Among the enemies of the Jansenists was a certain sect of fanatics, called Brothers of the Sodality of the blessed Sacrament. They sprung up at Caen, in 1659, and gave out that their smell was so nice, that they could distinguish a Jansenist by the very scent, and that all the clergy in that city, except two, were Jansenists.
At last Clement XI. put an end to the disputes about Jansenism by his constitution of July 17, 1705; in which, after having recited the constitutions of his predecessors in relation to this affair, he declares, that, to pay a proper obedience to the papal constitutions concerning the present question, it is necessary to receive them with a respectful silence. The clergy assembled at Paris approved and accepted this bull, on the 21st of August, the same year; and no one dared to oppose it. This is the famous bull Unigenitus, so called from its beginning with the words, Unigenitus Dei Filius.—Broughton.
Jansenism still exists in Holland, where the archbishop of Utrecht presides over the communion.
JANUARY, THIRTIETH OF. (See Forms of Prayer.)
JEHOVAH. One of the names given in Scripture to Almighty God, and peculiar to him, signifying the Being who is self-existent, and gives existence to others.
The name is also given to our blessed Saviour, and is a proof of his Godhead. (Compare Isaiah xl. 3, with Matt. iii. 3, and Isaiah vi., with John xii. 41.) The Jews had so great a veneration for this name, that they left off the custom of pronouncing it, whereby its true pronunciation was forgotten. It is called the Tetragrammaton, (Τετραγράμματον,) or name of four letters, and containing in itself the past and future tenses, as well as the present participle, and signifies, He who was, is, and shall be: i. e. the Eternal, the Unchangeable, the Faithful.
The same veneration seems to have actuated most Christian communities in their translation of the word, rendered in Greek by Κύριος, in Latin by Dominus, and in English by Lord. The word Jehovah occurs but four times simply, and five times in composition, in our authorized translation.
JEREMIAH, THE PROPHECY OF. A canonical book of the Old Testament. This divine writer was of the race of the priests, the son of Hilkiuh of Anathoth, in the tribe of Benjamin. He was called to the prophetic office, when he was very young, about the thirteenth year of Josiah, and continued in the discharge of it above forty years. He was not carried captive to Babylon with the other Jews, but remained in Judea, to lament the desolation of his country. He was afterwards a prisoner in Egypt, with his disciple Baruch, where it is supposed he died in a very advanced age. Some of the Christian Fathers tell us, he was stoned to death by the Jews for preaching against their idolatry; and some say, he was put to death by Pharaoh Hophra, because of his prophecy against him.
Part of the prophecy of Jeremiah relates to the time after the captivity of Israel, and before that of Judah, from the first chapter to the forty-fourth; and part of it was in the time of the latter captivity, from the forty-fourth chapter to the end. The prophet lays open the sins of the kingdom of Judah with great freedom and boldness, and reminds them of the severe judgments which had befallen the ten tribes for the same offences; he passionately laments their misfortune, and recommends a speedy reformation to them. Afterwards he predicts the grievous calamities that were approaching, particularly the seventy years’ captivity in Chaldea. He likewise foretells their deliverance and happy return, and the recompence which Babylon, Moab, and other enemies of the Jews, should meet with in due time. There are likewise several intimations in this prophecy concerning the kingdom of the Messiah; also several remarkable visions and types, and historical passages relating to those times.
The fifty-second chapter does not belong to the prophecy of Jeremiah, which concludes, at the end of the fifty-first chapter, with these words: “Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.” The last, or fifty-second chapter, (which probably was added by Ezra,) contains a narrative of the taking of Jerusalem, and of what happened during the captivity of the Jews in Babylon, to the death of Jechonias. St. Jerome has observed upon this prophet, that his style is more easy than that of Isaiah and Hosea; that he retains something of the rusticity of the village where he was born; but that he is very learned and majestic, and equal to those two prophets in the sense of his prophecy.