The Jesuit Luis Molina published De liberi arbitrii cum gratiae donis, divina praescientia, praedestinatione et reprobatione concordia in 1588, which asserted that God offers his grace to all people, and that it was by an act of free will that each one accepted it or rejected it. Molina's theology of a sufficient grace became popular, but the lack of differentiation between sufficient and efficacious grace (along with the assertion of counterfactual definiteness) was opposed by large sectors of the Church who considered it incompatible with God's sovereignty or goodness.
In opposition, the Jansenists claimed to espouse Augustinism, which insisted on a separate determiningefficacious grace. The Jesuits accepted Augustine's assertion of the necessity of grace, but rejected the notion that there was any substantial difference between sufficient and efficacious grace (both determine man's behaviour to an extent).
A similar controversy arose between the Dominicans and Jesuits, which led Pope Clement VIII to establish the Congregatio de Auxiliis (1597–1607) in order to settle the debate. Although the issue seemed unfavorable to Molinism, the issue finally was suspended rather than solved. Pope Paul V, in a 1611 Holy Office decree, prohibited publication without prior examination by the Inquisition of all works, including commentaries, about the aid of grace.[3]Pope Urban VIII, in a 1625 Holy Office decree and a 1640 Holy Office decree, confirmed Paul V's decree and warned about censures such as withdrawal of teaching and preaching faculties as well as excommunication.[3]It was often informally violated by writings presented as commentaries of Thomas Aquinas.[citation needed]
Theological debate
In 1628, Cornelius Jansen, a professor at Leuven, began writing Augustinus, a three volume treatise on Augustine of Hippo, which conflated Jesuits with Pelagianism by highlighting Augustine's propositions. Augustinus was published posthumously, in 1640 at Leuven, in 1641 at Paris, and in 1642 at Rouen. Augustinus reignited the debate appeased by the Congregatio de Auxiliis.
In France, CardinalArmand Jean du Plessis de Richelieu strongly opposed Jansen, in part because Jansen wrote a pamphlet, Mars gallicus (1635), against Richelieu's anti-Habsburg policy and alliances with German states. Richelieu therefore charged Isaac Habert[fr], the theologian of Notre-Dame, to preach against Pelagius. Richelieu nominated Alphonse Le Moyne as a professor to the College of Sorbonne in order to refute Augustinus.
Many Sorbonne theologians opposed Richelieu, as they mostly followed Augustinism's insistence on efficacious grace. But the Jansenists of the convent of Port-Royal were Le Moyne's and Habert's main opponents. In 1638, Richelieu had its leader, Jean du Vergier de Hauranne, incarcerated in Vincennes. Vergier de Hauranne was a friend of Jansen. His incarceration gave him further influence as a martyr.
After Richelieu's death in 1642, Jansenists replied to the attacks against Jansen, first in Sanctus Augustinus per seipsum docens Catholicos, et vincens Pelagianos, attributed to the OratorianColin du Juanet and sometimes to Antoine Arnauld, and then, in 1644–45, by two Apologies pour M. Jansénius (Apologies for Jansenius) by Antoine Arnauld, which enjoyed great success.
Finally, at the request of the Apostolic Nuncio to Brussels, Georg Pauli-Stravius[de], and the Apostolic Nuncio to Cologne, Fabio Chigi,[citation needed] Urban VIII prohibited Augustinus in In eminenti ecclesiae in 1642, because Augustinus was "published in opposition" to "condemnations and prohibitions" in decrees of Paul V and Urban VIII, was expressed "with contempt toward the authority of the" Holy See, and contained previously condemned propositions.[4]
Pope Innocent X, in a 1647 Holy Office decree, condemned the proposition, found in Jansenist Martin de Barcos's preface to Antoine Arnauld's 1644 De la fréquente communion, that Peter the Apostle and Paul the Apostle "are two supreme pastors and governors of the Church who constitute a single head" and they "are two princes of the Church who amount to one", when the proposition is interpreted "to imply a complete equality between" Peter and Paul "without the subordination and subjection" of Paul to Peter in "power and governance".[5]
In opposition to Jansenism, a group of theological doctors from the Sorbonne extracted eight propositions from Augustinus.[lower-alpha 2] These propositions concerned the relation between nature and grace. They accused Jansen of having misinterpreted Augustine, conflating Jansenists with Lutherans – in the frame of a highly conflictual context, which had led to the French Wars of Religion, officially ended with the 1598 Edict of Nantes.
On 31 May 1653, Innocent X promulgated the apostolic constitution Cum occasione, which condemned five propositions found in Augustinus as heretical.[6] In 1654, Arnauld replied to Cum occasione by making a distinction between de jure and de facto: de jure, the heretical propositions could be condemned, and he accepted this sentence; but de facto, they could not be found in Jansen's treaty.
The Sorbonne then attempted to exclude Arnauld from being a theologian. Arnauld was forced underground, while in January 1654 an almanac attributed to the Jesuits grossly presented the Jansenists as under-cover Calvinists. Arnauld's nephew, Louis-Isaac Lemaître de Sacy, a translator of the Bible de Port-Royal, wrote Enluminures, a poem, in reply to this attack.
Pascal, under the pseudonym Louis de Montalte, wrote Lettres provinciales in 1657, in defense of Arnauld, in which he harshly attacked Jesuits and their morality, in particular casuistry. Following publication of Lettres provinciales, the King sent spies everywhere, condemned the librarians who had clandestinely published Lettres provinciales and discovered the author of Lettres provinciales. The theological debate had turned into a political affair.
On 16 October 1656, Alexander VII promulgated the apostolic constitution Ad sanctam beati Petri sedem, which judged the meaning and intention of Jansen's words in Augustinus, and confirmed and renewed the condemnation in Cum occasione.[7]
The Jesuits enjoyed predominant political and theological power. Their members included two personal confessors to the King of France, François Annat and, before him, Nicolas Caussin.
Cardinal Jules Mazarin strongly opposed Jansenists, both in Europe and abroad (with the Jesuit Reductions and the Jesuit China missions). Mazarin persuaded the pope to compel Jansenists to sign a formulary, to assent to Ad sanctam beati Petri sedem, and to confess their faults. The Assembly of the French Clergy afterwards decided to compel all priests to sign an anti-Jansenist formulary, in which each one accepted the papal condemnation.
One of Pascal's last works was Ecrit sur la signature du Formulaire (1661), in which he adamantly opposed subscribing to a formulary and radicalized Arnauld's position: Pascal equivocated that condemning Jansen was equivalent to condemning Augustine, a father of the Church.
The Jansenists of Port-Royal, who included members of the Arnauld family – such as AbbessMarie Angelique Arnauld, Antoine Arnauld, Agnès Arnauld – and Pierre Nicole, were forced to subscribe to the Formula of Submission for the Jansenists. Although ostensibly submitting to Papal authority, they added that the condemnation would only be effective if the five propositions were in fact found in Augustinus, and claimed that they did not figure there.
Jansenists reasoned that Innocent X and Alexander VII had the power to condemn heretical propositions, but not to make what did not figure in Augustinus be there. This strategy would impose decades of theological disputes and debate, thus allowing them to gain time.
Lettres provinciales stimulated several responses from the Jesuits, including in 1657 the publication of the anonymous Apologie pour les Casuistes contre les calomnies des Jansénistes, written by Father Georges Perot.[lower-alpha 3] It rather unfortunately claimed as its own Pascal's interpretations of the Casuists' propositions, in particular concerning controversial propositions about homicides. This led the friars of Paris to condemn Jesuit casuistry.
On 15 February 1665, Alexander VII promulgated the apostolic constitution Regiminis Apostolici, which required, according to the Enchiridion symbolorum, "all ecclesiastical personnel and teachers" to subscribe to an included formulary, the Formula of Submission for the Jansenists – assenting to both Cum occasione and Ad sanctam beati Petri sedem.[8]
From then on, Jansenists of Port-Royal ceased publishing Lettres provinciales, and, along with Pascal, started collaborating with the Ecrits des curés (Friars' Writings) which condemned casuistry. Two further decrees, of 24 September 1665 and 18 March 1666, condemned the Casuists' "laxist morality". Pope Innocent XI issued a second condemnation in a 2 March 1679 decree. In total, the Vatican had condemned 110 propositions issued by Casuists, 57 of which had been treated in Lettres provinciales. The books added to the Index Librorum Prohibitorum in Rome were, however, published in France. Jesuits had beforehand bypassed the Holy See's censorship by publishing controversial books there.
On 16 July 1705, Pope Clement XI promulgated the apostolic constitution Vineam Domini Sabaoth, which declared that "obediential silence" is not a satisfactory response to the Formula of Submission for the Jansenists.[9]
Pascal and some other Jansenists claimed that condemning Jansen was equivalent to condemning Augustine, and adamantly refused assent to the Formula of Submission for the Jansenists, with or without a mental reservation. 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 not only involved papal authority, but rather papal authority concerning the interpretation of texts – something Pascal recalled by quoting the Jesuit Cardinal Robert Bellarmine's sentences concerning the authority of religious councils concerning matters of dogma versus de facto issues.
↑ "Necessary" here means "that which can be no other", so lack of necessity implies the possibility of something other occurring. It could possibly be explained both in compatibilistic and in libertarian terms.
Casuistry is a process of reasoning that seeks to resolve moral problems by extracting or extending theoretical rules from a particular case, and reapplying those rules to new instances. This method occurs in applied ethics and jurisprudence. The term is also commonly used as a pejorative to criticize the use of clever but unsound reasoning, especially in relation to moral questions. It is the "[s]tudy of cases of conscience and a method of solving conflicts of obligations by applying general principles of ethics, religion, and moral theology to particular and concrete cases of human conduct. This frequently demands an extensive knowledge of natural law and equity, civil law, ecclesiastical precepts, and an exceptional skill in interpreting these various norms of conduct." It remains a common tool for applied ethics.
Jansenism was an early modern theological movement within Catholicism, primarily active in the Kingdom of France, that emphasized original sin, human depravity, the necessity of divine grace, and predestination. It was declared a heresy by the Catholic Church.
Cornelius Jansen was the Dutch Catholic bishop of Ypres in Flanders and the father of a theological movement known as Jansenism.
Port-Royal-des-Champs was an abbey of Cistercian nuns in Magny-les-Hameaux, in the Vallée de Chevreuse southwest of Paris that launched a number of culturally important institutions.
Antoine Arnauld was a French Catholic theologian, philosopher and mathematician. He was one of the leading intellectuals of the Jansenist group of Port-Royal and had a very thorough knowledge of patristics. Contemporaries called him le Grand to distinguish him from his father.
Jean du Vergier de Hauranne, the Abbé (Abbot) of Saint-Cyran, was a French Catholic priest who introduced Jansenism into France.
Pasquier Quesnel, CO was a French Jansenist theologian.
Unigenitus is an apostolic constitution in the form of a papal bull promulgated by Pope Clement XI in 1713. It opened the final phase of the Jansenist controversy in France. Unigenitus condemned 101 propositions of Pasquier Quesnel as:
false, captious, ill-sounding, offensive to pious ears, scandalous, pernicious, rash, injurious to the Church and its practices, contumelious to Church and State, seditious, impious, blasphemous, suspected and savouring of heresy, favouring heretics, heresy, and schism, erroneous, bordering on heresy, often condemned, heretical, and reviving various heresies, especially those contained in the famous propositions of Jansenius.
Baianism is a term applied to the school of thought of Catholic theologian Michael Baius (1513-1589). Its foremost apologists, Baius among them, largely claimed this school and its teachings to be a return to a sort of Augustinianism, against the reliance on Scholasticism and Scholastic writings which held sway over most Catholic theologians at the time. It is the immediate historical predecessor of Jansenism, and, as with Jansenism, has been deemed non-orthodox by the Catholic Church.
The Lettres provinciales are a series of eighteen letters written by French philosopher and theologian Blaise Pascal under the pseudonym Louis de Montalte. Written in the midst of the formulary controversy between the Jansenists and the Jesuits, they are a defense of the Jansenist Antoine Arnauld from Port-Royal-des-Champs, a friend of Pascal who in 1656 was condemned by the Faculté de Théologie at the Sorbonne in Paris for views that were claimed to be heretical. The first letter is dated January 23, 1656 and the eighteenth March 24, 1657. A fragmentary nineteenth letter is frequently included with the other eighteen.
Augustinus seu doctrina Sancti Augustini de humanae naturae sanitate, aegritudine, medicina adversus Pelagianos et Massilianses, known by its short title Augustinus, is a theological work in Latin by Cornelius Jansen. Published posthumously in Louvain by Jacobus Zegers in 1640, it was in three parts:
On Pelagianism
On original sin
On divine grace
Ad sanctam beati Petri sedem is an apostolic constitution in the form of a papal bull promulgated by Pope Alexander VII in 1656 which judged the meaning and intention of Cornelius Jansen's words in Augustinus, and confirmed and renewed the condemnation in Cum occasione promulgated by Pope Innocent X in 1653 that five propositions found in Augustinus were heretical.
The Congregatio de Auxiliis was a commission established by Pope Clement VIII to settle a theological controversy regarding divine grace that had arisen between the Dominicans and the Jesuits towards the close of the sixteenth century. It was presided over for a time by Peter Lombard, Archbishop of Armagh.
Nicolas Caussin was a French Jesuit, orator; and for a time, confessor to King Louis XIII of France. His treatise, The Holy Court, a guide for courtiers in living a Christian life, was published in 1624. Caussin was removed from his position as royal confessor after only nine months and exiled to Quimper when his spiritual counsel seemed to clash with Cardinal Richelieu's political policies.
Martin de Barcos (1600–1678), was a French Catholic priest and theologian of the Jansenist School.
Nicolas Cornet was a French Catholic theologian.
Vineam Domini Sabaoth is an apostolic constitution in the form of a papal bull promulgated by Pope Clement XI in 1705 which declared that "obediential silence" is not a satisfactory response to the Formula of Submission for the Jansenists.
The Old University of Leuven was established in 1425 with Faculties of Arts, Medicine, Law; however, the university did not have a Faculty of Theology initially. In 1426 a Faculty of Canon Law was added, and at that time both Law Faculties functioned together in one Collegium utriusque iuris.
Regiminis Apostolici is an apostolic constitution in the form of a papal bull promulgated by Pope Alexander VII in 1665 which required, according to the Enchiridion symbolorum, "all ecclesiastical personnel and teachers" to subscribe to an included formulary, the Formula of Submission for the Jansenists:
I, N., submit to the apostolic constitution of the Supreme Pontiff Innocent X dated May 31, 1653, and to the constitution of the Supreme Pontiff Alexander VII dated October 16, 1656, and, with a sincere heart, I reject and condemn the five propositions taken from the book of Cornelius Jansen entitled Augustinus and in the sense understood by that same author, just as the Apostolic See has condemned them by the two above-mentioned constitutions, and I so swear: So help me God, and these holy Gospels of God.
Cum occasione is an apostolic constitution in the form of a papal bull promulgated by Pope Innocent X in 1653 which condemned five propositions said to have been found in Cornelius Jansen's Augustinus as heretical.
References
Denzinger, Heinrich; Hünermann, Peter; etal., eds. (2012). Enchiridion symbolorum: a compendium of creeds, definitions and declarations of the Catholic Church (43rded.). San Francisco: Ignatius Press. ISBN978-0898707465.{{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain:Sollier, Joseph (1907). "Michel Baius". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol.2. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
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