1640–1713

The Jansenist Controversy

The Augustinus by the Dutch bishop Cornelius Jansen (1585–1638) was published posthumously in Louvain in 1640. It revived Augustine's teaching on grace and predestination in an extreme form. Jansen denied this was Calvinism, but his followers were repeatedly accused of crypto-Protestantism.

Antoine Arnauld's treatise "On Frequent Communion" extended Jansenist rigor to piety and discipline. The abbey of Port-Royal, which refused to submit, became the movement's center. The Inquisition banned the Augustinus (1641), and Urban VIII condemned it by the bull In eminenti (1643). In 1653 Innocent X condemned five propositions supposedly drawn from it. Jansenists, however, denied this reflected Jansen's actual teaching.

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662), who had undergone a decisive conversion in 1654, came to Arnauld's defense. He anonymously wrote the Provincial Letters – a satire on Jesuit casuistry. In influence it outstripped the Augustinus itself.

French clergy were required to sign a Formulary condemning the five propositions. Many refused, and the movement became entangled with Gallicanism against Louis XIV. A permanent schism arose in the Netherlands. Clement XI's bull Unigenitus (1713) renewed the condemnation of Jansenism in France.