ESPEN, ZEGER-BERNHARD, van. — Belgian theologian and canonist, secular priest, b. at Louvain on 9 July 1646, d. at Amersfoort (Holland) on 2 October 1728. Ordained a priest in 1673 and awarded a law degree at Louvain in 1675, he there undertook, with rare success, the responsibility for the « leçon de six semaines » (summer course during the holidays); subsequently appointed to the chair of canon law at the same University, he remained there for nearly half a century, quickly acquiring a reputation as an eminent teacher and learned canonist, consulted by bishops and princes.
A sympathizer with the Port-Royal movement from its beginnings, he soon revealed himself to be a convinced follower of the father of Jansenism. All his numerous publications, which were placed on the Index three times (decrees of the Holy Office, 22 April 1704; 14 November 1713; 18 November 1732), are subtly imbued with that regalist-Jansenist spirit which later formed the basis of the Febronian system, of which van E. is rightly regarded as the precursor. Nicolò de Hontheim (Febronius) was in fact his pupil at Louvain.
As early as 1707 he came close to being condemned for his errors. In 1725, for having supported the cause of the cathedral Chapter and of the archbishop of Utrecht, Cornelio Steenoven, arbitrarily elected and consecrated in opposition to Rome, he was suspended a divinis, removed from his chair, and deprived of his academic dignity and prerogatives. In 1727, invited by his archbishop to subscribe to a profession of faith according to the Tridentine formula and to declare his adherence to the bull Unigenium, he preferred to flee to Holland, first to Maastricht and then to Amersfoort, where he died the following year, at the age of 82, blind.
Apart from their delicate doctrinal position vis-à-vis the Church, the works of van E., and especially his masterpiece, Ius ecclesiasticum universum (Louvain 1700, 11 editions in the first 50 years alone), the work that least reveals the author’s errors, undoubtedly possess undeniable scientific value, both in content and in form and method. Van E. may be called a felicitous precursor of the modern systematic institutional method. His contribution to the historical study of the various canonical institutions is noteworthy.
In addition to the principal work already mentioned and numerous smaller publications on various ecclesiastical questions, he also wrote: Tractatus historico-canonicus (Leiden 1603); Brevis commentarius ad Decretum Gratiani (Cologne 1732); Commentarius in canones iuris veteris ac novi (posthumous work, Louvain 1759). Van E. is frequently cited by Benedict XIV.