Jansenism. Dogmatically, Jansenism is summed up in five propositions derived in substance from the
Augustinus (1640) of C. O.
Jansen and condemned as heretical by
Innocent X. Their sense is that without a special
grace from God, the performance of His commands is impossible to men, and that the operation of grace is irresistible; hence man is the victim of either a natural or a supernatural determinism, limited only by not being coercive.
The first generation of Jansenists were disciples of
Saint-Cyran, Jansen's friend and collaborator. This party of ‘Cyranists’, which included the convent of
Port-Royal, was already in existence in 1638. After Saint-Cyran's death in 1643, Antoine
Arnauld became their leader; his writings defined the directions of the movement. These were the defence of St
Augustine's theology of grace as interpreted by Jansen; a rigorist tendency in all matters of ecclesiastical discipline; and hostility to
Probabilism.
In 1653 Innocent X condemned five propositions as summarizing the Jansenist position. The Jansenists sought to evade the condemnation by admitting that the propositions condemned were heretical, but declaring them to be unrepresentative of Jansen's doctrine; this distinction was disallowed by
Alexander VII (1656). In 1668 the Jansenists were persuaded into a qualified submission, but the movement continued to gain sympathizers. P.
Quesnel's Réflexions morales (1693), in which some tenets of Jansenism were reaffirmed, was condemned in the bull ‘
Unigenitus’ (1713). In France the Jansenists then faced periodic persecution. In the
Netherlands Jansenism was tolerated, and in 1723 the Dutch Jansenists nominated a Bishop of Utrecht, consecrated in 1724, thus creating a schism (see
OLD CATHOLICS). They also remained strong in Tuscany.
