Quesnel, Pasquier (Paschase)

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QUESNEL, PASQUIER (PASCHASE)

French oratorian, theologian, and spiritual writer, noted for his part in the history of jansenism; b. Paris, July 14, 1634; d. Amsterdam, Dec. 2, 1719. A pupil of the Jesuits at Clermont College and later a student at the Sorbonne (Bachelor in Theology in 1657), Quesnel entered the Oratory in 1657, was ordained in 1659, and was first assigned to Oratorian novitiate, rue Saint-Honoré, as master of ceremonies and librarian. Strongly imbued with bÉrulle's spirituality, he was from that time on devoted to Augustinianism, but he had little regard for Jansen's thought, which he considered too archaic and systematic. He also had no difficulty in signing on four occasions, between 1661 and 1665, the formulary condemning the book augustinus.

From 1666 to 1669 he was second director of the Seminary Saint-Magloire. In this environment strongly influenced by Jansenism, he became closely allied with Antoine arnauld, who was hiding there. He then began his career as a writer and a polemicist. Having returned to the house on the rue Saint-Honoré, he resumed his teaching and proved to be more and more Augustinian and Gallican, at the same time endeavoring to remain faithful to Thomism in essential points. In 1675 he won the attention of the learned world by a scholarly edition of the works of St. Leo the Great, but the Gallican bias of the notes and essays that accompanied the text caused it to be placed on the Index. In 1678 the archbishop of Paris, F. de Harlay, demanded his withdrawal. He was sent to Orléans, but in 1684 he refused to subscribe to the anti-Jansenist decrees issued by the assembly of the Oratory. He preferred exile and in February 1685 rejoined Antoine Arnauld in his retreat in Brussels. He was his faithful companion until the latter's death in 1694.

Faithful to his moderate Augustinianism and his Thomism, Quesnel tried at first not to arouse the doctrinal controversies then dormant. The three volumes of his Tradition de l'église romaine sur la prédestination des saints et sur la grâce efficace, published from 1687 to 1690, presented grace in an entirely Bérullian perspective as a prolongation of the Incarnation. He also continued to devote himself to the composition of spiritual works; the most famous of these productions continues to be the Prières chrétiennes (1687), reprinted several times. It is imbued with a totally Bérullian spirituality.

Quesnel used these years of relative peace to transform Jansenism into a veritable organized party. Energetic, positive, methodical, and tenacious, he always possessed the qualities of a leader, which Arnauld lacked. Within a few years, he established a vast secret network of communication and information that operated in almost all the large cities of Europe. The awakening of the disputes provoked around 1700 by the intransigent Jansenists attracted attention to his Nouveau Testament avec des réflexions morales (1695), in which he expressed not only his Augustinianism bordering on Jansenism, but also his Richerism, i.e., his attachment to the extreme Gallicanism formerly professed, around 1615, by Edmond richer. On May 30, 1703, he was arrested in Brussels by order of the king of Spain, Louis XIV's grandson, and put in the jail of the archbishopric of Malines, whence he escaped on the following September 13. He settled in Amsterdam and reconstructed his network, which had been dispersed when his papers had been seized. He took an increasingly active part in the conflicts aroused by the Cas de conscience affair and by the bull Vineam Domini (1705). In 1710 Quesnel began with Fénelon, an adversary of Jansenism, a bitter dispute that indirectly provoked the condemnation by the bull unigenitus (Sept. 8, 1713) of 101 propositions taken from the Réflexions morales.

In the years that followed, in a multitude of works of every kind, Quesnel did not cease to protest the complete orthodoxy of his thought. After having hoped for an opportunity to return to France at the beginning of the Regency, he preferred to give up the idea, but his authority over the Jansenist party continued to be very great. At the beginning of 1718 he formally adhered to the appeal of the four bishops to the general council. He died in the same sentiments, after a short illness, leaving behind him a very considerable work, for which the bibliography remains to be compiled.

Bibliography: j. carreyre, Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, ed. a. vacant et al. (Paris 1903–50) 13.2:1460–1535. j. a. g. tans, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner (Freiburg 1957–65) 8:935–936; Pasquier Quesnel et les Pays-Bas (Paris-Groningen 1960), Dictionnaire de spiritualité ascétique et mystique, Doctrine et histoire, ed. m. viller et al (Paris 1932–) XII–2, col. 2732–2746. l. ceyssens and j. a. g. tans, "Pasquier Quesnel," Autour de l'Unigenitus (Leuven 1987). j. a.g. tans and h. schmitz du moulin, La correspondance de P. Quesnel. Invantaire (Leuven 1989); Index analytique, 2 v. (Leuven 1993), bibliography.