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Jansenism was a branch of Catholic gallican thought which arose in the frame of the Counter-Reformation and the aftermaths of the Council of Trent (1545-1563). It emphasized original sin, human depravity, the necessity of divine grace, and predestination. Originating in the writings of the Dutch theologian Cornelius Otto Jansen, Jansenism formed a distinct movement within the Roman Catholic Church from the 16th to 18th centuries, which found its most important stronghold in the Parisian convent of Port-Royal, haven of many important theologians and writers (Antoine Arnauld, Pierre Nicole, Blaise Pascal, Jean Racine, etc.).

The term itself was coined by its Jesuit opponents, who accused them of being close to Calvinists, as Jansenists self-identified as rigorous followers of Augustinism ^[1]. Although several propositions supported by Jansenists, in particular concerning the relationship between human's free will and the "efficacious grace," were condemned by the Pope, and the movement thus considered as heretical, "Jansenism" in itself was never condemned as heretical by the Roman Catholic Church ^[1].

Contents 1 Origin of Jansenism 2 Jansenist theology 3 Controversy and papal condemnation 4 Acceptants 5 Later Developments 6 References 7 Bibliography (French) 7.1 Reviews 8 See also: 9 External links

In opposition to Jesuit theologians of the time who upheld Molinism, Jansen proposed a return to the principles which he regarded as laid down in the work of St. Augustine of Hippo. In the Jesuit emphasis on free will, Jansen suspected that Pelagianism -- a heresy Augustine had opposed vigorously -- was returning. Jansen's posthumously published work, Augustinus (1640), gained an increased following, and prominent adherents of Jansenism included Jean Racine and Pascal. In France, Jansenism was associated with the convent of Port-Royal, which operated a number of famous schools that educated Racine amongst others, and with the writings of Pasquier Quesnel.

In Jansenist thought, human beings were born sinful, and without divine help a human being could never become good. This led the Jansenists to seek to exhibit a high level of piety and moral rectitude, and to prepare carefully through prayer and confession before receiving Communion (hence Jansenists favored less frequent reception^{[citation needed]}). The Jansenist idea of predestination, based on an interpretation of Augustine's writing, in particular a reading of his doctrine of efficacious grace, was that only a portion of human beings, the "elect," were destined to be saved. Following a rigorous form of Augustinism, they considered love of God fundamental, and asserted that only contrition, and not simple attrition, could save man (and that, in turn, only an efficacious grace could tip man toward God and such a contrition). This debate on the respective roles of contrition and attrition, which had not been settled by the Council of Trent, was one of the motives of the imprisonment in May 1638 of the abbé de Cyran (Duvergier de Hauranne), the first leader of Port-Royal ^[2]. Jansenists also insisted on justification by faith, although they did not contest the necessity of revering all Catholic saints, of confession, and of frequent communion.

This rigorism had led them to be conflated by their opponents, mostly Jesuits, with Calvinism. Unlike Calvinism, however, Jansenism lacked a doctrine of assurance, deeming salvation unknowable even to the saved.

Antoine Arnauld's controversial book, De la fréquente Communion (1643), was an important step in making the aims and ideals of this movement intelligible to the general public. Its appearance attracted controversy. In the frame of the controversy around Jansenius' Augustunus, during which the Jesuits attacked the Jansenists claiming they were heretics similar to Calvinists, Arnauld wrote in defense the Théologie morale des Jésuites (Moral Theology of Jesuits), which would put the base of most of the arguments later used by Pascal in his Provincial Letters denouncing the "relaxed moral" of Jesuitism ^[1]. The Jesuit Nicolas Caussin, former penitentiary to Louis XIII, was charged by his order of writing a defense against Arnauld's book, titled Réponse au libelle intitulé La Théologie morale des Jésuites (1644). Other libels published against Arnauld's Moral Theology of Jesuits included the one written by the Jesuit polemist François Pinthereau (1605-1664), under the pseudonym of the abbé de Boisic, titled Les Impostures et les ignorances du libelle intitulé: La Théologie Morale des Jésuites (1644), who was also the author of a critical history of Jansenism titled La Naissance du Jansénisme découverte à Monsieur le Chancelier (The Birth of Jansenism Revealed to Sir the Chancellor, Leuven, 1654).

These attacks by Jesuits led to the formulary controversy in the middle of the 17th century, during which 5 propositions of Jansenius were condemned by the Pope without precising their sense. Pascal wrote his Provincial Letters during this political and theological debate, which led to several papal bulls condemning propositions extracted from the Augustinus, notably by Pope Innocent X, Alexander VII (Ad Sanctam Beati Petri Sedem ^[3]) and Clement XI (Unigenitus and Vineam Domini in 1705). The Jesuits were supported both by Cardinal Richelieu, and then by Cardinal Mazarin and King Louis XIV, who sought the end of Jansenism. In a highly symbolic gesture, the convent of Port-Royal was razed in 1710, after the last nuns had been forcibly removed and the Jansenist community dissolved.

Because Jansen himself died before his work was published, and he included statements of submission to the Catholic Church in it, he himself was never formally considered a heretic, and Jansenism as such was not condemned. The final condemnation of various Jansenist propositions was by Pius X, who, in contrast to Jansenist reticence over communion, advocated daily communion for Catholics, and communion for children as soon as they could distinguish the sacred Host from ordinary bread. Jansenism was officially outlawed by the Catholic Church in 1712.

On the other hand, Pascal's denounciation of Jesuit casuistry and its "relaxed moral" also led Innocent XI to condemn in 1679 sixty-five propositions, taken chiefly from the writings of Escobar, Suarez and the like, as propositiones laxorum moralistarum, and forbade anyone to teach them under penalty of excommunication.^[4]. Finally, the Jesuits were expelled from France in the 1760s.

Acceptants were Jansenists who accepted the bull Unigenitus (1713), which opened the final phase of the Jansenist controversy in France and condemned 101 propositions of the French Jansenist theologian Pasquier Quesnel.

Jansenism influenced the development of Gallicanism, and Jansenist teachers proposed a radical reform of the Latin liturgy.

Jansenism was also a factor in the formation of the independent Old Catholic Church of the Netherlands from 1702 to 1723, and is said to continue to live on in some Ultrajectine traditions.

• Jean-Pierre Chantin, Le jansénisme, CERF.
• Bernard Cottret, Monique Cottret et Marie-José Michel (éd.), Jansénisme et puritanisme, actes du colloque du 15 septembre 2001, tenu au Musée national des Granges de Port-Royal-des-Champs, préface de Jean Delumeau, Paris, Nolin 2002.
• Monique Cottret, Jansénismes et Lumières. Pour un autre XVIIIè siècle, Albin Michel, Paris, 1998.
• Louis Cognet, Le jansénisme, PUF, collection « Que sais-je ? », 1967.
• Marie-José Michel, Jansénisme et Paris, Klincksieck, 2000.
• René Taveneaux, Le Jansénisme en Lorraine, 1640-1789, J. Vrin, 1960.
• René Taveneaux, Jansénisme et politique, A. Colin, 1965.
• René Taveneaux, Jansénisme et prêt à intérêt, J. Vrin, 1977.
• René Taveneaux, La Vie quotidienne des jansénistes aux xviie et xviiie siècles, Hachette, 1985.
• Dale K. Van Kley, Les origines religieuses de la Révolution française 1560-1791, traduit de l'anglais par Alain Spiess, Paris, Éd. du Seuil, coll. « L'univers historique », 2002.
• Léopold Willaert, Les origines du Jansénisme dans les Pays-Bas catholiques, Bruxelles, 1948.

• Monique Cottret, "Aux origines du républicanisme janséniste: le mythe de l'Eglise primitive et le primitivisme des Lumières", R.H.M.C. Paris, 1983, pp. 99-115.
• Monique Cottret,"Voltaire au risque du jansénisme. Le Siècle de Louis XIV à l'épreuve du jansénisme", Voltaire et le Grand Siècle, sous la direction de Jean Dagen et Anna-Sophie Barrovecchio, Voltaire Foundation, Oxford, 2006, pp.387-397.
• Jean-Louis Quantin, « Augustinisme, sexualité et direction de conscience : Port-Royal devant les tentations du duc de Luynes » in Revue d’histoire des religions, 2e trimestre 2003

• Baianism
• Dale K. Van Kley
• Formulary controversy
• Molinism
• fr:Convulsionnaires de Saint-Médard

• Société des amis de Port-Royal (French)
• Jansenism Resources: Primary texts and discussions relating to the theology and history of Jansenism: context of Augustine of Hippo, Jesuit Order, liturgy, universalism and Second Vatican Council
• Catholic Encyclopedia: Jansenius and Jansenism
• http://mb-soft.com/believe/txc/jansenis.htm
• http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0858980.html