QUESNEL, PAsQmEn, a French theologian, was b. at Paris, July 14. 1634, and hav ing been educated in the Sorbonne, entered the congregation of the Oratory in 1657. He obtained even early in his career the reputation of a profound familiarity with Scrip ture and the fathers; and by several popular ascetical treatises which he published, he attracted so much notice, that, at the early age of 28, he was appointed director of the Paris house of his congregation. It was for the use of the under his charge that he commenced the series of his afterward celebrated Inflexions Jimmies. The first specimen of this work having been much admired, Quesriel continued to extend it to other portions of the New Testament. Soon afterward he published an edition of the works of St Leo (2 vols. 4to, Paris, 1675), which has been much criticised. His resi dence at Paris, however, was cnt short by the disputes about Jansenism. Having refused to sign certain propositions, subscription to which was, by a decree of 1684, required of all members of the Oratory, Quesnel left the congregation and retired to the Low Countries, where he attached himself to the party of Arnauld, in which he ape '.lily rose to the first position of influence and authority. He continued at Brussels his Ileflexioas Morales; and in 1693-94 the reflections on the New Testament were pub lished in a complete form, with the approval of the cardinal de Noailles, bishop of Chalons, and ultimately archbishop of Paris. The work, however, on examination,
was found to contain all the most obnoxious doctrines of Jansenius; and Quesnel, hav ing been denounced to the authorities, was arrested, by order of Philip V., and put into prison. Ile escaped, and betook himself to concealment. But his book was condemned, first by the decree of an assembly of the bishops of France, and afterward by a decision of Clement XL in 1711, and .finally by the celebrated bull Unigenitus, Sept. 8, 1713. With this condemnation the formal dogmatic declarations of the Roman church on this controversy may be said to have ceased. The controversy continued, but nothing, or very little, that was new was afterward elicited. Quesnel withdrew to Amsterdam, where he lived to a great age, not having died till 1719, in his 85th year. Besides the Pnfiexwn-s lie left a vast number of treatises, chiefly ascetical. The few dog matical essays which he published, as well as his critical editioa St. Leo, mire all tinged with his peculiar opinions. The Inflexions (orates falling in, in the main, with the views of one of the religious parties in the Protestant church, has been translated into German and English, and at one time enjoyed considerable popularity both in Eng land and in Germany.