BAJUS, or De Bay, Michael, a celebrated theologian, was born at Melin in Hainaut in 1513. He distinguished himself highly during his course of study at Louvain, and was quickly promoted to a professorship in the college of that town. In 1549 he took his doctor’s degree, and two years later he was appointed regius professor of divinity. On account of his eminence in theological learning he was selected by the king of Spain to go to the great council at Trent, in the proceedings of which he took a prominent part. His studies having been chiefly directed to Augustine, with whose works he was very familiar, Bajus found that his doctrines on the fundamental points of freewill, predestination, grace, and the sacraments, were in direct opposition to the scholastic theology recognised as orthodox by the powerful body of the Jesuits. Eighteen propositions, said to be gathered from the works of Bajus and his colleague Hessels, were condemned by the Sorbonne, and a more extensive collection of seventy-six were censured by Pope Pius V. in 1567. This censure, which did not press very heavily on Bajus, who was not indeed mentioned as holding the condemned doctrines, was confirmed by a bull of Gregory XIII. in 1580. Bajus, who was a man of meek and mild temper, quietly made such submission as was requisite under the circumstances, continued to hold his professorship, and even advanced to the dignity of chancellor of the university. He died in 1589, in the 77th year of his age. His principal works have been published in a collected form at Cologne, 1696, 1 vol. 4to, in 2 parts; some large treatises have not been published. The doctrines for which Bajus was censured, and the discussions arising with regard to them, are interesting in connection with the history of Jansenism, for ...