Chapter IX — By the authority of the Theologians Probabilism is condemned

I. [The Probabilists allege a great crowd of authors] for themselves; but, a very few excepted, they are of no authority. I do not wish you to put faith in my words; hear rather him who is easily the prince of the Probabilists, Fr. Antonio Terillus, who in the Prologue to his treatise On conscience writes as follows: "Innumerable are they who, for thirty years, have filled the libraries with Summas of cases and treatises of moral matters. And what were they to do, that they might arrive at the fame which they were hunting? ... Made bolder for bringing forth novelties, they cast their eyes and their minds upon the laxer opinions, knowing well that these, above all others, would wonderfully please the ruder crowd of readers. But lest, on account of their open defection from the unanimous opinion of the ancients, they should be accused of temerity, they began to devise certain reasons by which they might both give an honorable appearance to their departure from the elders, and obtain among the unskilled crowd some applause for the truth of their opinion. I myself have seen some of these more recent men — in other respects excellent — who, when in matters of the highest moment, pertaining to the law of God and the obligation of conscience, they had declined from the unanimous opinion of all to an intolerable laxity of opining, yet had nothing by which they were moved except an argument drawn from a similar case. I saw it, and I shuddered. For who would not shudder that a precept of God, previously acknowledged by all and confirmed by solid arguments, should by so frivolous an argument be erased from the tables of the divine and ecclesiastical law, no less impudently than imprudently? Nor did the audacity of certain men stop here. For very many, although far inferior in doctrine, reckoning a similar manner of acting lawful for themselves too, opened for themselves — I should say more rightly, both for themselves and for others — a road from lax resolutions to other laxer ones — a precipice ... Whence it came about that whatever opinions, not expressly condemned by the Church, they found in any author whatsoever, these they both held themselves as truly probable, and delivered to others as a rule fit for the tranquillity of conscience. Nay, it is not incredible that, deceived by the subtle insinuation of Satan, under the enticement of a certain humanity and the appearance of mutual honor, they attributed probability to any sayings whatsoever of others, precisely so that the prerogative which they had freely given to their predecessors, later men might not begrudge to them. By this art the deceitful enemy, after he had bewitched the more learned — who ought both to have watched over themselves and to have provided for others — with the foretasted applause of an ampler fame, surely to be acquired by the publication of lax opinions, oversowed, through these too incautious men, in the field of moral Theology, abundantly sown with the excellent wheat of severe opinions, the detestable cockle of laxity — and went his way," etc.

II. One or two things I weigh. Innumerable Doctors and Casuists have filled their books with lax opinions. Nay, there were not wanting those who, deceived by the insinuation of Satan, with the foretasted applause of an ampler fame, oversowed the detestable cockle of laxity in the field of moral Theology. All these, by the testimony of Terillus himself, are Probabilists, as I have shown in Tome 2 of the Apparatus, book 3, disputation 4, chapter 7. If I were to carp at the Casuists in this Terillian style, they would fill heaven with their clamors. Far be it from me, however, this manner of writing, employed by Fr. Terillus, that most benign Probabilist. Whether they wrote with a pious intention, or inflamed by the insinuation of the demon and the foretasted applause of an ampler fame (as Terillus says), God alone is judge. I sharpen my pen against the lax doctrines alone, my duty toward the authors being preserved. The second thing which presents itself to be weighed is that those innumerable authors of laxities — all those who, at the suggestion of the demon and of their own ambition, disfigured the evangelical doctrine, by the testimony of Fr. Terillus — are Probabilists. For all of them Fr. Terillus praises in patronage of Probabilism, as I have demonstrated at length in Tome 2 of the Apparatus, book 3, disputation 4, chapter 7; and therefore their authority is to be weighed either at nothing, or at little. These things touched upon, I recount, out of very many, a few of the authors who detest Probabilism.

III. The Venerable Seraphinus a Porrecta, Giulio Mercori, Pietro Passarino, Pierre Labat, Vincent Contenson, Jean-Baptiste Gonet, Vincent Baron, Louis Bancel, Serafino Piccinardi, Jacobus a S. Dominico, Majolus, Natalis Alexander, Francisco Sanchez, Francisco Texeda, Martin Wigandt, Juan Martinez de Prado, Tommaso Lucioni, Mario Diana, Johannes Conradus, Ludovico Minutolo, Pietro Martire Petrucci, Domenico de Marinis, Cardinal Capisucchi, Cardinal Gotti, Antonio Irribaren, Olivier Richeceur, Marcello Marona, Giuseppe Bono, Hyacinthe Amat de Graveson, Antonio Bordoni, Ildefonsus a S. Thoma, Norbert del Becque, Franciscus Vanrat, Vincentius Ferrerius, Hyacinthe Serry, Vincenzo Bosio, Tommaso Milante, Giuseppe Agostino Orsi, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, Giovanni Battista Molinari. Not to be long: all the Theologians of the Order of Preachers, to a man, declare implacable war upon Probabilism.

IV. Cardinal de Aguirre, Cardinal Sfondrati, Gabriel Gerberon, Jean Mabillon, Abbot Gardius, Facundo Torres, Anselmo Gomez, Battista Larditus, Petit-Didier. In a word, all the illustrious Theologians of the Benedictine Order are opposed to Probabilism no less than to Molinism.

V. Antonio of Cordova, Giovanni Trovamala, Cardinal Laurea, Filippo Fabri, Antonio Matteucci, Barthélemy Durant, François Henno, Cirillo Rossi, Bernardino Ciaffoni, Bonaventura of Recanati, Paul of Lyons, Gaetano of Bergamo, Palbuncius Donadoni, Cardinal Casini.

VI. Lambert Le Drou, Ignacio Lacerda, Christian Lupus, Johann Schervietzer, Bartolomeo Ricci, Federico Gavardi, Leonard Vanroy, Enrico Noris the Cardinal, François Farvacques, Nicolaus Girchen, Aurelius Piette, Johannes Libente, Fulgenzio Bellelli, Antonio Guerrero, Giovanni Lorenzo Berti.

VII. Of the Carmelites: Carolus ab Assumptione, Henricus a S. Ignatio, Marinarius Brocardus, Christophorus a S. Joseph, who against Probabilism cites the holy Mother Teresa and St. John of the Cross.

VIII. Of the Trinitarians: Miguel a S. José published a book entitled Estudio de la Verdad in the year 1715.

IX. Of the Minims: Maignan, and the most wise Palanco, who in an entire tome in folio overthrew Probabilism.

X. Fr. Claude La-Croix, book I, number 169, writes that nearly all the authors of the Society of Jesus defend Probabilism. The like teach Terillus, Casnedi, Fibus, and others: these are the men who pour darkness over the splendor of the illustrious Society, and bring upon it great detriment. Other Jesuit Theologians hold for calumniators those who fasten Probabilism upon that most excellent Society. Fr. Étienne de Camps published a book entitled Quaestio Facti, in which he frees the Society from the note of defending Probabilism as its own. The same was done by Fabri, Daniel, Moya, Gonzalez, Camargo. If Probabilism were a benign doctrine, suited to the loosing of souls, why would these Theologians hold for calumniators those who ascribe Probabilism to the Society?

XI. The wiser Jesuit Theologians have overthrown Probabilism; and first of all three Cardinals — Bellarmine, Toledo, Pallavicino. Fr. Christoph Rassler the Jesuit, disputation 3, question 9, article 2, number 499, writes of Bellarmine: For he is contrary to the more benign opinion in this question, and stands for the more rigid. Yet it may with good reason be doubted whether he did not himself bend aside into excessive rigor. It may be doubted, then, whether Bellarmine was a Rigorist? Fr. Giacomo Sanvitale absolutely asserts that Bellarmine was a Tutiorist.

XII. Other more celebrated Jesuit Theologians who overthrew Probabilism are Fernão Rebello, Paolo Comitoli, Muzio Vitelleschi, Andreas Blanchus, Ludovicus Scildere, Miguel de Elizalde, Tirso González, Tomás Muniesa, Gilles Estrix, Edmond Simonet, Adam Ehrentreuch, Gilbert, Gabriel Antoine.

XIII. Fr. La-Croix, book 1, number 327, writes as follows: Comitoli did not teach Theology, whence he is also of lesser authority; nor did Philaletus teach, forbidden by his superiors to prefix his own name, or that of the Society, to his book. Comitoli alone — whether you regard elegance of writing, or doctrine and erudition — prevails over six hundred Probabilists. Neither Ambrose, nor Chrysostom, nor Augustine taught Theology, whether scholastic or casuistic. What follows from that?

XIV. The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus condemn Probabilism, part 4, chapter 5, number 4, in these words: Let them follow, in every faculty, the more secure and more approved doctrine, and those authors who teach it. Therefore those who teach less probable opinions are opposed to this constitution.

XV. The Order of Carmelites, part 2, chapter 15, § 7 of the constitutions, decreed this: Let the Lecturer in cases of conscience resolve doubts, and, leaning to the safer part, let him always follow all the opinions accordingly.

XVI. Cardinal Laurea, on the third part, disputation 12, narrates that the Seraphic Religion embraces the more probable opinions. In the Directory of the three Franciscan Orders published at Rome in the year 1688 these words are found: To all persons of our Order, and to others living under our direction or obedience, we urge in the Lord, and command, that they always teach and embrace the safer and more probable doctrines.

XVII. The Order of Preachers, in its general Chapter of the year 1656, exterminated Probabilism; and Alexander VII animated the Theologians of this Order to sharpen their pens against this doctrine — as Historians both domestic and foreign attest, especially Elizalde, and Cardinal Aguirre, who says: But greatly to be praised among the Regulars is the most illustrious Order of St. Dominic, which, at the exhortation of the aforesaid Alexander VII, raised its standard against the lax Moral through its most learned sons — Juan Martinez de Prado, Giulio Mercori, Vincent Baron, Vincent Contenson, Piccinardi, Gonet, and others of the like — with the amplest fruit. Not to be long: it is not possible to find even one Theologian writer in the whole Order of Preachers who does not at present detest Probabilism.

XVIII. Fagnani, Johannes Andreas, Fortunato Garzia, Antonio de Butrio, the Abbot Alexander, Baldus, Merenda, the Bishop of Périgueux, Genet, Armand, Bordoni, La Verdure, Bondort, Cabassut, Merbes, Steyaert, Huygens, Florentius, Coque, Habert, Chartas, Pontas, Sinnich, Le Hermenier, Van Vianen, Neeffen, Ballerini, and very many others.

XIX. The whole Gallican Church condemned Probabilism. Entire Orders have eliminated it. The Lutherans and Calvinists reproach Catholics — though with the greatest injustice, as I have made plain elsewhere — with Probabilism as a most corrupt doctrine. Let Heineccius, Pfaff, Buddeus, Jurieu, Le Placette, and the others commonly be read. But the most erudite and most learned Catholics of all Europe, men most deeply versed in the discipline of the ancient Church and in the doctrine of the Fathers and of the Gospels, condemn and overthrow the probabilistic invention. Wherefore, by the weights both of reasons and of authorities, Probabilism lies pierced through.