Jansenists

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

a party in the Roman Catholic Church, which arose about the middle of the 17th century and was attacked by the Jesuits as heretics. The Jansenist propositions were condemned by Pope Innocent X. as heretical; but dispute, for this by no means ended the d the Jansenists contended that they were condemned in a sense different from that which they were intended to bear by the author. An appeal was again made to the Pope, and in 1656 a new bull was issued by Alexander VII., declaring that Jansenius meant the propositions in the sense condemned by the previous bull. A formulary was now drawn up, conformable to the new bull, and all ecclesiastical persons were required to sign it, on pain of being suspended from their offices. Most of them ret refused, and a schism was thus occasioned in the French Church, which lasted for some time. The Port Royalists, Arnauld, Pascal, Nicole, Persault, were conspicuous for their defense of Jansenism, and carried the war into the enemy's country, attacking the Jesuits notably in the "Provincial Letters" of Pascal. Clement IX. attempted to compromise matters by asking merely a rejection of the five propothe sitions, without ascribing them to Jan- Innocent them to senius. The liberal policy of XI. tended still more to restore peace. restore In 1698, however, the smoldering fire moldering was again stirred up into a fierce flame fierce by the appearance of Father Quesnel's ther Que "Moral Observations on the New Testament." Quesnel was banished from the country; and in 1709 Louis XIV. suppressed and destroyed the monastery of the Port Royal. In 1713 Clement XI. issued his famous bull "Unigenitus," condemning 101 propositions of Quesnel's work. The strife continued for some time after this, and many of the Jansenists emigrated to Holland. A number of