Chronological Series of Condemned Propositions

CHRONOLOGICAL SERIES

OF CONDEMNED PROPOSITIONS FROM THE YEAR 1418 AGAINST JOHN WICLIFFE, TO THE YEAR 1864 AGAINST MORE RECENT ERRORS.

NUM. I.

The 45 articles of John Wicliffe, condemned in the Council of Constance, Session 45, in the year 1418.

1. The substance of material bread and likewise the substance of material wine remain in the Sacrament of the altar.

2. The accidents of bread do not remain without a subject in the same Sacrament.

3. Christ is not in the same Sacrament identically and really by His own bodily presence.

4. If a Bishop or priest exists in mortal sin, he does not ordain, does not consecrate, does not confect, does not baptize.

5. It is not founded in the Gospel that Christ ordained the Mass.

6. God ought to obey the devil.

7. If a man has been duly contrite, every exterior Confession is superfluous and useless to him.

8. If the Pope is foreknown and evil, and consequently a member of the devil, he does not have power over the faithful given to him by anyone, unless perhaps by Caesar.

9. After Urban VI no one is to be received as Pope, but one must live according to the custom of the Greeks under one's own laws.

10. It is against sacred Scripture that ecclesiastical men should have possessions.

11. No Prelate ought to excommunicate anyone unless he first knows him to be excommunicated by God; and he who so excommunicates becomes by this a heretic or excommunicated.

12. A Prelate excommunicating a cleric who has appealed to the king or to the Council of the kingdom is by that very fact a traitor of the king and the kingdom.

13. Those who cease to preach or to hear the word of God because of the excommunication of men are excommunicated, and in the judgment of God will be held traitors.

14. It is licit for any deacon or presbyter to preach the word of God without the authority of the apostolic See or of a Catholic Bishop.

15. No one is a civil lord, no one is a Prelate, no one is a Bishop, while he is in mortal sin.

16. Temporal lords can at their own judgment take away temporal goods from the Church, when possessors habitually delinquent, that is, delinquent from habit, not only by act.

17. The people can at their own judgment correct delinquent lords.

18. Tithes are pure alms, and parishioners can, because of the sins of their prelates, take them away at their pleasure.

19. Special prayers, applied to one person by prelates or religious, do not profit the same person more than general prayers, other things being equal.

20. One conferring alms upon friars is excommunicated by that fact.

21. If anyone enters any private religion whatever, whether of possessors or of mendicants, he is rendered more inept and more unfit for the observance of the commandments of God.

22. The saints, instituting private religions, sinned by so instituting.

23. Religious living in private religions are not of the Christian religion.

24. Friars are bound to acquire sustenance by the labor of their hands, and not by mendicancy.

25. All are simoniacs who oblige themselves to pray for others, when those others assist them in temporal things.

26. The prayer of one foreknown avails no one.

27. All things happen by absolute necessity.

28. The confirmation of youths, the Ordination of clerics, the consecration of places are reserved to the Pope and Bishops because of cupidity for temporal gain and honor.

29. Universities, studies, colleges, graduations, and masterships in the same were introduced by vain heathenism; they profit the Church as much as the devil.

30. The excommunication of the Pope or of any Prelate is not to be feared, because it is the censure of Antichrist.

31. Those founding cloisters sin; and those entering are devilish men.

32. To enrich the clergy is against the rule of Christ.

33. Pope Sylvester and the Emperor Constantine erred by endowing the Church.

34. All orders of mendicants are heretics, and those giving alms to them are excommunicated.

35. Those entering religion, or any order, are by that very fact unfit for observing the divine precepts, and consequently for arriving at the kingdom of heaven, unless they apostatize from the same.

36. The Pope, with all his clerics having possession, are heretics because they have possessions, and those consenting to them, namely all secular lords and the other laymen.

37. The Roman Church is the synagogue of Satan, nor is the Pope the proximate and immediate Vicar of Christ and of the Apostles.

38. The decretal epistles are apocryphal, and seduce from the Faith of Christ; and clerics who study them are fools.

39. The Emperor and secular lords were seduced by the devil, that they might enrich the Church with temporal goods.

40. The election of the Pope by Cardinals was introduced by the devil.

41. It is not of necessity of salvation to believe that the Roman Church is supreme among the other churches.

42. It is foolish to believe in the indulgences of the Pope and Bishops.

43. Oaths are illicit which are made to strengthen human contracts and civil commerce.

44. Augustine, Benedict, and Bernard are condemned, unless they repented of this, that they had possessions, and instituted and entered religions; and thus, from the Pope even to the last religious, all are heretics.

45. All religions indiscriminately were introduced by the devil.

NUM. II.

The 30 articles of John Hus, condemned as above.

1. The one holy universal Church is the totality of the predestined.

2. Paul was never a member of the devil, although he did certain acts similar to the acts of those maligning the Church.

3. The foreknown are not parts of the Church, since no part of it finally falls away from it, because the charity of predestination, which binds it, will not fall away.

4. The two natures, Divinity and Humanity, are one Christ.

5. The foreknown, even if at some time he is in grace according to present justice, nevertheless is never part of the holy Church; and the predestined always remains a member of the Church, although at some time he falls away from adventitious grace, but not from the grace of predestination.

6. Taking the Church for the convocation of the predestined, whether they have been in grace or not according to present justice, in this way the Church is an article of Faith.

7. Peter is not, nor was he, the head of the holy Catholic Church.

8. Priests living criminally in whatever way pollute the power of the Priesthood, and as unfaithful sons they think unfaithfully concerning the seven Sacraments of the Church, concerning the keys, offices, censures, morals, ceremonies and sacred things of the Church, the veneration of relics, indulgences, and Orders.

9. The papal dignity grew from Caesar, and the perfection and institution of the Pope emanated from the power of Caesar.

10. No one without revelation would reasonably assert of himself or another that he was head of a particular Church; nor is the Roman Pontiff head of the particular Roman Church.

11. It is not necessary to believe that this man, whoever is Roman Pontiff, is head of any particular holy Church, unless God has predestined him.

12. No one bears the place of Christ or Peter unless he follows him in morals, since no other following is more pertinent, nor otherwise does he receive from God procuratorial power; because for that office of vicarship both conformity of morals and the authority of the institutor are required.

13. The Pope is not the true and manifest successor of Peter, prince of the apostles, if he lives with morals contrary to Peter; and if he seeks avarice, then he is the vicar of Judas Iscariot. And with equal evidence the Cardinals are not true and manifest successors of the College of the other apostles of Christ, unless they have lived according to the custom of the apostles, observing the commands and counsels of our Lord Jesus Christ.

14. Doctors holding that someone to be amended by ecclesiastical censure, if he is unwilling to be corrected, must be handed over to secular judgment, certainly follow in this the Pontiffs, scribes, and Pharisees, who handed Christ, unwilling to obey them in all things, over to secular judgment, saying, "It is not lawful for us to kill anyone"; and that such persons are murderers more grave than Pilate.

15. Ecclesiastical obedience is obedience according to the invention of the priests of the Church, beyond the express authority of Scripture.

16. The immediate division of human works is that they are either virtuous or vicious; because if a man is vicious and does anything, then he acts viciously; and if he is virtuous and does anything, then he acts virtuously; because just as vice, which is called a crime or mortal sin, universally infects the acts of a vicious man, so virtue vivifies all the acts of a virtuous man.

17. Priests of Christ living according to His law, and having knowledge of Scripture and affection for building up the people, ought to preach notwithstanding a pretended excommunication. But if the Pope or some Prelate commands a priest so disposed not to preach, the subject ought not to obey.

18. Each one receives the office of preaching by command, who accedes to the Priesthood; and that command he ought to execute, notwithstanding a pretended excommunication.

19. By ecclesiastical censures of excommunication, suspension, and interdict, for its own exaltation the clergy subjects the lay people to itself, protects avarice, and prepares the way for Antichrist. Moreover, an evident sign that such censures proceed from Antichrist is that they call them in their processes fulminations, by which the clergy proceeds most chiefly against those who lay bare the wickedness of Antichrist, who will usurp the clergy most greatly for himself.

20. If the Pope is evil, and especially if he is foreknown, then, like Judas the apostle, he is of the devil, a thief, and a son of perdition, and is not the head of the holy militant Church, since he is not even a member of it.

21. The grace of predestination is the bond by which the body of the Church and any member of it is joined indissolubly to Christ the head.

22. An evil and foreknown Pope or Prelate is equivocally a pastor, and truly a thief and robber.

23. The Pope ought not to be called most holy, even according to office; because otherwise the king also ought to be called most holy according to office, and torturers and heralds would be called holy; indeed even the devil ought to be called holy, since he is an officer of God.

24. If the Pope lives contrary to Christ, even if he ascended by a right and legitimate election according to the vulgar human constitution, nevertheless he would ascend from elsewhere than through Christ, even granted that he entered by an election principally made by God; for Judas Iscariot was rightly and legitimately elected by God Christ Jesus to the episcopate, and nevertheless he ascended elsewhere to the sheepfold of the sheep.

25. The condemnation of the 45 articles of John Wicliffe, made by the doctors, is irrational and unjust and badly made; the cause alleged by them is fictitious, namely from this, that none of them is Catholic, but each of them either is heretical, or erroneous, or scandalous.

26. Not by that very fact that the electors, or the greater part of them, have consented by living voice according to the rites of men into some person, by that very fact is that person legitimately elected, or by that very fact is he the true and manifest successor or vicar of Peter the apostle or of another apostle in ecclesiastical office; whence, whether the electors have elected well or badly, we ought to believe the works of the one elected; for by that very fact by which someone works more abundantly and meritoriously for the advancement of the Church, he has from God more abundant faculty for this.

27. There is not a spark of appearance that there must be one head in spiritual matters ruling the Church, which always converses and is preserved with the militant Church itself.

28. Christ without such monstrous heads would better rule His Church through His true disciples scattered throughout the whole world.

29. The apostles and faithful priests of the Lord strenuously ruled the Church in things necessary for salvation before the office of Pope had been introduced; so they would do, with the Pope lacking by highest possibility, even until the day of judgment.

30. No one is a civil lord, no one is a Prelate, no one is a Bishop, while he is in mortal sin.

NUM. III.

The 9 propositions of Master Peter of Osma, condemned in the Congregation of Complutum, and then by Sixtus IV, in the year 1479.

1. Mortal sins, as to the guilt and punishment of the other age, are blotted out by contrition of heart alone without order to the keys.

2. Confession of sins in species was useful to the Church by some statute, not by divine law.

3. Depraved thoughts ought not to be confessed, but are blotted out by displeasure alone without order to the keys.

4. Confession ought to be secret, that is, of secret sins, not of manifest ones.

5. Penitents are not to be absolved unless the penance enjoined upon them has first been completed.

6. The Pope cannot indulge for any man the punishment of purgatory.

7. The Church of the city of Rome can err.

8. The Pope cannot dispense in the statutes of the universal Church.

9. The Sacrament of Penance, as to the conferral of sacramental grace, is of nature, not of any institution of the Old or New Testament.

Condemned as scandalous and heretical.

NUM. IV.

The 41 errors of Martin Luther, condemned by Leo X, by the bull Exurge Domine, etc., 16 May 1520.

1. It is a heretical opinion, but usual, that the sacraments of the new law give justifying grace to those who do not place an obstacle.

2. To deny that remaining sin is in a child after baptism is to trample Paul and Christ at once.

3. The tinder of sin, even if no actual sin is present, delays the soul departing from the body from entrance into heaven.

4. The imperfect charity of one dying necessarily brings with itself great fear, which by itself alone is enough to make the punishment of purgatory, and impedes entrance into the kingdom.

5. That there are three parts of Penance, contrition, confession, and satisfaction, is founded neither in sacred Scripture nor in the ancient holy Christian doctors.

6. Contrition which is prepared by discussion, collation, and detestation of sins, by which someone reviews his years in the bitterness of his soul, weighing the gravity and multitude of sins, the loss of eternal beatitude, and the acquisition of eternal damnation, this contrition makes a hypocrite, indeed rather a sinner.

7. Most true is the proverb, and more excellent than all doctrine about contritions given up to this point: to do no more thereafter is the highest penance; the best penance is a new life.

8. In no way presume to confess venial sins, nor even all mortal sins, because it is impossible that you know all mortal sins. Whence the primitive Church confessed only manifest mortal sins.

9. While we wish to confess all things purely, we do nothing else than that we wish to leave nothing to the mercy of God to be forgiven.

10. Sins are remitted to no one unless, when the priest remits, he believes them to be remitted to himself; indeed the sin would remain unless he believed it remitted. For the remission of sin and the gift of grace is not sufficient, but it is also necessary to believe that it has been remitted.

11. In no way trust that you are absolved on account of your contrition, but on account of the word of Christ, "Whatever you shall loose," etc. (Matt. XVI). Hence, I say, trust, if you have obtained the absolution of the priest, and firmly believe yourself absolved, and you will truly be absolved, whatever may be the case concerning contrition.

12. If, per impossibile, one confessed were not contrite, or the priest absolved not seriously but in jest; if nevertheless he believes himself absolved, he is most truly absolved.

13. In the sacrament of Penance and the remission of guilt the Pope or Bishop does no more than the lowest priest; indeed, where there is no priest, any Christian does just as much, even if it were a woman or a child.

14. No one ought to answer the priest that he is contrite, nor should the priest ask it.

15. Great is the error of those who approach the sacrament of the Eucharist relying on this, that they have confessed, that they are not conscious to themselves of any mortal sin, that they have sent ahead their prayers and preparations: all those eat and drink judgment to themselves. But if they believe and trust that they will obtain grace there, this faith alone makes them pure and worthy.

16. It seems advisable that the Church in a general Council should decree that laymen are to communicate under both species; nor are the Bohemians communicating under both species heretics, but schismatics.

17. The treasures of the Church, whence the Pope gives indulgences, are not the merits of Christ and the saints.

18. Indulgences are pious frauds of the faithful, and remissions of good works; and they are of the number of those things which are licit, and not of the number of those things which are expedient.

19. Indulgences, for those who truly obtain them, do not avail for the remission of punishment owed for actual sins before divine justice.

20. Those believing indulgences to be salutary and useful for the fruits of the spirit are seduced.

21. Indulgences are necessary only for public crimes, and are properly granted only to the hard and impatient.

22. For six kinds of men indulgences are neither necessary nor useful: namely, for the dead or dying, the sick, the legitimately impeded, those who have not committed crimes, those who have committed crimes but not public ones, those who do better things.

23. Excommunications are only external punishments, nor do they deprive a man of the common spiritual prayers of the Church.

24. Christians are to be taught to love excommunication more than to fear it.

25. The Roman Pontiff, successor of Peter, is not the vicar of Christ over all the Churches of the whole world instituted by Christ Himself in blessed Peter.

26. The word of Christ to Peter: "Whatever you shall loose upon earth," etc. (Matt. XVI), is extended only to things bound by Peter himself.

27. It is certain that it is absolutely not in the hand of the Church or Pope to establish articles of Faith, indeed not even laws of morals or of good works.

28. If the Pope with a great part of the Church thought thus or thus, and also did not err, still it is not a sin or heresy to think the contrary, especially in a matter not necessary for salvation, until by a universal Council the one shall have been rejected and the other approved.

29. A way has been made for us of enervating the authority of Councils, and of freely contradicting their acts, and of judging their decrees, and confidently confessing whatever seems true, whether it has been approved or rejected by any Council.

30. Some articles of John Hus condemned in the Council of Constance are most Christian, most true, and evangelical, which not even the universal Church could condemn.

31. In every good work the just man sins.

32. A good work done in the best way is venial sin.

33. That heretics are burned is against the will of the Spirit.

34. To fight against the Turks is to resist God visiting our iniquities through them.

35. No one is certain that he is not always sinning mortally, because of the most hidden vice of pride.

36. Free will after sin is a thing of title only; and while it does what is in itself, it sins mortally.

37. Purgatory cannot be proved from sacred Scripture which is in the canon.

38. The souls in purgatory are not secure concerning their salvation, at least all of them; nor has it been proved by any reasons or Scriptures that they are outside the state of meriting or of increasing charity.

39. The souls in purgatory sin without intermission, as long as they seek rest and shudder at punishments.

40. Souls liberated from purgatory by the suffrages of the living are less blessed than if they had satisfied by themselves.

41. Ecclesiastical prelates and secular princes would not do badly if they destroyed all sacks of mendicancy.

NUM. V.

The 79 propositions of Michael Baius, condemned by St. Pius V, by the bull Ex omnibus afflictionibus, etc., 1 Oct. 1567; also by Gregory XIII, by the bull Provisionis nostrae, etc., 29 Jan. 1579; and by Urban VIII, by the bull In eminenti, etc., 6 Mar. 1644.

1. Neither the merits of the angels nor of the first man while still whole are rightly called grace.

2. Just as an evil work from its own nature is meritorious of eternal death, so a good work from its own nature is meritorious of eternal life.

3. Both for the good angels and for the first man, if he had persevered in that state until the end of life, happiness would have been a reward, and not grace.

4. Eternal life was promised to man whole and to the angel in view of good works, and good works from the law of nature suffice of themselves for attaining it.

5. In the promise made to the angel and to the first man is contained the constitution of natural justice, by which, for good works without another respect, eternal life is promised to the just.

6. By natural law it was constituted for man that, if he persevered in obedience, he would pass over to that life in which he could not die.

7. The merits of the first man whole were gifts of the first creation; but according to the manner of speaking of sacred Scripture they are not rightly called grace; whence it comes about that they ought to be named only merits, not also grace.

8. In those redeemed through the grace of Christ, no good merit can be found which is conferred freely upon the unworthy.

9. The gifts granted to man whole and to the angel perhaps, by a reason not to be disapproved, can be called grace; but because, according to the usage of sacred Scripture, by the name of grace those gifts only are understood which are conferred through Jesus Christ upon those meriting badly and unworthy, therefore neither the merits nor the reward which is rendered to them ought to be called grace.

10. The payment of temporal punishment, which often remains after sin has been dismissed, and the resurrection of the body are properly to be ascribed only to the merits of Christ.

11. That, having lived piously and justly in this mortal life even to the end of life, we obtain eternal life, this is to be imputed properly not to the grace of God, but to the natural ordination constituted immediately at the beginning of creation by the just judgment of God; nor in this retribution of goods is regard had to the merit of Christ, but only to the first institution of the human race, in which it was constituted by natural law that, by the just judgment of God, eternal life should be rendered to the obedience of the commandments.

12. It is the opinion of Pelagius: a good work, done short of the grace of adoption, is not meritorious of the heavenly kingdom.

13. Good works done by the sons of adoption do not receive the character of merit from this, that they are done through the spirit of adoption inhabiting the hearts of the sons of God, but only from this, that they are conformable to the law, and that by them obedience to the law is rendered.

14. The good works of the just will not receive on the day of the last judgment a greater reward than by the just judgment of God they deserve to receive.

15. The character of merit does not consist in this, that he who works well has grace and the indwelling Holy Spirit, but only in this, that he obeys the divine law.

16. That is not true obedience of the law which is done without charity.

17. They think with Pelagius who say that it is necessary for the character of merit that man be raised by the grace of adoption to a deific state.

18. The works of catechumens, such as Faith and Penance done before the remission of sins, are merits of eternal life; which life they themselves will not obtain unless the impediments of preceding offenses are first removed.

19. The works of justice and temperance which Christ did did not draw greater value from the dignity of the person working.

20. No sin from its own nature is venial, but every sin merits eternal punishment.

21. The sublimation and exaltation of human nature into fellowship with the divine nature was owed to the integrity of the first condition, and therefore is to be called natural, and not supernatural.

22. They think with Pelagius who understand the text of the Apostle to the Romans II, "The Gentiles who do not have the law, naturally do the things that are of the law," of Gentiles not having the grace of Faith.

23. Absurd is the opinion of those who say that man from the beginning, by some supernatural and gratuitous gift, was exalted above the condition of his nature, that by Faith, Hope, and Charity he might worship God supernaturally.

24. By vain and idle men, according to the foolishness of philosophers, the opinion was devised, which is to be rejected unto Pelagianism, that man from the beginning was so constituted that through gifts added over and above nature he was sublimated by the largess of the Creator and adopted as a son of God.

25. All works of unbelievers are sins, and the virtues of philosophers are vices.

26. The integrity of the first creation was not an undue exaltation of human nature, but its natural condition.

27. Free will, without the help of the grace of God, avails only for sinning.

28. It is a Pelagian error to say that free will avails for avoiding any sin.

29. Not only are they thieves and robbers who deny Christ, the way and door of truth and life, but also whoever teach that one can ascend into the way of justice, that is, any justice, from elsewhere than through Him.

30. Or that man can resist any temptation without the help of His grace, so that he is not led into it or overcome by it.

31. Perfect and sincere charity, which is from a pure heart and good conscience and unfeigned faith, can be in catechumens as well as in penitents without the remission of sins.

32. That charity which is the fullness of the law is not always joined with the remission of sins.

33. A catechumen lives justly, rightly, and holily, and observes the commandments of God, and fulfills the law through Charity, before the remission of sins has been obtained, which is at last received in the washing of Baptism.

34. That distinction of a double love, namely the natural by which God is loved as author of nature, and the gratuitous by which God is loved as beatifier, is vain and fictitious, and devised for mocking the sacred Letters and very many testimonies of the ancients.

35. Everything which a sinner, or servant of sin, does is sin.

36. Natural love, which arises from the powers of nature, is defended by some doctors from philosophy alone, through the elation of human presumption with injury to the cross of Christ.

37. He thinks with Pelagius who acknowledges anything of natural good, that is, which takes its rise from the powers of nature alone.

38. Every love of a rational creature is either vicious cupidity by which the world is loved, which is prohibited by John, or that praiseworthy charity by which, through the Holy Spirit poured forth in the heart, God is loved.

39. What is done voluntarily, even if it is done necessarily, nevertheless is done freely.

40. In all his acts the sinner serves dominant cupidity.

41. That mode of liberty which is from necessity is not found in the Scriptures under the name of liberty, but only the name of liberty from sin.

42. The justice by which the impious is justified through Faith consists formally in obedience to the commandments, which is justice of works; but not in some grace infused into the soul, by which man is adopted as a son of God and renewed according to the interior man and made a sharer of the divine nature, so that, thus renewed through the Holy Spirit, he can thereafter live well and obey the commandments of God.

43. In penitent men before the Sacrament of absolution, and in catechumens before Baptism, there is true justification, yet separated from the remission of sins.

44. By most works which are done by the faithful only that they may obey the commands of God, of which kind are obeying parents, returning a deposit, abstaining from homicide, from theft, from fornication, men are indeed justified, because they are obedience of the law and true justice of the law; nevertheless by these they do not obtain increments of virtues.

45. The Sacrifice of the Mass is not a sacrifice for any other reason than that general one by which every work is done so that man may adhere to God in holy society.

46. The voluntary does not pertain to the character of sin, nor is it a question of definition, but of cause and origin, whether every sin ought to be voluntary.

47. Whence original sin truly has the character of sin without any relation and respect to the will from which it had its origin.

48. Original sin is voluntary by the habitual will of the little child, and habitually dominates the little child, because he does not bear the contrary judgment of the will.

49. And from the dominating habitual will it comes about that a little child dying without the Sacrament of regeneration, when he shall have attained the use of reason, actually hates God, blasphemes God, and resists the law of God.

50. Depraved desires to which reason does not consent, and which man suffers unwillingly, are prohibited by the precept, "You shall not covet."

51. Concupiscence, or the law of the members, and its depraved desires, which men feel unwillingly, are true disobedience of the law.

52. Every crime is of that condition that it can infect its author and all posterity in that way in which the first transgression infected.

53. As much as is from the force of transgression, those who are born with lesser vices contract as much of evil merits from the generator as those who are born with greater ones.

54. This definitive opinion, that God has commanded nothing impossible to man, is falsely attributed to Augustine, since it is Pelagius's.

55. God could not from the beginning have created such a man as now is born.

56. In sin there are two things, act and guilt; but when the act passes, nothing remains except guilt or obligation to punishment.

57. Whence in the sacrament of Baptism or the absolution of the priest, properly only the guilt of sin is taken away, and the ministry of priests only liberates from guilt.

58. The penitent sinner is not vivified by the ministry of the absolving priest, but by God alone, who, suggesting and inspiring penance, vivifies and resuscitates him; by the ministry of the priest, however, only guilt is taken away.

59. When through alms and other works of penance we satisfy God for temporal punishments, we do not offer God a worthy price for our sins, as certain erring persons suppose (for otherwise we would be, at least in some part, redeemers); but we do something, in view of which the satisfaction of Christ is applied to us and communicated.

60. Through the sufferings of the Saints communicated in indulgences, our offenses are not properly redeemed; but through the communion of charity their sufferings are imparted to us, so that we may be worthy to be freed by the price of the Blood of Christ from the punishments owed for sins.

61. That distinction of doctors, that the commands of the divine law are fulfilled in two ways, in one way as to the substance of the works commanded only, in another way as to a certain definite mode, namely according to which they may be able to lead the one working to the eternal kingdom (that is, to the meritorious mode), is fictitious and to be exploded.

62. That distinction also, by which a work is said to be good in two ways, either because from the object and all circumstances it is right and good (which they have been accustomed to call morally good), or because it is meritorious of the eternal kingdom because it is from a living member of Christ through the spirit of charity, is to be rejected.

63. But also that distinction of a double justice, one which is done through the indwelling spirit of charity, the other which is done indeed from the inspiration of the Holy Spirit exciting the heart to penance, but not yet inhabiting the heart and pouring forth charity in it, by which the justification of the divine law may be fulfilled, is similarly rejected.

64. Likewise also that distinction of a double vivification, one by which the sinner is vivified while the purpose and beginning of penance and new life is inspired in him through the grace of God, the other by which he is vivified who is truly justified and becomes a living branch on the vine, Christ, is equally fictitious and by no means congruent with the Scriptures.

65. Not except by Pelagian error can any good, or non-evil, use of free will be admitted; and he who so thinks and teaches does injury to the grace of Christ.

66. Violence alone is opposed to the natural liberty of man.

67. Man sins, even damnably, in that which he does necessarily.

68. Purely negative unbelief, in those to whom Christ has not been preached, is sin.

69. The justification of the impious is done formally through obedience of the law, not through the hidden communication and inspiration of grace, which through it makes the justified fulfill the law.

70. A man existing in mortal sin, or in guilt of eternal damnation, can have true charity; and even perfect charity can stand together with guilt of eternal damnation.

71. Through contrition, even when joined with perfect charity and with the vow of receiving the Sacrament, crime is not remitted, outside the case of necessity or martyrdom, without actual reception of the Sacrament.

72. Absolutely all afflictions of the just are punishments of their sins; whence also Job and the martyrs suffered the things which they suffered because of their sins.

73. No one, except Christ, is without original sin; hence the blessed Virgin died because of sin contracted from Adam, and all her afflictions in this life, just as those of the other just, were punishments of actual or original sin.

74. Concupiscence in the reborn who have relapsed into mortal sin, in whom it now dominates, is sin, just as also the other depraved habits.

75. The depraved motions of concupiscence are, for the state of vitiated man, prohibited by the precept, "You shall not covet"; whence the man feeling them, and not consenting, transgresses the precept, "You shall not covet"; although the transgression is not imputed unto sin.

76. As long as something of carnal concupiscence is in the one loving, he does not fulfill the precept, "You shall love the Lord your God from your whole heart."

77. The laborious satisfactions of the justified do not avail to expiate de condigno the temporal punishment remaining after guilt has been pardoned.

78. The immortality of the first man was not a benefit of grace, but a natural condition.

79. False is the opinion of doctors that the first man could have been created and instituted by God without natural justice.

NUM. VI.

The proposition by which the equality of Saints Peter and Paul is asserted, condemned by Innocent X, by decree of the general Congregation of the holy Roman and universal Inquisition, Editus est, etc., 29 Jan. 1647.

The Most Holy One, after the unanimous censure of the theologians specially deputed for this had been reported, and after the votes of the most eminent and most reverend Lord Cardinals General Inquisitors had been heard, judged and declared heretical this proposition: "St. Peter and St. Paul are two princes of the Church who make one, or are two chiefs and supreme leaders of the Catholic Church joined among themselves by highest unity, or are the twin summit of the universal Church which have most divinely coalesced into one, or are two supreme pastors and presidents of the Church who constitute one head," explained in such a way that it posits equality in every respect between St. Peter and St. Paul without subordination and subjection of St. Paul to St. Peter in the supreme power and governance of the universal Church.

NUM. VII.

The 5 propositions of Cornelius Jansen, excerpted from his book whose title is Augustinus, condemned by Innocent X, by the constitution Cum occasione, etc., 31 May 1653, and also by Alexander VII, by the constitution Ad sanctam B. Petri Sedem, etc., 16 Oct. 1665, then by the constitution Regiminis apostolici, etc., 15 Feb. 1664, in which he published a formulary, finally by Clement XI, by the constitution Vineam Domini sabaoth, etc., 16 July 1705.

1. Some precepts of God are impossible for just men willing and trying, according to the present powers which they have; the grace by which they may become possible is also lacking to them. Declared and condemned as rash, impious, blasphemous, to be condemned by anathema, and heretical.

2. Interior grace in the state of fallen nature is never resisted. Declared and condemned as heretical.

3. For meriting and demeriting in the state of fallen nature, liberty from necessity is not required in man, but liberty from coercion suffices. Declared and condemned as heretical.

4. The Semipelagians admitted the necessity of prevenient interior grace for individual acts, even for the beginning of Faith; and in this they were heretics, that they wanted that grace to be such that the human will could resist it or obey it. Declared and condemned as false and heretical.

5. It is Semipelagian to say that Christ died or shed His blood for absolutely all men. Declared and condemned as false, rash, scandalous, and (understood in that sense, that Christ died only for the salvation of the predestined) impious, blasphemous, insulting, derogating from divine piety, and heretical.

Formulary of Alexander VII.

"I, N., submit myself to the apostolic constitution of Innocent X, given on the day 31 May 1653, and to the constitution of Alexander VII, given on the day 16 October 1665, the Supreme Pontiffs, and the five propositions excerpted from the book of Cornelius Jansen, whose name is Augustinus, and in the sense intended by the same author, just as the apostolic See condemned them through the said constitutions, I with sincere mind reject and condemn, and so I swear. So may God help me, and these holy Gospels of God."

NUM. VIII. The 45 propositions condemned by Alexander VII by decrees of the general Congregation of the holy Roman and universal Inquisition, Sanctissimus Dominus noster, etc., 24 Sept. 1665, and 18 Mar. 1666.

Thursday, the 24th day of September in the year 1665.

Our Most Holy Lord heard, not without great sorrow of his soul, that several opinions, relaxing Christian discipline and bringing destruction upon souls, partly antiquated opinions being stirred up again, partly newly appearing, and that highest license of wanton minds was increasing more day by day, through which, in matters pertaining to conscience, a mode of opining had crept in wholly alien from evangelical simplicity and the doctrine of the holy Fathers; and if the faithful should follow it in practice as a right rule, an immense corruption of Christian life would creep in. Wherefore, lest at any time the way of salvation, which the supreme truth, God, whose words remain forever, defined to be narrow, should happen to be widened, or more truly perverted, unto the destruction of souls, the same Most Holy Lord, that, by pastoral solicitude, he might call the sheep entrusted to him from such a spacious and broad way, by which one goes to perdition, back into the right path, ordered the examination of the same opinions, etc.

1. A man at no time of his life is bound to elicit an act of Faith, Hope, and Charity by force of the divine precepts pertaining to those virtues.

2. A knightly man challenged to a duel can accept it, lest he incur the mark of timidity among others.

3. The opinion asserting that the bull Coenae only prohibits absolution of heresy and of other crimes when they are public, and that this does not derogate from the faculty of Trent, in which there is speech of hidden crimes, was seen and tolerated in the year 1629, 18 July, in the Consistory of the sacred Congregation of the most eminent Cardinals.

4. Regular prelates can in the forum of conscience absolve any seculars whatever from hidden heresy, and from excommunication incurred on account of it.

5. Although it is evident to you that Peter is a heretic, you are not bound to denounce him if you cannot prove it.

6. A confessor who in sacramental Confession gives to the penitent a paper to be read afterward, in which he incites to venery, is not judged to solicit in Confession, and therefore is not to be denounced.

7. The way of avoiding the obligation of denouncing solicitation is if the solicited person confesses with the solicitor; the latter can absolve him without the burden of denouncing.

8. A priest can licitly accept a double stipend for the same Mass, by applying to the petitioner even the most special part of the fruit corresponding to the celebrant himself, and this after the decree of Urban VIII.

9. After the decree of Urban, a priest to whom Masses to be celebrated are handed over can satisfy through another, with that lesser stipend conferred, another part of the stipend being retained for himself.

10. It is not against justice to accept a stipend for several Sacrifices and to offer one Sacrifice. Nor is it against fidelity, even if I promise, by a promise even confirmed by oath, to the one giving the stipend, that I will offer for no one else.

11. Sins omitted or forgotten in Confession because of imminent danger of life or because of another cause, we are not bound to express in a following Confession.

12. Mendicants can absolve from cases reserved to Bishops, without the faculty of the Bishops having been obtained for this.

13. He satisfies the precept of annual Confession who confesses to a regular presented to the Bishop, but unjustly rejected by him.

14. He who makes a voluntarily null Confession satisfies the precept of the Church.

15. A penitent by his own authority can substitute another for himself, who in his place may fulfill the penance.

16. Those who have a benefice with cure can choose for themselves as confessor a simple priest not approved by the Ordinary.

17. It is licit for a religious or cleric to kill a calumniator threatening to spread grave crimes about him or about his religion, when another mode of defending does not present itself; as it does not seem to present itself if the calumniator is prepared publicly and before very grave men to impute the aforesaid things either to the religious himself or to his religion, unless he is killed.

18. It is licit to kill a false accuser, false witnesses, and even a judge from whom an unjust sentence certainly threatens, if by another way the innocent person cannot avoid harm.

19. A husband killing by his own authority a wife caught in adultery does not sin.

20. Restitution imposed by Pius V upon beneficiaries not reciting is not owed in conscience before the declaratory sentence of the judge, because it is a penalty.

21. One having a collative chaplaincy or any other ecclesiastical benefice, if he is occupied with the study of letters, satisfies his obligation if he recites the Office through another.

22. It is not against justice not to confer ecclesiastical benefices gratis; because the collator conferring those ecclesiastical benefices, with money intervening, does not exact it for the conferral of the benefice, but as it were for a temporal emolument which he was not bound to confer upon you.

23. One breaking the fast of the Church, to which he is bound, does not sin mortally, unless he does this from contempt or disobedience, for instance because he does not wish to subject himself to the precept.

24. Mollities, sodomy, and bestiality are sins of the same lowest species; and therefore it is sufficient to say in Confession that one has procured pollution.

25. He who has had intercourse with an unmarried woman satisfies the precept of Confession by saying, "I committed with an unmarried woman a grave sin against chastity," without explaining intercourse.

26. When litigants have for themselves equally probable opinions, the judge can accept money for bringing sentence in favor of one rather than the other.

27. If a book is by some younger and modern author, the opinion ought to be judged probable, provided it is not established that it has been rejected by the apostolic See as improbable.

28. The people do not sin, even if without any cause they do not receive a law promulgated by the prince.

Thursday, the 18th day of March in the year 1666.

Propos. 29. On a day of fasting, he who rather often eats a small something does not break the fast.

30. All officials who labor bodily in the republic are excused from the obligation of fasting, nor ought they to make themselves certain whether the labor is compatible with fasting.

31. Absolutely all those who make a journey by riding are excused from the precept of fasting, however they make the journey, even if the journey is not necessary, and even if they complete a journey of one day.

32. It is not evident that the custom of not eating eggs and milk-foods in Lent obliges.

33. Restitution of fruits on account of omission of the Hours can be supplied through any alms whatever which the beneficiary had previously made from the fruits of his benefice.

34. On Palm Sunday, one reciting the Paschal Office satisfies the precept.

35. By one Office someone can satisfy a double precept for the present day and the morrow.

36. Regulars can in the forum of conscience use their privileges which have been expressly revoked by the Council of Trent.

37. Indulgences granted to Regulars, and revoked by Paul V, are today revalidated.

38. The mandate of Trent made to a priest, sacrificing from necessity with mortal sin, to confess as soon as possible, is a counsel, not a precept.

39. That particle "as soon as possible" is understood when the priest will confess in his own time.

40. The opinion is probable which says that a kiss had for carnal and sensible delight which arises from the kiss is only venial, with the danger of further consent and pollution excluded.

41. A concubinary is not to be obligated to cast out the concubine if she would be too useful for the delight of the concubinary, commonly regalo, while, with her lacking, he would conduct life too painfully, and other dishes would affect the concubinary with great disgust, and another maidservant would be found too difficultly.

42. It is licit for one lending to exact something beyond the principal, if he obliges himself not to ask back the principal until a certain time.

43. An annual legacy left for the soul does not last more than for ten years.

44. As to the forum of conscience, when the defendant has been corrected and his contumacy ceases, the censures cease.

45. Prohibited books, until they are expurgated, can be retained until, diligence having been applied, they are corrected.

All condemned and prohibited, at minimum, as scandalous.

NUM. IX.

The 65 propositions condemned by Innocent XI, by decree of the general Congregation of the holy Roman and universal Inquisition, Sanctissimus Dominus noster, etc., 2 Mar. 1679.

Thursday, the 2nd day of March 1679.

1. It is not illicit in conferring sacraments to follow a probable opinion concerning the validity of the sacrament, the safer one being left aside, unless law, agreement, or danger of incurring grave harm forbids it. Hence an opinion only probable is not to be used in the conferral of Baptism, of priestly Order, or episcopal Order.

2. I think it probable that a judge can judge according to an opinion even less probable.

3. Generally, while trusting in probability, whether intrinsic or extrinsic, however slight, provided one does not go outside the limits of probability, we do something, we always act prudently.

4. The unbeliever will be excused from unbelief, not believing, led by a less probable opinion.

5. Whether he sins mortally who would elicit an act of love of God only once in life, we do not dare to condemn.

6. It is probable that the precept of charity toward God does not oblige of itself even in individual rigorously taken five-year periods.

7. It obliges only then when we are bound to be justified, and we do not have another way by which we can be justified.

8. To eat and drink even to satiety for pleasure alone is not sin, provided it does not harm health, because natural appetite can licitly enjoy its acts.

9. The work of marriage exercised for pleasure alone is altogether without any fault or venial defect.

10. We are not bound to love our neighbor by an internal and formal act.

11. We can satisfy the precept of loving our neighbor by external acts alone.

12. You will scarcely find among secular persons, even among kings, anything superfluous to state. And thus scarcely anyone is bound to alms, when he is bound only from what is superfluous to state.

13. If you do it with due moderation, you can without mortal sin be saddened concerning the life of someone, and rejoice concerning his natural death, seek and desire it by an inefficacious affection, not indeed from displeasure with the person, but on account of some temporal emolument.

14. It is licit by an absolute desire to wish for the death of one's father, not indeed as an evil of the father, but as a good of the one wishing, because namely a rich inheritance is going to come to him.

15. It is licit for a son to rejoice over the parricide of his parent perpetrated by himself in drunkenness, on account of the immense riches thereafter obtained from the inheritance.

16. Faith is not judged to fall under a special precept and by itself.

17. It is enough to elicit an act of Faith once in life.

18. If someone is questioned by public power, to confess the Faith frankly, as glorious to God and the Faith, I counsel; to be silent, as sinful in itself, I do not condemn.

19. The will cannot bring it about that the assent of Faith in itself be firmer than the weight of reasons impelling to assent deserves.

20. Hence someone can prudently repudiate the assent which he had supernatural.

21. The assent of supernatural Faith and useful for salvation stands together with only probable knowledge of revelation, indeed with fear by which someone fears that God has not spoken.

22. Only Faith in one God seems necessary by necessity of means, but not explicit Faith in the Rewarder.

23. Faith broadly so called, from the testimony of creatures or a similar motive, suffices for justification.

24. To call God as witness of a light lie is not such great irreverence on account of which He would wish or be able to damn a man.

25. With cause it is licit to swear without the intention of swearing, whether the matter is light or grave.

26. If someone, either alone or before others, whether questioned or of his own accord, whether for the sake of recreation or for any other end, swears that he has not done something which in reality he has done, understanding within himself something else which he has not done, or another way than that in which he did it, or any other true addition, in reality he does not lie nor is he perjured.

27. A just cause of using these amphibologies is whenever it is necessary or useful for preserving the health of the body, honor, family goods, or for any other act of virtue, so that concealment of the truth is then judged expedient and studious.

28. He who, by means of recommendation or gift, has been promoted to a magistracy or public office, will be able with mental restriction to take the oath which by mandate of the king is customarily exacted from such persons, without having regard to the intention of the one exacting it, because he is not bound to confess a hidden crime.

29. Urgent grave fear is a just cause for simulating the administration of sacraments.

30. It is right for an honored man to kill an attacker who strives to bring calumny upon him, if otherwise this disgrace cannot be avoided; the same also must be said if someone strikes a slap, or beats with a staff, and after the inflicted slap or blow of the staff flees.

31. Regularly I can kill a thief for the preservation of one gold coin.

32. It is licit to defend by killing defense not only the things which we actually possess, but also those to which we have an inchoate right, and which we hope we will possess.

33. It is licit both for an heir and for a legatee to defend himself in such a way against one unjustly impeding either that the inheritance be entered upon or that the legacies be paid; just as also for one having a right to a chair or prebend against one unjustly impeding possession of them.

34. It is licit to procure abortion before the animation of the fetus, lest a girl detected as pregnant be killed or defamed.

35. It seems probable that every fetus, as long as it is in the womb, lacks a rational soul, and then first begins to have the same when it is brought forth; and consequently it will have to be said that in no abortion is homicide committed.

36. It is permitted to steal not only in extreme necessity, but also in grave necessity.

37. Domestic male servants and female servants can secretly take from their masters to compensate their work, which they judge greater than the wage which they receive.

38. Someone is not bound under penalty of mortal sin to restore what has been taken away by a few thefts, however great the total sum may be.

39. He who moves or induces another to inflict grave harm on a third party is not bound to restitution of that inflicted harm.

40. A mohatra contract is licit, even with respect to the same person, and with a contract of resale previously entered into with the intention of gain.

41. Since money counted out is more precious than money to be counted, and there is no one who does not value present money more than future money, a creditor can exact something beyond the principal from the borrower, and by that title be excused from usury.

42. It is not usury when something beyond the principal is exacted as owed from benevolence and gratitude, but only if it is exacted as owed from justice.

43. Why would it not be only venial to strike down, by a false crime, the great authority of one detracting, harmful to oneself?

44. It is probable that he does not sin mortally who imposes a false crime on someone in order to defend his justice and honor. And if this is not probable, scarcely any opinion will be probable in theology.

45. To give a temporal thing for a spiritual thing is not simony when the temporal thing is not given as a price, but only as a motive for conferring or effecting the spiritual thing, or even when the temporal thing is only a gratuitous compensation for the spiritual, or conversely.

46. And this also has place even if the temporal thing is the principal motive of giving the spiritual thing, indeed even if it is the end of the spiritual thing itself, so that it is esteemed more highly than the spiritual thing.

47. When the Council of Trent said that those communicating in the sins of others sin mortally, who promote to churches any except those whom they themselves shall have judged more worthy and more useful to the Church, the Council seems either, first, by this to wish to signify by "more worthy" nothing other than the worthiness of those to be chosen, the comparative being taken for the positive; or, secondly, by a less proper locution it places "more worthy" so as to exclude the unworthy, but not the worthy; or finally, thirdly, it speaks when there is a competition.

48. It seems so clear that fornication according to itself involves no malice, and is evil only because it is forbidden, that the contrary seems altogether discordant with reason.

49. Mollities is not prohibited by natural law. Whence, if God had not forbidden it, it would often be good, and sometimes obligatory under mortal sin.

50. Intercourse with a married woman, with the husband consenting, is not adultery; and therefore it is sufficient in Confession to say that one has fornicated.

51. A servant who, with shoulders placed beneath, knowingly helps his master climb through windows to deflower a virgin, and many times serves the same by carrying a ladder, opening a door, or cooperating in something similar, does not sin mortally if he does this from fear of notable detriment, for instance lest he be treated badly by his master, lest he be looked at with grim eyes, lest he be expelled from the house.

52. The precept of keeping feast days does not oblige under mortal sin, scandal being set aside, if contempt is absent.

53. He satisfies the precept of the Church concerning hearing Mass who hears two of its parts, indeed four, at the same time from different celebrants.

54. He who cannot recite Matins and Lauds, but can recite the remaining Hours, is bound to nothing, because the greater part draws the lesser to itself.

55. The precept of annual Communion is satisfied by a sacrilegious eating of the Lord.

56. Frequent Confession and Communion, even in those who live like the Gentiles, is a sign of predestination.

57. It is probable that natural attrition suffices, provided it is honorable.

58. We are not bound to confess to the Confessor asking the custom of any sin.

59. It is licit sacramentally to absolve those only half confessed, by reason of a great concourse of penitents, such as, for example, can happen on the day of some great festivity or indulgence.

60. To a penitent having a custom of sinning against the law of God, of nature, or of the Church, even if no hope of amendment appears, absolution is neither to be denied nor deferred, provided he says with his mouth that he is sorry and proposes amendment.

61. Sometimes one can be absolved who is situated in a proximate occasion of sinning, which he can omit and does not wish to omit; indeed he directly and on purpose seeks it, or thrusts himself into it.

62. A proximate occasion of sinning is not to be fled when some useful or honorable cause of not fleeing occurs.

63. It is licit to seek directly a proximate occasion of sinning, for our own spiritual or temporal good, or that of our neighbor.

64. A man is capable of absolution, however much he labors under ignorance of the mysteries of Faith, and even if through negligence, even culpable negligence, he does not know the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity and of the Incarnation of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

65. It suffices to have believed those mysteries once.

All condemned and prohibited, just as they lie, at minimum as scandalous and pernicious in practice.

The Supreme Pontiff concludes the decree with these words: Finally, that doctors or scholastics, or any others whatever, may hereafter abstain from injurious contentions, and that peace and charity may be consulted, the same Most Holy One commands them in virtue of holy obedience that, both in printed and manuscript books, and in theses, disputations, and preachings, they beware of every censure and note, as well as of any reproaches whatever against those propositions which are still disputed here and there among Catholics, until by the holy See, the matter having been known, judgment is pronounced concerning the same propositions.

Another proposition condemned under the same Innocent XI, in the year 1682.

It is licit to use knowledge acquired from confession, provided it is done without direct or indirect revelation and burdening of the penitent, unless another much graver thing should follow from non-use, in comparison with which the former is deservedly contemned.

The decree of Clement VIII, 26 May 1594, can also be recalled here.

Both Superiors existing for the time, and Confessors who afterward have been promoted to the rank of Superior, should most diligently beware lest they use for exterior governance that knowledge which they have had concerning the sins of others in confession. As to the sacrament of Penance, under Clement VIII, 19 July 1602, the following Proposition was proscribed.

It is licit through letters or an intermediary to confess sacramentally one's sins to an absent Confessor, and to obtain absolution from the same while absent.

NUM. X.

The 68 propositions of Michael de Molinos condemned by Innocent XI, by the Constitution Caelestis Pastor, etc., 20 Nov. 1687.

1. It is necessary for man to annihilate his powers, and this is the internal life.

2. To wish to operate actively is to offend God, who wishes Himself alone to be the one acting; and therefore it is necessary to abandon oneself in God wholly and totally, and afterward to remain as a lifeless body.

3. Vows concerning doing something are impeditive of perfection.

4. Natural activity is the enemy of grace, and impedes the operations of God and true perfection, because God wishes to operate in us without us.

5. By operating nothing, the soul annihilates itself and returns to the very principle and to its origin, which is the essence of God, in which it remains transformed and divinized; and God then remains in Himself, because then there are no longer two things united, but only one; and for this reason God lives and reigns in us, and the soul annihilates itself in operative being.

6. The internal way is that in which neither light nor love nor resignation is known, and it is not necessary to know God, and in this way one proceeds rightly.

7. The soul ought to think neither of reward nor of punishment, nor of paradise nor of hell, nor of death, nor of eternity.

8. It ought not to wish to know whether it walks with the will of God, whether it remains resigned with the same will or not; nor is it necessary that it wish to know its state or its own nothing, but it ought to remain as a lifeless body.

9. The soul ought to remember neither itself nor God nor any thing whatever, and in the internal way every reflection is harmful, even reflection on its human actions and on its own defects.

10. If by its own defects it scandalizes others, it is not necessary to reflect, provided the will of scandalizing is absent; and not to be able to reflect on one's own defects is the grace of God.

11. On doubts which occur, whether one proceeds rightly or not, it is not necessary to reflect.

12. He who has given his free will to God ought to have care about no thing, neither about hell nor paradise; nor ought he to have desire for his own perfection, nor for virtues, nor for his own sanctity, nor for his own salvation, whose hope he ought to purge away.

13. Free will having been resigned to God, thought and care about every one of our affairs must be left to the same God, and He must be left to do His divine will in us without us.

14. He who is resigned to the divine will, it is not fitting that he ask any thing from God, because to ask is imperfection, since it is an act of one's own will and choice, and it is to wish that the divine will be conformed to ours, and not that ours be conformed to the divine; and that of the Gospel, "Ask and you shall receive," was not said by Christ for internal souls, which do not wish to have a will; indeed souls of this kind arrive at this, that they cannot ask any thing from God.

15. Just as they ought not to ask any thing from God, so neither ought they to give thanks to Him for anything, because each is an act of one's own will.

16. It is not fitting to seek indulgences for the punishment owed for one's own sins, because it is better to satisfy divine justice than to seek divine mercy; since the former proceeds from pure love of God, and the latter from interested love of ourselves, nor is it pleasing to God nor meritorious, because it is to wish to flee the cross.

17. Free will having been handed over to God, and the care and thought of our soul left to Him, regard is no longer to be had of temptations; nor ought any other resistance be made to them except a negative one, no industry being applied; and if nature is moved, it must be allowed to be moved, because it is nature.

18. He who in prayer uses images, figures, species, and his own concepts does not adore God in spirit and truth.

19. He who loves God in that way in which reason argues or the intellect comprehends does not love the true God.

20. To assert that in prayer it is necessary to bring help to oneself by discourse and by thoughts, when God does not address the soul, is ignorance. God never speaks; His speech is operation, and He always operates in the soul when this soul does not impede Him by its discourses, thoughts, and operations.

21. In prayer it is necessary to remain in obscure and universal Faith, with quiet and forgetfulness of any particular and distinct thought of the attributes of God and of the Trinity, and thus to remain in the presence of God to adore and love Him and serve Him, but without the production of acts, because God does not take complacency in these.

22. This knowledge through Faith is not an act produced by the creature, but is knowledge handed over by God to the creature, which the creature does not know that it has, nor afterward knows that it has had; and the same is said of love.

23. Mystics with St. Bernard in the ladder of cloistered souls distinguish four steps: reading, meditation, prayer, and infused contemplation. He who always stops in the first never passes over to the second. He who always persists in the second never arrives at the third, which is our acquired contemplation, in which one must persist through the whole life, provided God does not draw the soul, without its expecting this, to infused contemplation; and when this ceases, the soul ought to return to the third step and remain in it, without ever returning further to the second or the first.

24. Whatever thoughts occur in prayer, even impure ones, even against God, the Saints, the Faith, and the sacraments, if they are not voluntarily nourished nor voluntarily expelled, but are tolerated with indifference and resignation, do not impede the prayer of Faith; indeed they make it more perfect, because the soul then remains more resigned to the divine will.

25. Even if sleep supervenes and one sleeps, nevertheless actual prayer and contemplation take place; because prayer and resignation are the same, and while resignation endures, prayer also endures.

26. Those three ways, purgative, illuminative, and unitive, are the greatest absurdity that has been said in mysticism, since there is only one way, namely the internal way.

27. He who desires and embraces sensible devotion does not desire nor seek God, but himself; and he acts badly, when he desires it and tries to have it, who walks by the internal way, both in sacred places and on solemn days.

28. Weariness of spiritual things is good, since through it self-love is purged.

29. When the internal soul loathes discourses about God and virtues, remains cold, feeling no fervor in itself, it is a good sign.

30. Everything sensible which is expressed in the spiritual life is abominable, foul, and unclean.

31. No meditative person exercises the true internal virtues, which ought not to be known by the senses. It is necessary to lose the virtues.

32. Neither before nor after Communion is any other preparation or thanksgiving required, for these internal souls, than permanence in solid passive resignation, because in a more perfect manner it supplies all acts of virtues which can and do take place in the ordinary way. And if on this occasion of Communion there arise motions of humiliation, petition, or thanksgiving, they are to be repressed, as often as it is not discerned that they are from a special impulse of God; otherwise they are impulses of nature not yet dead.

33. The soul which proceeds by this internal way acts badly if on solemn days it wishes by some particular effort to excite in itself some devout sense; since to the internal soul all days are equal, all festive. And the same is said of sacred places, because to souls of this kind all places are equal.

34. To give thanks to God by words and tongue is not for internal souls, which ought to remain in silence, placing no impediment before God so that He may operate in them; and the more they resign themselves to God, they experience that they cannot recite the Lord's prayer or Our Father.

35. It is not fitting for souls of this internal way to perform operations, even virtuous ones, from their own choice and activity; otherwise they would not be dead. Nor ought they to elicit acts of love toward the Blessed Virgin, the Saints, or the Humanity of Christ, because, since those objects are sensible, such is love toward them.

36. No creature, neither the Blessed Virgin nor the Saints, ought to sit in our heart, because God alone wishes to occupy and possess it.

37. On the occasion of temptations, even furious ones, the soul ought not to elicit explicit acts of the opposed virtues, but ought to remain in the aforesaid love and resignation.

38. The voluntary cross of mortifications is a heavy and fruitless weight, and therefore to be dismissed.

39. The holier works and penances which the Saints performed do not suffice to remove from the soul even one single adhesion.

40. The Blessed Virgin never performed any exterior work, and nevertheless was holier than all Saints. Therefore one can arrive at sanctity without exterior work.

41. God permits and wills, for humbling us and bringing us to true transformation, that in some perfect souls, even not possessed ones, the demon inflict violence on their bodies and make them commit carnal acts, even in wakefulness and without darkening of the mind, by physically moving their hands and other members against their will. And the same is said as to other acts sinful in themselves; in which case they are not sins, because consent is not present to these.

42. A case can be given that violences of this kind toward carnal acts happen at the same time on the part of two persons, namely male and female, and on the part of each an act follows.

43. In past ages God made saints by the ministry of tyrants; but now He makes them saints by the ministry of demons, who, by causing in them the aforesaid violences, makes them despise and annihilate themselves more, and resign themselves to God.

44. Job blasphemed, and nevertheless did not sin with his lips, because it was from the violence of the demon.

45. Saint Paul suffered violences of this kind from the demon in his body; whence he wrote: "Not the good which I will, this I do; but the evil which I do not will, this I do."

46. Violences of this kind are a means more proportioned to annihilating the soul and bringing it to true transformation and union, nor does another way remain; and this is the easier and safer way.

47. When violences of this kind occur, it is necessary to allow Satan to operate, applying no industry and no proper effort, but man ought to remain in his nothing; and even if pollutions and obscene acts with one's own hands, and even worse things, follow, it is not necessary to disquiet oneself, but scruples, doubts, and fears must be sent outside, because the soul becomes more illuminated, more strengthened, and more candid, and holy liberty is acquired. And before all things it is not necessary to confess these things, and it is done most holily by not confessing; because by this pact the demon is overcome, and the treasure of peace is acquired.

48. Satan, who inflicts violences of this kind, afterward persuades that they are grave offenses, so that the soul may disquiet itself, lest it progress further in the internal way; whence, to enervate his powers, it is better not to confess them, because they are not sins, nor even venial ones.

49. Job, from the violence of the demon, polluted himself with his own hands at the same time at which he had clean prayers toward God, thus interpreting the place from chapter XVI of Job.

50. David, Jeremiah, and many of the holy prophets suffered violences of this kind of these impure external operations.

51. In sacred Scripture there are many examples of violences toward external sinful acts: as that of Samson, who by violence killed himself with the Philistines, entered marriage with a foreign woman, and fornicated with the harlot Delilah, which otherwise were prohibited and would have been sins; of Judith, who lied to Holofernes; of Elisha, who cursed the boys; of Elijah, who burned the leaders with the troops of King Ahab. But whether the violence was performed immediately by God, or by the ministry of demons, as happens in other souls, is left in doubt.

52. When violences of this kind, even impure ones, happen without darkening of the mind, then the soul can be united to God, and in fact is always more united.

53. For knowing in practice whether some operation in other persons was violent, the rule which I have concerning this is not only the protestations of those souls, who protest that they have not consented to the said violences, or that they cannot swear that they consented to them, and seeing that they are souls who advance in the internal way; but I would take the rule from a certain actual light superior to human and theological knowledge, which makes me know with certainty, with internal certitude, that such an operation is violent; and I am certain that this light proceeds from God, because it comes to me joined with certainty that it comes from God, and leaves me not even a shadow of doubt to the contrary; in that way in which it sometimes happens that God, by revealing something, at the same time renders the soul certain that He Himself is the one who reveals, and the soul cannot doubt to the contrary.

54. Spiritual persons of the ordinary life will find themselves deceived and confounded at the hour of death, and with all passions to be purged in the other world.

55. Through this internal way one arrives, although with much suffering, at purging and extinguishing all passions, so that nothing further is felt, nothing, nothing; nor is any disquiet felt, as a dead body, nor does the soul allow itself to be moved any further.

56. The two laws and two cupidities, one of the soul and the other of self-love, endure as long as self-love endures; whence, when this has been purged and died, as is done through the internal way, those two laws and two cupidities are no longer present, nor is any further fall incurred, nor is anything felt any longer, not even venial sin.

57. Through acquired contemplation one arrives at the state of no longer committing sins, neither mortal nor venial.

58. One arrives at a state of this kind by no longer reflecting on one's own operations, because defects arise from reflection.

59. The internal way is separated from Confession, from confessors, and from cases of conscience, from theology, and philosophy.

60. For advanced souls, which begin to die to reflections, and even arrive at this, that they are dead, God sometimes makes Confession impossible, and He Himself supplies with as much preserving grace as they would receive in the sacrament; and therefore for souls of this kind it is not good in such a case to approach the sacrament of Penance, because this is impossible in them.

61. The soul, when it arrives at mystical death, can no longer will anything other than what God wills, because it no longer has a will, and God has taken it away from it.

62. Through the internal way one arrives at a continual immovable state in imperturbable peace.

63. Through the internal way one arrives also at the death of the senses; indeed the sign that someone remains in the state of nothingness, that is, of mystical death, is if the exterior senses no longer represent sensible things, whence they are as if they were not, because they do not arrive at making the intellect apply itself to them.

64. A theologian has less disposition than a rude man for the state of a contemplative: first, because he does not have Faith so pure; second, because he is not so humble; third, because he does not so care for his own salvation; fourth, because he has a head stuffed with phantasms, species, opinions, and speculations, and the true light cannot enter into him.

65. Superiors are to be obeyed in the exterior, and the breadth of the vow of obedience of religious reaches only to the exterior. But in the interior the matter has itself otherwise, where God alone and the director enter.

66. A certain new doctrine in the Church of God is worthy of laughter, that the soul as to the internal ought to be governed by the Bishop; and that if the Bishop is not capable, the soul should approach him with its director. I call it a new doctrine because neither sacred Scripture, nor Councils, nor canons, nor bulls, nor saints, nor authors ever handed it down, nor can they hand it down; because the Church does not judge concerning hidden things, and the soul has the right of choosing whomever seems good to it.

67. To say that the internal must be manifested to the exterior tribunal of superiors, and that it is a sin not to do this, is manifest deception, because the Church does not judge concerning hidden things; and with these deceptions and simulations they prejudice their own souls.

68. In the world there is no faculty nor jurisdiction for commanding that the letters of a director be manifested as to the internal of the soul; and therefore it is necessary to note that this is an insult of Satan, etc.

Condemned respectively as heretical, suspect, erroneous, scandalous, blasphemous, offensive to pious ears, rash, relaxing and overturning of Christian discipline, and seditious.

NUM. XI.

The 2 propositions condemned by Alexander VIII, by the decree Sanctissimus Dominus noster, etc., 24 Aug. 1690.

1. Objective goodness consists in the agreement of the object with rational nature; formal goodness, however, in the conformity of the act with the rule of morals. For this it suffices that the moral act tend to the ultimate end interpretatively: hence man is not bound to love, neither at the beginning nor in the course of his mortal life.

Declared and condemned as heretical.

2. Philosophical or moral sin is a human act disagreeing with rational nature and right reason; theological and mortal sin, however, is the free transgression of the divine law. Philosophical sin, however grave, in him who either does not know God or does not actually think of God, is a grave sin, but is not an offense of God, nor a mortal sin dissolving friendship with God, nor worthy of eternal punishment.

Declared and condemned as scandalous, rash, offensive to pious ears, and erroneous. Arnold had fabricated that one according to his own pleasure, and calumniously, as was his custom, attributed it to his adversaries.

NUM. XII.

The 31 propositions condemned by Alexander VIII, by the decree Sanctissimus Dominus noster, etc., 7 Dec. 1690.

1. In the state of fallen nature, for formal sin and demerit that liberty suffices by which it was voluntary and free in its cause, original sin, and the will of Adam sinning.

2. Even if there is invincible ignorance of natural law, in the state of fallen nature this does not excuse the one operating from formal sin.

3. It is not licit to follow an opinion, even the most probable among probable opinions.

4. He gave Himself for us as an oblation to God, not for the elect alone, but for all and only the faithful.

5. Pagans, Jews, heretics, and others of this kind receive no influence at all from Jesus Christ; and therefore from this you rightly infer that in them there is a bare and unarmed will without any sufficient grace.

6. Sufficient grace is not so much useful to our state as pernicious, so that therefore we can deservedly ask: From sufficient grace deliver us, O Lord.

7. Every deliberate human action is love of God or of the world; if of God, it is Charity of the Father; if of the world, cupidity of the flesh, that is, it is evil.

8. It is necessary for the unbeliever to sin in every work.

9. He truly sins who hates sin merely on account of its baseness and disagreement with nature, without any respect to God offended.

10. The intention by which someone detests evil and pursues good merely to obtain heavenly glory is not right nor pleasing to God.

11. Everything which is not from supernatural Christian Faith, which works through love, is sin.

12. When in great sinners every love fails, Faith also fails; and even if he seems to believe, it is not divine Faith, but human.

13. Whoever serves God even in view of eternal reward, if he lacks charity, does not lack vice, whenever he operates in view, even, of beatitude.

14. Fear of hell is not supernatural.

15. Attrition which is conceived from fear of hell and punishments, without love of benevolence of God for His own sake, is not a good and supernatural motion.

16. The order of sending satisfaction before absolution was introduced not by policy or institution of the Church, but by the very law and prescription of Christ, the nature of the matter itself dictating this in a certain way.

17. Through that practice of absolving immediately, the order of penance is inverted.

18. The modern custom as to the administration of the sacrament of Penance, even if the authority of very many men sustains it and long duration of much time confirms it, nevertheless is not held by the Church as a use, but as an abuse.

19. Man ought to do penance for original sin throughout his whole life.

20. Confessions made among religious are, for the most part, either sacrilegious or invalid.

21. A parishioner can suspect mendicants, who live on common alms, of imposing too light and incongruous a penance or satisfaction, on account of gain or profit of temporal support.

22. They are to be judged sacrilegious who claim a right to receiving Communion before they have done condign penance for their offenses.

23. Similarly, those are to be barred from sacred Communion in whom there is not yet the purest love of God, and free from every mixture.

24. The offering in the temple, which was made by the Blessed Virgin Mary on the day of her purification by two young doves, one for holocaust and the other for sins, sufficiently testifies that she needed purification, and that the Son who was offered was also stained by the stain of the Mother, according to the words of the law.

25. It is unlawful for a Christian to place in a church an image of God the Father sitting.

26. Praise which is offered to Mary, as Mary, is vain.

27. Baptism conferred under this form once was valid: "In the name of the Father," etc., those words having been omitted: "I baptize you."

28. Baptism is valid when conferred by a minister who observes every external rite and form of baptizing, but inwardly in his heart resolves with himself: I do not intend what the Church does.

29. Futile and so often convulsed is the assertion concerning the authority of the Roman Pontiff above an ecumenical Council, and his infallibility in deciding questions of Faith.

30. Wherever someone finds a doctrine clearly founded in Augustine, he can absolutely hold and teach it, without regard to any bull of the Pontiff.

31. The bull of Urban VIII, In eminenti, is surreptitious.

Condemned and prohibited respectively as rash, scandalous, ill-sounding, injurious, near to heresy, savoring of heresy, erroneous, schismatic, and heretical.

NUM. XIII.

The 23 propositions concerning most pure love toward God, condemned by Innocent XII, by the Brief Cum alias, etc., 12 Mar. 1699.

1. There is given a habitual state of love of God, which is pure charity and without any admixture of a motive of one's own interest. Neither fear of punishments nor desire of rewards any longer has part in it. God is no longer loved on account of merit, nor on account of perfection, nor on account of happiness to be found in loving.

2. In the state of contemplative or unitive life every interested motive of fear and hope is lost.

3. That which is essential in direction of the soul is to do nothing other than to follow grace step by step with infinite patience, precaution, and subtlety. It is necessary to keep oneself within these limits, so that God may be allowed to act, and never to lead to pure love except when God through interior unction begins to open the heart to this word, which is so hard to souls still affixed to themselves, and therefore can scandalize them or cast them into disturbance.

4. In the state of holy indifference the soul no longer has voluntary and deliberate desires on account of its own interest, except on those occasions in which it does not faithfully cooperate with all its grace.

5. In the same state of holy indifference we will nothing for ourselves, all things for God we will. We will nothing so that we may be perfect and blessed on account of our own interest; but we will every perfection and beatitude, insofar as it pleases God to effect that we will these things by the impression of His grace.

6. In this state of holy indifference we no longer will salvation as our own salvation, as eternal liberation, as the reward of our merits, as our greatest interest of all; but we will it with a full will as the glory and good pleasure of God, as a thing which He wills, and which He wills us to will on account of Himself.

7. Abandonment is nothing except abnegation, or renunciation of oneself, which Jesus Christ requires from us in the Gospel, after we have left all external things. This abnegation of ourselves is only as to our own interest... The extreme trials in which this abnegation or abandonment of oneself ought to be exercised are temptations by which a jealous God wills to purge love, showing it no refuge and no hope as to its own interest, even eternal.

8. All sacrifices which are customarily made by souls most greatly disinterested concerning their eternal beatitude are conditional... But this sacrifice cannot be absolute in the ordinary state. In one case of extreme trials this sacrifice becomes in some way absolute.

9. In extreme trials the soul can be invincibly persuaded, by a reflected persuasion, and one which is not the innermost depth of conscience, that it has been justly reprobated by God.

10. Then the soul, divided from itself, expires with Christ on the cross, saying: "God, my God, why have you abandoned me?" In this involuntary impression of despair it completes an absolute sacrifice of its own interest as to eternity.

11. In this state the soul loses every hope of its own interest; but it never loses in the superior part, that is, in its direct and intimate acts, perfect hope, which is the disinterested desire of the promises.

12. The director then can permit this soul simply to acquiesce in the loss of its own interest, and in the just condemnation which it believes has been imposed on it by God.

13. The inferior part of Christ on the cross did not communicate its involuntary disturbances to the superior.

14. In extreme trials for the purification of love there occurs a certain separation of the superior part of the soul from the inferior... In that separation the acts of the inferior part flow from an entirely blind and involuntary disturbance, for all that is voluntary and intellectual belongs to the superior part.

15. Meditation consists in discursive acts which are easily distinguished from one another... That composition of discursive and reflex acts is the proper exercise of interested love.

16. There is given a state of contemplation so sublime and so perfect that it becomes habitual, so that whenever the soul actually prays, its prayer is contemplative, not discursive. Then it no longer needs to return to meditation and its methodical acts.

17. Contemplative souls are deprived of the distinct, sensible, and reflex view of Jesus Christ at two different times... First, in the nascent fervor of their contemplation... Second, the soul loses the view of Jesus Christ in extreme trials.

18. In the passive state all distinct virtues are exercised, not by thinking that they are virtues. At any moment nothing else is thought than to do that which God wills; and jealous love at the same time brings it about that one no longer wills virtue for oneself, nor is one ever so endowed with virtue as when one is no longer affixed to virtue.

19. It can be said in this sense that the passive and disinterested soul no longer wills even love itself, insofar as it is its perfection and its happiness, but only insofar as it is that which God wills from us.

20. In confessing, transformed souls ought to detest their sins and condemn themselves, and desire the remission of their sins, not as their own purification and liberation, but as a thing which God wills, and wills us to will on account of His glory.

21. The holy mystics excluded exercises of virtues from the state of transformed souls.

22. Although this doctrine of pure love was the pure and simple evangelical perfection designated in the whole tradition, the ancient pastors did not commonly propose to the multitude of the just except exercises of interested love proportioned to their grace.

23. Pure love itself alone constitutes the whole interior life; and then it becomes the sole principle and sole motive of all acts which are deliberate and meritorious.

Condemned and reproved as, whether in the obvious sense of their words or with attention to the connection of the statements, rash, scandalous, ill-sounding, offensive to pious ears, pernicious in practice, and also respectively erroneous.

NUM. XIV.

The 101 propositions of Paschasius Quesnell, condemned by Clement XI by the Constitution Unigenitus, etc., 8 Sept. 1713.

1. What else remains to the soul which has lost God and His grace except sin, and the consequences of sin, proud poverty, and sluggish indigence, that is, general impotence for labor, for prayer, and for every good work?

2. The grace of Jesus Christ, the efficacious principle of good of any kind, is necessary for every good work; without it not only is nothing done, but neither can it be done.

3. In vain, Lord, do You command, if You Yourself do not give what You command.

4. Thus, Lord: all things are possible to him for whom You make all things possible, by working the same in him.

5. When God does not soften the heart through the interior unction of His grace, exhortations and exterior graces serve only to harden it more.

6. The difference between the Jewish and Christian covenant is that in the former God exacts the flight from sin and the fulfillment of the law from the sinner, leaving him in his impotence; but in the latter God gives to the sinner what He commands, by purifying him with His grace.

7. What utility is there for man in the old covenant, in which God left him to his own infirmity by imposing His law upon him? But what happiness is it not, to be admitted to a covenant in which God gives us what He asks from us?

8. We do not belong to the new covenant except insofar as we are sharers of that new grace which works in us that which God commands us.

9. The grace of Christ is supreme grace, without which we can never confess Christ, and with which we never deny Him.

10. Grace is the operation of the hand of almighty God, which nothing can impede or retard.

11. Grace is nothing other than the will of almighty God commanding and doing what He commands.

12. When God wishes to save a soul, at whatever time, in whatever place, the indubitable effect follows the will of God.

13. When God wishes to make a soul safe, and touches it with the hand of His interior grace, no human will resists Him.

14. However remote from salvation the obstinate sinner may be, when Jesus presents Himself to be seen by him by the saving light of His grace, he must surrender himself, run to Him, humble himself, and adore his Savior.

15. When God accompanies His command and His external speech with the unction of His Spirit and the interior force of His grace, He works in the heart that obedience which He asks.

16. There are no allurements which do not yield to the allurements of grace, because nothing resists the almighty.

17. Grace is that voice of the Father which teaches men interiorly and makes them come to Jesus Christ; whoever does not come to Him after he has heard the exterior voice of the Son is in no way taught by the Father.

18. The seed of the word, which the hand of God waters, always bears its fruit.

19. The grace of God is nothing other than His almighty will; this is the idea which God Himself hands down to us in all His Scriptures.

20. The true idea of grace is that God wills Himself to be obeyed by us, and He is obeyed; He commands, and all things are done; He speaks as Lord, and all things are submitted to Him.

21. The grace of Jesus Christ is strong, powerful, supreme, invincible grace, inasmuch as it is the operation of the omnipotent will, the sequel and imitation of the operation of God incarnating and resuscitating His Son.

22. The concord of the omnipotent operation of God in the heart of man with the free consent of his will is shown to us immediately in the incarnation, as in the fountain and archetype of all other operations of mercy and grace, which all are as gratuitous and as dependent on God as that original operation itself.

23. God Himself has handed down to us the idea of the omnipotent operation of His grace, signifying it by that operation which produces creatures from nothing and returns life to the dead.

24. The just idea which the centurion has concerning the omnipotence of God and Jesus Christ in healing bodies by the sole motion of His will is the image of the idea which ought to be had concerning the omnipotence of His grace in healing souls from cupidity.

25. God illuminates the soul and heals it, just as the body, by His will alone: He commands, and He is obeyed.

26. No graces are given except through Faith.

27. Faith is the first grace, and the fountain of all the others.

28. The first grace which God grants to the sinner is the remission of sins.

29. Outside the Church no grace is granted.

30. All whom God wills to save through Christ are infallibly saved.

31. The desires of Christ always have their effect: He brings peace into the innermost of hearts when He wishes it to them.

32. Jesus Christ handed Himself over to death to liberate forever by His Blood the firstborn, that is, the elect, from the hand of the exterminating angel.

33. Ah! how much one must have renounced earthly goods and oneself, in order that one may have confidence of appropriating to oneself, so to speak, Christ Jesus, His love, death, and mysteries! as Saint Paul does, saying: "Who loved me, and handed Himself over for me."

34. The grace of Adam produced only human merits.

35. The grace of Adam is the sequel of creation, and was owed to nature sound and whole.

36. The essential difference between the grace of Adam and the state of innocence and Christian grace is that the former each one would have received in his own person, but the latter is not received except in the person of Jesus Christ resurrected, to whom we are united.

37. The grace of Adam, by sanctifying him in himself, was proportioned to him; Christian grace, by sanctifying us in Jesus Christ, is omnipotent and worthy of the Son of God.

38. The sinner is not free except for evil, without the grace of the Liberator.

39. The will which grace does not prevent has nothing of light except for wandering, of ardor except for casting itself down, of strength except for wounding itself; it is capable of every evil, and incapable of every good.

40. Without grace, we can love nothing except unto our condemnation.

41. Every knowledge of God, even natural, even in ethnic philosophers, cannot come except from God; and without grace it produces only presumption, vanity, and opposition to God Himself in place of affections of adoration, gratitude, and love.

42. The grace of Christ alone renders man fit for the sacrifice of Faith; without this, nothing except impurity, nothing except unworthiness.

43. The first effect of baptismal grace is to make us die to sin, so that the spirit, heart, and senses have no more life for sin than a dead man has for the things of the world.

44. There are only two loves, whence all our volitions and actions are born: the love of God, which does all things for God and which God rewards, and the love by which we love ourselves and the world, which does not refer to God what ought to be referred to God, and for this very reason becomes evil.

45. When the love of God no longer reigns in the heart of sinners, it is necessary that carnal cupidity reign in it and corrupt all its actions.

46. Cupidity or charity makes the use of the senses good or evil.

47. Obedience of the law ought to flow from a fountain, and this fountain is charity. When the love of God is its interior principle, and the glory of God its end, then it is pure when it appears exteriorly; otherwise it is only hypocrisy or false justice.

48. What else can we be except darkness, except wandering, and except sin, without the light of Faith, without Christ, and without charity?

49. As there is no sin without love of ourselves, so there is no good work without love of God.

50. In vain do we cry to God, "My Father," if the spirit of charity is not the one that cries.

51. Faith justifies when it works, but it itself does not work except through charity.

52. All other means of salvation are contained in Faith as in their germ and seed; but this Faith is not without love and confidence.

53. Charity alone makes Christian actions in a Christian manner by relation to God and Jesus Christ.

54. Charity alone is that which speaks to God; it alone God hears.

55. God crowns nothing except charity; he who runs from another impulse and from another motive runs in vain.

56. God rewards nothing except charity, because charity alone honors God.

57. Everything is lacking to the sinner when hope is lacking to him; and there is no hope in God where there is no love of God.

58. There is neither God nor religion where there is not charity.

59. The prayer of the impious is a new sin; and what God grants to them is a new judgment upon them.

60. If fear of punishment alone animates penance, the more violent this penance is, the more it leads to desperation.

61. Fear only restrains the hand; but the heart is addicted to sin as long as it is not led by love of justice.

62. He who abstains from evil only by fear of punishment commits it in his heart and is already guilty before God.

63. One baptized is still under the law like a Jew, if he does not fulfill the law, or fulfills it from fear alone.

64. Under the curse of the law good is never done, because one sins either by doing evil, or by avoiding it only on account of fear.

65. Moses, the prophets, priests, and doctors of the law died without giving any son to God, since they made only slaves through fear.

66. He who wishes to approach God ought neither to come to Him with brutal passions, nor be led by natural instinct or by fear like beasts, but by Faith and by love like Sons.

67. Servile fear does not represent God to itself except as a hard, imperious, unjust, intractable Lord.

68. The goodness of God has shortened the way of salvation, by enclosing the whole in Faith and prayers.

69. Faith, the use, increase, and reward of Faith, all is a gift of the pure liberality of God.

70. God never afflicts the innocent; and afflictions always serve either for punishing sin or for purifying the sinner.

71. For his own preservation man can dispense himself from that law which God established for his utility.

72. The mark of the Christian Church is that it is Catholic, comprehending both all the angels of heaven and all the elect and just of earth and of all ages.

73. What is the Church except the assembly of the sons of God, remaining in His bosom, adopted in Christ, subsisting in His person, redeemed by His blood, living by His spirit, acting through His grace, and awaiting the grace of the future age?

74. The Church, or the whole Christ, has the incarnate Word as head, and all the saints as members.

75. The Church is one single man composed of many members, of whom Christ is the head, life, subsistence, and person; one single Christ composed of many saints, of whom He is the sanctifier.

76. Nothing is more spacious than the Church of God, because all the elect and just of all ages compose it.

77. He who does not lead a life worthy of the Son of God and of a member of Christ ceases interiorly to have God as Father and Christ as head.

78. Someone is separated from the elect people, of which the Jewish people was the figure and Jesus Christ is the head, as much by not living according to the Gospel as by not believing the Gospel.

79. It is useful and necessary at every time, in every place, and for every kind of persons, to study and know the spirit, piety, and mysteries of sacred Scripture.

80. The reading of sacred Scripture is for all.

81. The obscurity of the holy word of God is not for laymen a reason for dispensing themselves from its reading.

82. The Lord's day ought to be sanctified by Christians with readings of piety, and above all of the holy Scriptures. It is harmful to wish to draw a Christian back from this reading.

83. It is an illusion to persuade oneself that knowledge of the mysteries of Religion ought not to be communicated to women by reading of the sacred books. Not from the simplicity of women, but from the proud knowledge of men, has abuse of the Scriptures arisen, and heresies have been born.

84. To snatch the New Testament from the hands of Christians, or to keep it closed to them by taking away from them the mode of understanding it, is to close the mouth of Christ to them.

85. To forbid Christians the reading of sacred Scripture, especially of the Gospel, is to forbid the use of light to the sons of light, and to make them suffer a certain kind of excommunication.

86. To deprive the simple people of this consolation, of joining their voice to the voice of the whole Church, is a usage contrary to apostolic practice and to the intention of God.

87. A manner full of wisdom, light, and charity is to give souls time to bear with humility and to feel the state of sin, to ask for the spirit of penance and contrition, and to begin at least to satisfy the justice of God before they are reconciled.

88. We are ignorant of what sin and true penance are when we wish immediately to be restored to possession of those goods of which sin has despoiled us, and we refuse to bear the confusion of that separation.

89. The fourteenth step of the conversion of the sinner is that, when he has now been reconciled, he has the right of assisting at the Sacrifice of the Church.

90. The Church has the authority of excommunicating, so that she may exercise it through the first pastors, with at least the presumed consent of the whole body.

91. Fear of unjust excommunication ought never to impede us from fulfilling our duty; we never depart from the Church, even when by the wickedness of men we seem to have been driven from it, when we are affixed by charity to God, Jesus Christ, and the Church itself.

92. To suffer in peace an unjust excommunication and anathema, rather than betray truth, is to imitate Saint Paul; so far is it from being to raise oneself against authority, or to tear unity.

93. Jesus sometimes heals the wounds which the hasty action of the first pastors the haste of men inflicts without His command. Jesus restores what they cut away by inconsiderate zeal.

94. Nothing casts a worse opinion of the Church into her enemies than to see dominion exercised there over the Faith of the faithful, and divisions fostered on account of things which injure neither Faith nor morals.

95. Truths have come to such a point that they are, as it were, a foreign tongue to most Christians, and the manner of preaching them is like an unknown idiom: so far is it removed from the simplicity of the apostles, and above the common understanding of the faithful; nor is it sufficiently adverted that this defect is one of the most sensible signs of the old age of the Church, and of the wrath of God against His sons.

96. God permits all powers to be contrary to the preachers of truth, so that its victory cannot be attributed except to divine grace.

97. Too often it happens that those members which are more holily and more strictly united to the Church are regarded and treated as unworthy to be in the Church, or as separated from her; but the just man lives by Faith, and not by the opinion of men.

98. The state of persecution and of punishments, which someone endures as a heretic, a flagitious man, and an impious man, is generally the last and most meritorious trial, as that which makes a man more conformable to Jesus Christ.

99. Perverseness, prejudice, obstinacy in refusing either to examine anything or to know that one has been deceived, daily change, with respect to many, into an odor of death that which God placed in His Church that it might be in her an odor of life, for example good books, instructions, holy examples, etc.

100. Deplorable time, in which God is believed to be honored by persecuting His truth and His disciples! This time has come... To be held and treated by ministers of Religion as impious and unworthy of all commerce with God, as a putrid member capable of corrupting all things in the society of the saints, is for pious men a death more terrible than the death of the body. In vain does one flatter himself concerning the purity of his intentions and a certain zeal of Religion, by persecuting with flame and sword upright men, if he is blinded by his own passion, or carried away by another's, for this reason, that he wishes to examine nothing. Frequently we believe that we are sacrificing an impious man to God, and we sacrifice a servant of God to the devil.

101. Nothing is more opposed to the spirit of God and the doctrine of Jesus Christ than to make oaths common in the Church: because this is to multiply occasions of perjury, to spread snares for the weak and the ignorant, and to bring it about that the name and truth of God sometimes serve the counsel of the impious.

Declared and condemned as false, captious, ill-sounding, offensive to pious ears, scandalous, pernicious, rash, injurious to the Church and her practice, contumelious not only against the Church but also against the powers of the age, seditious, impious, blasphemous, suspected of heresy, and savoring of heresy itself, and also favoring heretics and heresies and even schism, erroneous, proximate to heresy, several times condemned, and finally heretical, and respectively manifestly renewing various heresies, and especially those which are contained in the famous propositions of Jansenius, and indeed received in that sense in which these were condemned.

Five propositions concerning the duel, condemned by Benedict XIV, in the Constitution Detestabilem etc., 10 Nov. 1752.

1. A military man who, unless he offers or accepts a duel, would be regarded as fearful, timid, abject, and unfit for military offices, and consequently would be deprived of the office by which he sustains himself and his own, or would have to lack forever the hope of a promotion otherwise owed to him and merited by him, would be free from fault and penalty, whether he offers or accepts the duel.

2. They also can be excused who accept a duel or challenge to it for the sake of defending honor or avoiding human contempt, when they certainly know that the fight will not follow, as being about to be prevented by others.

3. A leader or officer of the military, accepting a duel from grave fear of the loss of reputation and office, does not incur the ecclesiastical penalties laid down by the Church against duellists.

4. It is lawful, in the natural state of man, to accept and offer a duel, in order to preserve fortunes with honor, when the loss of them cannot be driven away by another remedy.

5. The asserted license for the natural state can also be applied to the state of an ill-ordered commonwealth, in which, namely, either by negligence or malice of the magistrate, justice is openly denied.

Condemned and prohibited as false, scandalous, and pernicious.

Eighty-five propositions of the diocesan Synod of Pistoia, condemned by Pius VI, in the Constitution Auctorem Fidei etc., 28 August 1794, which is presented entire.

Condemnation by our Most Holy Lord, Lord Pius, by divine Providence Pope the Sixth, of very many propositions excerpted from the book printed in the Italian idiom under the title Atti e decreti del Concilio diocesano di Pistoia dell'anno 1786, in Pistoia per Atto Bracali stampatore vescovile con approvazione, with prohibition of the same book and of any other books whatsoever in its defense, whether perhaps already published or to be published hereafter.

Pius, Bishop, Servant of the Servants of God, to all the Christian faithful, greeting and apostolic blessing.

Looking to Jesus, the author and consummator of faith, the Apostle commands us ¹ carefully to consider what kind and how great a contradiction He endured from sinners against Himself, so that, wearied by labors and dangers, we may not at any time fail in our souls, and almost collapse. To be armed and refreshed by this most salutary thought is especially necessary for us when, against the very body of Christ, which is the Church ², the heat of that dire and never-ceasing conspiracy burns more fiercely: so that, strengthened by the Lord and in the power of His might, protected by the shield of Faith, we may be able to resist in the evil day, and extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one ³. In this movement of the times, indeed, in this most disturbed overturning of affairs, a grave struggle must be undergone by all good men against all enemies, of every kind, of the Christian name: graver for us, upon whom, on account of the care and government of the whole Flock entrusted to our Pastoral solicitude, there lies more than upon all others zeal for the Christian Religion ⁴. But in this very heaviness of the burden which has been placed upon our shoulders, of bearing the burdens of all who are burdened, the more conscious we are to ourselves of our weakness, the more firmly the account of this apostolic office, divinely instituted in the person of blessed Peter, raises and sustains us unto hope: namely, that He who was never going to abandon the governance of the Church once handed over to Him by Christ, would Himself not cease to bear the burdens of apostolic government in those whom God had given to Him, by perpetual succession, as heirs to be protected and defended.

¹ To the Hebrews II.

² To the Colossians I.

³ To the Ephesians VI.

⁴ St. Siricius, epistle to Himerius of Tarragona, in Coustant.

And indeed in these afflictions, which surround us on every side, it has been added, as it were, to the heap of other troubles, that from where it was fitting for us to rejoice, from there we should draw greater sadness. For when someone set over the sacrosanct Church of God, under the name of priest, turns the very people of Christ from the path of truth headlong into the precipice of a wayward persuasion, and this in a most ample City; then indeed lamentation must be doubled, and greater solicitude employed ⁵.

⁵ St. Coelestine I, epistle 12, in Coustant.

Indeed, not in the remotest lands, but in the middle light of Italy, under the eyes of the City, and near the thresholds of the Apostles, there was a Bishop distinguished by the honor of a double See (Scipio de Ricci, formerly Bishop of Pistoia and Prato), whom, as he approached us to receive the Pastoral office, we embraced with paternal charity: he in turn, in the very rite of his sacred ordination, bound himself by the religion of a solemn oath to due fidelity and obedience to us and to this apostolic See.

And this same man, not long after, when he was dismissed from our embrace with the kiss of peace and went to the peoples committed to him, surrounded by the frauds of accumulated teachers of perverse wisdom, began to aim at this: that the praiseworthy and peaceful form of Christian instruction, which previous Prelates, according to ecclesiastical rule, had long before brought in and almost fixed, he should not, as he ought, guard, cultivate, and perfect, but on the contrary, under the appearance of a fictitious reform, should disturb, shake, and utterly overthrow by introducing importunate novelties.

Moreover, when, also by our exhortation, he had applied his mind to a diocesan Synod, his stubborn pertinacity in his own opinion brought it about that, from where some remedy of wounds was to be sought, from there a graver ruin should arise. Indeed, after this Synod of Pistoia burst forth from the hiding places in which for some time it had lain hidden, there was no one thinking piously and wisely about the highest matter of Religion who did not immediately advert that this had been the design of the authors: that the seeds of depraved doctrines, which they had previously scattered through manifold little books, they might compact into one, as it were, into a body; that they might awaken errors long since proscribed; that they might derogate from the faith and authority of the apostolic decrees by which they were proscribed.

When we perceived these things, that, the graver they are in themselves, so much the more urgently they demanded the aid of our Pastoral solicitude, we did not delay to turn our mind to taking those counsels which seemed more suitable for healing or repressing the rising evil.

And first of all, mindful of the wise admonition of our Predecessor blessed Zosimus ⁶, that matters which are great desire a great weight of examination, we committed the Synod published by the Bishop first to four Bishops and to theologians from the secular clergy joined with them, to be examined; then we also deputed a Congregation of several Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church and of other Bishops, who should diligently weigh the whole series of the acts, compare places separated from one another, and discuss the excerpted judgments; whose votes, set forth before us by voice and in writing, we received. They judged both that the Synod as a whole should be reproved, and that very many propositions gathered from it, some indeed in themselves, others with attention to the connection of the judgments, should be struck with censures more or less severe. After their observations had been heard and weighed, this also was our care: that certain principal heads of depraved doctrines, selected from the whole Synod, to which especially the judgments, spread through the Synod and needing reprobation, are directly or indirectly referred, should thereafter be reduced into a definite order, and that to each of them its own peculiar censure should be appended.

⁶ St. Zosimus, epistle 2, in Coustant.

But lest, from this very comparison of places or inquiry into judgments, although most accurately completed, obstinate men should seize an occasion for disparaging; so that this calumny perhaps already prepared might be met, we determined to use the wise counsel which, in repressing emerging novelties of this kind, dangerous or harmful, several of our holy Predecessors, and also most grave Prelates, and even general Synods, had left commended and recommended by illustrious examples, as having been rightly and cautiously employed.

They knew the crafty art of deceiving among innovators, who, fearing the offense of Catholic ears, very often strive to cover the snares of their captious statements with deceitful wrappings of words, so that, amid the distinctions of meanings ⁷, the hidden error may flow more gently into minds, and it may happen that, the truth of the sentence having been corrupted by a very slight addition or change, the confession which worked salvation may by a certain subtle transition incline unto death. And indeed this involved and fallacious manner of disputing, while it is vicious in every kind of speech, is least of all to be borne in a Synod, whose chief praise is this: that in teaching it pursue a lucid manner of speaking, which leaves no danger of offense. Therefore, if anything has been committed against this in that kind, it cannot be defended by that deceitful excuse which is customarily brought forward, that those things which somewhere have slipped out more harshly stated are found in other places to have been explained more plainly or even corrected: as if that insolent license of affirming and denying and fighting with oneself at pleasure, which has always been the fraudulent cunning of innovators for the circumvention of error, availed rather to excuse error than to betray it; or as if to the unlearned especially, who perhaps have fallen upon this or that part of a Synod set forth to all in the vulgar tongue, there were always at hand other scattered places which would have to be inspected; or, even after these had been inspected, there were a sufficient faculty for each one to compose them by himself in such a way that, as those men wrongly babble, they would be able to escape every danger of error. A most destructive artifice indeed for insinuating error; which, detected wisely long ago in the letters of Nestorius, the Bishop of Constantinople, our Predecessor Coelestine ⁸ convicted with gravest rebuke: in which letters, namely, that crafty old man, tracked, detected, and held, undermining himself by his much speaking, while wrapping truths in obscurities, again confusing both, either confessed the things denied, or strove to deny the things confessed. To repel these snares, renewed too often in every age, no better way has been entered upon than that, by setting forth those judgments which under the hiding-place of ambiguity involve a dangerous and suspicious discrepancy of meanings, the perverse signification should be marked, under which there lay an error which Catholic judgment would reprove.

⁷ St. Leo the Great, epistle 129, edition of Ballerini.

⁸ St. Coelestine I, epistle 13, no. 2, in Coustant.

And we embraced this manner, full of moderation, the more willingly, the more we foresaw that it would be a great help for reconciling minds and bringing them to the unity of spirit in the bond of peace (which, by God's favor, we rejoice has already happily happened in many): first, to provide that to obstinate followers of the Synod, if any remain, which God avert, it should not be open hereafter, for stirring up new disturbances, to enlist for themselves, as companions and associates of their just condemnation, Catholic schools, which, wholly unwilling and resisting, by a certain distorted likeness of kindred words, in the express dissimilarity of opinions to which those schools testify, they strive to draw over to their own side. Then, if some pre-conceived milder opinion concerning the Synod has still deceived any imprudent persons, that for these also every place of complaint might be closed, who, if they think rightly, as they wish to seem, cannot take it ill that doctrines are condemned which are so marked out, which bear before them errors from which they themselves profess that they are very far distant.

Yet we did not think that satisfaction had yet sufficiently been made from the heart to our gentleness, or rather to the charity which urges us toward our Brother, whom we wish by every aid, if we are still able, to succor ⁹. Namely, that charity urges us by which our Predecessor Coelestine ¹⁰, induced even beyond what was right, or with a patience greater than seemed right, did not refuse to wait for priests needing correction. For with Augustine and the Milevitan Fathers we rather will and desire that men teaching depraved things be healed in the Church by Pastoral care, than, their salvation being despaired of, be cut away from her, if no necessity compels it ¹¹.

⁹ St. Coelestine I, epistle 14 to the people of Constantinople, no. 8, in Coustant.

¹⁰ Epistle 13 to Nestorius, no. 9.

¹¹ Epistle 176, no. 4; 178, no. 2, Maurist edition.

To this end, lest any kind of office toward gaining our Brother should seem to have been omitted, before proceeding to further things we judged that the aforesaid Bishop should be summoned to us by most loving letters given to him by our command, promising that he would be received by us with a benevolent mind, and that he would not be forbidden freely and openly to bring forth the things which seemed to him to make for his case. Nor truly had all hope deserted us that it could happen that, if indeed he brought that teachable mind which, according to the sentence of the Apostle, Augustine ¹² especially required in a Bishop, when simply and candidly, every contestation and bitterness having been removed, the principal heads of doctrines which seemed worthy of greater animadversion were proposed to him for recognition, then, easily collecting himself, he would not doubt to explain in a sounder sense those things which had been put ambiguously, and openly to repudiate those which bore before them manifest depravity; and thus, with great esteem for his name, and with the most joyful congratulation of all good men, in the most peaceful manner in which it could be done, the noises that had arisen in the Church might be suppressed by a most desired correction ¹³.

¹² Book 4, On Baptism against the Donatists, ch. 5, and book 5, ch. 26.

¹³ St. Coelestine I, epistle 16, no. 2, in Coustant.

But now, since he has judged that the benefit offered should be less used by him, on the ground of inconvenient health, we can no longer delay satisfying our Apostolic office. The danger is not that of one or another diocese only. The universal Church is struck by any novelty whatsoever ¹⁴. From every side for a long time now the judgment of the supreme apostolic See is not only awaited, but is demanded earnestly with assiduous and repeated prayers. Far be it that the voice of Peter should ever be silent in that his See, in which, perpetually living and presiding, he provides the truth of Faith to those seeking it ¹⁵. A longer connivance in such matters is not safe, because to connive in such matters is almost of as much crime as it is to preach such irreligious things ¹⁶. Therefore such a wound must be cut away, by which not one member is injured, but the whole body of the Church is wounded ¹⁷. And, with divine mercy helping, provision must be made that, dissensions having been amputated, the Catholic Faith may be preserved inviolate, and, those who defend depraved things having been recalled from error, they whose Faith has been proved may be fortified by our authority ¹⁸.

¹⁴ St. Coelestine I, epistle 21 to the Bishops of the Gauls.

¹⁵ Chrysologus, epistle to Eutyches.

¹⁶ St. Coelestine I, epistle 12, no. 2.

¹⁷ The same, epistle 11 to Cyril, no. 3.

¹⁸ St. Leo the Great, epistle 23 to Flavian of Constantinople, no. 2.

Therefore, after the light of the Holy Spirit had been implored both by our assiduous prayers and by the private and public prayers of pious Christian faithful, all things having been fully and maturely considered, we have judged that several propositions, doctrines, and judgments from the acts and decrees of the mentioned Synod, whether expressly handed down or insinuated through ambiguity, with notes and censures appended to each one, as was said above, should be condemned and reproved, just as by this our constitution, to have force in perpetuity, we condemn and reprove them.

Now they are those which follow:

From the decree concerning grace, § 1.

1. The proposition which asserts that in these last centuries there has been spread a general obscuration over truths of graver moment, pertaining to Religion, and which are the basis of the Faith and of the moral doctrine of Jesus Christ;

Heretical.

Convocatory epistle.

2. The proposition which establishes that the power given by God to the Church is to be communicated to Pastors, who are her ministers for the salvation of souls;

Understood thus, that the power of ecclesiastical ministry and governance is derived from the community of the faithful into the Pastors:

Heretical.

Decree concerning Faith, § 2.

3. Moreover, that which establishes that the Roman Pontiff is a ministerial head;

Explained thus, that the Roman Pontiff receives, not from Christ in the person of blessed Peter, but from the Church, the power of ministry by which, as Successor of Peter, true Vicar of Christ, and Head of the whole Church, he has power in the universal Church;

Heretical.

Decree concerning Faith, §§ 13, 14.

4. The proposition affirming that it would be an abuse of the authority of the Church, by transferring it beyond the limits of doctrine and morals, and by extending it to exterior things, and by force exacting that which depends on persuasion and the heart; and also that, much less, does it pertain to her to exact by exterior force subjection to her decrees;

Insofar as by those indeterminate words, extending to exterior things, it marks, as an abuse of the authority of the Church, the use of that power received from God, which the apostles themselves also used, in constituting and sanctioning exterior discipline:

Heretical.

5. In the part in which it insinuates that the Church does not have authority for exacting subjection to her decrees otherwise than through means which depend on persuasion;

Insofar as it intends that the Church does not have power conferred on her by God, not only of directing by counsels and persuasions, but also of commanding by laws, and of coercing and compelling the wayward and contumacious by exterior judgment and salutary punishments:

From Benedict XIV, in the brief Ad assiduas of the year 1755, to the Primates, Archbishops, and Bishops of the Kingdom of Poland.

Introducing into a system elsewhere condemned as heretical.

Decree concerning order, § 25.

6. The doctrine of the Synod, by which it professes itself persuaded that the Bishop has received from Christ all rights necessary for the good governance of his diocese;

Just as if, for the good governance of any diocese, there were not necessary superior ordinances pertaining either to Faith and morals, or to general discipline, the right of which belongs to the supreme Pontiffs and general Councils for the universal Church;

Schismatic, at least erroneous.

7. Likewise, in that it exhorts the Bishop to pursue vigorously a more perfect constitution of ecclesiastical discipline; and this, against all contrary customs, exemptions, reservations, which are opposed to the good order of the diocese, the greater glory of God, and the greater edification of the faithful; By this, that it supposes it to be lawful for a Bishop, by his own judgment and choice, to establish and decree against customs, exemptions, reservations, whether those which have place in the universal Church, or even in each province, without the permission and intervention of the superior hierarchical power by which they were introduced or approved, and have the force of law;

Introducing into schism and the subversion of hierarchical government, erroneous.

8. Likewise, because it also says that it is persuaded of this, that the rights of a Bishop received from Jesus Christ for governing the Church can neither be altered nor impeded, and that, when it has happened that the exercise of these rights has been interrupted for any cause whatever, the Bishop can always and ought to return to his original rights, as often as the greater good of his Church requires it;

In that it implies that the exercise of episcopal rights can be hindered or restrained by no superior power, whenever the Bishop by his own judgment shall have judged that this is less expedient for the greater good of his Church;

Introducing into schism and the subversion of hierarchical government, erroneous.

Convocatory epistle.

9. The doctrine which establishes that the reformation of abuses concerning ecclesiastical discipline in diocesan Synods depends equally on the Bishop and parish priests, and ought to be established by them equally; and that without liberty of decision there would be an undue subjection to the suggestions and commands of Bishops;

False, rash, injurious to Episcopal authority, subversive of hierarchical government, favoring the Aerian heresy renewed by Calvin.

From the convocatory epistle, from the epistle to the vicars forane, from the oration to the Synod, § 8, from session 3.

10. Likewise the doctrine by which parish priests or other priests assembled in Synod are pronounced, together with the Bishop, judges of Faith, and at the same time it is implied that judgment in causes of Faith belongs to them by their own right, and indeed even by ordination received;

False, rash, subversive of the hierarchical order, detracting from the firmness of the definitions or dogmatic judgments of the Church, at least erroneous.

Synodal oration, § 8.

11. The sentence declaring that, according to the ancient institution of the forefathers, derived from apostolic times and preserved through the better ages of the Church, it had been received that decrees, or definitions, or sentences even of greater sees were not accepted unless they had been recognized and approved by the diocesan Synod;

False, rash, derogating, by reason of its generality, from the obedience owed to apostolic constitutions and also to sentences proceeding from a legitimate superior hierarchical power, fostering schism and heresy.

Concerning Faith, § 12.

12. The assertions of the Synod, accepted comprehensively, concerning decisions in matter of Faith issued for some centuries, which it presents as decrees proceeding from one particular church or from a few pastors, supported by no sufficient authority, born for corrupting the purity of Faith and exciting disturbances, intruded by force, from which wounds have been inflicted that are still too recent;

False, captious, rash, scandalous, injurious to the Roman Pontiffs and to the Church, derogating from the obedience owed to apostolic constitutions, schismatic, pernicious, at least erroneous.

Synodal oration, § 2, in the note.

13. The proposition related among the acts of the Synod, which implies that Clement IX restored peace to the Church through the approval of the distinction of right and fact in the subscription of the formulary prescribed by Alexander VII;

False, rash, injurious to Clement IX.

14. But insofar as it supports that distinction by extolling with praises the favorers of the same and by censuring their adversaries;

Rash, pernicious, injurious to the supreme Pontiffs, fostering schism and heresy.

Appendix, no. 28.

15. The doctrine which proposes that the Church is to be considered as one mystical body joined together from Christ the Head and the faithful, who are His members, through an ineffable union, by which we wonderfully become with Him one sole priest, one sole victim, one sole perfect adorer of God the Father in spirit and truth;

Understood in this sense, that none belong to the body of the Church except the faithful who are perfect adorers in spirit and truth:

Heretical.

Concerning grace, §§ 4, 7; concerning the Sacraments in general, § 1; concerning Penance, § 4.

16. The doctrine of the Synod concerning the happy state of innocence, as it represents it in Adam before sin, embracing not only integrity, but also interior justice with an impulse toward God through the love of charity, and primitive holiness restored in some manner after the fall:

Insofar as, accepted comprehensively, it implies that that state was a sequel of creation, owed from the natural exigency and condition of human nature, not a gratuitous benefit of God;

False, elsewhere condemned in Baius and Quesnel, erroneous, favoring the Pelagian heresy.

Concerning Baptism, § 2.

17. The proposition expressed in these words: taught by the Apostle, we regard death no longer as a natural condition of man, but truly as a just penalty of original fault:

Insofar as, under the name of the Apostle deceitfully alleged, it insinuates that death, which in the present state has been inflicted as a just penalty of sin through the just withdrawal of immortality, was not a natural condition of man, as though immortality had not been a gratuitous benefit, but a natural condition;

Captious, rash, injurious to the Apostle, elsewhere condemned.

Concerning grace, § 10.

18. The doctrine of the Synod declaring that after the fall of Adam God announced the promise of the future liberator, and willed to console the human race through the hope of salvation which Jesus Christ was going to bring; yet that God willed that the human race should pass through various states before the fullness of times should come; and first, that in the state of nature man, left to his own lights, should learn to distrust his blind reason, and from his wanderings should move himself to desiring the help of a superior light:

The doctrine, as it lies, captious, and, understood of the desire for the aid of a superior light in order to the salvation promised through Christ, to conceive which man left to his own lights is supposed to have been able to move himself;

Suspect, favoring the Semipelagian heresy.

Ibid.

19. Likewise, the doctrine which adds that man under the law, since he was powerless to observe it, became a transgressor, not indeed by the fault of the law, which was most holy, but by the fault of man, who under the law without grace became more and more a transgressor; and it adds that the law, if it did not heal the heart of man, brought it about that he should know his own evils, and, convinced of his own weakness, should desire the grace of the Mediator;

In the part in which it generally implies that man became a transgressor through non-observance of the law, which he was powerless to observe; as though He who is just could have commanded something impossible, or He who is merciful were going to condemn man for that which he could not avoid;

From St. Caesarius, sermon 73, in the appendix of St. Augustine, sermon 273, Maurist edition.
From St. Augustine, On Nature and Grace, ch. 43; On Grace and Free Will, ch. 16; Enarration on Psalm 56, no. 1.

False, scandalous, impious, condemned in Baius.

20. In the part in which it is given to be understood that man under the law without grace could conceive a desire for the grace of the Mediator ordered to the salvation promised through Christ; as though grace itself does not bring it about that He is invoked by us;

From the Second Council of Orange, canon 3.

The proposition, as it lies, captious, suspect, favoring the Semipelagian heresy.

Concerning grace, § 11.

21. The proposition which asserts that the light of grace, when it is alone, provides nothing except that we know the unhappiness of our state and the gravity of our evil; that grace in such a case produces the same effect which the law produced; that therefore it is necessary that God create in our heart holy love, and inspire holy delectation contrary to the love dominant in us; that this holy love, this holy delectation, is properly the grace of Jesus Christ, the inspiration of charity, by which, the holy love having been known, we may act; that this is that root from which good works germinate; that this is the grace of the New Testament, which liberates us from the servitude of sin and establishes us as sons of God:

Insofar as it intends that that alone is properly the grace of Jesus Christ which creates holy love in the heart, and which makes us act, or also by which man, liberated from the servitude of sin, is established as a son of God; and that it is not also properly the grace of Christ, that grace by which the heart of man is touched through the illumination of the Holy Spirit (Trent, session 6, ch. 5); nor that true interior grace of Christ is given, which is resisted;

False, captious, introducing into the error condemned as heretical in the second proposition of Jansenius, and renewing it.

Concerning Faith, § 1.

22. The proposition which implies that Faith, from which the series of graces begins, and through which, as by the first voice, we are called to salvation and to the Church, is that very excellent virtue of Faith by which men are named faithful and are faithful;

Just as if that grace were not prior, which, as it prevents the will, so also prevents Faith;

From St. Augustine, On the Gift of Perseverance, ch. 16, no. 41; suspect of heresy, and savoring of it, elsewhere condemned in Quesnel, erroneous.

Concerning grace, § 8.

23. The doctrine of the Synod concerning the two-fold love (of dominant cupidity and of dominant charity), declaring that man without grace is under the servitude of sin, and that in that state he infects and corrupts all his actions through the general influence of dominant cupidity;

Insofar as it insinuates that in man, while he is under servitude or in the state of sin, destitute of that grace by which he is liberated from the servitude of sin and established as a son of God, cupidity so dominates that through the general influence of this all his actions are infected and corrupted in themselves; or that all works which are done before justification, in whatever manner they are done, are sins;

As though in all his acts the sinner serves dominant cupidity;

False, pernicious, introducing into the error condemned by the Council of Trent as heretical, again condemned in Baius, article 40, § 12.

24. But in the part in which between dominant cupidity and dominant charity no intermediate affections are placed, implanted by nature itself and by their own nature praiseworthy, which together with the love of beatitude and the natural propensity to good remained as the extreme lineaments and remnants of the image:

From St. Augustine, On the Spirit and the Letter, ch. 28.

Just as if between divine love, which leads us through to the kingdom, and illicit human love, which is condemned, there were not given lawful human love, which is not reprehended;

From St. Augustine, sermon 349 concerning charity, Maurist edition; false, elsewhere condemned.

Concerning Penance, § 3.

25. The doctrine which generally presents fear of punishments only as not able to be called evil, if at least it reaches to restraining the hand;

As though the fear itself of gehenna, which Faith teaches must be inflicted for sin, is not in itself good and useful, as a supernatural gift and a motion inspired by God preparing for the love of justice:

False, rash, pernicious, injurious to divine gifts, elsewhere condemned, contrary to the doctrine of the Council of Trent, and also to the common sentence of the Fathers, that it is necessary, according to the customary order of preparation for justice, that fear enter first, through which charity may come: fear is the medicine, charity the health.

From St. Augustine, on the Epistle of John, ch. 4, tract 9, nos. 4, 5; on the Gospel of John, tract 41, no. 10; Enarration on Psalm 127, no. 7; sermon 157 concerning the words of the Apostle, no. 13; sermon 161 concerning the words of the Apostle, no. 8; sermon 349 concerning Charity, no. 7.

Concerning Baptism, § 3.

26. The doctrine which explodes as a Pelagian fable that place of the lower regions (which the faithful commonly designate by the name of the limbo of children), in which the souls of those dying with original fault alone are punished with the punishment of loss, short of the punishment of fire;

Just as if, by this very fact, those who remove the punishment of fire introduced that place and middle state, free of fault and punishment, between the kingdom of God and eternal damnation, such as the Pelagians fabled;

False, rash, injurious to Catholic schools.

Concerning Baptism, § 12.

27. The deliberation of the Synod by which, under the pretext of adherence to ancient canons, in the case of doubtful Baptism, it declares its proposal of omitting mention of the conditional form;

Rash, contrary to the practice, law, and authority of the Church.

Concerning the Eucharist, § 6.

28. The proposition of the Synod by which, after it establishes that participation of the Victim is an essential part of the Sacrifice, it adds that nevertheless it does not condemn as illicit those Masses in which those standing by do not communicate sacramentally, for this reason, that these participate, although less perfectly, in the Victim itself by receiving it in spirit;

Insofar as it insinuates that something is lacking to the essence of the Sacrifice in that Sacrifice which is performed either with no one standing by, or with those standing by who participate in the Victim neither sacramentally nor spiritually; and as though those Masses ought to be condemned as illicit in which, the priest alone communicating, no one is present who communicates either sacramentally or spiritually;

False, erroneous, suspected of heresy, and savoring of it.

Concerning the Eucharist, § 2.

29. The doctrine of the Synod, in that part in which, undertaking to hand down the doctrine of Faith concerning the rite of consecration, scholastic questions concerning the mode in which Christ is in the Eucharist having been removed, from which it exhorts parish priests fulfilling the office of teaching to abstain, with only these two things proposed: 1. that Christ after the consecration is truly, really, substantially under the species; 2. that then every substance of bread and wine ceases, the species alone remaining; it entirely omits to make any mention of Transubstantiation, or the conversion of the whole substance of bread into the Body, and of the whole substance of wine into the Blood, which the Council of Trent defined as an article of Faith, and which is contained in the solemn profession of Faith;

Insofar as through an omission of this kind, inconsiderate and suspicious, the knowledge is withdrawn both of an article pertaining to Faith, and also of a word consecrated by the Church for guarding the profession of that article against heresies, and therefore it tends to introducing forgetfulness of it, as though it were a question merely scholastic;

Pernicious, derogating from the exposition of Catholic truth concerning the dogma of Transubstantiation, favoring heretics.

Concerning the Eucharist, § 8.

30. The doctrine of the Synod by which, while it professes to believe that the oblation of the Sacrifice extends itself to all, yet in such a way that in the liturgy there can be made a special commemoration of certain persons, both living and dead, by praying to God particularly for them, then immediately adds: Not, however, that we believe it to be in the choice of the priest to apply the fruits of the Sacrifice to whom he wills; rather, we condemn this error as greatly offending the rights of God, who alone distributes the fruits of the Sacrifice to whom He wills, and according to the measure which pleases Him; whence also consequently it disparages as false the opinion brought into the people, that those who furnish alms to the priest under the condition that he celebrate one Mass receive a special fruit from it;

Understood thus, that, beyond the particular commemoration and prayer, the special oblation itself or application of the Sacrifice which is made by the priest does not profit, other things being equal, those for whom it is applied more than any others; as though no special fruit would come from the special application which the Church commends and commands to be made for determined persons or orders of persons, especially by pastors for their sheep, which, as descending from divine precept, was expressly set forth by the sacred Synod of Trent;

Session 23, ch. 1, concerning reform. - Benedict XIV, constitution Cum semper oblatas, § 2.

False, rash, pernicious, injurious to the Church, introducing into an error elsewhere condemned in Wyclif.

Concerning the Eucharist, § 5.

31. The proposition of the Synod declaring that it is fitting, for the order of divine offices and the ancient custom, that in each temple there be only one altar, and that therefore it pleases it to restore that custom:

Rash, injurious to a most ancient, pious, and approved custom, flourishing in the Church, especially the Latin Church, for many centuries past.

Ibid.

32. Likewise, the prescription forbidding that reliquaries of sacred relics or flowers be placed upon altars;

Rash, injurious to the pious and approved custom of the Church.

Ibid., § 6.

33. The proposition of the Synod by which it shows that it desires the causes to be removed through which, in part, forgetfulness of the principles pertaining to the order of the liturgy has been introduced, by recalling it to a greater simplicity of rites, by setting it forth in the vulgar tongue, and by pronouncing it in a raised voice:

As though the prevailing order of the liturgy, received and approved by the Church, had in some part flowed from forgetfulness of the principles by which it ought to be ruled;

Rash, offensive to pious ears, contumelious toward the Church, favoring the reproaches of heretics against it.

Concerning Penance, § 7.

34. The declaration of the Synod by which, after it set forth beforehand that the order of canonical Penance had thus been established by the Church according to the example of the Apostles, so that it would be common to all, and not only for the punishment of fault but chiefly for disposition to grace, it adds that in that wonderful and august order it recognizes the whole dignity of the Sacrament, so necessary, free from the subtleties which have been added to it in the course of time;

As though, through the order by which, without the course of canonical Penance having been completed, this Sacrament has been accustomed to be administered throughout the whole Church, its dignity had been diminished;

Rash, scandalous, introducing contempt of the dignity of the Sacrament as it has been accustomed to be administered throughout the whole Church, injurious to the Church herself.

Concerning Penance, § 10, no. 4.

35. Proposition conceived in these words: If charity in the beginning always is weak, according to the ordinary way for obtaining an increase of this charity, it is necessary that the Priest cause those acts of humiliation and penance to precede, which in every age have been commended by the Church; to reduce these acts to a few prayers or to some fast after absolution has already been conferred seems rather a material desire of preserving for this sacrament the bare name of Penance, than an enlightened means suited to increasing that fervor of charity which ought to precede absolution: indeed, we are far from disapproving the practice of imposing penances to be fulfilled even after absolution: if all our good works always have our defects joined to them, how much more ought we to fear lest we have admitted very many imperfections in the most difficult and important work of our reconciliation;

Insofar as it implies that the penances which are imposed to be fulfilled after absolution are to be considered rather as a supplement for defects admitted in the work of our reconciliation, than as truly sacramental and satisfactory penances for confessed sins; as though, in order that the true nature of the Sacrament, and not its bare name, be preserved, it were necessary, according to the ordinary way, that the acts of humiliation and penance which are imposed by way of sacramental satisfaction ought to precede absolution:

False, rash, injurious to the common practice of the Church, introducing into the error fixed with a note of heresy in Peter de Osma.

Concerning grace, § 15.

36. The doctrine of the Synod by which, after it first stated that, when there shall be non-equivocal signs of the love of God dominating in the heart of man, he can deservedly be judged worthy to be admitted to participation of the blood of Jesus Christ, which is made in the Sacraments, it adds that supposititious conversions, which are made through attrition, are accustomed to be neither efficacious nor durable; consequently that the pastor of souls ought to insist upon non-equivocal signs of dominant charity before he admits his penitents to the Sacraments; which signs, as it then hands down (§ 17), the pastor will be able to deduce from stable cessation from sin, and fervor in good works; which fervor of charity it further presents (concerning Penance, § 10) as the disposition which ought to precede absolution;

Understood thus, that not only imperfect contrition, which commonly is given the name of attrition, even that which is joined with the love by which man begins to love God as the fountain of all justice, nor only contrition formed by charity, but also the fervor of dominant charity, and that indeed proved by long experiment through fervor in good works, is generally and absolutely required in order that a man be admitted to the Sacraments, and especially penitents to the benefit of absolution;

False, rash, disturbing to the peace of souls, contrary to the safe and approved practice in the Church, detracting from and injurious to the efficacy of the Sacrament.

Concerning Penance, § 10, no. 6.

37. The doctrine of the Synod which, concerning the authority of absolving received through Ordination, declares that, after the institution of dioceses and parishes, it is fitting that each one exercise this judgment over persons subject to him, either by reason of territory or by a certain personal right, for the reason that otherwise confusion and disturbance would be introduced:

Insofar as, after dioceses and parishes have been instituted, it declares only that it is fitting, for preventing confusion, that the power of absolving be exercised over subjects; understood thus, as though for the valid use of this power that ordinary or subdelegated jurisdiction were not necessary, without which Trent declares that absolution pronounced by a priest is of no moment;

False, rash, pernicious, contrary and injurious to Trent, erroneous.

Ibid., § 11.

38. Likewise the doctrine by which, after the Synod professed that it could not but admire that so venerable discipline of antiquity, which, as it says, did not so easily and perhaps never admit to Penance him who, after the first sin and the first reconciliation, had fallen back into fault, it adds that, by fear of perpetual exclusion from communion and peace, even at the article of death, a great bridle would be put upon those who little consider the evil of sin and fear it less;

Contrary to canon 13 of the First Council of Nicaea, to the decretal of Innocent I to Exuperius of Toulouse, and also to the decretal of Coelestine I to the Bishops of the provinces of Vienne and Narbonne, redolent of the depravity which the holy Pontiff abhors in that decretal.

Concerning Penance, § 12.

39. The declaration of the Synod on the confession of venial sins, which it says it wishes not to be frequented so greatly, lest confessions of this kind be rendered too contemptible;

Rash, pernicious, contrary to the practice of holy and pious persons approved by the sacred Council of Trent.

Concerning Penance, § 16.

40. The proposition asserting that an indulgence according to its precise notion is nothing else than the remission of a part of that penance which had been established by the canons for the sinner;

As though an indulgence, beyond the bare remission of canonical penalty, does not also avail for the remission of the temporal penalty owed before divine justice for actual sins;

False, rash, injurious to the merits of Christ, long ago condemned in article 19 of Luther.

Ibid.

41. Likewise, in that it is added that the scholastics, puffed up with their subtleties, introduced a badly understood treasury of the merits of Christ and of the Saints, and substituted for the clear notion of absolution from canonical penalty the confused and false notion of the application of merits;

As though the treasures of the Church, whence the Pope gives indulgences, are not the merits of Christ and of the Saints;

False, rash, injurious to the merits of Christ and of the Saints, long ago condemned in article 17 of Luther.

Ibid.

42. Likewise, in that it adds further that it is still more mournful that this chimerical application was willed to be transferred to the dead;

False, rash, offensive to pious ears, injurious to the Roman Pontiffs and to the practice and sense of the universal Church, introducing into the error fixed with a note of heresy in Peter de Osma, again condemned in article 22 of Luther.

Ibid.

43. Finally, in that it most shamelessly inveighs against tables of indulgences, privileged altars, etc.;

Rash, offensive to pious ears, scandalous, contumelious toward the supreme Pontiffs and toward the practice frequented throughout the whole Church.

Concerning Penance, § 19.

44. The proposition of the Synod asserting that the reservation of cases at the present time is nothing else than an improvident bond for inferior priests, and a sound empty of sense for penitents accustomed not to care very much for this reservation:

False, rash, ill-sounding, pernicious, contrary to the Council of Trent, injurious to the superior hierarchical power.

Ibid.

45. Likewise, concerning the hope which it shows there will be, that, once the ritual and the order of Penance have been reformed, reservations of this kind will have no further place:

Insofar as, with attention to the generality of the words, it implies that, through a reformation of the ritual and order of Penance made by the Bishop or Synod, cases can be abolished which the Synod of Trent (session 14, ch. 7) declares the Supreme Pontiffs to have been able, according to the supreme power handed over to them in the universal Church, to reserve by their own peculiar judgment;

A false proposition, rash, derogating from and injurious to the Council of Trent and to the authority of the supreme Pontiffs.

Concerning Penance, §§ 20, 22.

46. The proposition asserting that the effect of excommunication is only exterior, because by its nature it only excludes from the exterior communication of the Church:

As though excommunication were not a spiritual penalty, binding in heaven, obliging souls;

From St. Augustine, epistle 250 to Auxilius the Bishop; tract 50 on John, no. 12.

False, pernicious, condemned in article 23 of Luther, at least erroneous.

§§ 21, 23.

47. Likewise, the proposition which hands down that it is necessary according to natural and divine laws that a personal examination ought to precede either excommunication or suspension; and therefore that sentences called ipso facto have no other force except that of a serious threat without any actual effect;

False, rash, pernicious, injurious to the power of the Church, erroneous.

§ 22.

48. Likewise, that which pronounces useless and vain the formula introduced some centuries ago of absolving generally from excommunications into which the faithful person could have fallen:

False, rash, injurious to the practice of the Church.

§ 24.

49. Likewise, that which condemns as null and invalid suspensions ex informata conscientia:

False, pernicious, injurious to Trent.

Ibid.

50. Likewise, in that it insinuates that it is not lawful for the Bishop alone to use the power which nevertheless Trent (session 14, ch. 1, concerning reform) confers on him, of legitimately inflicting suspension ex informata conscientia;

Injurious to the jurisdiction of the Prelates of the Church.

Concerning Order, § 4.

51. The doctrine of the Synod which presents that, in promoting to Orders, this manner, from the custom and institution of ancient discipline, was accustomed to be observed: that if any one of the clerics was distinguished by holiness of life, and was judged worthy to ascend to Sacred Orders, he was accustomed to be promoted to the Diaconate or Priesthood even if he had not received the inferior Orders; nor then was such ordination called per saltum, as it was called afterwards.

§ 5.

52. Likewise, that which implies that there was no other title of Ordinations than deputation to some special ministry, such as was prescribed in the Council of Chalcedon; adding (§ 6) that, as long as the Church conformed herself to these principles in the selection of sacred ministers, the ecclesiastical order flourished; but that those blessed days passed away, and new principles were thereafter introduced, by which discipline in the selection of ministers of the sanctuary was corrupted.

§ 7.

53. Likewise, that which refers among these very principles of corruption the fact that there was a departure from the old institution, by which, as it says (§ 3), the Church, insisting upon the footsteps of the Apostle, had determined that no one was to be admitted to the Priesthood except one who had preserved baptismal innocence;

Insofar as it implies that discipline was corrupted through decrees and institutes,

1. Either by which ordinations per saltum were forbidden;

2. Or by which, for the necessity and advantage of Churches, ordinations without title of a special office were approved, as especially by Trent ordination to the title of patrimony; with the obedience preserved by which those so ordained ought to serve the necessities of Churches by undertaking those offices to which they shall have been assigned by the Bishop according to place and time, just as from apostolic times it was accustomed to be done in the primitive Church;

3. Or by which, in canon law, a distinction of crimes was made, which renders delinquents irregular; as though by this distinction the Church had departed from the spirit of the Apostle, by not excluding generally and indistinctly from the ecclesiastical ministry all and every one who had not preserved baptismal innocence;

The doctrine in each of its parts false, rash, disturbing to the order introduced for the necessity and advantage of Churches, injurious to the discipline approved by the canons and especially by the decrees of Trent.

§ 13.

54. Likewise, that which marks as a shameful abuse ever to claim alms for celebrating Masses and administering Sacraments, and also to receive any revenue called of the stole, and generally any stipend and honorarium which is offered on the occasion of suffrages or of any parochial function;

As though ministers of the Church ought to be marked with the crime of shameful abuse, who according to the received and approved custom and institute of the Church use the right promulgated by the Apostle of receiving temporal things from those to whom spiritual things are ministered;

False, rash, injurious to ecclesiastical and pastoral right, injurious to the Church and her ministers.

§ 14.

55. Likewise, that which professes that it vehemently desires that some manner be found of removing the minor clergy (by which name it designates clerics of the inferior orders) from Cathedrals and Collegiate Churches, providing otherwise (namely, through upright and more advanced laymen, with a suitable stipend assigned) for the ministry of serving Masses and other offices, as Acolytes etc., as formerly, it says, was accustomed to be done, when offices of that kind had not been reduced to a mere appearance for receiving the greater Orders;

Insofar as it reprehends the institute by which provision is made that the functions of minor orders be performed or exercised only through those who have been constituted or enrolled in them (Fourth Provincial Council of Milan); and this according to the mind of Trent (session 23, ch. 17), that the functions of holy Orders, from the Diaconate to the Ostiariate, laudably received in the Church from apostolic times and in many places interrupted for some time, be recalled according to the sacred canons, and not be disparaged by heretics as idle;

A rash suggestion, offensive to pious ears, disturbing to the ecclesiastical ministry, diminishing the decorum to be preserved as far as possible in celebrating the mysteries, injurious to the duties and functions of the minor orders, and also to the discipline approved by the canons and especially by Trent, favoring the reproaches and calumnies of heretics against it.

§ 18.

56. The doctrine which establishes that in canonical impediments, which arise from delicts expressed in law, it seems fitting that no dispensation ever be either granted or admitted;

Injurious to canonical equity and moderation approved by the sacred Council of Trent, derogating from the authority and rights of the Church.

Ibid., § 22.

57. The prescription of the Synod which generally and indiscriminately rejects as an abuse any dispensation whatsoever, that more than one residential benefice be conferred on one and the same person; likewise, in that it adds that it is certain to itself that, according to the spirit of the Church, no one can enjoy more than one benefice, even a simple one:

By reason of its generality, derogating from the moderation of Trent, session 7, ch. 5, and session 24, ch. 17.

Memorial booklet concerning betrothals etc., § 2.

58. The proposition which establishes that betrothals properly so called contain a merely civil act, which disposes for celebrating Matrimony, and that the same are wholly subject to the prescription of civil laws;

As though an act disposing to a Sacrament were not, under this aspect, subject to the law of the Church; False, injurious to the right of the Church with regard also to the effects flowing from betrothals by force of canonical sanctions, derogating from the discipline constituted by the Church.

Concerning Matrimony, §§ 7, 11, 12.

59. The doctrine of the Synod asserting that it belongs originally to the supreme civil power alone to place upon the contract of Matrimony impediments of that kind which render it null and are called diriment; which original right moreover is said to be essentially connected with the right of dispensing; adding that, with the consent or connivance of princes supposed, the Church could justly constitute diriment impediments to the contract itself of Matrimony;

As though the Church had not always been able and were not able, by her own right, in the Marriages of Christians, to constitute impediments which not only impede Matrimony but also render it null as to the bond, by which Christians are held bound even in the lands of infidels, and to dispense in the same;

Overthrowing canons 3, 4, 9, 12 of session 24 of the Council of Trent; heretical.

The cited memorial booklet concerning betrothals, § 10.

60. Likewise, the request of the Synod to the civil power, that from the number of impediments it remove spiritual kinship, and that which is called of public honesty, whose origin is found in the collection of Justinian; then that it restrict the impediment of affinity and kinship, arising from any lawful or unlawful union whatsoever, to the fourth degree according to civil computation through the lateral and oblique line; yet in such a way that no hope be left of obtaining dispensation;

Insofar as it attributes to the civil power the right either of abolishing or restricting impediments constituted or approved by the authority of the Church; likewise in the part in which it supposes that the Church can be despoiled by the civil power of her right of dispensing over impediments constituted or approved by herself;

Subversive of the liberty and power of the Church, contrary to Trent, proceeding from the heretical principle condemned above.

Concerning Faith, § 3.

61. The proposition which asserts that to adore directly the humanity of Christ, but more so any part of it, would always be divine honor given to a creature;

Insofar as by this word directly it intends to reprove the worship of adoration which the faithful direct to the humanity of Christ, just as if such adoration, by which the humanity, and the very life-giving flesh of Christ, is adored, not indeed on account of itself and as naked flesh, but insofar as united to the divinity, were divine honor imparted to a creature, and not rather one and the same adoration by which the incarnate Word is adored with His own flesh;

From the Fifth General Council of Constantinople, canon 9.

False, captious, detracting from and injurious to the pious and due worship paid and to be paid by the faithful to the humanity of Christ.

Concerning prayer, § 10.

62. The doctrine which rejects devotion toward the most Sacred Heart of Jesus among the devotions which it marks as new, erroneous, or at least dangerous;

Understood of this devotion, as it has been approved by the apostolic See;

False, rash, pernicious, offensive to pious ears, injurious to the apostolic See.

Concerning prayer, § 10, and appendix, no. 32.

63. Likewise, in that it accuses worshipers of the Heart of Jesus also on this ground, that they do not advert that the most holy flesh of Christ, or any part of it, or even the whole humanity, cannot be adored with the worship of latria with separation or precision from the divinity;

As though the faithful adored the Heart of Jesus with separation or precision from the divinity, when they adore it as it is the Heart of Jesus, namely the Heart of the person of the Word, to whom it is inseparably united, in that manner in which the bloodless body of Christ during the triduum of death was adorable in the sepulcher without separation or precision from the divinity;

Captious, injurious to the faithful worshipers of the Heart of Christ.

Concerning prayer, § 14; appendix, no. 34.

64. The doctrine which universally marks as superstitious any efficacy whatsoever which is placed in a determinate number of prayers and pious salutations;

As though the efficacy which is taken not from the number considered in itself, but from the prescription of the Church determining beforehand a certain number of prayers or external actions for obtaining indulgences, for fulfilling penances, and generally for performing sacred and religious worship duly and in order, ought to be censured as superstitious;

False, rash, scandalous, pernicious, injurious to the piety of the faithful, derogating from the authority of the Church, erroneous.

Concerning Penance, § 10.

65. The proposition declaring that the irregular noise of new institutions, which have been called exercises or missions... perhaps never, or at least very rarely, reaches so far that they accomplish an absolute conversion; and that those exterior acts of commotion which appeared were nothing other than passing flashes of natural concussion;

Rash, ill-sounding, pernicious, injurious to a custom piously and salutarily frequented through the Church and founded in the word of God.

66. The proposition asserting that it would be contrary to apostolic practice and the counsels of God unless easier ways were prepared for the people of joining their voice with the voice of the whole Church;

Understood of the use of the vulgar tongue to be introduced into liturgical prayers;

False, rash, disturbing to the order prescribed for the celebration of the mysteries, easily productive of many evils.

From the note at the end of the decree concerning grace.

67. The doctrine presenting that nothing excuses from the reading of the sacred Scriptures except true inability; adding that the obscuration which has arisen from neglect of this precept over the primary truths of Religion openly betrays itself;

False, rash, disturbing to the peace of souls, elsewhere condemned in Quesnel.

Concerning prayer, § 29.

68. The praise by which the Synod highly commends Quesnel's commentaries on the New Testament, and other works of others favoring Quesnellian errors, although proscribed; and proposes the same to parish priests, that each one in his own parishes read them through to the people after the other functions, as being filled with solid principles of Religion;

False, scandalous, rash, seditious, injurious to the Church, fostering schism and heresy.

Concerning prayer, § 17.

69. The prescription which generally and indistinctly marks among images to be removed from the Church, as offering to the unlearned an occasion of error, images of the incomprehensible Trinity;

On account of its generality, rash, and contrary to the pious custom frequented through the Church, as though there existed no images of the most holy Trinity commonly approved and safely permitted;

From the brief Sollicitudini nostrae of Benedict XIV, of the year 1745.

70. Likewise, the doctrine and prescription generally reproving every special worship which the faithful are accustomed to bestow upon some image in particular, and to flee to that image rather than to another;

Rash, pernicious, injurious to the pious custom frequented through the Church, and also to that order of providence by which God so willed these things to be done, not in all memorials of the Saints, who divides His own proper things to each one as He wills.

From St. Augustine, epistle 78, to the clergy, elders, and whole people of the church of Hippo.

71. Likewise, that which forbids that images, especially of the blessed Virgin, be distinguished by any titles, except by denominations which are analogous to mysteries of which express mention is made in sacred Scripture;

As though other pious denominations could not be ascribed to images, which the Church approves and commends even in the public prayers themselves;

Rash, offensive to pious ears, injurious to the veneration owed especially to the blessed Virgin.

72. Likewise, that which wishes to extirpate as an abuse the custom by which certain images are kept veiled;

Rash, contrary to a custom frequent in the Church and introduced for fostering the piety of the faithful.

Memorial booklet for the reform of feasts, § 3.

73. The proposition declaring that the institution of new feasts took its origin from neglect in observing the old ones, and from false notions of the nature and end of the same solemnities;

False, rash, scandalous, injurious to the Church, favoring the reproaches of heretics against feast days celebrated through the Church.

Ibid., § 8.

74. The deliberation of the Synod concerning transferring to Sunday the feasts instituted throughout the year, and this by reason of the right which it says it is persuaded belongs to the Bishop over ecclesiastical discipline in order to merely spiritual things; and therefore also of abrogating the precept of hearing Mass on days on which, from the former law of the Church, that precept even now flourishes; and also in that which it adds concerning transferring, by episcopal authority, to Advent the fasts to be observed throughout the year from the precept of the Church;

Insofar as it asserts that it is lawful for a Bishop by his own right to transfer days prescribed by the Church for celebrating feasts or fasts, or to abrogate the introduced precept of hearing Mass;

A false proposition, injurious to the right of general Councils and of the supreme Pontiffs, scandalous, favoring schism.

Memorial booklet for the reform of oaths, § 5.

75. The doctrine which presents that, in the blessed times of the nascent Church, oaths were seen to be so alien from the documents of the divine Preceptor and from golden evangelical simplicity that to swear itself without extreme and unavoidable necessity would have been regarded as an irreligious act, unworthy of a Christian man; moreover, that the continued series of the Fathers demonstrates that oaths were held by common sense as forbidden; and from this it proceeds to disapprove the oaths which the ecclesiastical curia, following the norm of feudal jurisprudence, as it says, adopted in investitures and in the very sacred ordinations of Bishops; and it establishes that a law is therefore to be implored from the secular power for abolishing oaths which are exacted even in ecclesiastical Curiae for undertaking duties and offices, and generally for every curial act;

False, injurious to the Church, injurious to ecclesiastical right, subversive of the discipline introduced and approved by the canons.

Concerning ecclesiastical conferences, § 1.

76. The attack by which the Synod agitates against scholasticism, as that which opened the way for finding new systems, discordant among themselves, concerning truths of greater price, and at length led to probabilism and laxism;

Insofar as it throws upon scholasticism the vices of private persons, who could abuse it or have abused it;

False, rash, injurious to the most holy men and doctors who cultivated scholasticism for the great good of the Catholic Religion, favoring the hostile reproaches of heretics against it.

Ibid.

77. Likewise, in that it adds that the change of the form of ecclesiastical government, by which it happened that the ministers of the Church came into forgetfulness of their rights, which at the same time are their obligations, finally brought the matter to this, that it caused the primitive notions of ecclesiastical ministry and pastoral solicitude to be obliterated;

As though through a change of government congruent with the discipline constituted and approved in the Church, the primitive notion of ecclesiastical ministry or pastoral solicitude could ever have been obliterated and lost;

False, rash, erroneous proposition.

§ 4.

78. The prescription of the Synod concerning the order of matters to be treated in conferences, by which, after it premised that in any article there must be distinguished that which pertains to faith and to the essence of Religion from that which is proper to discipline, it adds that in this very discipline there must be distinguished that which is necessary or useful for retaining the faithful in spirit from that which is useless or more burdensome than the liberty of the children of the new covenant would suffer, but more still from that which is dangerous or harmful, as inducing to superstition and materialism;

Insofar as, by reason of the generality of the words, it comprehends and subjects to the prescribed examination even discipline constituted and approved by the Church; as though the Church, which is ruled by the Spirit of God, could constitute a discipline not only useless and more burdensome than Christian liberty would suffer, but also dangerous, harmful, inducing into superstition and materialism;

False, rash, scandalous, pernicious, offensive to pious ears, injurious to the Church and to the Spirit of God by whom she is ruled, at least erroneous.

Oration to the Synod, § 2.

79. The assertion which attacks with reproaches and contumelies opinions agitated in Catholic schools, and concerning which the apostolic See has not yet judged that anything should be defined or pronounced;

False, rash, injurious to Catholic schools, derogating from the obedience owed to apostolic constitutions.

Memorial booklet for the reform of regulars, § 9.

80. Rule I, which establishes universally and indiscriminately that the regular or monastic state cannot by its nature be combined with the care of souls and with the duties of pastoral life, and therefore cannot come into part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy without, on the contrary, fighting against the principles of monastic life itself;

False, pernicious, injurious to the most holy Fathers and Prelates of the Church who joined institutes of regular life with the duties of the clerical order, contrary to the pious, ancient, approved custom of the Church and the sanctions of the supreme Pontiffs: As though monks, whom gravity of morals and holy institution of life and Faith commends, were not rightly, and not only without offense to Religion, but also with much usefulness to the Church, aggregated to the offices of clerics.

From St. Siricius, decretal epistle to Himerius of Tarragona, ch. 13.

81. Likewise, in that it adds that Saints Thomas and Bonaventure were so occupied in defending the institutes of mendicants against the highest men, that in their defenses less heat and greater accuracy would have been desired;

Scandalous, injurious to the most holy doctors, favoring the impious contumelies of condemned authors.

82. Rule II: That multiplication of orders and diversity naturally bring in disturbance and confusion; likewise in that which it premises (§ 4), that the founders of regulars who came forth after the monastic institutes, adding orders to orders, reforms to reforms, effected nothing else than to extend more and more the primary cause of evil;

Understood of orders and institutes approved by the holy See, as though the distinct variety of pious duties, to which distinct orders are devoted, ought by its nature to beget disturbance and confusion;

False, calumnious, injurious to the holy founders and their faithful pupils, and also to the supreme Pontiffs themselves.

83. Rule III, by which, after it premises that a small body dwelling within civil society, and almost without being a part of the same, fixes a small monarchy in the state and is always dangerous, it then, under this name, accuses private monasteries, associated by the bond of a common institute under one head especially, as so many special monarchies dangerous and harmful to the civil republic;

False, rash, injurious to regular institutes approved by the holy See for the advancement of Religion, favoring the attacks and calumnies of heretics against the same institutes.

§ 10.

84. Art. I. Concerning retaining only one order in the Church, and concerning selecting before the others the rule of Saint Benedict, both on account of its excellence and on account of the illustrious merits of that order; yet in such a way that, in those things which perhaps will occur less congruent to the condition of the times, the instituted manner of life at Port-Royal should offer light for exploring what it is fitting to add, what to take away;

II. That those who shall have joined themselves to this order should not become sharers in the ecclesiastical hierarchy; nor should they be promoted to Sacred Orders, except at most one or two, to be initiated as curates or chaplains of the monastery, the rest remaining in the simple order of laymen;

III. That only one monastery should be admitted in each city, and that it should be placed outside the walls of the city in more hidden and more remote places;

IV. Among the occupations of monastic life its own part is to be preserved inviolate for labor of the hands, with suitable time nevertheless left to be spent on psalmody, or even, if it please anyone, on the study of letters; psalmody ought to be moderate, because its excessive length begets precipitation, trouble, wandering of mind; the more psalmodies, orations, and prayers were increased, by just the same equal proportion in every time the fervor and holiness of regulars was diminished;

V. That no distinction would be admitted among monks, whether devoted to choir or to ministries; that this inequality at every time excited very grave lawsuits and discords, and drove the spirit of charity from communities of regulars;

VI. That a vow of perpetual stability is never to be tolerated; the old monks did not know it, who nevertheless were the consolation of the Church and the ornament of Christianity; vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience will not be admitted after the manner of a common and stable rule: if anyone shall wish to make those vows, either all or some, he will seek counsel and permission from the Bishop, who nevertheless will never permit them to be perpetual, nor to exceed the limits of a year; only the faculty will be given of renewing them under the same conditions;

VII. The Bishop will have every inspection over their life, studies, and progress in piety; it will pertain to him to admit and expel monks, yet always with the counsel of the companions having been accepted.

VIII. Regulars of orders which still remain, although priests, could also be admitted into this monastery, provided they wished in silence and solitude to attend to their own sanctification; in which case there would be place for dispensation in the general rule established at no. II, yet in such a way that they should not follow an institution of life differing from the others, so that not more than one or at most two Masses should be celebrated in a day, and it ought to be enough for the other priests to concelebrate together with the community;

§ 11.

That perpetual vows up to the age of 40 or 45 are not to be admitted; that nuns are to be devoted to solid exercises, especially to labor; that they are to be called away from the carnal spirituality by which most of them are held; that it is to be weighed whether, as regards them, it would be better for the monastery to be left in the city.

A system subversive of the discipline now flourishing and already from antiquity approved and received, pernicious, opposed and injurious to apostolic constitutions and to the sanctions of several Councils, even general ones, and especially of Trent, favoring the reproaches and calumnies of heretics against monastic vows and regular institutes devoted to a more stable profession of the evangelical counsels.

Memorial booklet for convoking a national council, § 1.

85. The proposition declaring that any knowledge whatsoever of ecclesiastical history suffices, so that each one must acknowledge that the convocation of a national council is one of the canonical ways by which controversies pertaining to Religion are ended in the Church of the respective nations;

Understood thus, that controversies pertaining to Faith and morals, arising in any Church whatsoever, can be ended by a national council with an irrefragable judgment; as though inerrancy in questions of Faith and morals belonged to a national council;

Schismatic, heretical.

Therefore we command all Christian faithful of either sex that they presume not to think, teach, or preach concerning the said propositions and doctrines contrary to what is declared in this our constitution: so that whoever shall have taught, defended, published them, or any of them, jointly or separately, or shall have treated of them even by disputing publicly or privately, unless perhaps by impugning them, falls ipso facto, without any other declaration, under ecclesiastical censures and the other penalties established by law against those perpetrating similar things.

Moreover, through this express reprobation of the aforesaid propositions and doctrines, we in no way intend to approve other things contained in the same book: especially since in it there have been detected several propositions and doctrines either akin to those which above were condemned, or which bear before them both a rash contempt of common and approved doctrine and discipline, and especially a hostile mind against the Roman Pontiffs and the apostolic See.

We judge, however, that two things especially are to be noted, which concerning the most august mystery of the most holy Trinity in § 2 of the decree concerning Faith, if not from a depraved mind, certainly slipped out from the Synod too imprudently, and which can easily drive especially the unlearned and incautious into deception. The first is that, after it rightly premised that God remains one and most simple in His Being, immediately adding that the same God is distinguished in three persons, it wrongly departs from the common and approved formula in institutions of Christian doctrine, by which God is said to be one indeed in three distinct persons, not distinguished in three persons: by the change of this formula this danger of error creeps in by force of the words, that the divine essence may be thought distinct in the persons; which essence the Catholic Faith so confesses as one in distinct persons that at the same time it professes it as in itself altogether indistinct.

The other is what it hands down concerning the three divine persons themselves: that they, according to their personal and incommunicable properties, more exactly speaking, are expressed or named Father, Word, and Holy Spirit; as though the appellation of Son, consecrated in so many places of Scripture, by the very voice of the Father coming down from the heavens and from the cloud, and also by the formula of Baptism prescribed by Christ, and by that illustrious confession by which blessed Peter was pronounced so by Christ Himself, were less proper and exact; and as though it were not rather to be retained what, taught by Augustine, the Angelic teacher ¹⁹ in turn himself taught, that in the name of Word the same property is implied as in the name of Son, namely, Augustine saying ²⁰: He is called Word by that by which He is Son.

¹⁹ St. Thomas, I, q. 34, art. 2, ad 3.

²⁰ St. Augustine, On the Trinity, book 7, ch. 2.

Nor must there be passed over in silence that signal temerity of the Synod, full of fraud, which dared not only to adorn with the fullest praises the declaration of the Gallican assembly of the year 1682, long ago disapproved by the apostolic See, but, in order to conciliate greater authority for it, to include it insidiously in the decree inscribed concerning Faith, openly to adopt the articles contained in it, and to seal the things handed down here and there through this very decree with a public and solemn profession of these articles. By this indeed there is offered to us not only a far graver reason for complaint concerning the Synod than there was to our predecessors concerning those assemblies, but also no slight injury is inflicted upon the Gallican church itself, which the Synod judged worthy that its authority should be called into patronage of errors by which that decree is contaminated.

Wherefore, since the acts of the Gallican assembly, as soon as they appeared, our predecessor venerable Innocent XI, by letters in the form of a brief on the second day of April of the year 1682, and afterwards more expressly Alexander VIII, by the constitution Inter multiplices on the fourth day of August of the year 1690, according to the account of their apostolic office, disapproved, rescinded, and declared null and void, pastoral solicitude requires of us much more strongly to reprove and condemn the recent adoption of these made in the Synod, affected with so many vices, as rash, scandalous, and especially, after the decrees of our predecessors had been issued, supremely injurious to this apostolic See, just as by this present our constitution we reprove and condemn it, and will it to be held as reproved and condemned.

To this kind of fraud belongs the fact that the Synod, having embraced in this very decree concerning Faith very many articles which the theologians of the faculty of Louvain referred to the judgment of Innocent XI, and also twelve others offered by Cardinal de Noailles to Benedict XIII, did not doubt to awaken from the reprobated second Council of Utrecht a vain and old fiction, and rashly to boast abroad in these words, namely, that it is most known to all Europe that those articles were subjected at Rome to a most severe examination, and not only came forth immune from any censure, but were also commended by the praised Roman Pontiffs; of which asserted commendation, however, not only does no authentic document exist, but rather the acts of the examination, which are preserved in the records of our supreme inquisition, oppose it; from these it appears only that no judgment was pronounced concerning them.

For these reasons, therefore, this very book, whose title is Atti e decreti del Concilio diocesano di Pistoia dell'anno MDCCLXXXVI, in Pistoia per Atto Bracali stampatore vescovile con approvazione, whether inscribed with the title set before it or with any other title whatsoever, wherever and in whatever idiom, in whatever edition or version, printed hitherto or to be printed, by apostolic authority and by the tenor of the present letters we prohibit and condemn; just as also all other books in defense of it or of its doctrine, perhaps already published or to be published, which God avert, either in writing or in print, and their reading, copying, retention, and use by all and singular Christian faithful we likewise prohibit and interdict, under penalty of excommunication to be incurred ipso facto by those acting contrary.

We further command venerable Brothers, Patriarchs, Archbishops and Bishops, and other Ordinaries of places, and also Inquisitors of heretical depravity, that they altogether coerce and compel all contradictors and rebels whatsoever, through the aforesaid censures and penalties and other remedies of law and fact, the aid even of the secular arm having been invoked for this, if there should be need.

We will, moreover, that to transcripts of these presents, even printed ones, subscribed by the hand of some public notary and fortified with the seal of a person constituted in ecclesiastical dignity, altogether the same faith be given as would be given to the original letters themselves, if they were exhibited or shown.

Therefore let it be lawful for no man to infringe this page of our declaration, condemnation, command, prohibition, and interdiction, or by rash daring to go contrary to it. But if anyone shall have presumed to attempt this, let him know that he will incur the indignation of almighty God and of blessed Peter and Paul, His apostles.

Given at Rome, at Saint Mary Major, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand seven hundred ninety-four, on the fifth day before the calends of September, in the twentieth year of our Pontificate.

PH. CARD. PRO-DATARY

R. CARD. BRASCHI DE HONESTIS

Seen by the Curia: I. MANASSEI

Place of the Lead: E. LIVIZZARI

Registered in the Secretariat of Briefs.

In the year from the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ one thousand seven hundred ninety-four, the twelfth indiction, and on the thirty-first day of August, in the twentieth year of the Pontificate of our most holy Father in Christ and our Lord, Lord Pius, by divine Providence Pope the Sixth, the above-mentioned apostolic letters were affixed and published at the doors of the Lateran Basilica, and of the Prince of the apostles, of the apostolic chancery, of the general curia on Monte Citorio, in the line of Campo de' Fiori, and in the other usual and customary places of the City, through me, Giovanni Renzoni, apostolic courier.

FELIX CASTELLACCI, Master of Couriers.

We transcribe the Syllabus which the Pontiff, together with the Encyclical Quanta cura, on 8 December 1864, directed to the whole Christian World. We hand this down entire, together with some propositions fixed in the aforesaid Encyclical. Although several propositions contained in the Syllabus do not pertain to moral Theology, we would deem it an offense that such a monument be offered to the reader as if mutilated, nor do we wish to seem to take anything away from this pontifical Declaration, in which Peter has certainly spoken through the mouth of Pius IX.

Containing the principal errors of our age which are noted in the consistorial allocutions, in the encyclicals, and in other apostolic letters of our Most Holy Lord Pius Pope IX.

Pantheism, Naturalism, and absolute Rationalism.

1. No supreme, most wise and most provident divine Numen exists distinct from this universe of things, and God is the same as the nature of things, and therefore subject to changes; and God is really made in man and the world; and all things are God and have the very substance of God; and God is one and the same thing with the world, and therefore spirit with matter, necessity with liberty, true with false, good with evil, and just with unjust.

Alloc. Maxima quidem, 9 June 1862.

2. Every action of God upon men and the world must be denied.

Alloc. Maxima quidem, 9 June 1862.

3. Human reason, with no regard at all had for God, is the sole arbiter of true and false, good and evil; it is a law to itself, and by its natural powers suffices for caring for the good of men and peoples.

Alloc. Maxima quidem, 9 June 1862.

4. All truths of Religion derive from the native force of human reason;

hence reason is the chief norm by which man can and ought to attain knowledge of all truths of whatever kind. Encyclical letter Qui pluribus, 9 November 1846. - Encyclical letter Singulari quidem, 17 March 1856. - Alloc. Maxima quidem, 9 June 1862.

5. Divine revelation is imperfect, and therefore subject to continual and indefinite progress which corresponds to the progression of human reason.

Encyclical letter Qui pluribus, 9 November 1846. - Alloc. Maxima quidem, 9 June 1862.

6. The Faith of Christ is opposed to human reason; and divine revelation not only profits nothing, but even harms the perfection of man.

Encyclical letter Qui pluribus, 9 November 1846. - Alloc. Maxima quidem, 9 June 1862.

7. Prophecies and miracles, set forth and narrated in sacred Letters, are fictions of poets, and the mysteries of the Christian Faith are the sum of philosophical investigations; and in the books of both Testaments mythical inventions are contained; and Jesus Christ Himself is a mythical fiction.

Encyclical letter Qui pluribus, 9 November 1846. - Alloc. Maxima quidem, 9 June 1862.

Moderate Rationalism.

8. Since human reason is made equal to Religion itself, therefore theological disciplines are to be treated in the same way as philosophical ones.

Alloc. Singulari quadam perfusi, 9 December 1854.

9. All dogmas indiscriminately of the Christian Religion are the object of natural science or philosophy; and human reason, cultivated only historically, can from its natural powers and principles arrive at true science concerning all things, even the more hidden, provided that these dogmas have been proposed to reason itself as an object.

Letter to the Archbishop of Freising, Gravissimas, 11 December 1862. - Letter to the same, Tuas libenter, 21 December 1863.

10. Since the philosopher is one thing, philosophy another, the former has the right and office of submitting himself to the authority which he himself shall have proved true; but philosophy neither can nor ought to submit itself to any authority.

Letter to the Archbishop of Freising, Gravissimas, 11 December 1862. - Letter to the same, Tuas libenter, 21 December 1863.

11. The Church not only ought never to animadvert upon philosophy, but also ought to tolerate the errors of philosophy itself, and leave it to correct itself.

Letter to the Archbishop of Freising, Gravissimas, 11 December 1862.

12. The decrees of the apostolic See and of the Roman Congregations impede the free progress of science.

Letter to the Archbishop of Freising, Tuas libenter, 21 December 1863.

13. The method and principles by which the ancient scholastic Doctors cultivated Theology are by no means congruent with the necessities of our times and the progress of the sciences.

Letter to the Archbishop of Freising, Tuas libenter, 21 December 1863.

14. Philosophy is to be treated with no account had of supernatural revelation.

Letter to the Archbishop of Freising, Tuas libenter, 21 December 1863.

N. B. With the system of rationalism there cohere for the greatest part the errors of Antonius Gunther, which are condemned in the letter to the Cardinal Archbishop of Cologne, Eximiam tuam, 15 June 1847, and in the letter to the Bishop of Wroclaw, Dolore haud mediocri, 30 April 1860.

Indifferentism, Latitudinarianism.

15. It is free for each man to embrace and profess that religion which, led by the light of reason, he shall have thought true.

Apostolic letters Multiplices inter, 10 June 1851. - Alloc. Maxima quidem, 9 June 1862.

16. Men can find the way of eternal salvation in the worship of any religion whatsoever, and attain eternal salvation.

Encyclical letter Qui pluribus, 9 November 1846. - Alloc. Ubi primum, 17 December 1847. - Encyclical letter Singulari quidem, 17 March 1856.

17. At least one must have good hope concerning the eternal salvation of all those who in no way dwell in the true Church of Christ.

Alloc. Singulari quadam, 9 December 1854. - Encyclical letter Quanto conficiamur, 17 August 1863.

18. Protestantism is nothing other than a diverse form of the same true Christian Religion, in which it is given to please God equally as in the Catholic Church.

Encyclical letter Noscitis et Nobiscum, 8 December 1849.

Socialism, Communism, Secret Societies, Bible Societies, Clerico-liberal Societies.

Pests of this kind are often reproved with most grave formulae of words in the encyclical letter Qui pluribus, 9 November 1846; in the allocution Quibus quantisque, 20 April 1849; in the encyclical letter Noscitis et Nobiscum, 8 December 1849; in the allocution Singulari quadam, 9 December 1854; in the encyclical letter Quanto conficiamur moerore, 15 August 1863.

Errors concerning the Church and her rights.

19. The Church is not a true and perfect society, plainly free, nor does she possess her own proper and constant rights conferred on her by her divine Founder; but it belongs to the civil power to define what are the rights of the Church and the limits within which she may exercise those same rights.

Alloc. Singulari quadam, 9 December 1854. - Alloc. Multis gravibusque, 17 December 1860. - Alloc. Maxima quidem, 9 June 1862.

20. Ecclesiastical power ought not to exercise its authority without the permission and consent of the civil Government.

Alloc. Meminit unusquisque, 30 September 1861.

21. The Church does not have the power of defining dogmatically that the Religion of the Catholic Church is the uniquely true Religion.

Apostolic letters Multiplices inter, 10 June 1851.

22. The obligation by which Catholic teachers and writers are altogether bound is restricted only to those things which are proposed by the infallible judgment of the Church as dogmas of Faith to be believed by all.

Letter to the Archbishop of Freising, Tuas libenter, 21 December 1863.

23. The Roman Pontiffs and Ecumenical Councils have departed from the limits of their power, have usurped the rights of Princes, and have erred even in defining matters of Faith and morals.

Apostolic letters Multiplices inter, 10 June 1851.

24. The Church does not have the power of inflicting force, nor any temporal power, direct or indirect.

Apostolic letters Ad Apostolicae, 22 August 1851.

25. Besides the power inhering in the episcopate, another temporal power has been attributed, granted by the civil empire either expressly or tacitly, and therefore to be revoked, when it shall have pleased, by the civil empire.

Apostolic letters Ad Apostolicae, 22 August 1851.

26. The Church does not have a native and legitimate right of acquiring and possessing.

Alloc. Nunquam fore, 15 December 1856. - Encyclical letter Incredibili, 17 September 1863.

27. The sacred Ministers of the Church and the Roman Pontiff are altogether to be excluded from every care and dominion of temporal things.

Alloc. Maxima quidem, 9 June 1862.

28. It is not lawful for Bishops, without the permission of the Government, even to promulgate Apostolic Letters themselves.

Alloc. Nunquam fore, 15 December 1856.

29. Graces granted by the Roman Pontiff ought to be esteemed as void unless they shall have been implored through the Government.

Alloc. Nunquam fore, 15 December 1856.

30. The immunity of the Church and of ecclesiastical persons had its origin from civil law.

Apostolic letters Multiplices inter, 10 June 1851.

31. The ecclesiastical forum for temporal causes of clerics, whether civil or criminal, must be entirely removed from the midst, even without the consultation and against the protest of the Apostolic See.

Alloc. Acerbissimum, 27 September 1852. - Alloc. Nunquam fore, 15 December 1856.

32. Without any violation of natural right and equity, the personal immunity by which clerics are exempted from the burden of undergoing and performing military service can be abrogated; and indeed civil progress demands this abrogation, especially in a society constituted according to the form of a freer government.

Letter to the Bishop of Mondovi, Singularis Nobisque, 29 September 1864.

33. It does not pertain uniquely to the ecclesiastical power of jurisdiction by its proper and native right to direct doctrine in theological matters.

Letter to the Archbishop of Freising, Tuas libenter, 21 December 1863.

34. The doctrine of those comparing the Roman Pontiff to a free Prince acting in the universal Church is a doctrine which prevailed in the middle age.

Apostolic letters Ad Apostolicae, 22 August 1851.

35. Nothing prevents the Supreme Pontificate, by the judgment of some general Council or by the deed of all peoples, from being transferred from the Roman Bishop and City to another Bishop and another city.

Apostolic letters Ad Apostolicae, 22 August 1851.

36. The definition of a National Council admits no further disputation, and the civil administration can bring the matter to these terms.

Apostolic letters Ad Apostolicae, 22 August 1851.

37. National Churches, withdrawn from the authority of the Roman Pontiff and plainly divided from it, can be instituted.

Alloc. Multis gravibusque, 17 December 1860. - Alloc. Iamdudum cernimus, 18 March 1861.

38. Excessive arbitrariness of the Roman Pontiffs contributed to the division of the Church into eastern and western.

Apostolic letters Ad Apostolicae, 22 August 1851.

Errors concerning civil society considered both in itself and in its relations to the Church.

39. The state of the republic, as being the origin and fountain of all rights, possesses a certain right bounded by no limits. Alloc. Maxima quidem, 9 June 1862.

40. The doctrine of the Catholic Church is opposed to the good and advantages of human society.

Encyclical letter Qui pluribus, 9 November 1846. - Alloc. Quibus quantisque, 20 April 1849.

41. To the civil power, even when exercised by an infidel ruler, there belongs an indirect negative power in sacred matters; therefore there belongs to it not only the right which they call exequatur, but also the right of appeal, which they call from abuse.

Apostolic letters Ad Apostolicae, 22 August 1851.

42. In a conflict of the laws of the two powers, civil law prevails.

Apostolic letters Ad Apostolicae, 22 August 1851.

43. The lay power has authority to rescind, declare, and make void solemn agreements, commonly Concordats, entered into with the Apostolic See concerning the use of rights pertaining to ecclesiastical immunity, without its consent, indeed even with it protesting.

Alloc. In consistoriali, 1 November 1850. - Alloc. Multis gravibusque, 17 December 1860.

44. The civil authority can interfere in matters which pertain to religion, morals, and spiritual government. Hence it can judge concerning the instructions which the Pastors of the Church publish for the norm of consciences according to their office; indeed, it can decree concerning the administration of the divine Sacraments and the dispositions necessary for receiving them.

Alloc. In consistoriali, 1 November 1850. - Alloc. Maxima quidem, 9 June 1862.

45. The whole governance of public schools, in which the youth of some Christian republic is instructed, episcopal seminaries alone being excepted in some respect, can and ought to be attributed to civil authority, and indeed to be attributed in such a way that no right of any other authority whatsoever is recognized for interfering in the discipline of schools, in the governance of studies, in the conferral of degrees, or in the selection or approval of teachers.

Alloc. In consistoriali, 1 November 1850. - Alloc. Quibus luctuosissimis, 5 September 1854.

46. Indeed, in the very seminaries of Clerics, the method of studies to be used is subjected to civil authority.

Alloc. Nunquam fore, 15 December 1856.

47. The best account of civil society demands that popular schools, which are open to all boys of whatever class from the people, and generally public Institutes which are destined for handing down letters and the more severe disciplines and for caring for the education of youth, be exempt from every authority, moderating force, and interference of the Church, and be subjected to the full choice of civil and political authority according to the pleasures of rulers and according to the exact rule of the common opinions of the age.

Letter to the Archbishop of Freiburg, Quum non sine, 14 July 1864.

48. That method of instructing youth can be approved by Catholic men which is separated from the Catholic Faith and from the power of the Church, and which regards only, or at least primarily, the science of natural things and the ends of earthly social life.

Letter to the Archbishop of Freiburg, Quum non sine, 14 July 1864.

49. The civil authority can prevent sacred Prelates and the faithful people from communicating freely and mutually with the Roman Pontiff.

Alloc. Maxima quidem, 9 June 1862.

50. Lay authority has by itself the right of presenting Bishops, and can exact from them that they enter upon the administration of dioceses before they themselves receive canonical institution from the Holy See and Apostolic Letters.

Alloc. Nunquam fore, 15 December 1856.

51. Indeed, lay Government has the right of deposing Bishops from the exercise of pastoral ministry, nor is it bound to obey the Roman Pontiff in those things which regard the episcopate and the institution of Bishops.

Apostolic letters Multiplices inter, 10 June 1851. - Alloc. Acerbissimum, 27 September 1852.

52. Government can by its own right change the age prescribed by the Church for the religious profession of both women and men, and command all religious Families to admit no one to pronounce solemn vows without its permission.

Alloc. Nunquam fore, 15 December 1856.

53. Laws which pertain to guarding the state of religious Families and their rights and offices must be abrogated; indeed, civil Government can furnish aid to all those who wish to defect from the institute of religious life they have undertaken and to break solemn vows; and likewise it can utterly extinguish these same religious Families, as well as collegiate Churches and simple benefices even of the right of patronage, and subject and claim their goods and revenues for the administration and choice of the civil power.

Alloc. Acerbissimum, 27 September 1852. - Alloc. Probe memineritis, 22 January 1855. - Alloc. Cum saepe, 26 July 1855.

54. Kings and Princes not only are exempt from the jurisdiction of the Church, but also in deciding questions of jurisdiction are superior to the Church.

Apostolic letters Multiplices inter, 10 June 1851.

55. The Church is to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church.

Alloc. Acerbissimum, 27 September 1852.

Errors concerning natural and Christian Ethics.

56. Laws of morals by no means need divine sanction, and there is least of all need that human laws be conformed to the law of nature or receive binding force from God.

Alloc. Maxima quidem, 9 June 1862.

57. The science of philosophical matters and morals, and likewise civil laws, can and ought to turn aside from divine and ecclesiastical authority.

Alloc. Maxima quidem, 9 June 1862.

58. No other forces are to be recognized except those which are placed in matter, and all moral discipline and uprightness ought to be placed in accumulating and increasing riches in whatever way, and in fulfilling pleasures.

Alloc. Maxima quidem, 9 June 1862. - Encyclical letter Quanto conficiamur, 10 August 1863.

59. Right consists in material fact, and all duties of men are an empty name, and all human facts have the force of right.

Alloc. Maxima quidem, 9 June 1862.

60. Authority is nothing other than the sum of number and material forces.

Alloc. Maxima quidem, 9 June 1862.

61. Successful injustice of fact brings no detriment to the sanctity of right.

Alloc. Iamdudum cernimus, 18 May 1861.

62. The principle which they call of non-intervention must be proclaimed and observed.

Alloc. Novos et ante, 28 September 1860.

63. It is lawful to refuse obedience to legitimate Princes, indeed even to rebel.

Encyclical letter Qui pluribus, 9 November 1846. - Alloc. Quisque vestrum, 4 October 1847. - Encyclical letter Noscitis et Nobiscum, 8 December 1849. - Apostolic letters Cum catholica, 26 March 1860.

64. Both the violation of any most holy oath, and any wicked and flagitious action repugnant to the eternal law, not only is by no means to be disapproved, but even is altogether lawful and to be extolled with the highest praises, when it is done for love of fatherland.

Alloc. Quibus quantisque, 20 April 1849.

Errors concerning Christian marriage.

65. In no manner can it be borne that Christ raised marriage to the dignity of a Sacrament.

Apostolic letters Ad Apostolicae, 22 August 1851.

66. The Sacrament of Matrimony is nothing except something accessory to the contract and separable from it, and the Sacrament itself is situated in the nuptial blessing alone.

Apostolic letters Ad Apostolicae, 22 August 1851.

67. By the law of nature the bond of marriage is not indissoluble, and in various cases divorce properly so called can be sanctioned by civil authority.

Apostolic letters Ad Apostolicae, 22 August 1851. - Alloc. Acerbissimum, 27 September 1852.

68. The Church does not have the power of introducing impediments diriment of matrimony; but that power belongs to the civil authority, by which existing impediments are to be removed.

Apostolic letters Multiplices inter, 10 June 1851.

69. In later ages the Church began to introduce diriment impediments, not by her own right, but using that right which had been borrowed from the civil power.

Apostolic letters Ad Apostolicae, 22 August 1851.

70. The Tridentine Canons which inflict the censure of anathema on those who dare to deny to the Church the faculty of introducing diriment impediments either are not dogmatic, or are to be understood of this borrowed power.

Apostolic letters Ad Apostolicae, 22 August 1851.

71. The Tridentine form under penalty of invalidity does not bind where civil law has established another form beforehand, and wills that, this new form intervening, the marriage be valid.

Apostolic letters Ad Apostolicae, 22 August 1851.

72. Boniface VIII was the first to assert that the vow of chastity emitted in ordination renders marriages null.

Apostolic letters Ad Apostolicae, 22 August 1851.

73. By force of a merely civil contract, there can exist between Christians a true marriage in name; and it is false either that the contract of marriage between Christians is always a Sacrament, or that there is no contract if the Sacrament is excluded.

Apostolic letters Ad Apostolicae, 22 August 1851. - Letter of His Holiness Pius IX to the King of Sardinia, 9 September 1852. - Alloc. Acerbissimum, 27 September 1852. - Alloc. Multis gravibusque, 17 December 1860.

74. Matrimonial causes and betrothals by their own nature pertain to the civil forum.

Apostolic letters Ad Apostolicae, 22 August 1851. - Alloc. Acerbissimum, 27 September 1852.

N. B. Here two other errors can be relevant: concerning abolishing the celibacy of Clerics, and concerning preferring the state of marriage to the state of virginity. The former is pierced in the encyclical letter Qui pluribus, 9 November 1849; the latter in the apostolic letters Multiplices inter, 10 June 1851.

Errors concerning the civil principate of the Roman Pontiff.

75. The sons of the Christian and Catholic Church dispute among themselves concerning the compatibility of the temporal kingdom with the spiritual.

Apostolic letters Ad Apostolicae, 22 August 1851.

76. The abrogation of the civil empire by which the Apostolic See possesses power would conduce very greatly to the liberty and happiness of the Church.

Alloc. Quibus quantisque, 20 April 1849.

N. B. Besides these errors explicitly noted, very many others are implicitly reproved by the doctrine proposed and asserted, which all Catholics ought to retain most firmly, concerning the civil principate of the Roman Pontiff. Doctrine of this kind is clearly handed down in the allocution Quibus quantisque, 20 April 1849; in the allocution Si semper antea, 20 May 1850; in the apostolic letters Cum catholica Ecclesia, 26 March 1860; in the allocution Novos, 28 September 1860; in the allocution Iamdudum, 18 March 1861; in the allocution Maxima quidem, 9 June 1862.

Errors which are referred to modern liberalism.

77. In this our age, it is no longer expedient that the Catholic Religion be held as the sole Religion of the State, all other worships whatsoever being excluded.

Alloc. Nemo vestrum, 26 July 1855.

78. Hence, laudably, in certain regions of the Catholic name, provision has been made by law that it be lawful for men immigrating there to have the public exercise of each one's own worship.

Alloc. Acerbissimum, 27 September 1852.

79. Indeed, it is false that civil liberty of any worship, and likewise the full power attributed to all of manifesting openly and publicly any opinions and thoughts whatever, conduces to corrupting the morals and minds of peoples more easily, and to propagating the pest of indifferentism.

Alloc. Nunquam fore, 15 December 1856.

80. The Roman Pontiff can and ought to reconcile and compose himself with progress, with liberalism, and with recent civilization.

Alloc. Iamdudum cernimus, 18 March 1861.

Besides the aforesaid propositions, others are to be mentioned which Pius IX fixed in the Encyclical Quanta cura. These, moreover, are those of men who teach:

1. That the best account of public society and civil progress altogether require that human society be constituted and governed with no regard had for Religion, as if it did not exist, or at least with no distinction made between true and false religions.

2. That the best condition of society is that in which there is not acknowledged in the Empire the office of coercing, by established penalties, violators of the Catholic Religion, except insofar as public peace demands.

3. That liberty of conscience and of worships is the proper right of each man whatsoever, which ought to be proclaimed and asserted by law in every rightly constituted society; and that there is in citizens a right to liberty in every mode, to be restrained by no ecclesiastical or civil authority, by which they may be able to manifest and declare their concepts whatsoever.

4. That the will of the people, manifested by what they call public opinion or by another reason, constitutes the supreme law freed from every divine and human right; and that in the political order consummated facts, by this very fact that they are consummated, have the force of right.

5. That the faculty by which citizens and the Church can openly bestow alms for the sake of Christian charity must be taken away, and the law by which on certain days servile works are prohibited on account of the worship of God must be removed from the midst.

6. That domestic society or the family borrows the whole account of its existence from civil law alone; and therefore that all rights of parents over children, but especially the right of caring for instruction and education, flow from and depend upon civil law alone.

7. That the Clergy, as hostile to true and useful science and to the progress of civilization, must be removed from every care and office of instructing and educating youth.

8. That laws of the Church do not oblige in conscience unless they are promulgated by the civil power; - that acts and decrees of the Roman Pontiffs pertaining to Religion and the Church need the sanction and approval, or at least the consent, of the civil power; - that Apostolic Constitutions by which secret Societies are condemned, whether in them an oath of preserving secrecy is exacted or not exacted, and their adherents and favorers are punished with anathema, have no force in those regions of the world where associations of this kind are tolerated by the civil government; - that the excommunication issued by the Council of Trent and the Roman Pontiffs against those who invade and usurp the rights and possessions of the Church rests upon a confusion of the spiritual order and of the civil and political order, for pursuing worldly good alone; - that the Church ought to decree nothing which could bind the consciences of the faithful in order to the use of temporal things; - that the right does not belong to the Church of coercing violators of her laws by temporal penalties; - that it is conformable to sacred Theology and to the principles of public law for the civil Government to assert and claim the ownership of goods which are possessed by Churches, by religious Families, and by other pious places.

9. That ecclesiastical power is not by divine right distinct from and independent of civil power, nor can distinction and independence of this kind be preserved without the essential rights of the civil power being invaded and usurped by the Church.

10. That assent and obedience can be refused without sin and without any loss of Catholic profession to those judgments and decrees of the Apostolic See whose object is declared to regard the general good of the Church, and her rights and discipline, provided it does not touch dogmas of faith and morals.

Concerning these propositions the Pontiff establishes thus:

We reprove, proscribe, and condemn, by Our Apostolic authority, all and singular the depraved opinions and doctrines individually commemorated in these Letters, and we will and command that they be held by all sons of the Catholic Church altogether as reproved, proscribed, and condemned.