From Error to Despair: Gerson’s Words of Caution about Conscience

Abstract

Medieval theologians considered that it was a mortal sin to act against one’s conscience, even though they knew that conscience sometimes erred. This article inquires how they, as pastors, nevertheless engaged with the laity’s real-world experiences of conscience and with problems that this involved. In focus of the inquiry are pastoral tracts written by Jean Gerson (d. 1429). In these tracts, Gerson described troubling behaviour that he associated with malfunctions of conscience, and he observed how the precept that conscience obliged was a burden that some individuals could not handle. Gerson offered an analysis of these problems as well as alleviating pastoral advice. He agreed that one should obey one’s conscience, but this article argues that his analysis and advice went far towards circumscribing the force of this precept.

1. Introduction

Should you always obey your conscience? On the face of it, medieval theologians were in unison on the point that you should. Thomas Aquinas, for instance, placed great weight on the authority of conscience and held that one must obey its command even if it led to disobedience of prelates or temporal authorities. To act against conscience was to act against faith and hence a mortal sin (Murray 2015; Tjällén 2021). In the later Middle Ages, this prescript disseminated to the laity through the sacrament of penance, which demanded that all Christians scrutinise conscience to ensure an exhaustive confession. Penance ensured a prominent role for conscience in late medieval religious culture. Nevertheless, there were problems with this prominent faculty. Theologians knew that conscience was no infallible guide to moral certitude, but still they stressed that conscience was binding. This article asks how the laity responded to this obligation to conscience and what pastoral authors advised to those who experienced problems in the wake of its demands. At the centre of the inquiry are vernacular tracts written by the pastoral theologian Jean Gerson (d. 1429). Conscience featured abundantly in the literature of religious instruction, and pastoral tracts, like those of Gerson, can tell us about the consequences of the great focus on this faculty in late-medieval culture. Gerson observed troubling behaviour among penitents that he linked to problems with conscience. He analysed reasons for why conscience sometimes erred and provided pastoral advice to penitents afflicted by consequent doubts. This article argues that even though Gerson never abandoned the notion that one should follow one’s conscience, his analysis and pastoral advice went far in circumscribing the prescriptive force of this obligation.

2. Why Conscience Obliged, and Erred

Many medieval theologians addressed the topic of conscience. They had to do this as the curriculum required for a degree in theology obliged them to comment on Peter Lombard’s Sententiae, which, among a wide array of other issues, also raised problems that concerned the nature of conscience. Perspectives of course differed among all these commentators, for instance when it came to the question of whether conscience should be considered as belonging to the will or to the intellect.1 To situate the following inquiry on Gerson, however, it will suffice to briefly review the position of Thomas Aquinas.2

As expected, Aquinas discussed conscience in his commentary to the Lombard’s Sentences, but also in his Summa theologiae, and in his Disputed questions of truth. When commenting on the various texts that were collected in the Sentences, he had to engage with the received vocabulary and contradictory statements that derived from Jerome. In one discussion of a passage of Scripture, Jerome mentioned a divine spark that was inextinguishable even in Cain and that helped people to discern when they had sinned. However, in another context and somewhat contradictory to his description of synderesis as inextinguishable, Jerome said that some people laid this faculty aside. The solution to this apparent contradiction, which would come to guide the future discussion, was to identify not only one, but two different faculties as involved in the process of forming moral judgment: synderesis and conscientia. Commonly, synderesis was considered an infallible and inextinguishable source of principles of a very general nature, while conscientia applied those principles to specific cases (Potts 1980, pp. 5–7, 78–79, 90–93). For Aquinas, both synderesis and conscientia belonged to the practical intellect, and in his Disputed questions of thruth he explained how they operated together, combining the precepts from synderesis with reason. In question 16 of this work, he observed that humans know some fundamental truths immediately and without the need for investigation. While the existence of this form of immediate knowledge was apparent in the context of the speculative sciences, where humans grasp certain first principles from whence other knowledge can be derived, Aquinas argued that this was equally true when it came to our knowledge about how we should act. The role of synderesis was to make us aware of the first principles of moral action, that is of the universal principles of the natural law (Aquinas 1970, q. 16 a. 1 co.).3 And just as it was the case with the first principles underlying our knowledge in the speculative sciences, Aquinas considered that there must exist some universal principles that serve as measure sticks of all action. To serve this function, it was necessary that synderesis, ‘whose task it is to murmur against evil and incline to good’, could not err (Aquinas 1970, q. 16 a. 2 co.).4

Aquinas considered synderesis infallible and inextinguishable. Conscience however was merely the application of knowledge from this divine spark and reason to the examination of a particular act, and such applications could err. He compared such failed applications with mistaken uses of syllogisms, where either there was something wrong with the premises or something wrong with the construction of the syllogism and how the premise was applied (Aquinas 1970, q. 17 a. 2 co.).5 But even though Aquinas acknowledged this possibility of failure he concluded that conscience was binding. It was binding absolutely when it was correct, because then it transparently communicated a divine precept. However, it was also binding when it erred, though Aquinas made clear that the false judgment of an erring conscience could be reformed and lain aside (Aquinas 1970, q. 17 a. 3, a. 4, and a. 5).

3. Conscience in Penance and Literature of Religious Instruction

The theory of the infallible and inextinguishable faculty of synderesis explains why theologians held conscience in such high esteem. But it was the practice of confession in the sacrament of penance, compulsory for all adults from 1215, that made conscience a preoccupation of medieval Christians at large. With the sacrament of penance, the church urged all Christians to engage in the scrutiny of conscience as part of confession. This soul searching was impossible however unless both pastors and laity had a grasp of what constituted a sin, which meant that the church must educate its members both in doctrine and in introspection. One result of this pedagogical effort was the production of a great amount of literature of religious instruction. Some of these works, such as the moral-theological summae and manuals for confession, served as professional tools for confessors, providing easy access to church law and practical instruction for administering penance. Other works instructed penitents directly, for instance with lists that helped them to prepare for confession or with tracts that engaged with their spiritual experiences (Barratt 1986).

When Aquinas wrote about conscience he did so in the context and in the jargon of the medieval university. He discussed conscience as a philosophical problem. Authors of pastoral works however engaged with conscience as a practical and experienced reality, for instance as something that could be probed for sins in the routine of penance. This focus on conscience comes to the fore in the manuals that were produced to guide the administration of penance. For instance, one popular text from the mid-fifteenth century, the so-called Defecerunt of Antoninus of Florence, clarified that penance was ‘an inquiry where the penitent scrutinises his conscience together with the confessor’. As an aid in this scrutiny this text provided a set of questionnaires to ensure an exhaustive confession (Antoninus 1499, 2r).6 It was in this practical context of penance that conscience took the shape that penitents would experience and wrestle with.

Though many works of religious instruction attended to questions about conscience, we should not take for granted that they say much about the experiences among the laity that involved this faculty. To begin with, works of religious instruction were to some extent prescriptive rather than descriptive of actual attitudes, emotions, and behaviours. In fact, Thomas Tentler suggested that manuals for confession like the Defecerunt should be considered instruments of social control, inculcating a ‘guilt culture’ in the laity (Tentler 1974, 1977).7 It seems legitimate to characterize for instance the questionnaires of the Defecerunt in this way. After all, they describe a practice where the confessor forced the eye of the penitent towards his or her own sinfulness. However, this characteristic seems less appropriate if we consider works that engaged more directly with the experiences of their readers, such as the tracts of Jean Gerson. Tracts of this kind could not provide very helpful instruction if they made assumptions about the mentalities and experiences of their readers that were wholly inaccurate. In short, what would be the point in discussing, for instance, behaviours relevant to the scrupulosity of conscience, if this type of comportment was wholly unknown to most readers? We can assume that Gerson’s tracts help us glean at least what he expected from his audience, and for the rest content ourselves with the hope that he knew his flock well.

Even though tracts like those of Gerson may offer insights into the religious culture and even experiences of their intended readers, there are interpretive hazards to keep in mind. When Gerson talks about the scrupulous conscience and of fear—a theme that will be central in the discussion below—these terms must be understood within their theological and philosophical contexts and not as timeless and transparent descriptors of experiences or emotions. As will be apparent, Gerson’s account of the overscrupulous conscience contains descriptions of behaviour that we might characterize as obsessive compulsive. But to grasp the cultural significance of this behaviour, and perhaps something of the anguish that it expressed, they should be read in the context of wider theological problems, such as questions about the certainty or uncertainty about salvation (Grosse 1994, pp. 4–5 and passim). As for fear, this was a concept that involved more than a description of a state of mind. From a theological point of view, fear comprised both the good fear of God and the servile type of fear, which at best could be used by preachers to scare penitents to confession (Hasenfratz 2009). And in addition to such theological distinctions, fear could be viewed with the Aristotelian tradition of virtue ethics, which distinguished between reasonable fears and fears that were out of measure.8

The sacrament of penance ensured a prominent role for conscience in late medieval religious culture and made conscience feature prominently in the literature of religious instruction. Pastoral tracts like those of Jean Gerson can tell us something about the practical consequences among the late medieval laity of this great focus on conscience, but they must be read with appropriate consideration of the wider theological and philosophical discourses that they expressed, and they will always say more about the attitudes of Gerson than of his audiences.

4. Jean Gerson and the Malfunctioning Conscience

From the theory discussed in the second section of this article, theologians knew that conscience was binding even though it was no infallible guide for moral action. As authors of pastoral tracts however, they had to put this insight to work when they advised and engaged with the experiences of their readers. Jean Gerson was a master of the pastoral tract, a genre where he could demonstrate the clear grasp of human psychology and dedication to easing the burden of the laity, which scholars avow.9 Throughout the tracts examined in the remainder of this article, he observed that there were certain consequences among the penitents of the general obligation to conscience, and he described the symptoms and sometimes dire consequences that he saw follow in the wake of conscience when it malfunctioned.

Gerson is perhaps best known as chancellor of the Paris University and for his interventions in the conciliar question and the schism.10 As is apparent from a glance at the ten-volume publication of his works, he also was a prolific, skilful, and original writer. Many of his works are short and written in an accessible style, often in his vernacular French rather than in Latin. As a writer who communicated in this way with a potentially broad audience Gerson applied his theological learning to concerns of contemporary life in the manner of a ‘public intellectual’ rather than an academic, addressing everything from the commonplace spiritual needs of the laity to the global crisis of the schism (Hobbins 2009).11 Many of his works concerned moral theology, a field where Gerson is known to have acknowledged the complexity of individual cases over the applicability of general moral rules (Schüssler 2011). Daniel Hobbins suggests that there was an intimate relation between Gerson’s dynamic view of moral theology and his activity as a writer. An expanding diversity of moral problems required theologians to pay attention and propose probable solutions. To write new works of religious instruction that addressed these problems seemed, in the eyes of Gerson, a permissible and proper response (Hobbins 2009, chapter 2).

Conscience is a topic in several of Gerson’s vernacular texts. It appears in everything from his didactic poetry to his practical manuals for confession, as well as in the tracts that treat religious qualms and anxieties. Gerson’s manual for confession, the Examen de conscience selon les péchés capitaux (Inquiry of conscience according to the deadly sins), is a questionnaire for the penitent, aimed to help individuals who by ignorance or negligence forget their sins ensure an exhaustive confession, and structured according to the seven deadly sins (Gerson 1966, pp. 393–400). Very different from this practical tool are two allegorical poems: L’ecole de la raison, complainte de la conscience (The school of reason and complaints of conscience) and L’ecole de la conscience (The school of conscience) (Gerson 1966, pp. 5–10, 109–11). In these poems, conscience appears personified in the setting of a school and engaged in debate with the heart and the five senses. Gerson gives conscience pride of place in these didactic poems: conscience is the daughter of reason (Dame raison, ma bonne mere!), and a reliable witness to the flaws of the other discussants. There is a remarkable contrast between this account of conscience in the poems—conscience the star student—and the less enthusiastic record that Gerson presents in the three pastoral tracts that are selected here for more thorough discussion: the Remediis contra pusillanimitatem (Cure for fearfulness) (Gerson 1974, pp. 374–98), the Contre conscience trop scrupuleuse (Against the overscrupulous conscience) (Gerson 1966, pp. 140–42), and the Traité des diverses tentations de l’ennemi (Tract on the temptations of the enemy) (Gerson 1966, pp. 343–60). In these tracts, Gerson never explicitly wavered from the prescript that conscience should be obeyed. But he was a keen observer of the problems caused by this obligation and of the dangers inherent in the ways that people tried to cope with them. The tracts chart how a malfunctioning conscience served as gateway to sin, and it can be argued that Gerson carried this critical account far enough to circumscribe the prescriptive force of the obligation to obey one’s conscience.

Even though one tract comes in the modern edition with a Latin title, all three are in fact written in the vernacular. Gerson’s choice of language allows us to assume that he considered the content permissible and relevant also for a lay audience. No audience is explicitly addressed in the tracts. However, when it comes to the Contre conscience and the tentations de l’ennemi, Brian Patrick McGuire suggests that Gerson may have originally intended these texts for his sisters, since they lived at the family home in the manner of a religious community and some of the content has a bearing on women who live in community but are not nuns (McGuire 2005, pp. 181–82). Irrespective of Gerson’s original intentions with these texts at least the tentations de l’ennemi had a broader appeal, as discussed below. And more generally speaking, works that dealt themes of temptations and tribulations were popular. As Alexandra Barratt suggests, they are perhaps best considered as the medieval equivalent of modern-day bestselling works on self-help (Barratt 1986, p. 425).

It seems accurate to characterise the Remediis contra pusillanimitatem as a work on self-help, though it is easy to see how it could also have been useful in the professional hands of a confessor or preacher. The text identifies a particular spiritual problem, provides examples of associated behaviour or symptoms, and suggests remedies. Throughout the text Gerson speaks in the third person about those who are particularly afflicted (that is, les scrupuleux), but he also establishes an us in the text (a nous), which unites the author and his readers as individual Christians who share the same frailties and hopes under God. As indicated by the title, the topic is pusillanimity or fearfulness. Pusillanimity is a vice of its own but is linked in Gerson’s account to the greater concern of the sin of despair, which, quite typically for the later Middle Ages, appears in the company of temptations like doubt, excessive fear of divine justice, and overscrupulousness of conscience (Watson 2010, pp. 342–44).

In chapter five of the Remediis, Gerson describes various manifestations of overscrupulousness (trop grande scrupulosité de conscience), which generates a fear of sin that hampers the life of the afflicted. He notes how this spiritual condition might manifest for instance in the daily life of devotion:

Among the scrupulous there seem to be those who when they have said a psalm or a prayer without the right intent or attention but with a furtive wandering of the mind, which cannot be avoided because of their human frailty, they will not stop repeating it and start again, over and over.12

Gerson considered this obsessive repetition of prayers and psalms to be a consequence of a conscience that required a standard of mental discipline that most individuals could not sustain. Other people, Gerson maintained, might have constant scruples about not being contrite enough or about things they feel they ought to confess. They end up tiring themselves and their confessors, constantly repeating confessions of mere trifles (Gerson 1974, p. 394).

The overscrupulous individuals act obsessively to maintain control over their frailties and cannot let go of anxieties about relatively minor sins. In the Remediis, Gerson developed the wider consequences of this lingering on venial sins. It is easy to understand that constant fretting about trifles disturbs the peace of mind, but Gerson’s message is rather that serious repercussions might follow when someone overrates the gravity of a sin. The church taught that conscience obliged, and Gerson observed that this obligation came with a dangerous logic to the individual who suffered from an overscrupulous conscience and dreaded mortal sin at every turn:

If he does not throw aside the confused scruple it might cause that which was not in itself a sin to become a sin, by way of this scruple of conscience. Because everything that is contrary to conscience is also a sin. And someone who forms a mortal sin in conscience, when there is nothing mortal, cannot receive grace.13

It did not matter that conscience was wrong, objectively, when it considered a venial sin to be mortal. Such sins may have been relative trifles and impossible to avoid in daily life. But in the overscrupulous mind they were nevertheless identified as acts against conscience and hence as mortal sins. Gerson made note of the danger: by engineering its own mortals, the overscrupulous conscience jeopardised salvation.

4.1. Reasons Why Conscience Malfunctioned

In the Remediis Gerson touched on causes that explained why conscience malfunctioned. He suggested that debilitating scrupulosity might be outright diabolical in origin (Gerson 1974, p. 397), a point that he laboured further in the tentations de l’ennemi. He identified another culprit in an exaggerated focus on individual merit over trust in God’s mercy. If people thought that they could be saved by their own righteousness (leur iustice), this would add to their burden. Gerson stressed that people ought to remember that God does not require anything of a person that goes beyond his capacity –ne requiert point de l’homme oultre son pouoir (Gerson 1974, p. 393).

Just like Aquinas, Gerson thought that an erroneous conscience could be proved wrong, and its judgment laid aside. Hence, it was possible that individuals who suffered from overscrupulousness could improve by taking the better advice of their confessors (ceulx qui ont charge de leur salut). People who took informed advice and acted accordingly against their scruples (faire et procedér contre leurs scrupules) would become habituated, in the Aristotelian and virtue ethical sense, to a brave new outlook:

So that by doing this, they finally get used to it and do not fear them, like the experienced carpenters who surely and bravely walk up on the highest rooftops, where others who have no experience of this would immediately fear for their lives if they ever presumed to try a thing like that.14

Gerson did not recommend his readers to act against conscience. But he reminded them that conscience might malfunction, that pastoral advice helped identify what was erroneous, and that it was possible to regain, bit by bit, a well-ordered conscience.

In the Remediis, Gerson reminded his readers that God does not require anything that is beyond our capacity. A similar call to moderation opens the second of the tracts under consideration here, the Contre conscience trop scrupuleuse. ‘God’, says Gerson, ‘wants our service to be reasonable, both in body and soul’ (Gerson 1966, p. 140).15 Gerson’s call to moderation concerns exaggerated forms of devotion, excessive fears about exhaustive confession, and exorbitant trust in one’s own powers rather than in the mercy of God. The broader theme of the dangers inherent in going too far in one’s observances or focusing too much on one’s inadequacies was quite typical of Gerson (McGuire 2005, pp. 181–82).

According to Gerson, too many troubles for the brain, harsh fasting, or too many tears, doubts, and melancholy—all of them consequences of overzealousness—can ruin an individual’s sound judgment (bon sens et bon jugement). As already mentioned, Gerson might have compiled the Contre conscience for his devout sisters, and the text illustrates how exaggerated religious ambitions might trouble not just the individual but also the balance of life within a community. Perhaps as a nod to his sisters and other women in the same situation, Gerson cautioned that a householder (une personne managiere) should not aspire for the peace of mind and heart of a recluse (une solitaire). To do so might lead to pride or to melancholy, but it might also prove unpleasant for the people who she is supposed to please. In addition, one should not try to appear more devout than the others in the household (faire se poeut de apparoir plus deuote que les aultres). And though one should correct others when this is called for, it should be done discretely (Gerson 1966, pp. 140–42).

In the Remediis, Gerson discussed the fear of lacking in contrition and of not having confessed exhaustively as symptoms of exaggerated scrupulosity. He also made similar observations in the Contre conscience. Gerson’s recommendation is that one should not spend too much time thinking about past sins, nor fear not having confessed exhaustively for each of them. A general confession will suffice. Another similarity with advice given in the Remediis concerns individuals who feel prone to sin. They should ask God for pardon instead of relying on their ability to avoid sin, which will only lead to listlessness (tristesse and ennui) or even despair and sickness of life (desesperacion et desplaisir de sa vie), and which might imply a deal of pride (orgueil) (Gerson 1966, p. 141). It is easy to imagine that lingering anxiously on every potential sin might cause and individual to focus on punishment in the afterlife and it comes as no surprise when Gerson cautions against continuous thinking about sins, death, and hellfire. Neither, he says, should one be too worried at the occurrence of thoughts of the flesh, or envy, or hate. Unless one assents to such thoughts, they are not mortal sins. They can in fact be a source of virtue when they are resisted. It is best to ignore them, or even laugh at the importunity of the diabolical enemy who sent them (l’ennemi qui les enuoye) (Gerson 1966, p. 142).

In both the Remediis and the Contre conscience, Gerson declared that scrupulosity, or at least the temptations that riddle overscrupulous individuals, can be diabolical in origin. He pursued this idea in a longer tract, the Traité des diverses tentations de l’ennemi. No audience is addressed explicitly in this text. However, a Swedish translation of the same work, probably transferred from a Latin version rather than from the French, declared in the translator’s prologue that the book was meant for ‘those who know Swedish but no Latin’, and that it was published with the aim that ‘people should become prudent and wise so that they would watch out for the traps and temptations of the devil’.16 It is interesting to observe in this context that Gerson’s own words of introduction to the French original displayed less confidence in the capacity of his readers to evade the snares of the devil; instead he emphasised that his work would teach them to place their trust in God rather than in themselves (Gerson 1966, p. 343).17

What is the role of conscience in Gerson’s account of the devil and his trickery? It is important to note the main message of the tentations from the outset, namely that the devil hides among good works. As Gerson declared, the devil was ‘like a treacherous highwayman in the company and on the road of the good’. If he could not stop the good deed from being accomplished in the first place, he would pollute the intention of the actor, for instance with vanity, or make sure that the actor reaped dangerous pride from his action (Gerson 1966, pp. 343–44).18 Church teaching stressed that conscience should serve as guide for moral action; as mentioned above it was supposed to murmur against evil and incline towards good. It is easy to see the strategic value of control over this faculty for a devil who relished in perverting good works and intentions.

At several instances in the tentations, Gerson observes how the devil takes advantage of the fact that conscience is unreliable, and how he weaponized the obligation to follow one’s conscience in his attempts to lead people to sin. The narrative framing of Gerson’s pastoral advice in the tentations emphasised the active agency of the devil, however, much of the content is familiar from the Remediis and the Contre conscience. For instance, in the first entry in the tentations where Gerson speaks about conscience explicitly, he situates the potential problems of this faculty within the wider nexus of pusillanimity and despair:

Sometimes the enemy sends doubts of conscience and makes it so incredibly fearful and strict that she [the penitent] will not dare to do any good and sin more often and easily. Because someone who goes against something that is judged for certain by conscience to be bad sins even though it [the act] is not in itself bad. And the enemy does this to achieve a particular end, that is to say to throw the person who has sinned into despair (desespoir), and make her think that she is so wicked, and entirely damned and rejected by God, and is unable to follow His commandments and sins so easily.19

(Gerson 1966, pp. 346–47)

Conscience, it appears from this account, was a weak point that the devil could exploit for his own ends. He made conscience doubtful. And since it was common knowledge that it was a sin to disobey one’s conscience, the uncertainties caused debilitating fears that barred good deeds from being performed, so that people sinned by omission. And since in the eye of the scrupulous conscience most alternatives looked sinful, the result was an impression that it was impossible to keep God’s commandments. Eventually, hopelessness would drive individuals to the terrible sin of despair.

The overscrupulous and excessively strict conscience might lead to sin, but so could a conscience that was so assured and accommodating that it led people to commit grave sins without ever realising the need to repent.20 Too strict or too lax, both extremes of conscience pawed the way to sin. And when a lax antecedent (future-facing) conscience was combined with a strict consequent (past-facing) conscience, this created a perfect highway to despair:

Sometimes he grants a lax conscience about what is about to be done, and then after the fact demonstrates the gravity of the sin to instil despair, showing [the sinner] how horrible it is that he, such as he is, should have fallen so low to appear in such an ugly and bad manner.21

(Gerson 1966, p. 347)

From the devil’s point of view, it worked just as well to do the opposite and start this route towards sin from an excessively strict conscience:

In contrast he sometimes grants a strict conscience beforehand and instills fear in a person where there ought to be no fear. He is like those who cry out to children when they walk along the road: ‘you will fall! you will fall!’ so that through fear the child will fall, which he does sometimes. Thus, the enemy cries to such a person: ‘you fall short, you sin, you are damning yourself!’ And in such a manner, the peace and tranquillity of conscience are lost to this person, and he cannot do anything worthwhile, neither pray nor anything else. And it happens that the enemy does this with yet another and even more wicked end in mind, namely so that the person will want to rid himself of the doubting conscience and will therefore take on a conscience so lax and bold that it does not stop him from anything.22

(Gerson 1966, p. 347)

With typicall mastery of the striking image, Gerson’s picture of the penitent as a frightened toddler brings home the idea that the scrupulous conscience is a source of self-fulfilling fear. The taunted toddler will loose confidence in its ability to walk, and fall. Equipped with a scrupulous conscience, a person will not withstand the devil’s jeer, loose confidence and become so listless the he is unable to pray. He might seek to escape the anguish of constant doubts by abandoning his overstrict conscience for one that is dangerously lax.

4.2. Gerson’s Advice of ‘Garder le Moyen’

What could be done to counter these subtle attacks of the enemy on conscience? In the tentations de l’ennemi, Gerson repeated the advice found in the Remediis and the Contre conscience, that one should trust God’s mercy rather than personal merit, perhaps intending that this would alleviate the burden on the individual. But he also made explicit the virtue-ethical standpoint that informed his account of the two-pronged danger that was constituted by a conscience that was either too strict or too lax. To counter this danger he emphasized the desirability of sticking to the golden mean and avoiding extremes:

It is necessary in all of one’s temptations to stick to the mean by the help of good counsel, take recourse to prayer and above all by retaining humility before God combined with hope of his mercy.23

(Gerson 1966, p. 347)

Gerson held that the individual with lax conscience underestimated moral risks, and thus acted rashly in the face of real danger, while the fearful toddler represented the opposite extreme and acted out of fear where ‘there ought to be no fear’ (fait paour a la personne ou ne deueroit point auoir de paour). Both the lax conscience and the fearful conscience failed to make accurate estimates of the moral risk at hand. In contrast, a sound conscience would measure the danger accurately and advise accordingly. On this point, Gerson’s account resonates with Aristotle’s view of moral virtue as a mean between two vices of extremes, one of excess and the other of deficiency. In particular, since his discussion concerned the accurate assessement and right attitude towards danger, Gerson employed the Aristotelian view on the specific virtue of fortitude, which established that you should fear that which it is reasonable to fear but nothing else (Aristotle 2009, II:VIII & III:VI). Translated to the context of pastoral care this meant that you should fear and do penance for sins that were truly mortal, but you should not linger on mere trifles. Gerson’s advice to ‘stick to the mean’ (garder le moyen) harks back to this virtue-ethical tradition and its understanding of the correct response as a golden mean between two extremes.24 Aquinas had adopted Aristotle’s view that virtue was a mean between excess and deficiency, and that it was the task of reason to determine what was too much and too little in each specific case (Finnis 2021). As a pastoral author who departed from these philosophical views but wrote with the spiritual needs of the laity in mind, Gerson endeavored to offer practicable advice. But virthe ethics gave no hard and fast answers, other than to avoid extremes. To help establish exactly where the ‘middle’ lied that would offer the right course of action, Gerson simply suggested that the penitent should take good counsel from his or her confessor.

5. Conclusions

When late medieval pastoral authors like Jean Gerson wrote about conscience, they departed from the received point of view, which was that conscience should be obeyed and that it was a mortal sin not to do so. But when they provided advice to penitents, they had to address certain issues that followed in the wake of this command. For a scholastic and cognitivist theologian like Thomas Aquinas, it had sufficed to contend that conscience might err because of a failure of reason when it applied general moral precepts to real-world situations. The tracts of Jean Gerson, discussed above, however illustrate how pastoral theologians had to address this problem more holistically. They must consider how the moral judgment of conscience might be hampered by other sins like pride or pusillanimity, by the condition of an overscrupulos and excessively strict conscience, or by outright diabolical intervention. In his tracts, Gerson observed that the very precept that conscience always obliged was a burden that some individuals could not handle without the risk of lapsing into even graver sin, or at least without resulting in unnecessary anxieties and obsessive compulsive behaviour. Gerson warned his readers about these consequences and offered an analysis of their causes, which he intended would alleviate the burdens. The anxieties might ease, he suggested, if one trusted more in God’s mercy than in one’s own merit. When in moral doubt one should trust in the advice of someone better informed, such as one’s confessor, and in the process of forming one’s conscience one should act in accordance with the principles of virtue and avoid the extreme of the impossibly strict as much as the dangerously lax. Gerson never said that one should not follow one’s conscience. However, this article has argued that his holistic account of the reasons why conscience might err, and his insistence that an erring conscience should be reformed and replaced, qualified this obligation to make it less absolute and, perhaps, less of a burden on the laity.