Church History, Volume 3 (of 3)Kurtz, J. H. (Johann Heinrich)
History
Church History, Volume 3 (of 3)
Kurtz, J. H. (Johann Heinrich)
Church history
§ 165.7. =The Second Stage of Jansenism= (§ 157, 5).--=Pasquier
Quesnel=, priest of the Oratory at Paris, suspected in 1675 of
Gallicanism, because of notes in his edition of the works of
Leo the Great, fled into the Netherlands, where he continued his
notes on the N.T. Used and recommended by Noailles, Archbishop
of Paris, and other French bishops, this “Jansenist” book was
hated by the Jesuits and condemned by a brief of Clement XI.
in A.D. 1708. The Jesuit confessor of Louis XIV., Le Tellier,
selected 101 propositions from the book, and induced the king to
urge their express condemnation by the pope. In the =Constitution
Unigenitus= of A.D. 1713, Clement pronounced these heretical,
and the king required the expulsion from parliament and church
of all who refused to adopt this bull, which caused a division
of the French church into _Acceptants_ and _Appellants_. As many
of the condemned propositions were quoted literally by Quesnel
from Augustine and other Fathers, or were in exact agreement
with biblical passages, Noailles and his party called for an
explanation. Instead of this the pope threatened them with
excommunication. In A.D. 1715 the king died, and under the Duke
of Orleans’ regency in A.D. 1717, four bishops, with solemn
appeal to a general council, renounced the papal constitution
as irreconcilable with the Catholic faith. They were soon
joined by the Sorbonne and the universities of Rheims and Nantes,
Archbishop Noailles, and more than twenty bishops, all the
congregations of St. Maur and the Oratorians with large numbers
of the secular clergy and the monks, especially of the Lazarists,
Dominicans, Cistercians, and Camaldulensians. The pope, after
vainly calling them to obey, thundered the ban against the
Appellants in A.D. 1718. But the parliament took the matter
up, and soon the aspect of affairs was completely changed. The
regent’s favourite, Dubois, hoping to obtain a cardinal’s hat,
took the side of the Acceptants and carried the duke with him,
who got the parliament in 1720 to acknowledge the bull, with
express reservation, however, of the Gallican liberties, and
began a persecution of the Appellants. Under Louis XV. the
persecution became more severe, although in many ways moderated
by the influence of his former tutor, Cardinal Fleury. Noailles,
who died in 1729, was obliged in 1728 to submit unconditionally,
and in A.D. 1730 the parliament formally ratified the bull. Amid
daily increasing oppression, many of the more faithful Jansenists,
mostly of the orders of St. Maur and the Oratory, fled to the
Netherlands, where they gave way more and more to fanaticism. In
1727 a young Jansenist priest, Francis of Paris, died with the
original text of the appeal in his hands. His adherents honoured
him as a saint, and numerous reports of miracles, which had been
wrought at his grave in Medardus churchyard at Paris, made this a
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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