Jansenius and Jansenism

Cornelis Jansen, Bishop of Ypres (Cornelius Jansenius Yprensis), 
from whom Jansenism derives its origin and name, must not be 
confounded with another writer and bishop of the same name 
Cornelius Jansenius Gandavensis (1510-1576), of whom we possess 
several books on Scripture and a valuable "Concordia Evangelica." 

I. LIFE AND WRITINGS

The subject of this article lived three-quarters of a century 
later than his namesake. He was born 28 October, 1585, of a 
Catholic family, in the village of Accoi, near Leerdam, Holland; 
died at Ypres, 6 May, 1638. His parents, although in moderate 
circumstances, secured for him an excellent education They sent 
him first to Utrecht. In 1602 we find him at the University of 
Louvain, where he entered the College du Faucon to take up the 
study of philosophy. Here he passed two years, and at the solemn 
promotion of 1604 was proclaimed first of 118 competitors. To 
begin his theological studies he entered the College du Pape 
Adrien VI, whose president, Jacques Janson, imbued with the errors 
of Baius and eager to spread them, was to exert an influence on 
the subsequent course of his ideas and works. Having hitherto been 
on amicable terms with the Jesuits, he had even sought admission 
into their order. The refusal he experienced, the motives of which 
are unknown to us, seems not to be altogether unrelated to the 
aversion he subsequently manifested for the celebrated society, 
and for the theories and practices it championed. He was also 
associated with a young and wealthy Frenchman, Jean du Verger de 
Hauranne, who was completing his course of theology with the 
Jesuits, and who possessed a mind subtile and cultured, but 
restless and prone to innovations, and an ardent and intriguing 
character. Shortly after his return to Paris towards the end of 
1604, du Verger was joined there by Jansenius, for whom he had 
secured a position as tutor. About two years later he attracted 
him to Bayonne, his native town, where he succeeded in having him 
appointed director of an episcopal college. There, during eleven 
or twelve years of studies ardently pursued in common, on the 
Fathers and principally on St. Augustine, the two friends had time 
to exchange thoughts and to conceive daring Projects. In 1617. 
while du Verger, who had returned to Paris, went to receive from 
the Bishop of Poitiers the dignity of Abbot of St-Cyran, Jansenius 
returned to Louvain, where the presidency of the new College de 
Sainte Pulcherie was confided to him. In 1619 he received the 
degree of Doctor of Theology, and afterwards obtained a chair of 
exegesis. The commentaries which he dictated to his pupils, as 
well as several writings of a polemical nature, brought him in a 
short time a deserved renown. 

These writings of Jansenius were not at first intended for 
publication, in fact they did not see the light until after his 
death. They are concise, clear and perfectly orthodox in doctrine. 
The principal ones are "Pentateuchus, sive commentarius in quinque 
libros Mosis" (Louvain, 1639), "Analecta in Proverbia Salomonis, 
Ecclesiasten, Sapientiam, Habacuc et Sophoniam" (Louvain, 1644); 
"Tetrateuchus, seu commentarius in quatuor Evangelia" 
(Louvain,1639). Some of these exegetical works have been printed 
more than once. Among his polemical works are "Alexipharmacum 
civibus Sy vaeducensibus propinatum adversus ministrorum fascinum" 
(Louvain 1630); then, in reply to the criticism of the Calvinist 
Gisbert Voet, "Spongia notarum quibus Alexipharmacum aspersit 
Gisbertus Voetius" (Louvain, 1631). Jansenius published in 1635, 
under the pseudonym of Armacanus, a volume entitled "Alexandri 
Patricii Armacani Theologi Mars Gallicus seu de justitia armorum 
regis Galliae libri duo". This was a bitter and well-merited 
satire against the foreign policy of Richelieu, which was summed 
up in the odd fact of the "Most Christian" nation and monarchy 
constantly allying themselves with the Protestants, in Holland 
Germany, and elsewhere, for the sole purpose of compassing the 
downfall of the House of Austria. 

The same author has left us a series of letters addressed to the 
Abbot of St-Cyran, which were found among the papers of the person 
to whom they were sent and printed under the title: "Naissance du 
jansenisme decouverte, ou Lettres de Jansenius a l'abbe de St-
Cyran depuis l'an 1617 jusqu'en 1635" (Louvain, 1654). It was also 
during the course of his professorate that Jansenius, who was a 
man of action as well as of study, journeyed twice to Spain, 
whither he went as the deputy of his colleagues to plead at the 
Court of Madrid the cause of the university against the Jesuits; 
and in fact, through his efforts their authorization to teach 
humanities and philosophy at Louvain was withdrawn. All this, 
however, did not prevent him from occupying himself actively and 
chiefly with a work of which the general aim, born of his 
intercourse with St-Cyran, was to restore to its place of honour 
the true doctrine of St. Augustine on grace, a doctrine supposedly 
obscured or abandoned in the Church for several centuries. He was 
still working on it when, on the recommendation of King Philip IV 
and Boonen, Archbishop of Mechlin, he was raised to the See of 
Ypres. His consecration took place in 1636, and, though at the 
same time putting the finishing touches to his theological work, 
he devoted himself with great zeal to the government of his 
diocese. Historians have remarked that the Jesuits had no more 
cause to complain of his administration than the other religious 
orders. 

He succumbed to an epidemic which ravaged Ypres and died, 
according to eyewitnesses, in dispositions of great piety. When on 
the point of death he confided the manuscript which he cherished 
to his chaplain, Reginald Lamaeus, with the command to publish it 
after taking counsel with Libert Fromondus, a professor at 
Louvain, and Henri Calenus, a canon of the metropolitan church. He 
requested that this publication be made with the utmost fidelity, 
as, in his opinion, only with difficulty could anything be 
changed. "If, however," he added, "the Holy See wishes any change, 
I am an obedient son, and I submit to that Church in which I have 
lived to my dying hour. This is my last wish." 

The editors of the "Augustinus" have been wrongly accused of 
having intentionally and disloyally suppressed this declaration, 
it appears plainly enough on the second page in the original 
edition. On the other hand its authenticity has been contested by 
means of external and internal arguments, founded notably on the 
discovery of another will, dated the previous day (5 May), which 
says nothing regarding the work to be published. But it is quite 
conceivable that the dying prelate was mindful of the opportunity 
to complete his first act by dictating to his chaplain and 
confirming with his seal this codicil which, according to the 
testamentary executors, was written only half an hour before his 
death. It has been vainly sought, a priori, to make the fact 
appear improbable by alleging that the author was in perfect good 
faith as to the orthodoxy of his views. Already, in 1619, 1620, 
and 1621, his correspondence with St-Cyran bore unmistakable 
traces of a quite opposite state of mind; in it he spoke of coming 
disputes for which there was need to prepare; of a doctrine of St. 
Augustine discovered by him, but little known among the learned, 
and which in time would astonish everybody, of opinions on grace 
and predestination which he dared not then reveal "lest like so 
many others I be tripped up by Rome before everything is ripe and 
seasonable". Later, in the "Augustinus" itself (IV, xxv-xxvii), it 
is seen that he scarcely disguises the close connection of several 
of his assertions with certain propositions of Baius, though he 
ascribes the condemnation of the latter to the contingent 
circumstances of time and place, and he believes them tenable in 
their obvious and natural sense. 

Nothing, therefore, authorized the rejection of the famous 
declaration, or testament, of Jansenius as unauthentic. But 
neither is there any authorization for suspecting the sincerity of 
the explicit affirmation of submission to the Holy See which is 
therein contained. The author, at the time of his promotion to the 
doctorate in 1619, had defended the infallibility of the pope in a 
most categorical thesis, conceived as follows: "The Roman Pontiff 
is the supreme judge of all religious controversies, when he 
defines a thing and imposes it on the whole Church, under penalty 
of anathema, his decision is just, true, and infallible." At the 
end of his work (III, x, Epilogus omnium) we find this 
protestation perfectly parallel with that of his testament: "All 
whatsoever I have affirmed on these various and difficult points, 
not according to my own sentiment, but according to that of the 
holy Doctor, I submit to the judgment and sentence of the 
Apostolic See and the Roman Church, my mother, to be henceforth 
adhered to if she judges that it must be adhered to, to retract if 
she so wishes, to condemn and anathematize it if she decrees that 
it should be condemned and anathematized. For since my tenderest 
childhood I have been reared in the beliefs of this Church; I 
imbibed them with my mother's milk; I have grown up and grown old 
while remaining attached to them; never to my knowledge have I 
swerved therefrom a hair's-breadth in thought, action or word, and 
I am still firmly decided to keep this faith until my last breath 
and to appear with it before the judgment-seat of God." Thus 
Jansenius, although he gave his name to a heresy, was not himself 
a heretic, but lived and died in the bosom of the Church. In view 
of the fact that he consciously and deliberately aimed at 
innovation or reforming, it would certainly be difficult to 
exculpate him entirely or declare that his attitude was in no wise 
presumptuous and rash; but impartial history may and should take 
into account the peculiar atmosphere created about him by the 
still smouldering controversies on Baianism and the widespread 
prejudices against the Roman Curia. To determine the extent to 
which these and similar circumstances, by deluding him necessarily 
diminished his responsibility, is impossible, that is the secret 
of God. 

II. THE "AUGUSTINUS" AND ITS CONDEMNATION

After the death of Jansenius, the internuncio Richard Aravius 
vainly endeavoured to prevent the printing of his manuscript; this 
undertaking, actively furthered by the friends of the dead man, 
was completed in 1640. The folio volume bore the title: "Cornelii 
Jansenii, Episcopi Yprensis, Augustinus, seu doctrina S. Augustini 
de humanae naturae sanitate, aegritudine, medicina, adversus 
Pelagianos et Massilienses". It was divided into three volumes, of 
which the first, chiefly historical, is an exposition in eight 
books of Pelagianism; the second, after an introductory study on 
the limitations of human reason, devotes one book to the state of 
innocence or the grace of Adam and the angels, four books to the 
state of fallen nature, three to the state of pure nature; the 
third volume treats in ten books of "the grace of Christ the 
Saviour", and concludes with "a parallel between the error of the 
Semipelagians and that of certain moderns", who are no other than 
the Molinists. The author, if we are to accept his own statement, 
laboured for twenty years on this work, and to gather his 
materials he had ten times read the whole of St. Augustine and 
thirty times his treatise against the Pelagians. From these 
readings emerged a vast system, whose identity with Baianism 
neither skilful arrangement nor subtile dialectic could disguise. 

His fundamental error consists in disregarding the supernatural 
order, for Jansenius as for Baius, the vision of God is the 
necessary end of human nature; hence it follows that all the 
primal endowments designated in theology as supernatural or 
preternatural, including exemption from concupiscence, were simply 
man's due. This first assertion is fraught with grave consequences 
regarding the original fall, grace, and justification. As a result 
of Adam's sin, our nature stripped of elements essential to its 
integrity, is radically corrupt and depraved. Mastered by 
concupiscence, which in each of us properly constitutes original 
sin, the will is powerless to resist; it has become purely 
passive. It cannot escape the attraction of evil except it be 
aided by a movement of grace superior to and triumphant over the 
force of concupiscence. Our soul, henceforth obedient to no motive 
save that of pleasure, is at the mercy of the delectation, earthly 
or heavenly, which for the time being attracts it with the 
greatest strength. At once inevitable and irresistible, this 
delectation, if it come from heaven or from grace, leads man to 
virtue; if it come from nature or concupiscence, it determines him 
to sin. In the one case as in the other, the will is fatally swept 
on by the preponderant impulse. The two delectations says 
Jansenius, are like the two arms of a balance, of which the one 
cannot rise unless the other be lowered and vice versa. Thus man 
irresistibly, although voluntarily, does either good or evil, 
according as he is dominated by grace or by concupiscence; he 
never resists either the one or the other. In this system there is 
evidently no place for purely sufficient grace; on the other hand 
it is easy to discern the principles of the five condemned 
propositions (see below). 

In order to present this doctrine under the patronage of St. 
Augustine, Jansenius based his argument chiefly on two Augustinian 
conceptions: on the distinction between the auxilium sine quo non 
granted to Adam, and the auxilium quo, active in his descendants; 
and on the theory of the "victorious delectation" of grace. A few 
brief remarks will suffice to make clear the double mistake. In 
the first place the auxilium sine quo non is not, in the idea of 
Augustine, "a grace purely sufficient", since through it the 
angels persevered; it is on the contrary a grace which confers 
complete power in actu primo (i.e. the ability to act), in such a 
way that, this being granted, nothing further is needed for 
action. The auxilium quo, on the other hand, is a supernatural 
help which bears immediately on the actus secundus (i.e. the 
performance of the action) and in this grace, in so far as it is 
distinguished from the grace of Adam, must be included the whole 
series of efficacious graces by which man works out his salvation, 
or the gift of actual perseverance, which gift conducts man 
infallibly and invincibly to beatitude, not because it suppresses 
liberty, but because its very concept implies the consent of man. 
The delectation of grace is a deliberate pleasure which the Bishop 
of Hippo explicitly opposes to necessity (voluptas, non 
necessitas); but what we will and embrace with consenting 
pleasure, we cannot at the same time not will, and in this sense 
we will it necessarily. In this sense also, it is correct to say, 
"Quod amplius nos delectat, secundum id operemur necesse est" 
(i.e. in acting we necessarily follow what gives us most 
pleasure). Finally, this delight is called victorious, not because 
it fatally subjugates the will, but because it triumphs over 
concupiscence, fortifying free will to the point of rendering it 
invincible to natural desire. It is thus clear that we can say of 
men sustained by and faithful to grace, "Invictissime quod bonum 
est velint, et hoc deserere invictissime nolint". 

The success of the "Augustinus" was great, and it spread rapidly 
throughout Belgium, Holland, and France. A new edition, bearing 
the approbation of ten doctors of the Sorbonne, soon appeared at 
Paris. On the other hand, on 1 August, 1641, a decree of the Holy 
Office condemned the work and prohibited its reading; and the 
following year Urban VIII renewed the condemnation and 
interdiction in his Bull "In eminenti". The pope justified his 
sentence with two principal reasons: first, the violation of the 
decree forbidding Catholics to publish anything on the subject of 
grace without the authorization of the Holy See; second, the 
reproduction of several of the errors of Baius. At the same time, 
and in the interests of peace, the sovereign pontiff interdicted 
several other works directed against the "Augustinus". Despite 
these wise precautions the Bull, which some pretended was forged 
or interpolated, was not received everywhere without difficulty. 
In Belgium, where the Archbishop of Mechlin and the university 
were rather favourable to the new ideas, the controversy lasted 
for ten years. But it was France which thenceforth became the 
chief centre of the agitation. At Paris, St-Cyran, who was 
powerful through his relations besides being very active, 
succeeded in spreading simultaneously the doctrines of the 
"Augustinus" and the principles of an exaggerated moral and 
disciplinary rigorism, all under the pretence of a return to the 
primitive Church. He had succeeded especially in winning over to 
his ideas the influential and numerous family of Arnauld of