Jean du Vergier de Hauranne

Jean du Vergier de Hauranne, abbé de Saint-Cyran, in a portrait from 1645 or 1646.

Jean du Vergier de Hauranne, Abbé of Saint-Cyran (1581–1643) was a French monk who introduced Jansenism into France.

In the early 17th century, Jean du Vergier de Hauranne studied theology at the Catholic University of Leuven. He formed a friendship with fellow student Cornelius Jansen and, as the wealthier of the two, became Jansen's patron for a number of years, getting Jansen a job as a tutor in Paris in 1606. Two years later, he got Jansen a position teaching at the episcopal (or "bishop's") college in du Vergier’s hometown of Bayonne. The duo studied the Church Fathers together, with a special focus on the thought of Augustine of Hippo, until both left Bayonne in 1617.

Du Vergier became the abbot of Saint-Cyran and was thus generally known as the Abbé de Saint-Cyran for the rest of his life. He kept on corresponding with Jansen, urging him to prepare his book Augustinus, the source of the Jansenist teachings. He became spiritual director and confessor of the convent of Port-Royal, which under his leadership from 1633 to 1636 became a center of Jansenism.

After the death of his friend Bérulle, he became the leader of a group of devotees, allied with the Parlement of Paris, which brought him into conflict with the French prime minister, Cardinal Richelieu. In 1638, Richelieu had him to be imprisoned at Vincennes, where he remained until after the Cardinal's death in 1642. Shortly afterwards, Saint-Cyran died.

In conjunction with Jansen, Saint-Cyran insisted that love of God was fundamental, and that only contrition, and not simple attrition, could save a person. The debate between the respective roles of attrition and contrition was one of the motives of his imprisonment.^[1] However, he remained hesitant on this matter, and in prison signed a declaration in favor of attrition.^[2]

References

1. ^ Pascal, Les Provinciales - Pensées et opuscules divers, Lgf/Le Livre De Poche, La Pochothèque, 2004, edited by Philippe Sellier & Gérard Ferreyrolles^{[clarification needed]}, p. 430-431.(French)
2. ^ J. Orcibal, La Spiritualité de Saint-Cyran, Paris, 1962, p. 114, quoted by Gérard Ferreyrolles^{[clarification needed]}, p. 430-431.

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Name	Hauranne, Jean Du Vergier De
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Date of birth	1581
Place of birth
Date of death	1643
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