Monday, July 4, 2022

"May the Jesuits kill the Jansenists?"

"Caramuel, too, our famous champion. . . . examines a great many new questions on this principle, such as the following, for instance:  'May the Jesuits kill the Jansenists? [(SAVOIR SI LES JÉSUITES PEUVENT TUER LES JANSÉNISTES.)]'"

     Blaise Pascal, Provincial letters no. 8, trans. M’Crie.  Pascal has just cited "sa Théologie fondamentale, p. 543."  Unable to find any comment on this in either vol. 5 of the critical Brunschvicg edition of 1904-1914, or vol. 1 of the Le Guern Pléiade edition of 1998, or via quick-and-dirty searches of the full-text in JSTOR and the Atla Religion Database on the French, I reproduce what I’ve found at secs. 1578 (MDLXXVIII) and 1579 (MDLXXIX) in the printing of 1657, albeit not on a p. 543.  (I could find no edition/volume of this work in the Hathi Trust Digital Library containing a p. 543, but have not yet checked, say, Google Books.  Secs. 1578 and 1579 had become secs. 2578 and 2579 in a latter printing, by the way, so variations like that should also be kept in mind.)

p. 444, col. 2 (marginal summaries):

  • "An potuerint occidi Ianseniani", Whether the Jansenists can be killed.
  • "An Iesuitis Iansenius nocuerit", Whether Jansenius harmed [(defamed)] the Jesuits.

p. 445, col. 1 (marginal summary):

  • "Iansenius occidi a Iesuitis non potuit", Jansenius could not be killed by the Jesuits.

p. 445, cols. 1-2 (text above and beside the summary just above):

  • The Jansenists accuse the Jesuits of Pelagianism, and [so] I ask first Whether they are calumniators, and second, Whether they can be killed. . . .  And I respond to the second that Jansenius could not be killed when alive, nor can the Jansenists today, who remain.

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