CONTENSON, GUILLAUME-VINCENT. - Dominican theologian and preacher, b. at Auvillar (Tarn-et-Garonne) in 1641, d. at Creil (Oise) on 26 Dec. 1674. He entered the Dominicans at Toulouse (1636) and, after completing his studies, taught philosophy at Albi (1664-63), polemicizing against the Protestants who infested the place, then theology at Toulouse (1666) and in many seminaries, also carrying on a vast activity as an orator.
In the meantime he worked on his only work, the Theologia mentis et cordis (Lyons 1668 ff.), completed by Fr. A. Massoulié (1632-1706). Perhaps drawing inspiration from the Théologie affective of Louis Bail (1610-60), a course of meditation rather than of dogmatics, C. poured into it his vast learning and a vigilant theological sense. Departing from scholastic aridity, he enriched each thesis (speculatio) with a reflexio, often interwoven with patristic passages, in which, drawing motives from the doctrine set out, he offers succulent matter for meditation and thus unites the affective activity of the heart with the abstract inquiry of the mind. As a good disciple of Baron, C. fought probabilism: his dissertation De novello probabilitatis commento (Theol. mentis etc., lib. VI, diss. III) has been judged prolix and somewhat excessive. St. Alphonsus regards him as a rigorous moralist. In the Jansenist question C. was less decided about what Jansenius would actually have meant. His work has nevertheless been fortunate and many editions of it are known; note in particular that of Venice of 1727 (2 vols. in-fol.).