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Rh ARNAULD

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ARNAULD

Then Pascal came to his fiiend's assistance and wrote, under the pseudonym of Montalte, his "Pro- vincial Letters". The first four took up Arnauld's quarrel and Jansenism; eleven were devoted to at- tacks on the moral code of the Jesuits; and the \i\st three reviewed the questions of Jansenism, and particularly the distinction between law and fact. But the .\.s.soinJ)ly of the t'lergj', in 1656, asserted the Church's right of passing iiifiiUible judgment on dogmatic! facts iu; well !is faith, and the same year Alexander VU published the Bull " Ad Sanctam ", affirming with all his authority tliat the five proposi- tions were drawn from the "Augustinus" and were condemned in the sense of their author. As soon as this Bull was received by the A.sspmbly of the Clergy (1057) it was published in all dioceses, and a formu- lary of submission prepared for signature. The Jansenists, under the leadersliip of Arnauld, refused to subscribe. On the intervention of Louis XIV they signed the formularj' with many mental reserva- tions, b\it, claiming that it lucked authority, they attacked it in many writings, either composed or inspired by Arnauld. Alexander VII at the request of the king and clergj- published a new Bull (161)4) enjoining sulwcription under canonical and civil penalties. Four bishops, among them Henri Ar- nauld, of Angers, who dared to resist, were con- demned by the pope, and a court was appointed by the king to pass judgment on their action. Alex- ander VTl died in the interval. Thereupon the four dissenters sent to the French Clergy a circtilar pre- pared by Arnauld, denying to the pope, in the name of Galilean liberty, the right of judging the bishops of the kingdom. On further consideration, however, they conformed exteriorly to the formulary. Clem- ent IX, desirous of putting an end to these dissen- sions, granted them what is known as the "Clemen- tine Peace", extending it to all the leaders of tlie sect in consideration of submission. This submis- sion, however, as the future proved, was merely external. Arnauld was presented to the Nuncio, to Louis XIV, and the whole court, and was everywhere accorded the reception merited by his talents and learning. At this time he composed in connexion with Ivicole, and at the suggestion of Bossuet, the most learned of his controversial works, entitled "La Perp^tuit^ de la foi de I'Eglise catholique sur I'Eucharistie". This work, praised by Clement I.\ and Innocent XI, who congratulated the author upon it, caused a scn.sation, and struck a hea^y blow at Protestantism. It was soon followed by another: " Renversement de la morale de Jfeus-Christ par les calvinistes ". Meanwhile Arnauld, who was still a Jansenist at heart, was diffusing his ideas, noiseles.sly, however, in order to preserve peace. People flocked to Port-Royal, and Arnauld was the centre of as- semblies which were viewed with suspicion. Error was making considerable progress, to the alarm of both religious and royal autliorities. The storm was about to burst, but Arnauld escaped it by retiring to the Netherlands (1G7!I), where he was obliged to remain until his death (IfiOl). During these fifteen years his activity never abated. He was constantly plying his pen, and always in a belligerent spirit. He attacked the Protestants; he attacked the Jesuits; he even attacked Malebranche. His ".Apologie du clerg6 de France et des catholiques d'.-\ngleterre centre le ministre Jurieu" (lOSl) aroused the wrath of that champion of Protestantism, who answered in a monograph entitled " L'Esprit de M. Arnauld". The aged leader of the Jansenists refrained from refuting a writing into which his personality had been draggcil, and which was nothing but a nuuss of coarse insults. He was none the le.s.s zealous, however, in his attacks upon Protestant ministers in an iiniiien.se number of treatises. He even attacked William of Orange. In Arnauld's eyes Jesuits were always to

be treated as personal enemies. Every writing that issued from the hand of a Jesuit furnished him an occasion to denounce the Society to the public, and to publish a refutation if he chanced to find in it any ideas contrary to his own. Two volumes appeared in 1669 and IC&i respectively, entitled "Morale pratique dcs Jdsuites repi6sent<5c en pliisieurs liis- toircs arriv6es dans toutcs les parties du monde". Their author, de Pontchdteau, was a solitary of Port- Royal, who was exceedingly hostile to mi.ssionary Jesuits. Father Le Tellicr replied in his "La De- fense des nouveaux chr^tiens et des missionnaires de la Chine, du Japon et des Indcs" (I(>87). Ar- nauld thereupon constituted himself the champion of de Pontchfiteau's works and published between 1690 and 1693 five additional books. He was work- ing on the si.xth, "La Calomnie", at the time of his death. This work is biased and full of prejudice. He retails without reserve or moderation, and with evident malice, all the differences and quarrels which had arisen among men of good faith, or between re- ligions communities engaged in the same work with- out having the limits of tlieir respective jurisdiction clearly defined. According to .'^mauld the Jesuits were always in the wrong, and he relates with calm credulity everything that the ill will of their enemies had attributed to them, without concerning himself as to the truth of these statements. Malebranche. the Oratorian, differed with him on the subject of grace, and expressed his views in his "Trait6 de la Nature et de la Grace". Arnauld attempted to stop its publication, and, failing, he opened a campaign against Malebranche (1683). Without attempting to refute the treatise, he took up the opinion that "we sec all in God", laid down by the philosopher in a preceding work, "Recherche de la v6rit6", and attacked it in "Des vraies et dcs fau.sses iddcs". Malebranche objected to this shifting of the question, claiming that to bring before the public a purely metaphysical problem to be refuteil and confounded with the weapons of ridicule was unworthy of a great mind. Arnauld now showed no moderation what- ever, even going to the point of attributing to Male- branche opinions which he had never held. His "Philosophical and Theological Reflections" on the "Traitd de la Nature et de la GrSce" (1685) scored a triumph for the Jan.-ienist party, but it lessened in nowise the prestige of Malebranche. The latter had the advantage of moderation, notwith- standing more than one bitter line directed against his antagonist, and he confessed himself "weary of furnishing the world a spectacle, and having the 'Journal des Savants' filled with their respective platitudes". Nevertheless the quarrel ended only with the death of Arnauld. Jansenism had not been forgotten, and Arnauld was to flie last its zealous, untiring champion. It is impossible to enumerate all his writ ings in its defence. The majority were anony- mous, so that they might reach France more e:vsily. His " New Defense of the Mons New Testament" — a version which had emanated from Port-Royal — is the most violent of all his works. We may also mention the "Phantome du Jans^nisme" (Ki.SO), from which the author hoped great results for his sect. He pro-

Cosed in this work " to justify the so-called Jansenists y slowing Jansenism to Ix! nothing but a phantom, as there is no one in the Church who holds any of the five condemned propositions, and it is not forbidden to di.scuss whether or not the.-;e projwsilions have been taught by Jansenius". On this hist point Arnauld was always immovable, constantly inventing new subterfuges to prevent hini-self from seeing the tnith. Sainte-Beuve was not wrong in writing (Port Royal, bk. Ill, viii) that "the persistence in knowing lx>tter than the popes what they think and define is the favourite tncsis of the Janjienists. Ix-ginning with Ar- nauld ". In 1700 the Assembly of the Clergj* of Franct-