Janissaries

“ The Janissaries from being a redoubtable corps d’élite recruited from Christian youths, who embraced the military as a life‐long profession, and were imbued with a military spirit which proved its worth on the hard‐fought fields of Mohacs, Nicopolis and Cossovo, had become through successive relaxings of the bonds of discipline and the ruin of its military esprit de corps, nothing but an unruly Pretorian Guard, a greater terror to the sovereign and to peaceful citizens than to the enemies of the empire. ”

“ The first English settlement in the United States was made at this place in 1608, but nothing now remains but a few ruins. The forces of Wayne and Lord Cornwallis had an engagement near here in 1781.
Jangar. A kind of ponton constructed of two boats with a platform laid across them, which is used by the natives in the East Indies to convey horses, cattle, etc., across rivers.
Janissar-Agasi. Commander-in-chief of the Janissaries.
Janissaries (Turk, ieni tcheri, “new soldiers”) . An order of infantry in the Turkish army: originally prisoners trained to arms ”

“ In race and garb and speech the population grew largely oriental. One striking alteration in the appearance of the city was the conversion of the territory extending from the head of the promontory to within a short distance of St Sophia into a great park, within which the buildings constituting the seraglio of the sultans, like those forming the palace of the Byzantine emperors, were ranged around three courts, distinguished by their respective gates—Bab-i-Humayum, leading into the court of the Janissaries ”

“ The hero of the strange and terrible drama, or, rather, series of dramas, unfolded with such spirit, skill, and vividness in Janicsárok végnapjai, is Ali Pasha of Janina, certainly one of the most brilliant, picturesque, and, it must be added, capable ruffians that even Turkish history can produce. ”

“ The Janissary answered,62 “O seeker! although thou art a faithful lover, thou art not yet ripe, but wantest much of perfection, and must still undergo many trials; but as, notwithstanding my rebuffs, thou followedst me with unabated zeal, I will now bring thee to an old man, in whose company thou shalt remain forty days without opening thy lips or asking concerning any men or things that shall pass under thine eye.” He then, in that solitary place, knocked at a low and dirty gate, which was opened by an old camel-lipped negro, who pushed them both into the house. ”

“ Many of the Jansenists were distinguished for their strict piety, and severe moral discipline. They complained of the corruptions of the church of Rome, censured the licentiousness of the monastic orders, and insisted upon the necessity of reforming their discipline, according to the rules of sanctity, abstinence, and self-denial, that were originally prescribed by their respective founders. The celebrated Pascal, and Quesnel, men eminently distinguished for talents and piety, are ranked among the followers of Jansenius. ”

“ The Janissary, much annoyed, cultivated a dislike for Avram and a thirst for revenge.
It happened that a Jew one day came to the Janissary and said to him: "Do you want to make a fortune? if so, you have the means of doing this, provided you will agree to halve with me whatever is made." ”

“ I do not like to hear of women slaves pining to death,” said the young Janissary, in a softened tone, “particularly when they are young. Amurath should have ransomed her, or he might have given her to one of his officers, or any young fellow that had particularly distinguished himself.” And so, twirling his mustachios, and flinging down his piastre, the young Janissary strutted out of the coffee-house. ”

“ Jansenius and the general mob of mankind with nothing but a grovelling consciousness of some few material facts, she felt in herself an exquisite sense and all-embracing conception of nature, shared only by her favorite poets and heroes of romance and history. ”

“ This infantry of the janizaries was the first standing army in Europe. Living constantly together under a common discipline, like the inmates of a cloister, they rushed blindly forward to the cry of "God and his Prophet!" like some splendid, powerful wild beast eager for prey. ”

“ That in substance was what was meant by Jansenism.
At the monastery of Port Royal des Champs, a number of holy and learned personages lived in retirement. Some wrote, some gathered youths around them, and instructed them in science and piety. The finest moral works, works which have thrown the most light upon the science and practice, of religion, and have been found so by everybody, issued from their hands. These men entered into the quarrel against Molinism. This was enough to excite against them the hatred of the Jesuits and to determine that body to attempt their destruction. ”

“ Even as the French Jacobins were stigmatized as Jansenists, so those Spaniards who submitted to the “intrusive” government of Joseph Bonapart were classed as Jansenists, and so were their most active antagonists, the liberal members of the Córtes of Cadiz. [609] The fact is that the French Revolution, which orthodox writers represent as the triumph of Jansenism, was, in reality, its death-blow, for in that cataclysm disappeared the powerful and well-organized hierarchy which alone could struggle within the Church against the advance of Ultramontanism and its attendant Probabilism. ”

“ The Jansenists who remained in France had meanwhile fallen on evil days. Persecution usually begets hysteria in its victims; and the more extravagant members of the party were far advanced on the road which leads to apocalyptic prophecy and “speaking with tongues.” About 1728 the “miracles of St Médard” became the talk of Paris. This was the cemetery where was buried François de Pâris, a young Jansenist deacon of singularly holy life, and a perfervid opponent of the Unigenitus. ”

“ ANTOINETTE I The Jeannins were one of those old French families who have remained stationary for centuries in the same little corner of a province, and have kept themselves pure from any infusion of foreign blood. There are more of them than one would think in France, in spite of all the changes in the social order: it would need a great upheaval to uproot them from the soil to which they are held by so many ties, the profound nature of which is unknown to them. ”

“ The same order of ideas produced the persecution of the Jansenists, as much a political as a religious sect. Founded by a bishop of Ypres on the doctrine of predestination, and growing by persecution, it had speedily recruited adherents among the disillusioned followers of the Louis XIV. and the Jansenists. Fronde, the Gallican clergy, the higher nobility, even at court, and more important still, among learned men and thinkers, such as the great Arnauld, Pascal and Racine. ”

“ Januarius,” who always comes in for a large share of their veneration; and this morning having heard that the Neapolitans still present each other with a cake upon New-year’s day, I began to hug my favourite hypothesis closer, recollecting the old ceremony of the wheaten cake seasoned with salt, and called Janualis in the Heathen days. All this however must still end in mere conjecture; for though the weather here favours one’s idea of Janus, who loosened the furrow and liquefied the frost, to which the melting our martyr’s blood might, without much straining of the matter, be made to allude ”

“ They lived in the constant awe of God, seeking little communion with the world, and offering to it little compromise. ... An intense and rigorous religious life adopts an intense and rigorous belief. The Jansenists resembled the English and American Puritans. They shared their Calvinistic tenets and their strict morality. A Jansenist, said the Jesuits, is a Calvinist saying mass. No accusation was more resented by those of the Jansenist party. They sought no alliance with the Protestants. ”

“ The Jansenists in many ways recommend themselves to our approval. They opposed a simply formal righteousness, insisted on the necessity 61 for an inward preparation to receive benefits from the sacraments, and laid stress upon the reading of the Scriptures. In regard to morals, they advocated rigid self-discipline, were foes of luxury, the theater, and other doubtful or noxious pleasures. They also had more independence than most classes of society. They were not ready to surrender everything to the absolute sovereignty of the king; they stood for liberty in the Church. ”

“ JANSEN, CORNELIUS (1585–1638) , bishop of Ypres, and father of the religious revival known as Jansenism, was born of humble Catholic parentage at Accoy in the province of Utrecht on the 28th of October 1585. In 1602 he entered the university of Louvain, then in the throes of a violent conflict between the Jesuit, or scholastic, party and the followers of Michael Baius, who swore by St Augustine. Jansen ended by attaching himself strongly to the latter party, and presently made a momentous friendship with a like-minded fellow-student, Du Vergier de Hauranne, afterwards abbot of Saint Cyran. ”

“ Why wish to give one's self at any cost the haughty joy of feeling and exercising one's liberty? And what is this annihilation which allows the will to reassert itself incessantly, vivacious and active? The Jesuits, therefore, were not surprised to see the Oratory threatened by the Jansenist contagion. ”

“ Neither Moor nor Morisco was permitted to have any voice in the government, or to hold any office under it; the wealthiest native, if he met a janizary in the street, had to give way to let the proud soldier pass. The janizaries were all either Turks or renegades (slaves who had turned Mohammedans) : so strictly was this rule earned out, that the son of a janizary by a Moorish woman was not allowed the privileges of his father, though the offspring of a janizary and a Christian slave was recognized as one of the dominant race. The janizaries were in number about 12,000 ”

“ A few years later, when civil war, pestilence and famine were devastating France, and Jansenism was going far to substitute despair for hope in the hearts of men, his words were remembered.
Chapter 9 THE JANSENISTS WHILE Vincent de Paul was striving, by charity and patience, to renew all things in Christ, the Jansenists* were busy spreading their dangerous doctrines. When the Abbé de St. Cyran, the apostle of Jansenism in France, first came to Paris, Vincent, like many other holy men, was taken in by the apparent piety and austerity of his life. ”

“ The Jansenists indignantly denied that such propositions were to be found in the Augustinus, and that they expressed the sense attributed to them; but Alexander VII., who was now the reigning Pope, declared, by a bull, that the propositions were really to be found in Jansenius’ book. Of all the extravagant pretensions of the Roman See, this was assuredly the greatest. The Jansenists, in their defence, while they declared themselves good and devout Catholics, asserted, nevertheless, that the Pope’s infallibility did not extend to matters of fact. “Why make such a noise?” ”

“ She replied that for some years past they had been so questioned about this Jansenius that, even if they had not possessed his works, they would have tried to procure them, as it is against all conscience to speak evil of a person unless you are certain that he deserves it; and that it could only be the obligation under which they were to answer questions which made them read works so far from entertaining as those of Jansenius. ”

“ As soon as it became dark, Janshah and his men took to flight Night dv.and fled along the heart of the valley till the morning. With the break of day, the apes were upon them, which when the prince saw, he cried out to his men, saying, ‘Smite with your swords.’ So they drew their swords and laid about them right and left, till there ran at one of them an ape, with tusks like an elephant, and smote him and cut him in sunder. Then the apes redoubled upon Janshah and he fled with his followers into the lower part of the valley, where he saw a vast river and by its side, a great host of ants. ”

“ Vincent de Paul to one of his priests, "that this new error of Jansenism is one of the most dangerous that has ever troubled the Church."
Perhaps the most fatal effect of Jansenist teaching was that it drove the sinner from the sources of grace and the weak from the sources of spiritual strength. Frequent communion, which had been the custom in apostolic times and which had been always upheld in the teaching of the Church, was to the Jansenist a tempting of Providence. ”

“ Many who have been acquainted with the effects of the influence of the French emigrants who came to England at the time of the revolution have remarked that some of the most devout and religious among them must have had a certain tinge of strictness and rigor about them which betrayed the distant influence of Jansenism, even over those who were in no sort of way its disciples. ”

“ There was, too, a surprising similarity in movement—the very tactics of the Janizary in thrust and parry being repeated by the Albanian; their swords now flashing like interlacing flames; the sharp ring as the Albanian smote upon the polished metal of his antagonist's armor, answered by the duller thud as the Janizary's blow fell upon the thick leather which encased the panoply of his opponent. Then both stood as if posing for the sculptor; their sword points crossing; their eyes glaring beneath the visors; the slightest movement of a muscle anticipated by either—then again the crash. ”