"The Provencial Letters" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pascal Blaise)

I apologized for having misapprehended his sentiment and requested
him to say if they would not at least condemn that other opinion of
the Jansenists which is making so much noise: "That grace is
efficacious of itself, and invincibly determines our will to what is
good." But in this second query I was equally unfortunate. "You know
nothing about the matter," he said; "that is not a heresy- it is an
orthodox opinion; all the Thomists maintain it; and I myself have
defended it in my Sorbonic thesis."
I did not venture again to propose my doubts, and yet I was as far
as ever from understanding where the difficulty lay; so, at last, in
order to get at it, I begged him to tell me where, then, lay the
heresy of M. Arnauld's proposition. "It lies here," said he, "that
he does not acknowledge that the righteous have the power of obeying
the commandments of God, in the manner in which we understand it."
On receiving this piece of information, I took my leave of him;
and, quite proud at having discovered the knot of the question, I
sought M. N-, who is gradually getting better and was sufficiently
recovered to conduct me to the house of his brother-in-law, who is a
Jansenist, if ever there was one, but a very good man notwithstanding.
Thinking to insure myself a better reception, I pretended to be very
high on what I took to be his side, and said: "Is it possible that the
Sorbonne has introduced into the Church such an error as this, 'that
all the righteous have always the power of obeying the commandments of
God?'"
"What say you?" replied the doctor. "Call you that an error- a
sentiment so Catholic that none but Lutherans and Calvinists impugn
it?"
"Indeed!" said I, surprised in my turn; "so you are not of their
opinion?"
"No," he replied; "we anathematize it as heretical and impious."
Confounded by this reply, I soon discovered that I had overacted
the Jansenist, as I had formerly overdone the Molinist. But, not being
sure if I had rightly understood him, I requested him to tell me
frankly if he held "that the righteous have always a real power to
observe the divine precepts?" Upon this, the good man got warm (but it
was with a holy zeal) and protested that he would not disguise his
sentiments on any consideration- that such was, indeed, his belief,
and that he and all his party would defend it to the death, as the
pure doctrine of St. Thomas, and of St. Augustine their master.
This was spoken so seriously as to leave me no room for doubt; and
under this impression I returned to my first doctor and said to him,
with an air of great satisfaction, that I was sure there would be
peace in the Sorbonne very soon; that the Jansenists were quite at one
with them in reference to the power of the righteous to obey the
commandments of God; that I could pledge my word for them and could
make them seal it with their blood.
"Hold there!" said he. "One must be a theologian to see the
point of this question. The difference between us is so subtle that it
is with some difficulty we can discern it ourselves- you will find
it rather too much for your powers of comprehension. Content yourself,