Books. Subsequently, many of the casuistic provisions were condemned by the Vatican in 1665 and 1679 ^[17] .

In “Letters”, Pascal's literary gift was most fully manifested. Their popularity was also facilitated by the fact that the author chose “pleasant, ironic, entertaining style” to discuss serious theology issues. Pascal explained this by his desire to be understood by a wider circle of readers: “so that women and secular people read my letters and understand the danger of maxims and sentences that were spread then everywhere and which easily succumbed to.” To accomplish this task, Pascal had to spend a lot of energy: according to the memoirs of Arno, each letter was read to the inhabitants of the Por-Royal community, and if there was at least one dissatisfied, the author redid it until he reached unanimous approval ^[18] .

Undoubtedly, the influence of the “Letters” on the subsequent development of French literature. Voltaire , fascinated by Pascal, called this book "the first brilliant book written by prose" and noted that "this work was destined to create an era in the final design of the language."

Thanks to the “Letters”, a new word appeared in French: eckobarder - a verb with the meaning “hypocrite” is derived from the name of one of the “heroes” of the book - Escobar's father ^[14] .

• Letters to the provincial

• Pascal B. Letters to the Provincial. - St. Petersburg, 1898.
• Perrier M., Perrier J., Pascal B. Blaise Pascal. Thoughts Small compositions. Letters. - M .: AST, Pushkin Library, 2003 .-- 536 p. - ISBN 5-17-019607-5 , 5-94643-080-7.
• Tarasov B. Blaise Pascal. - M .: Young Guard, 1979.- 334 p. - 100,000 copies.