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Jansenism found a number of earnest disciples and
able exponents, whose educational work and reforming zeal brought them
into conflict with the Jesuits. The Jesuits accused the Jansenists of
heresy, affirming that Janssen's doctrine of conversion-by-the-will-of-
God was in last analysis practically Calvin's predestination. For some
years the controversy raged. Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), a famous
mathematician and experimenter in physics, defended the Jansenists
eloquently and learnedly, but Jesuits had the ear of Louis XIV and
broke up the little colony at Port-Royal. Four years later the pope
issued a famous bull, called "Unigenitus" (1713), definitively
condemning Jansenist doctrines as heretical; but the sect still lived
on, especially in Holland, and "Unigenitus" was disliked by many
orthodox Roman Catholics, who thought its condemnations too sweeping
and too severe.
[Sidenote: Febronianism]
A second dispute, questioning the authority of the papacy, centered in
a German theologian [Footnote: Johann Nikolaus von Hoatheim, auxiliary
bishop of Trier.


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