BARCOS, MARTINO de. — Jansenist theologian, born at Bayonne in 1600 and died on 22 August 1678. Nephew of Jean du Vergier de Hauranne, the celebrated abbot of S. Cirano, he studied at Louvain under the guidance of Jansen, together with his cousin d'Anguibert. Secretary to his uncle after his cousin’s death, he collaborated with him in the drafting of the Petrus Aurelius (1631–46) and, with the celebrated Arnauld d’Andilly, whose son he had tutored, in that of Comunione frequente, the unfortunate source of all his future controversies. Supported by the queen mother, on 9 May 1644 he succeeded his deceased uncle in the administration of the abbey of S. Cirano, which he set about reforming;
there too, after a period of exile, he died. Together with the other Jansenist authors and in the wake of Gallicanism, he sought to shake the authority of the Roman Pontiff.
His principal works are: De l'autorité de s. Pierre et de s. Paul qui réside dans le pape successeur de ces deux apôtres, s. l. [1645], published anonymously, in which B. proposed his theory, set forth in other later publications, that the two apostles had an equal right to the title of supreme pastors of the Church. The work was condemned by the Holy Office on 24 January 1647, and on the 29th the related doctrine was also specifically condemned (Denz-U. 965); La grandeur de l'église romaine établie sur l'autorité de s. Pierre et de s. Paul (s. l. 1645); Epistola ad Innocentium de suprema ecclesiae romanae amplitudine (s. l. [1645], both placed on the Index on 24 January 1647); Éclaircissements de quelques objections que l'on a formées contre la grandeur de l'église romaine (s. l. 1646); Quae sit s. Augustini et doctrinae ejus auctoritas in Ecclesia (Paris 1650); De la foi, de l'espérance et de la charité (2 vols., Antwerp s. d., reissued at Châlons 1691); Exposition de la foi de l'église romaine touchant la grâce et la prédestination (Mons 1696; placed on the Index on 24 April 1697).