This work is entered in the Index under the title _Abrégé et Testament_ (no reference is made by name to Quesnel). “On a first examination, the earnest reader may easily be attracted by the appearance of piety and of scholarship, but the volumes present in fact, intermingled with accepted Catholic doctrines, a series of lies and of pernicious errors.” The insidious teachings in these volumes had misled not a few of the faithful and had even secured the approval of certain of the French bishops. “It had therefore seemed to the Holy See to be essential to make clear to the Church the serious and pernicious nature of the doctrines that the writer of these volumes was attempting to maintain; and to this end would be presented, with the necessary interpretations, a series of propositions selected from the text.” The Pope felt assured “that a thorough exposition of the errors contained in these propositions should prove of service to the faithful throughout the world and ought to be of particular service in bringing to a close the unprofitable contests that had arisen in France. Such an authoritative exposition had in fact been applied for by the French bishops and by King Louis.” This statement is followed by the citation (given in both French and Latin) of one hundred and one propositions, with references in the margin to the pages of the original text from which they had been cited. These propositions are there described as “false, deceitful, injurious for pious ears, as tending to undermine the beliefs of the faithful, the creed of the Church, and the foundations of the civil power, as godless, blasphemous, and schismatic. They have for their purpose the strengthening of the influence of damnable heresies, and especially of those which have emanated from the Jansenists.” The specific condemnation of these particular propositions is not to be understood as an approval by implication of the remaining text of the book. The whole work is pernicious and the reading of it is prohibited. The text itself of the New Testament that has been printed in connection with the commentary has been corrupted in the most abominable fashion. The reading, printing, or distribution of the book brings upon the delinquent the penalty of the _excommunicatio latae sententiae_ and the same penalty is made to apply, without further specification, to all works in existence or hereafter produced which may undertake the defence of the Quesnel volumes. The Jesuit Daubenton, writing from Rome to Fénelon, says: