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 JANSENIUS

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JANSENIUS

while du Verger, who had returned to Paris, went to receive from the Bishop of Poitiers the dignity of Alibot of St-Cyran, Janseniiis 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 in- tended 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 Pro- verbia Salomonis, Ecclesiasten, Sapientiam, Habacuc et Sophoniam" (Louvain, 1644); "Tetrateuchus, seu commentarius in qua tuor Evangelia " (Louvain, 1639). Some of these exegetical works have been printed more than once. Among his polemical works are: " Alexipharmacum civibus Sylvaeducensibus propi- natum adversus ministrorum fascinum" (Louvain, 1630); then, in reply to the criticism of the Calvinist Gisbert Voet, "Spongia notarum quibus Alexiphar- macum 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 arra- orum regis Galliae libri duo". This was a bitter and well-merited satire against the foreign policy of Riche- lieu, 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 com- passing the downfall of the House of Austria.

The same author has left us a series of letters ad- dressed 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 jan- s^nisme d^couverte, ou Lettres de Jansenius a I'abb^ de St-Cyran depuis I'an 1617 jusqu'en 1635" (Lou- vain, 1654). It was also during the course of his pro- fessorate 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 au- thorization 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 dio- cese. 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 Lamceus, 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

Eublication be made with the utmost fidelity, as, in is 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 sup- pressed 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 re- garding the work to be published But it is quite con- ceivable that the dying prelate was mindful of the op portunity to com- plete his first act by dictating to his chaplain and con- firming with his seal this codicil which, accord ing to the testa- mentary execu- tors, was written only half an hour before his death It has been vainly sought, a priori, to make the fact ap- pear improbable by alleging that

the author was in pt iti it ^mt I 1 utli i- to tin doxy 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 pre- pare; 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 tlared not then re- veal " 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 connexion of sev- eral 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 con- tained. 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 fol- lows: "The Roman Pontiff is the supreme judge of all religious controversies; when he defines a thing and imposes it on the whole (,'hurch, 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 whalsucxer I have aflirnied on these various and ilitlicult jKiiiits, not according to my own sentiment, but according to that of the holy Doc- tor, 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 con- demned and anathematized. For since my tenderest