ESPEN, ZEGER-BERNHARD, van. - Belgian theologian and canonist, secular priest, b. at Louvain 9 July 1645, d. at Amersfoort (Holland) 2 Oct. 1728. Ordained priest in 1673 and graduated in law at Louvain in 1675, he discharged there, with rare success, the duties of the “leçon de six semaines” (summer course for vacations); then, at the same university, he was appointed to the chair of Canon Law, remaining in it for almost fifty years, and soon winning fame as an eminent teacher and learned canonist, consulted by bishops and princes.
From the beginning he sympathized with the movement of Port-Royal, and soon revealed himself as a convinced follower of the father of Jansenism. All his numerous publications, thrice placed on the Index (decrees of the Holy Office 22 Apr. 1704; 14 Nov. 1713; 18 Nov. 1732), are subtly imbued with that regalist-Ganzian spirit which later formed the basis of the Febronian system, of which van E. is justly considered the precursor. Nicholas de Hontheim (Febronius) was in fact his pupil at Louvain.
Already in 1707 he narrowly escaped condemnation for his errors. In 1725, for having supported the cause of the cathedral chapter of Utrecht against the archbishop, Cornelius Steenoven, who had been arbitrarily elected and consecrated in defiance of Rome, he was suspended a divinis, deprived of his chair, and stripped of 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 adhesion to the bull Unigenitus, he preferred to flee to Holland, first to Maëstrich 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 notably his masterpiece: Ius ecclesiasticum universum (Louvain 1700, 11 eds. in the first 50 years), the work which least reveals the author’s errors, undoubtedly possess a noteworthy scientific value, both for their content and for their form and method. Van E. may be called a happy precursor of his age, but certainly not of his own book. The work was published in 1728, but was certainly not read in Italy.
His modern attachment brought him violent attacks from many quarters, also on account of his doctrine not always free from inaccuracies. Failing health prevented him from going again to Trent, at the resumption of the Council; however, he maintained frequent epistolary contacts with the theologians who took part in II. His most important work is the De Eucharistia eiusque adoratione libri quinque, published posthumously at Paris (1753); mention should also be made of: Institution du prince chrétien (Lyons 1548), Traicté contre l'erreur éclairé et renouvelé des prédestinés (ibid. 1548), De clandestinis matrimoniis (Paris 1561), De continentia (ibid. 1595) and other works of religious controversy.