FIGURISMO. — A system of interpreting Sacred Scripture according to which the events and figures of the Bible would be prefigurations of events and personages in the history of the Church, especially of the eighteenth century. It is due to G. B. de Sesne de Ménilles, abbot of Etémare (1682–1770), a Jansenist, and is connected with the convulsionary movement (v. MEDARDO), with the aim of deriving from this interpretation of Scripture grounds for defending the condemned heresy. According to Etémare, the general apostasy of the Church occurred with the universal acceptance of the bull Unigenitus; the false doctors are the pope and all who oppose the doctrine of efficacious Grace, representatives of Pelagianism and lax morality. The Roman Church is already foretold in the Beast of the Apocalypse;
Saint-Cyran is Mattathias of the Maccabees; Arnauld, Judas Maccabeus; Balaam’s ass, all the priests who, under the vexations of the bishops, accept the bull Unigenitus, which, when it prophesies, signifies Mother Angelica Arnauld and all the nuns who have openly declared themselves against the Roman constitution. The promulgation of the bull Unigenitus and its acceptance are a sure sign of the end of the world, of the conversion of the Jews, and of the appearance of the prophet Elijah. Elijah would in fact reappear on earth at the head of the convulsionaries and restore the faith in the sense and doctrine of Quesnel and the appellants.
This novelty gave rise, more or less clandestinely, to pamphlets such as De l’avènement d’Elie; Confectures des derniers temps and various prophecies, including one that indicated a Jew as the future pope. Etémare’s disciples—the Joubert, De Fourquevaux, and the two Des Essarts—developed their master’s ideas to the point of forming a genuine sect, joined by Jansenist bishops such as Colbert, Spane, and Varlet; publicists such as the editor of the Jansenist periodical La roche; and, it was claimed, the deacon Paris himself, whose death gave rise to convulsionism. Not only were the personages prefigured in the Bible identified, but the dates of events were also determined. The time of Elijah’s appearance was already known, and preparations were being made to go out to meet him; on 24 March 1730 the war of the apocalyptic beast had begun with the royal declaration of acceptance and was to end in September 1733. It was necessary, however, that the measure should be full, that the earth should be abominated by sin, so that the final judgment for the wicked and the reward for the good might take place. To hasten this divine division, some even went so far as to commit every kind of enormity. Meanwhile, here and there, precursors appeared who declared themselves sent by God to announce the judgment beforehand. The abbot Vaillant claimed to be Elijah and founded the “Elians.” Gian Roberto Cose, “Brother Augustine,” called himself servant of the servants of God, announcer of Elijah, and the fourth person of the Trinity; he placed himself on a table in the position of the Immaculate Lamb and demanded adoration. Moved by these and other figurist appeals, the convulsionaries in Paris organized nocturnal expiatory processions to obtain the renewal of the Church. They took the road to Port-Royal, stopped at the monastery’s ruins, and the convulsionaries killed an animal and marked the houses with its blood as far as Versailles—that is, those houses which were to be spared by the destroying angel at Elijah’s coming. They even cast lots for one of their number to be crucified in expiation; the lot fell to the abbot Sévin, and they had already begun to scourge him. But when he resisted and declared that such a sacrifice had to be voluntary, and that, in imitation of Jesus’ Passion in the Garden of Olives, spiritual preparation was necessary, they granted him twenty-four hours so that he might acquire the requisite disposition of soul; but when the time had elapsed, he was nowhere to be found. Such profanations seem incredible today, yet they are the natural conclusion of a degeneration caused by rebellion against authority and the dogmas of the Faith, together with the superstitious fanaticism that always takes hold of souls proud and resistant to discipline. This degeneration and fanaticism provided weapons for unbelief, as in the case of the sceptic David Hume apropos of the “miracles” of the deacon Paris (Essays and treatises on several subjects, II, London 1777, p. 133).