Quesnel was born in
Paris and graduated from the
Sorbonne with distinction in 1653. He joined the
French Oratory in 1657, where he soon became prominent. He took a leading part in scholarly controversy, for example against
Joseph Anthelmi. His Jansenist sympathies led to his banishment from Paris in 1681, following the
formulary controversy. He took refuge with the friendly
Cardinal Coislin,
bishop of Orléans. Four years later, anticipating persecution, he fled to
Brussels and resided with
Antoine Arnauld. He remained there until 1703, when he was arrested by order of the archbishop of
Mechelen. After a three month imprisonment, he made a dramatic escape and settled at
Amsterdam, where he spent the remainder of his life. After Antoine Arnauld's death in 1694, Quesnel was generally regarded as the leader of the Jansenist party. His () played almost as large a part in its literature as
Jansen's
Augustinus itself. Quesnel's book was a devotional commentary on the
New Testament, in which he explained the aims and ideals of the Jansenist party better than any earlier writer. As such, it became the chief object of
Jesuit attack. It appeared in many forms and under various titles, the original germ going back as far as 1668; the first complete edition was published in 1692. The
papal bull Unigenitus, in which 101 sentences from the were condemned as
heretical, was obtained from
Clement XI on 8 September 1713. Quesnel died at Amsterdam in 1719.
Unigenitus marked the end of Catholic toleration of Jansenist doctrine. ==Notes==