Folio 348

Innocent X, 1644-1655

printed p. 316 · pdf p. 348

Errors (5) of Cornelius Jansen1

[Excerpts from "Augustinus" and condemned in the Constitutions "Cum occasione," May 31, 1658]

1092. 1. Some of God's precepts are impossible to the just, who wish and strive to keep them, according to the present powers which they have; the grace, by which they are made possible, is also wanting.

Declared and condemned as rash, impious, blasphemous, condemned by anathema, and heretical.

1093. 2. In the state of fallen nature one never resists interior grace.

Declared and condemned as heretical.

1094. 3. In order to merit or demerit in the state of fallen nature, freedom from necessity is not required in man, but freedom from external compulsion is sufficient.

Declared and condemned as heretical.

1095. 4. The Semipelagians admitted the necessity of a prevenient interior grace for each act, even for the beginning of faith; and in this they were heretics, because they wished this grace to be such that the human will could either resist or obey.

Declared and condemned as false and heretical.

1096. 5. It is Semipelagian to say that Christ died or shed His blood for all men without exception.

Declared and condemned as false, rash, scandalous, and understood in this sense, that Christ died for the salvation of the predestined, impious, blasphemous, contumelious, dishonoring to divine piety, and heretical.

The Aids or Efficacy of Grace2

[From the decree against the Jansenists, April 23, 1654]

1097. But, since at Rome as well as elsewhere there are being circulated certain assertions, acts, manuscripts, and, perchance, printed documents of

  1. DuPl III, II 261 ff.; Viva 1 512 b ff.; CICRcht II 138 f.; BR(T) 15, 720 a f.; MBR 5, 486 b; 6, 47 a f. Bulletin de Littér. Ecclés. (Toulouse, 1942) 231 f. These propositions of Jansenism were again condemned by Alexander VII with the Constitution, "Ad sanctam B. Patri Sedem" on Oct. 16, 1656; then by Constitution, "Regiminis apostolici" on Feb. 15, 1664, in which he published the formulary [see n. 1099]; finally, by Clement XI with the Constitution, "Vineam Domini Sabaoth" on July 16, 1905 [see n. 1350]. ↩

  2. Th. Eleutherus (Meyer) Hist. controv. de div. gratiae auxiliis, 707 a; in Serry, Hist. Congreg. de auxil., XXXIV. When the Jansenists appealed against the Molinists to certain acts of the Congregation on aids, and brought forward in place of the true Bull of Paul V the judgments of one or another of the Consultors, to which the solemnity of promulgation alone was lacking, Innocent X in a solemn decree, in which he condemned various books, written in defense of Jansenism, passed this judgment on the pretended Bull of Paul V and the other acts. ↩