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Jansenism

About: Jansenism is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 189 publications have been published within this topic receiving 1397 citations. The topic is also known as: jansenisme & jansenists.


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01 Jan 1968

2 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In the eighteenth century, Jansenists like other Catholics grew increasingly responsive to claims of the secular order, not only for the juridical preeminence of the state vis-a-vis the church, but also for the moral autonomy of the individual in matters of conscience as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: In the eighteenth century, Jansenists like other Catholics grew increasingly responsive to claims of the secular order, not only for the juridical preeminence of the state vis-a-vis the church, but also for the moral autonomy of the individual in matters of conscience. "The profound, if sometimes hesitating, direction of Jansenist ecclesiastical thought," a modern scholar has observed, was a "Constantinian subordination of the church to the state and the consequent-if largely unintended-secularization of society."' The development of an enlightened idea of toleration by Jansenists in France may be seen as part of this secularization but also as distinct from it. To the extent that these secular claims were honored, the church's authority in Christian countries would diminish. As defined by church councils, popes, canonists, and theologians, the right of the church "to bind and loose" extended into "the corridors of power" and the deepest recesses of a person's conscience. In exercising that authority, the church could invoke coercive force from Christian rulers to punish or destroy persons guilty of heresy and other crimes against God. It is true, therefore, that Jansenists, who rejected or significantly limited the use of coercion against religious dissenters, were secularizing the church and the virtually coterminous society. It would seem fair to inquire, however, what did Jansenists generally intend with civil tolerance and similar reforms. Their intention might differ subtly but profoundly from certain practical consequences of measures that they appeared to approve. True, they were apparently secularizing society by limiting the use of coercive power on behalf of the Roman Catholic church. What they wanted in fact was to desecularize the church-to remove an alien spirit from its life. As a corollary, they hoped to witness a revival of the true tolerance which Christ enjoined upon his disciples. Late Jansenists saw with regret that civil tolerance was likely to contribute to a harmful secularizing of society. They warned that the church's ministrations to the people might be weakened by withdrawing the state's coercive pressure upon Protestants or by permitting them to organize for cult and other corporate activities. Late Jansenists granted, however, that secularization was often right and nec-

2 citations

22 Jun 2008
TL;DR: The Power and the Glory (1940) as mentioned in this paper is a classic example of a novel written in the early 20th century, where the protagonist Clotilde is surrounded by flamboyant writers and artists who make vehement speeches against the French anticlerical republic and celebrate the saints, the miracles, the ideal Catholic community of the golden Middle Ages and the necessity to imitate the poverty, humiliation and suffering of Christ.
Abstract: Introduction This paper examines the narrative representation of God in Graham Greene's Catholic novels. On the basis of examples mainly taken from the novel The Power and the Glory (1940) I aim to show that Graham Greene's God is basically a silent God, and that this representation of God is decisive for the modernity of his Catholic works. Greene's Catholic novels are often, somewhat misleadingly, connected with the literary Catholic revival (1), a term used too inclusively not only about the original current of traditional Catholic literature emerging in France in the 1880s (2), but also about the French Catholic novel of the interwar and post war period. This broad use of the term has the unfortunate effect of creating the impression that all Catholic literature written in this period is essentially traditional and static, thus concealing possible historical, theological and aesthetic changes. This paper adopts the perspective of change in one specific field of investigation, namely the narrative representation of God. I argue that an important rupture can be observed within this field between the traditional, early revival novel (1880-1914) and a more modern Catholic novel in the interwar and post war period, and that this rupture is closely related to the narrative representation of God. Whereas the early French revival novel constructs a present and communicating God, the new Catholic novel emerging after the First World War constructs an absent and silent God. These two distinct representations of God are constructed by different uses of specific narrative techniques such as characterization, plot, narrative voice and focalisation. In France this new type of Catholic novel is developed by major novelists such as Francois Mauriac, Julien Green and Georges Bernanos, and my purpose is to show that Graham Greene belongs to this group of modern novelists. I shall also try to point out some interesting parallels between the silent God in the modern Catholic novel and the hidden God in the Jansenist philosopher Blaise Pascal's apology for the Christian faith, Pensees, from 1670. My purpose is not to claim that Graham Greene shares Pascal's Jansenist views in general, but to show that he may be inspired by central aspects of Pascal's Pensees: the consistent use of the human perspective of the individual believer, to whom God necessarily appears as hidden. The present and speaking God in the early Catholic revival novel In order to show the novelty of Graham Greene's novels, I shall begin by presenting two examples of the narrative representation of God in the early revival novel. The first example is Leon Bloy's novel La femme pauvre (1897). The setting is the artistic circles of the reactionary Catholic revival movement. The heroine Clotilde is surrounded by flamboyant writers and artists who make vehement speeches against the French anticlerical republic and celebrate the saints, the miracles, the ideal Catholic community of the golden Middle Ages and the necessity to imitate the poverty, humiliation and suffering of Christ. Clotilde embodies all these religious ideas. She is a stock character endowed with the attributes of the traditional female saint: the face of a saint, a pious life in poverty borne with humble nobleness, a disposition to suffer, and mystical gifts resulting in recurrent mystical experiences, presentiments, dreams and visions. The initial prophecy made by an Orthodox missionary that one day she will be consumed by flames (3) is a central leitmotif. One example is when Clotilde wakes up surrounded by flames (her bed curtains have caught fire) after a dream of premonition in which she sees her benefactor being stabbed to death and her future husband Leopold burning to death in flames (La femme pauvre, 236-38). These predictions are not mere words or imagined inner experiences of the characters, since the predicted events actually happen at the reality level of the novel. …

2 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In the early modern Low Countries, subject to political divisions and confessional dissensions, the Catholic reform movement found its primary expression in missionary work for which the new institutes of secular priests proved to be an appropriate instrument.
Abstract: In the particular context of the early modern Low Countries, subject to political divisions and confessional dissensions, the Catholic Reform movement found its primary expression in missionary work for which the new institutes of secular priests proved to be an appropriate instrument. They fostered a new, Christ-centred spirituality and united the clergy closely around the local hierarchy. The institutional formula finally adopted was that of the Oratory, according to the inspiration of either Saint Philip Neri or Pierre de Berulle. This article analyses the laborious and complex genesis of this formula in the early modern Low Countries, the early links and long lasting relations between the two Oratories and the measure of their interrelationship, and their development towards an increasing autonomy, among each other as well as with respect to foreign authorities, until the Jansenist crisis of 1729. Finally, it shows the diverging evolution of the Berullian Oratory (including members from the United Pro...

2 citations

Book ChapterDOI
01 Jan 1996
TL;DR: Popkin this paper traced the history of the alliance between Catholic Counter Reformation thinkers and sixteenth and seventeenth century Pyrrhonian sceptics, in their efforts to undermine Calvin's epistemology of religious knowledge.
Abstract: In Chapter I of The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza, Richard Popkin offers a succinct and accurate account of the dispute over the basis of religious knowledge that was a central quarrel of the Reformation. The idea is this: In Luther’s initial criticism of Catholic practices he accepted the Catholic position that religious propositions are to be tested for truth by their agreement with Church tradition, councils, and Papal pronouncement. But in subsequent writings Luther took the decisive step of recommending replacement of the Catholic criterion by a test phrased in terms of consistency with Scripture, as interpreted by the conscience of the faithful. Popkin went on to note that Calvin transformed this simple test into an elaborate epistemology of religious knowledge without thereby denying Luther’s basic claims. Popkin then traced the history of the alliance between Catholic Counter Reformation thinkers and sixteenth and seventeenth century Pyrrhonian sceptics, in their efforts to undermine Calvin’s epistemology of religious knowledge. In Chapter VI Popkin noted the Jansenists uses of Catholic Pyrrhonism in defense of their antiphilosophical views and their opposition to rational theology. And in his seminal paper “Scepticism, Theology, and the Scientific Revolution in the Seventeenth Century,”1 Popkin clarified the ways in which the new sciences and traditional theology interfaced in the seventeenth century.

2 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
20203
20194
20182
20178
20167
20156