Jansen, Cornelius (The Elder)
JANSEN, CORNELIUS (THE ELDER)
Bishop and exegete; b. Hulst, Flanders, 1510; d. Ghent, April 11, 1576. After his studies at Ghent and Louvain (S.T.L. 1534), he taught Sacred Scripture at the Premonstratensian Abbey of Tongerloo until 1542. After some pastoral activity, he was appointed dean of the school of theology at Louvain (1560). In 1563 he attended the last sessions of the Council of Trent as university delegate of philip ii, King of Spain. He became bishop of Ghent (1568) at the command of Pope St. pius v and carried out the Tridentine decrees with the greatest exactness. His commentaries on the Scriptures, in which he insisted on the primacy of the literal over the so-called mystical sense, made him one of the most distinguished Catholic exegetes of the 16th century. Most valuable were his works on the Gospels, the Concordia evangelica (1549) and the Commentarius in concordiam et totam historiam evangelicam (1572). Among his other works were Commentarius in Proverbia Solomonis (1567), Commentarius in Ecclesiasticum (1569), Commetarius in omnes Psalmos Davidicos (1569), and Annotationes in librum Sapientia (1577). All were published at Louvain.
Bibliography: l. willaert, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner, 10 v. (2d, new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 5:869. p. schlager, The Catholic Encyclopedia, ed. c.g. herbermann, 16 v. (New York 1907–14; suppl. 1922) 8:284.
[j. j. mahoney]