The Calvinist-Jansenist pantomime: An essay in comparative Canadian literature

Survey of the Contemporary Indians of Canada, Part I, project under the direction of H. B. Hawthorn and M. A. Tremblay, Ottawa, 1966, Chapter XII. 36. See tor example the impact of alcohol on the Eskimos of Frobisher Bay John J. and Irma Honigmann, "Learning to Drink", in Eskimo of the Canadian Arctic, Victor F. Valentine and Frank G. Valle, Editors, Toronto, 1968, pp. 197-217. See also K. Lysyk's discussion of the relation The Calvinist-Jansenist pantomime: an essay in comparative Canadian literature RONALD SUTHERLAND Canada did not have the colorful spectacle of Pilgrim Fathers landing on a rock, but she has certainly proved more faithful to the Puritan ethos than has the United States of America. And what is even more significant, Canadian Puritanism has evolved in much the same way and has taken much the same form of expression in Protestant English Canada as in Roman Catholic Quebec. It is not, of course, all that surprising that English Canada and French Canada, despite widespread belief to the contrary and obvious divergences in their respective major church systems, should share a common fundamental theology. We know that the Protestant religion in this country was strongly conditioned by Calvinism. And as a number of historians have pointed out, French-Canadian Catholicism was influenced by Jansenism, an essentially Calvinistic doctrine introduced by Cornelius Jansen, bishop of Ypres, at the beginning of the Seventeenth Century. Based upon predestination and using the rather imaginative , if perhaps a bit sinister symbol of a crucifix with the arms of Christ only partially spread, embracing the "elect" but giving all others the eternal cold shoulder, this doctrine blossomed for a time in Europe and was centered, very suggestively from the Canadian standpoint, in the monastery of Port-Royal, France. Exactly how Jansenism made inroads into French Canada seems still something of a mystery. Did the ex10 between the Bill of Rights and the Liquor provisions of the Indian Act, The Canadian Bar Review, March 1968, pp. 141-149. 37. Statement of the Government on Indian Policy by the Honourable Jean Chretien, Ottawa, 1969. 38. Chapter 104. 39. p. 1535. plorer and colonizer Samuel de Champlain have anything to do with it? Did particular immigrant priests spread the message? How did the unmistakable Jansenist crucifixes -one can yet be seen at the Fort Beausejour Museum in New Brunswick - get into this country? One thing is certain, that the Jesuits vehemently opposed Jansenism, as eventually did the Vatican itself to the point of Pope Clement XI issuing a condemnatory bull entitled Unigenitus in 1713. The Church's official proscription has undoubtedly had a lot to do with the obscurity surrounding Canadian Jansenism, and with the apparent reluctance on the part of qualified church historians to probe the subject too deeply. Jansenism has been the skeleton in the French-Canadian closet. It is slyly alluded to in novels - "Et la graine Janseniste prolitere sur nos terres," in Jean Simard's Mon Fils pountant heureux-and is the subject of bitter poetry-"Le Retour d'Oedipe," by Pierre Trottier. But always one is more aware of its gloomy effects on French-Canadian society than of its precise doctrinal influence upon the Quebec church. Of interest to note, however, is that the Jansenist-hating Jesuits, with their emphasis on purifying and simplifying the Christian faith, on scholarship, and on austerity and return to the basic teaching of Jesus (hence the name), were far closer to the Jansenists than the order itself has ever cared to admit. Perhaps there was a measure of professional jealousy involved. Quite possibly the Canadian Jesuits inadvertently fostered certain Jansenist ideas. But whatever the case, the Jansenism of French Canada and the Calvinism of English Canada inculcated exactly the same attitudes regarding man's relationship to God and his role on earth. These attitudes, echoed in many CanaRevue d'etudes canadiennes dian literary works, can be briefly summarized as follows. Man in himself is insignificant and deserves nothing better than hell unless the grace of God has been bestowed upon him. There is nothing he can do to catch God's eye. Either he has been chosen or he has not. However, the desire, abundantly...