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Document De Recherche Du Laboratoire D'économie D Document de Recherche du Laboratoire d’Écon omie d’Orléans Working Paper Series, Economic Research Department of the University of Orléans (LEO), France DR LEO 2020 - 2 1 The Relationship Between Theology and Economics: The Contributions of the Early Jansenism Maxime MENUET Mise en ligne / Online : 2 5 / 10 / 2020 Laboratoire d’Économie d’Orléans Collegium DEG Rue de Blois - BP 26739 45067 Orléans Cedex 2 Tél. : (33) (0)2 38 41 70 37 e - mail : leo@univ - orleans.fr www.leo - univ - orleans.fr/ The Relationship Between Theology and Economics: The Contributions of the Early Jansenism* Maxime Menuet LEO, CNRS, University of Orleans, France Abstract This article reassesses the links between the origins of political economy and Christian theology during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries by focusing on the beginnings of the Jansenist movement—a powerful and intellectually rich Christian movement of the time in France, Italy, Austria, and Holland. This paper examines how the pessimistic view of human nature, the concept of human self-love, and the natural inclination of human beings to seek pleasure were pivotal in the emergence of ideas in political economy. Based on these theological findings, the present article aims to reveal the different ways in which early Jansenism affected economics through (i) the original vision of labour that contrasted with both the Protestant approach and Catholic doctrine, creating a distinctive vision of poverty; and (ii) the idea that self-interest can produce a social optimum, associated with Pascal’s theory of “itus and reditus”. Keywords: Jansenism, theology, social optimum, self-love, labour, political economy * Correspondence may be addressed to [email protected]. I owe special thanks to Arnaud Orain for his encouragement and very helpful comments. I thank Annie L. Cot, Muriel Dal Pont-Legrand, Patrick Villieu and participants at the Charles Gide Workshops 2019 (Montreal) for comments. The usual disclaimer applies. No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author. !1 Introduction Two views have long persisted in the history of economic ideas regarding the origins of political economy: its development throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was depicted as (i) the progressive emergence of a new science eschewing religious concerns; and (ii) this time was a secular age associated with a “triumphant philosophical spirit”. Currently two strands of literature challenge these views. On the one hand, following the research agenda initiated by Faccarello ([1986] 1999, 2008, 2014), many studies describe the “secularisation” of economic science as originating in reaction to the theological revival of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.1 On the other hand, some historical works (e.g. Van Kley, 1986, 2006; Cottret, 1998; and Maire, 1998) emphasise that the political and social debates of the pre-Revolutionary period were deeply influenced by Christian beliefs and that religious movements themselves were active contributors to those debates. Against this background, following the pioneering work of Max Weber ([1905] 2002) characterising a “Protestant ethic”, the history of economic ideas is confronted with the challenge of reassessing the connections between the origin of political economy and Christian theology. The present paper addresses this challenge by focusing on Jansenism, the most powerful and intellectually richest of the controversial Christian movements of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in France, Italy, Austria, and Holland, and which arose out of the familiar theological problem of reconciling divine grace and human freedom. Intellectually Jansenism played a crucial role in theology and contributed to the emergence of political economic thought in the second half of the eighteenth century. For example, the pioneering works of Perrot ([1984] 1992) and Faccarello ([1986] 1999) highlight how the early Jansenists subscribed to the proto-“invisible hand” theory, as is particularly evident from the works of Pierre Le Pesant de Boisguilbert (1746–1714). In an influential paper, Orain demonstrates that “in taking a step away from theodicy, millenarianism, and divine interventions, … Jansenism promoted a new method and new ideas that had an impact on the future economists they taught, and even beyond that, on the Enlightenment” (Orain 2014: 484-485). Historically Jansenism began as a theological and societal project initiated by Cornelius Jansen (1585–1638), Bishop of Ypres and known as Jansenisus, and Jean Duvergier de Hauranne (1581– 1643), Abbé de Saint-Cyran. Theologically Jansen developed a pessimistic application of 1 See Faccarello (2017) for more on “secularisation”. !2 Augustinian thought in his thesis Augustinius (1641): only grâce efficace [efficacious grace], which God distributed sparingly to believers, could save the soul.2 The book immediately sparked controversy. The Jesuits criticised Jansen for repeating Calvin’s mistakes. In this context, the term “Jansenism” was first used as a pejorative expression by Jansen’s opponents from 1643, after which it served as a generic term for a large and diverse circle of scholars who agreed with Jansen’s reading of Augustine. From the societal perspective, Jansen and Saint-Cyran’s project took the form of the Port-Royal experiment involving three communities: (i) the nuns of the Cistercian convent of Port-Royal des Champs in Paris and the Chevreuse valley for whom Saint-Cyran was the spiritual director; (ii) the group of “Solitaires” [“hermits”], including the theologians Antoine Arnauld (1612–1694) and Pierre Nicole (1625–1695), who lived in the countryside near Port-Royal abbey. Undoubtedly the best known of the Solitaires were the philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) and the dramatist Jean Racine (1639–1699); (iii) the new seminaries known as the Petites-Ecoles de Port-Royal during the period 1637–1660, whose members included Boisguilbert. From the outset, the movement was regarded with suspicion by royal and papal authorities alike. Jansenists were politically in conflict with the structure of Louis XIV’s monarchy and religiously they were virulently opposed to the Jesuits. Consequently they were persecuted as heretics and forced into exile (notably in Holland and the Utrecht region) in the late seventeenth century. As an example, one of the movement’s main leaders—the theologian Pasquier Quesnel (1634–1719)—was exiled to Amsterdam. Although the movement almost died out in the early eighteenth century, its survival was ensured by the opposition of Louis XIV himself. Shortly before his death, the Sun King secured the famous papal bull Unigenitus (1713), which sought to censure Quesnel’s theses, and launched fresh persecutions against the Jansenists which made this theological movement an unrelenting opponent of monarchical authority until the Revolution. Intellectually the main interest of the Jansenist movement lies in its influential role in theology, politics, philosophy and economics (Taveneaux 1965, 1977). For example, in France, the Jansenist 2 In domestic politics Jansen and Saint-Cyran vigorously opposed Cardinal Richelieu’s alliance policies (see Jansen’s pamphlet, Mars Gallicus, 1635), which aimed to draw France diplomatically closer to the Protestant states. Saint-Cyran was imprisoned from 1638 to 1643 on Richelieu’s orders. In Church politics Jansen openly attacked the Jesuits, interfering with many seminaries at Louvain and in the United Provinces. Jansen and Saint-Cyran corresponded extensively. For example, during a meeting in the summer of 1621, the two theologians prepared “the plan of the Augustinius” (Taveneaux 1968: 30) and “decided to devote their lives exclusively to making [Augustinian theses] triumphant” (Orcibal in Richardt 2011: 40). Jansen developed the theological arguments while Saint-Cyran attempted to “obtain temporal support” (Ibid). In the genesis of the movement, R. Taveneaux distinguishes between a theoretical form in the drafting of Augustinius and an applied form in the Port-Royal experiment. !3 periodical Nouvelles Ecclésiastiques was decisive “in the construction of public opinion in the Enlightenment” (Cottret and Guittienne-Mürger 2016) [biblio], was close to the Journal Œconomique and the works of J. Child and T. Culpeper, and was contributed to the empowerment of philosophical thought (notably via the disputes over Montesquieu’s Esprit des Lois, 1748, see Menuet 2018 [biblio]). Regarding the movement’s influence on issues of political economy, the literature has focused almost exclusively on the post-Unigenitus period (the “second Jansenism” in the terms of Dedieu 1928: 162). Some recent papers3 show that the theologian Jacques-Joseph Duguet (1649–1733), the historian Charles Rollin (1661–1741) and the doctor Étienne Mignot (1698–1771), in many respects paved the way for the economic ideas of Melon, Montesquieu, and the Gournay circle, notably over the issue of interest-bearing loans, and may have prepared the advent of the “science of commerce” in France in the 1750s. Orain (2014) demonstrates that several members of Gournay’s circle were influenced by Jansenism and reveals that “at the beginning of the 1780s, a ‘feedback’ and convergence-of-interests effect resulted in getting Jansenist priests and one of those leading authors (Turgot) to collaborate, with a view to advocating the legalisation of the loan at interest”. In the same vein, Orain and Menuet (2017) highlight that a part of the “second Jansenism”—a “liberal” current—actively
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