Theologian · Early modern
Cornelius Jansen
1585–1638 · Jansenism
Bishop of Ypres; died in communion, submitting his Augustinus to the Holy See. Five propositions drawn from it were condemned as heretical by Innocent X (Cum Occasione, 1653), and their presence in the book affirmed by Alexander VII (1656); further Jansenist propositions were condemned in Unigenitus (1713) and Auctorem Fidei (1794).
Flemish theologian and bishop, Jansen spent twenty years on the Augustinus (published 1640), which claimed to restore St. Augustine's doctrine of grace against the Jesuits: fallen man can do no good without a grace that is irresistible, Christ did not die for all, and some commandments are impossible even to the just who lack grace. His friend Saint-Cyran carried the system to Port-Royal, whence it shaped Pascal, Arnauld and Quesnel.
Why he matters: Jansenism was the gravest internal crisis of the post-Tridentine Church, and its condemnation fixed the boundary between legitimate Augustinianism and a Calvinism in Catholic dress; its moral rigorism and sacramental scarcity left marks on French Catholicism for two centuries.
Where to be careful
The five condemned propositions: (1) some commandments are impossible to the just; (2) interior grace is never resisted; (3) merit requires only freedom from compulsion, not from necessity; (4) the Semi-Pelagians erred in holding grace resistible; (5) it is Semi-Pelagian to say Christ died for all. The Church distinguished these from the real Augustine, whose doctrine she continues to honor.
Reading
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Cum Occasione (1653) and Unigenitus (1713), in Denzinger §§ 2001–2007, 2400–2502Innocent X and Clement XI · The condemned propositions; the Augustinus itself has never been translated.
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Grace and Free Will / On Rebuke and GraceSt. Augustine · The texts Jansen claimed; read to see where he departed from them.
Documented positions
Where this thinker stands on each dispute the test covers.