Étienne Agard de Champs (Dechamps) (2 September 1613 at
Bourges
Bourges ( ; ; ''Borges'' in Berrichon) is a commune in central France on the river Yèvre (Cher), Yèvre. It is the capital of the Departments of France, department of Cher (department), Cher, and also was the capital city of the former provin ...
– 31 July 1701 at Paris according to
Augustin de Backer
Augustin de Backer (18 July 1809 in Antwerp, Belgium Р1 December 1873 in Li̬ge, Belgium) was a Belgian Jesuit and renowned bibliographer.
Early years and Formation
De Backer left his country to be educated at the Jesuit schools of Franc ...
, at
La Flèche
La Flèche () is a town and commune in the French department of Sarthe, in the Pays de la Loire region in the Loire Valley. It is the sub-prefecture of the South-Sarthe, the chief district and the chief city of a canton, and the second most p ...
) was a French
Jesuit
The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...
theologian and author.
Life
He entered the Jesuit novitiate in 1630 and later became professor of rhetoric, philosophy, and theology in Paris. He was rector at
Rennes
Rennes (; ; Gallo language, Gallo: ''Resnn''; ) is a city in the east of Brittany in Northwestern France at the confluence of the rivers Ille and Vilaine. Rennes is the prefecture of the Brittany (administrative region), Brittany Regions of F ...
, three times rector at Paris, head of the
professed house
In the Society of Jesus, a professed house was a residence where—in a spirit of radical poverty—no member had a stable income. The Jesuit priests who lived there, all of whom have made the profession of the four vows, undertake their spiritua ...
, twice provincial of France, and once provincial of Lyon.
Works
Jansenism
Jansenism was a 17th- and 18th-century Christian theology, theological movement within Roman Catholicism, primarily active in Kingdom of France, France, which arose as an attempt to reconcile the theological concepts of Free will in theology, f ...
, the major topic of debate in the France of his day, is the theme of all his books. Writing under the name of Richard Antonius, he composed "Defensio Censurae Sacrae Facultatis Parisiensis – seu Disputatio Theologica de libero arbitrio" (Paris, 1645). This was well received, and went through five editions in two years. It prompted a reply from Vincent Lenis in his "Theriaca" (Paris, 1648), which occasioned the "Antonii Ricardi Theologi Responsio ad objectiones Vincentianas" (Paris, 1648).
He defends the
Sorbonne in his "De Haeresi Janseniana" (1654). Among his other works the best known is "Le secret du Jansenisme découvert et refute par un Docteur Catholique" (Paris, 1651).
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Champs, Etienne Agard de
1613 births
1710 deaths
17th-century French Jesuits
17th-century French Catholic theologians
Jesuit theologians