SAINT-CYRAN Du Vergier de HAURANNE, JEAN, Abbot of. - Jansenist, b. at Bayonne in 1581, d. at Paris, where he carried out a major part of his religious activity, on 11 Oct.
1643. S
C., so called from his appointment as abbot of the abbey of S.-C. (1620) by the bishop of Tours, together with Jansenius (q.v.) and Antoine Arnauld (q.v.), contributed to the formation of Jansenism and, in particular, to its dissemination. A friend of Jansenius, whom he met in Paris around 1610, he was more practical and positive than Jansenius: Jansenius constructs, S.-C. sets the reform in motion and gives it a mystical allure and a polemical edge.From Jansenius’ *Augustinus* he became convinced that Calvin had been Christianized (St Vincent de Paul tells of him: «he said that Calvin had not done badly, but that he had defended himself poorly»), and in Arnauld he chose the defender of this conviction. Jansenius at Bayonne and Arnauld at Paris, or more precisely at Port-Royal, represent the converging points of his friendship. At Bayonne, from 1611 onwards, he shared with Jansenius an intimate life and study of the Fathers and Councils of the Church, and with him prepared a plan for ecclesiastical reform (*Pilmo*) theological and ascetical, moral and disciplinary, which he sought to implement at the convent of Port-Royal (q.v.), where in 1633 he was introduced by Sébastien Zamet as confessor and spiritual director.
The dogmatic doctrine of S.-C. is that of Baius (q.v.) and Jansenius (q.v.) on justification, grace, and predestination. In moral doctrine too he repeats the rigorism of penance and the Eucharist, together with a desire to return to the primitive simplicity of liturgy and discipline understood in a Calvinist sense.
But above these theological ideas he raised a cry of revolt, distorting penance which expiates into penance which condemns, and prayer which unites into disputation which divides. He wished, that is, to reform the Church without the living Christ (the Pope), far from the infallible Church (Rome), fixed upon the schemes of a historical reformism that was too personal and too eager to be influenced by Protestant polemics. While Jansenius thought theoretically of freeing theology from a supposed philosophism and rationalism which he saw gathered in Scholasticism, S.-C. accompanied this practically with a lively desire to purify the Church, which he said was ensnared by errors, cabals, and curial intrigues. The Society of Jesus, he asserted, corrupts theological science with Molinism and Christian life with probabilism. His reform would therefore have attacked the Society of Jesus in both its theological and moral aspects.
A friend of Cardinal de Bérulle and St Vincent de Paul, who in vain interposed their friendly and wise reservations to his reforming zeal, he enjoyed immense favour among bishops, prelates, and pious women, such as the Countess of Chantal, for his blameless life and ascetic spirit. Ardent as a mystic, he was always ready to lose himself for his ideals, to throw himself into the fray. He had the gift of communication; he knew how to infuse into minds the same ardour that animated him, not only by force of will but almost by magical power, by that mystery with which he was in accord, and by the prophetic tone and luminous clarity with which he pronounced his decisions.
When, suspicious of his innovatory ideas, «mauvaises maximes... fausse doctrine», Cardinal Richelieu had him arrested on 14 May 1638 and imprisoned at Vincennes, where he remained until 6 Feb. 1643; in response to Condé’s entreaties to free him, the cardinal replied: «Do you not know that he is more dangerous than six armies?» This imprisonment helped to refine his ascetic spirit and to create around his name, among the Jansenists, an aura of martyrdom.
He undoubtedly had full consistency between his actions and his doctrine, which might have made him the successor of St Charles Borromeo, St Francis de Sales, and Bérulle had he succeeded in mastering his wild nature and repressing the vanity born of his erudition and the pride of his austere life. The study of Christianity, stronger and more vigorous as that of the Fathers, could thus occupy his mind for a long time without touching his heart. The *Apologie pour la Roche-poay* (Paris 1615), the various pamphlets he published, including the *Lettres chrétiennes et spirituelles* (ibid. 1645) and in particular the *Oeuvres de Petrus Aurelius* (4 vols., ibid. between 1632 and 1635) which deal with Gallicanism (q.v.); the invectives against the Jesuits of Poitiers, the slanders heaped upon Fr. Garasse—these and other manifestations of his soul betray that subtle vice which mystics call «spiritual anger». An ungrateful temperament, physical and moral ailments, the pernicious influence of the times, a *libido sciendi* that made him swear that «toutes les actions du monde ne sont rien en comparaison de la science», prevented him from reforming himself before reforming others.
But in the century in which he lived he stands, by universal confession of biographers and historians, not only as one of the most learned ecclesiastics of France, but as one of the most austere souls and most sensitive to religious problems.
BENVENUTO MATTEUCCI