1585–1638

Bishop Theologian

Education and Theological Influences.

In 1602, Cornelius Jansen entered the University of Louvain, then in the southern Netherlands (today modern Belgium). From his earliest student days he was affected by the teaching of his professor, Jacques Janson, who taught a form of theology that had been developed in the later sixteenth century by the Flemish theologian, Michel de Bay. De Bay's works taught that humankind was utterly wicked and could not hope to achieve salvation without an infusion of God's grace. In addition, his theology stressed divine election, the idea that God chose a small number of sinners to receive his gift of grace. Such teaching was part of the traditional orthodoxy of Roman Catholicism and stretched back to the writings of the ancient bishop and theologian St. Augustine (345–430). In the overheated world of Reformation and Counter-Reformation polemic, however, the Catholic church had come at...