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Cornelius Jansen
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The Dutch Roman Catholic theologian Cornelis Jansen (1585-1638) wrote an interpretation of St. Augustine's teachings on original sin and grace. Although condemned by the Church, his teachings, known as Jansenism, had an enormous impact.
Cornelis Jansen was born near Leerdam, Holland, and he received his early education in Leerdam and Utrecht. In 1602 he went to the Catholic University of Louvain in the Spanish part of the Netherlands (now Belgium). Soon he was introduced to the theology of Michael Baius, a former master of divinity at the same university. Baius's doctrine on grace and original sin had been condemned in 1567, but the battle continued between his Augustinian supporters and the Jesuits (led by Leonard Lessius). The young student's sympathies were all with the Augustinians.
In 1604 Jansen fell ill and went to live in Paris, where he became more and more intimate with a fellow student of his Louvain days, Jean Duvergier de Hauranne, the future Abbé de St-Cyran, who later would be the most ardent and political defender of his theology. In 1612 both went to live in Bayonne, where Jansen first directed a diocesan college but soon withdrew entirely from the active life in order to devote all his time to the study of St. Augustine. In 1617 he returned to Louvain, where he became headmaster of a university college. During the following years his ideas reached full maturity. Although some of his views came quite close to Calvinism, he strongly opposed the Protestant churches which, he felt, had no legal status outside the Catholic community. By 1630 Jansen had become a controversial theology professor whose development was followed with a great deal of distrust in Rome and Madrid. In 1636 he was appointed bishop of leper in West Flanders, where he died 18 months later, possibly from the plague.
Major Work
Jansen's lifework, Augustinus, was published posthumously at Louvain in 1640 despite the strong opposition of the Jesuits. The book contains the entire doctrine that came to be called Jansenism and that was to exercise an enormous influence upon the Catholic life of France, of the Low Countries, and, via the Irish clergy trained in Flanders, of America. The three-volume study claims to be an interpretation of Augustine's thought on original justice, sin, predestination, and grace. Jansen's synthesis was undoubtedly based upon Augustine's anti-Pelagian writings, all of which he had read 30 times. The first part is devoted entirely to the history of Pelagianism, a doctrine which in various ways upheld the thesis that man needs no other grace to be saved than that of his own efforts.
In the second and third parts Jansen stated his own controversial interpretation of Augustine. He held that man had been created in a state of original justice, free from concupiscence. Although man needed divine grace to do good, this grace was required by human nature itself and could therefore not be considered gratuitous. After the Fall, which consisted in, and was transmitted through, concupiscence, man lost his freedom. The original grace is no longer sufficient for salvation. Man's "freedom" can efficaciously be restored only by a grace that helps him overcome his irresistible inclination toward evil and that predetermines him to do good. There is no place for human merit in the process of salvation: all depends on God's undeserved, efficacious grace.
Jansen's theory leads him directly to predestinarianism. God does not confer his sufficient grace to all men, nor did Christ die for the salvation of all. Yet, contrary to Calvinist doctrine, Jansen teaches that faith alone is not sufficient for man's justification: cooperation through good works is essential, even though for the elect this cooperation itself is assured through God's grace.
In 1642 Pope Urban VIII condemned Augustinus mainly on grounds of its appearance without the previous approval then required for all publications on grace. A more specific condemnation of five theses found in Augustinus was made by Innocent X in 1653. One of the most confusing episodes in the dogmatic history of the Catholic Church followed, with Jansenists admitting that the censured theses were unacceptable but denying that they were to be found in Augustinus. Innocent's successor, Alexander VII, tried to cut the knot by declaring that the pope had the right to decide whether a de jure pronouncement applies to a de facto situation, and then formally applied the previous condemnation. Later a written submission of the Jansenist leaders was required. The movement, however, remained strong in France through the first half of the 18th century under the intellectual guidance of Henri Arnauld and Blaise Pascal, and later of Pasquier Quesnel.
Further Reading
The standard work on Jansen in English remains Nigel J. Abercrombie, The Origins of Jansenism (1936), which contains an analysis of Augustinus and an extensive bibliography.
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Cornelis Jansen |
Jansen, Cornelis (kôrnā'lĭs yän'sən), 1585-1638, Dutch Roman Catholic theologian. He studied at the Univ. of Louvain and became imbued with the idea of reforming Christian life along the lines of a return to St. Augustine. He established a close friendship with Duvergier de Hauranne, a fellow student, with whom he shared and developed many of his theological ideas. In 1630, Jansen became professor at Louvain, and in 1636 bishop of Ypres. Out of his lifework, the posthumous Augustinus (1642, in Latin), arose the great movement called Jansenism.
Jansenism
Jansenism was strictly a Roman Catholic movement, and it had no repercussions in the Protestant world. Its fundamental purpose was a return of people to greater personal holiness, hence the characteristically mystical turn of Jansenist writings. St. Augustine's teaching on grace was especially appealing to Jansen, who stressed the doctrine that the soul must be converted to God by the action of divine grace, without which conversion could not begin. Predestination was accepted in an extreme form and was so essential to Jansenism that its adherents were even referred to as Calvinists by their opponents. But Jansenism had no appeal to Protestants, for it held the necessity of the Roman Catholic Church for salvation and opposed justification by faith alone.
Jansenism, however, came into conflict with the church for its predestinarianism, for its discouragement of frequent communion for the faithful, and for its attack on the Jesuits and the new casuistry, which the Jansenists thought was demoralizing the confessional. Jansenism took root in France, especially among the clergy. There it early became involved with Gallicanism, and high officials of church and state often sided with Jansenists to thwart the Holy See.
The second great Jansenist work was De la fréquente communion (1643) of Antoine Arnauld, which stirred the opposition of Jesuits and Dominicans. In 1653, Pope Innocent X condemned five of Jansen's doctrines, and in 1656 Arnauld was expelled from the Sorbonne. Meanwhile, Blaise Pascal, the greatest Jansenist, aroused a storm by his anti-Jesuit Provincial Letters, and there was persecution of the Jansenists for a while. Pasquier Quesnel published late in the 17th cent. a vernacular New Testament with Jansenist notes, which was condemned by Pope Clement XI. The aged Louis XIV undertook to suppress Jansenism, and the bulls Vineam Domini (1705) and Unigenitus (1713) virtually put the Jansenists out of the church. (Gallicanism, however, prevented the legal registration of Unigenitus in France until 1730.)
The convent of Port-Royal, the greatest center of Jansenism, was closed, and most Jansenists fled France. Jansenism survived as a tendency within the church, especially in France, taking the form usually of extreme scruples with regard to communion. In the Netherlands an organization not in submission to the pope was set up. There are Jansenist bishops of Utrecht, Haarlem, and Deventer. The independent Jansenists recognize the Council of Trent and are, except for their special differences, like Roman Catholics. The first Old Catholic bishop was consecrated by Jansenists (see Old Catholics).
Bibliography
See N. Abercrombie, The Origins of Jansenism (1936); M. Escholier, Port-Royal: The Drama of the Jansenists (tr. 1968).
| Wikipedia: Cornelius Jansen |
For Cornelius Jansen the Elder, see Jansen of Ghent.
| Cornelius Jansen | |
|---|---|
| Bishop of Ypres | |
.png) Painting of Cornelius Jansen. |
|
| Church | Catholic Church |
| Diocese | Diocese of Ypres |
| Enthroned | 1635 |
| Reign ended | 1638 |
| Predecessor | Georges Chamberlain |
| Successor | Josse Bouckaert |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 28 October 1585 Acquoy, Holland |
| Died | 6 May 1638 Ypres, Flanders |
Corneille Janssens, commonly known by the Latinized name Cornelius Jansen or Jansenius, (October 28, 1585–May 6, 1638) was Catholic bishop of Ypres (Belgium) and the father of a theological movement known as Jansenism.
Contents |
Biography
He was born of humble Catholic parentage at Acquoy then in the province of Holland, now in Gelderland, the Netherlands. In 1602 he entered the Catholic University of Leuven, then in the throes of a idelogical conflict between the Jesuit - or scholastic - party and the followers of Michael Baius, who swore by St. Augustine. Jansen ended by attaching himself strongly to the latter "Augustinian" party, and presently made a momentous friendship with a like-minded fellow-student, Jean du Vergier de Hauranne, afterwards Abbé de Saint-Cyran.
After taking his degree he went to Paris, partly to improve his health by a change of scene, partly to study Greek. Eventually he joined Du Vergier at his country home near Bayonne, and spent some years teaching at the bishop's college. All his spare time was spent in studying the early Fathers with Du Vergier, and laying plans for a reform of the Church.
In 1616 he returned to Leuven, to take charge of the college of St Pulcheria, a hostel for Dutch students of theology. Pupils found him a somewhat choleric and exacting master and a great recluse from academic society. However, he took an active part in the university's resistance to the Jesuits, for they had established a theological school of their own in Leuven, which was proving itself a formidable rival to the official university faculty of divinity. In the hope of suppressing their encroachments, Jansen was sent twice to Madrid, in 1624 and 1626; the second time he narrowly escaped the Inquisition. He warmly supported the Catholic missionary archbishop (apostolic vicar) of the (Northern) Netherlands, Rovenius, in his contests with the Jesuits, who were trying to evangelize that country without regard to the archbishop's wishes. He also crossed more than once the Dutch Calvinist-Presbyterian champion, Gisbertus Voetius, still remembered for his attacks on René Descartes.
Antipathy to the Jesuits brought Jansen no nearer Protestantism; on the contrary, he yearned to beat them with their own weapons, chiefly by showing them that Roman Catholics could interpret the Bible in just as mystical and pietistic a manner. This became the great object of his lectures, when he was appointed regius professor of scriptural interpretation at Leuven in 1630. Still more was it the object of his Augustinus, a bulky treatise on the theology of St. Augustine, barely finished at the time of his death. Its preparation was his chief occupation since his return to Leuven. He had introduced in this treaty a long development favourable to contrition (IIIrd part, De gratia Christi salvatoris, book V, chap.XXI-XXV). In its appendice, titled Erroris Massiliensium, et opinionis quorumdam recentiorum parallelon et statera, he harshly condemned the Jesuits, in particular Luis de Molina, Gabriel Vasquez and Leonardus Lessius.
But Jansen, as he said, did not mean to be a school-pedant all his life; and there were moments when he entertained political ambitions. He looked forward to a time when Belgium would throw off the Spanish yoke and become an independent Catholic republic, possibly even Flemish-ruled, according to the model of the Protestant United Provinces. These ideas became known to his Spanish rulers, and to assuage them he wrote a philippic called the Mars gallicus (1635), a violent attack on French ambitions generally, and on Cardinal Richelieu's indifference to international Catholic interests in particular. The Mars gallicus did little to help Jansen's rather persecuted theological friends in France, but it reversed Madrid's wrath with Jansen; in 1636 he was appointed bishop of Ypres (Ieper) in West Flanders by the Pope and the Spanish Court. Within two years he was however cut down by a sudden illness; the Augustinus, the book of his life, was published posthumously in 1640.
Opposed to Jansenism, a little groups of theological doctors from the Sorbonne extracted 8 propositions of Jansenius's Augustunus, later reduced to 5, treating of the problems concerning the relation between nature and grace. They accused Jansenius of having misinterpreted St. Augustine, conflating Jansenists with Lutherans. This led Pope Innocent X to condemn in 1643 these 5 propositions in the Cum Occasione papal bull, and again ten years later, without attributing them to Jansenius in particular. The Jesuits, who then enjoyed predominant political and theological power (including a personal confessor to the King of France), then persuaded the Pope to force all Jansenists to sign a formulary leading them to admit the papal bull and to confess to their errors. The formulary controversy led Pascal to write the famous Lettres provinciales (1657) in which he harshly attacked the Jesuits and their moral, in particular their casuistry.
Following this anonymous publication, the King sent spies everywhere, condemned the librarians and successfully attempted to discover the author of the Lettres provinciales. The Jansenists of Port-Royal, Antoine Arnauld, Pierre Nicole, la Mère Angélique, Soeur Agnès, etc., were forced to sign the formulary. Although ostensibly obeying to Papal authority, they added that the condemnation would only be sensible if the 5 allegedly heretical propositions were in fact found in Jansenius' Augustinus, and claimed that they did not figure there. The Jansenists' reasoning was that the Pope had of course the power to condemn heretical propositions, but not to make that what did not figure in Jansenius' Augustinus be there. This strategy would impose decades of theological disputes and debate, thus allowing them to gain time.
On the other hand, Pascal and some other Jansenists adopted a radical strategy, alleging that condemning Jansenius was equivalent to condemning the Father of the Church, St. Augustine himself, and adamantly refused to sign the formulary, with or without reserve. This in turn led to the further radicalization of the King and of the Jesuits, and in 1661 the Convent of Port-Royal was closed and the Jansenist community dissolved — it would be ultimately razed in 1710 on orders of Louis XIV. The controversy did not involve only Papal authority, but rather his authority concerning Biblical exegesis.
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