The Auguste Valensin Controversy and the Historiography of Nouvelle Théologie

Ephemerides�Theologicae�Lovanienses 90/1 (2014) 41-70. doi: 10.2143/ETL.90.1.3025878© 2014 by Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses. All rights reserved.

The Auguste Valensin Controversy andthe Historiography of Nouvelle�Théologie*

Erick H. HEDRICK-MOSERSaint�Louis�University

“Auguste Valensin, SJ, […] is one of the forgotten fathers ofla�nouvelle�théologie”1.

In the fall of 1921 Henri de Lubac had begun his second year of phi-losophy studies as part of his Jesuit formation in philosophy, which was conducted at the French seminary in exile on the Channel Isle of Jersey. The letters he wrote home to his family described the long hours of courses in theology, metaphysics, cosmology, psychology, and other subjects. When the workload lessened during the annual month-long review exer-cises called “repetitions”, de Lubac wrote home that “they only take me a little part of my time each day, the remainder is devoted to the study of Maurice Blondel…”2. That this young Jesuit had access to Blondel’s texts in a Jesuit seminary renowned for its unwavering scholasticism was itself remarkable. For since the Modernist era Jesuit authorities had banned the writings of Blondel and others from the seminary library, and had been weeding out anyone who subscribed to such viewpoints that were per-ceived innovative and dangerous.

De Lubac owed his initiation to Blondel’s writings to a little-known Jesuit professor of philosophy named Auguste Valensin (1879-1953), who had lectured on Blondel in his history of philosophy courses and had secretly disseminated his personal notes and duplicated copies of Blon-del’s L’Action to students at Jersey’s seminary3. For his adherence to Blon-delianism and rejection of scholasticism as the unitary theological method,

* An early form of this article was presented at the 2011 annual Midwest region meeting of the American Academy of Religion. The author wishes to thank Kenneth L. Parker and Grant A. Kaplan for their helpful feedback on earlier drafts of this essay. Robert Bonfils is also acknowledged for his generous assistance during my visits to the Archives de la Pro-vince de France de la Compagnie de Jésus, Vanves, France (ASJV hereafter).

1. M.B. MULCAHY, Not�Everything�Is�Grace:�Aquinas’s�Notion�of�“Pure�Nature”�and�the�Christian�Integralism�of�Henri�de�Lubac�and�of�Radical�Orthodoxy (unpubl. PhD diss. Australian Catholic University, 2008), p. 270, note 49.

2. G. CHANTRAINE, Henri�de�Lubac.�T.�2:�Les�années�de�formation�(1919-1929)�(Études Lubaciennes,�7), Paris, Cerf, 2009, vol. 2, p. 161. All translations are mine, unless noted otherwise.

3. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 162.

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42 E.H. HEDRICK-MOSER

Valensin became embroiled in the larger debate between professors devoted to scholasticism, like the infamous Jesuit Pedro Descoqs, and those who espoused what were perceived to be “Modernist” viewpoints. Valensin’s innovative teaching methods and philosophical viewpoints became the content upon which Jesuit authorities concluded that he was not fit for forming the minds of young Jesuit students, at least not at Jer-sey’s seminary. After several unsuccessful attempts to achieve a resolu-tion, Valensin lost his teaching position at Jersey’s seminary in 1920. The “Valensin affair”, as it came to be termed during that period, deserves a thorough examination based on archival evidence both for its historical precedence to the 1930s and 40s debates over la�nouvelle� théologie and because of the role Valensin had played in the development of the cadre of young Jesuits, like Henri de Lubac, who later occupied pivotal roles in twentieth-century Catholicism.

In their recent books, Jürgen Mettepenningen and Hans Boersma have both identified the condemnations of texts in the mid-1930s as an opera-tive starting point for the history of what was pejoratively termed “la nouvelle théologie”4. David Grumett, however, rightly described a central problem with this historiography in his review of Jürgen Mettepenningen’s recent book: “[…] because of the heavy regulation of study houses in this era, the genesis and chronology of ideas cannot be assessed solely on the basis of publications or explicit manifestoes”5. How do historians and theologians understand the emergence of these attitudes among those who became famous in the 1940s? Taking up Grumett’s claim, how does one understand the emergence of ideas and wider sensibilities outside of pub-lished texts and manifestoes? The following article cannot answer these questions exhaustively, but examines the controversy that led to Valen-sin’s dismissal both to shed light on this “forgotten father of la�nouvelle�

4. H. Boersma moves straight from his discussion of Catholic Modernism to Chenu, Charlier, and Draguet and the controversy over the nature of theology in the mid-1930s. The controversy over ressourcement�(1944-1950)�occupies the second section, and the con-troversy over worker priests (1943-1954) the third section. See H. BOERSMA, Nouvelle Théologie and�Sacramental�Ontology:�A�Return� to�Mystery, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2009, pp. 17-31. J. Mettepenningen likewise subdivided his history of la� nouvelle�théologie in this manner and locates its inception in the following way: “The bipolar start-ing point of the so-called nouvelle�théologie�can be postulated in 1935”. See J. METTEPENNINGEN, Nouvelle�Théologie�–�New�Theology:�Inheritor�of�Modernism,�Precursor�of�Vatican�II,�New York, T&T Clark, 2009, p. 32. T. Tshibangu had already outlined the first two phases of la�nouvelle�théologie in a strikingly similar way. See T. TSHIBANGU, Théologie�comme�science�au�XXème�siècle, Kinshasa, Presses Universitaires du Zaïre, 1980, pp. 79-110. R. Aubert also located la� nouvelle� théologie� in the years 1935 to 1950, see La� théologie� catholique� au�milieu�du�XXe� siècle, Paris, Casterman, 1954, p. 7. A corrective to this narrow historical range for la�nouvelle�théologie�can be found, for instance, in É. FOUILLOUX, Une�Église�en�quête� de� liberté:�La�pensée� catholique� française� entre�modernisme� et�Vatican� II� (1914-1962), Paris, Desclée de Brouwer, 1998.

5. D. GRUMETT, Review of Nouvelle�Théologie�–�New�Theology:�Inheritor�of�Modern-ism,�Precursor�of�Vatican�II, in New�Blackfriars�92 (Jan. 2011), issue 1037, p. 119.


AUGUSTE VALENSIN AND NOUVELLE�THÉOLOGIE 43

théologie”6 and to gesture toward ways in which this period contributed to the wider constellation of ideas and attitudes that fully emerged in the 1940s and bore fruit at the Second Vatican Council.

The effects of controversies such as the one over Valensin stretch beyond merely the reception of Blondel’s ideas, so important as they were for de Lubac’s work on nature and grace. The critical attention that Pierre Rousselot, Auguste Valensin, and Joseph Huby endured from Jesuit authorities for their interest in finding fresh ways of envisioning theology deeply altered their students’ attitudes toward ecclesiastical authority, not to mention their reaction to the way neo-scholasticism had become an antidote to modernity. Walter Kasper has written: “There is no doubt that the outstanding event in the Catholic theology of our century is the sur-mounting of neo-scholasticism”7. The Valensin controversy provides ample material to turn attention toward the role of seminary atmospheres in this shift, instead of focusing primarily upon the ideologies that “sur-mounted” neo-scholasticism8. This article also fills the lacuna Laurent Coulomb signaled in his book on Valensin’s work in Nice, France from 1935 until 1953: “This Jesuit, who is truly a legend [arlésienne] in the religious history of the early twentieth century, […] is often cited but never taken up in scholarship, never studied for himself”9.

To outline this controversy and its impact, I first summarize the ideo-logical tensions between scholasticism and the Blondelian apologetics of immanence, for Valensin’s allegiance within this debate became a central cause behind the strife he endured at Jersey’s seminary. Secondly, I artic-ulate two further causes of the controversy: Valensin’s teaching methods disobeyed the rulebook for Jesuit education, the Ratio�Studiorum, and his private dissemination of Blondel’s and Rousselot’s writings to the young students defied the rules of the Jesuit authorities and the seminary’s librar-ian10. Finally, after drawing connections between the Valensin controversy

6. MULCAHY, Not�Everything�Is�Grace (n. 1), p. 270, note 49.7. W. KASPER, Theology� and� Church, London, SCM Press, 1989, p. 1. Quoted in

F. KERR, Twentieth-Century�Catholic�Theologians:�From�Neoscholasticism�to�Nuptual�Mys-tery, Oxford, Blackwell, 2007, p. VII.

8. There has been no lack of attention to the reading of Blondel by de Lubac and fellow Jesuits during their formation, but the character of Jersey’s seminary has been largely neglected. See X. TILLIETTE, Blondel�et�les�théologiens�jésuites�(Henri�de�Lubac�et�quelques�autres), in J. FERRARI (ed.), Recherches�Blondéliennes:�À�l’occasion�du�centième�anniver-saire�de�la�soutenance�de�L’Action, le�7�juin�1893, Dijon, Imprimerie Coopérative, 1994, 46-55; BOERSMA, Nouvelle Théologie� and�Sacramental�Ontology (n. 4), p. 52 (Blondel), p. 62 (Maréchal), p. 67 (Rousselot); J.A. KOMONCHAK, Theology� and� Culture� at� Mid-�Century:�The�Example�of�Henri�de�Lubac, in Theological�Studies�51 (1990) 579-602, p. 581.

9. L. COULOMB, Aspects� du� catholicisme� français� au� XXe� siècle:� L’apostolat� niçois�d’Auguste�Valensin,�S.J.�(1935-1953), Cannes, Alandis Éditions, 2009, p. 13.

10. Numerous scholars mention Valensin’s role in the discovery of Blondel by young Jesuits, but lacking here is scholarly attention to the avenues, namely the secret dissemination of texts, through which this occurred. See BOERSMA, Nouvelle�Théologie�and�Sacramental�Ontology (n. 4), p. 53, n. 90: “Blondel’s influence on the Jesuits of Lyons-Fourvière dates



in the 1910s and later developments in la�nouvelle� théologie, I consider the extent to which these early theological debates expand both the con-tours and historiography of la�nouvelle�théologie.

I. AUGUSTE VALENSIN AND THE METHOD OF IMMANENCE

Valensin was born on 12 September 1879 in Marseille, France, where he completed his schooling at the local Collège�Saint-Ignace11. De Lubac recorded that as a sixteen year old, Valensin read and re-read Blondel’s L’Action because it “revealed to [him] the dramatic character of existence”12.�In 1896, he enrolled as a student at the Faculté�des�Lettres�d’Aix, where the famed Catholic philosopher Maurice Blondel held a chair in philosophy. In October 1899, Valensin followed Blondel’s encourage-ment and joined the Society of Jesus13. The relationship between Valensin and Blondel was not merely academic, for they exchanged correspondence from nearly fifty years, which Henri de Lubac helped to annotate in the 1960s14. Valensin began his Jesuit training at the novitiate in Aix-en-Provence alongside Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Pierre Charles – fig-ures who remained lifelong friends and who deeply impacted Valensin’s own views15. Upon the completion of their studies at Aix, the young Jes-uits were sent to Maison�Saint-Louis, the center for formation in philoso-phy for the French province of the Society of Jesus that had been�exiled to the British soil of the Isle of Jersey since 188016.

During his three years of Jesuit philosophical training, called the “scho-lasticate”, Valensin learned neo-scholasticism in the manner that had been

from around 1901, when Auguste Valensin […] introduced him to the Jesuit scholasticate, then located on the Isle of Jersey”; B. SESBOÜÉ, Yves�de�Montcheuil�(1900-1944):�Précurseur�en� théologie, Paris, Cerf, 2006, p. 23: “Aussi l’écho de la philosophie de Blondel à Jersey fut-il considérable […]”; É. FOUILLOUX, Yves�de�Montcheuil:�Philosophe�et�théologien�Jésuite�(1900-1944), Paris, Médiasèvres, 1995, p. 19: “[the value of Jersey], c’est la découverte du premier Blondel, celui de L’Action, par l’entremise des frères Albert et Auguste Valensin […]”; FOUILLOUX, Une�Église�en�quête�de�liberté (n. 4), p. 177: “Leur découverte majeure est toutefois Blondel, dans ses œuvres et par l’intermédiaire d’Auguste Valensin”.

11. L. RUY, Le�Père�Auguste�Valensin, in Les�Études�Philosophiques�(1955) 218-227, p. 219.

12. H. DE LUBAC, Theological� Fragments, San Francisco, CA, Ignatius Press, 1989, p. 407.

13. R. BONFILS, Valensin,�Auguste, in Catholicisme:�Hier�Aujourd’hui�Demain, Paris,�Letouzey et Ané, 1998, vol. 71, cols. 645-647, col. 645; O. BLANCHETTE, Maurice�Blondel:�A�Philosophical�Life, Grand Rapids, MI, Eerdmans, 2010, p. 187.

14. M. BLONDEL – A. VALENSIN, Correspondance, 3 vols., Paris, Aubier – Éditions Montaigne, 1957-1965 (BLONDEL–VALENSIN hereafter).

15. BONFILS, Valensin,�Auguste (n. 13), p. 645. 16. J. LIOUVILLE, Jersey:�La�Maison�Saint-Louis, in P. DELATTRE (ed.), Les�établisse-

ments�des�Jésuites�en�France�depuis�quatre�siècles, 5 vols., Wetteren (Belgium), de Meester, 1953, vol. 2, cols. 841-861, col. 841.



mandated by Leo XIII’s 1879 encyclical Aeterni�Patris, which stipulated that professors must “endeavor to introduce the doctrine of Thomas Aqui-nas into the minds of students, and to clearly set forth his solidity and excellence over others […]”17. He and his fellow students, whose names read like a veritable who’s who of French Jesuits – men such as Paul Donceur, Pierre Charles, Joseph Huby, Jules Lebreton, Pierre Rousselot, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin – supplemented this scholasticism by pri-vately studying Blondel and other suspect figures under the tutelage of professor Léonce de Grandmaison18. In letters to Blondel, Valensin men-tioned his notes and summaries of the philosopher’s famous work, L’Action; these notes and excerpted passages from Blondel’s texts are preserved at the French Jesuit archives outside Paris19. During his formation at Jersey’s seminary, Valensin also prepared his licence�en�Lettres for the faculty at Aix, for which he wrote on Blaise Pascal20. After completing their philo-sophical formation, Valensin and his fellow students then studied theology at Ore Place, the French theologate that had been exiled to Hastings, Eng-land due to French anticlerical legislation21.

The early 1910s proved to be a pivotal period in Valensin’s career: after completing his degrees and working as a chaplain at Collège�Saint-Joseph�d’Avignon while battling a chronic illness that required sabbaticals and

17. POPE LEO XIII, Aeterni�Patris, 31. In 1907, after completing his theologate in Hast-ings, England, Valensin appended to a letter to Blondel a quotation from Christian Pesch and stated it was from “my Manuel”. BLONDEL–VALENSIN (n. 14), vol. 1, p. 314. Valensin quoted from C. PESCH, Praelectiones�Dogmaticae�quas� in�Collegio Ditton-Hall� habebat. Tomus 8: De� Virtutibus� in� genere.� De� Virtutibus� Theologicis, Freiburg, Herder, 1900, p. 188, n. 441. For a few works that provide helpful background on the manualist scholas-tic tradition, see F. KERR, A�Different�World:�Neoscholasticism� and� Its�Discontents, in International�Journal�of�Systematic�Theology�8/2 (April 2006) 128-148; J. WICKS, Manu-alistic� Theology, in R. FISICHELLA – R. LATOURELLE (eds.), Dictionary� of� Fundamental�Theology, New York, Crossroad, 1994, 1102-1105; G. MCCOOL, Catholic�Theology�in�the�Nineteenth�Century, New York, Seabury Press, 1977.

18. J. LACOUTURE, Jesuits:� A� Multibiography, trans.� J. Leggatt, Washington, DC, Counterpoint, 1995, p. 407. See also BLONDEL–VALENSIN (n. 14), vol. 2, p. 304, no. 1: “C’est dans ce sens que j’avais, dès 1901, exposé la méthode blondélienne à mes élèves […]”. In October 1903, Valensin remarked to Blondel that he had been studying L’Action during a break from classes. BLONDEL–VALENSIN (n. 14), vol. 1, p. 103.

19. Valensin’s notes on Blondel are contained in the dossier T Va 113.4 Blondel,�His-toire� de� la� Philosophie at the ASJV. For the letter to Blondel, see BLONDEL–VALENSIN (n. 14), vol. 1, p. 103, p. 108.

20. Auguste� Valensin:� Textes� et� documents� inédits.� Présentés par M. ROUGIER et H. DE LUBAC, Paris, Aubier-Montaigne, 1961, p. 29, no. 1. AVT hereafter.

21. BONFILS, Valensin,�Auguste (n. 13), p. 645; on Ore Place during Teilhard’s years of theological formation, see D. GRUMETT, Teilhard�at�Ore�Place,�Hastings,�1908-1912, in New�Blackfriars� 90 (2009) 687-700, p. 690; for an overview of Ore Place, see L. ROSETTE, Hastings, in DELATTRE�(ed.), Les�établissements�des�Jésuites�en�France (n. 16), vol. 2, 792-800. On the exile of French orders more generally, see J. WALSHE, The�Society� in�Exile�at�Jersey, in Woodstock�Letters�35 (1906) 83-90; G. LAPERRIÈRE, Les�congrégations�religieuses:�Au�plus�fort�de�la�tourmente,�1901-1904,�Sainte-Foy, Presses de l’Université Laval, 1999.



visits to medical facilities, he was appointed as a professor of philosophy on Jersey in 191222. In the same year, Valensin’s former professor, Adhé-mar d’Alès solicited an article from the young philosopher for his forth-coming Dictionnaire� Apologétique� de� la� Foi�Catholique23. D’Alès had originally asked Blondel’s friend Joannès Wehrlé to write the entry on immanence, but his contribution was rejected due to its “quite ruthless” rejection of Blondel’s ideas, which appeared to be a marked change from his earlier viewpoints, much to the surprise of Blondel: “If there is a sin-gle text of mine or a single gesture that, correctly interpreted, on which one could oppose me, I am curious to see it”24.

The responsibility for the articles on the method and doctrine of imma-nence therefore fell to Auguste Valensin and his brother Albert. The thirty-three column entry on the “method of immanence”, wherein Auguste composed the “exposé” and Albert the “évaluation”, became the focal point of the entire multi-volume dictionary, due to the controversial nature of the topic in the wake of Catholic Modernism25. An anonymous review in 1909 surveyed the first volume of the Dictionnaire, but noted anticipation for the article on the “Apologetics of Immanence […] [which is] yet to come”26. After the volume containing Valensin’s entry appeared, a 1912 reviewer wrote that “in our opinion the most notable of all the contents is that on the Immanentist method, of which Father Auguste Valensin gives the genetic account”27. Never mind that the reviewer, by terming Blondel’s method “immanentism”, had perpetuated a misinter-pretation of his philosophy upon which the Dominican Marie-Benoît Schwalm had first levied accusations of neo-Kantianism28. As will be shown below, Schwalm’s initial accusation of Kantian “immanentism”

22. RUY, Le�Père�Auguste�Valensin (n. 11), p. 220; AVT� (n. 20), pp. 60-61. Valensin became a professor of philosophy at Jersey on 12 August 1912. Ibid., p. 73.

23. BLANCHETTE, Maurice�Blondel�(n. 13), p. 288; AVT�(n. 20), p. 71.24. BLONDEL–VALENSIN (n. 14), vol. 2, p. 180 and vol. 1, p. 329, p. 359. See also BLAN-

CHETTE, Maurice�Blondel (n. 13), p. 288.25. A. VALENSIN, Immanence,�Méthode�d’, in A. D’ALÈS (ed.), Dictionnaire�Apologé-

tique�de�la�Foi�Catholique, contenant�les�Preuves�de�la�Vérité�de�la�Religion�et�les�Réponses�aux�Objections�tirées�des�Sciences�humaines, Paris, Beauchesne, 1911, vol. 2, cols. 579-612.

26. Review of Dictionnaire�Apologétique�de�la�Foi�Catholique,�contenant�les�Preuves�de� la�Vérité�de� la�Religion�et� les�Réponses�aux�Objections� tirées�des�Sciences�humaines. Quatrième�édition�entièrement�refondue,�sous�la�direction�de�A.�d’Alès.�Fasc.�1.�Agnosti-cisme–Aumône, in The�Month:�A�Catholic�Magazine�113 (March 1909), no. 537, p. 324.

27. Anonymous review entitled The�Dictionary�of�Apologetics, in The�Month 120 (Dec. 1912), no. 582, p. 659.

28. Schwalm’s initial critique can be found in M.-B. SCHWALM, Les� illusions� de�l’idéalisme�et�leurs�dangers�pour�la�foi, in Revue�Thomiste 4 (1896) 413-441. For a sum-mary of the Schwalm-Blondel interchange, see J. CARON, La�discussion�entre�le�P.�Schwalm�et�Maurice�Blondel�à�propos�de�la�méthode�d’immanence�en�apologétique�(1895-1898), in S.-T. BONINO et�al. (eds.) Saint�Thomas�au�XXe�siècle, Paris, St.-Paul, 1994, 41-52. For a brief overview of the controversy with Schwalm’s accusations of Kantianism, see BLONDEL–VALENSIN (n. 14), vol. 1, pp. 60-72.



echoed throughout the controversy over Blondel’s views, with some oppo-nents repeating these claims despite Blondel’s and Valensin’s best attempts to articulate the differences between immanentism and the apologetic method of immanence29.

While a detailed comparison is not possible in this essay, a brief expla-nation of these points of contention over apologetic method shows the disparity between Blondel’s approach and the traditional “extrinsicist” scholastic viewpoint. Valensin’s entry on the “method of immanence” found such ardent opposition because it aligned him with the central con-cept that lay at the base of Maurice Blondel’s apologetic method, which was, as a reviewer of Valensin’s article wrote “of special significance at the present day”30. As Henri Bouillard later wrote, “It is above all in methods of apologetics and theology, and in the theology of the act of faith, that the influence of L’Action and the Letter�on�Apologetics was felt during the first years”31.

In his 1896 Letter�on�Apologetics Blondel summarized scholastic apol-ogetic method – termed “extrinsicism” – in the following way: “Reason proves the existence of God. It is possible that He has revealed Himself. History shows that He has done so, and it also proves the authenticity of the Scriptures and the authority of the Church. Catholicism is thus estab-lished upon a truly scientific rational basis”32. One problem, for Blondel, was that this scientific, rational approach to God left little room for the inner conditions of the subject. The static system of scholastic apologetics found in the scholastic manuals succeeded in establishing the existence of God by rational means, but only when certain philosophical premises were accepted, premises that, “for the most part, are disputed in our time”33.

Valensin’s précis of the method of immanence captured well Blondel’s critique of “extrinsic” apologetics: “What does not correspond to a call or need – what does not have its interior connection, foreshadow, or touch-stone within man, what is purely and simply from the exterior, this cannot penetrate his life nor inform his thought, it is radically ineffective and, at the same time, unassimilable”34. Rather than demonstrating the existence

29. For Blondel’s words on the difference between “immanence” and “immanentism”, see his Letter�on�Apologetics, in A. DRU – I. TRETHOWAN (trans.), The�Letter�on�Apologetics�and�History�and�Dogma, Grand Rapids, MI, Eerdmans, 1994, pp. 178-179.

30. Review in The�Ecclesiastical�Review 48 (April 1913) 494.31. H. BOUILLARD, Blondel� et� le� Christianisme, Paris, Seuil, 1961, p. 41; cited in

A. DRU, Introduction:�Historical�and�Biographical, in The�Letter�on�Apologetics�and�His-tory�and�Dogma (n. 29), p. 14.

32. Letter�on�Apologetics (n. 29), p. 146.33. Ibid.34. VALENSIN, Immanence (n. 25), col. 581: “Ce qui ne correspond pas à un appel, à

un besoin, – ce qui n’a pas dans l’homme son point d’attache intérieur, sa préfiguration ou sa pierre d’attente, ce qui est purement et simplement du dehors, cela ne peut ni pénétrer sa vie ni informer sa pensée, c’est radicalement inefficace en même temps qu’inassimilable”.



of God or the validity of Christianity by “explicit” proofs for discursive reasoning, the method of immanence utilized interior reflection to illumine the “anonymous” fact of the supernatural within the very recesses of human consciousness35. Its goal was to locate within the subject a desire beneath what was thought and willed and to demonstrate that this desire was a steppingstone toward faith in God. For this reason, Valensin termed it the “apologétique du seuil” or “apologetics of the doorway”36.

Blondel’s words are helpful here: “We must not exhaust ourselves refur-bishing old arguments and presenting an object for acceptance while the subject is not disposed to listen. It is not divine truth which is at fault but human preparation, and it is here that our effort should be concentrated”37. This “subjective preparation” is “essential and permanent, if it is true that man’s action co-operates all along the line with that of God”38. If wonder is the basis of metaphysics, and metaphysics provides the rational means to affirm the existence of God, then Blondel’s apologetics of immanence con-cerned itself with demonstrating that wonder, which should precede first principles in the order of discovery, is itself a product of a supernatural grace already at work in the human subject39.

This interest in the subject, of course, rang to scholastic ears as an infiltration of Kantianism into Catholic theology. Likewise, the focus on the internal recognition of religious sentiment within the subject sounded like the “immanentism” of Auguste Sabatier and certain readings of Alfred Loisy, and this is why scholastic critics deemed Blondel’s ideas Kantian, Modernist, and so on. For these reasons, Valensin carefully tied the method of immanence to concepts which Thomas Aquinas himself had elaborated: “As such, the principle of immanence is nothing other than a paraphrase of the affirmation Thomas expressed unreservedly: ‘Nihil potest ordinari in aliquem finem nisi praeexistat in ipso quaedam propor-tio ad finem’ [Nothing can be directed to any end unless there pre-exists in it a certain proportion to the end]’”40. In addition to Aquinas, Valensin

35. Ibid., col. 607.36. Ibid., col. 584.37. BLONDEL, Letter�on�Apologetics (n. 29), pp. 146-147. Quoted in P. BERNARDI, Mau-

rice�Blondel�and�the�Renewal�of� the�Nature-Grace�Relationship, in Communio�26 (1999) 806-845, p. 812.

38. BLONDEL, Letter�on�Apologetics (n. 29), p. 147.39. Indeed, Blondel spent several pages in Letter�on�Apologetics considering the differ-

ence between placing reason before faith or after it. Letter�on�Apologetics�(n. 29), pp. 140-142. The ordering of faith vis-à-vis reason was no small matter in the nineteenth century. For instance, Auguste Bonnetty was required by the Congregation of the Index in 1855 to assent to a list of principles which included the following: “Faith was posterior to reason”; “The use of reason preceded faith and led to faith with the help of revelation and grace”. Quoted in MCCOOL, Catholic�Theology�in�the�Nineteenth�Century (n. 17), pp. 129-130.

40. VALENSIN, Immanence (n. 25), col. 581: “Tel quel, le principe d’immanence n’est rien d’autre, nous dit-on, qu’une paraphrase de l’affirmation que saint Thomas énonçait sans restriction: ‘Nihil potest ordinari in aliquem finem nisi praeexistat in ipso quaedam



cited passages from Augustine, Blaise Pascal, Jacques Bénigne Bossuet, François Fénelon, and Nicolas Malebranche that revealed earlier glimpses of an inner stirring or inquiétude that Blondel demonstrated was the object of the method of immanence41. The fact that all of these figures preceded Immanuel Kant suggests Valensin’s strategy to exculpate Blondel’s method of immanence from accusations of Kantianism. Valensin spent a section of the article supporting the claim that “the thinking that the method [of immanence] presupposes is neither Kantian subjectivism, phi-losophism, nor pragmatism”42.

Such a statement reflected the tone of Valensin’s entry on “Kantian crit-icism” in the first volume of the Dictionnaire, where he critiqued the inad-equacies of Kant’s system and, more importantly, affirmed its incompatibil-ity with dogma. “It suffices, Valensin wrote, to have closely read the preceding exposé in order to be convinced that no ingenuity could reconcile Kantianism with Catholic truth”43. Valensin also wanted to distinguish between Kant’s philosophy and its problematic heirs, stating that “Kantian-ism is dead, at least as a system; the spirit of Kantianism lives on. Not only does it animate the philosophies which acknowledge that they no longer uphold its criticism, but it penetrates the thought of scholars, writers and even theologians who are not interested in studying the system or who lack the preparation in order to understand it”44. One name stood out among those discussed in the section on the errors of the “spirit of Kantianism” – Auguste Sabatier – which betrays Valensin’s motive to distinguish his and Blondel’s method of immanence from the work of such figures, and thereby ward off further accusations of Kantianism or Modernism45.

The method of immanence expounds on the fact that, even in an unbe-lieving soul, there is a need for the supernatural which is itself already an “effect of prevenient grace and a condition for habitual grace”, and which can be discovered via interior reflection, indeed “nothing exterior,

proportio ad finem’”. Quotation from De�Veritate, q. 14, a. 2. English translation from THOMAS AQUINAS, Truth, trans. J.V. MCGLYNN, Chicago, IL, Henry Regnery Co., 1953, p. 216.

41. VALENSIN, Immanence (n. 25), col. 590.42. Ibid., col. 595. “[…] l’attitude de pensée qui suppose la méthode [d’immanence]

n’est point celle du subjectivisme kantien, ni celle du philosophisme, ou du pragmatisme”.43. “Il suffit, pensons-nous, d’avoir lu attentivement l’exposé qui précède, pour s’être

convaincu qu’il n’y a pas d’ingéniosité qui puisse concilier le Kantisme avec la vérité catholique”. A. VALENSIN, Criticisme�kantien, in D’ALÈS (ed.), Dictionnaire�Apologétique�de�la�Foi�Catholique (n. 25), vol. 1, 734-760, col. 749. On this, see also P. COLIN, L’audace�et� le� soupçon:� La� crise� moderniste� dans� le� catholicisme� français� (1893-1914), Paris, Desclée de Brouwer, 1997, pp. 199-237.

44. “Le Kantisme est mort, du moins comme système; l’esprit�du�Kantisme�vit toujours. Non seulement il anime les philosophies qui professent de ne plus s’en tenir au criticisme, mais il pénètre la pensée de savants, de littérateurs et même de théologiens, qui n’ont pas eu le goût d’étudier le système ou qui auraient manqué de préparation pour le comprendre”. VALENSIN, Criticisme�kantien (n. 43), col. 758.

45. Ibid., cols. 748-749.



in fact, need enter into the line of reflection”46. This recognition of the gift of grace differentiated the “method of immanence” from “immanent-ism”, and even a critic like Joseph de Tonquédec granted in 1913 that Blondel’s idea of immanence “does not head toward immanentism, nor idealism, nor phenomenalism”, thereby stepping back from Schwalm’s critique from 189647. Blondel recognized that this attention to the interior conditions of the subject was a dangerous proposition to raise in that intellectual climate, but it was of paramount importance that Catholic apologists reconsider their task. He wrote the following to the Valensin brothers as they prepared the immanence articles: “And if one reflects deeply on incommensurability of the natural order with the supernatural, one will see that the chief problem, for the apologist, comes in trying to understand how man is actually supernaturalisable”48. This was precisely what the method of immanence set out to achieve: “Now, the method of immanence, applied in all rigor, must encounter this passage or these touches of the supernatural in the study of the interior and integral phenomenon”49.

Such arguments about the immanence of grace within the sphere of human knowing and willing were highly suspect, and the question whether Blondel was a Modernist had been vibrantly debated due in part to the fact that Pope Pius X’s 1907 encyclical Pascendi�Dominici�Gregis included the following statement: “[…] We have grave reason to complain that there are Catholics who, while rejecting immanence as a doctrine, employ it as a method of apologetics, and who do this so imprudently that they seem to admit […] that there is in human nature a true and rigorous need for the supernatural order”50. An undated manuscript in the archival files of Jersey’s seminary considered whether Blondel’s correct interpretation of Aquinas on “internal finality” “authorizes […] the method of imma-nence that the encyclical ‘Pascendi’ discredits for some Catholics”51.

46. VALENSIN, Immanence�(n. 25), cols. 588 and 590.47. “[…] ne l’ont mené ni à l’immanentisme ni à l’idéalisme ni au phénoménisme”.

J. DE TONQUÉDEC, L’idée� d’immanence� chez� M.�Maurice� Blondel, in Revue� pratique�d’apologétique 15 (December 1, 1913), no. 173, 347-361, pp. 349-350.

48. BLONDEL–VALENSIN (n. 14), vol. 3, p. 27. “Et justement si l’on veut réfléchir à fond sur l’incommensurabilité de l’ordre naturel et du surnaturel, on verra que le suprême pro-blème, pour l’apologiste, est de rechercher comment l’homme est effectivement surnatura-lisable”.

49. Lettres�philosophiques�de�Maurice�Blondel, Paris, Aubier, 1961, p. 94. Quoted in BERNARDI, Maurice�Blondel� and� the�Renewal� of� the�Nature-Grace�Relationship (n. 37), p. 815.

50. Pascendi�Dominici�Gregis, no. 37. In On�the�Doctrines�of�the�Modernists [Pascendi Dominici Gregis], Boston, MA, Daughters of St. Paul, pp. 46-47. Quoted in BERNARDI, Maurice�Blondel�and�the�Renewal�of�the�Nature-Grace�Relationship (n. 37), p. 821, no. 51.

51. ASJV E Je 12. “Blondel a mieux compris St. Thomas que ne l’a compris le P. de Tonquédec, au moins en ce qui concerne la finalité interne. Mais cette finalité interne, – telle que l’entend Blondel, – n’autorise-t-elle pas la méthode d’immanence que l’Encyclique ‘Pascendi’ reproche à certains catholiques?”



To some at Jersey, perhaps Blondelianism was still an open question, but others around Europe like Joseph de Tonquédec and Réginald Garri-gou-Lagrange quickly published critical evaluations of the method of immanence52. De Tonquédec published two articles late 1912 in the Revue�pratique�d’apologétique in which he critiqued Blondel’s use of the method of immanence as “inconsistent and illogical”53. In late February of that year, Valensin exchanged letters with Pierre Rousselot over whether de Tonquédec’s critiques were directed at Valensin specifically or at the Blondelian method of immanence on the whole54.

For his 1912 entry on the method of immanence, Valensin became the object of criticism from scholastic theologians both on Jersey and else-where, who now had written proof of his Blondelian views. Although he spent his free time during his first years as professor at Jersey redacting the “Immanence” article, it was placed to the index of prohibited books in early 191455. Later discussion in archival documents from late 1914 and into 1915 reveals that Valensin redacted the article to have it reconsid-ered56. Even before it was condemned, concern over the tendencies in the article had spread across seminaries in Europe. Xavier Le Bachelet, a Jesuit professor at Ore Place in Hastings, England noted in a letter to Valensin that during his September 1912 visit to the French Jesuit semi-nary exiled to Enghien, Belgium a professor “spoke to me concerning your article and asked me my view on two or three points […]”57.

After Valensin’s Immanence article was in effect blacklisted, he appealed several times to have it reconsidered. As a result of these appeals, Valensin received a letter from Claude Chanteur, the Jesuit provincial of Lyon. Although Chanteur confessed that he personally was not disturbed by Valensin’s views, he noted how the article on immanence had raised

52. On the debate between Blondel and de Tonquédec over immanence, see especially L.F. VALDÉS, Hacia�una�valoración�de�la�discusión�de�M.�Blondel�y�J.�de�Tonquédec�sobre�la�inmanencia, in�Tópicos 27 (2004) 187-218. For Garrigou-Lagrange’s contribution to this debate, see R. GARRIGOU-LAGRANGE, Chronique�de�métaphysique, in Revue�Thomiste�21 (1913) 351-371; Chronique�d’Apologétique.�II:�Les�méthodes�de�l’apologétique, in Revue�Thomiste�21 (1931) 471-485.

53. DE TONQUÉDEC, L’idée�d’immanence�chez�M.�Maurice�Blondel (n. 47), p. 350. The articles were reprinted in Immanence:�Essai�critique�sur�la�doctrine�de�M.�Maurice�Blondel, Paris, Beauchesne, 1913.

54. Letter from Pierre Rousselot to Auguste Valensin. Dated 22 February 1913. ASJV T Va 72/1.

55. Letters from his brother Albert Valensin and Xavier Le Bachelet in the fall of 1912 suggested revisions to his article, which indicates that he was revising his article during his first year as professor at Jersey’s seminary. ASJV T Va 72/1.

56. AVT�(n. 20), pp. 71-72, p. 83, and p. 85. At the same time, Pierre Rousselot’s entry on Intellectualisme for the Dictionnaire was also under consideration for the index. Ibid., p. 86. ASJV T Va 72/1: Le Bachelet to Auguste Valensin. 26 October, 1912 and Albert to Auguste Valensin. 7 November 1912.

57. Letter from Xavier Le Bachelet to Auguste Valensin, 26 October 1912. ASJV T Va 72/1, Le Bachelet.



“inquiétudes” over his Blondelianism58. Two years later, after another epistolary exchange, Valensin sent a summary of his philosophical views and outlined to Chanteur his objections to several foundational philosoph-ical theses affirmed by the scholastic manuals used at Jersey59. The first note, also the most strongly worded, concerned the real distinction between essence and existence, which Valensin understood “as the base of� the�thomist�system, but in no way as the foundation of Christian philosophy”60. He then rejected the scholastic approach to several fundamental issues in theology and philosophy – epistemology, cosmology, and quantity in metaphysics, and “futuribles” in theodicy61.

Among his summary of philosophical differences, surely his disappro-bation for the “real distinction” between essence and existence cut most deeply. A version of this principle had been set forth in Aquinas’s De�ente�et�essentia, reiterated in the Summa�contra�Gentiles, and its interpretation had been widely debated by the late medieval and early modern scholastic commentators Johannes Duns Scotus, Francisco de Suárez, and Thomas Cajetan. It stated that God is the unique, uncreated, and infinite being whose essence and existence are identical: “In Deo idem est esse et essen-tia” (In God, existence and essence are the same). The real distinction defined the composite ontology – essence and existence – of any created, finite thing: “[…] in omnibus autem aliis […] differt esse et quod est” (in all other things, existence and what exists are different)62. Scholastics medieval and modern recognized the important place this metaphysical principle occupied in scholasticism, but they disagreed on the definition of “real” (e.g., the reality of a mathematical principle versus the reality of an object) and also whether and to what extent the writings of Aquinas actually contained this concept63.

This dispute aside, the “real distinction” came to be relied upon as an apologetic against the perceived problems of modern philosophy. For instance, a “clandestine pamphlet” distributed at Jersey’s seminary asserted that the “real distinction” guarded against such errors as pantheism: “Is the so-called distinction an inconsequential viewpoint? Response: rejecting

58. Letter from Claude Chanteur to Auguste Valensin, 10 December 1915. AVT�(n. 20), p. 134.

59. Letter from Auguste Valensin to Claude Chanteur, April or May 1917. Ibid., p. 135.60. “Je regarde la distinction d’essence et d’être comme la base du�système� thomiste,

mais aucunement comme le fondement de la philosophie chrétienne […]”. Ibid., p. 135. Italics original.

61. Ibid., pp. 135-136.62. Summa�contra�Gentiles, bk. 1, ch. 12 and bk. 2, ch. 52. Quoted in N. DEL PRADO,

La�vérité�fondamentale�de�la�philosophie�chrétienne�selon�Saint�Thomas, in Revue�Thomiste�18 (1910) 209-227 and 340-360, pp. 209-210.

63. For comprehensive summary of the debate over the “real distinction”, see F.A. CUN-NINGHAM, Essence�and�Existence�in�Thomism:�A�Mental�vs.�the�“Real�Distinction”?,�Lan-ham, MD, University Press of America, 1988.



the real distinction leads one to pantheism”64. According to del Prado, the real distinction safeguarded the fundamental metaphysical premise on the difference between infinite being and finite being or God and creation; therefore, affirming it preserves one from “very grave difficulty”65. The real distinction precluded errors about God such as anthropomorphism (because it safeguarded the difference between creature and Creator) on the one hand and agnosticism (because it provided an ontological defini-tion of God as Being) on the other. Such a distinction also clarified on matters regarding revelation and epistemology, which has possible impli-cations for the scholastic view on the method of immanence: “For [some adversaries of the real distinction], the idea of God as infinite Being is an innate, or quasi-innate idea that the soul carries in itself from its entry into the world, as a first ray of light destined to illuminate the realms of thought”66.

While del Prado’s words were perhaps directed against ontologism, there is a similarity between a misconstrued idea of Blondel’s method of immanence – such as what Schwalm had set forth – and the problematic thesis that an idea of infinite Being could “surge in intelligence without the effort of reasoning and by the method of simple intuition”67. Indeed, Pedro Descoqs’s 1930s Praelectiones noted that the method of immanence described by Blondel and Valensin did not directly equate to something as serious as ontologism (because it did not assert an immediate, interior vision of absolute Being), but nevertheless set forth a “very pronounced immanentism”68. This connection provides a basis upon which to under-stand both why scholastics rejected the method of immanence so vehe-mently and, perhaps more important, why they doubled down on using principles like the real distinction as a means of precluding an apologetics of immanence. The “real distinction” provided a rational way of ascertain-ing the absolute separation of the supernatural from nature and was there-fore relied upon as an antidote against Blondel’s attempt to locate grace within the immanent frame of human action and consciousness.

Valensin’s rejection of the “real distinction” as the “foundation of Christian philosophy” (but not of it as a basis of thomism) demonstrates that he was aware of the way in which this principle had become an apol-ogetic principle against any modern philosophy. Moreover, the phrase he used about Christian philosophy closely reflected the title of del Prado’s 1911 book – De�veritate�fundamentali�totius�philosophiae�christianae – on

64. Une�brochure�clandestine, in Lettres�de�Jersey, 1 in new series�(Jan. 1920) 286-288. 65. DEL PRADO, La�vérité�fondamentale�de�la�philosophie�chrétienne�selon�Saint�Thomas

(n. 62), p. 224.66. Ibid., p. 359 for anthropomorphism and for agnosticism, p. 340.67. Ibid., p. 340.68. P. DESCOQS, Prælectiones�Theologiciæ�Naturalis:�Cours�de�théodicée,�2 vols., Paris,

Beauchesne, 1935, vol. 2, pp. 299-300. On other evaluations of immanence, see BLONDEL–VALENSIN (n. 14), vol. 2, pp. 35-36, note 3.



the real distinction as the fundamental truth of Christian philosophy, which aides in understanding exactly what he was rejecting69. His interaction with the “real distinction” was due to the fact that Jersey’s scholasticate was especially imbued with debate over this principle. This dispute made its way there while the seminary was located at Laval, France until 1880, when “the philosophy of Suárez had been reimposed in the French Jesuit philosophates during the 1850s”70. During Louis Cardinal Billot’s brief tenure on Jersey before he became a professor at the Gregorian in Rome, a public disputation over the principle demonstrated its importance to Jer-sey Jesuits. In 1931, André Bremond succinctly described the importance of this disputation in the seminary’s history: “We still can discern, at the distance of forty years, some tremors and some turmoil. But a great and peaceful eclecticism of a ‘Suárezien’ bent tends to rule”71. Valensin con-sciously critiqued this tradition by concluding his list with the note that, on certain philosophical points, “I reject Billot”72. By critiquing the real distinction as another component of ‘extrinsic’, scholastic apologetics and by rejecting some of Billot’s views, Valensin had certainly garnered oppo-sition.

In addition to wider criticism about his article “from a reputable theo-logian” who remained unnamed, Valensin recognized in early 1914 that at Jersey, too, the atmosphere had become less favorable than the previous year, and remarked to Blondel that “I have some enemies”73. This was in part thanks to professors Pedro Descoqs and Gabriel Picard. Though let-ters concerning the “Valensin affair” referred primarily to Descoqs, archi-val letters also locate Picard as an instigator in the campaign against Valensin, at least with the Jesuit provincials. In 1913, Valensin expressed in a letter his distaste with Descoqs in the following way: “I have never wanted to know his work!”74. This antagonist of the Valensin controversy carried great influence over the seminary, both for his infamously less than charitable philosophical critiques and for his role as seminary librarian.

69. De� veritate� fundamentali� totius� philosophiae� christianae, Fribourg, Consociatio Sancti Pauli, 1911.

70. P.J. BERNARDI, Maurice� Blondel,� Social� Catholicism,� &� Action� Française:� The�Clash�over�the�Church’s�Role�in�Society�during�the�Modernist�Era, Washington, DC, The Catholic University of America Press, 2009, p. 82. For more on the intellectual life and theological controversies at the Laval seminary, see Y. DU CLEUZIOU – P. DUCLOS, Laval, in DELATTRE (ed.), Les�établissements�des�Jésuites�en�France (n. 16), vol. 2, cols. 1048-1050.

71. “Insensiblement tout s’apaisa. Nous devinons, à la distance de quarante ans, encore quelques frémissements, quelques remous. Mais un large et pacifique éclectisme de teinte suarézienne tend à prévaloir”. A. BREMOND, La�vie�intellectuelle�à�Jersey:�Philosophie�et�Théologie, in Lettres�de�Jersey�(1931) 135-146, p. 138.

72. Ibid., p. 136.73. Letter from Auguste Valensin to Maurice Blondel. Dated 22 March 1914. AVT�

(n. 20), p. 85.74. Letter from Auguste Valensin to Maurice Blondel. Dated 13 July 1913: “[…] je n’ai

rien voulu savoir de son travail!”. Ibid., p. 79.



Descoqs was educated at Jersey’s seminary at the turn of the century, and then returned to be a professor there from 1912 until it was closed when Nazi soldiers occupied the Isle75. He was a vociferous controversial-ist with “gigantic erudition” in classical and medieval philosophy, scho-lasticism, and contemporary philosophy76. Along with having published several textbooks on metaphysics, natural theology, and theodicy77, Descoqs also co-founded in 1922 a journal titled Archives�de�Philosophie, of which de Lubac was a student aid while on Jersey78. His philosophical contributions were marked by his criticism of the real distinction between essence and existence; he argued that the issue “was correct in the sen-tences of Saint Thomas”79, and his goal was to demonstrate this80. His philosophical rigor was matched only by his interest in the monarchist political views of Charles Maurras and Action�Française81.

A student at the Maison�Saint-Louis later connected Valensin’s termina-tion with the power Descoqs possessed in purging the seminary of those with whom he disagreed: “the control that [Descoqs] exercised over the philo-sophical studies was a rude trial for many. He and his friends had eliminated the men who communicated a more innovative thought […]”82. In one col-league’s words, Descoqs “was argumentative, adversarial; he was always

75. D. AVON – P. ROCHER, Les�jésuites�et� la�société�française:�XIXe-XXe�siècles, Tou-louse, Éditions Privat, 2001, p. 144.

76. S.V. KEELING, Philosophical� Survey:�Philosophy� in�France, in Journal� of�Philo-sophical�Studies 4/13 (Jan. 1929), p. 105.

77. P. DESCOQS’S major publications are as follows: À�travers�l’œuvre�de�M.�Maurras, Paris, Beauchesne, 1911; Monophorisme� et�Action�Française,�Paris, Beauchesne, 1913; Essai� critique� sur� l’hylémorphisme,�Paris, Beauchesne, 1924; Institutiones�Metaphysicae�Generalis,�Paris, Beauchesne, 1925; Le�Mystère� de� notre� élévation� surnaturelle, Paris, Beauchesne, 1938; Schema� theodiceae,�Paris, Beauchesne, 1941; Autour� de� la� crise� du�transformisme, Paris, Beauchesne, 1944.

78. His co-founder was Joseph Soulhié. CHANTRAINE, Henri� de�Lubac (n. 2), vol. 2, p. 58. As editor, he exercised close control over the material published in its pages; in 1924, he gave “negative censure” to the publication of a section of Gaston Fessard’s thesis on Maine de Biran, thereby blocking its publication. G. CHANTRAINE, Les� “Cahiers”� de�Maréchal� découverts� par� de� Lubac,� Fessard,� Hamel� et� de�Montcheuil� (1923-1926), in P. GILBERT (ed.), Au� point� de� départ:� Joseph Maréchal� entre� la� critique� kantienne� et�l’ontologie�thomiste, Bruxelles, Lessius, 2000, 283-304, p. 293.

79. “Descoqs considera que ésta es correcta en le sentido de S. Tomás […]”. P. GIL-BERT, La�tercera�escolástica�en�Francia, in E. RODRIQUEZ NAVARRO (trans.), Filosofía�cris-tiana�en�el�pensamiento�católico�de�los�XIX�y�XX, vol. 2, Vuelta�a�la�herencia�escolástica, Madrid, Editiones Encuentro, 1994, 377-399, p. 395.

80. É. GILSON, The�Philosopher�and�Theology, trans. C. GILSON, New York, Random House, 1962, pp. 205-206. On Descoqs and essence and existence, see: H.J. JOHN, The�Thomist�Spectrum, New York, Fordham University Press, 1966, pp. 72-86.

81. On this debate between Blondel and Descoqs, its context, and its implications on later French Catholicism, see the very helpful contribution by BERNARDI, Maurice�Blondel,�Social�Catholicism,�&�Action�Française (n. 70).

82. J. GUILLET, Habiter� les�Écritures, Paris, Centurion, 1993, p. 74. Quoted in BER-NARDI, Maurice�Blondel,�Social�Catholicism,�&�Action�Française (n. 70), p. 211.



thinking against someone”83. By 1922, the Jesuit authorities worried that because of discord among other professors, “Father Descoqs triumphs more and more. Will this continue in the years to follow? There are some chances that yes”84. The authority Descoqs exercised over the atmosphere of the seminary will be further examined below, but it suffices to note that the he was one of a number of professors who contributed to the “Valensin affair”.

The criticism Valensin received at Jersey’s seminary resulted from the Blondelian apologetic he defended in his article on the method of imma-nence – in 1921, a professor noted that he had heard about the “severe judgment handed down by the Father General on the doctrines of Father V[alensin]”85. On this level, the controversy therefore represented another chapter in the tumultuous reception of Blondel’s ideas within the Roman Catholic world86. But other factors connected to his role as a professor at Jersey contributed to the shape and impact of the affair.

II. PEDAGOGY

In their history of philosophy course, students in the 1910s would have heard Valensin lecture in French and use Socratic dialogue to discuss ancient and modern philosophers, Blondel and Rousselot among them. Then, per-haps later in the same day, would have heard Descoqs, in their ontology course, critique and lambast – all in Latin – the perceived philosophical inadequacies of modern philosophies, such as Blondelianism. Valensin’s article had placed him on the radar of anti-Blondelians at the Maison�Saint-Louis and elsewhere, and his rejection of a monolithic scholastic method for

83. G. PICARD, In�Memoriam�Le�Père�Pedro�Descoqs, in Archives�de�Philosophie�18 (1949) 129-135, p. 132. The description by B. Romeyer similarly mentions his controver-sialist behavior: “Professeur, bibliothécaire, bibliographe, philosophe très rationnel, ardent à combattre en preux les publicistes enclins à aventurer la raison dans le dogme ou à ériger leurs hypothèses en thèses”. Descoqs,�Pedro, in G. JACQUEMET (ed.), Catholicisme:�Hier�Aujourd’hui�Demain, 15 vols., Paris, Letouzey et Ané, 1952, vol. 3, col. 663.

84. Manuscript entitled Simples�notes� sur� l’état�de� l’enseignement. Dated 21 October 1922. ASJV E Je 12. Enseignement�1915-1922.

85. “Le R.P. Chauvin en revanche m’a confié un jugement sévère porté par le R.P. Géné-ral sur les doctrines du Père V”. Paul Nivard to Provincial Father. 13 July 1921. E Je 12. Enseignement�1915-1922.

86. BERNARDI, who mentions this episode in a footnote, provides the following analysis: “Archival material indicates that Descoqs was intimately involved with purging the profes-sorial ranks of those who did not toe the Suarezian line. In particular, he waged a behind-the-scenes battle against Blondel’s influence. For example, Auguste Valensin was ejected from the Jersey faculty in 1920 because of his Blondelian sympathies”. Maurice�Blondel,�Social� Catholicism,�&� Action� Française (n. 70), p. 91, no. 8; É. FOUILLOUX holds that Valensin was dismissed “pour ‘blondélisme’”. Une�“École�de�Fourvière”?, in Gregoria-num�83/3 (2002) 451-459, p. 452; G. Chantraine makes a passing comment about the Ratio�Studiorum and Bulot, but never discusses the matter as one of the reasons behind Valensin’s relocation to Lyons. CHANTRAINE, Henri�de�Lubac (n. 2), vol. 2, pp. 122-123.



teaching theology placed him further at odds with fellow faculty members like Descoqs and Picard. Concern over Valensin’s views quickly spread to his pedagogy, a question which hinged on whether he followed the stipu-lated rules for Jesuit education as found in the Ratio�Studiorum.

In late July 1915, Camille Bonnet, a Jesuit professor named official visitor of Jersey’s seminary, expressed to a Provincial his worry over the effects this difference in pedagogies would have on the atmosphere of Jersey’s seminary:

As visitor, the only thing that I think is necessary to bring to your attention is the state of teaching and studies in the Jersey scholasticate. Deep discordances in doctrine, and on some important points, – and, when a little agreement on doctrines is found, the terminology is so different that it is truly difficult to recognize this! The longer this state prolongs, the more also the malaise grows in professors and in scholastics. We come to see this once again during the exam period with evidence that leaves no doubt, and without any hope of harmony as long as the elements remain what they are. Far from being able to count on an improvement of the situation, there is even more fear of a serious aggravation, if, as I noted to you, the teaching personnel stays the same, the course on the history of philosophy must be retaken next year87.

Although Bonnet never mentioned Valensin by name, the latter had been teaching the course on the history of philosophy, which, because he had not followed the pedagogical standard, “must be retaken next year”. As will be evinced below, Valensin often included Rousselot and Blondel in this course. Several years later, another professor expressed a similar concern over Valensin’s pedagogy: “The professors who taught the first year [courses] have greatly abandoned traditional viewpoints and the cus-tomary terminology in a way that I judge disastrous, particularly as Father Valensin highlights, yet much more strongly in the same way and with a prestige that you know”88.

87. Letter from C. Bonnet to the Provincial Father. 27 July 1915. ASJV E Je 12. “La seule chose que je crois devoir, comme consulteur, signaler à votre attention, c’est l’état de l’enseignement et les études dans le scolasticat de Jersey. Discordances profondes dans les doctrines, et sur des points importants, – et, quand les doctrines se trouvent à peu près d’accord, terminologie si différente qu’il est vraiment difficile de s’y reconnaître! Plus cet état se prolonge, plus aussi le malaise augmente et chez les professeurs et chez les scolas-tiques. Nous venons, pendant la période des examens, de constater une fois de plus, et avec une évidence qui ne laisse place à aucun doute, ni à aucun espoir d’entente, aussi longtemps que les éléments seront ce qu’ils sont. Bien loin qu’on puisse compter sur une amélioration de la situation, il y a tout lieu de craindre une aggravation sérieuse, si, comme on nous l’annonce – le personnel enseignant restant le même –, le cours d’histoire de la philosophie devait être repris l’année prochaine”.

88. “Les professeurs qui enseignaient en première année ont laissé bien des positions traditionnelles et la terminologie accoutumée d’une façon que j’estime désastreuse, d’autant que le Père Val. accentuait encore bien plus fortement dans le même sens, avec le prestige que vous savez”. Letter from Paul Nivard to the Provincial Father, 13 July 1921. ASJV E Je 12. Enseignement,�1915-1922.



As Bonnet’s letter also demonstrates, the discord over theological dif-ferences impacted the classroom atmosphere at the seminary. Such peda-gogical innovation found no more vehement opposition than from Descoqs. Years later, a professor at the seminary named Christian Burdo relayed to his Provincial Father the ways in which Descoqs sought to correct the perceived errors taught by other professors:

I feel compelled, however, to mention two serious criticisms of him [Descoqs]. The first, he has a method that is too exclusively negative and critical. He excels at this, but afterward does not provide the constructive summary that gratifies the mind. And there is always the danger of saying: “Here is the unique truth”, or “No argument is proven except this one” (he is especially concerned with the model of the existence of God), while it is not so certain that the only truth or the only argument may be themselves sheltered from all criticism. Furthermore, he is often (minus that year how-ever) much too harsh in his polemic, even for some fellow professors from the Maison of whose views he does not share. He thinks himself to be on a mission of standing for the true doctrine, using the occasion to reform the Scholastics’ ideas from what their earlier professors had taught, and, more significantly, even casting a mark of suspicion of theological unorthodoxy over the theories that differ from his own89.

There was concern over the discord between various professors at the seminary because, according to Jesuit pedagogical methods, even the small-est incoherence in education could in effect topple the methodically con-structed edifice inside a young Jesuit’s mind. A 1916 letter from the Supe-rior General of the Jesuits to the Jersey faculty urged this point: “It is indispensable not to introduce confusion in the minds of scholastics”90. Norbert de Boynes likewise wrote that “We thus risk confusing or disorient-ing [the students]. Teaching must be classic and traditional”91. To ensure

89. “On est bien obligé pourtant de lui faire deux reproches sérieux. Le premier, d’avoir une méthode trop exclusivement négative et critique. Il y excelle, mais ne donne pas ensuite de synthèse constructive qui satisfasse l’esprit. Et c’est toujours le danger de dire: ‘Voici l’unique vérité’ ou ‘aucun argument ne prouve sauf celui-ci’ (surtout s’il s’agit par exemple de l’existence de Dieu), alors qu’il n’est pas tellement sûr que l’unique vérité ou l’unique argument soient eux-mêmes à l’abri de toute critique. De plus il est souvent (moins cette année cependant) beaucoup trop violent dans sa polémique, même pour des collègues de la maison dont il ne partage pas les opinions. Il se croit trop vite une mission de représenter la vraie doctrine, profitant pour réformer les idées des Scolastiques de ce qu’il est leur dernier professeur, et jetant même, ce qui est plus grave, une note de suspicion pour inor-thodoxie théologique sur les théories différentes des siennes”. Rapport�du�préfet�d’études�(Christian�Burdo). Dated April 1936. ASJV E Je 12.

90. “Cela est indispensable pour ne pas porter la confusion dans l’esprit des scolas-tiques”. Letter from Wlodimir Ledochowski to Jersey professors. Dated 1 August 1916. ASJV E Je 12. Enseignement�1915-1922.

91. “On risque ainsi de les troubler et de les désorienter. L’enseignement doit être clas-sique et traditionnel”. Letter from Norbert de Boynes to unknown. Dated 31 August 1915. ASJV E Je 12. Enseignement�1915-1922.



that students were formed correctly, Jesuits followed their guidebook for education, called the Ratio� Studiorum. Valensin’s pedagogical methods were highly suspect because they did not adhere to these standards, and thus he was in part to blame for the discord in doctrine and terminology that Bonnet had described in his 1915 letter.

Such use of the Ratio to defend against philosophical and theological errors was certainly not new, for the changing intellectual tides of the nineteenth century instigated a debate over the correct interpretation and implementation of the Ratio Studiorum92. Since the sixteenth century, this authoritative docu-ment had set forth clear and specific educational directives for Jesuit schools and seminaries concerning (among many other rules) the proper way to teach courses, the order in which subject matter was to be introduced, as well as what material was to be allowed within the reach of students93. After Pope Pius VII lifted the suppression of the Jesuits in Europe, the new Superior General Jan Roothaan oversaw a revision of the Ratio that responded to new pressures facing Catholic colleges and seminaries. The first statute of this revised version, which was promulgated in 1832, highlighted clearly the necessity of a sound philosophical basis: “the professor was so to teach [phi-losophy], that he prepared his students for the other [higher] scholarly disci-plines, especially for theology, that he provided them with the weapons of truth against the errors of innovators […]”94. The ideas of innovators came from the rationalism and positivism taught at state universities as much as from intra-Catholic ideas like ontologism95. Though there was much debate over the correct implementation of the Ratio�Studiorum on a minute level, many Jesuits upheld it as the standard defense against the ills of modernity.

Thus it was no surprise that, in the decade after the condemnation of Catholic Modernism, the Ratio’s pedagogical rigor and concern for a sound philosophical foundation (which was to be found only in scholastic manuals) was once again imposed upon all seminaries. On 8 December 1916 Wlodimir Ledochowski, who had been elected Father General of the Jesuits only several years before, sent a letter to all Jesuits entitled “De Doctrina S. Thomae magis magisque in Societate fovenda” (That the doc-trine of Saint Thomas ought to be taught in the Society more and more)96. The letter was prefaced by a short note from Pope Benedict XV stating that

92. J.W. PADBERG, Colleges�in�Controversy:�The�Jesuit�Schools�in�France�from�Revival�to�Suppression,�1815-1880 (Harvard Historical Studies, 83), Cambridge, MA, Harvard Uni-versity Press, 1969, see especially chapters 2–5.

93. Ibid., p. 145. 94. Ratio�Studiorum, no. 1. 1832 edition. Quoted ibid., p. 192. On the reformulation of

the Ratio�Studiorum after the restoration of the society, see A.P. FARRELL, The�Jesuit�Code�of�Liberal�Education,�Milwaukee, WI, Bruce, 1938, pp. 365-421.

95. See ibid., pp. 197-198. 96. Epistola�Wlodimiri�Ledochowski�de�doctrina�S.�Thomae�magis�magisque�in�Socie-

tate� fovenda, in Zeitschrift� für�katholische�Theologie�42 (1918) 205-253. English transla-tion: W. LEDOCHOWSKI, On�Following�the�Doctrine�of�St.�Thomas, in Selected�Writings�of�Father�Ledochowski, Chicago, IL, Loyola University Press, 1945, pp. 479-519.



Jesuits should give “allegiance” to Aquinas “as the guide and master in the study of theology and philosophy […]”97. In addition to this positive directive, Ledochowski cautioned against Kantian philosophy, “which now spreads its poison to almost every section of the educated world” and toward which the authentic follower of Thomas “can never be led astray”. He also classified Modernism as nothing more than an “offshoot of Kan-tianism”, and obliquely referenced Pierre Rousselot’s dissertation on intel-lectualism – all of these points were re-iterated with greater vibrancy in his condemnatory 1920 letter addressed only to Jesuit provincials98.�

Among the many stipulations in the forty-six page letter from 1916, Ledochowski quoted several mandates from the Ratio�Studiorum, among them the fourth rule to Prefects of Studies at Jesuit seminaries:

4. He should be familiar with the book about the educational plan, and he should make sure that the rules are observed with consistent attention by all the students and the professors, especially the rules that are prescribed for the theologians about the teaching of Saint Thomas and for the philosophers about the selection of opinions.

Ledochowski then quoted the second rule specifically to professors of the scholastic theology, and the sixth rule to professors of philosophy:

2. Jesuits should entirely follow the teaching of Saint Thomas in Scholastic theology and they should consider him their own particular authority. And they should make every effort to ensure that the students are as well disposed toward him as possible. […]6. But on the other hand he should never speak about Saint Thomas without respect, wholeheartedly following him as often as required, or departing from him respectfully and reluctantly if his position seems to have less to commend it99.

97. Ibid., p. 480. 98. Ibid., p. 491. On this page, there is discussion of Kantian philosophy The next para-

graph connects Kantianism with Modernism, into which Rousselot is included: “All the Mod-ernists, whose errors can rightly be said to be no more than offshoots of the Kantian philoso-phy, have watered their gardens with the stream of this poisoned well; those, namely, who, following the principles of their master, are bothered by no intellectualism, as they term it […]” The word “intellectualism” here can be read as an oblique reference to Rousselot’s dissertation and to his 1914 entry Intellectualisme in the Dictionnaire�Apologétique�de�la�Foi�Catholique (n. 25), vol. 2, col. 1067. For a description of the 1920 letter, see P. TEILHARD DE CHARDIN, Lettres� intimes� à�Auguste� Valensin,� Bruno� de� Solages,�Henri� de� Lubac,� André�Ravier,�1919-1955.�Introduction�et�notes�par�Henri�de�Lubac, Paris, Aubier-Montaigne, 1974, p. 68, letter 12, note 1. The text of the 1920 letter can be found in Doctrina�de�actu�fidei�a�P.�Petro�Rousselot�p.m.�proposita�prohibetur, in Acta�Romana�Societatis�Iesu�3 (1919-1923) 229-233. For a translation and brief introduction, see P. ROUSSELOT, The�Eyes�of�Faith, trans. A. Dulles – J.M. McDermott, New York, Fordham University Press, 1990, pp. 113-115.

99. LEDOCHOWSKI, On�Following�the�Doctrine�of�St.�Thomas (n. 96), pp. 494-495 (ital-ics mine). These excerpts were taken from a more recent translation of the Ratio�Studiorum. C. PAVUR, SJ (trans.), The�Ratio Studiorum: The�Official�Plan�for�Jesuit�Education, Saint Louis, MO, Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2005,�p. 39, p. 62, and pp. 100-101.



Elsewhere in the letter, Ledochowski described the Ratio Studiorum in a manner that demonstrated how he envisioned its purpose in carrying out the prescriptions of Aeterni�Patris: “These laws ordain, in the first place, that in philosophy and theology we are to stay within the limits of the scholastic doctrine; secondly, they proclaim that St. Thomas to be the Society’s own Doctor; lastly, they point out the manner in which we are to follow him”100.

To follow up on the mandates concerning adherence to the Ratio and to ensure that “Modernist” teachings were given no foothold in the minds of young Jesuit scholastics, Ledochowski entrusted Auguste Bulot with the task of visiting the Society’s seminaries across Europe and North Amer-ica101. After visiting Jersey’s seminary�around 1920, Bulot described in a letter to Valensin the problem with his teaching:

The truly difficult issue is your course itself, with its method, the materials it treats, the constant opposition between the certain directions coming from you and those coming from other professors, the right which you have given yourself of correcting the questions from other courses in order to teach by your academic method. That especially poses a problem, because there is little in concord with the general instructions of the Ratio [Studiorum], which requires that textbooks be approved in advance, lessons to be taught in Latin, and a special method with repetitions and circles [for memorization], etc. 102.

In the same letter, Bulot explained in detail the serious doctrinal error with his teaching: he had been moving students away from the teaching of their other professors by encouraging the reading of Sertillanges and Rousselot. Neither figures were condemned as heretical, Bulot reminded him, but they were a “little dangerous”103. In 1917, Chanteur had advised Valensin of future criticism because his course notes showed that he “want[ed] to harmonize the concepts of philosophia� perennis with the

100. Ibid., p. 494.101. Henri de Lubac commented on a letter between Valensin and Teilhard, stating the

following: “Fr. Bulot […] appointed visitor of scolasticates of France and Belgium by the Father General Ledochowski, following up on the suspense made manifest in Rome over the doctrine of Rousselot”. TEILHARD DE CHARDIN, Lettres� intimes (n. 98),�57, no. 1. For some brief accounts of Auguste Bulot’s visits to Woodstock College, Saint Louis Univer-sity, and Innsbruck, Austria, see The�Woodstock�Letters�49 (1920) p. 39; 50 (1921) p. 111; 52 (1923) pp. 55-56 (respectively).

102. “Le point vraiment délicat, c’est votre cours lui-même, avec sa méthode, les ma tières traitées, l’opposition constatée entre certaines directions venant de vous et celles des autres professeurs, le ‘droit’ qui vous est donné de reprendre les questions des autres cours pour expliquer à votre tour modo�academico. C’est cela surtout qui fait difficulté, car cela est peu en harmonie avec les prescriptions générales du Ratio, qui exige un texte de cours approuvé d’avance, un enseignement latin, une méthode spéciale avec répétitions, cercles, etc.”. Letter from Auguste Bulot to Auguste Valensin, no date (in a note about the letter, de Lubac dates it near the end of 1919). AVT (n. 20), pp. 138-139.

103. Ibid.



trends of modern philosophy”104. It was true, Valensin had taught Blondel in his courses on the history of philosophy in 1917, and thereby defied Ledochowski’s letter on the teaching of scholasticism as the solitary theo-logical method105. Within the same year of Bulot’s letter, in July 1920, Ledochowski officially stated that Rousselot’s views on the ‘Eyes of Faith’ were not to be taught by any Jesuits106.

In July 1915, Devillers wrote concerning the affair that he and Valensin “oriented things toward an amiable arrangement, which would be, I think, the best solution. Above all, it concerns firing a teacher […]”. Both Picard and Descoqs remained at Jersey’s seminary, so the teacher in question was likely Valensin, indeed it was Valensin who “accepts the arrangement”. Later in the same letter, Devillers weighed the value of the decision by noting that “traditional teaching is safeguarded”107. Some like Devillers held that the atmosphere at the seminary could be fixed by weeding out those who taught innovative theologies, but another document on the prob-lems at Jersey’s seminary provided a counter-narrative: “I think that at Jersey we lay all of blame for [disturbing trends] on the influence of Rous-selot; but it would be more accurate, I think, to find less remote cause. The source of the problem is the absence of a firm and coherent meta-physical doctrine among the chief authorities of the seminary”108. But in addition to these causes, Valensin contributed to the development of young Jesuits in another, more tangible way.

III. CONTRABAND TEXTS AT JERSEY’S SEMINARY

Concerning the termination of Auguste Valensin’s teaching post, a third possible reason for the action taken by the Society of Jesus reveals itself in the figure’s correspondence with Maurice Blondel. In a letter to Blondel dated 5 March 1916, Valensin proudly remarked after excerpting a letter concerning duplicated copies of Blondel’s L’Action, “You see also that we are taking to Jersey the taste of good authors!”109. Despite Ledochowski’s

104. Ibid., p. 137.105. AVT (n. 20), p. 121. 106. See the discussion in note 95.107. Letter from Devillers to unknown. 15 July 1915. ASJV E Je 12. Gabriel Picard

held the position of rector at the seminary from 11 November 1919 to 15 August 1924. LIOUVILLE, Jersey (n. 16), col. 860.

108. “Je crois qu’à Jersey on met tout cela sur le compte de l’influence du P. Rousselot; mais il serait plus juste, je crois, de chercher des causes moins éloignées. La source du mal est l’absence d’une doctrine métaphysique ferme et cohérente chez les principales ‘autori-tés’ de la maison”. Untitled manuscript, possibly appended to a letter from Joseph Daniel to the Provincial Father. ASJV E Je 12. Enseignement,�1915-1922.

109. “Vous voyez aussi qu’on prend à Jersey le goût des bons auteurs!”. Letter from Auguste Valensin to Maurice Blondel. 5 March 1916. Cited in BLONDEL-VALENSIN�(n. 14), vol. 3, pp. 62-63.



ban of all dangerous literature from seminaries, young Jesuit scholastics at Jersey read and were greatly impacted by the texts that were secretly distributed there, for which Valensin was a cause. In 1917, Guy de Broglie read L’Action while a student at Jersey, and later declared that the book “est tout d’or”110. Valensin’s role in the secret dissemination of texts sus-pected of ‘Modernism’ by the Jesuit authorities may well have been a contributing factor behind the termination of his post at Jersey. Part of these activities is underscored by the rarity of Blondel’s famous disserta-tion, to which Valensin had access both before and during his time at Jersey’s seminary.

Blondel’s dissertation was highly controversial during the entire course leading up its defense on 7 June 1893, and its ensuing reception was no less polarized111. The first publication, shortly following its defense, was so severely limited that by late 1907 the American philosopher William James had been forced to borrow Blondel’s personal copy to gain access to it112. Shortly after Blondel defended L’Action, a couple hundred copies of an incomplete version of it were published. Concerned that his argu-ment would be misunderstood, Blondel published a second draft several months later with a longer synthesis. These two editions totaled only 950 copies, and only several decades later did Blondel publish his much expanded and revised version113.

Auguste Valensin’s letter to Maurice Blondel concerning a duplicated copy of L’Action confirms that this practice had already been occurring when Henri de Lubac and Yves de Montcheuil arrived on Jersey in the early 1920s. The text appeared to have been privately duplicated and dis-tributed throughout the 1920s, because in a letter to Valensin dated 5 November 1929, the humble Blondel stated that “[i]t seems desirable to me to excerpt more from other works than from L’Action”114. To which Valensin responded: “excerpts of L’Action await the typewriter”115. Jesuit philosopher W. Norris Clarke, who was from the United States but spent

110. AVT (n. 20), p. 121. 111. J. FERRARI, La�Soutenance�de�L’Action,�le�7�Juin�1893:�Circonstances�historiques�

et�signification�philosophique, in Recheches�Blondéliennes�(n. 8), pp. 8-27.112. Letter from William James to Maurice Blondel. 25 November 1907. Blondel

Archives, Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, fols. 44559-44560. Cited in M.J. KERLIN, Blondel�and�Pragmatism:�Truth�as� the�Real�Adequation�of�Mind�and�Life, in D.G. SCHULTENOVER (ed.), The�Reception�of�Pragmatism�in�France�&�the�Rise�of�Roman�Catholic�Modernism,�Washington, DC, The Catholic University of America Press, 2009, 122-138, p. 124.

113. BLANCHETTE, Maurice�Blondel:�A�Philosophical�Life (n. 13), p. 106.114. “Il me semble d’ailleurs désirable d’emprunter presque plus de textes aux autres

écrits qu’à L’Action”. Letter from Maurice Blondel to Auguste Valensin. 5 November 1929. BLONDEL–VALENSIN (n. 14), vol. 3, pp. 165-166.

115. Ibid., vol. 3, p. 166, no. 1. Valensin went on to remark: “Je suis surpris de ce que vous me dites, qu’il y aurait lieu d’emprunter plus de textes à vos autres écrits qu’à L’Action. La thèse me semble la mine par excellence, et il m’a été très dur de faire des sacrifices […]”.



his scholasticate at Jersey in the early 1930s, relayed that the tradition Valensin had initiated continued well into the mid-1930s:

[L’Action] was impossible to buy, save at exorbitant prices. But enterprising students at the Sorbonne had banded together to type out underground copies for their own use. One of the young Jesuits in our house had smuggled a copy from Paris – it was officially banned for our impressionable young minds – and when one finally reached the inner circle one was allowed to keep it for a week, on the promise to hide it under his pillow – our rooms were peri-odically checked at that time for diverse contraband. […] The experience [of reading L’Action] was a genuine metaphysical revelation for me116.

Jesuit authorities were aware of the tradition of contraband texts at the Maison�Saint-Louis, and actually tied the practice to the time when Valen-sin was a student at Jersey. An undated archival manuscript in the hand-writing of Romuald Devillers, the Jesuit provincial of Paris, outlined prob-lems at Jersey’s seminary. After describing the lack of affection for “traditional directives” within the group of Jesuits impacted by Blondel and Bergson, Devillers stated:

To the manuscripts or duplications that occur discretely [sous le manteau] for some years (Valensin, Charles, Rousselot) one would apply the R. 37 (39) of the commons, on the defense of the communications of spiritual instructions117.

In the same manuscript and under the heading “scholastics”, Devillers commented that the seminary atmosphere was marked by “too great and premature a liberty of reading [which is] inevitable so long as the permis-sion will be at the discretion of professors, even for books on the Index”118. A later report from Christian Burdo explains this in greater detail: “The rector was reduced to have in his possession certain volumes (for example, certain works by [Joseph] Maréchal) in order to be able to lend them directly to scholastics, given that [Descoqs] obstinately refused from put-ting them in the library and that he kept watch over their exit from it”119.

116. W.N. CLARKE, The�Creative�Retrieval�of�Saint�Thomas�Aquinas:�Essays�in�Thomis-tic Philosophy,�New�and�Old, New York, Fordham University Press, 2009, pp. 12-13.

117. Undated manuscript by Romuald Devillers. ASJV E Je 12. Rule 39 of the “Com-mon Rules for the Professors of the Lower Classes” dictates: “Nothing preserves the entire effort of well-ordered learning as effectively as the observance of the rules. This should be the teacher’s leading concern: that the students both observe what is contained in their rules and carry out what has been said about their studies”. Ratio�Studiorum (n. 99), p. 151.

118. Undated manuscript by Romuald Devillers. ASJV E Je 12. “Liberté trop grande et prémature de lectures, inévitable tant que la permission sera à la discrétion des professeurs, même pour les livres à l’Index”.

119. “Administrativement tout pouvait être parfait. Mais le choix des livres, et surtout leur exclusion, étaient devenus tyranniques. Le P. Recteur en était réduit à avoir chez lui certains volumes (par exemple certains du P. Maréchal) pour pouvoir les prêter directement aux Scolastiques, étant donné qu’on refusait obstinément de les mettre à leur Bibliothèque



As the seminary’s librarian, Descoqs oversaw the library’s selection of books and therefore exercised considerable influence over what students were allowed to read. Henri de Lubac later commented that he “learned an overview of Saint Thomas” from reading Étienne Gilson’s Le�Tho-misme,�introduction�au�système�de�saint�Thomas�d’Aquin, which was held on the shelf titled “Modern Philosophy” in a locked bookcase that was only opened on holiday vacations from courses120. In addition to the glimpse it provides of the library at Maison�Saint-Louis, de Lubac’s recol-lection also raises the question of the degree to which Aquinas was taught in the seminary’s classroom. Despite the fact that Ledochowski had urged that “our Scholastics should be industrious in [the Summa Theologica’s] perusal”, a report by a professor on Jersey noted that a student had informed him that he had “almost never opened Saint Thomas” during his three years there121.

In addition to Blondel’s texts, Valensin also distributed L’Intellectualisme�de�Saint�Thomas, the doctoral dissertation defended by Pierre Rousselot before his unfortunate death in 1915 in World War I122. Upon the death of his former classmate, Valensin was entrusted with Rousselot’s papers and the young Henri de Lubac gained access to them during the late 1910s123. Chantraine, who has treated the reading of Maréchal’s works by these young Jesuits, concludes that “Lubac and his companions agreed to the Roman censures”124. Yet their furtive reading of Blondel and Rousselot through Valensin’s work to secretly distribute these texts appears to pro-vide another dimension to their seminary experiences.

The initial disturbances over Valensin at Jersey’s seminary came with his immanence article in 1912 and its revisions in 1914, but the exact reason why his tenure there continued until 1920 is largely unknown.

et qu’on surveillait leur sortie de la Grande. Il est tout de même souhaitable que pareilles brimades ne recommencent pas!” Rapport�du�P.�Christian�Burdo,�préfet� d’études� (avant�1936). ASJV E Je 12.

120. H. DE LUBAC, Foreword, in M.E. HAMILTON (trans.), Letters�of�Étienne�Gilson�to�Henri�de�Lubac, San Francisco, CA, Ignatius Press, 1988, pp. 7-8. A second description is as follows: “C’est grâce à� Gilson que j’ai pris une certaine vue d’ensemble de saint Thomas: sa Philosophie� de� saint�Thomas était dans l’armoire, fermée à clé, d’une salle commune, contenant des livres de ‘philosophie moderne’ et l’on ouvrait l’armoire le matin des jours de congé”. Letter from Henri de Lubac to Michel Sales. 7 June 1983. Quoted in CHANTRAINE, Henri�de�Lubac�(n. 2), vol. 2, p. 137. For a third description, see H. DE LUBAC, At�the�Service�of� the�Church:�Henri�de�Lubac�Reflects�on�the�Circumstances�That�Occa-sioned�His�Writings, trans. A.E. Englund, San Francisco, CA, Ignatius Press, 1993, p.�65. LEDOCHOWSKI, On�Following�the�Doctrine�of�St.�Thomas (n. 99), p. 511.

121. Untitled manuscript, possibly sent along with a letter from Joseph Daniel to the Provincial Father. ASJV E Je 12. Enseignement�1915-1922.

122. L. DE GRANDMAISON, Pierre� Rousselot, in L’Intellectualisme� de� Saint� Thomas, Paris, Beauchesne, 1924, p. xv.

123. At�the�Service�of�the�Church (n. 120), p. 19.124. G. CHANTRAINE, Les�“Cahiers”�de�Maréchal�découverts�par�de�Lubac,�Fessard,�

Hamel�et�de�Montcheuil�(n. 78), p. 303.



In 1915, Devillers described in a letter the escalating disagreement Valen-sin had with Picard and Descoqs: “It is clear that this unrest is not spread-ing to the other professors: the house is calm and is not aware of the incident”125. Archival letters provide insufficient detail on this incident, but Valensin remained at Jersey’s seminary and taught intermittently until Bulot visited to enforce the stipulations of Ledochowski’s 1916 letter. In any case, the Valensin controversy ended in accordance with the precepts of the Ratio�Studiorum: “However, if any professors are inclined towards innovations or have too free-spirited an intelligence, they definitely ought to be removed from their academic posts”126.

Auguste Valensin, thinking the matter of his relocation had been decided, sent a letter to Descoqs in early 1920; to which Felix Mollat, Jersey’s rector, responded by defending Descoqs and stating that Ledo-chowski would personally adjudicate127. In subsequent letters exchanged with the assistant to the provincial, Valensin expressed his confusion over the opposition to his course methods and philosophical views, stating that he always had been honest about his viewpoints, and had sent his course notes for review128. The appeal to the father general’s office did not bring about the desired effect, as it most certainly fell on deaf ears. As men-tioned earlier, Paul Nivard noted in 1921 that he had heard of the harsh judgment of the Father General on the doctrines of Valensin129. The con-troversy in the letters ended without Valensin receiving a final answer on the issue – at least not one that is retained in Valensin’s letters. With the help of ally Maurice Blondel, he was given a professorship of theology at Lyon130. In 1935, he was forced out of this teaching post for similar rea-sons131. From the mid-1930s until his death in 1953, Valensin lectured at the University of Nice on a myriad of topics from Plato and Blondel to Dante’s Divine�Comedy and garnered popularity among both high-ranking intellectuals and the common faithful at parishes. This chapter in Valen-sin’s life has been the subject of a monograph by Laurent Coulomb, who has signaled the importance of Valensin’s work in Nice for the development of ideas that bore fruit at Vatican II: “Does Valensin’s activity in Nice not allow us to better understand or nuance these religious changes [that

125. Letter from Devillers to Provincial Father. Dated 7 September 1915. ASJV E Je 12. “Il est clair que cette agitation ne gagne pas les autres professeurs: la maison est calme et ne connaît pas l’incident”.

126. Rules for the Provincial, 16. The character of the professors of philosophy. Ratio�Studiorum (Pavur translation), 13.

127. Letter from Felix Mollat to Auguste Valensin. 13 January 1920. AVT� (n. 20), pp. 141-142. Unfortunately, the letter from Valensin to Descoqs is unpublished and could not be found at the Jesuit Archives in Vanves, France.

128. Letters from Auguste Valensin to the Father Assistant. 27 April and 7 May 1920. Ibid., pp. 143-144.

129. See above, n. 85.130. AVT�(n. 20), pp. 133-147. 131. FOUILLOUX, Une�“École�de�Fourvière”? (n. 86), p. 452.



occurred at Vatican II] at the junction between a militant wing of the Church and the community of faithful”132? Indeed, can one not ask a similar question for Valensin’s role in teaching Blondel’s apologetic of immanence at Jersey’s seminary during the 1910s?

While Valensin was forced to leave Jersey in 1920, the effects of this controversy stretched into the 1940s and onward, by means of the students for whom Valensin was an important teacher and inspiration. Valensin’s lectures on Blondel and his re-typed copies of L’Action were not seeds thrown among the rocks. For instance, Yves de Montcheuil read Blondel’s writings while a student on Jersey and later remarked to him that “[y]our books and particularly L’Action�have not been a simple object of speculative study for me”133. In 1934, de Montcheuil and Valensin published a collection of excerpts from Blondel’s works which just narrowly escaped censure134; and in 1941, de Montcheuil published another collection of Blondel’s writings135.

Recalling his classes under Descoqs, de Lubac wrote that “his combat-ive teaching was a perpetual invitation to react”136. One way he reacted was by spending his extracurricular time studying Blondel137, something for which Valensin was the cause. This was time well spent for de Lubac, since he embarked upon his work on the supernatural during his theo-logical formation at Hastings, which immediately followed his scholastic formation at Jersey. He later recalled that the atmosphere at Hastings and the Sunday afternoon discussions with Joseph Huby, who had been a fel-low student at Jersey alongside Valensin, were the impetus for his impor-tant study on nature and grace, Surnaturel138. In tracing the genealogy of the doctrine of “pure nature”, de Lubac pointed to Suárez as a central

132. COULOMB, L’apostolat�niçois�d’Auguste�Valensin,�S.J. (n. 9), p. 18: “L’activité du père Valensin à Nice ne permettrait-elle pas de mieux comprendre ou de nuancer ces muta-tions religieuses, à la charnière entre l’aile militante de l’Église et le commun des fidèles?”.

133. “Vos livres et particulièrement ‘L’Action’ n’ont pas été pour moi un simple objet d’étude spéculative”. Montcheuil then described how it aided him in forming ideas on Christian philosophy, the domain of practical life, and the interior life. Letter from Yves de Montcheuil to Maurice Blondel. 25 February 1931. Centre Blondel de Louvain-la-Neuve. Cited in FOUILLOUX, Yves�de�Montcheuil:�Philosophe�et� théologien�Jésuite (n. 10), p. 19. On Montcheuil, also see SESBOÜÉ, Yves�de�Montcheuil (n. 10).

134. A. VALENSIN – Y. DE MONTCHEUIL, Maurice�Blondel, Paris, Lecoffre, 1934. For a review, see Nicholas Balthasar, Untitled Review of Maurice�Blondel, by Auguste Valensin and Yves de Montcheuil, in Revue� néo-scolastique� de� philosophie�37, issue 42 (1934), pp. 133-134.

135. Y. DE MONTCHEUIL, Pages� religieuses, Paris, Aubier-Montaigne, 1945. Interest-ingly, on the inset page of this writer’s copy, borrowed from Pius XII Memorial library at Saint Louis University, there is written in pencil on the cover page “Scholastics need the dean’s permission to read this”.

136. DE LUBAC, At�the�Service�of�the�Church (n. 120), p. 42.137. CHANTRAINE, Henri�de�Lubac (n. 2), vol. 2, p. 161.138. DE LUBAC, At� the�Service�of� the�Church (n. 120), p.�34. After the preface to the

original Surnaturel, de Lubac expressed appreciation to Jules Lebreton and Joseph Huby for their inspiration and guidance. Avant-Propos, in Surnaturel:�Études�historiques, Paris, Aubier-Montaigne, 1946, p. 6.



figure in its history, and then took direct aim at some of the Jesuits – par-ticularly Descoqs – under whom he had been taught Suarezian scholasti-cism on Jersey139. The echoes of the 1910s controversy over Valensin’s apologetic method and his work to introduce students to Blondel therefore played a central role in instigating de Lubac to retrace the scholastic understanding of nature and grace. A fascinating monograph remains to be written on the manifold connections between the atmosphere of semi-naries like the Maison�Saint-Louis and the later emergence of a sensibility that came to be termed la�nouvelle�théologie.�

IV. CONCLUSION

Hans Boersma and Jürgen Mettepenningen both locate the birth of la�nouvelle� théologie� in the 1930s, but mainly rely on published texts to outline distinct and punctiliar phases of its development. For a definition, Mettepenningen outlines four “features [he considers] to be central to the content of the ‘nouvelle�théologie’ concept”. The first is its preference for French over Latin, which reflects its Francophone focus. Secondly, it “endeavour[ed] to ascribe a worthy place to history within the theological endeavour […]”. Thirdly, the new� theologians appealed to a “positive theology” and combined it with a “speculative theology”, the former being “the search for the building blocks of theology in an exploration of the sources of faith, namely the Bible, liturgy and patristics”. The final characteristic Mettepenningen defines as its “critical attitude towards neo-scholasticism, the specific and preferred form of speculative theology sup-ported by the magisterium”140.

In presenting new archival evidence on Valensin and the atmosphere at Jersey’s seminary, this essay has shown that each of these “features” were present in the controversy over Valensin at Jersey: he had pointed to ear-lier theologians to provide historical precedent for the method of imma-nence (not to mention his dissertation on Pascal); he demonstrated a renewed interest in the speculative theology of the relationship between

139. When discussing Descoqs, de Lubac cited the figure’s work Le�Mystère�de�notre�élévation�surnaturelle (n. 77). His mention that the discussions with Joseph Huby at Hast-ings were an inspiration for the book reveals that he was meditating on the topic after having learned it at Jersey. On this, see his: Surnaturel:�Études�historiques (n. 138), p. 115, no. 6; p. 134, no. 4; see especially “Note B: Vision Naturelle Immédiate”, where de Lubac endeavored to “point out the difficulties” in Descoqs’ argument, pp. 439-447. F. KERR mentions that de Lubac had Descoqs as a professor “whose classes he attended in 1922-3, the leading Suárezien Thomist of the day, and no doubt the chief of the Jesuit theologians whom he wanted to discredit”. He never mentions Jersey and its character in his discussion. After�Aquinas:�Versions�of�Thomism, Malden, MA, Blackwell, 2002, p.�137.

140. METTEPENNINGEN, Nouvelle�Théologie (n. 4), pp. 9-11. On page 9, the author also notes: “French as the language of the nouvelle�théologie also seems to imply a reaction to Latin, the Church’s universal language”.



nature and the supernatural; the censor who read over his course materials commented that he was required to teach in Latin rather than French; he had deeply studied Blondel’s ideas on historicism; and finally, he had offered innovative interpretations of Thomas Aquinas, and had certainly sought to critique and surmount the manualist, scholastic tradition of his fellow professors. Given these continuities, we may ask whether the his-toriography of la�nouvelle�théologie as beginning in the mid-1930s�is still sufficient. If it is, then perhaps further delimiters are necessary for the working definition of la�nouvelle�théologie.�

In addition to these similarities, the cadre of Jesuits who knew Valensin provides a historical continuity between the controversy over his departure from Jersey and the debates of the 1940s. There is no shortage of attention to the use of Blondel by the “new theologians”, but the Valensin contro-versy provides fresh evidence for historians to consider anew why these young students were attracted to Blondel in the first place. The aforemen-tioned Jersey professor may have been correct in pointing to discord among scholastic professors rather than merely placing blame on figures like Rousselot, but the reflections of students offer yet another cause: the authoritarian, combative teaching of professors like Pedro Descoqs was, in de Lubac’s words, “a perpetual invitation to react”141. This point also sheds light on the view of ecclesiastical authority evidenced in de Lubac’s words about another Jesuit who came under censure around the same time as Valensin: “[Fr. Pierre Charles] had published some very remarkable articles in Revue�de�Philosophie, his prestige was heightened in our eyes by the semi-disgrace into which he had fallen, like Father Huby, following the ‘Yeux de la foi’ affair”142. Note the inverse relationship between pres-tige in students’ eyes and the semi-disgrace from the Jesuit authorities, which emerged from contextual tensions rather than the reading a text on ecclesiastical authority.

The Jesuit theologate at Lyons-Fourvière has been a topic of historical and theological interest because it witnessed a flourishing of intellectual activity by the “new theologians”143. In contrast, the Maison�Saint-Louis on the Isle of Jersey has been largely overlooked – a fact corroborated by the absence of any monograph on it in relation to twentieth-century

141. DE LUBAC, At�the�Service�of�the�Church (n. 120), p. 42.142. “Il [Pierre Charles] avait publié des articles très remarqués dans la ‘Revue de

Philosophie’; son prestige était rehaussé à nos yeux par la demi-disgrâce où il était tombé, comme le Père Huby, à la suite de l’affaire des ‘Yeux de foi’”. French from H. DE LUBAC, Mémoire� sur� l’occasion� de�mes� écrits, Namur, Belgium, Culture et Vérité, 1989, p. 18. Charles had positively reviewed Rousselot’s Intellectualisme�de�Saint�Thomas, in Revue�de�Philosophie�13 (1908) 666-671. BLONDEL–VALENSIN (n. 14), vol. 2, p. 44.

143. See, for instance, É. FOUILLOUX – B. HOURS (eds.), Les� jésuites� à� Lyon:�XVIe-XXe�siècle,�Lyon, ENS, 2005; É. FOUILLOUX, A�New�“Lyon� School”� (1919-1939)?, in G. FLYNN – P.D. MURRAY�(eds.), Ressourcement:�A�Movement for�Renewal� in�Twentieth-Century�Catholic�Theology, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2012, 83-94.



Catholicism. Yet this seminary played an important role in the history of la�nouvelle�théologie, especially as it witnessed with Valensin’s upheaval an early clash between new theology and traditional theology, and moreo-ver, between new pedagogy and traditional pedagogy. Serge-Thomas Bonino has written of de Lubac’s importance: “if in the year 2000 no one is any longer a Thomist in quite the same way he would have been in 1900 or 1945, it is partly because of Fr. de Lubac”144. There is ample historical justification to extend this sentiment backward to Valensin and Jersey’s seminary, for in the language of transcendental Thomism, every action results from a necessarily existing precondition. Much the same can be said of history, that controversies and watershed moments are the results of processes or preconditions – the private reading of texts, for example – existing much earlier, as this essay has endeavored to show.

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ABSTRACT. — Recent histories have located the emergence of nouvelle�théo-logie�in the 1930s and have thereby neglected the role of the 1910s debate con-cerning Auguste Valensin’s challenge to the monolithic neo-scholastic method taught in Jesuit seminaries. Due to this controversy, Valensin lost his tenure as professor at the Maison�Saint-Louis, the Jesuit scholasticate exiled to the British soil of the Isle of Jersey. A former student of Blondel, Valensin’s writings on the “method of immanence” sparked a new chapter in the Catholic reception of Blon-del’s thought, when neo-scholastics on Jersey and in Europe condemned Valensin and Blondel of Kantian immanentism. In addition to this theological debate, Jesuit authorities critiqued Valensin for departing in method and content from the stand-ards of Jesuit education, codified in the Ratio� Studiorum. The impact that this tense atmosphere at the Maison�Saint-Louis had on young Jesuit students such as Henri de Lubac has been largely overlooked, but due to its connections to this cadre of Jesuits the Valensin controversy should be considered an important early phase for nouvelle�théologie.

144. S.-T. BONINO, Foreword:�The�Conception�of�Thomism�after�Henri� de�Lubac, in S.-T. BONINO (ed.), Surnaturel:�A�Controversy�at�the�Heart�of�Twentieth-Century�Thomistic�Thought, trans. R. Williams – M. Levering, Ave Maria, FL, Sapientia Press, 2009, VII-XII, p. VIII.


The Auguste Valensin Controversy and the Historiography of Nouvelle Théologie

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