The following year, De Bay also obtained a license in theology and became president of the College Adrian, and also substituted for the professor of Holy Scripture, who was then absent at the Council of Trent.

While Chancellor Ruard Tapper and Josse Ravesteyn, Professor of Theology were at the Council of Trent, Baius and Hessels took the occasion to introduce new methods and new doctrines.

They believed that Catholic apologists were seriously handicapped by their reliance on the authority and methods of the Scholastics, and that if instead of appealing to the writings of St. Thomas as the ultimate criterion of truth they were to insist more on the authority of the Bible and of the works of the Early Fathers, such as St. Cyprian, St. Jerome, and St. Augustine, they would find themselves on much safer ground, and their arguments would be more likely to command the respect of their opponents.

Pope Pius IV, through Cardinal Granvelle, imposed silence upon both Baius and the Franciscans, without, however, rendering any doctrinal decision.

It is known, however, that Baius' and Hessels' views were distasteful to the Fathers, and that the Catholic king's prestige alone saved them from formal condemnation.

To this Baius submitted; though certain indiscreet utterances on the part of himself and his supporters led to a renewal of the condemnation in 1579 by Pope Gregory XIII.

There is a study of both books and author by Linsenmann, Michael Baius und die Grundlegung des Jansenismus, published at Tübingen in 1867.

[5] De Bay based his theology on Holy Scripture and the Fathers of the Church, especially on the teaching of Augustine of Hippo, introducing deviant scholastic terminologies.

[3] Joseph Sollier, writing in the Catholic Encyclopedia sees Baius' as a precursor to the Jansenism and the Port-Royal theologians such as Blaise Pascal.