{{Short description|Flemish theologian and controversialist}} {{for|the North American painter|John Hesselius}} '''Jan Hessels''', '''Jean Leonardi Hasselius''' or '''Jean Hessels'''<ref>Name also: Lenaert van der Eycken, Johannes, Joannes, Jan, John Hessels or Hessel, Hesselius or Hasselius.</ref> (Hasselt, 1522 – 1566) was a Flemish theologian and controversialist at the University of Louvain.<ref>[https://www.hasel.be/hasselius-jean-leonardi-begin-16de-eeuw-1566?page=7 Jean Leonardi Hasselius] at Hasel</ref> He was a defender of Baianism.<ref>Steven Vanden Broecke, ''The Limits of Influence: Pico, Louvain, and the Crisis of Renaissance Astrology'' (2003), p. 224.</ref>
==Life== Hessels was born at Mechlin in 1522, and obtained his doctorate in theology from Louvain. He had been teaching for eight years in Park Abbey, the Premonstratensian house near Louvain, when in 1560, he was appointed professor of theology at the university. Like Michael Baius, who was his senior colleague, Hessels preferred drawing his theology from the Church Fathers, especially from Augustine of Hippo, rather than from the Schoolmen.<ref>[https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07300a.htm Wilhelm, Joseph. "Jean Hessels." The Catholic Encyclopedia] Vol. 7. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 27 January 2021 {{PD-notice}}</ref> While Chancellor Ruard Tapper and Josse Ravesteyn, Professor of Theology were at the Council of Trent, Baius and Hessels took the occasion to introduce new methods and new doctrines.
Not content, however, with a mere change of method they began to show their contempt for traditional opinions, and in a short time alarming rumours were in circulation both inside and outside the university that their teaching on Original Sin, Grace, and Free-will, was not in harmony with the doctrine of the Church. The Franciscans submitted to the judgment of the Sorbonne a number of propositions (18) selected from the writings or lectures of Baius and his friends, and the opinion of the Sorbonne was distinctly unfavourable.<ref name=MacCaffrey/>
As the dispute grew more heated and threatened to have serious consequences for the university and the country, in 1563, the Archbishop of Mechlin, Cardinal Granvelle, believing that the absence of the two professors might lead to peace, induced both to accompany theology professor the elder Cornelius Jansenius (later Bishop of Ghent) to the Council of Trent as the theologians of the King of Spain (1563).<ref name=MacCaffrey>[https://catholicity.elcore.net/MacCaffrey/HCCRFR1_Chapter06a.html MacCaffrey S.J., James. " Baianism", ''History of the Catholic Church: From the Renaissance to the French Revolution'', Vol. I, Chap. VI, 1914] {{PD-notice}}</ref> There, Hessels took an active part. He prepared the decree "De invocatione et reliquiis sanctorum et sacris imaginibus".
Even at Trent the Scholastic party found fault with his departure from the beaten tracks of learning; after his return the attacks continued. Rather than wasting his energy on dogmatic quarrels, Hessels, directed his efforts in polemical works against Protestantism. In his support of papal infallibility he was an opponent of Georgius Cassander.<ref>Rob van der Schoor, ''The Reception of Cassander in the Republic in the Seventeenth Century '', p. 101 in Christiane Berkvens-Stevelinck, Jonathan Irvine Israel, Guillaume Henri Marie Posthumus Meyjes (editors), ''The Emergence of Tolerance in the Dutch Republic'' (1997).</ref> He also upheld the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception (impugned by Baius).
He died November 7, 1566.
==Works== His polemical works are: *"De invocatione sanctorum . . . censura" (1568); *"Probatio corporalis præsentiæ corporis et sanguinis dominici in Eucharistia (Cologne, 1563); (Leuven, 1563) [https://lib.is/alma9925813290101488 available at KU Leuven Special Collections]. *"Confutatio confessionis hæreticæ, teutonice emissæ, qua ostenditur Christum esse sacrificium propitiatorium" (Louvain, 1565); *"Oratio de officio pii viri exsurgente et vigente hæresi" (Louvain, 1565); *"Declaratio quod sumptio Eucharistiæ sub unica panis specie neque Christi præcepto aut institutioni adversetur" (Louvain).
He also wrote commentaries:
*"De Passione Domini" (Louvain, 1568); *"de I Tim. et I Petri" (Louvain, 1568); *"Com. de Evang. Matthæi" (Louvain, 1572); "Com. de Epp. Johannis" (Douai, 1601).
His chief dogmatic work is a ''Catechism'', first published in 1571, by Henry Gravius, who removed from it all traces of Baianism.
==References== {{Reflist}} {{Catholic|wstitle=Jean Hessels}}
==Sources== *Mathijs Lamberigts, Leo Kenis (1994), ''L'Augustinisme à l'ancienne Faculté de théologie de Louvain'', pp. 99–122
{{Authority control}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Hessels, Jean}} Category:1522 births Category:1566 deaths Category:Participants in the Council of Trent Category:Roman Catholic theologians from the Habsburg Netherlands