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JANSENISTS JANUS. 



and the work of persecution finally crowned by the bull 

 Unigenitus (in 1713), which was forced from the pope 

 by Le Tellier. This bull, dictated no less by gross 

 ignorance than by furious thirst of vengeance, con- 

 demned 101 propositions from Quesnel's Testament, 

 which, according to this decree, were to be under- 

 stood only in a Jansenist sense, although they were, 

 in fact, mostly scriptural sentences, forms from the 

 liturgy, and articles of faith taken from the orthodox 

 church fathers. The bull, therefore, only excited 

 indignation and contempt, and increased the numbers 

 of the Jansenists. Louis XIV. died in 1715, during 

 the efforts that were made to carry it into effect in 

 France ; and, taking advantage of the indifference of 

 the regent, Noailles, with the majority of the French 

 clergy, appealed from this decree of the pope to a 

 general council. 



Although the Jansenists were the original authors 

 of this appeal, yet all the appellants were not Jan- 

 senists (see Unigenitus); but they all met with the 

 same treatment, the ministers Dubois and Fleury, 

 out of complaisance to the pope, insisting on the un- 

 conditional reception of the bull, and rigorously per- 

 secuting all recusants. Great numbers of Jansenists 

 emigrated to the Netherlands ; the power of their 

 party rapidly declined, and the miracles (cures and 

 sudden conversions) at the tomb of the abbe de Paris 

 (who died 1727, an early victim to voluntary penan- 

 ces) found credit only with enthusiasts and the Paris- 

 ian populace. The fanatical excesses of their party, 

 from 1731, helped to ruin their cause. The frenzies 

 of the Convulsionaries, or those who were seized with 

 spasms and ecstasies at the tomb of this wonder- 

 working saint- of the Secourists, who availed them- 

 selves of external means to produce convulsions, and 

 had themselves tormented witii kicks, blows, and 

 stabs of the Naturalists and Figurists, who some- 

 times strove to represent the helplessness of human 

 nature unaided by grace, and sometimes the purity 

 of the Christian church, by indecent exposures of 

 the body of the Discernants and Melangists, who 

 divided on the question whether the raptures were 

 produced by God or the devil these, and other fa- 

 natical sects of Jansenists and Appellants, must have 

 necessarily made a thing, of which the world was 

 already tired, utterly ridiculous ; and the energetic 

 measures of the police, the continual burning of Jan- 

 senist books, the frequent imprisonments, but, most 

 of all, the very natural subsiding of enthusiasm, at 

 last put an end to the party. From this time, Jan- 

 senism ceased to exist in France, as a public and 

 professed doctrine. Its pure morality and strict 

 theology always gained for it friends, however, even 

 in that country; and a part of the clergy, by their 

 willingness to take the constitutional oath, during 

 the revolution, showed that they would more readily 

 renounce the authority of the pope than their own 

 opinion. But though the old division of the Jansen- 

 ists and Molinists continued up to the latest times, in 

 the opposition between those who took and those who 

 refused the oath (pretres insermentes) , yet we find 

 but one separate society of the Jansenists, publicly 

 acknowledged as such, and that in the Netherlands, 

 which, in accordance with the resolution of the Jan- 

 senist provincial synod at Utrecht (1763), does not 

 separate from the Catholic church, and even respects 

 the pope as its spiritual head, but denies his infalli- 

 bility, rejects the bull Unigenitus, and appeals from 

 it to a general council. It maintains, also, the doc- 

 trines of Augustine, upholds moral strictness, and 

 regards the inward service of God as the greatest 

 proof of piety. These Jansenists, who call them- 

 selves, by preference, the disciples of St Augustine, 

 have had, since 1723, an archbishop of their own at 

 Utrecht, and bishops at Haarlem and Deventer, 



forming a clergy which, being subject to the civil ait 

 thority, without riches or power, performs its duties 

 so much the more faithfully, and exercises a well 

 ordered church government, which they owe to the 

 protection of Protestants, while they are still con- 

 demned by the pope as apostates and schismatics. 



JANUARIUS, ST, bishop of Benevento, was 

 beheaded at Puzzuoli, in the beginning of the fourth 

 century, a martyr to the Christian faith, and is hon- 

 oured as the patron saint of the kingdom of Naples. 

 In honour of him, the order of St Januarius was 

 established there, in 1738. His body lies buried in 

 the cathedral at Naples; but his head, with two 

 phials of his blood, which a pious matron caught, as 

 the tradition is, at his execution, is preserved in a 

 separate chapel. Of this blood, the Neapolitans 

 assert, that as soon as it is brought near the head of 

 the saint, it begins to flow, however hard congealed 

 it was before. A trial is made every year, on the 

 first Sunday of May ; it is believed, that the patron 

 saint is particularly propitious if the blood moves 

 briskly in the phials, and appears of a clear red, 

 while the opposite is regarded as presaging some ill 

 to the country. The religious phrenzy which pre- 

 vailed at certain festivals of the ancients, has a coun- 

 terpart in the clamour for the liquefaction of the 

 blood of St Januarius, in the chapel of this saint, if 

 it is delayed long after the commencement of the 

 celebration. The writer, who was present on one of 

 these occasions, could hardly determine whether the 

 prevailing tone was that of prayer or imprecation. 

 The reproaches against the saint are not a few. 

 Sometimes, two or three days elapse before the blood 

 becomes liquid ; it is in a bottle, which stands upon 

 the altar, and is lifted, now and then, by a priest, to 

 show to the people whether it has become liquid or 

 not; if it has liquefied, all throng to the altar, and, 

 kneeling down, kiss the offered bottle, and then the 

 priest presses it against the head of the faithful. It 

 is said, that when the French occupied Naples for the 

 first time, the blood would not become liquid. The 

 French general, apprehensive of a commotion, sent 

 to the archbishop, intimating, that if the saint's blood 

 did not soon run, the archbishop's might. The saint 

 had compassion on the servant, and the miracle took 

 place in due season. 



JANUS ; one of the primitive deities of the Ro- 

 mans, entirely unknown to the Greeks, and supposed 

 to be of Pelasgic origin. The Pelasgi believed in 

 two supreme deities, under which they represented 

 nature and her productions. Sometimes they were 

 described as two different beings, male and female, 

 and sometimes as united in a single person. This deity 

 passed from the Pelasgi to the Latins or aborigines, 

 and received from them the name of Janus. In him 

 they worshipped the god of gods (as he is called in 

 the Salian hymns), the ruler of the year, and of all 

 human fortunes, the sovereign disposer of war and 

 peace. He was represented with a sceptre in the 

 right hand, and a key in the left, seated on a glitter- 

 ing throne ; he was also represented with two faces 

 (an old and a youthful one), of which one looked for- 

 ward and the other behind. Some conceive this to 

 be a symbol of wisdom which sees into the past and 

 the future ; others a symbol of the changes of the 

 year, the vicissitudes of the seasons, or of the several 

 quarters of the world, as he was sometimes painted 

 with four faces, and of his double office of opening 

 and shutting the gate of heaven. Plutarch explained 

 it by supposing that Janus had introduced agriculture 

 from Thessaly into Latium, and hence one head 

 looked towards Latium, the other towards Greece. 

 Some believe that Janus was blended in one person 

 with the other supreme deity of the original inhabi- 

 tants of Italy, viz. Saturn. In reference to this cir- 



