Lettres provinciales

The Lettres provinciales ( full title: Lettres écrites par Louis de Mont Old à un Provincial de ses amis et aux RR Pères Jésuites ) are a collection of 18 letters written by the French philosopher and theologian Blaise Pascal under the pseudonym Louis de Mont old. In the controversy between Jesuits and Jansenists on the casuistry Pascal, the Jansenist himself was seized, party for his friend Antoine Arnauld, who was convicted in 1656 of the Sorbonne as a heretic. The first letter is dated January 23, 1656, the eighteenth to 24 March 1657th

Content

In the letters Pascal attacked in a humorous way, popular at that time among theologians method of casuistry and deplored the moral decline of the Jesuits. Pascal published the letters using a pseudonym. He pretended to be a young man from Paris, who reported to a friend in the province over the moral and theological discussions in the capital. Under this guise Pascal directed his criticism against contemporary Jesuit theology. He aimed particularly at the theology of the Spanish Jesuit priest Antonio Escobar y Mendoza. He had in his writings (especially the Summula casuum conscientiae 1627 ) develops a casuistic moral theology, which - in the opinion of the Jansenists - justified sins and moral decay. With sharp polemic Pascal attacked these positions and gave the Jesuit theology of ridicule by stating the internal contradictions open.

Effect story

By Pascal's sharp tongue and his brilliant rhetorical style include the letters of the outstanding literary works of that time. The letters were read and discussed in the literary salons. They are, as far as their anti-church thrust to expect the early Enlightenment. In command of Louis XIV in 1660, the letters were banned and burned at the stake. Nevertheless, they have been translated into several languages ​​and influenced later thinkers such as Voltaire, Rousseau, and Gibbon. They, too, has a considerable influence on the Prohibition of the Jesuits attributed in 1773.