lighthouse - that is why you should read the book. The laxity and variety of the early jesuits astounds me. It is really like the beginning of the NO catholic pantheon structure. They developed a moral pantheon among their 24 fathers, and from that foundation sought to please all men rigid or lax. And, the more I look into it, the more it is confirmed.
My last post was perhaps confusing. But, I will say this. Something developed during this period. And, that development was the dominance of probabiliorism over rigid morality. The jesuits were the probabilists(which means they were favorable of less safe morality meaning medium to lax morality so long as one or a few of their many moralists approved of it making it therefore probable). The dominicans were probabiliorists which means they erred on the side of rigidity, but would consider laxism so long as it was in the majority(sound familiar? collegiality anyone?). Whereas it seems that if pascal is representative of them, the augustinians(labelled jansensists) were solely morally rigid. And, he argues the dominicans made a political decision to favor jesuits over augustinians(labelled jansenists) in the jansenists theology despite disagreeing over meaning of the essential work/subject with jesuits because they had more in common with them(jesuits) when it came to morality(willingness to be lax).
Correct me if I am wrong, but that is what I have gathered. And, it was the augustinian factions who were labelled jansenists. However, there is a conflict of interest here. And, that conflict is the movement towards being approved of by the world(as we can see today). It seems to me that is has its roots all the way back in this debate. And, as we can see from today, morality is what is sacrificed when it comes to the one world religion. For that reason I will for the time being take pascal seriously. He book is quite good. It pieces much of the puzzle together for me, and I am grateful. Probability is the father of collegiality. And, probability is the child of the jesuits unrestrained by the dominicans.
So, is there really a four and twenty? Pascal names them. Perhaps I will name them in my next post, and see if it begins to make more sense.