Jansen(ius) Cornelius (2), a celebrated Dutch divine and founder of the Jansknists, born at Accoy, near Leerdam, in Northern Holland, Oct. 28, 1585, was a nephew of the above Cornelius Jansen, tlie Up. of Ghent. He received his early education at Utrecht, and in 1602 entered the university at Louvain as a student of phi- losophy and theology. While at this liigh-school he seems to have formed an acquaintance with the French- man, Jean Baptiste Duvergier (q. v.) de Hauranne, gen- erally known by the name of St. Cyran. " Both lie (i. e. Cyran) and Jansenius were there brought into contact Avith some who m secret cherished the doctrines of grace although in the communion of liome, and thus they re- ceived many principles of truth utterly opposed to those ordinarily held in the Church. There also they both saw and felt the evil workings of the Jesuits ; they marked the inroads which that system was making on all doctrinal truth and practical morality." But Jan- senius's severe industrj' brought on sickness, and he was obliged to quit the university, and for a time the two bosom-friends were separated. Advised to seek a change of air, he undertook a journey through France, and final- ly stopped at Paris to prosecute his studies anew. Again the two friends met, and together they removed to Ba- yonne, and spent another series of years in earnest study and meditation, particularly on the writings of the Church fathers, of whom Augustine became their spe- cial favorite. So interested became Jansenius in the writings of Augustine, that from henceforth he deter- mined to make it his life-business to arrange and method- ize everything in the productions of this Church father treating on the subjects of the grace of God, the condi- tion of man as fallen, free-will and human impotence, original sin, election, efficacious grace, faith, and other points of like importance, with a view to a reformatory movement in the Church to which he belonged, by com- bating the increasing Pelagianism of the Jesuits. In 1617 the two friends again parted, Jansenius returning to Louvain to obtain the doctorate and to assume the du- ties of an extraordinary professorship in the university. In a controversy which ensued between this high-school and the Jesuits Jansenius greatly distinguished himself, and was twice sent to Spain (1624 and 1625) in the in- terest of the university, Holland being, at that time, de- pendent on Spain. In 1621, Jansenius and Cyran, who had become convinced of the necessity of a reform with- in the pale of the Roman Catholic communion, met again at Louvain with a view to bringing about such s change. They divided the work among themselves Jansenius taldng the field of doctrine, Duvergier that of organization and life. At the same time, they entered into intimate connections with distinguished priests in Ireland and with some of the leaders < if t he ( 'ongregation of the Oratory (q.v.). The Spanish LKiuisition seems to have had wind of this great and daring undertaking of the two noble spirits, and when, in 1630, Jansenius was nominated for the regular professorshij) of sacred litera- ture at Louvain, a great effort was made to prevent the appointment. But Jansenius was made the recipient of this honorable distinction in spite of the Jesuits and the " Holy Office." He further secured the favor of the Spanish court by his opposition to France and its alli- ances with Protestant powers, to which course he seems to have been mainly incited by the tardiness of Riche- lieu to enter into an alliance with Jansenius and Duver- gier in the intended reformatory movement. He se- verely attacked the pretensions of France, ^vhich at this
time, by her altitude, was threatening the Spanish prov- inces of the Netherlands, in a work entitled J/(»-.<f Gal- licus, the publication of which occasioned the imjirison- ment of Duvergier, who was known to have been in con- stant epistolary intercourse with Janseiuus, while to the latter it secured the see of Ypres (1636). In this city he died of the plague May 6, 1638, just as he bad finish- ed his AiK/itsiinus, a work embodying the resiUt of 22 years' study of the writings of St. Augustuie, and which, according to his own statement, he had read, pen in hand, at least tea times, and the portions relating to sin and grace no less than thirty times, determined to ex- hibit, expound, and illustrate, not his own views, but the exact views of the celebrated Church father (compare Aitc/usiinus, ii, Prooem. xxix, 65).
Jansenius was a learned theologian, but a plain, retir- ing man, who spent most of his life in his study, and was hardly known in his day beyond the immediate circle surrounding him. It is thought likely that the impulse communicated bjji Bains (q.v.) to the school of Louvain may have influenced Jansenius in giving this direction to his studies, as Cornelius Jansen, the bishop of Cihent, who was one of the instructors of our Jansen at Louvain, was himself a pupil of Baius, and that through him he had imbibed a strong dislike to the lax views of theolo- gy and morality advocated by the Jesuits. Jansenius took the ground, in opposing the Jesuits, that life stands in the closest relation to practical doctrinal precepts. He thought it impossible to attain true spiritual and Christian life without the fullest faith in this doctrine, which alone inculcates true humility. On the ground that pride was the cause of the fall, he sought to de- stroy all feeling of individual power, giving up human free agency to divine grace, and declaring human natm-e to be thoroughly corrupt, and unable by itself to do any good. While he believed these to have been the doc- trines of Augustine himself, yet, as an obedient son of the Church of Rome, which, while he was anxious to purge her from the Pelagianism of the Jesuits, he dearly loved, he in his will, written half an hour before his death, said of his yet unpublished Auf/usfiims, '•! feel that it would be difficult to make any changes in it ; yet, should the Holy See require such, remember that I am an obedient son, and willing to submit to the Church in which I have lived till death." He willed the MS. to Lame, Fromond, and Calenus, who pubhshed it under the title A uyustinus . . . seu doctrina sancti A ugustini de humanw naturce sanctitale, wgritudine, medicina, adversus rdfif/ianos et Massilienses (Louvain, 1640, folio).