JANSENISTS, a party in the Roman Catholic Church, which arose about the middle of the 17th century and was at tacked by the Jesuits as heretics. The Jansenist propositions were condemned by Pope Innocent X. as heretical; but this by no means ended the dispute, for the Jansenists contended that they were condemned in a sense different from that which they were intended to bear by the author. An appeal was again made to the Pope, and in 1656 a new bull was is sued by Alexander VII., declaring that Jansenius meant the propositions in the sense condemned by the previous bull. A formulary was now drawn up, con formable to the new bull, and all eccle siastical persons were required to sign it, on pain of being suspended from their offices. Most of them refused, and a schism was thus occasioned in the French Church, which lasted for some time. The Port Royalists, Arnauld, Pascal, Nicole, Persault, were conspicuous for their defense of Jansenism, and carried the war into the enemy's country, attack ing the Jesuits notably in the "Provin cial Letters" of Pascal. Clement IX. at tempted to compromise matters by ask ing merely a rejection of the five propo sitions, without ascribing them to Jan senius. The liberal policy of Innocent RI. tended still more to restore peace.
In 1698, however, the smoldering fire was again stirred up into a fierce flame by the appearance of Father Quesnel's "Moral Observations on the New Testa ment." Quesnel was banished from the country; and in 1709 Louis XIV. sup pressed and destroyed the monastery of the Port Royal. In 1713 Clement XI. issued his famous bull "Unigenitus," condemning 101 propositions of Quesnel's work. The strife continued for some time after this, and many of the Jansen ists emigrated to Holland. A number of.
the French clergy still hold the principles of Jansenius. While Jansenism re mained in France a theological school, it became in the Netherlands an independ ent Church. In 1704, Codde, the vicar apostolic of the archbishopric of Utrecht, was deposed by the Pope for holding Jansenistic views; but the chapter re fused to acknowledge the validity of this deposition, and in 1723 they chose an archbishop of their own. Since that time they have had an archbishop at Utrecht, and bishops at Haarlem and Deventer. These Jansenists call them selves by preference the disciples of St. Augustine.