BA'JUS, MicinAEL—properly, DE BAY (1513 89). One of the most distinguished theologians of the Roman Catholic Church in the Sixteenth Century. He was born in 1513. at Melin, Hainaut. He studied at Louvain, and became doctor and professor of theology there in 1550. He was pres ent at the Council of Trent in 1503, and also in 1564. He was the founder of the system of theology based directly on the Bible and the writings of the Fathers and setting aside the scholastic method. He assumed to base his the ory on the writings of Saint Augustine, whose doctrine of grace and free-will lie sought to in terpret into the entire inability of the human will to do good, and into the absence of merit in all good works. His position was vigorously as sailed by the Jesuits as unorthodox. The assertions that the human will, so long as it is left to its own freedom, can do nothing but sin, and that even the mother of our Lord was not free from original and actual sin, together with other such doctrines, drew on him the accusation of heresy. Seventy-nine of his propositions were
condemned by Pope Pius V., in 1507, in the bull Ex Omnibus Afflietionibus, but he was not named as the author of them. Bajus submitted in 1569, but nevertheless did not give up his doc trines. He retained his position, and was made chancellor of his university in 1575, but this did not shield him from the criticisms of his theological opponents. Gregory XIII. confirmed the condemnation in the bull P•ovisienis Nostra, January 28, 1379, and Bajus was obliged a sec ond time to make explanation. He died at Louvain, September 15. 1589, having earned the reputation of great learning, pure manners, and singular modesty. He may be regarded as the predecessor of the Jansenists, who inherited his Augustinian view, which was at that time termed Bajanisin. His writings, mostly of a polemical nature, were published by Gerberon (2 vols., Cologne, 1696). Consult F. N. Linsen mann, Michael Rajas and die Grundlcgung des Jansenismus (Tlibingen, 1867).