THE JANSENIST SCHISM IN HOLLAND.
JANSENISM IN THE CHURCH OF UTRECHT.
FROM LES ETUDES RELIGIEUSES. BY C. VAN AKEN.
I.
I shall not undertake to write the history of Netherland Jansenism. I have a more special purpose in view; it is to demonstrate the actual existence of that heresy in the so-called Church of Utrecht. To this end, I shall, after showing what the principles of Jansenism are, make it clear that the errors of Baius, as developed, or, so to say, amended, by Jansenius, are reproduced by Quesnel, and are to be found in the false Synod of Pistoia. This assembly, held in 1786, under the authority of Leopold II., Grand Duke of Tuscany, and presided over by Scipio Ricci, Bishop of Pistoia and Prato, merits our attention; for the principal documents I shall make use of in this paper concern the official adhesion given by the schismatical clergy of Holland to the synod.[203] As to the events which are related and admitted by all historians, I shall only refer to them in order to point out their significance, or to dissipate the obscurity in which the recent promoters of the schism have sought to envelope facts.
"Jansenius had been a great reader of S. Augustine; but he brought to the study of this author far more of zeal than of prudence or real knowledge. In some passages he renders the thoughts of the Doctor of Grace well enough; almost everywhere else, and even in the most important points, he is grossly in error. An extensive reader he was not; one author alone absorbed his whole life, and the more he dwelt upon his author, the less he understood him. His posthumous work is bad, impious, and truly heretical. Calvin, as Jansenius presents him, is no longer Calvin."
Thus writes F. Denis Petau (author of Dogmes Théologiques and Doctrine des Temps) to F. Bollandus, August 9, 1641, shortly after the publication of the celebrated Augustinus. The Calvinists of Holland have taken the same view as F. Petau; for them Jansenius is an ally, a friend, whose opinions are less opposed to theirs in substance than in form. Did not the Bishop of Ypres candidly acknowledge that he "almost entirely" approved the Calvinist Synod of Dordrecht? The Abbé of Saint-Cyran, another patriarch of Jansenism, remarked: "Calvin thought justly, but expressed himself ill—bene sensit, male locutus est." However, there are important differences between the two heresies; but it would take us too much out of our way to indicate them in detail. These words of the false Synod of Pistoia perfectly express the germinal idea of Jansenism: "In these latter days a general obscurity prevails in regard to the most important truths of religion.... It is necessary, therefore, to remount to the pure source of the principles which have been obscured by novelties, in order to establish a uniformity of doctrine which shall be a subject of edification for the faithful, and gratify the wishes of our most religious prince.... To establish this unity of principles, the enlightened sovereign suggests to the bishops to take for their rule the doctrine of S. Augustine against the Pelagians and the semi-Pelagians, who, through their system, have destroyed the spirit of the Christian religion, and preached a new gospel."[204] It must needs follow from this that the authority of the church is not an efficacious remedy against error, since it was possible for the general belief of the faithful to be obscured for centuries in regard to the most important truths.
Is this in any wise different from what the reformers of the XVIth century pretended? Did not Calvin, especially, have always in his mouth the name of the great Bishop of Hippo? Jansenius develops the same thought in his preliminary work, De Ratione et Auctoritate.[205] Baius had prepared the way for him.[206] For the authority of the teaching church, always youthful and full of life, as S. Irenæus says, the Jansenists substituted S. Augustine, who was no longer at hand to protest against the abuse that had been made of his words—words often rugged and obscure. So much for the general ground; let us now enter into detail.
Following Baius, Jansenius sets out with this fundamental axiom, which is, as it were, the culminating point whence one takes in his whole system: The complete man is not a compound of body and soul only (as the Catholic doctrine declares, in consonance with sound philosophy); but a third principle, the Holy Ghost, the sole source of all wisdom, of all charity, is necessary, in order to complete the rational being, and to render him worthy of his Creator and of his natural destiny.[207] Without this grace—for so Jansenius considered it—body and soul constitute only a sensual and animal being, defenceless against all evil desires, and incapable of rising to the knowledge and love of good. The immediate consequence of these principles is that God could not create man without bestowing upon him the Holy Ghost and all the other gifts which faith manifests to us in our first parents.[208]
These were, no doubt, so many graces, says Jansenius; but these graces were none the less due to human nature, which without them would have been incomplete.[209]