L'erreur et son juge. Remarques sur les censures doctrinales à l'époque moderne by Bruno Neveu (review)

114BOOK REVIEWS might think a series which is probably the recipient of a subvention of combined church and state could see its way clear to presenting the documents in their archival form. S. J. Miller Boston College (Emeritus) L'erreur et sonjuge. Remarques sur les censures doctrinales à l'époque moderne . By Bruno Neveu. [Istituto Italiano per gli Studi FUosofici, Serie Studi XIL] (Naples: Bibliopolis. 1993. Pp. 758. Lire 160.000 paperback.) In a yet-to-be-written historical survey of the concept of Magisterium in the Catholic Church an important chapter wUl be devoted to the issues related to Jansenism. This is the indisputable conclusion of Professor Bruno Neveu's erudite monograph. His work is a progressive survey that approaches the question of magisterial pronouncements, more precisely the discernment of theological "error," from the perspective of Jansenism. In the background is an issue stUl famUiar to most students of church history: the five propositions condemned by the buU Cum Occasions and their relationship with Augustinus , the bookwritten by CorneliusJansenius. Most probably the propositions came from theses defended by students of the Faculty of Theology of Paris, who had chosen them for their ambiguous expression: they could have a good Augustinian sense, or they could be interpreted in a bad, unorthodox way. They offered, therefore, the matter for a brilliant exercise in theological dispute . It was the heretical sense that was noticed and eventually condemned in Rome by a special commission that prepared the dogmatic constitution Cum Occasione of Innocent X (1653). The document made a connection between the book and the propositions, but not an expUcit one; this was established by a commission of French bishops who declared them excerpted from Augustinus. EventuaUy this association was declared by Alexander VIFs Ad Sacram; he also demanded in his Regiminis Apostolici an inward acceptance of this fact. TheJansenists had two reasons to chaUenge these decisions. First, they maintained an orthodox sense of the propositions, based upon Augustinian theology; second, they denied the presence of the propositions in the incriminated book. In other terms, they suggested that the Roman decisions were flawed and even possibly wrong. That this question of authority was at least as important as the issue of grace has been perceived often by historians, but never has anybody tried to observe it from within, as it were, in bringing together aU the elements of a very intricate issue. This Neveu accomplishes in a very meticulous and systematic way. His first chapter ("Vestigia") is a description of the traditional system of theological censures elaborated by universities. The second ("Antiquitas redux") shows how the development of positive theology, associated with BOOK REVIEWS115 religious controversy, brought forth a renewed interest in the writings of the Church Fathers and an absolutization of their authority. This happened, the author shows in the next chapter ("Ars censoria"), at a time when the technique of qualifying theological error was becoming very precise, even persnickety , as he exhibits in his examples. Now applied by the inquisitorial institutions, especiaUy Roman (Chapter Four, "Pervigilargus") this procedure, aU negative, it must be stressed, was the way the papacy intervened in dogmatic matters, thus expressing her teaching authority. This claim to definitive (and sole) command over doctrine was supported by the stUl undefined but very strong notion of infaUibUity. It explains the prudence of the Roman judges in preparing a decision and also their inflexibUity in defending it; it also justifies the atmosphere of secrecy surrounding it. For there was more than a mere mechanism of qualification of errors contained in excerpts from a particular work, since in the process—this is the book's main thesis—the "organe de la foi" (p. 757) expressed a judgment over the meaning of these particular extracts. The issue is explored thoroughly in the last chapter ("Sensus et sententia"), where the author examines historical and theological content of the Jansenist quarrel over the five propositions and brings together the main examples of pontifical intervention, from Baius to Fénelon, that support and Ulustrate Neveu's interpretation. This book, written by one of the best experts on seventeenth-century Catholicism , has been prepared by several learned articles on some of the issues that are presented here...