He then strikes home with a parable. The Abbé Pâris had died in the
odour of Jansenist sanctity (1727), and extraordinary doings went on
at his tomb; the lame walked, men and women sick of the palsy were
made whole, and so forth. Suppose, says Rousseau, that an inhabitant
of the Rue St. Jacques speaks thus to the Archbishop of Paris, "My
lord, I know that you neither believe in the beatitude of St. Jean de
Pâris, nor in the miracles which God has been pleased publicly to work
upon his tomb in the sight of the most enlightened and most populous
city in the world; but I feel bound to testify to you that I have just
seen the saint in person raised from the dead in the spot where his
bones were laid." The man of the Rue St. Jacques gives all the detail
of such a circumstance that could strike a beholder. "I am persuaded
that on hearing such strange news, you will begin by interrogating him
who testifies to its truth, as to his position, his feelings, his
confessor, and other such points; and when from his air, as from his
speech, you have perceived that he is a poor workman, and when having
no confessional ticket to show you, he has confirmed your notion that
he is a Jansenist, Ah, ah, you will say to him, you are a
convulsionary, and have seen Saint Pâris resuscitated. There is
nothing wonderful in that; you have seen so many other wonders!" The
man would insist that the miracle had been seen equally by a number of
other people, who though Jansenists, it is true, were persons of sound
sense, good character, and excellent reputation. Some would send the
man to Bedlam, "but you after a grave reprimand, will be content with
saying: I know that two or three witnesses, good people and of sound
sense, may attest the life or the death of a man, but I do not know
how many more are needed to establish the resurrection of a Jansenist.
Until I find that out, go, my son, and try to strengthen your brain: I
give you a dispensation from fasting, and here is something for you to
make your broth with. That is what you would say, and what any other
sensible man would say in your place. Whence I conclude that even
according to you and to every other sensible man, the moral proofs
which are sufficient to establish facts that are in the order of moral
possibilities, are not sufficient to establish facts of another order
and purely supernatural."[132]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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