[582] Urbani PP. VIII Bull. In eminenti, 6 Mart. 1641.—Innocent PP X. Bull. Cum occasione, 31 Maii, 1653 (Bullar. V, 369, 486).
A precursor of Jansen was Michel de Bay or Baius, a theologian of Louvain, whose seventy-nine propositions were condemned by Pius V and Gregory XIII and were publicly abjured by him before the University, May 24, 1580. His name does not occur in the Spanish Indexes before that of 1632, (p. 761) where he is spoken of as a man of high reputation who abandoned his errors.
[583] Letter of Benedict XIV to Inquisitor-general Prado y Cuesta (Semanário erúdito, XXX, 53).
[584] Indice de 1707, I, 19, 28, 231-2, 478.
[585] Nic. Anton. Biblioth. Vet. Lib. VI, cap. xi, n. 268.
[586] Memorial espagnol presenté á sa Majesté Catholique contre les pretendus Jansenistes du Pays-Bas, p. 45 (s. 1. 1699).
This is a memorial drawn up by Juan de Palazol, S. J., in the name and by order of Tirso González, the Jesuit General. To it I am indebted for the details that follow.
In January 1691 a congregation of the Flemish bishops addressed to the Roman Inquisition an urgent appeal for help in their struggle with the Jansenists, whose missionary and controversial efforts were incessant and successful. It illustrates the elusory character of the theological subtilties involved that the bishops sent, as a specially successful exposure of Jansenist devices, a little book under the name of Cornelis van Cranebergh, but Rome thought differently of it and condemned it by decree of March 19, 1692. Its real author was the Jesuit Jacques de la Fontaine, who was one of the most zealous champions against Jansenism.—Collectio Synodorum Archiep. Mechliniensis, I, 575.—Reusch, Der Index, II, 645.—De Backer, IV, 230.
[587] Le Tellier, Recueil des Bulles et Constitutions etc. p. 125 (Mons, 1697).
[588] These details are not without interest as indicating the causes which led to the establishment of the still existing schismatic see of Utrecht.