Priests, Women, and Families Part 11

If the automaton should still possess some motion, how will they lead it? According to the _probable_ opinion, for the _probablism_ of the Jesuits reigned in the first half of the century. Later, when its motion ceased, the paralysed age learned from the Quietists that immobility is perfection itself.

The decay and impotency which characterised the latter years of Louis XIV. are rather veiled by a remnant of literary splendour; they are, nevertheless, deeply seated. This was the natural consequence, not only of great efforts which produce exhaustion, but also of the theories of abnegation, impersonality, and systematic nullity, which had always gained ground in this century. By dint of continually repeating that one cannot walk well without being supported by another, a generation arose that no longer walked at all, but boasted of having forgotten what motion was, and gloried in it. Madame Guyon, in speaking of herself, expresses forcibly, in a letter to Bossuet, what was then the general condition: "You say, Monseigneur, there are only four or five persons who are in this difficulty of acting for themselves; but I tell you there are more than a hundred thousand.

When you told me to ask and desire, I found myself like a paralytic who is told to walk because _he has legs_: the efforts he makes for that purpose serve only to make him aware of his inability. We say, in common parlance, _every man who has legs ought to walk_: I believe it, and I know it; however, I have legs, but I feel plainly that I cannot make use of them."

CHAPTER X.

MOLINOS' GUIDE;--THE PART PLAYED IN IT BY THE DIRECTOR;--HYPOCRITICAL AUSTERITY;--IMMORAL DOCTRINE.--MOLINOS APPROVED OF AT ROME, 1675.--MOLINOS CONDEMNED AT ROME, 1687.--HIS MANNERS CONFORMABLE TO HIS DOCTRINE.--SPANISH MOLINOSISTS.--MOTHER AGUEDA.

The greatest danger for the poor paralytic, who can no longer move by himself, is, not that he may remain inactive, but that he may become the sport of the active influence of others. The theories which speak the most of immobility are not always disinterested. Be on your guard, and take care.

Molinos' book, with its artful and premeditated composition, has a character entirely its own, which distinguishes it from the natural and inspired writings of the great mystics. The latter, such as Sta.

Theresa, often recommend obedience and entire submission to the director, and dissuade from self-confidence. They thus give themselves a guide, but in their enthusiastic efforts they hurry their guide away with them; they think they follow him, but they lead him. The director has nothing else to do with them but to sanction their inspiration.

The originality of Molinos' book is quite the contrary. There, internal activity has actually no longer any existence; no action but what is occasioned by an exterior impulse. _The director_ is the pivot of the whole book; he appears every moment, and even when he disappears, we perceive he is close at hand. He is _the guide_, or rather the support, without which the powerless soul could not move a step. He is the ever-present physician, who decides whether the sick patient may taste this or that. Sick? Yes; and seriously ill; since it is necessary that another should, every moment, think, feel, and act for her; in a word, live in her place.

As for the soul, can we say it lives? Is this not rather actual death?

The great mystics sought for death, and could not find it: the living activity remained even in the sepulchre. To die, singly, in G.o.d, to die with one's own will and energy, this is not dying completely. But slothfully to allow your soul to enter the mad vortex of another soul, and suffer, half-asleep, the strange transformation in which your personality is absorbed in his; this is, indeed, real moral death; we need not look for any other.

"To act, is the deed of the novice; to suffer, is immediate gain; to die, is perfection. Let us go forward in darkness, and we shall go well; the horse that goes round blind-folded grinds corn so much the better. Let us neither think nor read. A _practical_ master will tell us, better than any book, what we must do at the very moment. It is a great security to have an experienced guide to govern and direct us, according to his actual intelligence, and prevent our being deceived by the demon or our own senses."[1]

Molinos, in leading us gently by this road, seems to me to know very well whither he is conducting us. I judge so by the infinite precautions he takes to re-a.s.sure us; by his crying up everywhere humility, austerity, excessive scrupulousness, and prudence carried to a ridiculous extreme. The saints are not so wise. In a very humble preface, he believes that this little book, devoid of ornament and style, and without a protector, cannot have any success; "he will, no doubt, be criticised; everybody will find him insipid." In the last page, his humility is still greater, he _lays his work prostrate_, and submits it to the correction of the Holy Roman Church.

He gives us to understand, that the real director directs without any inclination for the task: "He is a man who would gladly dispense with the care of souls, who sighs and pants for solitude. He is, especially, very far from wishing to get the direction of women, they being, generally, too little prepared. He must take especial care not to call his penitent _his daughter_; the word is too tender, and G.o.d is jealous of it. Self-love united with pa.s.sion, that hydra-headed monster, sometimes a.s.sumes the form of grat.i.tude and filial affection for the confessor. He must not visit his penitents at their homes, not even in cases of sickness, _unless he be called_."

This is, indeed, an astounding severity: these are excessive precautions, unheard of before the days of Molinos! What holy man have we here? It is true, if the director ought not to go of his own accord to visit the patient, he may, _if she call him_. And _I_ say, she will call him. With such a direction, is she not always ill, embarra.s.sed, fearful, and too infirm to do anything of herself? She will wish to have him every hour. Every impulse that is not from him might possibly proceed from the devil; even the pang of remorse, that she occasionally feels within her, may be occasioned by the devil's agency.

As soon as he is with her, on the contrary, how tranquil she becomes!

How he comforts her with one word! How easily he resolves all her scruples! She is well rewarded for having waited and obeyed, and being ever ready to obey. She now feels that obedience is better than any virtue.

Well! let her only be discreet, and she will be led still further.

"She must not, when she sins, be uneasy about it; for should she be grieved at it, it would be a sign that she still possessed a leaven of pride. It is the devil, who, to hinder us in our spiritual path, makes us busy with our backslidings. Would it not be foolish for him who runs to stop when he falls, and weep like a child, instead of pursuing his course? These falls have the excellent effect of preserving us from pride, which is the greatest fall of all. G.o.d makes virtues of our vices, and these very vices, by which the devil thought to cast us into the pit, become a ladder to mount to heaven."[2]

This doctrine was well received. Molinos had the tact to publish, at the same time, another book, that might serve as a pa.s.sport to this, a treatise on _Daily Communion_, directed against the Jansenists and Arnaud's great work. The _Spiritual Guide_ was examined with all the favour that Rome could show to the enemy of her enemies. There was scarcely any Religious Order that did not approve of it. The Roman Inquisition gave it three approbations by three of its members, a Jesuit, a Carmelite, and the general of the Franciscans. The Spanish Inquisition approved of it twice;--first, by the general examiner of the order of the Capuchins; and, secondly, by a Trinitarian, the Archbishop of Reggio. It was prefaced with an enthusiastic and extravagant eulogy by the Archbishop of Palermo.

The Quietists must have been at that time very strong in Rome, since one of them, Cardinal Bona, was on the point of being made pope.

The tide turned, contrary to every expectation. The great Gallic tempest of 1682, which, for nearly ten years, interrupted the connection between France and the Holy See, and showed how easily one may dispense with Rome, obliged the pope to raise the moral dignity of the pontificate, by acts of severity. The lash fell especially upon the Jesuits and their friends. Innocent XI. p.r.o.nounced a solemn condemnation upon the casuists, though rather too late, as these people had been crushed twenty years before by Pascal. But Quietism still flourished: the Franciscans and Jesuits had taken it into favour; the Dominicans were therefore averse to it. Molinos, in his _Manuel_, had considerably reduced the merits of St. Dominic, and pretended that _St.

Thomas, when dying, confessed that he had not, up to that time, written anything good_. Accordingly, of all the great Religious Orders, that of the Dominicans was the only one which refused its approbation to Molinos' _Guide_.

The book and its author, examined under this new influence, appeared horribly guilty. The Inquisition of Rome, without taking any notice of the approbations granted twelve years before by their examiners, condemned the _Guide_, together with some propositions not contained in it, but which they extracted from the examination of Molinos, or from his teaching. This one is not the least curious: "G.o.d, to humble us, permits, in certain perfect souls (well enlightened and in their lucid state), that the devil should make them commit certain carnal acts. In this case, and in others, which, without the permission of G.o.d, would be guilty, there is no sin, because there is no consent. It may happen, that those violent movements, which excite to carnal acts, may take place in two persons, a man and a woman, at the same moment."[3]

This case happened to Molinos himself, and much too often. He underwent a public penance, humbled himself for his morals, and did not defend his doctrine: this saved him. The inquisitors, who had formerly approved of him, must have been themselves much embarra.s.sed about this trial. He was treated with leniency, and only imprisoned, whilst two of his disciples, who had only faithfully applied his doctrine, were burned alive without pity. One was a curate of Dijon, the other a priest of Tudela in Navarre.

How can we be surprised that such a theory should have had such results in morals? It would be much more astonishing if it had not. Besides, these immoral results do not proceed exclusively from Molinosism, a doctrine at once imprudent and too evident, and which they would take good care not to profess. They spring naturally from every practical direction that lulls the will, taking from the person this natural guardian, and exposing him thus prostrate to the mercy of him who watches over the sick couch. The tale told more than once by the middle ages, and which casuists have examined so coldly, the violation of the dead, we here meet with again. The person is left as defenceless by the death of the will, as by physical death.

The Archbishop of Palermo, in his Pindaric eulogy of the _Spiritual Guide_, says that this admirable book is most especially suitable to the _direction of nuns_. The advice was understood, and turned to account, especially in Spain. From that saying of Molinos, "That sins, being an occasion of humility, serve as a ladder to mount to heaven,"

the Molinosists drew this consequence--the more we sin the higher we ascend.

There was among the Carmelites of Lerma a holy woman, Mother Agueda, esteemed as a saint. People went to her from all the neighbouring provinces, to get her to cure the sick. A convent was founded on the spot that had been so fortunate as to give her birth. There, in the church, they adored her portrait placed within the choir; and there she cured those who were brought to her, by applying to them certain miraculous stones which she brought forth, as they said, with pains similar to those of childbirth. This miracle lasted twenty years. At last the report spread that these confinements were but too true, and that she was really delivered. The inquisition of Logrogno having made a visit to the convent, arrested Mother Agueda, and questioned the other nuns, among whom was the young niece of the Saint, Donna Vincenta. The latter confessed, without any prevarication, the commerce that her aunt, herself, and the others had had with the provincial of the Carmelites, the prior of Lerma, and other friars of the first rank. The Saint had been confined five times, and her niece showed the place where the children had been killed and buried the moment they were born. They found the skeletons.

What is not less horrible is, that this young nun, only nine years of age, a dutiful child, immured by her aunt for this strange life, and having no other education, firmly believed that this was really the devout life, perfection, and sanct.i.ty, and followed this path in full confidence, upon the faith of her confessors.

The grand doctor of these nuns was the provincial of the Carmelites, Jean de la Vega. He had written the life of the Saint, and arranged her miracles; and he it was who had the skill to have her glorified, and her festival observed, though she was still alive. He himself was considered almost a saint by the vulgar. The monks said everywhere that, since the blessed Jean de la Croix, Spain had not seen a man so austere and penitent. According to their custom of designating ill.u.s.trious doctors by a t.i.tular name (such as Angelic, Seraphic, &c.), he was called the Ecstatic. Being much stronger than the saint, he resisted the torture, where as she died in it: he confessed nothing, except that he had received the money for eleven thousand eight hundred ma.s.ses that he had not said; and he got off with being banished to the convent of Duruelo.

[1] Molinos, Guida Spirituale (Venetia, 1685), pp. 86, 161.

[2] "Scala per salire al cielo,"--_Guida_, p. 138. lib. ii. ch. 18.

[3] Condemned articles, pp. 41, 42., Lat. transl. (Lipsiae, 1687.)

CHAPTER XI.

NO MORE SYSTEMS;--AN EMBLEM.--BLOOD.--s.e.x.--THE IMMACULATE WOMAN.--THE SACRED HEART.--MARIE ALACOQUE.--DOUBLE MEANING OF SACRED HEART.--THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY IS THE AGE OF DOUBLE MEANING.--CHIMERICAL POLICY OF THE JESUITS.--FATHER COLOMBIERE AND MARIE ALACOQUE, 1675.--ENGLAND;--PAPIST CONSPIRACY.--FIRST ALTAR OF THE SACRED HEART, 1685.--RUIN OF THE GALLICANS, 1693;--OF THE QUIETISTS, 1698;--OF PORT ROYAL, 1709.--THEOLOGY ANNIHILATED IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.--MATERIALITY OF THE SACRED HEART.--JESUITICAL ART.

Quietism, so accused of being obscure, was but too evident. It formed into a system, and established frankly, as supreme perfection, that state of immobility and impotency which the soul reaches at last, when it surrenders its activity.

Was it not simplicity itself to prescribe in set terms this lethargic doctrine, and give out noisily a theory of sleep? "Do not speak so loud if you want to make people doze?" This is what the theologians, men of business, instinctively perceived; they cared little for theology, and only wanted results.

We must do the Jesuits the justice to confess that they were disinterested enough in speculative opinions. We have seen how, since Pascal, they themselves wrote against their own casuistry. Since then they had tried Quietism: at one time they let Fenelon believe they would support him. But as soon as Louis XIV. had declared himself, "they ducked like divers," preached against their friend, and discovered forty errors in the _Maxims of Saints_.

They had never well succeeded as theologians. Silence suited them better than all their systems. They had got it imposed by the pope upon the Dominicans, in the very beginning of the century, and afterwards upon the Jansenists. Since then their affairs went on better. It was precisely at the time they ceased writing, that they obtained for the sick king the power of disposing of benefices (1687), and thus, to the great surprise of the Gallicans, who had thought them conquered, they became the kings of the clergy of France.

Now, no more ideas, no more systems; they had grown tired of them.

Long ago we mentioned the prevailing la.s.situde. Besides, there is, we must confess, in the long lives of men, states, and religions; there is, I say, a time when, having run from project to project, and from dream to dream, every idea is hated. In these profoundly material moments, everything is rejected that is not tangible. Do people then become positive? No. But they do not return any more to the poetical symbols which in their youth they had adored. The old doter, in his second childhood, makes for himself some idol, some palpable, tangible G.o.d, and the coa.r.s.er it is, the better he succeeds.

This explains the prodigious success with which the Jesuits in this age of la.s.situde spread, and caused to be accepted, a new object of worship, both very carnal and very material--the Heart of Jesus, either shown through the wound in His partly opened breast, or as plucked out and b.l.o.o.d.y.

Nearly the same thing had happened in the decrepitude of paganism.

Religion had taken refuge in the sacrifice of bulls, the sanguinary Mithraic expiation--the worship of blood.

At the grand festival of the _Sacred Heart_ which the Jesuits gave in the last century, in the Coliseum of Rome, they struck a medal with this motto, worthy of the solemnity, "He gave Himself to the people to eat, in the amphitheatre of t.i.tus:"[1] instead of a system, it was an emblem, a dumb sign. What triumph for the friends of obscurity and equivocation! no equivocation of language can equal a material object, which may be interpreted in a thousand ways, for rendering ideas undecided and confused. The old Christian symbols, so often translated, and so variously interpreted, present to the mind, at first sight, too distinct a meaning. They are austere symbols of death and mortification. The new one was far more obscure. This emblem, b.l.o.o.d.y it is true, but carnal and impa.s.sioned, speaks much less of death than of life. The heart palpitates, the blood streams, and yet it is a living man who, showing his wound with his own hand, beckons to you to come and fathom his half-opened breast.

The heart! That word has always been powerful; the heart, being the organ of the affections, expresses them in its own manner, swollen and heaving with sighs. The life of the heart, strong and confused, comprehends and mingles every kind of love. Such a sentence is wonderfully adapted to language of double meaning.

And who will understand it best? Women. With them the life of the heart is everything. This organ, being the pa.s.sage of the blood, and strongly influenced by the revolutions of the blood, is not less predominant in woman than her very s.e.x.

The heart has been, now nearly two hundred years, the grand basis of modern devotion; as s.e.x, or a strange question that related to it, had, for two hundred before, occupied the minds of the middle ages.

Strange! in that spiritual period, a long discussion, both public and solemn, took place throughout Europe, both in the schools and in the churches, upon an anatomical subject, of which one would not dare to speak in our days, except in the school of medicine! What was this subject? Conception. Only imagine all these monks, people sworn to celibacy, both Dominicans and Franciscans, boldly attacking the question, teaching it to all, preaching anatomy to children and little girls, filling their minds with their s.e.x and its most secret mystery.