Arnauld, Antoine (1612-94). The youngest brother of Robert Arnauld d'Andilly, he was a brilliant scholar who switched from law to theology under Saint-Cyran's influence, becoming a doctor of the Sorbonne in 1641. His career as the leading Jansenist theologian and controversialist earned him the title ‘le grand Arnauld’. In De la fréquente communion (1643) he defended Saint-Cyran's ideas, advocated a return to the purity and simplicity of early Christianity, and emphasized the need for true contrition before the sacrament of the Eucharist. Meanwhile, the controversy concerning Jansenius's Augustinus continued. In two works entitled Apologie de M. Jansénius (1643 and 1644), Arnauld supported Jansenius's arguments against sufficient grace and his teaching on reprobation (and, by implication, predestination). He also defended Jansenius in Apologie pour les saints Pères de l'Église, défenseurs de la grâce de Jésus-Christ (1651).
In 1653 five propositions allegedly taken from the Augustinus were condemned by Pope Innocent X. In reply, the Jansenists sought to distinguish between droit (were the propositions heretical?) and fait (were they part of the teaching of Jansenius?). This was the distinction made by Arnauld in the pamphlet Lettre d'un docteur de Sorbonne à une personne de condition (1655) and in a quarto volume, Seconde Lettre à un duc et pair (1656). The Sorbonne censured two of Arnauld's propositions and, despite the intervention of Pascal, dismissed him. For the next 12 years he remained largely in hiding, but wrote tirelessly in defence of a strict Augustinianism. He also collaborated with Lancelot and Nicole, respectively, in publishing two very influential works, a Grammaire générale et raisonnée (1660) and La Logique, ou l'Art de penser (1662). After the election of Pope Clement IX, the Jansenists experienced a period of respite between 1668 and 1679, during which Arnauld and Nicole wrote the anti-Protestant Perpétuité de la foi de l'Église touchant l'Eucharistie (1669-74).
In 1679 Louis XIV resumed his persecution of the Port-Royalists, with the result that Arnauld spent his last 15 years in exile in the Spanish Low Countries and Holland. He continued to publish largely anonymous writings in defence of the Mons New Testament, in favour of a vernacular Bible, against William of Orange, Malebranche, and various Protestant writers. Above all, he pursued his campaign against the Jesuits in six volumes (1690-3 and 1695) which continued Pontchâteau's Morale pratique des Jésuites représentée en plusieurs histoires arrivées dans toutes les parties du monde.
Arnauld's sisters (Mère Angélique de Sainte-Madeleine and Mère Agnès de Saint-Paul) and his niece (Mère Angélique de Saint-Jean) were all abbesses of Port-Royal.
[John Cruickshank]
