8
August 1694 A.D. After
Battling Pope and King, Arnauld Exiled
Graves,
Dan. “After Battling Pope and King,
Arnauld Exiled.” Christianity.com. Jul
2007. http://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1601-1700/after-battling-pope-and-king-arnauld-exiled-11630178.html. Accessed 16 May 2014.
It was a fateful day for French Roman Catholicism
when in 1633 friends and family turned a student named Antoine Arnauld from law
to theology. Antoine successfully defended a
bachelor's thesis upholding a theory of grace based on teachings of St.
Augustine. It was on the subject of grace that he became an unrelenting
fighter. The grace that saves souls was only for a few people whom God had
chosen, he taught, and it was irresistible.
Politics affected Antoine's next steps. One of his
advisers was Abbé de Saint-Cyran. Cardinal Richelieu, France's powerful
statesman, imprisoned Saint-Cyran, who disagreed with him. Richelieu's
confessor was a leading theologian whose view of grace disagreed with
Antoine's. Because of the Saint-Cyran connection and the disagreement over
grace, Richelieu blocked Antoine from membership in the Society of the
Sorbonne. (He did not get in until after the cardinal's death).
Antoine was the twentieth child of his parents. His
father, also named Antoine, was a well-known lawyer, who became famous when he
defended the University of Paris against the Jesuits. Dislike of the Jesuits
flowed in the younger Antoine's blood. He wrote a book against their morals.
Dislike soon flamed afresh. Bishop Cornelius Jansen
wrote a book titled Augustinus, which set forward a theory of grace similar to
Antoine's. Jansen argued that one should take communion seldom and only after
careful preparation. Some propositions from his book were condemned by the
pope. Jansen's followers claimed that the propositions were not actually found
in Jansen's book or were misinterpreted.
At any rate, Antoine wrote a pamphlet on communion
in which he set forth Jansen's ideas. The Jesuits attacked this. They said
communion was a means of God's forgiving grace, not a sacrament to be taken
only by people who had perfect hearts. The war of words was on. It was so
intense that Antoine retired from public life. The next year he published an
anonymous defense of Jansen's teachings. An expert on logic, he presented his
ideas with some skill.
The Jesuits were his principle enemies whereas the
Dominicans sided with him. So did the French scientist and writer Blaise
Pascal. In defense of Jansenism, Pascal wrote the well-known Provincial
Letters.
The Sorbonne censured Antoine. He was degraded from
the priesthood. However, Louis XIV's conflict with Protestants and the
intervention of Pope Clement IX brought about a truce between the Jansenists
and Jesuits. The king received Antoine at court and Antoine wrote a blast
against Protestants.
Antoine was still a Jansenist, however. Ten years
later, persecution of the Jansenists resumed. Louis wanted religious unity in
his realm. With the permission of the king, Antoine went into exile in the
Netherlands from where he continued to write in support of Jansenism. Whatever
either side taught on God's grace, neither showed much grace for the other in
this lengthy battle. Nor did Antoine show much grace in his battle with another
priest, Nicolas Melebranche, over the nature of ideas. Both men used harsh
words toward each other.
Antoine died on this day, August 8, 1694. His
arguments for a universal grammar helped found modern linguistics. His position
on logic had a strong influence on its methods of teaching for two centuries.
Bibliography:
1. "Arnauld." Catholic
Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton, 1907.
2. "Arnauld, Antoine."
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Paul Edwards. Macmillan and the Free
Press, 1967.
3. "Arnauld, Antoine."
Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, edited by F. L. Cross and E. A.
Livingstone. Oxford, 1997.
4. "Antoine Arnauld."
http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/
Mathematicians/Arnauld.html.< /li>
5. "Antoine Arnauld
(1612-1694)." http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/
philosophers/arnauld.html
Last updated July, 2007.
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