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Eating and Drinking Condemnation Jansenist and Puritan Spiritualities Studies in Spirituality 26, 283-306. doi: 10.2143/SIS.26.0.3180812 © 2016 by Studies in Spirituality. All rights reserved. ELISSA CUTTeR EaTiNG aND DRiNKiNG CONDeMNaTiON Jansenist and Puritan Spiritualities of Communion SUMMARY – Following René Taveneaux and Robin Briggs, scholars have made general comparisons between Jansenism and Puritanism – such as their Augustinian theology and spirituality of strict morality – but few have investigated specific similarities between the two move- ments. This article aims to fill this lacuna by examining parallels between the sacramental theology of the two movements, using the writings of Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) and Antoine Arnauld (1616-1694). Through a close analysis of these writings, this article argues for a funda- mental similarity between the theologies of these two figures, in spite of the denominational differences separating their understandings of the sacraments. In particular, this article explores the similar emphases that both Edwards and Arnauld put on using the model of the early church as normative for communion practices and on having an appropriate interior disposition before receiving communion. Comparisons between Jansenism and Puritanism appear repeatedly in modern scholarship, especially in general overviews of the history of Christianity.1 These two movements lend themselves to such comparison due to their theological commonalities, like an emphasis on Augustinian theology, and spiritualities underlined by a strict morality. Additionally, historians of religion and theology have found a point of comparison in the polemical nature of the names of each of the movements, making it difficult to fully define either Jansenism or 1 For general overviews of Jansenism and Puritanism in English, see Alexander Sedgwick, Jansenism in seventeenth-century France: Voices from the wilderness, Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1977; Leszek Kolakowski, God owes us nothing: A brief remark on Pascal’s religion and on the spirit of Jansenism, Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1995; William Doyle, Jansenism: Catholic resistance to authority from the Reformation to the French Revolution, New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 2000 (Studies in European History); John Coffey & Paul C.H. Lim (Eds.), The Cambridge companion to Puritanism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008; Francis J. Bremer, Puritanism: A very short introduction, New York: Oxford University Press, 2009; Idem, First founders: American Puritans and Puri- tanism in an atlantic world, Durham, NH: University of New Hampshire Press, 2012. 99213_SIS_26_12_Cutter.indd 283 7/12/16 15:16 284 eLISSA cUTTeR Puritanism.2 Two scholars in particular, René Taveneaux and Robin Briggs, have made a point of comparing the movements.3 Taveneaux’s Jansénisme et prêt à intérêt focused primarily on Jansenism, examining the movement in relation to the morality of lending money at interest.4 He argued that the differing views on credit between Jansenists and Calvinists derived from their differing views of the relationship of the Christian to the world.5 Briggs’s essay on Jansenism, ‘The Catholic Puritans: Jansenists and Rigorists in France’, framed an account of the Jansenist controversy in France with comparisons to Puritanism.6 In this essay, Briggs argued for a fundamental difference between Jansenism and Puritanism, 2 Kaspar von Greyerz, Religion and culture in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1800 (trans. Thomas Dunlap), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008, 88; Robin Briggs, ‘The Catholic Puritans: Jansenists and Rigorists in France’, in: Idem, Communities of belief: Cultural and social tension in Early Modern France, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989, 339-363: 339. The term ‘Jansenist’ was a polemical term, introduced by the Jesuits, to refer to those who defended the (allegedly heretical) theological views of grace that were expressed by Cornelius Jansen (1585-1638) in his Augustinus, which was published after his death in 1640. The movement, however, had clear roots in Counter-Reformation, French, Catholic spirituality and the Jansenists always remained a movement within the Catholic Church. Although scholars have had difficulty coming to a consensus around a specific definition of Jansenism, due especially to the histo- riographical difficulties that attend to any definition of a movement that was denied by those who were alleged to be part of it, in their attempts at definition there are generally three main components: a strict Augustinian theology of grace, rigorist sacramental practices, and opposi- tion to the Jesuits. A fourth component, the tendency to withdraw from the world and shun worldly honors, derived from the first two. The term ‘Puritan’ similarly began as a polemical term. Unlike the Jansenists, however, some of those referred to as Puritans eventually appro- priated the term for themselves. After the Reformation in England, Puritans were those who wished to purify the Church of England from all remnants of Roman Catholicism. They wanted to transform society by first transforming themselves in conformity with God’s will. On the definition of Jansenism, see Doyle, Jansenism, 1-4; Jacques Plainemaison, ‘Qu’est-ce que le Jansénisme?’, in: Revue Historique 553 (1985), 117-130; Sedgwick, Jansenism in seventeenth-century France, ix-xv, 14, 193-207. On the definition of Puritanism, see Bremer, Puritanism, 2-3; Coffey & Lim, The Cambridge companion to Puritanism, 1-7; Patrick Collinson, ‘A comment: Concerning the name Puritan’, in: Journal of Ecclesiastical History 31 (1980) no.4, 483-488. As Elfrieda Dubois has noted, the terms janséniste and puritanical have become virtually equivalent in modern usage. See: Elfrieda Dubois, ‘Jansenism’, in: Cheslyn Jones, Geoffrey Wainwright & Edward Yarnold (Eds.),The study of spirituality, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986, 396-408: 405. 3 See Marie-José Michel, ‘Jansénisme et puritanisme: Une approche historiographique’, in: Bernard Cottret, Monique Cottret & Marie-José Michel Eds.), Jansénisme et puritanisme, Paris: Nolin, 2002 (Univers Port-Royal), 13-16, for the history of the comparison between Jansenism and Puritanism from the perspective of a scholar of Jansenism. 4 René Taveneaux, Jansénisme et prêt à intérêt: Introduction, choix de textes et commentaires, Paris: Vrin, 1977. 5 Ibid., 89-90. 6 Briggs, ‘The Catholic Puritans’, 339-363. 99213_SIS_26_12_Cutter.indd 284 7/12/16 15:16 eating and drinking condemnation 285 due to differing contexts, in spite of any apparent similarities. Like Taveneaux, he concluded that especially the Jansenist tendency to withdraw from the world and the Puritan tendency to engage with it set them apart.7 Subsequent scholar- ship on Jansenism and Puritanism identifies Briggs’s essay as the first truly com- parative work on the two movements, but Briggs used the similarities between Jansenism and Puritanism not as a comparative study in and of itself, but as a lens through which to study French Jansenism.8 Subsequent scholarship comparing Jansenism and Puritanism has built on Briggs’s essay, either agreeing or disagreeing with his conclusion.9 Ultimately, what all these comparisons have in common is that they remain general, point- ing out some theological or spiritual similarities, like an emphasis on predestina- tion or moral rigorism, without examining either movement in detail. However, recent formulations of comparative theological methodology stress the impor- tance of making particular, not general, comparisons.10 This study aims to fill this lacuna, by examining more closely the sacramental understanding of com- munion in the thought of two figures, the Puritan Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) and the Jansenist Antoine Arnauld (1616-1694).11 I argue that, in 7 Ibid., 362. 8 See Michel, ‘Jansénisme et puritanisme’, 13. 9 Some scholars, like Kaspar von Greyerz, agree with Briggs, emphasizing the differences between Jansenism and Puritanism. Von Greyerz notes that although there are similarities between Jansenism and Protestantism in general, for example in terms of justification and the use of the Bible, ‘on the whole there is no doubt that the elements separating them predomi- nated’ (von Greyerz, Religion and culture in Early Modern Europe, 104). Guy Bedouelle, how- ever, notes the similarities, remarking in his History of the Church that Jansenism ‘approached Puritanism and concurred with the latter’s overall vision’ (Guy Bedouelle, The history of the Church, London: Continuum, 2003 [Handbooks of Catholic Theology], 117). French schol- ars have engaged comparisons between Jansenism and Puritanism, expanding on Taveneaux’s work. See, for example, Cottret, Cottret & Michel, Jansénisme et puritanisme. This collection of essays came out of a colloquium on comparisons between Jansenism and Puritanism that occurred at the Musée national des Granges de Port-Royal des Champs in 2001. However, none of the authors included has published in both areas; they are all specialists of either Jansenism or Puritanism. The articles included reflect this and are ultimately more about one or the other than an effective comparison between the two. 10 James L. Fredericks, ‘Introduction’, in: Francis X. Clooney (Ed.), The new comparative theology: Interreligious insights from the next generation, New York, NY: T & T Clark, 2010, ix-xix: xii. 11 Antoine Arnauld was one of the leading theologians of the Jansenists in seventeenth-century France, though he never would have claimed such a title for himself. He was a prolific author, defending
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