GERBERON, GABRIEL. - Benedictine theologian, born at St-Calais (diocese of Mans) on 12 Aug. 1628, died at St-Denis on 29 March 1711. He taught rhetoric, philosophy, and theology in several monasteries, but encountered opposition and complaints on account of his unorthodox doctrine. He was then directed to philological studies on the Fathers of the Church and sent to St-Germain-des-Prés in Paris; the fruit of his work was the edition of the works of St. Anselm of Aosta.
Perhaps this was the quietest period of his life. A follower of Jansenist theories, he placed all his reputation as a polemicist and his patristic and theological learning at their service, thereby drawing accusations that led his superiors to relegate him to Corbie, where he was also subprior. However, a warrant for his arrest on the charge of having participated against the court in the regal question of 1682 forced him to flee and abandon France. Refusing the [offer of] the [Spanish] Netherlands, he even laid aside the religious habit and, under the false name of Augustin Kergré, devoted himself to a violent defense of his ideas and his conduct. Because of the war between Holland and France, he withdrew to Rotterdam and then to Brussels. New accusations led in 1689 to his arrest, ordered by the Archbishop of Mechelen, and to the trial against him, in which he was condemned as a Jansenist and as a rebel against the Holy See, and expelled from the diocese and the country. He remained in prison at Amiens and then at Vincennes until 1710; and only after signing a profession of faith was he sent by his superiors to the abbey of St-Denis. There G. wrote yet another letter to the Pope to explain the meaning of his signature appended to the said profession of faith.
G. wrote more than a hundred works. In his output as a writer, theological and moral works prevail: *Apologia pro Ruperto abbate Tuitiensi* (Paris 1669); *S. Anselmi... Opera* (ibid. 1675; PL 158-59); *Le miroir de la piété chrétienne* (Brussels 1676); *Mémoir historique de ce qui s'est passé depuis l'année 1647 jusqu'en 1653 touchant les cinq propositions tant à Paris qu'à Rome* (Cologne 1676); *Traité historique sur la grâce et la prédestination par l'abbé de St-Julien* (Paris 1699); *Histoire générale du jansénisme* (Amsterdam 1711), etc.