ARNAULD, ANTOINE ( 1(312-94 ) A French theologian and polemical writer, known as the great Arnauld. Ile was born at Paris, February 6, 1612, and was the son of Antoine Arnauld, the celebrated jurist, from whom the younger Antoine seems to have inherited his vigorous in tellect and that animosity for the Jesuits which characterized almost his entire life. After a thorough training in the liberal arts, Arnauld began the study of law, but in compliance with his mother's wishes, he abandoned his legal studies for theology. He became a priest in 1641, and in 1643 was made a member of the Society of the Sorbonne. Ile had previously made a thorough study of the works of Saint Augus tine, whose doctrine of sin and grace especially recommended itself to him. In 1643 lie published a work entitled De la communion, which at once drew upon him the hostility of the Jesuits and plunged him into a controversy with that Society which lasted for nearly forty years. Arnauld was by nature a controversialist. He was iron-willed, passionate, narrow, erudite, and firmly convinced of his own infallibility. The defense of truth, as he conceived it, was the sole object of life, and in the defense of truth he spared neither himself nor his friends; nor, it must be confessed, truth itself at times. Within the Church he carried on a fierce polemic against the Jesuits; without, he wrote against the Cal vinists and Free-thinkers. His indefatigable ardor is illustrated by a characteristic reply made in his old age to his friend Nicole, who urged that after many years of conflict and exile, the aged man should seek sonic rest: "Rest!" he retorted, "have I not all Eternity to rest in ?" The controversy which began with De la frequcate ion, at union, in 1643, was con tinued in the 77/('orogie morale des icsaites. Upon the outbreak of the Jansenist controversy (see JANSENISM), Arnan1d took the field against his hereditary enemies. In 1641 he published a series of traetates against them, and these were followed, after intervals of peace, by new attacks i6 1649 and 16:16. In the last year, the .Jesuits succeeded in bringing about his expulsion trout the Sorbonne, after Arnauld had expressed his doubt whether the famous five propositions of Jansenius were really to be found in the book of the Bishop of Ypres. Since 1648 he had been
living at the Port-Royal-des-Champs (q.v.), in friendship with Nicole, and with the great Pascal, the material for whose Provincial Letters Arnauld is said to have supplied. After the Jansenist enntroversy had been set at rest by the Peace of (lenient IX., in 1668, Arnauld came into con flict with the Calvinists, whom he attacked in his La perpetuite rte in joi dc realise catholique defendue (1669), written in collaboration with Nicole and followed by the Le renrcrsement dc la morale dc Jesus-Christ par in doctrine des Cal rinistes (1672), and the L'impiete de is morale des Calrinistes (1675). Although he enjoyed for a time the protection of Louis XIV., and seems to have been in close touch with the powers at Rome, Arnanld, in 1679, was forced to flee to Belgium, owing to the unrelenting hostility of the Jesuits. In exile the old man continued his feverish activity. After 1680 lie plunged into a hitter controversy with his old friend Mnlebranche, concerning the latter's theory of grace—a dispute in which Arnauld with all his passionate impulses, and imbittered no doubt by years of persecution. seems to have gone far beyond the bounds of discretion and fairness. In 1681, too, he published a defense of the English Catholics in reply to the accusations brought against them in connection with the Titus Oates episode, in which Arnauld strangely enough took up the cause of his ancient enemies. the Jesuits. He also wrote a book directed against William of Orange, calling him "a new Absalom, a new Herod. a new Cromwell" (1689). He (lied August 8. 1694, near Liege. shortly after he had written a work entitled Reflexion stir reloquenec des predicateurs. The title of the 'great Arnauld' was given him by the .Tanscnists, one of whose foremost ehainpions lie was. His voluminous writings, comprising over 100 volumes in their original editions. wore published in 48 volumes at T.ausanne (1775-83). the last volume being a biography of Arnauld.