Note 32 — Chapter III · THE CONNECTING TIE.

The reader will see in a moment that the translation given above is not correct, according to the ordinary rules of the Latin language. The words “obligare ad aliquid” mean “to oblige a person to do a thing,” and so the author of the Constitutions has employed them in the 3d chap. and 5th sec. of the “Examen,” where the expression, “Obligare ad matrimonium,” is clearly “to oblige to marry.” The translation, therefore, which was given in the first edition, viz., “can lead to an obligation to sin mortal or venial,” is undoubtedly correct. But there are passages in the book, and in some other scholastic authors, in which the phrase, “obligatio ad peccatum,” is employed to convey the idea that the obligation is of such a character as to render disobedience a sin; and as it is possible that the phrase may be so employed in this passage, I have given the version which the friends of the Society desire. I cannot, however, think that the ordinary rules of scholarship are to be wholly set aside, or the real meaning of the words excluded altogether from the translation; and I am confirmed in this opinion by the reference to the decree in the index of a copy recently procured, which was published at Rome in the College of the Society, in the year A.D. 1615, and which may be supposed to convey the true meaning of the Constitution. In this index the passage is referred to in the following words: “Superiores possunt obligare ad peccatum in virtute obedientiæ, quando id multum conveniat.” The natural antecedent of the “id” is clearly “peccatum,” in which case the translation must be, “The Superiors may oblige to sin in virtue of obedience, when it (the sin) is particularly convenient.” If this be not the meaning, what occasion would there be for the “multum conveniat?” But, translated either way, the decree is so bad, that the question is scarcely worth discussion.