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Adoration Annihilation ADORATION AND ANNIHILATION The Convent Philosophy of Port-Royal JOHN J. CONLEY, S.J. University of Notre Dame Press Notre Dame, Indiana © 2009 University of Notre Dame Press Copyright © 2009 by University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana 46556 www.undpress.nd.edu All Rights Reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Conley, John J. Adoration and annihilation : the convent philosophy of Port-Royal / John J. Conley. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-268-02296-9 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-268-02296-8 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Jansenists. 2. Port-Royal des Champs (Abbey) 3. Philosophy, French—17th century. 4. Arnauld, Jacqueline Marie Angélique, 1591–1661. 5. Arnauld, Agnés, 1593–1671. 6. Arnauld d’Andilly, Angélique de Saint Jean, 1624–1684. I. Title. BX4730.C66 2009 273'.7—dc22 2009006984 ∞ The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. © 2009 University of Notre Dame Press CH A P T E R 1 INTRODUCTION A Convent Philosophy The thesis of this book is simple. In the seventeenth-century convent of Port-Royal, three nuns, Mère Angélique Arnauld, Mère Agnès Arnauld, and Mère Angélique de Saint-Jean Ar- nauld d’Andilly, produced a literary corpus of serious philo- sophical significance. Openly declaring themselves “disci- ples of Saint Augustine,” the nuns developed their own neo-Augustinian philosophy, notable for its original treat- ment of the divine attributes, moral virtue, and personal freedom. The philosophy of the Arnauld nuns is not simply authored by women; its portrait of God as incomprehensible mystery, its ascetical concept of the virtues, and its defense of conscience reflect the distinctive culture of vowed women devoted to contemplation in a cloistered convent. If these Port-Royal nuns did indeed construct such a major variant of baroque Augustinian philosophy, why have we never heard of them before? The reasons are multiple. The literary genres in which they present their arguments reflect a conventual culture few contemporary readers can easily penetrate. Arguments on the incomprehensibility of God or the illusions of prudence are embedded in letters of spiritual direction, abbatial conferences, devotional manu- als, biblical glosses, commentaries of monastic rules, and 1 © 2009 University of Notre Dame Press 2 Adoration and Annihilation funeral orations. These are not standard philosophical treatises. We experience some trouble recognizing the philosophical argument in Montaigne’s essays or Pascal’s maxims, but identifying the philo- sophical concerns in the arcane monastic genres of Port-Royal re- quires a greater asceticism. Related to the problem of monastic genre is the heavily theolog- ical content of the nuns’ writings. Certain recent efforts to expand the canon of modern philosophy to include the works of heretofore neglected women philosophers have omitted women perceived as too religious in their preoccupations. In her influential anthology of modern women philosophers, Mary Warnock excludes authors “who rely more on dogma, revelation or mystical experience than on argu- ment.”1 Unsurprisingly, not a single nun survives this secularist cut. If predominantly theological works are dismissed a priori as un- philosophical, the writings of the Arnauld abbesses, focused on con- troversies concerning the dogma of grace and the dogmatic authority of the church, will remain invisible in the history of philosophy. The philosophical contribution of the nuns has also been eclipsed by the extraordinary philosophical stature of the male cler- ics and laity who closely collaborated with the Port-Royal nuns. Blaise Pascal and Antoine Arnauld are only the most prominent of a constellation of philosophers, theologians, historians, and artists who allied themselves with the convent. If the nuns are cited in the history of philosophy, they inevitably appear as the auxiliaries or disciples of an Arnauld or a Pascal. Their own philosophy and the gendered originality of that philosophy have disappeared. Influential literary portraits of the convent have also marginal- ized the nuns as philosophers. Sainte-Beuve’s Port-Royal and Month- erlant’s drama of the same name depict the nuns as victims of political forces determined to crush them.2 The nuns’ arguments on God’s incomprehensibility and the ethical limits of state power are reduced to emotional pleas in the midst of persecution. The reasons given for God’s inaccessibility or the arguments developed for con- straints on civil authority fade away. The invisibility of the Port-Royal nun in the philosophical canon also stems from our longstanding blindness to the philosophical ar- guments developed in social sites dominated by women. Only re- cently has the moral philosophy elaborated in the Parisian salons of © 2009 University of Notre Dame Press Introduction 3 the period begun to attract the notice of historians of early modern philosophy.3 Our predilection has long been for the exclusively male sites of the university, the seminary, and the scientific academy. The world of the cloistered convent can appear even more foreign to the normative venues of modern philosophy than do the witty salons of the précieuses. But the exclusion of the early modern convent from our philosophical gaze entails the suppression of the voices of the most highly educated group of women in this period and the sup- pression of an elaborate philosophical canon shaped by a profound theological culture. Political concerns have also obscured the philosophical con- tribution of the Port-Royal nuns. As the sanctions of exile and ex- communication fell upon the convent, sympathizers often defended the convent by claiming that the nuns could not even understand the philosophical and theological controversies that had provoked the campaign against them. On occasion even the embattled nuns them- selves argued that they simply ignored the complex quarrels over grace and freedom that had enraged their opponents. If such a claim were true, which I will deny in this study, then the writings of the nuns could be dismissed as simple works of piety. While the ancient charges of coyness and stubbornness against the Port-Royal nuns may well be justified, the charges of theological and philosophical ignorance against these erudite Augustinians clearly are not. Another political factor has turned the writings of the nuns into an invisible canon. Quite simply, they lost the battle. After a cen- tury of heroic resistance, the French throne destroyed the Port-Royal community and razed the convent buildings to the ground. A liter- ary elite has long savored the nuns’ manuscripts, preserved in ob- scure archives and carefully guarded attics. But the Jesuits’ muscular Christianity, with its emphasis on good works and individual merit, decisively molded a modern Catholicism that could barely compre- hend the old Augustinian categories of predestination, election, con- cupiscence, and efficacious grace. The devotion of a small circle of literary critics and historians to the works of the nuns has not yet succeeded in creating a broader philosophical and theological public for these works.4 Tellingly, we do not yet have a complete, let alone a critical, edition of the works of Mère Angélique, Mère Agnès, or © 2009 University of Notre Dame Press 4 Adoration and Annihilation Mère Angélique de Saint-Jean in the French original. Translations into foreign languages are virtually nonexistent. Given our virtual ignorance of the nun philosophers of Port- Royal, much of this monograph presents translations of and com- mentaries on the writings of the three Arnauld abbesses. To assess the philosophical pertinence of their work, their long-silenced argu- ments must first be heard. Like their combative lives, the arguments of the Port-Royal abbesses revolve around conflict, polemic, defense, and resistance. But these martial arguments also constitute a com- plex philosophical brief on the attributes of the hidden God, the pri- macy of charity in monastic virtue, and the ethical limits of coop- eration with an oppressive political regime. Knowing intimately the Augustinian philosophical tradition, the Arnauld nuns transform this tradition in light of the gendered concerns of a persecuted com- munity of women religious. It is the philosophical tale of the Port- Royal nuns that remains to be told. CONVENTUAL PHILOSOPHY To understand the philosophy developed by Mères Angélique, Agnès, and Angélique de Saint-Jean, it is necessary to understand the his- tory of the convent they governed.5 The century of the reformed Port-Royal (1609–1709) constitutes the last and the most visible era of the convent, but the reforms engineered by Mère Angélique, her sister, and her niece are inexplicable independently of Port-Royal’s struggle during five centuries to embody the Benedictine and Cister- cian ideals of monasticism. Located in the valley of the Chevreuse in the southwestern Pa- risian region, the abbey of Port-Royal was founded by Mathilde de Garlande in 1204 as a cenacle of intercessory prayer for her husband, Mathieu de Marly, who had left France to fight in the Fourth Cru- sade. Approved by Eudes de Sully, the bishop of Paris, the convent drew its first nuns from neighboring Benedictine convents. Placed under the jurisdiction of the abbot of Cîteaux, the general superior of the Cistercian order, in 1225, the abbey adopted the austere, se- cluded ethos of the Cistercian order. During the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, Port- Royal led an observant monastic life. Abbesses were drawn from © 2009 University of Notre Dame Press Introduction 5 leading French noble families: Montfort, Villeneuve, and Dreux. In recognition of the convent’s good reputation, church authorities granted the convent a series of privileges. The abbesses were to be elected by the nuns themselves rather than being appointed by secular or episcopal powers. The convent could conduct a boarding school for girls; the laity could spend periods of retreat at the con- vent guest house.
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