To illustrate this by an example, I may refer to the conflicting
sentiments of St. Basil and St. Athanasius, regarding the writings
of St. Denis of Alexandria, which St. Basil, conceiving that he
found in them the sense of Arius against the equality of the Father
and the Son, condemned as heretical, but which St. Athanasius, on
the other hand, judging them to contain the genuine sense of the
Church, maintained to be perfectly orthodox. Think you, then,
father, that St. Basil, who held these writings to be Arian, had a
right to brand St. Athanasius as a heretic because he defended them?
And what ground would he have had for so doing, seeing that it was not
Arianism that his brother defended, but the true faith which he
considered these writings to contain? Had these two saints agreed
about the true sense of these writings, and had both recognized this
heresy in them, unquestionably St. Athanasius could not have
approved of them without being guilty of heresy; but as they were at
variance respecting the sense of the passage, St. Athanasius was
orthodox in vindicating them, even though he may have understood
them wrong; because in that case it would have been merely an error in
a matter of fact, and because what he defended was really the Catholic
faith, which he supposed to be contained in these writings.
I apply this to you, father. Suppose you were agreed upon the
sense of Jansenius, and your adversaries were ready to admit with
you that he held, for example, that grace cannot be resisted, those
who refused to condemn him would be heretical.
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