Nicole, Pierre (1625-95). French moralist and theologian. Having studied philosophy and theology, he became a part-time teacher in the ‘Petites Écoles’ of Port-Royal. He wrote textbooks and collaborated with Antoine Arnauld in writing the Logique de Port-Royal (1662). He contributed to the Mons New Testament [see Bible] and provided Pascal with material for the Lettres provinciales (1656-7), which he also translated into Latin. Somewhat timorous as well as intelligent, he was less militant than Arnauld, with whom he drafted La Perpétuité de la foi de l'église catholique touchant l'Eucharistie, (1669-74). In Les Imaginaires (1664 onwards) he defended Jansenism, although he did not share the Jansenist view of grace. He is also credited with the Jansenist distinction between the question de droit and the question de fait.

His opposition to mysticism in Les Visionnaires (1667) and Traité de l'oraison (1679), together with his refutation of Quietism in 1695, indicate the increasing influence of Cartesianism on his thinking. From 1671 onwards he published the famous Essais de morale—moral and religious treatises, commentaries on the Bible, etc. Although briefly in exile with Arnauld and others, he characteristically made his peace with Church and State and was permitted to return to Paris in 1683.

[John Cruickshank]

The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French. Copyright © 1995, 2005 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.