A hermeneutics of the sacred: miracle and grace as a controversy in the French seventeenth century (1653-1669).
Controversy of the holy thorn; quarrel; Jansenism;
This project presents a research proposal related to the theological uses of a miracle that occurred in 1656 at the abbey of Port-Royal-des-Champs, on the outskirts of Paris. In the middle of the 17th century, the Jansenists – a Catholic reformist group with an Augustinian matrix – faced their most critical moment, after a series of papal condemnations directed at their conception of God's grace and free will, largely inflated by members of the Society Of Jesus. Although officially recognized, the miracle aroused acute polemics. On the one hand, the Jansenists, in line with the practices of the time, interpreted the miracle as a sensible manifestation of God's approval of their cause; on the other hand, the Jesuits, especially in the figure of François Annat, saw in the miracle signs of divine condemnation of the Jansenist doctrines. By reading the controversies according to the rhetorical criteria that were typical of them, we will investigate how these literate practices gave rise to hermeneutical devices for the interpretation of miracles.