Bible Encyclopedias
Jansen(Ius) Cornelius (2)

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

Search for…

Enter query below:

or

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z

Prev Entry
Jansen or Jansenius, Cornelius (1)

Next Entry
Jansen, Ellert

Resource Toolbox

Print Article

Jansen(ius) Cornelius (2)

a celebrated Dutch divine and founder of the JANSENISTS, born at Accoy, near Leerdam, in Northern Holland, Oct. 28, 1585, was a nephew of the above Cornelius Jansen, the Bp. of Ghent. He received his early education at Utrecht, and in 1602 entered the university at Louvain as a student of philosophy and theology. While at this high school he seems to have formed an acquaintance with the Frenchman, Jean Baptiste Duvergier (q.v.) de Hauranne, generally known by the name-of St. Cyran. "Both he (i.e. Cyran) and Jansenius were there brought into contact with some who in secret cherished the doctrines of grace although in the communion of Rome, and thus they received many principles of truth utterly opposed to those ordinarily held in the Church. There also they both saw and felt the evil workings of the Jesuits; they marked the inroads which that system was making on all doctrinal truth and practical morality." But Jansenius's severe industry brought on sickness, and he was obliged to quit the university, and for a time the two ‘ bosom-friends were separated. Advised to seek a change of air, he undertook a journey through France, and finally stopped at Paris to prosecute his studies anew. Again the two friends met, and together they removed to Bayonne, and spent another series of years in earnest study and meditation, particularly on the writings of the Church fathers, of whom Augustine became their special favorite. So interested became Jansenius in the writings of Augustine, that from henceforth he determined to make it his life-business to arrange and methodize everything in the productions of this Church father treating on the subjects of the grace of God, the condition' of man as fallen, free-will and human impotence, original sin, election, efficacious grace, faith, and other points of like importance, with a view to a reformatory movement in the Church to which he belonged, by combating the increasing Pelagianism of the Jesuits. In 1617 the two friends again parted, Jansenius returning to Louvain to obtain the doctorate and to assume the duties of an extraordinary professorship in the university. In a controversy which ensued between this high school and the Jesuits Jansenius greatly distinguished himself, and was twice sent to Spain (1624 and 1625) in the interest of the university, Holland being, at that time, dependent on Spain. In 1621, Jansenius and Cyran, who had become convinced of the necessity of a reform within the, pale of the Roman Catholic communion, met again at Louvain with a view to bringing about such a change. They divided the work among themselves, Jansenius taking the field of doctrine, Duvergier that of organization and life. At the same time, they entered into intimate connections with distinguished priests in Ireland and with some of the leaders of the Congregation of the Oratory (q.v.). The Spanish Inquisition seems to have had wind of this great and daring undertaking of the two noble spirits, and when, in 1630, Jansenius was nominated for the regular professorship of sacred literature at Louvain, a great effort was made to prevent the appointment. But Jansenius was made the recipient of this honorable distinction in spite of the Jesuits and the "Holy Office." He further secured the favor of the Spanish court by his opposition to France and its alliances with Protestant powers,-to which course he seems to have been mainly incited by the tardiness of Richelieu to enter into an alliance with Jansenius and Duvergier in the intended reformatory movement. He severely attacked the pretensions of France, which at this time, by her attitude, was threatening the Spanish provinces of the Netherlands, in a work entitled Marms Gallicus, the publication of which occasioned the imprisonment of Duvergier, who was known to have been in constant epistolary intercourse with Jansenius, while to the latter it secured the see of Ypres (1636). In this city he died of the plague May 6, 1638, just as he had finished his Augustinus, a work embodying the result of 22 years' study of the writings of St. Augustine, and which, according to his own statement, he had read, pen in hand, at least ten times, and the portions relating to sin and grace no less than thirty times, determined to exhibit, expound, and illustrate, not his own views, but the exact views of the celebrated Church father (compare Augustinus, 2, Procem. 29:65).

Jansenius was a learned theologian, but a plain, retiring man, who spent most of his life in his study, and was hardly known in his day beyond the immediate circle surrounding him. It is thought likely that the impulse communicated by Baius (q.v.) to the school of Louvain may have influenced Jansenius in giving this direction to his studies, as Cornelius Jansen, the bishop of Ghent, who was one of the instructors of our Jansen at Loluvain, was himself a pupil of Baius, and that through him he had imbibed a strong dislike to the lax views of theology and morality advocated by the Jesuits. Jansenius took the ground, in opposing the Jesuits, that life stands in the closest relation to practical doctrinal precepts. He thought it impossible to attain true spiritual and Christian life without the fullest faith in this doctrine, which alone inculcates true humility. On the ground that pride was the cause of the fall, he sought to destroy all feeling of individual power, giving up human free agency to divine grace, and declaring human nature to be thoroughly corrupt, and unable by itself to do any good. While he believed these to have been the doctrines of Augustine himself, yet, as an obedient son of the Church of Rome, which, while he was anxious to purge her from the Pelagianism of the Jesuits, he dearly loved, he in his will, written, half an hour before his death, said of his yet unpublished Augustinus, ‘ I feel that it would be difficult to make any changes in it; yet, should the Holy See require such, remember that. I am an obedient son, and willing to submit to the Church in which I have lived till death." He willed the MS. to Lame, Fromond, and Calenus, who published it under the title Augustinus… sea doctrina sancti Augusti de humanae nature sanctitate, egritudine, nedicin, aieersus Pelagianos et Massilienses (Louvain, 1640, folio).

The Augustinus is divided into three parts. In the first Jansenius gives a historical account of Pelagianism, which heresy exalted the power of free agency, aid denied the original depravity of human nature, and, consequently, original sin. In the second part the Writer sets forth the views of St. Augustine on human nature, both in its state of primitive purity and in its state of degradation after the fall. In the third part, finally, he presents the ideas of St. Augustine touching grace, by which Christ redeems us from our fallen state, also the predestination of men and angels. The fundamental proposition of the work is that, "since the fall of Adam, free agency exists no longer in man, pure works are a mere gratuitous gift of God, and the predestination of the elect is not an effect of his prescience of our works; but of his free volition." This, it will be perceived, is a close reproduction of the views presented by Calvin in the preceding century. Such principles were, of course, in direct opposition with those advocated in Spain and Holland by the Jesuits Molina and Lessius, who wished, to conciliate the doctrine of salvation by grace with a certain amount of human free agency. Jansenius, besides, had personally incurred the hatred of the "Order of Jesus" by causing the Jesuits to be excluded as professors from the University of Louvain; and, though the work had failed to excite much attention, the Jesuits were determined now to be revenged on their enemy.

The Augustinus thus became the occasion of a theological controversy by far the most important in its doctrinal social, and even political results which has agitated the Roman Catholic Church since the great Reformation of the 16th century… The whole weight of the order of the Jesuits having been brought into play to cause the condemnation of the work at Rome, it was accordingly and speedily; done by pope Urban VIII, in his bull neminenti, March 6,1642. "So decisive a point would not have been gained by the Jesuits had they not succeeded in directing the attention of the papal court to a passage in which Jansenius brought forward a statement of St. Augustine as authoritative, although the same point (without reference, of course, to that father) had been condemned at Rome. This was an inroad on papal infallibility, and this caused the rejection of the work." But if the book of Jansenius had failed to excite much attention, the issuing of a bull against its use, and all this at the instigation of the Jesuits, provoked no little interest. Especially strong was the opposition against the bull in Belgium and in France, and many were the partisans thus secured for the Augustinus, a number of whom-perhaps even the most - were animated, in all likelihood, less by doctrinal predilection than by an antipathy to the laxity of the moral teachings of the Jesuits, with which the opposition to the Augustinus was, of course, always identified. The very strongest of the partisans of the Augustinus were the recluses of Port Royal (q.v.), a celebrated association of scholars and divines, among whom figured some of the brightest names in the Church of France of the 17th century. One of these, Antoine Arnauld (q.v.), in 1643 published his De la frè quente Communion, based on the predestination doctrine of Augustine and Jansenius, and thereby heaped more live coals on the heads of the now already much distracted Jesuits. Even the Dominicans in different countries divided in opinion, those of Spain and Italy enlisting on the side of the Jansenists (as the advocates of the Augustinus came by this time to be called), those of France siding with the Jesuits. Even the Sorbonne, of whom Arnauld was a member, was divided; and, after an earnest strife between the contending parties had waged in France for some time, both decided in 1651 to carry it to Rome, and plead their cause before the infallible (!) judge. In 1649, Cornet Syndic, of the theological faculty at Paris, at the instigations of the Jesuits, had drawn up in connection with some of them, five propositions, and had submitted them to the Sorbonne as forming the substance of Jansenius's work. These the Jesuits now presented at Rome, satisfied that if they could only once obtain the condemnation of these as heretical, the fall of Jansenism was of course secured. On May 31, 1653, the Jesuits finally secured their end, — and Innocent X, in his bull Cue occasione, at the instigation of his cardinal Chigi, condemned the five propositions, which had been "mostly couched in somewhat ambiguous language, so as to admit of very different explanations," the object of the Jesuits being "to procure their condemnation in any sense or in any form." They are as follows:

(1.) That there are divine commands which virtuous and pious persons; though they would gladly perform the same, cannot possibly obey, because God has not given them that measure of grace which is absolutely necessary to enable them to render such obedience.

(2.) That no one in this depraved state of nature can resist the influence of divine grace when it operates on the heart.

(3.) That, in order to make the actions of men meritorious, it is not necessary that they be free from necessity, but only from restraint.

(4.) That the semi-Pelagians greatly err when they affirm that the will of man has power to receive or to resist the influence of prevenient grace.

(5.) That they are semi-Pelagians who assert that Jesus Christ, by his passion and death, made an atonement for the sins of all men. The pope pronounced the first and the last proposition presumptuous, impious, and blasphemous, but the other three simply heretical. The friends and adherents of Jansenius admitted the propriety and justice of condemning these propositions, but maintained that they were not found in the work of Jansenius.

France was at this time at enmity with Rome, and cardinal Mazarin, though but little interested in these theological questions, believed this a favorable opportunity to re-establish amicable relations with Rome, offended with him on account of his arrest of cardinal Retz (q.v.). He held an assembly at the Louvre, March 26, 1654, in which thirty-eight bishops took part, and which declared that the pope's decision should be considered as applying positively to Jansenius's doctrine, and that all who held in any way the five condemned propositions should be dealt with as heretics. This decision was communicated to the heads of all the dioceses throughout France, and approved by the pope September 29. In January, 1656, the Sorbonne also took direct action against the Jansenists by condemning two letters of Arnauld, in which the latter declared that he could not find the five condemned proposition's in Jansenius's writings. He also hit upon an expedient which not only rendered the bull for a time harmless, but which initiated a new movement against the doctrine of papal infallibility. "True," he said, "the see of Rome has authority to decide with respect to doctrine, and every good Catholic must submit to its decree; but the Holy See may misapprehend fact (as in the papal condemnation of Galileo's theory of planetary movement), whether a book contains certain statements or no: the meaning also of a writer may be misunderstood. Let the five propositions be heretical, yet, with the exception of the first, they are to be found neither in letter nor in spirit in the writings of Jansen." Thus arose the celebrated distinction of defacto and de jure.

The Sorbonne now demanded of Arnauld that he should discontinue his opposition and submit to her decisions. He, and sixty others with him, still refusing to submit, they were expelled from the theological faculty. A general assembly of the clergy was also convened in September of this year, and the following formula was adopted on the motion of De Marca, archbishop of Toulouse: "I condemn with heart and lips the doctrine of the five propositions of Cornelius Jansenius, contained in his book entitled Augustinus, and which the pope and bishops have condemned, said doctrine not being that of St. Augustine, whom Jansenius has explained wrongly, against the real meaning of that holy doctor." A bull of Alexander VII, October 16, indorsed the decisions of the assembly, and affirmed that-the condemned propositions were a part of the doctrines of Jansenius. The signing of the above formula, which was required of all- French priests and members of religious orders, was everywhere opposed. Louis XIV, confounding the Jansenists with the Fronde, gave the Church the help of the civil authorities. But the members of Port Royal continued in their opposition, thinking it perjury for them to sign it. Another royal edict of April 29, 1664, was now issued, which was more moderate in its demands. It merely required the signing as a matter of form, but at the same time threatened such as refused with seizure of their income, and even with excommunication. The opposition still continuing, headed by Port Royal, persecution now commenced in earnest.. The dungeons of the Bastile were crowded with those who refused to violate their consciences by subscribing a formula which they did not believe to set forth their views The very passages of the fortress were occupied by prisoners. Among those who were thus treated was Lemaltre de Saey, spiritual director of the nuns of Port Royal, who, accused of inciting them to resist, was imprisoned in the Bastile in 1666. As for Duvergier de Hauranne, he had already been sent to Vincennes thirty years before.

The government and the Jesuits, determined to suppress the rebellious spirit of Port Royal (q.v.), now used every effort that could be devised to gain their end. Two months had elapsed since the expulsion of Arnauld from the Sorbonne, when the civil authorities ordered that every novice and scholar should be removed from Port Royal. This sharpened the pen of Pascal, and forth came the eighteen famous Provincial Letters (Lettres a unprovincial). "In these remarkable letters the author showed with extraordinary force how narrow the question really was-whether five propositions are in the Augustinus or not, when no one had there pointed them out; he showed by what unworthy compromises the condemnation of Dr. Arnauld had been obtained; and, besides touching on doctrinal points which were involved, he firmly and manfully attacked the shameless casuistry of the Jesuits. These letters had a wonderful efficiency, for their power was felt even by those who had no apprehension of the present subject of controversy." Voltaire has said that in wit the earlier of them were not excelled by the comedies of Moliere, while the latter rivaled the productions of Bossuet in eloquence; in fact, that they constituted an epoch in French literature. Says Hallam (Introd. Literature of Europe' Harper's edition, 2, 335): "These letters did more to ruin the name of Jesuit than all the controversies of Protestantism, or all the fulminations of the Parliament of Paris." "All Europe," says Macaulay (History of England, 2, 46), "read, admired, and laughed." But not only the Jesuits felt this heavy blow; even the incumbent of St. Peter's chair staggered and reeled under the sudden attack, and, as a set-off for it, cardinal Chigi, now Alexander VII, not only confirmed the position of his predecessor, and again declared that the five propositions were contained de facto in Augustinus, but, imitating the French authorities, accompanied it by the requisition that every one holding a spiritual office in the Church of Rome should abjure these errors by subscribing a formula prescribed for that purpose. This injudicious and oppressive act subjected the Janseilists to still severer persecutions, and continued the heated controversy, in which the ablest pens on both sides were enlisted. A great point was made by the Jesuits of the infallibility question. (See INFALLIBILITY).

But, as the controversy continued, it took a wider range, and came to embrace such topics as the rights of the bishops as contradistinguished from those of the pope; the Jesuitical views of theology and morality, so ably censured by Pascal, as we have already seen; the vast and alarming power of the Jesuits, and even many usages of the Church of Rome. The opposition, which thus far had seemed to come mainly from Port-Royal recluses, was found to have spread even among high dignitaries of the Church: four bishops refused to sign the formulary which Rome dictated, and many others of this high position in France took the ground of "respectful silence." In 1668 king Louis succeeded in obtaining the sanction of Rome for a compromise, substantially on the basis of Arnauld's distinction of defacto and de jure, and of respectful silence.

"Jansenistic" principles now became far more widely diffused. The authorities of the Church of Rome thought a Jansenist was not necessarily a heretic; the schools of Port-Royal flourished even more than before the persecution and imprisonment;" the learned Tillemont became one of her recluses, and Racine one of her students. The incumbents of the papal chair even became the friends of Port Royal, and obtained no little aid from it in their opposition to the Jesuits, which Innocent XI more especially manifested. This, of course, exasperated the Jesuits more than ever, and the great friend and protector of Jansenism at court, the duchess of Longueville, having died, they succeeded in gaining over Louis XIV, who, it is said, "abhorring Jansenism quite as much as he abhorred Protestantism, and very much more than he abhorred atheism," had abstained from open violence only at the instance of the duchess of Longueville. An edict was issued forbidding the admission of new members to Port Royal, and the recluses were ordered to "quit the valley of Port- Royal at once and forever;" while Dr. Arnauld, the principal support of Jansenism, was obliged to flee from France, and to seek a refuge in the Low Counties, where he died in 1694.

Another and last personal disciple of Cyran died in 1695. In the same and the following year passed away also the other great supports of Jansenism, and it was already whispered among the Jesuits and at the French court that the heretical movement had been: successfully eradicated, when suddenly the crippled Jansenism received a fresh start. A priest of the Oratory of Paris, P. Quesnel, a man of learning, zeal, and spirituality of mind, had published the New Testament with annotations which were of a practical and edifying character, but strongly tinged with Jansenistic doctrines. It had been published in successive portions from 1671 to 1687. It had met at first with a most favorable reception. The Sorbonne had approved it; pope Clement. XI had commended it; Francois Harle, archbishop of Paris, an avowed enemy of the Jansenists, had expressed his approbation of it; Louis Antoine de Noailles, bishop of Chalons, subsequently archbishop of Paris and finally a cardinal, who was then a zealous advocate of the Jansenistic doctrines, had even taken the work under his special protection, and enjoined its perusal; in his diocese. It had been and still was eagerly read, and had already passed through many editions. Another edition had just. (1702) become necessary, which was published under the title of Le nouveau Testament en Francois, avec des reflexions morales sur chaque ver, se, pour eze rendre la lecture plus utile, et la meditation plus aisee. The author had never signed the five propositions, and his confessor now put the question to the Sorbonne "whether he might admit to communion a spiritual person who had done no more than maintain, the "reverential silence," as some of the. bishops had done," and the reply from the Sorbonne came that, with regard to points of fact, respectful obedience was sufficient obedience. But hardly had the cas de conscience as it is technically termed, become known at Rome, when pope Clement XI condemned it in the most' severe terms (Feb. 12, 1703), and complained to the king of those who so thoughtlessly stirred up the old controversy. Finally, the bull Vineam Domini (July 15, 1705), confirmed and renewed all preceding condemnations of the five propositions. This bull was accepted by the assembly of the clergy, and registered in Parliament. But with it the Jesuits were by no means quieted. They desired complete victory. Another edition of Quesnel's Reflexions morales having become necessary, and it being the production of a decided Jansenist, popularizing the Port-Royalists, who made it one of their duties to distribute it freely among the- people, they determined that it also should be suppressed. They persisted in their efforts to secure the condemnation of the work by the papal see until at last success crowned their undertaking.

In 1708 Clement XI pronounced against it, and in 1712 it was prohibited by a papal edict as "a text-book of undisguised Jansenism." By this time the king of France (Louis XIV) and the Jesuits were in league together, and we need not wonder that the Jansenists, as opponents of the Jesuits, were severely dealt with. Indeed, it is asserted that this bull, as well as many others that were issued about this time in Rome, and aiming at the French Church, were one and all dictated in Paris. Says Tregelles (Jansenists, p. 38), "The king and the Jesuits procured whatever bulls they wanted from the pope, and when they did not sufficiently set forth the Jansenist heresy, they were returned from Paris to Rome with corrections and alterations, to which the pope acceded." No wonder, then, that the bull of 1712 was in 1713 followed by another still severer, famous as the bull Unigenzitus, by which were condemned all of the writings of Quesnel, and all that had ever been or might ever be written in their defense. It also singled out all propositions from the works of Quesnel as false, captious, evil sounding, offensive to pious (!) ears, scandalous, pernicious, rash, and injurious to the Church and its customs; contumelious, not against the Church merely, but also against the secular authorities; seditious, "impious, blasphemous, suspected of heresy, and also savoring of heresy itself; also favoring heretics; heresies, and schism, erroneous, nearly allied to heresy, often condemned; and, furthermore, also heretical.; and sundry heresies, especially those contained in the well-known propositions of Jansenius, and that, too, in the sense in which those were condemned." The bull did not specify which of the propositions belonged severally to each of these heads of condemnation. "This was the triumph of doctrinal Jesuitism: Le Tellier, the king's Jesuit confessor, arranged the terms of the bull. It seemed as if every feeling of piety towards God, and every apprehension of his grace, was to be extinguished throughout the Papal.Church — as if all who adhered at all to many doctrines that had been regarded as orthodox were to have their feelings and their consciences outraged." But the Gallican clergy was by no means agreed as to the acceptance of the bull, although the Jesuits earnestly pressed it. Some were in favor of its unconditional acceptance, others desired to make a qualifying declaration, and still others wished the qualification to be made by the pope himself. After much disputation, the king himself decided the matter by making submission to the bull binding in Church and State. From three to four thousand volumes, including pamphlets, relating. to the controversy which this famous bull provoked, are found in the great Parisian library.

The death of Louis XIV left the fate of Jansenism still unsettled, while it also caused a relaxation of the repressive measures. The regent, duke of Orleans, was urged to refer the whole controversy to a national council, and the leaders of the Jansenist party appealed to a general council. The Jansenist party thus formed, which numbered four bishops and many inferior ecclesiastics, were called, from this circumstance, the Appellants (q.v.). The firmness of the pope, and a change in the policy of the regent, brought the Appellants into disfavor. Even the Parliament of Paris was forced to submit, and registered the papal bull in a lit de justice (June 4, 1720), although with a reservation in favor of the liberties of the Gallican Church. The Appellants for the most part submitted, the recusants being visited with severe penalties; and, on the accession of the new king, Louis XV, the unconditional acceptance of the bull was at length formally accomplished, so far as the general public were concerned. From this time forward the Jansenists were rigorously repressed, and their great stronghold, Port-Royal, having been already, in 170 911, destroyed by connivances of the king and the Jesuits, a large number emigrated to the Netherlands, where they formed a community, with Utrecht as a center. (See below, Jansenists in Holland.)

"During the 18th century Jansenism degenerated in France. In 1727 Francois de Paris died, and was buried in the cemetery of St. Medard. in Paris. He was of an honorable family, and had early shown a religious turn of mind.: His patrimony he bestowed upon the poor, and earned his livelihood by weaving hose. In 1720, at the age of thirty, he was made deacon of St. Medard. Cardinal de Noailles would gladly have invested- him with a higher office, but he declined. In 1722 he resigned his deaconship, and retired to a wilderness. He soon returned' to Paris, where he lived in seclusion and poverty, denying himself the ordinary comforts of life, and shortening his days by self-inflicted torments. A magnificent monument was erected to his memory by his brother, a member of the French Parliament, who subsequently renounced his worldly position and property, and lived a life of seclusion and asceticism. To the grave of Francis de Paris multitudes flocked. There, in various ways, they testified their superstitious regard and veneration, and there marvelous cures were claimed to be wrought and miracles said to be performed. — Strong religious emotions were manifested, and some were seized with convulsions. Some were favored with the spirit of prophecy, and predicted the overthrow of Church and State. Such predictions were heard until within a short time previous to, and even during the revolution of 1789. As late as 1840 multitudes of religious pilgrims still resorted to the spot, on the anniversary of his death and crowned with garlands the grave of De Paris.

The superstition and fanaticism which prevailed at his grave soon after his death were not wholly confined to the common people, but were shared by a considerable number of men of learning and rank. Those of the latter class who made themselves most conspicuous were Hieronymus N. de Paris, the parliamentary member just alluded to; C. Folard, widely and favorably known by his observations on the history of Polybius; and Louis Basilius Carre de Iontgerou, a member of Parliament, who experienced a wonderful conversion at the grave of this venerated saint, and who subsequently narrated the marvelous phenomena there witnessed, and vindicated their supernatural and divine character. These superstitious and fanatical excesses, combined with the austerities and even inhuman mortifications practiced by many of the more zealous Jansenists, tended to prejudice the more enlightened against their cause, and greatly weakened its moral power. Petitpied, Asveld, Rollin, and others, attempted in vain to stem the tide of superstition and fanaticism. These excesses ruined the cause of the Jansenists — at least in France, or, in the words of Voltaire, ‘ the grave of St. Francis of Paris became the grave of Jansenism,' for thenceforth the whole ecclesiastical authority lost its importance" (Hurst's Hagemebah, 2, 426). Yet men were slow to give it up: they clung to it even in its death-hours. Such as were desirous of a reformation of the Roman Catholic Church secretly or openly espoused the cause of the Jansenists. Those who desired to see the arrogance of the pope checked and his power restrained favored the Jansenistic cause. All who were opposed to the Jesuits were regarded as Jansenists. Enlightened men everywhere ‘ sympathized with the Jansenists in their efforts to restrict papal encroachments and the demoralizing influence of Jesuitism; and, when its sun went down in France, the friends of reform in the Roman Catholic Church turned towards Holland and hoped that from it would go out a great power for good. The most distinguished theologians of Italy, such as Zola, Tamburini, and others, held a regular epistolary correspondence with the Jansenists at Utrecht. (See below.)

Had the Roman Catholic Church been susceptible of a thorough reformation, it is reasonable to think that it would have been effected by the enlightened, zealous, self-sacrificing, and persevering efforts of the Jansenists. They were true sons of the Church-they sincerely desired its inward and outward prosperity-they cherished an almost servile devotion to it. Though their system of faith and morals was essentially Augustinian, and thus in substantial agreement with that of the Reformers, yet they had no sympathy with the Reformers, and their minds were filled with prejudice against them. But they made common cause with these in their appreciation of the New-Testament Scriptures, in their efforts to promote their use among the people, and in their inculcation of holiness of heart and life. To their praise it should be mentioned that a Bible Society was established by the Jansenists of France as early as 1726, which flourished for thirty years. Though the Jansenistic movement was unsuccessful in reforming the Romish Church, yet it did good service to the cause of Christ by counteracting the prevalent spirit of corruption, and by promoting a spirit of sincere piety. The piety which it fostered was never, it is true, as enlightened as that which prevailed in the Protestant Church: the piety of even its most enlightened advocates was not wholly free from certain admixtures of superstition, fanaticism, mysticism, and asceticism. We add, in conclusion, that Gallicanism, as revived and formulated in the four famous propositions adopted by the Council of French Clergy in 1682, was also under great obligations to the Jansenists.

Jansenists in Holland. — Although the fanatical excesses to which Jansenism had gone in France for a time darkened its prospects of ultimate success, it must be conceded, even by Roman Catholics of the most ultramontane class, that Jansenists in the 18th and 19th centuries "preserved a close association with greater purity of morals and a deeper faith" than their opponents the Jesuits, who for the last 200 years have appeared in behalf of the infallibility of the pope only to strengthen and to preserve their own existence as an order. It was this characteristic feature of the Jansenists that "everywhere smoothed the way for them." When persecution had driven them from France, "we find traces of them in Vienna and in Brussels, in Spain and in Portugal, and in every part of Italy" (Ranke, Hist. Papacy, London, 1851, 2, 293). Everywhere they now disseminated their doctrines, but it is especially in Protestant Holland that the sect has been most successful, and has maintained itself to our own day. In the days of Philip II of Spain, Utrecht had been raised to the dignity of an archiepiscopal see (A.D. 1557). The other. United Provinces, on throwing off the Spanish shackles, became Calvinists, but Utrecht and Haarlem continued faithful to the Roman hierarchy.

To this part of a country, where the evangelical life had taught even the Roman Catholic communist a spirit of toleration, the Jansenists directed their steps, and it is here alone that they still appear as a definite, tangible body. — Their organization in Holland dates partly from the forced emigration of the French Jansenists under king Louis XIV, and partly from the controversy about Quesnel at the opening of the last century; but their success as an independent sect (if we may thus style adherents of the Roman Catholic communion, but defenders of the evangelical doctrine) dates from. the day when the vicar apostolic, Peter Codde, an intimate friend of Arnauld, was suspended, by Clement XI in 1702 from his position on account of his firm adherence to Jansenistic principles, was allured to Rome, treacherously detained there for three years in defiance of all canonical regulations, and a certain Theodore de Cock, a friend of the Jesuits (so a Jesuit sometimes designates himself), appointed in his stead. The chapter of Utrecht, thus deprived of the man of their choice, refused to acknowledge the new vicar named in Codde's place, and angrily joined themselves to the Appellant party in France, many of whom had come thither. The government of Holland also interfered' in 1703, suspended the operation of the papal bull, and deprived De Cock of the archbishopric. Codde, on his return, did all that he could to repair the injuries sustained by the Jansenists during the incumbency of De Cock, who had made many changes, had deprived many priests, some even of thirty years standing, of their livings, and had appointed his Jesuitical friends instead. At length, in' 1723, they elected an archbishop, Cornelius Steenhoven, for whom the form of episcopal consecration was obtained from the French bishop Vorlet (titular of Babylon), who had been suspended for Jansenistic opinions. A later Jansenist archbishop of Utrecht, Meindarts, established in 1742 Haarlem and in 1758. Deventer as his suffragan sees; and in 1763 a synod was held, which sent its acts to Rome, in recognition of the primacy of that see, which the Church of Utrecht professes to acknowledge. Since that time the formal succession has been maintained, each bishop, on being appointed, notifying the pope of his election, and craving confirmation. The popes, however, have uniformly rejected all advances, except on the condition of the acceptance of the bull Unigenitus. But the Jansenists have steadfastly refused to comply with this demand, and have even refused to be bought over to the Church of Rome, as was attempted in 1823. The recent act of the Roman see in defining as of catholic faith the dogma of the immaculate conception of the blessed Virgin Mary has been the occasion of a new protest.

Their language is firm and explicit: "We owe it to ourselves, to the Catholic faith," say they, "and to the defense of the truth, to reject boldly the new and false, dogma of the immaculate conception. We should therefore fail in our duty if we kept silence any longer.... Our Church (the Jansenist sect) has often appealed to an ecumenical council to be law fully appointed. We renew this appeal… We make our appeal at this time and place because of the violation done to the faith, and the injury which the bishops have suffered, since they were not consulted when the doctrine of the immaculate conception of the blessed Virgin Mary, mother of our Savior, was set up as of divine authority. May the Father of lights enlighten us, and work his will in us. We sign ourselves, with veneration, very holy father, the humble servants of your holiness." Then follow the signatures of the metropolitan archbishop and the two bishops. This letter, dated Sept. 6, 1856, is accompanied by a pastoral exhortation addressed to the faithful. The Romish court replied by a formal anathema dated Dec. 4, of which the following is an extract: "The sacred congregation of the most eminent and most reverend cardinals of the holy Romish Church, inquisitors general throughout the Christian republic against heretical perversity, having heard the report of the committee acting in the name of our holy father, pope Pius IX, do now condemn the views published by the three false, schismatical bishops of the province of Utrecht… The sacred congregation forbid all persons, of every state and condition, in any way, and under any pretext, to print the said document containing these views, to keep it in their house, or read it; every one must instantly give it up to the bishops or to the inquisitors." The Jansenists are genuine Roman Catholics, but they refuse a servile obedience to Rome. They have also come to deny the infallibility of the pope altogether, and recognize him only as the "head of the bishops," placing the highest authority of the Church in a general council. They circulate the Scriptures, and insist on inward piety. They denominate themselves Roman Catholics of the episcopal clergy. They still number about 5000 souls, and are divided over twenty-five parishes in the dioceses of Utrecht and Haarlem. Their clergy are about thirty in number, with a seminary at Amersfoort, which was founded in 1726. The name of their present archbishop is Van Santen, whom Rome has again and again vainly endeavored to induce, by the basest of means, to sign the prescribed formulary (comp. Tregelles, Jansenists, p. 80 sq.) so far as they can be said to possess a theological system, it may be described as a compound of Jansenist and ultra-Gallicane principles.

Other Works of Jansenius. — Besides the work which gave rise to the schismatical movement in the Roman Catholic Church, he wrote also Oratio de interiioris hominis Reformatione (1627; translated into French by Arnauld d'Andilly): — Alexipharmacuem pro pervious ‘ Silae Ducemsibus, adversus ministrorum suorm fascinum, sive Responsio brevis ad libellunm eorum, provocatorium (Louvain, 1630): — Spongia notarum, quibus Alexipharmacum aspersit Gisbertus Vcetius (Louvain, 1631, 8vo): — Tetrateuchus, sire commentarius in quatuor Evangelia,(Louvain, 1639, 4to): — Pentateuchus, sive commentarius in quinque libros Miroysis (Louvain, 1641, 4to): — Analecta in Proverbia, Ecclesiasten, Sapientiam, Habacum et Sophoniam (Louvain, 1644, 4to): — Mars Gallicus, seu de justitia arnorum et faederum regis Gallioe, Libri II (1633). See Foppens, Bibl. Belgica; Bayle, Dict. Cri. tique; Dumas, Hist. des cinq Propositions; Leydecker, Historia Janzsenismi (Utrecht, 1695, 8vo); Frick, Uebersetzung der Bulla Uniyenitus, etc. (Ulm, 1717, 4to); Geschiedenis van ‘ de Christelijke Kerk in Deuteronomy 18 de eeuwo, door A. Ijpeij, 12:335-387; Harenberg, Geschichte der Jesuiten; Fontaine, Mem. p. servir a l'Histoire du Port-Royal (1738); Divers ecrits touchant la signature dujbr. nu-laire (1706); Hulsemannus, De auxiliis gratice; Nieuwlands, Vermaaklijkheden uit de Kerkgeschiedenis; La Constitution Unigqenitus avec des Remarquies (Utrecht); Walchii Bibl. Theolog.; Henke's Kirchengeschichte des 18'en Jahrhunuderts; La Verite des Miracles. operns vai ‘ intercession de Mr. de Paris' (1737,'1745; written by Montgerou); Reuchlin, Gesch. von Port-Royal (Hamb. 1839,1844); Traite dogmatique sur les miracles du tenmps (1737); Geschiedenis der Christelike Kerk, door Profs. De Groot, Ter Haar, Kist, Moll, Nieuwenhuis, etc., voi. 5 (Amsterdam, 1859); Colonia, Dict. des livres Jansenistes, etc.; Ste. Beuve, Port Royal, vol. 1 and 2; Tregelles, in Kitto's Journ. Sac. Lit. Jan. 1851, and since in separate and enlarged form, The Jansenists (London, 1851, 12mo); Mrs. Schimmelpenninck, Select Memoirs of Port-Royal; Declaration des Eveques de Hollande, etc. (Paris, 1827); Gerberon, Hist. de Jansenism; Voltaire. Siecle de Louis XIV, 2, 264; Rapin (Jesuit), Histoire de Jansenismne, edit. by Domenech (Paris, 1861, 8vo); Am. Bib. Rep. 3rd ser. 3, 689 sq.; Am. Theol. Rev. 1860, Aug. vol. 2, (See JESUITS); (See PORT-ROYAL).